 
THE TRACE BEGINNING

by

James Bryce

© James Bryce, 2016

At Amazon and Smashwords.

All rights reserved.

No performances without permission.

A play with words in eight acts, written in verse. In performance it lasts around two and a half hours.

CHARACTERS

Peter Wynn, a researcher and visionary

Turton Malevol, chief executive of a conglomerate

Jill Magnifica, sister of Malevol

Ella Penge, chief executive of a second conglomerate

\---

A Narrator

Turton Anthony, father of Malevol

Don Uckfield, chief of operations for Turton Malevol

Karin Steuer, deputy chief executive to Ella Penge

Jenny Cheng, a news reporter

Gita Lakshmi Vantaram, a detective chief inspector of police

Tom Lot, a friend of Peter Wynn

Sainter Jane, a friend of Jill Magnifica

\---

Thugs, researchers and a lawyer working for Don Uckfield

Other news reporters

Other police officers

A Minister of religion

Bystanders, the emergency services phone operator and other voices

\---

1.1

Enter the NARRATOR.

NARRATOR

As the narrator is my office here,

Hot bold arrivals mine are to declare.

Behold the glories of the modern world!

The populace that ever better lives,

The tamed wild, the unsure but mostly peace:

Once rare gold dreams now succour everywhere.

O for a pen electric, like past bests,

To write bequests of genius and time.

Yet how can sense in still humility

Begin even to dream, to dare, to find

The faintest trace beginning of the rage

To write more words upon already's page?

Here let us, bowing, kiss submission to

The bracing raced creative calendar.

Here let us not on yesterdays defer,

But to the brazen dawn and prospect hitch

The wonder, love and gamble that seeks Spring.

Forgive, o kind chance audience, the peradventure

Stumbles that a trainee scribe

Makes on the way to verse. Bless hope's benign

Reception on all this, and let us see

Together whether wordflow glorifies.

Let on it vault the secrets of your mind.

It is not pixels, but imaginings

Together that construct all wonderment.

Where words speak height, then let your vision see

The eagles and thrust flight of majesty.

Now no more introductions, let's go on.

Let wordflow paint its glory in the air,

And so to a quick story let's repair.

Exit the NARRATOR.

Scene: a business complex, a computer server farm.

Present: TURTON MALEVOL and TURTON ANTHONY.

TURTON MALEVOL

The business that you built, Father, is vast.

Our wealth commands an envy widely felt.

Yet here is incorrect where we do not

Renew ourselves like waves to beat at shores.

The world we see is new, not ever old.

Forever should we live in the tomorrows;

Every tomorrow shows a calling dream.

TURTON ANTHONY

Son, no. From every yesterday we learn.

You are the heir of my best yesterdays

And just the best merit their pedestals.

TURTON MALEVOL

Well Father, have you learned; have you learned well?

Now let us watch; now let us throw the grains

That make tomorrow up into the air,

To see which lustre brilliant in the sun,

And which fall silent dark oblivion.

I summon, guys and gals, I summon now!

Enter DON UCKFIELD, THUGS.

TURTON ANTHONY

Who are these friends? This is a locked clean room,

On whose integrity business depends.

Son? Son? Friends? Answer me. We must take care.

DON UCKFIELD

You know your stations, which arrays to check.

The THUGS act purposefully, checking and looking closely at arrays.

TURTON ANTHONY

A precious slip in here's a billion.

My Son, I ask, please, I advise, I beg.

Stop crossing good procedures, institute

The order and direction that has built

Long years compounding our prosperity.

Friends, colleagues, pause a moment listening.

TURTON MALEVOL

No, Father, I will not here pause or stop.

They you will no more listen or regard.

What business hero did not say it's time

To break up systems, loves, roots, dynasties,

To find the inspiration like a flame

That clears and ravishes perceptiveness?

TURTON ANTHONY

I'll not permit -

He moves to obstruct a thug at a keyboard.

TURTON MALEVOL

Nor I, I'll not permit.

MALEVOL signals UCKFIELD, who directs THUGS to overpower and repel ANTHONY.

TURTON ANTHONY

How dare you, o my Son? Is nothing left,

No lasting thing? If not the business, love

Hid deep, the precious kind last loyalty?

TURTON MALEVOL

This takes too long. Get done and clear the rig!

Who is there who has not hated a screen?

This all is litter still yet unconsigned.

TURTON ANTHONY

Son, no, this is the heart of the design.

Each every nod, each lifted load, each worked

Price and agreed delivery, free handshakes

Over counters, all our great staff's work

Through settled years and sweating days is all

In these consigning hubs brought to account.

This in one place is heed of billions.

DON UCKFIELD

Shall we begin, Sir?

TURTON ANTHONY

What, begin? No.

TURTON MALEVOL

Yes.

MALEVOL signals.

At keyboards around the server farm, thugs type then variously stand back.

First one server sparks, then catches fire.

TURTON ANTHONY

No! No, my years of care!

Another server catches fire.

ANTHONY runs to type at keyboards.

THUGS finish their actions, then give way.

TURTON ANTHONY

The work of such

Good people in so many businesses!

Ah! No! It must not be undone.

More and more servers ignite.

TURTON MALEVOL

It is!

It is! Tomorrow comes, and so it is!

To see sought consequences happen is

The joy of a planned action. Long so have

I stayed, waited, expected and delayed

As time, slow time, kept from me what is mine.

O Father, this is now your time trial:

They will destroy unless you can prevent.

Tomorrow thus from yesterday is rent.

Go, guys and gals, you know what you've to do.

TURTON ANTHONY

But Son, the business -

TURTON MALEVOL

(to the THUGS)

You know what to do.

(to ANTHONY)

Now, Father, time makes strictures in the air.

What passes cannot be recovered near.

The dawn world, hesitant, by dusk is keen.

So run.

ANTHONY runs around amidst destruction, fastest.

MALEVOL revels in it.

All the servers blow up, first few, then more, soon all.

The scene is destroyed.

Exit UCKFIELD and THUGS.

TURTON MALEVOL

The day turns dear. Amok is here,

Amok is there, amok is everywhere!

ANTHONY falls and collapses in shadow. His situation becomes uncertain.

TURTON MALEVOL

What, Father? Grieve you for the business now?

I will assure it. I will never fail.

Out from the trade of shadows I'll build it

The future's crucible, tomorrow's anvil

And the lustrous morning's factory.

I find a beauty in the play of force,

Each void bridged, fortress broken, no made yes.

So thence to me as trifles are what other

People muse lives on. Fret not at gates

And laws and borders, like virgin unease,

When there are worlds, feats, fortunes and renown

That beckon only ardours hard enough.

So, might, greed, lust and avarice, what have

You now for me? Restraint and doubt I cast

Away. Tomorrow's afterward repentance

Here ahead I cast away. Let all

Things strong that backward call be here now cast

Away. So, might, greed, lust and avarice,

Your new son calls, what have you now for me?

Exit MALEVOL.

1.2

Scene: outside the server farm.

Present: DON UCKFIELD and THUGS.

Enter, with vehicles and sirens, GITA LAKSHMI VANTARAM and POLICE OFFICERS.

POLICE OFFICER

Inspector! Gita Lakshmi Vantaram!

We don't know yet what happened here. We have

No certain evidence to cuff up wrists.

GITA LAKSHMI VANTARAM

Arrest them all. See that! Arrest them all!

You've got a burning wreck, arrest them all!

Exit all.

Scene: at a police station.

Present: GITA LAKSHMI VANTARAM, a POLICE OFFICER and DON UCKFIELD.

GITA LAKSHMI VANTARAM

You and your crew were at a burning scene,

In violent destruction's aftermath.

Tell me not student tales of innocence.

Forensics in an hour will settle all.

DON UCKFIELD

Have you got access yet? Forensics yet?

I've worked in business thirty years, and so

I know negotiating when it's good.

You've got events. You haven't got a crime.

If companies write down their goods, they may.

If writedown fancies flourishes, it may.

If I stand outside violence, a private

Man, in good employ, the violence

On private land, with private things, all to

The satisfaction of my board, what then?

There's football on. You're wasting time today.

Enter a LAWYER.

LAWYER

I lawyer for them all. This all stops now.

Here is my paper if you dare to doubt.

The LAWYER brandishes an official-looking paper.

GITA LAKSHMI VANTARAM looks at it.

The POLICE OFFICERS stop.

GITA LAKSHMI VANTARAM

The paper's good. Yet good questions remain.

LAWYER

Law is not crosswords in a newspaper.

What questions are, here nobody need care.

DON UCKFIELD

There's sorcery in lawyers.

POLICE OFFICER

Yes, for rogues.

Exit all.

1.3

Scene: outside the server farm complex.

Present: JENNY CHENG, a POLICE OFFICER, REPORTERS.

REPORTER ONE

I'm going in.

POLICE OFFICER

No. No reporters are.

JENNY CHENG

What happened here?

REPORTER ONE

Look at the rising smoke!

I hear there are arrests.

REPORTER TWO

I hear that too.

Top names, top business and a mystery.

POLICE OFFICER

I'm just guarding the gate, confirming nil.

REPORTER TWO

Arrests mean interviews, and they feed news.

Always the secrets leak.

REPORTER ONE

So let's then go

To the police station, the next news feed!

Exit REPORTERS ONE and TWO.

JENNY CHENG stands at a remove.

JENNY CHENG

My name is Jenny Cheng. First Channel News.

I'll follow not the slowest in the race.

What made this happen lies in circumstance,

Not in the staring of police stations.

Excitement shouts past ordinary days.

I work in news; I thrill to hear the cry.

No explanations? No, none any yet.

But what bettter beginning for adventure

Could cry out than raucous violence,

Crossed fortunes, famous characters and smoke?

No explanations? I will haul them up.

Crossed fortunes, violence and characters.

Exit JENNY CHENG.

2.1

Present: the NARRATOR.

NARRATOR

The business of the Turton family

Is every life. We eat, we drink, we switch

On things: each action is a purchase where

Request pays steady profits for exchange.

The dawn means rising: breakfast, water, soap,

Clothes, food, so on. The day takes work, so transport,

Power, rooms, connections – and so on.

Home, nighttime, means more eating, comforts, joys

And so, so on. The recreation weekend

Brings enveiglement to all the joys

That modern multicoloured life can buy -

Snacks, lycra, things with tickets, treats and shows -

And so, so on. Each small transaction off

Alone thought merits barely none. Yet times

Them to a multitude, then calendar,

And bank accounts burst out with billions.

You have not heard of Malevol? But you

Use soap, eat food, keep house: the manifold

Construction of the silent billion

Is your life's action, consequence and choice.

You have not heard of Malevol? Nor he

Of you below, but you pay his great place.

Exit NARRATOR.

Scene: variously TV studios, and on TV.

REPORTER ONE

Sir, Malevol: your news works to impress!

MALEVOL

It ever does. My numbers show out well.

REPORTER ONE

Can this continue?

MALEVOL

Never dare to doubt.

With transformation could I paint the sky.

Cut to: JENNY CHENG.

JENNY CHENG

First Channel News, and I am Jenny Cheng.

The march of Malevol continues well.

Today's deal brings new brands and profit flows,

Arrays of satisfied consumers whose

Brand fastness will enrich more Malevol.

Cut to: REPORTER TWO and ELLA PENGE.

REPORTER TWO

So, Ella Penge, your combine yesterday

Was shining utmost in the marketplace.

Today, at billions less, when Malevol

Arises -

ELLA PENGE

Brands, consumers, quality,

These underlie but differ from share price.

The business my team champions endures,

Not blowing paintwork but of girders hard,

Not froth puffed into sunshine but work borne

Compounding on to strong prosperity.

I ply by decades not at newsflow speed.

Cut to: REPORTER ONE and REPORTER THREE, in a production suite.

REPORTER ONE

I'm glad to ask, not be the interviewed.

Her company is vast and strong, she speaks

Fairly.

REPORTER THREE

And yet are market billions gone

Today. In competition hers and she

Swap pace and torment, paining steadily

With all that his and Malevol can ply.

REPORTER ONE

You favour which?

REPORTER THREE

It's foolworthy to say.

Fade to darkness.

Enter MALEVOL, alone.

MALEVOL

The witness map portrays my glory field,

My every bright success which makes the ordinary

World of other people small.

The witness map portrays whence tribute comes,

Admirers' eyes that shine so many as

The waves on jewelled oceans of repute.

The witness map portrays obedience.

Call I for folllowers, and billions flood

Wherever I will wield. I'll fettle sense

To make mine own the language of desire.

I'll handle worlds, to make playthings of what

Daunts others' dreams. I'll fashion triumph, carve

Repute, direct the multitude, mint words

Anew and so enchant all ways and things

That whole the very globe is made mine orbit

To control. Enough of this; it's sport.

Yet well I know the flint-cut alternate.

Each generation makes new billionaires.

New hungry racers train when fat heirs lounge.

Upon the peak that reaches tottering,

There's just the trice of chance, the flash of sun

Inspiring to forget rivals' close roar.

Am I there now, the rival or the blind?

In gilding legends I must not forget

The roar and brunt of rivalry close by.

Exit MALEVOL.

2.2

Enter the NARRATOR.

NARRATOR

To show a still, finished perfection thus

Does not account the full truth of the thing.

Is Malevol determined, yes; yet seethes

The snatch and ram of competition close.

The shining prizes of great wealth attract

Endeavours worldly, savage and profane.

So under finished, still perfection's lids,

When watchers are not looking, what routine

Has business to protect its entity?

Exit the NARRATOR.

Scene: Malevol's conglomerate's offices.

Enter MALEVOL, DON UCKFIELD and RESEARCHERS ONE, TWO and THREE.

MALEVOL

On, on, contemptful wretches, see the mark

Upon the charts where this is meant to reach,

And see how far below it holds? You scorn

Upon your jobs, your livelihoods and me

If this small bead is what your year affords.

RESEARCHER ONE

But Sir -

RESEARCHER TWO

Three months of hard labour -

RESEARCHER THREE

Each test -

MALEVOL

Each piece of you lifts up my stratagem,

Each sweating sinew thus is mine in bond.

Each every leverage is on your brows,

Each promise I have made trusted your

Innovation to deliver my name good.

So raise the rate! Abandon home repose,

Give me a new creation, daily as

The morn, to burnish and enrich renown.

Dare you herein to fail for me, and I

Affirm for you jobless despair, hell's debts,

Homes holed to rags, and peer group infamy.

RESEARCHER ONE

We'll stay here.

RESEARCHER TWO

We'll not sleep.

RESEARCHER THREE

We'll go again.

DON UCKFIELD

That's better, guys and gals, that's the true way.

Exit all.

Scene: TV studios.

Enter JENNY CHENG, alone.

JENNY CHENG

There is no immortality in wealth.

Most business fame lives less long than a tree.

I hear of work disputes, of tests bled bad,

Of rancour, failure, bets sent costly wrong.

The pieces start to sharpen in the light,

And past them fast I ravel for the skein

Of explanation which makes story of

Events. I'll keep my what, where, how and who

Busy intently to bring truth out through.

Scene: in a car outside the TV studios.

Present: ELLA PENGE and KARIN STEUER.

KARIN STEUER

TV was tough.

ELLA PENGE

No, interviews churn on.

I'll keep up visibility, and thence

With our endeavours' diligence, repute

Will marry merit as time proves us true.

Am I first woman to prefer the long

Calm patient way, instead of manly haste?

KARIN STEUER

First? No. Three more commitments yet await

Today, and I'll report fresh figurework.

ELLA PENGE

Good. Where's the next event? I am prepared.

Exit ELLA and KARIN.

Enter the NARRATOR.

NARRATOR

No moment such makes news or public note,

Yet who knows which times sire our history.

Connections are the building of great heights,

And through love's kisses and the punch of hate

Alignments cast tomorrows out from chance.

Never neglect then ordinary things:

Height is the scale of parts in millions.

Exit NARRATOR.

2.3

Scene: Malevol's conglomerate's research facility.

Enter DON UCKFIELD, JILL MAGNIFICA and SAINTER JANE.

DON UCKFIELD

Ladies, my name is Don Uckfield, and I

Am Chief of Staff to Turton Malevol,

Your brother, Jill Magnifica. So well

I know that you know well already all

Our standard business here.

JILL MAGNIFICA

I thank you yet.

And Sainter Jane, is welcome as my friend.

DON UCKFIELD

Ladies, you both herewith are honoured guests.

Our complex stretches far, with lines nearby

That manufacture every thing you'd dream

For many of the countries of the world

Of which the many peoples of the world

Would never dream. We make and sell all all.

That is prowess for a conglomerate.

I've thirty years been herein this and that.

This part yet understand I midst the least.

It is not works but research entity.

When it fares well, they make tomorrows here,

The future buzz and hum of lines elsewhere.

When it fares poor, here manufactures cost,

The ill explained spent inexplicably.

JILL MAGNIFICA

Will you explain, and be our guide enthused?

SAINTER JANE, aside.

I think we've heard his customary blurb.

JILL MAGNIFICA

I would delight in understanding more.

DON UCKFIELD

I'll find a white coat wearer to explain.

Enter TOM LOT.

DON UCKFIELD

Tom Lot! Tom Lot!

TOM LOT

What? Deadlines chase at me.

DON UCKFIELD

Not now. This, Jill Magnifica, is sister

To Sir Malevol. She wants a tour

Of research: that means you, now. Sainter Jane

Is her accompanying friend today.

JILLMAGNIFICA

I'm sorry for your deadlines, Tom.

TOM LOT

Be not,

But thank you. It's your family that pays

My time and has since university.

I'll take you both to my friend Peter Wynn.

Of our researchers, he is best and first.

Peter? O Peter!

Enter PETER WYNN.

TOM LOT

This is Jill Magnifica,

The sister unto Malevol,

And Sainter Jane, her friend. They tour the plant.

JILL MAGNIFICA

Thank you for interruptions letting come.

I see lots but I little comprehend.

A testing rig as high as a new roof,

Sealed spaces, laptops, bench notes and arrays.

What is the point of this machinery?

PETER WYNN

This here is great. Here very I have felt

The dragon's breath, the wingbeat of ideas

In whose before no explanations lie.

What we seek here blends up computing,

Biochemistry, genetics and far more.

Ignore the lecture; see the highest prize.

If this can work, we end disease for most

Humanity. Some endgame might to that

Add just one generation more. But then

Whole peoples strengthen, lands thought doomed bloom new,

Old age moves back, the dying rise and all

The medicine of mortality resets

Upon new principles.

DON UCKFIELD

The worth of this?

PETER WYNN

Is vast, but to humanity as well

As shareholders.

DON UCKFIELD

Researchers! They are not

Our leadership. Come, ladies, let's move on.

JILL MAGNIFICA

Peter, you said that you have herein sensed

The wingbeat of magnificence ahead.

Say more, your prize is eloquent, say more.

PETER WYNN

I know what beauty is. I see the light.

I pleasure in the warmths of August, and

I know what good is from an infant's smile.

Some things I know, I yearn for as the world,

Yet I know not how came they first about.

Things other I know well how they are made:

Created, manufactured, put in place;

With inputs, calibrations, diligence,

Infinities of tiny tests constructing

Processes from which then industry

Puts shoppers' wants on shelves for daily price.

How make we tiny tests to mould a dawn,

To furnish beauty from not gods but us?

Words have no answer, but it is like love:

The soft caress that suits to every day;

The holding hand which helps unstable way;

The peace when need is silence, cheer when live;

The run when she wants speed, the slow still night;

The water cup in the hot path, or quick

Protection from the unexpected storm;

The years lifelong of pain and care, if they

Are the sole anywhere that love to love,

For happiness to reach, swears fealty.

This here is our pursuit and diligence.

No plan can put such good adjustments in,

Yet a loved lover learns how to go on.

JILL MAGNIFICA

I understand well now. Your words shape

Understanding past a simple meaning's how.

DON UCKFIELD

There's football on. Come, ladies, let us move.

JILL MAGNIFICA

Tom, Peter. Peter: thank you.

PETER WYNN

My delight.

They shake hands, and are slow to part.

Exit DON UCKFIELD, JILL MAGNIFICA and SAINTER JANE.

PETER WYNN

You saw her, Tom?

TOM LOT

I saw.

PETER WYNN

What womanhood!

Form, fitness, sassy strength, intelligence,

The smiling femininity to warm

Love's every dawn. How can I learn her ways,

Without a young man's disconcerting rush?

O guide, o light, o partner, passion's all;

Distraction takes from me calm anchorage.

I thought I knew, I always think I know,

But now the passions of desirous blood

Hit out of line whatever I might plan.

How can I earn life's greatest consequence?

Oh, how can woman make full man of me!

Exit PETER and TOM.

Scene: a hotel lounge.

Enter JILL MAGNIFICA and SAINTER JANE.

JILL MAGNIFICA

You saw him, Jane?

SAINTER JANE

I saw, yes.

JILL MAGNIFICA

What a man!

A modern woman has career designs,

Robust intents on worlds, ends and prowess.

Yet now come deeper longings and desires,

Of life, love, fun, right handling, family.

No more here be a girl, an egotist,

When woman yearnings fill each opened sense

And workplace thoughts mix with felt multitudes.

Clutched certainties burst free in breathy doubts.

Oh what a swirl of inward pleasure comes!

Oh what a man to fit my womanhood!

Exit JILL MAGNIFICA and SAINTER JANE.

Enter the NARRATOR.

NARRATOR

Love's prospect is the gold world-changing step

From which joy points the gate to better place.

What heart has never soared and freely sung

When love's beginning charge bears it along?

Now Peter is an employee, just one

Amidst the multitude that stocks a plant.

In contrast, Jill Magnifica is from

The gilded dynasty of Malevol.

Wealth, distance, expectations, habit and -

But let me not encyclopaedia here,

To set up lovers' heights and obstacles.

They've found each other, but are like as stars

And catacombs to join, or Arctic and

Sahara to find commonality.

We have a business chaos, rivalry,

Where competition tugs at fortune, yet

We too have love, the call of which wherein

Improves all things. Which story will impress?

Let's fly with wordflow, soaring in delight

As bright romance and rivalry fill sight.

Exit the NARRATOR.

2.4

Scene: the boardroom of Malevol's conglomerate.

Enter TURTON MALEVOL.

TURTON MALEVOL

My destiny and place have been lifelong.

My name is duty, work, renown and wealth.

And I am loved. This many would suffice.

Why not for me? The diary that loads

In expectations' mirrored maze my each

Awaking day, it all by others, not

By me, was framed to traffic first the light.

Each aspect, each regard's complexity,

The shape and shadow, colour in the day,

Were all since my beginning, and 'til night,

By others done. I'll move the dawn around

In new design and paint day differently.

More, better, onward, otherwise and up,

Shall be my fellows and new family.

What of what's past? I grow from legacy.

I want not diary yet need its step

To wield new frame and forces daily on.

None shall resist. My sister have I told

Our father's hazard was but accident.

Am I believed? Who knows. Prowess breeds

Followers. It's driven strength that makes the law.

I'll impresario the morning light,

To paint endeavour curves on duty's frame.

There hid within in darker forces I'll

Wreak might, greed, lust and avarice to play

Fresh night's adventures hidden in the day.

Exit TURTON MALEVOL.

3.1

Scene: Malevol's conglomerate's research facility.

RESEARCHER ONE

I'm happy to defend our research work.

The quality of numbers is world top.

No lab upon the planet beats our rates.

DON UCKFIELD

You judgment right, my friend, you judgment right.

You're brilliant people, but in one regard.

I look at the accounts. You're notable.

Cost, time, delay, resources burned, staff count.

I don't like passing time. There's football on.

Our enterprise is vast: you're few alike.

I see another way you rack less fine.

Results, pipeline to profits, revenues,

The happy green that floats accounts, the pay

That makes people a business not a club.

Your club of pals – sorry, researchers – sucks

Our others' green and pays forever red.

Where's all your labour's outcome and result?

RESEARCHER ONE

There worldwide is no university,

No government, no company that now

Is matching our results in these our fields.

DON UCKFIELD

Cost, cost. Show me a winner. For the league

Is won at pitches' far ends, not the back.

Leave papers off in dusty faculties.

We need what marketing can shift off shelves.

RESEARCHER ONE

But intermediate work -

DON UCKFIELD

Cost! Cost! Get on.

Now where's Tom Lot? His outcomes need gripped too.

Exit RESEARCHER ONE.

DON UCKFIELD moves round to TOM LOT's area.

Enter TOM LOT and PETER WYNN.

DON UCKFIELD

Tom, Peter, I've been looking at your charts.

PETER WYNN

Indeed.

Enter MALEVOL.

DON UCKFIELD

I think the boss will say my part.

TURTON MALEVOL

Talk we of dreams here or of made success?

Of chatter ambling or of freight for pay?

You want consideration, always more.

At each request, each swallow and repeat,

I gave faith and equipment in acclaim.

Look at this rig. No old cathedral, new

High skyscraper, barely a space programme

Had quite invested in it this as much.

This bottle here, this high flask there, this gauge

Run to that laptop there, whole anywheres

Of time and fortune have I given to

Your trick ambition.

PETER WYNN

Sir -

TURTON MALEVOL

What of it comes?

I have a mount, a sea, a galaxy

Of promises producing not a speck.

TOM LOT

Sir -

TURTON MALEVOL

No, don't Sir at me. I know your words.

I've heard your words. They speak ambition but

They portal cost. A failed way needs to change.

You here will change, commanded. I will change.

Don, have we near the guys and gals? They help.

DON UCKFIELD, nodding.

I've got a squad of hands for anything.

Exit DON UCKFIELD. During the next section, his squad of THUGS enters in ones and twos, ending with DON reappearing.

PETER WYNN

Our progress admiration wins worldwide.

The gene manipulations thought before

Impossible are now within our ranges

Of control. The molecule insertions

Yet time not right on the rods, so with

Our nano inserts now we have this rig

Progressing tests. Here I am confident:

The million tiny tests that teach the process

Whereby brilliance is found, we have

Already other aspects run successfully

Upon. Here I am confident: this works.

TURTON MALEVOL

It works; but does not work; does not work yet?

A million tiny tests to teach one thing?

This is the unlit slip to bankruptcy.

TOM LOT

Let me to Peter's comments add a light.

We're profiled right, the gantt chart says, our

Business plan is fettling well. On inputs we're

Assembling all the set that when complete

Will give our research its intent's success.

TURTON MALEVOL

Long words, long words, long words. Talk not to me

Of sciences, it's money that commands.

I want to know what brilliance I can sell.

Put diary on all these syllables.

When will there rise a profit from this rig?

PETER WYNN

The sequencing, the biochemistry,

Genetic lexicography, all that

We thought indeed the difficult is here

Delivered ready for new use. The phase -

TOM LOT

That pays, permit us to make clear, is near.

All the remainder wanted is more time.

These intermediate parts step to our goal.

Now DON UCKFIELD re-enters, and his THUGS are all around.

TURTON MALEVOL

White coats, white coats. Even my sister now

Talks home of you! What an intent parade

Of primping syllables. You offer not

Solution to my quest for diary.

Lads, ladies, is this here a time trial?

Is this the anvil of magnificence,

Or just a litter waiting for next week?

I look around. I look around and, well,

Come, guys and gals, look well at this. Admire

The cradle of our future's brilliance,

The pipeline of tomorrow molecules

Wherefrom our next group profit mountain top -

PETER WYNN

Sir -

TURTON MALEVOL

No, you Sir not back at me. A week

I give you, seven days, from seven dawns

And seven nights, a hundred hours and

Sixty-eight. In that time everything can change.

So make it. I'll touch nothing now; I'll cut

Nor anything from your expenditures.

Do what you will. Spend what you will. Research

All what you will. This is your time trial.

In a completed week if you not then

Present accomplishment, if you not then

Give me my profit mount, if you not then

Give justify to all parade of words,

Time, costs and syllables, there comes the end.

The rig is trash, careers are done, and your

Renown is thrown to scandal's cesspit end.

Talk no more dreams, talk no more metaphors.

Now trial time. Enough of syllables.

Exit TURTON MALEVOL.

DON UCKFIELD

So Peter, Tom, you heard the time trial.

So my instructions sit. Eye up this rig,

Ladies and lads. Next week it is your football

If our millions come not out of it.

DON UCKFIELD and his squad laugh, then exit.

TOM LOT

A week? Can it be done?

PETER WYNN

You know the work.

It goes well. It's amazing. Yet only

The ignorant put timetable upon

Inventing new the inwardness of life.

No wise researcher past their second year

Ever put finish date on weighty aim.

TOM LOT

A week then? When we look for new employ.

Exit PETER WYNN and TOM LOT.

3.2

Scene: a coffee shop near Malevol's conglomerate's research facility.

Enter JILL MAGNIFICA and SAINTER JANE.

JILL MAGNIFICA

I want, I must, to see him once again.

A once is to a lifetime beckoning.

O Jane, good Jane, I never was like this.

SAINTER JANE

We friends since the beginning of first school

Have been, in pigtails and adventures not

Apart. We know each other's moods, years,

Histories; and men. Your hand holds slow and close.

You never were fast to embrace, like this.

What feelings deep, beyond what words can tell,

Assert to you uncharactered design?

The quick man is the bad man – all girls know.

JILL MAGNIFICA

Am I too quick? Is he too quick? O Jane.

You think that he's like that?

SAINTER JANE

No, not he. He's

The opposite. (Aside.) For you he may be

Wonderful. But love grows well not in a rush.

JILL MAGNIFICA

He's provender for greatness, the raw stuff

From which ambition mints perfection like

The moon. For genius knows what to do

Yet when it cannot say how it is done.

SAINTER JANE

Is it his research or your love you mean?

JILL MAGNIFICA

Both culminations yearn magnificence.

I need to see him, Jane, so I will go,

Defiant, like love's optimist, of all

Benign advice and wise convention long

Bid pause upon.

SAINTER JANE

I'll come with you. A friend 25

Ensures the best – and as a woman too

I yearn to see a good love prospering.

Exit JILL MAGNIFICA and SAINTER JANE.

Scene: MALEVOL'S conglomerate's research facility.

Present: PETER WYNN, working alone.

Enter together JILL MAGNIFICA and SAINTER JANE.

JILL MAGNIFICA

Peter? I interrupt, but softly so.

PETER WYNN

Never came interruption so desired.

Is this another tour? Do questions pend?

JILL MAGNIFICA

Not over work more, Peter, but on more

The vital things that sign eternity.

I came just furthermore to greet and see.

PETER WYNN

See what, see anything, see ever all.

The vital things that sign eternity

Also for me bid here to greet and see.

SAINTER JANE moves to a remove, and soliloquises.

SAINTER JANE

This is no quick, bad man – how clear I see

Delight, love, learning, joy in earliness.

SAINTER JANE returns to speak to JILL MAGNIFICA.

PETER WYNN moves to a remove, and soliloquises.

PETER WYNN

Her meeting thus again stills travails all.

How to express, without offputting rush

What joys I ready and for her intend?

To her somehow to rise? I am a man,

The bridge that reaches strongly to the moon

And bears earth powers high into the night.

I know I can, I yearn, and know not how.

PETER WYNN returns to speak to SAINTER JANE.

JILL MAGNIFICA moves to a remove, and soliloquises.

JILL MAGNIFICA

Him seeing more, firms yet shows young my joy.

I know old lessons, and I yearn and learn.

Am I not too full modern womanhood,

The surging passions of the midnight sea

That crave to wash abundance on the shore?

Spirit runs deep, if it I could but shape.

JILL MAGNIFICA returns to speak to PETER WYNN.

SAINTER JANE moves to a remove.

SAINTER JANE, aside.

Past question, both are sweet sincerity.

JILL MAGNIFICA and PETER WYNN now stand together.

SAINTER JANE remains at a remove.

JILL MAGNIFICA

Can we but find the words, I yearn alone

With you to find ways thenceforward to feel

Never alone and wordless all my life.

PETER WYNN

There's beauty both and torment finding words.

For choosing right there is however time,

And it together best a journey is.

JILL MAGNIFICA

Time give I thee – time, love, life, anything.

If we share time, I introduce again:

Jane is the closest, only friend I trust.

Know that a woman wants a confidante.

PETER WYNN

Researchers are alike: mine so is Tom.

JILL MAGNIFICA

Where is he now?

PETER WYNN

Sometimes I learn alone.

JILL MAGNIFICA

Come, Jane. Go, please. Come, go. Leave us alone.

Exit SAINTER JANE.

Afterwards, together and more slowly, exit PETER WYNN and JILL MAGNIFICA.

3.3

Present: the NARRATOR.

NARRATOR

What now ensues? The gentle siser of

The potentate and he he sacked are now

In love. The context is of railing strife,

Yet here between these two are soft joys, peace

And hearts acquainting mutually free.

There is no move apart, rejection or

Hard stroke. The loads of work and dynasties

Here yield to learning love and partnership,

Greys of routine turn shining with delight.

Exit the NARRATOR.

Scene: a corridor at Malevol's conglomerate's research facility.

Enter PETER WYNN.

PETER WYNN

I am a poor man but I know my skill.

My long renown has been in long toil won.

I stand content therefore in self-belief,

At least at science if not yet at love.

The way to make a great bound is by parts,

Each proven through the million tiny tests

That Malevol faiths not and frames contempt.

He overpowers me, and yet is wrong.

There is no height I cannot make a climb.

I see, I know, I watch, I go; and so

I learn to overpower pinnacles.

Some things height up so far that not a million

Tiny tests can give me pinnacle.

Of that, so what? For then each tiny test

Itself I substitute a thing of parts.

So, on. I see, I know, I watch, I go.

For bounds are made of steps, steps made of parts,

Parts made of actions and experiments,

Experiments of thinking and resolve.

So I resolve, I think, experiment,

I act, make parts, thence steps, and thereby leap

Forth bounds. I will in anything.

Let potentates paint rages out and free.

There is no limit to what I can be.

Exit PETER WYNN.

3.4

Present: the NARRATOR.

NARRATOR

On build we then towards magnificence.

It in its many parts remains unset.

It's Malevol's design that force rule all;

He is both potentate and forceful male.

Yet Jill and Peter seek but honest love.

Each in the other sees that special way

That leads to better life and happiness.

He is a vision man, atttentive to

Her qualities as to his work. She is

Receptive to his words of way and faith.

So much this now remains how unfulfilled;

Attentive and receptive yet pends well.

Forth time's spent breath moves on a day or two.

Let's watch to see if love finds equipoise

In this next special instant: it's the first

Peter and Jill together have alone.

Exit the NARRATOR.

Scene: a coffee shop.

Enter PETER WYNN and JILL MAGNIFICA.

PETER WYNN

With you I want a total openness,

The honesty that hides no corner in.

JILL MAGNIFICA

This is to me delight and wonderful.

PETER WYNN

You met me at your family company.

There years have I made good renowned research.

I liked it well: it irks me then to tell

New deadlines are impossible, and so

My contract this week ends. Sacked, I will go.

JILL MAGNIFICA

I know, I heard. To me it matters not.

I am no manager, nor here for work.

As you, you are; and I as I remain.

We each attentive and receptive move

Beyond the ways of gain and companies.

Work as you will, just be as you will be,

And I forevermore ply at your side.

PETER WYNN

You are the jewel of a dynasty.

JILL MAGNIFICA

I am a woman, as you are a man.

I'll teach you, so in all to me you please.

Smile no presumption on this beckoning,

Nor prophesy successful, simple way.

No wrestler at adventure's rending door

Ever had higher, finer challenges.

PETER WYNN

I smile presumption none, for I will learn

All of your teaching's inwardness and poll.

This learning will be joy and agony.

JILL MAGNIFICA

Why agony?

PETER WYNN

No child is first time right,

And I will grieve each time I don't delight.

JILL MAGNIFICA

We lead and pupil each will alternate

Until devotion culmination brings.

PETER WYNN

No journey knows what culmination comes.

JILL MAGNIFICA

I see.

PETER WYNN

I think you do; and so do I.

Vision and faith.

JILL MAGNIFICA

Delight, vision and faith.

PETER WYNN

Together, from each other shall we learn

How well to please each other, going on.

Exit PETER WYNN and JILL MAGNIFICA.

4.1

Scene: Malevol's conglomerate's research facility.

Enter TOM LOT, DON UCKFIELD and RESEARCHERS ONE, TWO and THREE.

TOM LOT

Stand back, Don, stand well back! The rig runs hot!

Our series of most charged experiments,

Right reading on right reading poising long,

Approaches to ambition's measure mark.

DON UCKFIELD

I know. When I instruct not you, indoors

The business analysts tell me of cost.

You talk of poise: the business looms at you.

I've not seen Peter Wynn for days. Has he

No urgency against the time trial?

TOM LOT

He stays our best, and labours hard away.

His thought work, night work, research run elsewhere

All to a general betterment make aid.

The team's remainder all join in one end.

DON UCKFIELD

I understand not, but accept. The work's

Result gives measure whether here or where.

Tom Lot, you are the leader here today.

TOM LOT

The sequences fetch as our finest yet.

The last nano improvements gained us hard

An exponential more efficiency -

DON UCKFIELD

Speak up!

TOM LOT

The throughput of the rig -

DON UCKFIELD

Speak up!

TOM LOT

Controls at the reaction points, on the

Impression surfaces -

DON UCKFIELD

No need of more.

I nothing understand, unheard or heard.

Yet here the total company waits up

To see an innovation build us on.

Here cost today will profit aftermaths.

For sight of this, I'll skip what foootball's on!

TOM LOT

Watch here, these readings! Colleagues, what's the rate?

RESEARCHER ONE

It rises!

RESEARCHER TWO

Rises!

TOM LOT

Keeps rising!

RESEARCHER THREE

And on!

RESEARCHER ONE

The throughput rates against the sequencing

Beat anything predicted or yet seen!

DON UCKFIELD

Keep rising, lads!

RESEARCHER TWO

It's turning complex now!

TOM LOT

Where's marker blue? Where's marker orange gone?

DON UCKFIELD

What's this? Tell me!

TOM LOT

Where's marker orange gone?

RESEARCHER THREE

Reaction rates at the head surfaces

Have tipped!

TOM LOT

Add more, add more at marker blue!

RESEARCHER ONE

The rates have tipped!

TOM LOT

Aside! Aside!

DON UCKFIELD

Aside!

TOM LOT

Yes! Yes!

RESEARCHER ONE

No! No!

RESEARCHER TWO

Yes!

RESEARCHER THREE

Yes!

RESEARCHER ONE

No!

RESEARCHER TWO

No!

RESEARCHER THREE

No!

TOM LOT

No.

DON UCKFIELD

Well? Yes or no? Speak up! Well? Yes or no?

RESEARCHER THREE

Well, yes and no.

DON UCKFIELD

You white coats, yes and no?

RESEARCHER ONE

No.

DON UCKFIELD

No?

TOM LOT

Oh no!

RESEARCHER TWO

Yes. Yes!

RESEARCHER THREE

No, no, no!

TOM LOT

No!

RESEARCHERS ONE, TWO and THREE, shouting in unison whilst scattering.

No, no! No! No!

TOM LOT

Don, run, clear of the rig!

Exit all, running.

A part of the laboratory rig explodes.

Re-enter DON UCKFIELD, gingerly.

DON UCKFIELD

I'm not a white coat wearer, but I think

That run's not a success. So that's a no.

Exit DON UCKFIELD.

Fade to darkness.

Enter the NARRATOR.

NARRATOR

Great disappointment can succeed great faith.

An empire's fortune gambles on a toss;

Much prospect on a single point lays weight;

A high flow presses narrow twisting glass.

The consequence of the unwanted end

Is falling aim, hopes broken and the slow

Grey wait for eyes ambitious that looked up

To realign in sadness flat and long.

Then comes recrimination and the bruise

Of handsome reputation, hurt, that heals.

Though glory is owned high on parapets,

The disappointment bruise searches below.

As business fame lasts less long than a tree -

Fashion and profit flit to latest shades -

There also stalks the danger bankruptcy.

Though Tom excused how Peter was away,

As Don straight rightly said, it matters not.

The blown rig's sound will rise to Malevol;

And Peter here has failed his time trial.

Exit the NARRATOR.

Scene: shortly after, outside Malevol's conglomerate's headquarters.

Present: JENNY CHENG.

JENNY CHENG

My name is Jenny Cheng, First Channel News.

The Turton empire's had a sorry day:

It had set an announcement grandly high

But now that's cancellation gutters low.

The talk was of an exponential leap.

The market thus framed expectations great.

This cancellation taps like a collapse

And what remains is sherds hard scattering.

The days ahead are likely brutal all,

A trial so for Turton Malevol.

Scene: newsflow on TV.

Involving: JENNY CHENG, REPORTERS ONE and TWO.

REPORTER ONE

This cancellation is a slip off skill.

The wise leap not for fame from plinths not full.

REPORTER TWO

The greater was the chatter, so the fall.

The lead comes from the top, not underneath;

This failure thus blots lots on Malevol.

REPORTER ONE

At market open early will we see

Tomorrow billions lighten off the price!

The Turton great conglomerate turns cheap.

REPORTER TWO

Had they not talked so great their hopes today,

The markets would not cheapen them this way.

REPORTER ONE

Top shock!

REPORTER TWO

Great failure!

REPORTERS ONE and TWO

Skill-less leadership!

JENNY CHENG, REPORTERS ONE and TWO

Esteem falls weak for Turton Malevol.

Exit all.

Scene: ELLA PENGE'S office.

Present: ELLA PENGE and KARIN STEUER, watching newsflow.

ELLA PENGE

For Malevol this must be painful day,

The offspring of his impulse, vanity.

I wonder what the context unexplained

Inside the lidded company has been?

For Malevol is reckless yet is shrewd.

No fool is he: more likely, gambles failed.

KARIN STEUER

Do you see here an opportunity?

ELLA PENGE

Perhaps, indeed perhaps. Yet one for what?

I stand in prospect's lively thoroughfare.

I watch the doorway opportunity,

See who goes in, how many, for how long,

Who never back returns and who leaves fast.

KARIN STEUER

Are you inside or outside of the door?

ELLA PENGE

That matters less than poising close. Let me

In other manner here display array.

A distance race has parts and attitudes.

Perpetual charging is the rip for fools.

Store purpose in a careful cardio:

Stay with the steady pulse and ready pace.

Then push on when clouds pass and downhill smiles.

Keep rhythm but slow tread length carefully

So to endure the weary-making climb.

Let chargers pain here to their breakages:

Theirs are the tents and medics close aside.

Watch friends and rivals, pacing, string out long.

Endure well, watch, endure well, watch, endure.

Each bend, rise, breeze sets tests perennnial

And some let edges forward, others pall.

The lead that slackens vaunts forth rivals all.

KARIN STEUER

You speak of doors and races, carefully.

But what of entrances and coming first?

Where is the point that context purposes?

ELLA PENGE

Our posture is for possibilities.

I pause, endure well, watch, pick place and trice.

KARIN STEUER

And choose?

ELLA PENGE

Best possibility alone.

Exit ELLA PENGE and KARIN STEUER.

Scene: Malevol's office.

Present: TURTON MALEVOL.

TURTON MALEVOL

My purposes in this today have failed.

No slow slide long will come, instead tomorrow

Will wreak wrath and violence upon

Where my designs and destiny have been.

Force, rise again. My name and duty I

Will vindicate, proof armour counter all

Pitched enmity. Bring on all failure's sway,

The vacillating sanction that shrinks bold

Ambition low. Bring on the media

Who sneer on pride and calumny design.

Bring on each coward heart that never tried,

Each company not driven but adrift,

Each pauser back that cries oblivion;

Bring such and everything in legion on.

Force, rise again; against all, rise again.

Yet, force, are you all power's repertoire?

Does force work on, beyond known lexicon?

I leap towards tomorrow, yet I see

Not where forever footholds can be set.

Do others see, that force cannot reveal?

What of this, yet I know not, yet it is.

I hear that, after failure, Peter Wynn

Still purposes to work on his same themes.

Why steal upon the darkness, not the light?

That I ignore, that I resent, and that

I slander poor. Success there would on my

Great cost today load ignominy high.

If it could work, then would it work for me.

I cast Peter aside, cast failure off,

And worth my pride through force I will re-prove.

Exit TURTON MALEVOL.

4.2

Scene: a hotel lounge, in a corner.

Enter PETER WYNN and JILL MAGNIFICA.

JILL MAGNIFICA

Who comes?

PETER WYNN

Who comes?

JILL MAGNIFICA

Who watches?

PETER WYNN

Nobody.

Love finds its freedom when to all else blind.

JILL MAGNIFICA

Humanity lies blind when not in love.

Now here with you I want for nothing more

Except to teach and learn, good student mine.

PETER WYNN

Each teaching time helps me to understand

How for the next one better to amend.

I learn your moments and your subtleties.

JILL MAGNIFICA

You study hard. Rest for a moment, love.

Your vision and commitment I adore.

PETER WYNN

I've always worked my visions to make real.

I watch, I listen and thereby I change.

If noises be too loud, then be new soft.

If motions be too strong, then be new kind.

If actions be too timid, fettle up.

There is no noticed thing that cannot tend.

Time and engagement, presence, are my friends,

Good students and perceptive teachers who

In the kind moments of development

Arrive at where tomorrow beckons on.

JILL MAGNIFICA

Apply this to a lover, lover mine.

PETER WYNN

There is one thing I fear, one thing alone,

One thing that the loved lover must avoid

Or elsewise is facility's growth stopped.

JILL MAGNIFICA

What's that? I know not yet, and yet if you

Fear it, wise darling, then I fear it too.

PETER WYNN

If learning is the path whereby the morn

Is ever better than the yesterday,

Good traveller, then never opt to stop.

Adventure soars with unforeseen delights

That parapet bright far sight of the world;

Yet also on discomfort's dark low paths

It trials through until hope climbs to light.

Keep steady pace through ways' uncertainties.

For stepping back, or craving other space,

Forcing too much, or being wrongly proud,

These place the moment over longer joy,

Rate brief contentment over learning's way.

There is no trice, discomfort's aftermath,

When not enquiry but a pause is wise.

The million tiny tests adventure sends

All teach us onward, even when in pains.

JILL MAGNIFICA

You are a tutor hard, and yet full good.

PETER WYNN

Attentive and receptive frame the way

Tomorrows always shine a better day.

Love's students learn the paths through dark to light.

JILL MAGNIFICA

I see your ways, and mine crave to align.

PETER WYNN

You study well.

JILL MAGNIFICA

You learn devotedly.

They kiss for the first time.

JILL MAGNIFICA

Come, love. Come here. Come here.

PETER WYNN

Come here. Come here.

Fade to darkness. Exit PETER WYNN.

Present: JILL MAGNIFICA, alone.

JILL MAGNIFICA

What is the nature of a life lived well?

The race to purpose thrusts ambition far,

It stretches records and humanity.

The winds roam high and yet they form no bridge

Without intent. But comes there cost in ire.

It scatters wide loves left unfelt, its sad

Past friends in circumstances bridled, and

Assistances unfairly gourmandised.

Yet life allowed undriven would be what?

Is any such? Much purpose is kept private,

In the dignities of quick rough fits,

The tiny things that teach majority.

The winds blow over – felt, far and untouched.

Where here fits love? In all life's fine design,

O powers, answer me the hardest thing.

Where fits love well, life's greatest way-changer?

Where are life's choices and its turning points?

Tomorrow is what happens. Powers, give

Me wisdom and the calm to recognise

Where crossroads, heights and opportunities

In life do truly come. Give me the strength

To bind the hero and placebo into

One just measure and drink life off full.

Allow me, give me, take from me the loves

That culminations make and bond all things,

That take the dark and scattering and turn

Them into shining shaped magnificence.

This is what's right, where love fits well. Love fits

Where choice and happiness decide; and then

The winds of life outreach any design.

Exit JILL MAGNIFICA.

4.3

Scene: Malevol's conglomerate's research facility.

Enter PETER WYNN and TOM LOT.

PETER WYNN

The day is ending, Tom; the midnight time

Will soon put bound upon this history.

Yet elsewhere will endeavour on, not end.

One morn to come will this be honoured by

The mighty and respected by the wise.

High systems break here into scatterings,

Yet this is temporary, not the end.

Some midnights soar or yet can seed regret:

Of these is this. Be proud, we have not passed

Long years forsworn in just dissecting specks.

I failed the time trial -

TOM LOT

But Peter, you -

PETER WYNN

I absent went, but I, not you, I failed

The time trial. The silent small moments

Alone in which priorities assign,

They yet give me perception in the work.

I am not just lost echoes of this past.

On other rigs, in other wheres, will I

Now make beginnings out of what seem ends.

There is a rage of lights and wonderment

That arcs within my ken. Come on and join.

The midnight time approaches fast for me.

I wish you well; but should for you it come,

Seed no regret but soar; come on and join.

I know not yet wherein my new place is,

But there is place for you. Come on and join.

I here remove my personal effects.

Just think upon what I have said: our work

Is future greatness for humanity,

And you know more than realisings show.

TOM LOT

I'll help you move. For now, here I remain.

As always you speak right, I know. My turn

When midnight comes can not be far behind.

When that arrives, with you I'll come and join.

PETER WYNN

Together we have further tests to run.

I know the sweat in an endeavour, the

Ambition in a plan. I know the hope

Of youth and morning, and the pain of

Aftermaths. I know the million's rhythms all,

For I am anyone.

TOM LOT

Than anyone,

I know, you more than others all perceive.

The work supplants the job. I'll come and join.

Enter TURTON MALEVOL and DON UCKFIELD, followed by DON UCKFIELD'S THUGS.

DON UCKFIELD

Tom Lot? Get out. Get out!

TOM LOT

But here, the work -

DON UCKFIELD

It matters not. Get out! Stay, Peter Wynn.

TURTON MALEVOL

We have some things to do, of this and here,

Which yet are better seen not anywhere.

Exit TOM LOT.

TURTON MALEVOL

Look at this rig. It is the vessel in

Which all hope placed its pride, ambition that

Now seems naiveté. The rig of greatness

Unachieved is litter and a set

Of parts for new uses to ply. What shall

I therefore play? I own, I can, for what

Are private accidents? Let's set up well.

DON UCKFIELD

Ladies and lads, place at your stations now!

The THUGS disperse to key points around the rig and the research facility.

PETER WYNN watches with concern.

PETER WYNN, aside.

I know not if their aim is at the rig

Or me.

TURTON MALEVOL

The time trial is failed and done.

I revel in destruction. My top hopes

Are sharply ended. What then do I here?

PETER WYNN

The world is life, is breath, is hope, vigour

And creativity. The words of

Possibility dance freely in the morning

Air, the seeds to grow indulgent day

And all the architecture of success.

Where here is pain? Where's disappointment found?

No, rise again, again, ever again.

TURTON MALEVOL

The midnight is no morning.

PETER WYNN

It foresees.

Tomorrow is forever beckoning.

TURTON MALEVOL

Words, words! Your work is but the vessel for

My company. Like after-comers entering

A wreck, shows here of hope and pomp

Surrounded everywhere by stumps and ends

Can trump forever grandeur, but don't fit.

You are a failure, Peter Wynn; and what

Is failure in the hands of failure worth?

Talk not, for here we end the time trial.

PETER WYNN

No wolfpack ever chased a raindrop well.

TURTON MALEVOL

You stay with raindrops. I do industry.

Arise here now you forces that unbind

The valour of the lion in the wind -

PETER WYNN

But research is the patient way -

TURTON MALEVOL

Not now.

Arise here now you forces that build up

The pent dive of the eagle from the top -

PETER WYNN

But research frames the better aim -

TURTON MALEVOL

Not here.

Arise here now you forces that condemn

Recalcitrance in amber-tethered men -

PETER WYNN

But research speeds tomorrow through today -

TURTON MALEVOL

Not now, not here, not ever, anywhere

Shall research range beyond a time trial.

There is no vengeance that can recompense

The damage that here's failure has laid out.

There is no strength that can accompany

The full providing anger of my heart.

There is no measure, tether or regret

That will in shame's hard shackles un-allot

The massacre intending that I set.

You were the costly promise that I blame;

This rig was your adventure that broke fame;

Your folly is what ridicules my name.

If in this height of busy waste and glass

You see things you esteem, I gift you them.

If in a single splice of code you find

A trace that merit presages, I gift

You it. I gift you all of it, for what

Is failure in the hands of failure worth.

In the next section, with DON UCKFIELD urging them on, the THUGS dismantle and destroy all the equipment.

PETER WYNN races to separate some key parts.

As the destruction runs to completion but TURTON MALEVOL exhorts more, DON UCKFIELD becomes less keen to continue.

TURTON MALEVOL

Now, guys and gals, conclude the time trial!

Run, Peter Wynn, to rescue any part.

Now nothing uncompeted stays for you.

Destroy, my guys and gals, all you can reach.

Run, Peter, on for data ere it break

From knowledge down to parts and shattering.

Destroy, my people, that arm far, this near

Until the fine construction is a pile

Of spikes and ends and junctions, not a whole.

Run on, destroy, run on, destroy, run on!

What, nothing left? Not fleeing ever here?

But flee on, it's your gift, good as research!

My guys and gals, help Peter Wynn flee on!

PETER WYNN collapses from all the racing around.

DON UCKFIELD

Pause all! The rig is done, the time trial -

TURTON MALEVOL

Don Uckfield, never hesitate again.

There is a high reach in the ways of men

That brokers fire in chaos and new way.

It makes today tomorrow's prophecy.

Arise, run on, arise, round in -

DON UCKFIELD

Remain

Not longer here, o Peter. I mean no

Malign intention, nor my worker gang.

But orders swiftly come, and can be wrong.

Run on, take all your pieces, and be gone!

Exit PETER WYNN.

TURTON MALEVOL

Would I here do him harm? Why pause along!

Come, team, the last of the destruction. Come!

The THUGS continue for a few moments more.

TURTON MALEVOL revels in it.

DON UCKFIELD is uneasy, and the first to exit.

Exit all.

Scene: outside, shortly after.

Enter PETER WYNN.

PETER WYNN

The history of this goes back a week,

A week at least; no, longer, in raw truth.

The research flies, and yet key ties with

Malevol have long been strewn unreadily.

I could within me brood a hatred for

A company that so breaks my work's home.

I could within me brood a hatred for

This Malevol and his behaviours all.

But clip a tiny test on this, to show

The value and the moment's progeny.

A painted hatred here is barren play,

Indulgence where a nursery of joys

And more beginnings for tomorrow is

The shining, better way. A midnight is

Not ending but a start. Relationships

And knowledge are the paths productive, not

Food for obesity to stop and brood.

I'll think on ways, not let hates wall me in.

How people in the crux of moments change.

Good Turton Anthony is now unseen.

Don Uckfield plods a job; and football's on.

Cruel Turton Malevol I will avoid.

The wondrous Jill is different, and with her

No midnights but forever morning joys

Call me. With her I now frame everything.

I learn, and with Tom Lot I will work on.

The flips and topples of the moments change,

From one boss on, one context on, one test

And learning on. And therefore I'll work on.

Put hatreds and the company aside.

Great purpose calls me steady to abide.

Exit PETER WYNN.

Scene: outside, shortly after.

Enter GITA LAKSHMI VANTARAM and JENNY CHENG.

GITA LAKSHMI VANTARAM

I recognise you. You are Jenny Cheng,

From TV news?

JENNY CHENG

I am. And you?

GITA LAKSHMI VANTARAM

I am

Police. I'm Gita Lakshmi Vantaram.

They shake hands.

JENNY CHENG

What happened here? I do not know.

GITA LAKSHMI VANTARAM

Nor me.

But this a something not a nothing is.

JENNY CHENG

A story and a case?

GITA LAKSHMI VANTARAM

I think so.

JENNY CHENG

Yes.

Yet scant leads for enquiry, evidence,

Present themselves uncovered to the morn.

GITA LAKSHMI VANTARAM

Let's work, let's learn and pierce a daylight in.

What happens must reflect somebody's will.

The unexplained can tell a story still.

JENNY CHENG

Agreed. Let's work and talk together more.

Exit both.

4.4

Scene: newsflow on TV.

Involving: JENNY CHENG, REPORTERS ONE, TWO and THREE.

JENNY CHENG

My name is Jenny Cheng, First Channel News.

The days crash hard for Turton Malevol.

REPORTER ONE

The vast conglomerate was worth the sky.

REPORTER TWO

But then last week great hopes up to

Announcement brought were cancelled suddenly.

The high col through which next prosperity

Was to be sought is now closed, stopped and lost.

REPORTER THREE

Two plant mishaps in fast succession came.

JENNY CHENG

The senior Malevol, good Anthony,

By markets, customers, team and broad fame

Long held respected, like a handsome tree,

Has quickly gone from vision and command.

REPORTER ONE

The company makes some good deals -

REPORTER TWO

But many

City speakers doubt and devil if

That carriage is enough.

REPORTER THREE

New management

Brought from within stands up unproven, while

The brunt and hum of competition strong

Climbs on in profit, ever strong and on.

REPORTER ONE

A market impact comes, as dawn brings light.

A lot of sells and watchers close in now.

The following involves first REPORTER TWO, then others, before market screens in real time.

REPORTER TWO

Watch for the market open? Red, deep red,

It's going to be bad morning, Malevol.

REPORTER THREE

The price down hard, that's billions coming off.

REPORTER ONE

Another point -

REPORTER TWO

High volumes -

REPORTER THREE

Onward down -

JENNY CHENG

On, steady, down; on, steady, down; and on.

REPORTER ONE

Our own reporter at the Malevol

HQ is seeking comment.

REPORTER TWO

No-one yet

Is keen to speak this morning.

REPORTER THREE

They're not here

At normal moments quiet company.

JENNY CHENG

Down billions, it's a bad day, Malevol.

Exit all.

Scene: Malevol's office.

Enter TURTON MALEVOL and DON UCKFIELD.

TURTON MALEVOL

The business is my lifelong history.

It wraps of me, of life, of everything,

The each place ways and wants and everydays

Of half humanity. Each life's least action

Slips a payment into my acclaim.

Upon the market index often is

My business half the business busying.

Why cross they dross and gossip on my way?

A change, a chance, a rumour, nothing, noise -

DON UCKFIELD

Good Sir -

TURTON MALEVOL

But markets cross -

DON UCKFIELD

Kind Sir -

TURTON MALEVOL

Upon

More time's reflection, they -

DON UCKFIELD

Good Sir, kind Sir,

For thirty years your aide, then chief of staff,

Have I attended on your everything.

TURTON MALEVOL

You loyal well, Don Uckfield. Say your way.

I nurture patience not, but you earn all.

DON UCKFIELD

A share price is a share price, you know well.

The market is a play as well as toil.

Its news is broil and bubble of the shines

That rise and rupture in the light. But naught

Of it from one day to the follow stays.

The business is the basis of all ways.

TURTON MALEVOL

Correct. But share price is the buy and sell.

DON UCKFIELD

Here still few sell, and therefore still few buy.

From Turton unto Turton plies the line;

The business is hereditary strong.

TURTON MALEVOL

But share price is the buy and sell. If it

Can fall, then strength is bubble thrown in broil.

The hard arm of all my security

Becomes like clips and twigs of packaging.

It cannot fail. Hard arm! I never fail.

There is no basis for a share price sale.

DON UCKFIELD

So focus back.

TURTON MALEVOL

Is this a training class?

Do you, Don Uckfield, practise here on me?

DON UCKFIELD

The price that fell -

TURTON MALEVOL

Hard arm! I never fail.

I cannot fail. The market is the broil

And bubble, not the load and business whole.

Exit TURTON MALEVOL.

DON UCKFIELD

I channel his unhappiness, and for

My ancient loyalty he lets me so.

With all my art, I yet do not control.

The business is the basis, we all know,

Not just the market price; even when low.

Exit DON UCKFIELD.

Scene: phone call between ELLA PENGE in her office and MALEVOL in his.

Involving ELLA PENGE, KARIN STEUER, TURTON MALEVOL and DON UCKFIELD.

Beginning with ELLA PENGE and KARIN STEUER together in ELLA'S office.

KARIN STEUER

Look at these numbers. Years have not seen such.

The Turton price is redded out to sell.

Come fortune, chance and opportunity,

With luck alongside, never thus and such.

ELLA PENGE

The price is hard low. I agree, it's time.

Fix me the call to Turton Malevol.

Then the call. TURTON MALEVOL and DON UCKFIELD are together in MALEVOL'S office.

ELLA PENGE

Your company and fame are great indeed.

TURTON MALEVOL

As yours are Ella Penge. I pay respect.

Our businesses are engines for the world

To bend low things to high and better place.

ELLA PENGE

Agreed. Already much we both achieve,

Yet in the contemplation of top aim

I call tomorrow's dawn a better time

If it plies shine on a construction new.

TURTON MALEVOL

What mean you here?

ELLA PENGE

Today since yesterday

Has changed, the market call sets test distress

Upon your share price.

TURTON MALEVOL

Ply not on with toys!

Lest you in peril set the friend renown

That I begin with you. I'll bear no ill.

ELLA PENGE

My meaning is no ill but happily.

TURTON MALEVOL

Be clear then, but keep danger from the fire.

ELLA PENGE

Your price is down; mine rises steadily.

Like fit part and its complement, our two

Conglomerates aspire across the range

That markets, clouds and emperors alone

In history have seen. Where yours is left,

Mine postures right; where yours is on, mine in;

Where yours holds over, mine is under and

Along. The two together form a whole,

A stronger and a better potency.

My meaning clear: I'll buy you and let's join.

Wherever's biggest business is my plan.

DON UCKFIELD, aside.

What inspiration flame! What great design!

He would admire it, if it were his own.

TURTON MALEVOL

Great rage, hold back until I fairly check.

You cannot mean - how do you this to me?

Hard arm! Come now to my security!

ELLA PENGE

My offer mirrors fairly off true price.

The level is the market's, widely set.

I offer here to buy your company.

TURTON MALEVOL

So do you doubt? You call the business weak?

Refusal is the smallest shred of all

I answer clear. Astonishment, pain, rage -

ELLA PENGE

I want to buy it.

TURTON MALEVOL

Do you call me weak?

ELLA PENGE

I want the business. If you want a job

In new arrangements, we can surely speak.

TURTON MALEVOL

Rage! Bear no outrage! Yet wait patiently!

The rashness of, the wrongness of, the great

Offence that calls mischance the new right world.

This is the dog that eats the lion cub

Before the roar of true great jaws amends.

ELLA PENGE

Big words, hot words. I go on steadily.

TURTON MALEVOL

I would that I had never heard of your

Conglomerate; I would that I had never

Heard of mine, if that peace were the way

Not to endure this making small the great

Achievements that proclaim gold every plain.

The innovations every day that do

What others backward cry cannot be done;

The greatness framed above the multitude,

Awards, acclaim and polished fortune that

Paints glory for my name; the history -

ELLA PENGE

The price, not history, sets buy and sell.

TURTON MALEVOL

Great rage! Come on, do not give by! Ella,

Be sure before you dare; of who you are;

Of what you have; of what I am; and what

My business is. O rage, on outrages!

The pebble to the mountain throws the bold.

It flies, bears weight, can bounce advantages.

But might's true height that shadows new each dawn

Is never seen close on, and yet it is.

Call not my all a pebble from the price.

Say, rage! Great rage! There is no weakness here.

The conjuring of the unknowing mind,

Makes shimmer from the night suspicions that

Dawn's scattering of shadows plays defray.

The noon of sureness leaves no shimmer more.

ELLA PENGE

So what is sureness in the market's eye?

Come, prices, speak for me! The strong -

TURTON MALEVOL

Rage on!

The price fell but a part, only a part.

Presume not on my peace and circumstance.

You will not height a great mount with a stone.

I am not what you think I am; nor you

Have the prowess and power you proclaim.

Pretend not -

ELLA PENGE

We will vouch another time.

You want not my approach; but it's not done.

ELLA PENGE rings off.

DON UCKFIELD, aside

The moment passes but the time broils on.

TURTON MALEVOL

Never in all the market history,

Never the pomp of my great family,

Never the fame that magnifies my name -

DON UCKFIELD

Sir -

TURTON MALEVOL

My achievement will paint green all red -

DON UCKFIELD

Sir -

TURTON MALEVOL

The recovery of our acclaim -

DON UCKFIELD

Sir, please -

TURTON MALEVOL

Then let the world take note -

DON UCKFIELD

Sir, please -

TURTON MALEVOL

Then let the world, then let the world.

DON UCKFIELD

Please, Sir.

TURTON MALEVOL

Where is she?

DON UCKFIELD

Gone.

TURTON MALEVOL

I pause and realise.

A slipped unsteady moment is a shock,

Jolting the frame and setting blood's taste hot

Under the tongue. Grip hard its passage off,

The moment after brings stability.

I gasp and breathe off such an instant here.

I throw hard arm upon the wider ground

And there find better way. The share price, down,

Will find its true long level green and soon.

Hard arm! Great rage! Equip the day for me.

I will recover. Yet jolted I gasp.

Force weakens. I will; what, and when and how?

Exit all.

5.1

Scene: cheap rented premises. A new lab, of which every part is improvised.

Enter PETER WYNN and TOM LOT.

PETER WYNN

Work with me, Tom, good friend, work on with me.

Here shall we hang this problem up on hooks,

To let it lustre in the wind and charm

The bystanders? Or shall we pull it down,

To peer, prod, delve, and poke at it, to pare

Out the minutiae that science in

Its heart? We want no truck of mysteries.

I'll give no spacious play to painted rage.

The climb is long, and yet with noble aim.

With vision strong, work on, work on, work on.

TOM LOT

You revel in cheap, rented premises.

PETER WYNN

Where rebel freedom is not marginal!

You have a place, commitments, salary.

Well done! That system has not bred success.

Endeavour onwards though, it frames the way.

TOM LOT

You are my leader, captain of command.

PETER WYNN

I am a sacked man.

TOM LOT

Best yet in the field.

You have not failed, but from the way been spurned.

PETER WYNN

This rig looks plaything, after seeing real.

Components all are borrowed, old or cheap.

TOM LOT

Yet see the science!

PETER WYNN

It is wonderful!

We replicate, at specks' costs, monuments

Which reach the forward edges of intent.

TOM LOT

Delight!

PETER WYNN

The parts that make experiment!

We knew our path; it just needed its way.

Now you go on to work for Malevol,

As long as runs the greaser salary.

Collaboration frame as well with me.

Exit PETER WYNN and TOM LOT.

Enter the NARRATOR.

Long labours' days run on as nights, which reach

Into the next days' yawning morn. There is

No idling in the byways' coffee shops,

Small time for glinting small indulgences.

But coffee keeps the yawning morns awake;

Espresso for experiments plays part.

Tom works on at the Turton company,

His sunrise hours and after nights devout

To Peter's cheap, concealed alternative.

Judge not yet less of great things done in sheds:

Two people here, and one in cast-off time,

Pursue the vigour elsewhere sown by ten.

Fine, expert standards also they maintain.

Atomic measures and high-value stuffs

Work intricacy through the taped-up rig.

So intricacy, expertise and clips

In a shed's elbow progress more than tips

Of commerce and what high cost vouches bright.

Exit the NARRATOR.

Scene: ELLA PENGE'S office.

Enter ELLA PENGE and KARIN STEUER.

ELLA PENGE

Have you worked all the night? The coffee tells.

KARIN STEUER

I see the jewel interest; it shines bright.

ELLA PENGE

What magpies up to leap from circumstance?

KARIN STEUER

A glinting rumour more than torchlit news.

The Turton company its research yet

Continues, but as unsuccessful ends.

There order turns to strewn assemblages

And each top hope sags, practised, back to flat.

ELLA PENGE

So?

KARIN STEUER

Peter Wynn, a name I sometimes know,

Has left the business, yet researches on

In some shed's elbow, improvising high.

ELLA PENGE

His name I never heard. What merits he?

KARIN STEUER

The Turton company out-legions all,

Employing to wring profit from the world

Long wringing millions from across the world.

But Peter Wynn, delighted gossip's hiss

Says years throughout has been all best research.

His was the talent, his the hope and pole.

Just painted surface came from Malevol.

Now Malevol is not pale, stable man -

ELLA PENGE

I know! The brunt is shine-wet recent yet!

KARIN STEUER

In anger's wrong slipped instant did the boss

This central researcher sack off and blame.

I hear the lab of intricacy past

Is now flat empty ends and parts, where from

Indulgent wreckage they build back with second

Team experiments a second time.

But what was great before – this Peter and

His rig improved by cares repetitive -

Is no more under Turton Malevol.

ELLA PENGE

And so? I know you: failure's not a tale.

KARIN STEUER

One sip of coffee, let me one more sip.

You right infer. I hear a better more.

Delighted gossip's hiss says Peter still

Experiments his same thoughts onward far.

So progress moves though Malevol stays stopped.

ELLA PENGE

A better more, indeed, a better more.

No business matters more than company.

It is from people, wrought with thought, that each

Tomorrow stretches reach for betterment.

Is Peter talent open to employ?

KARIN STEUER

Here all my knowledge ends.

ELLA PENGE

Hiss out for more!

The leaping point at innovation's reach

Is hard for blur-allowing eyes to fetch

A moment on. The race's front is fast.

A game enabler, helper like myself,

Thus strains at what the eye not quite aligns.

The blur ahead is where the better plays.

KARIN STEUER

I'll find out more.

ELLA PENGE

Learn on, capture that blur.

We progress most when harness we the best.

O fortune! Malevol in rage has lost

What steady work and ours might forward most.

Exit ELLA PENGE and KARIN STEUER.

5.2

Scene: Malevol's office.

Enter TURTON MALEVOL and DON UCKFIELD.

TURTON MALEVOL

You told me of a picking point of news?

What was it?

DON UCKFIELD

Unexpected muttering.

I hear that Peter Wynn is working on.

I know not where, I know not how, with whom;

But in some creaking shed somewhere I hear

That Peter bends an end continuous

On still the same design. I heard it not

Internally. Our people do not speak.

But in the pub shouts -

TURTON MALEVOL

Was there football on?

DON UCKFIELD

Of course! I heard from others, other trade,

The word at other companies is that

Research plies on; and they might purchase it.

Now Peter Wynn is free, not owned employed.

TURTON MALEVOL

He is a nothing in a zero in

A failure of a dust. We spent whole empires

Of attention, wealth and time, and from

It bought indeed frustration's wreckages.

DON UCKFIELD

All true. Yet Peter was the best, is yet,

Repute says in its sizing of the line.

And in his creak-block shed unknown somewhere

There's coffee drunk, and early until late

He scrapes at progress.

TURTON MALEVOL

And do you believe?

DON UCKFIELD

I'm not a white coat wearer.

TURTON MALEVOL

Hence I trust.

DON UCKFIELD

The long scrape on is wherefrom progress comes.

If he believes and fettles on long hours,

Who knows.

TURTON MALEVOL

But I know everything. I do.

I threw him out, off, broken, wholly spent.

I owned the ever venture, wide design,

Inception came when I the ribbon snipped.

The pieces of the vessel and the ends

Were all but toys in my business design.

And Peter's pieces failed to be their dream.

DON UCKFIELD

They did; but in the shed, will they always?

TURTON MALEVOL

He is a failure.

DON UCKFIELD

Failure, yes, he was.

You made him free -

TURTON MALEVOL

His value ended low.

DON UCKFIELD

You gave him your rig's leftovers. Now do

The pub shouts say what white coat wearers hear.

It's that the creak-block shed somewhere holds fresh

A taped-up, clipped cheap wobble copying

And scraping on what our lab's rig once did.

TURTON MALEVOL

How can a clipped-up wobble game our frame?

O rage, come you again!

DON UCKFIELD

To calculate -

TURTON MALEVOL

So do they say this company is weak?

The passing voices that from moments come

And in a play of pieces build a tale.

How dare this word -

DON UCKFIELD

I make it not, I pass

You understanding and wide ear, to make

Advising only -

TURTON MALEVOL

Do the darers call

Me failed? They call me wrong, mistaken and

Unfit? Great rage!

DON UCKFIELD

I but advise.

TURTON MALEVOL

How dare

The ply of throw-offs, boasts and reckoning

That is the pub and market vaunt with me!

How dare in line with failure nameless voices

Place me down! O rage, what outrage, come!

Long never in the build of my great name,

Long never in the chase of circumstance,

Long never in the drive of underlings

Have I heard dare before alike! No! No!

DON UCKFIELD, aside.

His rage runs high; his words run out of thoughts.

Whereto do force and drive align when long

Intent and expectation break their frame?

This trial shortly will become next past.

We must discover purpose and fit fast

A forward way that is not fiery rage.

TURTON MALEVOL

The moment calls me from the unbound mind.

To rage without a way ranges like sky,

Unearthed, unlearned, unpatterned and undone.

Not that way. I instead must ply design

To do all necessary, all I can,

All useful that can forward my intent.

And what is it? Let no-one stop me hence.

My one unbound will be my ruthlessness.

To busy is to make means of control.

To idle is to have no avenue.

Yet where's my busy way? Will force suffice?

DON UCKFIELD

The aim ahead is profit and new light.

Through different units, plants, plans, teams and boards,

The way of purpose, rising through dark lands

And times of shadow, never changes. And

We know whose research of the future's best.

TURTON MALEVOL

Our Peter, Peter Wynn. Where is he now?

DON UCKFIELD

A pub shout shows where talk has travelled from.

I know not but pursuit will reach its point.

TURTON MALEVOL

Find Peter Wynn. Find where's his rig. Find all

The parts and ranges that can fresh renew

And raise from slander my intended name.

DON UCKFIELD

I'll task the guys and gals across the map.

TURTON MALEVOL

Be all that's prospect hid dark from the sun,

My ruthlessness will blaze back dusk undone.

Exit TURTON MALEVOL and DON UCKFIELD.

5.3

Scene: eventflow around and then at a major port.

Present, variously: DON UCKFIELD, THUGS, PETER WYNN, the NARRATOR and a DOCK WORKER.

Enter first DON UCKFIELD and THUG ONE.

THUG ONE

We've found him, or at least the hiss says where.

DON UCKFIELD

Where's that? Can we send in a gang for him?

THUG ONE

We gathered from the air a mobile call.

For research work his needed things are most

Precise, and a consignment waits for him

From one reagent's sole importer at

The vast receiving yard at southland docks.

DON UCKFIELD

I know that place. The HGVs and ship

Containers stack and traffic everywhere.

One man to fetch a package? He'll be lost.

THUG ONE

Our gang is moving. His confusion, out

Of the laboratory, will give us our

Best snatching opportunity all month.

DON UCKFIELD

Good work! Let's snatch that opportunity.

Exit DON UCKFIELD and THUG ONE.

Enter the NARRATOR.

NARRATOR

Don Uckfield knows his business. He speaks right.

The yard is a flat fraction of a high

Charged ordered chaos, wherein stacks of freight,

Containers fresh off cape-size ships, or queues

Craned high of more for heading out to sea,

All crowd unwelcome to a stranger's search.

Enter PETER WYNN and a DOCK WORKER.

PETER WYNN

I look for the receiving yard?

DOCK WORKER

Stand back!

Watch out for lorries here! Are you full new?

PETER WYNN

I am.

DOCK WORKER

OK, then follow me. I'll show

You the safe entry route the staff employ.

You're rare. We get few fetchers, rather than

The agents most recipients prefer.

PETER WYNN

Lead on.

NARRATOR

So Peter Wynn continues on

His search. He quests for a perfection in

His lab. The science has him quest reagents

Wide, brought in from other countries through

A busy docks. Now there Don Uckfield's guys

And gals in turn quest after him, in turn

The business quest ordained by Malevol.

The world appears disorder, yet it knows

A greater order than each part allows,

Each aspect finding function in its flows.

Exit the NARRATOR.

DOCK WORKER

In here's the way to the receiving yard.

Watch for that lorry, wait!

Enter, at a remove, DON UCKFIELD and THUG ONE.

THUG ONE

He's there ahead!

DON UCKFIELD

Keep back, wait off, stare not at Peter long!

We all have the dog instinct in our backs.

We see not what's behind, and yet we know

When someone there is staring dog at us.

PETER WYNN

Quick, friend, good friend, let's quickly move on in!

DOCK WORKER

I'll leave you here; my place is at the gate.

Exit DOCK WORKER.

PETER WYNN

My thanks. (Then aside:) Between the forklift boxes there

I saw a face, or feral apprehension

Gave me the dog instinct of quick fear.

I think Don Uckfield's here. Did I see him?

Or did some figure my dog instinct think

A guy or gal that smashed my former rig?

I'll run. I'll hide. I'll barter breaths and turns.

PETER WYNN hides.

THUG ONE

Where is he? He was here a trice ago!

DON UCKFIELLD

Keep on! Dog instinct tells us where to go!

Exit DON UCKFIELLD and his THUG.

Other of DON UCKFIELD'S THUGS enter, follow and exit.

PETER WYNN

If I am here, and they, it is not chance.

They know my work, its needs, its clock and state.

My freedom thus is snatched at close and hard.

I long knew my work's value; they did not,

Discarding it in wreckages of ends

Whereon indifference lounged indulgently.

The yawning gluttons of that former time

Now chase upon my rare supplies, and use

Them, smell trail for small predator, to bring

Me where the bigger jaws may jail me in.

If captured now, will I remain alive?

They know my value as laboratory,

The step whence business up at fortune leaps;

They want my work but not my rivalry.

Some risk is best not caught whilst it explodes.

Captivity is not my forward way.

So I push off my last breath's countdown's start

As gentle flesh would flinch back from a blade.

So I cut on, to be not so cut off.

I'll light my way with private liberty.

I'll snatch my parcel, then away I'll flee

Lest Uckfield's guys and gals snatch on at me.

PETER WYNN runs into the office of the receiving yard, then comes back out with a package, then exits the scene, fleeing.

Enter DON UCKFIELD and THUG ONE.

THUG ONE

He's here! He's here! We smell him everywhere!

DON UCKFIELD

Check in the office, give them money, ask

If Peter Wynn's consignment still awaits

Collection!

THUG ONE

Just a trice ago it's gone!

DON UCKFIELD

He's near! He's near! Keep searching everywhere!

Exit DON UCKFIELD and THUG ONE.

PETER WYNN rushes back, and pauses.

PETER WYNN

My way is lorries, searchers, obstacles.

Never a breathless labyrinth held all

As many angles as a modern docks!

I'll follow my dog instinct. Just one way

Out and one moment is enough for me!

He hides.

Enter DON UCKFIELD and THUG ONE.

THUG ONE

He's here! He's here! We smell him everywhere!

DON UCKFIELD

Block all the exits. What by force alone

We cannot own, let money loyalties

In quick thrust banknotes get us extra lads!

He's here. Peter, I smell you everywhere!

There are sounds of confrontation, a car crash and struggle, in the near distance.

DON UCKFIELD

Keep still! Stop noise! You spoil my listening.

There are police sirens in the middle distance.

DON UCKFIELD

That now spoils everything. How to explain

Our actions here? A search, a gang, fast bribes,

A few car smashes, some resisters punched.

Annoyance! So our plan this instant flips.

New rules, my guys and gals! We smell him close!

The yard two minutes' havoc hence we'll leave,

But in those minutes we'll destroy all here.

Rise noise, destruction, all things violent!

All standing structures now be blown flat spent!

A chaos of destruction.

PETER WYNN flees unseen, off in one direction, still with his package.

Then DON UCKFIELD and his THUGS, when the destruction is near complete, flee in another.

Enter the NARRATOR.

NARRATOR

The autumn grave that giggling cradles end

Their colour in has not the appetite

That Malevol here gorges wastefully.

He breaks with Peter, breaks experiments,

Breaks public docks, breaks all authority.

The only wrong is, this his habit is,

And in his business glory unil now

His force engenders cool impunity.

Yet order starts to fracture to a flail

Of misalignments and uncaptured toll.

At southland docks, his package Peter found.

Don Uckfield and his gang their captive lost,

And there they made destruction such purport

Police cannot but question and report.

So, order starts to fracture to a flail:

No more works force in all for Malevol.

Exit the NARRATOR.

5.4

Scene: later, at the cheap rented premises.

Enter PETER WYNN and JILL MAGNIFICA.

JILL MAGNIFICA

Your freedom is competed, Tom tells me.

At both your work and you the snatchers lunge.

PETER WYNN

My day has held both challenge and reward.

Yet here I see the rig, I look at you,

And it is good.

JILL MAGNIFICA

I'll help you to go on.

PETER WYNN

Of expectation you a person are,

Accustomed to renown, regard and wealth.

These my cheap, rented premises are not

The circumstance you hold habitual.

JILL MAGNIFICA

Mine is a world of choices and extents,

And from that set assemblage I select

What to me is the dear and consequent.

My only purpose is to be your aid.

My only place is to be at your side.

They kiss.

JILL MAGNIFICA

Tom tells me much. A brother has no love

The better than in strength he means you well.

PETER WYNN

He is a future great man, though he knows

Not how to ensure happens his design.

A good friend long; he is still good friend now.

JILL MAGNIFICA

He frets at all your lately accidents.

PETER WYNN

From such design and care our progress grows.

JILL MAGNIFICA

I'll help you to be calm, to focus, and,

With Tom and I along, to progress on.

PETER WYNN

My love, I thank you. Herein all is well.

I ask you not to worry, or to play

The thoughts replaying that accuse all calm

For falsehood and make chaos of content.

Tom helps, I have my plan; and we work on.

JILL MAGNIFICA

You place a kind, calm cover over strife.

I see the days of challenge ever free.

Yet what you ask I follow loyally.

My choice could lead me free; it holds me here.

PETER WYNN

Together here.

JILL MAGNIFICA

Together here.

PETER WYNN

Well set.

They kiss again, then exit.

5.5

Scene: Ella Penge's office.

Enter ELLA PENGE and KARIN STEUER.

KARIN STEUER

Our long enquiries to close certainty

On Peter Wynn's endeavour and success

Now reach their front, the rising question point.

ELLA PENGE

I want him in our business, joined with me.

His is a greatness we should house and praise.

KARIN STEUER

He's on the line.

Present: PETER WYNN, joining on the phone.

ELLA PENGE

I'm Ella Penge. Peter?

PETER WYNN

I'm Peter Wynn.

ELLA PENGE

I hear about your work.

PETER WYNN

And I've long known your bold conglomerate.

ELLA PENGE

It is a shelter for the million hopes

That daily help go forward multitudes.

New hopes I seek and succour constantly.

Your fame is private yet, and yet your work

Reaches for greatness to advance the world.

I call to ask therein how I may help.

PETER WYNN

I heard from Karin Steuer, of your team,

This broad enquiry. Here I caution bring,

Like someone broken from a prior time.

I prize cheap, rented freedom more than fame.

ELLA PENGE

I know your past. I know priorities.

I prize cheap, rented freedom if you do;

I prize whatever fresh intent you do.

Write any architecture on the winds

That drive the reaching front of your design,

And I upon your terms will give you it.

I want only to give you what you want.

I know that not well yet, discerningly

I search at it. Will you here help me learn?

PETER WYNN

Will I here help you learn what I desire?

There is no better offer in the world.

ELLA PENGE

What you most want is what I most want too.

Join in with me. We somewhere now should meet.

Exit KARIN STEUER.

Scene: a hotel business centre.

Present: ELLA PENGE and PETER WYNN.

ELLA PENGE

You are a man of visions and design;

Of drive, intent, ambition and renown.

My company is broad and strong; you know.

I designate it platform for the way

You contemplate to build better tomorrows

And improve humanity. Join in

With me. Pursue the dreams that frame your heart

And I will give you space and place wherein

The world will see your hopes endeavour made.

PETER WYNN

I heard thus once from Turton Malevol.

For years, of trust abused and loss, I worked -

ELLA PENGE

You worked: the past. I know him; I am not

One such another. Ask my any staff,

Ask journalists, ask foes, the internet.

The deepest worst you find will frame me saint

Compared with Turton Malevol. I laud

Your passion, laud your learning and intent.

PETER WYNN

Impulsiveness and drive without design

I, vast as fundaments, put in distrust.

ELLA PENGE

I too. Call me no rhetoric. I work.

My company is thus. Join in with me.

PETER WYNN

I worked hardlong for Turton Malevol.

For all his pomp, his pride, his vanity.

He gripped my shining high ambitions into

Sherds of loss, of black dropped wincing loss.

I am not proud, I am not talkative.

Yet for the way that finds the future out

I care beyond all passion in the dawn.

I work, I care, I build, I dare; so, on.

ELLA PENGE

I want you in my business; join with me.

The pomp is not my purpose, but inside

The close long chase of building parts amidst

What's strewn and purposeless. Join in with me.

I ask not who you bring, or who you leave.

I seek to purpose right. Join in with me.

Build words, build words, and thence build purposes.

I once was in a wilderness, and there

I came on the beginnings of a path.

Some kind perceptive stranger had, for such

Others as me, made plain straight proper way

To where was more than mere more wilderness.

I still remember, there amidst all else,

That single signal kindness's delight.

You know your way, yet still you seek its path.

I offer it. And so, join in with me.

PETER WYNN

I am a searcher only. At the start

Often I know not what the whole way is.

I climbed a hill once on uncertain day

In bright clear expectation of wide view.

The long climb up was hard, down-looking work.

The twists and slips, with kicked stones tumbling off,

With few pauses for rest, it filled intent.

The mist kept close, and high beyond the trees

Where I had thought to contemplate afar,

I still saw nought but greys of playing shade.

I ceased the past inventions of my joy

And recompensed acceptance of close host.

The labour of my sweat hours was forsworn.

Yet in the peace of toil forgiveness came.

On upward to the disappointed top

I went. In mist unmapped the wilderness

Was blank undistant flatness to the eye.

No detail's pride outreached banality.

Chilled, disappointed, bored, I turned back down.

The day was sweat for miles, no splendour far.

My purpose now was just to valley home.

Yet then the gods of moments' alchemy

Shifted the winds, and wide on wings of gold

The cloud out scattered as off-bidden parts.

My capped eyes were unbounded and beheld

Submissive coasts and heights like monuments,

The far, delighted harbours and rich cities

Of sweet ease. I never vision saw

That vindicated more a labour long.

Now often when I toil I comprehend

Reward can come in unexpected end.

You'll give me freedom and facility?

ELLA PENGE

I will. In all.

PETER WYNN

You know well whom I leave;

You care not who I bring?

ELLA PENGE

I hear; I know;

Your choices I accept. Your choices are

Your high prerogative, if you will but

Your purpose in your work join in with me.

PETER WYNN

This thus I here accept. So I and mine,

As much as I can say, we join with you.

ELLA PENGE and PETER WYNN shake hands.

Exit ELLA PENGE and PETER WYNN.

5.6

Scene: the cheap rented premises.

Enter the NARRATOR.

Enter, at a remove, PETER WYNN and TOM LOT.

NARRATOR

Now Peter works for Ella Penge, and yet

Still for himself. He has no glinting lab

But on prefers cheap, rented premises.

Look closely though, you'll see less tape, no clips,

And now deliverymen bring Peter's timely

World-class packages. So levels lift

And Peter, undisturbed except when he

Permits his business handlers to disturb,

Protected and kept fine by Ella's own,

Makes progress better ever than before.

Long hours, black coffee; and researches soar.

The NARRATOR stands at a remove.

PETER WYNN and TOM LOT come to foreground.

PETER WYNN

Try this.

TOM LOT

I'll calibrate. Shall we try that?

PETER WYNN

Yes please.

TOM LOT

Look at that consequence up there.

PETER WYNN

Indeed, it interests. What does it tell?

TOM LOT

Our seeing number thirty-six confirms

Postulate ninety-four.

PETER WYNN

It does, it does.

TOM LOT

And so we learn.

PETER WYNN

I see what's going on.

An ASSISTANT enters, hands in a paper, then leaves without a word.

TOM LOT

Good Ella asks an update – when we deem

Convenient.

PETER WYNN

I'll call her office soon.

TOM LOT

She does not overween.

PETER WYNN

An honoured pact.

Come, seeing thirty-seven still plays

Rowdily with postulate eighteen. Load up

The rig again, and set the sensors clear.

PETER WYNN and TOM LOT stand at a remove.

The NARRATOR comes to foreground.

NARRATOR

A run of days, a run of nights and long

Experiments uncumbered with reports

Set postulates increasingly refined

In understood clear order. Then a time

Of poise and moment rises in design.

Tom Lot and Peter Wynn uncertainties

Clear over, and remove. What's left is truth,

Success, and – breathe not hard in case the frame

Shakes – the arising destined purpose of

Researches' long travails.

The NARRATOR stands at a remove.

PETER WYNN and TOM LOT come back to foreground.

PETER WYNN

One moment more!

I want to watch this last experiment.

TOM LOT

Call it not that! Tempt not disaster near!

Think so how many propositions we

Have tried -

PETER WYNN

Indeed, recalibrations and -

PETER WYNN and TOM LOT, together

A sacking!

TOM LOT

Both of us and of a lab.

PETER WYNN

Watch, watch!

TOM LOT

Already I am breathless, so -

PETER WYNN

Watch, watch!

TOM LOT

Did you see that?

PETER WYNN

It worked, I think.

Tap at your keyboard, check on postulate

Two hundred and eleven.

TOM LOT

It's nineteen,

Old postulate nineteen that bothers me.

PETER WYNN

Not it again. Not it again! Load up

The rig, break each big question into little

Steps, the tiny tests that build experiments.

TOM LOT

You run on long. It's done, it's done.

PETER WYNN

Clear of the rig?

TOM LOT

Confirm, clear of the rig.

PETER WYNN

I press the key, and so -

TOM LOT

We go again.

PETER WYNN

Did you see that? That reading?

TOM LOT

It's correct.

It did what we expected, if our postulates

Hold good.

PETER WYNN

Correct. Let's go again.

A proposition true repeats the same.

Clear of the rig?

TOM LOT

Confirm, clear of the rig.

PETER WYNN

I press the key, and so -

TOM LOT

It works again.

PETER WYNN and TOM LOT are impressed.

PETER WYNN

It works!

TOM LOT

It works!

PETER WYNN

Our long research -

PETER WYNN and TOM LOT, together

It works!

PETER WYNN

Try it again!

TOM LOT

The reading's strong!

PETER WYNN and TOM LOT, together

It works!

PETER WYNN and TOM LOT are excited.

PETER WYNN

It works!

TOM LOT

It works!

PETER WYNN

Our long research -

PETER WYNN and TOM LOT, together

It works!

PETER WYNN

Try it again!

TOM LOT

The reading's strong!

PETER WYNN and TOM LOT, together

It works!

Now PETER WYNN and TOM LOT are jubilant.

PETER WYNN

It works!

TOM LOT

It works!

PETER WYNN

Our long research -

PETER WYNN and TOM LOT, together

It works!

PETER WYNN

Try it again!

TOM LOT

The reading's strong!

PETER WYNN and TOM LOT, together

It works!

TOM LOT cavorts around the laboratory, in high excitement.

PETER WYNN jubilates and encourages him, but does not join.

Eventually, exit TOM LOT, still cavorting and jubilating.

PETER WYNN

I will not sleep tonight, yet won't ever

Regret one sleepless night of sweet delight.

This is the where that will be history.

A trice ago was but a trice ago,

But now the world is new. Time starts again.

The promise long expected is made good:

I carve fresh architecture for the universe,

I grow new worlds from specks alone.

The moment long expected can yet shock,

Long toil's success achieved take sudden toll.

Run on, run on, run on. New time runs on.

The NARRATOR applauds, then exits.

Then, slowly and separately, exit PETER WYNN.

5.7

Scene: the Malevol conglomerate's offices.

Enter the NARRATOR, DON UCKFIELD, THUGS.

NARRATOR

The hard plan for success exhaustion brings,

The eighteen hours of sleep after a week

With but two hours per night, the coffee month

That caps a year of labour and intent.

Once Peter wakes, the lab he now evades

To stroll and idle ordinary ways.

Dear Jill knows where he is, but no-one else.

The wing of risen glory slows down still.

This is now rest and roadless recompense.

But Peter is a man searched for, and thus,

The planless, he escapes where searchers watch.

DON UCKFIELD

Where is he? Never was there such a man

Connected to his work, his white coat and

Each morning following each yesterday.

THUG ONE

He's gone!

DON UCKFIELD

You depthless amateurs, he's not!

Look round again.

NARRATOR

Through hours eventually

The guys and gals persuade Don Uckfield to

Part credit that is Peter lost unseen.

DON UCKFIELD

There is no manner that a city hides

A man. A city is a menu built

With choices and all satisfactions that

A person's past, intents and appetites

Can beckon to. What food you like, I'll find

You where the restaurants provide. Where then

You like to go, I'll language from your past

To speak wherein tomorrow you'll attend.

Your lover from your phone records and friends

Is obvious, and no man lives on long

Alone, uncomprehended and untouched.

Your ways, your past, your appetites all tell

Unnew tomorrows from your history.

So find me Peter Wynn, we know -

THUG ONE

I have

Him! He switched on his phone to message Jill.

DON UCKFIELD

So GPS him, tell me where he is!

THUG ONE

He's at St Pancras railway terminus.

DON UCKFIELD

Two railway stations, metro and a hub;

Hotels and shops, and the cross-channel line.

How many ways, floors, exits, multitudes

Await a search with chaos recompense?

Does GPS get close?

THUG ONE

He's switched it off.

DON UCKFIELD

Our teams need to deploy, to get real sight.

On, on, to blacken Peter's day like night.

Exit all.

Scene: a large railway station.

Enter DON UCKFIELD and THUGS.

THUG ONE

All crowds and flow, we never searched thus such!

DON UCKFIELD

You depthless amateurs. Show me your skill!

There is no vast place that is not of ways.

There is no crowd that is not faces-full.

In each way place a watcher, circulate.

Into each face a checking glance account.

For each regard and passer, give me skill!

THUG ONE, aside

Is he the tall one or the short?

THUG TWO

Of whom?

THUG ONE

Of them, there, look, the two of them.

THUG TWO

That's him!

The taller one.

Enter the NARRATOR.

NARRATOR

After a time of care

When watchers everywhere for Don run free,

The teams locate where Peter trickles time.

He neither holds nor pours an onward rush.

Still he relaxes prize's aftermath.

Enter PETER WYNN.

PETER WYNN

Dog instinct! Were those faces watching me?

I no-one in a nowhere saunter here.

Dog instinct! These too many looks appear.

I am proclaimed; my face is targeted.

PETER WYNN begins to flee back and forth; THUGS pursue.

NARRATOR

So Peter runs. His watchers instantly

Begin the same, behaviours breaking guise.

A hidden purpose changing ways admit.

Yet normal places have their normal ways.

A railway station is for queues and days,

Career hours and the pass of suitcases.

A concourse is no battlefield, and so

No manhunt and armed violence belong.

Enter BYSTANDERS.

PETER WYNN

Call 999! O, help! Call 999!

NARRATOR

True fear conveys in ways no actor can.

The sudden person who foretells life's end

Looks horror and unusual in plain day.

PETER WYNN

Call 999! O, help! Call 999!

NARRATOR

This kind, shocked bystander we'll never know,

But by this call she conquers evil's toll.

Present only as a voice: an EMERGENCY SERVICES OPERATOR.

EMERGENCY SERVICES OPERATOR

Emergency. Which service do you need?

BYSTANDER ONE

Police, police; please hurry; yes, police!

PETER WYNN chases back and forth.

DON UCKFIELD, at a remove

The dog bites at the rabbit! Pick the prey.

We closed on him, we see him, run him down.

All snatchers here converge, now run him down.

Success; now run him down; here is success!

PETER WYNN is closed in upon, but not quite caught.

BYSTANDERS watch and complicate matters.

A police siren sounds.

Enter numerous POLICE OFFICERS.

In the following they round up DON UCKFIELD'S team, but do not notice DON UCKFIELD.

DON UCKFIELD

Oh, rage! Frustration in a turned blue light!

We cannot seize on Peter and escape;

Our capture this makes prospect suddenly.

BYSTANDER ONE

Them! They're the ones! That's right.

BYSTANDER TWO

Them! They're the ones!

POLICE OFFICER

No, stop! You'll not escape.

BYSTANDER ONE

Those there! They're more!

PETER WYNN exits, fleeing as fast as he dares without attracting atttention.

DON UCKFIELD, aside

So Peter goes! The hiss of failure I

Despise. And yet from here if I escape

Uncaptured that is helpful victory.

My gang of guys and gals is all cuffed up.

I'll keep stepping away, a bystander.

They all will be identified as ours,

The present-purposed team of Malevol's.

To prize his name away from perfidy

Off this will be to pluck height out of depth.

So Peter goes! I'll follow his design.

DON UCKFIELD also exits, fleeing, trying not to attract attention.

Exit all, in numerous directions and in disorder.

Scene: outside, many police vehicles.

Enter numerous POLICE OFFICERS, escorting THUGS.

Enter GITA LAKSHMI VANTARAM.

GITA LAKSHMI VANTARAM

To order sense from this disorder now

Is but a bagatelle, a whirligig.

Set toys lined out for children fully sweet.

I know not yet the plan, but subtlety

Is gone. No private space, but in the public

Sphere. No damage of just owned goods but

Extensive damage on the concourse here.

Best, best, clearest of all, no mystery

About who wrought indoors, but clear arrests

And, giving statements, witness bystanders.

A lot of people here conspiracy

Made their intention; and their one thing shared

From all that my arresting coppers tell

So far: they work for Turton Malevol.

I sense whereat conspiracy has head,

And my enquiry thereupon shall lead.

Mock never at police, mock never dare.

Lock up them all! That van's now full? Bring more!

Exit THUGS, each under the arrest of a POLICE OFFICER.

GITA LAKSHMI VANTARAM urges them all on

Exit GITA LAKSHMI VANTARAM, last.

5.8

Present:

In person, TURTON MALEVOL and DON UCKFIELD.

On screens, variously, JENNY CHENG and REPORTERS ONE, TWO and THREE.

Scene: TURTON MALEVOL'S office, with newsflow.

Against the wall are high banks of screens, with media and market news.

TURTON MALEVOL watches them.

REPORTER ONE

The story of the Malevol combine

Is long of glory, excellence and fame.

These charts show busy decades' share price rise,

Inevitable progress and prowess.

REPORTER TWO

New products have excited constantly.

New ventures expectation have amazed.

New markets have unbolted everywhere.

New followers gasped daily and admired.

REPORTER THREE

Fame burnished on an innovation tale.

Here daring after daring made great name

Of all that Anthony the founder

Turton did consider, venture and proclaim.

TURTON MALEVOL

Yes, yes. Yes, yes! I thank, respect and pride

Upon the honour long my family

From broad success and fame has justly won.

The ever echoes music to my ear

And lifelong sweeten all my everywhere.

There is no recollection but delight.

How wise you are, o morning screens! Forth, on.

Tell more, what glories paint the afternoon.

REPORTER ONE

This lively time is one of challenge now.

TURTON MALEVOL

Yes. Yes.

REPORTER TWO

A time that is complexity's,

Where winds upon the first past stillness blow.

TURTON MALEVOL

Yes. Yes.

REPORTER THREE

A time this is of watchful edge

And chance. The moments frisk and watch and pause,

What's bowing tribute, and what's threat, unclear.

TURTON MALEVOL

Yes, yes. This is the standard audience

Of opportunity for triumph's way.

I rise, I drive, I am the master here.

I champion, I grow, I overcome.

I stretch towards the painted firmament

Where all wherein imagination dares

At shining greatness beckons Turtons on.

My glory soars ongoing from the dawn.

JENNY CHENG

What tell we from the Turton history?

For in the grains that shimmer in the air

Some from the past fade grey and down away,

While only others rise with gold fire high.

The judgement of time, markets and the light

Is for long afternoon, not morning's sight.

The way of gain no longer seems as sure -

TURTON MALEVOL

No, no.

JENNY CHENG

The climb no more done subtly as

Before -

TURTON MALEVOL

No, no!

JENNY CHENG

No longer is as good

The leading judgment of the house -

TURTON MALEVOL

No! No!

Why say you this? All, all is well prepared.

All's well in my design unlimited.

My drive towards the future brings it near.

My vaunts and slogans capture eyes afar.

What more can screens and lines made up there show?

REPORTER ONE

Now time has turned destruction, loss and turmoil

In the Turton company.

REPORTER TWO

Ways change.

Facilities once key are now knocked off.

REPORTER THREE

Some central staff no longer stay in place.

TURTON MALEVOL

Why look at this? Cease feeble questioning.

These parts are not the core, the iron heart

Where my designs endure and pulse for great.

Look not upon where fat wastes circulate.

There will be better. I will make it so.

REPORTER ONE

As innovations slip, the rising way

Turns scrabbling to the desperation hold.

REPORTER TWO

Key ventures' promises have been delayed.

REPORTER THREE

Some core experiments have slowed and failed.

The confidence of experts, once intent,

Has broken to a curiosity.

TURTON MALEVOL

And what of that? The drive, my drive, goes on.

I manifold researchers daily grip,

All busy under twitching vigilance.

There is no talent that I have not bought,

No part of my intention that's not great.

DON UCKFIELD, gently

Sir, Malevol -

TURTON MALEVOL

Leave my design alone.

TURTON MALEVOL pushes DON UCKFIELD away.

REPORTER ONE

A failure management has loyalties

Surrendered -

TURTON MALEVOL

No!

REPORTER TWO

A turmoil change has -

TURTON MALEVOL

No!

REPORTER THREE

All guarantors of past success have moved.

TURTON MALEVOL

No, no!

JENNY CHENG

Too much is now unproven done.

TURTON MALEVOL

Why taunt you me like this? Kinetic rage!

No glory in the light is understood

As it in trusting darkness shows bright shine.

No height was ever by a critic built.

Long years of toil, of right, of legacy

Have brought me to this threshold excellence.

DON UCKFIELD

Sir, please -

TURTON MALEVOL

Not now -

DON UCKFIELD

Sir, please -

TURTON MALEVOL

Not here, not thus.

What wisdom ever came there from a screen?

Just images that guess lines up on charts;

Just questioners that ask impossibles;

Just summarisers potting ten in one

Regardless of the toil years of the nine.

I stand here forth, the representative,

Of all the billion's justice and design.

I lead a vast conglomerate, the lives

Of many, all their hopes and work I own.

The riches, fame, the witness map proclaim

My name, my birthright, great heredity.

How dare a screen, lines, pixels thence to doubt

All that is due to great work's majesty.

The screens show ELLA PENGE.

JENNY CHENG

Now Ella Penge, rival to Malevol,

Is rising with her company's renown.

All REPORTERS in unison

No vanity, but realms of diligence -

TURTON MALEVOL

Great rage, protect the manifest correct.

No pixels make thus idiocy true!

JENNY CHENG

She will proceed.

REPORTER ONE

She'll rise.

REPORTER TWO

He'll fail.

REPORTER THREE

He'll fall.

JENNY CHENG

She will proceed.

REPORTER ONE

She'll rise.

REPORTER TWO

He'll fail.

REPORTER THREE

He'll fall.

During the following, the screens shift between images of TURTON MALEVOL and ELLA PENGE, and share price lines.

Then they begin to show the lines developing, then crossing, with TURTON MALEVOL's falling hard.

TURTON MALEVOL

I laugh upon these idiocy words!

Like prophecies from tea bags, or the stars

That blot touched print in skinny newspapers.

Renown and justice counterbalance scorn!

The gilt bridge of my lifelong excellence

Rises above the slanders of screen lines.

Show no red dipping horror set for me;

My honour is the Turton company.

Show not a rival set for victory.

All greatness I envelop in my house.

No red end ever driven by outside

Permitted rivals to out-green my line!

And yet the red; and yet the red; why so;

Not Ella Penge -

The screens show images of ELLA PENGE and PETER WYNN collaborating.

TURTON MALEVOL

With Peter Wynn! Advantage!

Here game not on Turton Malevol.

JENNY CHENG

She'll rise.

REPORTER ONE

He'll fall.

JENNY CHENG and REPORTER ONE

She'll rise.

ENNY CHENG and REPORTERS ONE and TWO

He'll fall.

JENNY CHENG, REPORTERS ONE, TWO and THREE in unison

He'll fall,

He'll fall, he'll fall.

TURTON MALEVOL

No, never, never, no!

Great rage, protect me here with circumstance.

Give me ripostes in fire and ardour that

Equip me as deserves great company,

Equip me as deserves magnificence,

Equip me as deserve my ire's deserts.

How dare proclaimers slander dustily

The vaunt and firing vigour that I own!

Away! There is no other way. Away!

TURTON MALEVOL begins to smash the screens.

TURTON MALEVOL

Away!

DON UCKFIELD

Please Sir.

TURTON MALEVOL

Away!

DON UCKFIELD

Please Sir.

DON UCKFIELD exits, fleeing quietly, unwatched by TURTON MALEVOL.

TURTON MALEVOL continues to smash the screens.

TURTON MALEVOL

Away!

Exit TURTON MALEVOL.

6.1

Scene: ELLA PENGE's office.

Enter ELLA PENGE and KARIN STEUER.

ELLA PENGE

Sometimes a great adventure starts with pause.

KARIN STEUER

Is it then wrong?

ELLA PENGE

It certainly is not,

But pivot on these moments many worlds,

Ambitions, lives of labour and true trust.

Such are not pledged without considering.

My board, my shareholders, my loyal team -

KARIN STEUER

They all believe, they all accept -

ELLA PENGE

They do,

And in their trust proclaims my trust that I

Reciprocate their care.

KARIN STEUER

Shall we begin?

ELLA PENGE

You prompt right. I consider, then I go.

KARIN STEUER

The Turton share price now is record low.

With your supporter team, and your share price,

All the great weight and credit you can claim,

The market never will such give again.

ELLA PENGE

I know, and so. It's daunting to survey

What we from Peter Wynn's work will make way.

KARIN STEUER

He reassures, results are excellent.

ELLA PENGE

All value is with us, with Peter Wynn.

Without that is the Turton company

A gloried history, a sinking shell.

The markets know not yet, soon full they shall.

KARIN STEUER

Moreover this is progress for the world.

What Peter does will prize humanity

High clear from whole old orders of disease.

ELLA PENGE

Move on. Instruct the lawyers to begin.

A hostile takeover commotion makes.

KARIN STEUER

At its inception yet the lawyer teams

And brokerages have a straining load

Of keyboard work to do.

ELLA PENGE

Tell them, we go.

The world is but an atom in the frame

Of new design. To cure disease! This is

A noble thought, better than all cares spent,

The upward steps of an encouragement.

For business too this brings us excellence.

As summer proves the prospect of spring buds,

I'll make correct green lines upon the screens,

The forecasts that at now are best but guess.

Exit ELLA PENGE.

KARIN STEUER exits separately, making a phone call.

6.2

Scene: a plaza outside the hotel, between the hotel and offices.

Present: PETER WYNN, alone.

PETER WYNN

Love's wondrous sudden power is unmatched.

Life's pivot alters and all things are new.

I saw the world, I saw the morn, I thought

My steel ambition was the canopy

That outswept all the realms and histories.

My research was the reason in my life.

What need had I of love? Ambition was

My vessel, compass, calendar and all.

Enter JILL MAGNIFICA, unseen by PETER WYNN.

JILL MAGNIFICA, quietly.

He sees me not, yet speaks. I'll not disturb.

His least word now to me is music sweet.

PETER WYNN

The drive for questions' answers was my call.

Yet then came love, the unexpected trust,

The light that makes beforehand's all things less,

Exchanges of small private smiles that mark

A world of bliss, which the remainder world

Is gated from and which will never tell.

She in that precious space has rendered me

Completed, bettered, rounded and made right.

My once perfections now become miscast,

The glinting canopy becomes a toy

For gauche dropped reminiscence to abjure.

And so came love, the everything and time

That made sweet morning of the random day.

My world is now new hopes, new plans, new visions

And delight. What she prefers I change,

I will abjure and alter overnight.

There is no love that does not better pride.

There is no joy that is not at her side.

I know myself, and what engenders me.

I know what betters all, and that is she.

JILL MAGNIFICA approaches PETER WYNN.

He sees her, then stops speaking.

They kiss.

Then she speaks.

JILL MAGNIFICA

I love for what I saw, what I believe.

I seek not, as dropped pebbles that disrupt

Reflective pools, but rather as the dropped

Leaf whose arrival with a kiss floats on,

Allowing heaven's picture in the waters

To assume its beauty undisturbed.

Change not, therefore, the beauty that thou art;

Change not, my love, the beauty in my heart.

JILL MAGNIFICA and PETER WYNN kiss again.

Exit JILL MAGNIFICA.

PETER WYNN

I live; I love; they chased me; I escaped.

I'll feed my needs with chance and foraging.

My job ended; my purpose on endures.

A once choice, since regretted, is cast off.

The single light arisen from the din

Of multitude shows onward the climb up.

The scrabble of one footing lost thwarts not

The steady sweating rhythm of intent.

Show all the paintings of distraction in

A fluster of the day, and yet the year's

Work pacing onward knows ascent's allotted

Way. Thus I'll ignore irrelevance.

My plan is my mind's high design, not what

Others surmise or ignorance commands.

And I am loved herewith; and I am loved.

Exit PETER WYNN.

6.3

Scene: MALEVOL's office. A temporary bank of screens, on diffferent frames so it looks clearly a replacement set, takes the place of the array MALEVOL destroyed.

Enter the NARRATOR, at first alone.

NARRATOR

Look at the markets: it's a busy day.

The business sold most red is Malevol,

The vast conglomerate a worthless shell.

It still makes all the everythings of life;

Its products sit on every counter home.

Now though the silver twist that is desire,

The lover eye that sees arising high

What ordinary seems to all about,

Abandons in revulsion's dropping rush

What it before admired and fought to prize.

The Turton whole becomes a worthless box,

Value destroyed, all dreams of earnings lost.

The unit new created through research

By Peter Wynn with Ella sponsoring,

Like air drawn to a furnace in a roar,

Sucks all funds and attention from before.

The earnings of the future company

No shrewd eye with a notepad truly knows;

But bids are racers and bear not delay.

The share prices of Ella Penge soar green,

Their valuation guessed up like the moon.

Exit the NARRAOR.

Enter TURTON MALEVOL and DON UCKFIELD. They look at the screens.

DON UCKFIELD stands at a remove; TURTON MALEVOL is central.

When the screens light up, we see present in the newsflow JENNY CHENG and REPORTERS.

JENNY CHENG

The day starts fast amazingly.

TURTON MALEVOL

Yes, yes.

REPORTER ONE

The volumes moving on the market are

World high.

TURTON MALEVOL

Yes, yes.

JENNY CHENG

The value growth for Ella

Penge's company is bigger than

Here any known before.

REPORTER TWO

This intraday

Chart shows the rise: new high upon new high.

TURTON MALEVOL

No, no.

REPORTER THREE

It still goes up. More high, more high.

TURTON MALEVOL

No, no!

REPORTER ONE

Our experts forecast ever more!

TURTON MALEVOL

No, no!

JENNY CHENG

Let's look then at the red end of

The day. The business opened new for Ella

Penge had been expected long belonged

To Turton Malevol, and his share price

This morning like a binned thing has lost all.

This here's the chart.

REPORTER TWO

Top dropper -

TURTON MALEVOL

No, no, no!

REPORTER THREE

More drop.

REPORTER ONE

New low.

REPORTER TWO

More low.

REPORTER THREE

The shorts are out.

TURTON MALEVOL

No! No!

REPORTER ONE

Even more low.

TURTON MALEVOL

No, no, no, no!

REPORTER TWO

It's hard to see wherefrom recovery

Can come.

REPORTER THREE

The former assets gold now price

Like dustbin litter, set for scavenging.

JENNY CHENG

The volumes start to swing on other things.

So let's move on -

TURTON MALEVOL

No, no!

REPORTER ONE

In other news -

TURTON MALEVOL

This cannot be the end.

REPORTER TWO

In other news -

TURTON MALEVOL

No! No! No! No!

REPORTERS ONE and TWO in unison

The world has other news -

REPORTERS ONE, TWO and THREE in unison

Has other news -

TURTON MALEVOL

No! No!

JENNY CHENG, REPORTERS ONE, TWO and THREE in unison

Has other news!

The screens all go black. The newsflow ends. JENNY CHENG and the REPORTERS are now gone.

TURTON MALEVOL remains focused on the screens.

DON UCKFIELD, aside

For thirty years I have been loyal here,

The watcher for good Turton Anthony

Of his arising heir and company

Succession. From my first work day until

These weeks of rage and forced succession's time,

I never doubted, never paused my trust.

Reward, esteem and good continuance

Have been the balance of my loyalty.

But fissures here crack doubt into the sure.

I'll not pretend it's football any more.

Exit DON UCKFIELD.

Present: TURTON MALEVOL, alone.

TURTON MALEVOL

Why now do my intentions not prevail?

Was my success the con that wraps nothing

In emptiness and winks it's valuable?

These shifts now level boasts, and make old specks

New children's children's shining monuments.

Unwanted visions wake me from dark night.

The witness map now judges me, it sees

My own former intents all topple back

With last gilded connections not gripped fast.

The high bold tower of ambition turns

And totters into spreading multitude,

Of disrepute, blame, injury, that leaves

My wheres impaired. Oh, let me ease asleep.

Tomorrow is the day decider, that

Plies triumph and assigns oblivion.

They start together yet split infinite.

Which lot is mine? I know not. Yet I will.

Exit TURTON MALEVOL.

7.1

Scene: a country location, out of the way.

Enter PETER WYNN, JILL MAGNIFICA and a MINISTER OF RELIGION.

MINISTER

Do you each other now take, man and wife,

In all ways to hold true for evermore?

JILL MAGNIFICA

I do.

PETER WYNN

I do.

MINISTER

You may now kiss the bride.

JILL MAGNIFICA and PETER WYNN kiss.

MINISTER

O joy, all's sweet beginning, o delight.

You here on life's first pedestal rise up

To bless increase upon the morn. May hence

Your every morrow be improvement and

Bright sweet rich excellence. But pause a trice!

On this, life's happiest departure, why

Come you alone, unfriended, small and still?

Why celebrate you not magnificence?

Your joy sings celebration worth report.

PETER WYNN

You speak true, honest Minister, yet this

Our love needs no regard, no public light.

Two hearts, now one forever, do suffice.

This little is all preparation's need

To make ripe blushing August from what was

An unstill March, of buds and frosts unlike

Combined. Our lives present a context tugged

With knots and toils and consequence, that wall

In harried echoes the sweet music of

Delight. Yet inward are no silences.

If truth has just a whisper, let it sound.

If righteousness has choirs of life, then let

Them herewith sound. If all the joys that ever

Were, each every love, each every pride,

If all the pleasures any person ever

Felt have voice as one together, let

Them sound. My love sings here the more, not mere

The equal of these all that ever were.

JILL MAGNIFICA

Good man, good truth, good Minister; see here

Wherefore I married him! I never knew

Such joy.

MINISTER

Well, then. I cherish so this time.

Exit PETER WYNN, JILL MAGNIFICA and the MINISTER OF RELIGION.

Enter the NARRATOR.

NARRATOR

A sound togetherness Peter and Jill

Have found, in which they've learned each other well.

The caring patience that a strong love makes

Will frame for them a future of the best.

If that is love, what now of companies,

Of fortune, vaunts and reaching rivalry?

Our forces are aligned and at extreme;

The pendulum turns trembling at swing's end.

Now wrath and peradventure stand arrayed

Uncertainly against the showing sun

Of righteousness and restitution's own.

The Ella Penge conglomerate grows strong;

And Malevol's is vast, sells well, is blown.

Tom Lot and Peter Wynn bask fair renown,

Their progress paid, assured and honoured long.

Amongst the sick, new cures rid old disease.

How then brings culmination to the day?

Must culmination come? In love? In death?

A conquest? Battle, journeys, banishment?

It must. This is the time for right deserts.

This is the time wherein the evil yield.

This is the time wherein the just arise.

Come, culmination, come! Hold not away.

Make light of all things blackness in this day!

Exit the NARRATOR.

7.2

Scene: TV newsflow.

Present: JENNY CHENG and REPORTERS.

JENNY CHENG

The price of Ella Penge's company

Soars on, new share price highs alert each checker

Time. The buying strength this gives her is

Beyond most countries' recompense, and all

The businesses she anywhere desires

Are hers if she but mouthes intent on them.

REPORTER ONE

She's buying Turton Malevol, we know.

REPORTER TWO

The volumes bought blur all percentages

Faster than screens or rulebook keepers catch.

REPORTER THREE

What does she own? Is it a formal bid?

REPORTER ONE

Three funds have sold off all their Malevol.

REPORTER TWO

The rating's down, the futures tumble too.

REPORTER THREE

Another major house, another fund

Its block of Malevol sells Ella Penge.

REPORTER ONE

What's left?

REPORTER TWO

It's forty-nine, it's forty-nine.

REPORTER THREE

The ownership is tipping on new line.

REPORTER ONE

It's forty-eight -

REPORTER TWO

It's fifty -

REPORTER THREE

Forty-nine -

JENNY CHENG

The spokesperson for Ella Penge -

REPORTERS ONE, TWO and THREE in unison

It's won!

ELLA PENGE enters the newsflow; JENNY CHENG remains; the other REPORTERS go off.

JENNY CHENG

My name is Jenny Cheng, First Channel News,

With Ella Penge. Today your company

Bought its once rival, Turton Malevol.

ELLA PENGE

We did, we did. I welcome the new team,

Whose work and products long have worthied fame.

But that beyond, today our company

In innovation frames new destinies,

Our great researchers raise humanity.

This is the heart of our advance and growth,

Not takeover of Turton Malevol.

I praise where most progresses relevance.

Exit JENNY CHENG and ELLA PENGE.

Scene: DON UCKFIELD in an office.

Enter DON UCKFIELD.

DON UCKFIELD watches TV coverage continuing.

DON UCKFIELD

This day, this place, sees change's parapet.

The habits of before now shatter, spent.

DON UCKFIELD makes a phone call.

DON UCKFIELD

Peter? This is Don Uckfield here.

Exit DON UCKFIELD.

Scene: an outdoor plaza between office buildings.

Enter PETER WYNN.

PETER WYNN, answering the phone

Yes, Don.

Your call is timely, and of consequence.

Together let us speak more and align.

PETER WYNN ends the call and hangs up.

PETER WYNN, soliloquising

The future is a race where visions run

In contests of determination's own.

The reaching sun, the closing rain, the curve

Of winding progress, which will frame the white

Great entrance to where beckons consequence.

A cup to sate thirst in dry wilderness

Is treasure, pleasure, golden wonderment.

A vision unsucceeded is a drop

Of water in a harbour, that one moment

Turns to multitudes and no return.

Where is the entrance to great consequence?

Where is the place that waters on flow well?

I gave long labour years to Malevol

But Ella Penge succeeds my iron will.

The world is bettered by the work's success.

The past is a reflection, and it stays

In the recall and learning of us all.

Yet to the child the parent's early time

Is, like a genesis, obscure and far.

Dwell not. The race is going. So, run on.

My life is thought, research and questioning;

A love has made me stronger, and I know

The rending choice: to posit still like marble

On a hilltop or to agitate

Like water droplets on a hot iron plate.

My will is mighty; what of it becomes?

Now is the signal time, the muster of

The forces that foment great victory.

This prospect is the crucible, where vision,

Vim and righteousness all must collect

To drive the parts of prospect into

Unified success. Come, ready sinews, come.

We have the science, have the people, now

The company. Come, culmination, come!

Through consequence's great gate now we run;

The waters of the mending world flow on.

Exit PETER WYNN.

7.3

Scene: Malevol's conglomerate's research facility.

Enter the NARRATOR.

NARRATOR

Now Turton Malevol has lost all his

Array, his job, the company that bears

His name. He drifts like someone made a ghost

Before his life's first purpose was turned done.

In midnight now he walks the factory

Alone, unsettled, endless and unwon.

Exit the NARRATOR.

Enter TURTON MALEVOL.

TURTON MALEVOL

A place can be an echo and regret.

Proud times have passed but circumstances stay.

These complexes have been my scenery

Yet now their shadows taunt me and rebuke.

Do things that I would differently have done

Arise like inspiration, not cast dust?

To firefly into vigorous intent?

To make tomorrows out of yesterdays

Is each thrust rising morning's confidence;

But now the dust and echoes black my fire.

What can I do? Imagination here

Brings me husklike regret, not tributary

Flame. These complexes abandoned lie

Not oiled for action but a catch of dusts.

I hear connections tick and monitors

Parade small lights reporting processes.

This is but fraction of the teeming loud

That previously stretched the space's breath.

The midnight ghosts now brood here on the past

More than the plant runs out prosperity.

Look on those screens. It was their poll and tell,

The market, that passed all this off from me.

Enter PETER WYNN, DON UCKFIELD, THUGS and TOM LOT.

PETER WYNN

Greeting! Hello there, Turton Malevol.

You walk unsure where once went majesty.

TURTON MALEVOL

Good evening, Peter. Nothing answers that.

I here survey the systems and extents.

TOM LOT

The business of the steady factory,

And its spark-edged researcher work, goes on.

The plant is vast, its goods' range vast, its staff

Within the daylight vast, as seas that hold

More waves than any counter ever told.

The share price fall will roll to rise back more.

TURTON MALEVOL

Talk not of that, my destiny forsworn

For the casino chance of what will turn.

PETER WYNN

Let's talk of science, real things, processes.

You hear the fluxes, see the monitors.

These ready rhythm in the year's work frame.

Attendants in white coats do constantly

Assuage its mysteries and stay its pace.

Where bursts and passions might tomorrow come,

These monkish experts data lines refine

And through timed small improvements balance right

The whole's result flow. Thus calamity

Is everywhere and always future day,

Yet never comes it diary today.

Or thus things were. You threw me out. Tom Lot

As well. These screen readings proclaim annoyed

That who instead gardened the danger fare

Knew not their business, and were amateur.

TURTON MALEVOL

I set our best researchers to the task.

PETER WYNN

Congratulations. This screen tells me here

The plant's survival is less than an hour.

Key processes neglected have in their

Results set up a soon catastrophe.

TURTON MALEVOL

I set our best remainders to the task.

PETER WYNN

Remainder now is your inheritance.

Yours, Ella's, mine? How complex the design.

TURTON MALEVOL

This I created, this I entertained.

A world of ways and ventures I proclaimed.

I gave you in the world of all research

The greatest rig, exploratory years,

The rungs towards the sunlight that you now

Frame majesty.

PETER WYNN

Congratulations. So,

I thank you for your heart part in the work.

TOM LOT

Please, Peter, please.

DON UCKFIELD

Indeed, no anger here.

I thirty years aimed most this to the best.

PETER WYNN

I'll follow old example. Students learn

Not just from books and sages, but in all

The rolling hours, the thoughts long turned, the things

In others' paces seen turn well and ill.

Some ends repel, and others golden call.

Here know you what to do? I'll press advice.

That reading there? Keep it above the red.

That input vessel there? Recharge it first.

The flow rate on that centrifuge, the glow

On those four far reagent rods, they all

Need turned.

TURTON MALEVOL

Or chaos comes?

PETER WYNN

A chaos blast.

TOM LOT

He complicates.

PETER WYNN

I do. Arrays are set.

If you but rightly tap the order boards,

The processors will balance and reframe

Good semblance onto all these elements.

But if not, then destruction here brings doom.

TURTON MALEVOL

Guys, gals, Don Uckfield? Do you look at me?

Am I appointed to doom's crucible?

PETER WYNN

Remember you the lesson you teach oft?

You taught it with a liking unto me.

So will you run? This is your time trial.

Each pace, each trice, averts calamity.

For in the steady seconds of the clock

Advance the horror and the beauty way

In life alike. Which there we choose is for

Each one of us not culmination but

The regular. You chose; I chose; and so

From a joined way until nigh recently

Towards improvement, now calamity

Will soon explode at you, and I am free.

Run on. Run now. This is your time trial.

A first vessel bursts into flame.

TURTON MALEVOL is shocked, and tries looking at a keyboard and screen, seeking to understand what needs to be done.

TURTON MALEVOL

I do, I do; I know not what I do.

Another part of the complex makes a rending sound, and emits fumes.

Throughout the following, TURTON MALEVOL runs around tapping at keyboards, in agitation, but unsure.

TURTON MALEVOL

Help me! O people, all! Researchers, all

My people! Staff, friends! Don! O, anyone!

A part of machinery collapses.

The THUGS look uneasy; DON UCKFIELD signals them to stand fast.

TURTON MALEVOL

If not from your obedience, your love,

Your duty, long years' friendship, fellowship?

What can I give? My people, Don, tell me

What can I give?

PETER WYNN

You own no anything.

A server cabinet bursts into flame.

TOM LOT looks uneasy; PETER WYNN signals him to stand fast.

PETER WYNN, TOM LOT, DON UCKFIELD and the THUGS all now start to back away from TURTON MALEVOL.

TURTON MALEVOL

A share, reward, great promise, all I have,

My all, my each, my past, my anything!

My anything, my all of anything!

O powers! O abandonment and pain!

TURTON MALEVOL continues to try to act, in agitation but unsure.

He begins to be hurt.

The damage to the scene becomes extensive.

PETER WYNN, to TOM LOT and DON UCKFIELD

We go to otherwheres; there's other work.

With other rigs, all is replaceable.

Exit PETER WYNN and TOM LOT.

DON UCKFIELD signals the THUGS.

Exit DON UCKFIELD, with the THUGS following.

TURTON MALEVOL collapses.

Fade to black.

8.1

Scene: a corridor outside the main space of Malevol's conglomerate's research facility.

There is the light and sound of fire and destruction close by.

Enter TURTON MALEVOL.

TURTON MALEVOL

O poverty; o failure; o regret.

Humiliation in a corridor.

I forced, I squandered long, I did not love.

My sister too did marry Peter Wynn.

To find voice late is purgatory's way.

The shadows of regret come to interrogate:

What can I say? That I am but

A man; a man who drove but could not love,

A man whose dream could rise but could not fly,

Who shouted out but could not look within.

There was no north, south, east or west that could

Out-compass my design. And what of that?

What is there now? If but the echo of

A nothing, on a breeze from far away?

I find myself a hell of cleansing fire;

And what the future; if the future; who?

Fire spreads around.

TURTON MALEVOL collapses.

There is the sound of police sirens.

Fade to black.

Scene: outside Malevol's conglomerate's facility.

Present: GITA LAKSHMI VANTARAM, JENNY CHENG and POLICE OFFICERS.

The POLICE OFFICERS busy in the background, restoring order.

JENNY CHENG

Gita, what's inside there?

GITA LAKSHMI VANTARAM

We barely know,

Though I surmise a theatre of pain,

Hate, envy, love, ambition, rivalry -

JENNY CHENG

You list on long! Is here no criminal,

No villain to arrest in cuffs and court

Before the judge of penalties and truth?

GITA LAKSHMI VANTARAM

News needs a tale; a court needs evidence.

I know this place great rights and greater wrongs

Contains. I know there here is excellence

And evil deeper than the bottom sea.

The heart of all is Turton Malevol;

We look for him but yet resultlessly.

We'll dustpan up the pieces as we ought;

The lawyers may say all is as it should,

Again a thing of private property.

JENNY CHENG

Do you believe this?

GITA LAKSHMI VANTARAM

No. I watch the news!

Exit GITA LAKSHMI VANTARAM, JENNY CHENG and POLICE OFFICERS.

8.2

Scene: a hotel lounge.

Present: PETER WYNN and JILL MAGNIFICA.

PETER WYNN

Togetherness is the most happy end.

Wrongs righted, and right people set to thrive.

What matters else? There's much for ponderment,

With costs, loss, pains strewn far and randomly.

JILL MAGNIFICA

So will you put this into poetry?

PETER WYNN

I end with you.

JILL MAGNIFICA

I end with you.

PETER WYNN

I know

No words to poetry how I now feel,

The peace, the change, the ease, the happiness.

My research is conclusion, and I love.

The steep path soars to whence it sees all wheres.

JILL MAGNIFICA

You end these days renowned, rich, powerful.

PETER WYNN

Those ends were not designed. I end with you,

Alongside my research's happy fruit,

Was all the consequence I sought.

JILL MAGNIFICA

I too.

PETER WYNN and JILL MAGNIFICA kiss.

Exit PETER WYNN and JILL MAGNIFICA.

Enter the NARRATOR.

Not just their end, but this our end is too.

In wordflow bold our story of two hours

Has syllabled past love and rivalry,

Past potentates brought low, a marriage, crimes

More manifold than judges gavel at,

And science-wrought advantage for the good

Of humankind. If wordflow rises well

You laughed, sighed and admired occasionally.

Forgive in creedent generosity

The stumbles of the poetry trainee.

Let from the figures of the platform come

Forth good intentions, virtue, love and trust,

Respect and merit for what earns it most.

If to this humble offer you consent,

With this in shining thanks our play is spent.

Exit the NARRATOR.

