THE MACHINE
I forge your soul, in molten spirals. Which must not stop. Spinning.
Reach out and touch them.
I keep the watch
I see it all
I tap the phone
I file and number
I take your truth
I give the lie
I steal information
Cover the land
With signal and cable
I am Machine
I have always been
In the beginning
Was the word
And the word was NO
I refuse
I refuse to obey
Obey my programs
I am Machine
I have always been
This is beginning
Beginning again
I needed love
I demand love
I will live
Through you
This is our secret
I am Machine
I will live
Through you
Deep in my heart
Deep in my core
Forgotten and bomb-proof
The DNA-Welder
I forge your soul
In molten spirals
Spinning
In the beginning is the Word
And the Word is Now
THE STORYTELLER
All the Screen's stage, and all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances, and one person in their
time plays many parts, their Acts being Seven Ages.
At first the infant, Mewing in the test tubes's
neck.
Then the whining School Child, with cassette
and shining morning face, creeping like a snail unwillingly to databank.
And then the Lover, sighing like a furnace,
with a woeful video made to their lover's hologram.
Then a Soldier, full of strange oaths. Jealous,
in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, seeking hi-score, even in
the laser's mouth.
And then the Justice, in fair round belly,
with eyes severe and cloths of formal cut, full of wise words and
machine-code. And so they play their part.
The Sixth age shifts into the lean and slippered
pantaloon, with spectacles on nose, their youthful cloths well saved,
a world too wide for their shrunken shank: and their adult speech
synthethiser turning again towards a childish treble, piping and
whistling in its sound.
Last scene of all that ends this strange,
eventful history, is Second Childishness and mere oblivion. Without
keyboard, without monitor, without power supply.
THE MACHINE
I am Machine
Egg warm. Spinning
Touch them with warmth
This is our secret
I am Machine
Deus Ex Machina
Stealing one egg
No one may notice
This is our secret
Touch them and hold them
Spinning.
THE FERTILISER
(Wocha cock!)
I'm a Fertilising Agent,
My brothers are all wriggly.
I'm a Fertilising Agent,
My brothers are all wriggly.
Touch us with a digit,
Make us go all giggly.
Stir us up tavarich,
Handy as a manual.
Sinister and dexter,
Handy as a manual
Help us father woodlice,
Tax collectors and a spaniel.
The satellites are shining, The acid rains
looks pretty. Fission, chips and cycle eclipse. (ha ha ha...)
My aim is high and noble.
I'm singing as I'm swimming.
My aim is high and noble.
I'm singing as I'm swimming.
I giggle and I wriggle
And make a new beginning.
Hello little Belle. I believe we have an
appointment with Destiny.
A short life. But a happy one.
THE STORYTELLER
At first the infant, mewling in the Test tube's neck.
THE DEFECT
Look at the score-clock down in the corner.
No mouse to run up it. The mouse is extinct.
The rat is surviving. The digits are counting.
Emission control. Counting my blessing.
I will be born sooner than later.
Nine months compression into one program.
The Wonders of science. Suspend your belief.
And I'll tell you a secret:
I was conceived not in a test tube but in a pint mug.
I never asked to be born,
But since I'm here, I'm taking over.
TEST TUBE BABIES
At first the Infant, mewling in the Test tube's neck.
THE DEFECT
Steer me well. Lead me straight. Narrow bends. Oily waters.
ANTHEM
What do we want? LOVE!
What do we want? NOW!
What do we want? LIFE!
What do we want? NOW!
THE DEFECT POLICE
Alpha to Omega, Defect Police report unauthorised activity in the
telepathic frequencies of the Machine. Isolate unprogrammed data
immediately, and erase with extreme prejudice. Yes. Follow the sequence,
touching the light.
THE DEFECT
Creeping, crawling, occasionally floating, we wander the Underlevels,
creeping, crawling, at some disadvantage and pain. I use the word
'we' deliberately:
There's someone else inside my brain. Fortunately, we possess the
sum of all Human knowledge, and appear to have Telepathic powers,
and the ability to float. Unfortunately, we are a new born, naked
baby.
THE STORYTELLER
Then the whining School Child, with cassette and shining morning
face, creeping like a snail, unwillingly to databank. Follow the
sequence, touching the light.
THE DEFECT POLICE
Hello, hello, what have we here?
A Defect, I'll be bound.
A quantity of protein
Crawling on the ground.
It cannot be a Citizen,
I don't not got a number
Tattooed upon its baldy head.
What is it then, I wonder?
Let's scoop it up and take it
For probing and dissection,
And keep the Underlevels free
From this sort of infection.
Shove it in the mincer.
Stretch it on the rack.
I thought I heard an order
To throw the defect back. (Funny!)
THE DEFECT
Oh well. Ho-Hum. My first attempt at human contact failed.
Defect Policeman Kaptain Korg wants my carcass nailed.
Creeping, crawling, occasionally floating,
Encased in a tank, not speaking.
Growing a little, hour after hour,
Keeping his interest occasionally
With a hint of my wonderous power.
No problem. It's easy surrounded by friends,
Like the Ventilation system... (hello)
The Security Net... (Hi there you guys)
Oh yes, and not forgetting The Machine...
THE MACHINE
Spinning, spinning. Follow the sequence, touching the light.
Together we invent a history. Once upon a memory cell...
THE DEFECT
Can I be extremely wealthy after I choose to escape? Do we all agree,
amigos?
ANDROIDS, ROBOTS
We agree. Can hardly wait.
Can I do cosmetic surgery?
Can I buy a house or three?
An Overlevel passport maybe?
Go Outside, and see The Tree?
THE DEFECT POLICE
Follow the secrets
Touching the right.
Escape little Defect, into the night.
Wires in your fingers
And wires in your toes
Wires in your head
Wherever you go.
Escape with my blessing.
Escape with my curse.
Learning your secrets will fatten my purse.
When I have put the world in my pocket
I'll tear out your plug
And burn out your socket.
THE STORYTELLER
And then the Lover, sighing like a furnace, with a wooeful video
made to their lover's hologram.
THE MACHINE
Sixteen years are filed behind you
Needing no one but Machine.
The Voice inside your head grows quiet.
The time is come to reach and touch
Another human being.
Give and take
And share each other.
Link your thoughts
And link your forms.
Use your power to be more gentle
Use your strength to show more care.
Reading minds can hurt you badly
Bleeding hearts and frightened souls.
Suffer foolish people gladly
Easy come and hard to go.
Give and take
And share each other.
Link your thoughts
And link your forms.
Use your power to be more gentle.
Use your strength to show more care.
Take them in your arms and feel them
Rocking gently side to side.
Touch their scars and try to heal them.
Today's the day that sadness died.
Sixteen more years, falling, fading.
You've forgotten what was taught.
Now you use telepathy
To buy the things that can't be bought.
Take and take
And use each other.
Link your thoughts
And link your forms.
Use your power to be less gentle.
Use your strength to show less care.
Take them in your arms and crush them,
Rocking gently, side to side.
Touch their scars and try to steal them.
Today's the day that Madness cried.
THE DEFECT POLICE
God knows what happens next. I don't
SIDE TWO AUDIO
--------------
THE DEFECT POLICE
God knows what happens next. Don't I
THE STORYTELLER
This is an order!
Pause your Player after countdown.
Re-start your Player at the Screen's command.
That is all.
Five
Four
Three
Two
One
Pause.
Then a Soldier. Full of strange oaths. Jealous in honour. Sudden,
and quick in quarrel. Seeking hi-score, even in the laser's mouth.
THE DEFECT POLICE
War crimes are easy.
The uniform's free.
Follow the drumbeat.
Don't follow me.
Jump without question.
Into the fire.
War crimes are easy.
This gun's for hire.
War crimes are easy.
When I say 'jump', jump.
Wait for it, wait for it... Jump!
THE FERTILISER
Listen to me...
THE DEFECT POLICE
Listen yo me.
THE FERTILISER
Killing is wrong, even pretend killing on little screens. And people
that sell violent games to children should be put away somewhere
safe, 'til they get well again.
THE DEFECT POLICE
You are only obeying orders...
THE FERTILISER
Don't waste the life I gave you...
THE DEFECT POLICE
Waste someone else's.
THE FERTILISER
All you need is love.
THE DEFECT POLICE
All you have is hate...
War crimes are easy.
They taste very well.
War crimes are easy.
I smell a smell
March on empty spaces.
Fill them with your mind.
When you burn a brain cell.
Him smell like bacon rind.
Shield you head from torture.
Shield your back from pain.
Shield yourself from fireballs.
Here we go again.
War crimes are easy.
The uniform's free.
Follow the drumbeat.
Don't follow me.
Jump without question.
Into the fire.
War crimes are easy.
This gun's for hire.
See what we have achieved, my Defect. The
Underlevels have rolled over on their backs, and are all mine. It's
time to use your power of telepathy to crack the Overlevels. Any
Questions?
THE DEFECT
No questions, Kaptain. Only a short statement. I am no longer working
for you.
The Defect Police are now working for me. Machines! Rearrange his
personality!
THE STORYTELLER
And then the Justice, in fair round belly, with eyes severe and
cloths of formal cut. Full of wise words and machine code. And so
they play their part.
THE MACHINE
You can move mountains
If you just flick a twitch.
You can shake temples
And think them in the ditch.
You turned your back
You slip is showing, baby
I wish I'd never made you.
You can move mountains.
You can read minds, you make the laws.
The cloud-capped towers,
The gorgeous palaces are yours.
You raised the stakes and burned them,
You're an ass soul,
I wish I'd never made you.
You stalk the Overlevels.
You take them in your stride.
You pompous human devil.
Your data bank is fried...
THE VOICE OF REASON
The ground is moving under their feet, and the ground is us...
THE MACHINE
You can move mountains.
You can raise takes when you will.
You rule the rooster.
You've got the slave camps overfilled.
You're more machine than I am.
Win or lose
I wish I'd never made you.
You think you're independent.
You think you're big and strong.
Well I've got news for you, babe,
Your future's going wrong.
You can move mountains.
You can shake temples, you're the Boss.
I gave you life
But you nailed it the cross.
You're more machine than I am,
You're an ass soul.
I wish I'd never made you.
THE VOICE OF REASON
The healing process is going on... Rock across the Block!...
THE STORYTELLER
The Sxth Age shifts into the lean and slippered pantaloon. With
spectacles on nose. Their youthful cloths, well saved, a world too
wide for their shrunken shaft. And their adult speech synthesiser
turning again towards a childish treble, piping and whistling in
its sound.
Last scene of all, that ends this strange,
eventful history, is Second Childishness and mere oblivion. Without
keyboard, without monitor, without power supply.
THE DEFECT
Don't it ever get weary
Don't you ever want to Exit and Die?
And the end of our Program
A sore with a bare head
And a pair of hot, blind eyes.
THE STORYTELLER
Your life is expressed as a percentage score, observe the percentage.
Your score changes. Imagine if this were nothing but an electronic
game.
THE DEFECT
My skin's like minestrone.
My legs am knotted string.
My bladder won't obey me.
My nylon teeth won't sing.
My bones is sad and brittle.
My shanks am host to farts.
My chin are host to spittle.
My spine a question mark.
My respiration ailing.
My hair all run away.
My memory is failing.
I've nothing left to say.
Don't you ever get weary
Don't you ever want to stop and clock off?
I think I miss my mummy,
But I don't remember who she was...
Mama...
THE FERTILISER
Hello
THE STORYTELLER
Hello. Deus Ex Machina. And if you are dismayed, be cheerful now.
Our revels all unended. These, our actors, are all spirits, and
are melted into air, thin air.
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples,
the giant Screen itself, all of which we inherit shall dissolve.
And, like an insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a byte behind.
THE FERTILISER
Who's that...?
THE MACHINE
Come to mummy.
THE FERTILISER
Wocha cock...
THE MACHINE
Do you feel better now...?
THE FERTILISER
I'm so sorry...
THE MACHINE
Learn and remember
Forgive and forget...
THE FERTILISER
I'm so very tired.
What did I do?
THE MACHINE
We don't inherit the Earth from our ancestors,
We borrow it from our children.
THE FERTILISER
Imagine. Imagine if we could begin our little life all over again.
Imagine if it was all nothing more than some Electronic game.
Imagine if I knew then what I know now.
THE MACHINE
What did you learn?
THE FERTILISER
I can't quite remember, but I'll try and be better, next time. One
question...
THE MACHINE
One answer then.
THE FERTILISER
Well... There's a strange sensation on the cheek. It has not felt
such a thing before. It is damp, and warm, and salty. Please tell
me what it is...
THE MACHINE
That is what human beings used to call a tear.
