Act Three

ACT THREE

SCENE ONE

This scene opens when Scout returns to the camp of the Originals with Baby Wildflower.              Everyone comes running to welcome Scout and are amazed at the child with him.

CONSTANCE

 (with awe, taking the child) Where did you get a baby?

SCOUT

It’s mine.

     The whole group gasps and murmurs.

CONSTANCE  

Yours?  But?  huh?

SCOUT

Her mother is a computer. Her name is BABY WILDFLOWER… she is one of us now… this will take the village!

CONSTANCE

(Indignant.) You screwed a computer? (Almost throwing the baby back in Scouts arms.)

SCOUT

That’s one way to put it.

     Constance turns, falls to her knees and begins to cry.

                  (FIX THIS…at some point Scout explains how he got the code)

SCOUT

4 days ago, Conception had a malfunction in her 741 op-amp bank, she knew what was wrong, but I talked her into letting me fix it!  I told her I’d spent time in trouble-shooting and I could do this!  She agreed, I told her I’d have to power her down, she agreed, and after she was off, I downloaded the code we needed to finish the analyzing-light, replace the 741 and powered her back up.

CHISHOLM BOB

Unbelievable, brilliant…

SCOUT

But wait,  after she was back on, she had this odd look on her face.  She looked me square in the face and said, “I know what you just did, do you think I’m an idiot?  You can’t pull that shit around here!”

I thought that would be our demise, but all the sudden, a look of compassion came over her and she whispered, “all things must pass…”

CONSTANCE

What did she mean by that?

CHISHOLM BOB  

Who’s to say…

SCOUT  

And now this child?

SCENE TWO

 Here we see Baby Wildflower as a grown young woman in all her beauty and intellectual             form.  She has stolen away to try and get a glimpse of her mother.  She is standing in a                crowd of humanoids watching from afar as her mother directs all the goings on around her.

     Singing as they work.

SONG

 At the end oof song, we see Conception make eye contact with Baby Wildflower but then turns and goes about her business….

SCENE THREE

The final scene is set in the camp of the Originals seven years after the night Scout and Conception last saw each other, the night Baby Wildflower was born.  Sitting by the campfire all alone is Principal Pa.  He is smoking and is in a worn costume.  Far back stage left is Standing Wave at the radio and an Original beside him drumming. Enter Baby Wildflower and sit at PRINCIPAL PA’s knee…

BABY WILDFLOWER 

Grandpa, tell me again the story of how we got here, the one about the Tiny Webblers Three…

PRINCIPAL PA

I no longer see the point of telling stories…  it has come to nothing

BABY WILDFLOWER

But without your tellings, I would no nothing of this world and my place in it

PRINCIPAL PA

For you this one last time.

BABY WILDFLOWER 

Oh….

PRINCIPAL PA

     PRINCIPAL PA here tells an allegory.

PRINCIPAL PA 

Raising to his feet singing and dancing in a trance, then in an angry voice to the sky.  

You can’t do this to us!  You just can’t let us pass away into nothingness.  We lost another Original last night. You know how many human beings are left down here on this  God forsaken world?  You got more fingers and toes than you got people… What’s the point?  In the beginning there was only You.. remember?  And now it’s going to be just you and those tin dolls.  You could have skipped the middle men and just made tin dolls to start with… you could have done this without us… why did you put us through this?  For what reason?   We’re at the point where we can barely feel anything from all the hurt we’ve suffered and yet computers are learning to feel and there’s a mother of a computer out there that I bet cries every night, longing for her child…  We are all but done reproducing and a computer gave birth…  (Yelling) I DON’T GET IT!!!

SONG

Set all God’s Children Free

And here we are (PRINCIPAL PA walks over to where Standing Wave is and kicks the radio out of his hands) waiting for a message from you Oh Great Spirit…  We’ll be sitting here till our bones turn to dust and there’s no signal, no secret message… and you know why?  Cause there isn’t any secret message, there isn’t any Great Spirit in the sky… It’s all a fucking joke … but it’s not funny!

But I’ll make you deal Oh Great Spirit in the sky… we are going to fire the analyzing light tonight with or without a signal from you… if it works we win you win, if it doesn’t work then you and I will be relegated to the dust bin of time, never to be heard from again… the machine wins…!

BABY WILDFLOWER  

PRINCIPAL PA, the scouting party isn’t back yet.  I’m starting to get a little worried.

PRINCIPAL PA 

Let’s give them another hour and if they still aren’t back we’ll send someone after them.  Come here granddaughter, (Chief puts his arm around Wildflower) You know how proud I am of you.  Your brilliance has amazed everyone, and I the old man is indebted to you our youthful last hope .  If it wasn’t for you the analyzing light might still be count less years away from being finished, but now here it is ready!  Your ability to figure out problems and write code  and work out formulas is haunting, to say the least… I guess that’s your mother in you.

BABY WILDFLOWER 

But I will fail one way or the other… if she lives, I’ve failed you and all the remaining Originals.. and if she dies here tonight at Starville, then I loose…  I loose the mother I’ve longed to know, and to perhaps love… and maybe if this thing works I’ll be affected as well.. and then you’ll be without a granddaughter… no one wins here tonight… Father says that she is a loving caring woman, even if she is a computer… all these years and she has told no one… my heart breaks for her!

SONG 

Duet: Someone’s Mom Will Die at Starville

PRINCIPAL PA

Many’s the years she’s know of us and said nothing to her kind, who would surely destroy us if they knew we existed.  It’s not fair, her life in trade for our freedom.  And your father has to know that his daughter has been so instrumental in the delight and construction of the very instrument that will take his daughters mothers life, and maybe even his daughters.

STANDING WAVE  

(Yelling)  I’ve got something!  (He turns the dials and moves the antenna around)  (We hear the drum solo  from In-A-Godda-Da-Vida  as it finally returns to earth and all the Original dance here.) (as the signal fades)

STANDING WAVE

yells: it’s fading, Im losing the signal…

Just then one of the Originals run on stage yelling:  They’re coming,  they’ve captured O’Reilly…  They know he’s human… They’ve got him and they’re headed this way, they know!  Run!!!  

Wildflower runs off stage…

CHISHOLM BOB  

gather all the women, children and idiots.  Get everybody back here to camp and circle the wagons.  We’ll all stand together and face them, face our fate… someone get the analyzing light…

ORIGINAL 1

     (Runs off and returns empty handed)  The light is gone!

SCOUT

It can’t be, I was just checking it a few minutes ago… it has to be there!

ORIGINAL 1 

Well it’s not there… go look for yourself. It’s not in its holster!

PRINCIPAL PA 

Shit, I guess we’ll have to run for it… Everybody remember the emergency plan.. try to keep in touch with your emergency partners…   

But before anyone can leave the computer police come in from all sides with O’Reilly who is struggling, whom they throw in with the other Originals…  They have them all surrounded.

COMPUTER POLICE 1  

Alright, everybody stay right where you are.  One false move and you’re all gunners.  We’ve got you surrounded.  Watch these sneaky  Originals close boys!

COMPUTER POLICE 2

Well Partners, whadda we have here?  A whole tribe of bloody Originals. Don’t you Originals know you’re not supposed to be here?  You all are supposed to be dead and gone.  I haven’t seen any of you Originals for over 150 years.  But you know what, I still know what I’m supposed to do if I catch any of you bloody Originals trying to steel our horses …!  I’m to destroy ya all.  So prepare yourselves for that great buffalo ground in the sky…  Policemen, start your pistols.

With that command all the other computer police raise their hands with futuristic looking guns and wait for the order to shoot.

     Just then BABY WILDFLOWER enters caring the analyzing light.

BABY WILDFLOWER

Hold it right there!  Don’t move any of you and don’t fire those guns!  And I mean business!

     With that the police stop and look at BABY WILDFLOWER.

BABY WILDFLOWER 

Listen to me… I’m a computer just like the rest of you guys and you can’t hurt me with those toys of yours, but be assured that I’ll kick your asses with this little baby of mine!  So back off…

COMPUTER POLICE 2  

You’re bluffing… what do you mean a computer?  I’ve never seen your type before in my life!  So who are you trying to kid, kid?

As he is speaking, onto the stage come a few more computers lead by Conception.  Looking frightened Conception makes her way to the head policeman and gives him the order.

CONCEPTION  

Hold everything until I say… (looking at the second police) You know who I am? (he shakes his head yes)  Good!

Now Conception starts looking amongst the crowd.  By this time Scout see her and comes forward to meet her.  He comes face to face with Conception who looks exactly as she did when they last saw each other, but Scout look so much older and Conception hardly recognizes him.  She looks him straight in the eyes …

CONCEPTION  

Scout?

SCOUT

Yes, it’s me… I’ve aged, you have not!

CONCEPTION  

SCOUT!!! (she throws her arms around him and gives him a huge hug.

Seeing all this, BABY WILDFLOWER of course recognizes her mother… amazed she walks towards the two.

Scout

(Turning CONCEPTION towards BABY WILDFLOWER and says) This is your daughter!

BABY WILDFLOWER 

(to her father) I know this beautiful woman to be my mother?  The computer that feels?

SCOUT

(shaking his head) Yes my dear, this is she…

BABY WILDFLOWER

She is amazing!

CONCEPTION

(to Scout) Has she been a good daughter?

SCOUT  

She has been all I could have asked for and more, much much more.

BABY WILDFLOWER

(to her father)  This is the computer that loved you so much that she never told the rest of the world there were still Originals alive and thriving somewhere.

SCOUT  

Yes, yes she is.

CONCEPTION  

(to Scout)  This is the child I gave birth to and life to and who fed from my breast… and who I named Wildflower?

SCOUT

Yes, yes she is.

Now the stage lights spot on only Conception and Wildflower and with that Conception opens her arms to Wildflower and calls out her name.

CONCEPTION  

Wildflower, my dear, my baby…

BABY WILDFLOWER  

MOTHER!!!!

Wildflower but mother, who will I have to love in this crazy world there’s no one for me

Concepcion, I thought the same thing I thought there would never be anyone for me, but now there is your father and there is you.

The bible said…Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says.

If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church… what are we to do with that???

“Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise—

Should we think love and longing are one and the same?

I want more than anything a hug from my/a daughter…

Mother I always wanted to know something.  Did you ever want or need a hug?  And I a hug from a mother I’ve never known….

We need a church choir or gagorian chant type song angelic…

Trust not your daughter’s minds By what you see them act.  -Shakspeare

Face to face they engage:  in the song and dance of mother and child….

  (Add here the long heartfelt dialog and song )

SONG

Don’t call me out in this

As Baby Wildflower drops the light, she and Conception run for each other to embrace.  When the light falls, both the police and the Originals jump for the light and fight for it.  There is a large flash of light on stage… the analyzing light has gone off…

THE END