ACT 1
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Scene 3
(JUDY enters, consulting a tablet. JUDY is a tech dev: dry, serious, with occasional outbursts of hysterical anger. PUNCH and JUDY wear black slacks and black turtlenecks. PUNCH is a tech dev, a cheerfully hyperactive, motormouth genius who bounces off the walls.
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JUDY
This is good. Yes. Good numbers. Good. Very good...Metrics...are within the expected parameters. Good good good.
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PUNCH
(Bouncing in.)
Judy! Hey Judy! Judy, Judy, JUDY.
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JUDY
Things appear to be in order.
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PUNCH
Listen. Judy! Hey listen! I got a game idea! Check it out!
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JUDY
Are you monitoring the localized response stack? Where’s your tablet?
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PUNCH
I don’t know, check it out, I got a game idea, but it’s not about a toaster. I’m over toasters. Toasters are obsolete pieces of antiquated filth. No, you play as a BABY!
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JUDY
Ok. Great. Where’s your tablet?
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PUNCH
I don’t know. You play as a baby, an infant human, that’s raised by, by machines. And it’s a capitalist dystopia, like The Jungle Book impregnated the Jetsons, but without all the casual racism.
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JUDY
That sounds terrible. Go get your tablet. I’ll check the stack.
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PUNCH
(exits doing finger guns)
Right, right, right...riiiiiiight. And instead of learning a human language you learn to speak in binary. Or javascript.
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JUDY
And...yes. Stack is normal...Server load optimal. Ok. What is this? “Generating folder.” What folder? Where? Registry overflow?
(calling off to PUNCH)
Punch! What is this registry overflow folder? What’s in here? Another folder called registry overflow...
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PUNCH
(leaping onstage)
Liturgical dance! You’re, you’re, you’re a baby raised by robots that communicates through liturgical dance!
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JUDY
More folders! Folders inside of folders! Where are they coming from?
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PUNCH
I don’t know and when you finally meet other organic lifeforms they frighten and confuse you, because you prefer the company of machines! Yeah!
(karate kicks)
WaaZaa! Like Woodrow! Hahaha! You get it? You prefer the company of machines, like Woodrow. You get it?
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JUDY
It’s folders all the way down! Folders inside of folders inside of folders! Why is it doing this?!
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PUNCH
I don’t know, Woodrow thing is hysterical right? Hold on. I’ll get my tablet.
(runs off)
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JUDY
(building to a screaming rage)
Here it is! It’s coming from this line of code! It’s got to be here! But why is it generating folders?! Hey! Idiot! Why are you making folders!? Why!? WHY!? WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS!? WHY DO YOU TORMENT ME!? EVERYTHING IS SCREWED!!! AAAAAAAAGGGGGHHH!!!
(perfectly calm)
Oh. It’s missing a bracket. There we go.
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PUNCH
(enters with tablet)
No no no no no. It’s gotta be a toaster. The baby idea is busted. And the toaster is based. Unngh.
(does the white man’s overbite)
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JUDY
It's alright. I fixed the folder fiasco.
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PUNCH
What folder? Hey! Would you rather be a stupid, illiterate baby or a French philosopher trapped in the body of a toaster?
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JUDY
Neither. Are you ready for the presentation?
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PUNCH
I don’t know, but the baby is the right answer. Toasters are dead to me.
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JUDY
GET IT TOGETHER!!
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PUNCH
Whoa!
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JUDY
WE ARE NOT GAME DEVELOPERS!!! THE INVESTORS ARE NOT HERE FOR A GAME PITCH!!! YOU NEED TO CALM DOWN!!!
(calmly)
We need to present ourselves in the best possible light.
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PUNCH
Just like Woodrow, am I right?! Craaaaaazy Woodrow!
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JUDY
(retrieving: lab coats, glasses and lanyards.)
Wear this. We need to look the part.
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PUNCH
I don’t need glasses, I got my vision corrected. I have the eyes of a ten year old boy, and he can’t have’em back. Woooooo!
(plays air guitar)
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JUDY
They're just frames without lenses. It’s a costume, Punch.
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PUNCH
Coooooool. What for?
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JUDY
For the presentation. Statistics say that investors find a presenter thirteen percent more reliable if they’re dressed as a scientist.
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PUNCH
Oh yeah! Look at me! I am a science person!
(striking various “smart person” poses)
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JUDY
Ok. We’re set. The program is humming along. Investors will be here shortly. We’re ready to show’em what we got.
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PUNCH
Hahaha! Just like Woodrow! High Five!
(JUDY doesn’t high five.)
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JUDY
WHY DO YOU KEEP SAYING WOODROW!?!
(calmly)
Who is this Woodrow?
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PUNCH
Our, our, our, the lawyer!!
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JUDY
The lawyer? Our legal counsel? Is his name Woodrow?
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PUNCH
Yeah yeah yeah! Oh no! NO! You didn’t open that email did you? You didn’t open it!!
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JUDY
What are you talking about?!
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PUNCH
(pulling up an email on the tablet)
Oh my god! OH! MY! Gourd! You’ve got to see this! Here here here! Look here!
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JUDY
OH MY GOD!
(recoiling in disgust)
Uggh! Why are you showing me that!? What is that!?
(looks at the tablet again)
Ahhh! Why did I look a second time!? Who is that!? Why are they naked!? Is that Woodrow!?
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PUNCH
(laughing)
Uh huh! Yeah yeah yeah!
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JUDY
(looking at the tablet again)
Why do you have this on your tablet?! Good lord! That’s disgusting!
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PUNCH
(laughing)
I know, I know, I know! You have it on your tablet too!!!
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JUDY
What!!! Why?!?
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PUNCH
It went out to everybody! I mean Ev. Ree. Body. It’s so embarrassing!!!
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JUDY
Good lord! It is Woodrow! Why would he send these out?!
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PUNCH
He didn’t send them out! That’s the most embarrassing part! A bot sent these out! He got catfished! But not even by a real person! A bot did this! A freaking scambot! He thought he was chatting up some fifty year old hausfrau, but it was a bot the whole time! Just a bot sending Woodrow nude photos of some random suburban grandma, begging him to reciprocate, AND. HE. DID! BOOM! It hits him with the blackmail racket!!! Ka-POW!
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JUDY
He’s like eighty years old! What was he thinking!?
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PUNCH
There’s no expiration date on loneliness, Judy...It’s, it’s, it’s three years ago when this started. Old timer’s been paying hush money to a bot for three years! He’s six figures deep!
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JUDY
He’s our cyber law expert! And he fell for a cyber scam?!
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PUNCH
That’s the most embarrassing part! Grandpappy Woodrow sexting with a ransom bot! He misses a couple payments and out go the centerfolds! It’d be tragic if it wasn’t hilarious!
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JUDY
We’re going to have to sever ties with him. This reeks of technological ineptitude.
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PUNCH
Nuh uh! No way, we can’t sever ties! He already resigned! Woodrow is in seclusion. These nudes went out to everybody. His clients. His coworkers! The congregation of his church! Ev! REE! BOOTY!
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JUDY
Everybody? EVERYBODY!!!???
(furiously opening email on tablet)
No no no no no No No NO NO!!
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PUNCH
Wait a minute! Wait. One. Actual. Minute!
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JUDY
How long is the CC on this email!? How did Woodrow know so many people?!
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PUNCH
It’s all backwards!
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JUDY
Please no...Please no...please no...
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PUNCH
You don’t play as, as, as a baby! No! You play as a Mother! OF COURSE!! And you’re pregnant WITH a baby, but it isn’t human, it’s a machine!!! You give birth to a robot!! And, and, and you love it, you’re obligated to love it, with the kind of love that only a mother can know, but it can’t receive that love the way that a regular baby would because it isn’t HUMAN! And the, the, the gameplay is this horrifying, rewarding, repulsive and beautiful act of attempting to teach your soulless creation about Empathy! Compassion! HUMAN LOVE!! And, and, and you win the game if this thing you gave birth to not only comes to understand the existence of love but learns the, the, the ability to ACTUALLY PERFORM LOVE!!! Not only to receive love but to shine that light back onto the people IN IT’S LIFE!! YEEES!....But if you lose you spiral into madness, and, uh, your terrifying machine child is unleashed into society to destroy all that is GOOD and WORTHWHILE in the WORLD!!! YES! It’s perfect! IT’S! SO! PERFECT!!
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JUDY
NOOOOOOOOOO!! NO!! NO!! FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY!! NOOOO! THEY’RE HERE!!! THEY GOT THE NUDES!!! EVERYTHING IS HOSED!!!
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PUNCH
(dancing the cat daddy)
This! Is! The best day! Of my life!
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JUDY
(Sits. Speaks calmly)
The investors were in Woodrow’s contact list. They received his entire portfolio of nude selfies. We have crashed into the iceberg, and we’re sinking.
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PUNCH
Everything is, is on track. It’s all falling into place.
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JUDY
THE INVESTORS GOT THE NUDES!!! THERE IS PEE IN THE PUNCHBOWL!!!
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PUNCH
It was all part of our master plan, Judy. We were performing a double blind phishing bot experiment. Woodrow was an unwitting participant, and it was wildly successful.
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JUDY
But we weren’t performing any such experiment.
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PUNCH
The investors don’t know that. For all they know, we are next level thinkers. Playing five dimensional chess.
(doing tai chi)
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JUDY
That will make us look like absolute psychopaths.
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PUNCH
Preeeeeeecisely.
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JUDY
Right! Of Course! Investors love psychopaths!
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PUNCH
The capacity for guilt is bad for the bottom line.
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JUDY
This is the secret sauce that we were missing. We already have the tech, the branding, the costumes.
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PUNCH
Aaaaand...I mocked up some scatter graphs with phony baloney numbers to sell the results of our “experiment.”
(shows the tablet to JUDY)
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JUDY
It’s beautiful. It’s...inspirational. Everything has coalesced. I finally feel like we’re going to put this thing over. I feel at peace. I feel...serene. The roadmap to success lays naked before us. All we have to do is show them some logos, a little theater of the whiteboard, your completely fictional graphs...
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PUNCH
And then we hit them with the big finish, “Have you ever wanted to experience life...as a sentient toaster?!?”
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(BLACKOUT as JUDY screams and shakes PUNCH)
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JUDY
AAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!!!