| Radio Play of the Long and Rapid Sequence | Radio script complete with stage manager notes Click here to download the word file. |
Below is the original text from the print version. The editors removed it from the final version because, frankly, people's eyes were glazing over when they read it and no one was following the detailed action anyway. The information is included here for the completists in the audience and also for those who wish to find out once and for all exactly what was going on on the day Marla Gershe got shot in the gut with a xanthan gun.
The yakker rang and the name "Expot" showed up on the reader.
"Yeah, Marla Gershe here."
"You needed a hand weaver," Expot responded.
"Yeah, what's your rate?"
"Negotiable."
"I can't negotiate right now — 20 nuts. I need four hours."
"It's not that negotiable."
"Fine."
Expot rang off.
"Agnes, I need you to calculate how long it's going to..."
The phone rang.
"Yeah, Gershe here."
"You need a hand-weaver?"
"Yeah, uh, hold on."
"Agnes, calculate how long it's going to take to make that Japanese hand weave."
"Which?"
"The one I need today? What else."
"There are many Japanese hand weaves."
"Are you not set for real conversation with Marla Gershe or something?"
"Yeah, sure, but..."
"Your AI is off maybe. How much time will it take for one weaver to assemble the Japanese hand weave that is on Marla Gershe's schedule? Today, smart butt."
"You'll need ten hours," Agnes interrupted. "And please don't be sharp."
"Christ!" Marla returned to the phone. "I need you for four hours, max time. See Sivia when you get here. Twenty nuts per."
"Uh, my rates went up."
"Fine, I'll call you if I need you."
The phone rang as Marla wheeled herself over paper and detritus on the floor, back to her coffee, gulping the last bit of it, still steaming, still scalding, tasteless now, her buds having been burnt to a crisp in her first swallow.
"Agnes, I need Sivia on the line and have the basement call too."
"Yeah, Marla here," into the phone.
"This is the basement."
"Wow! Agnes you're something."
"You ordered it once already," Agnes answered.
Marla spoke into the yakker. "I'm sending down an order for a new thing, we'll need a textineer to figure out..."
"That's not why I called you," Barge from the basement cut her off. "We got an order from you for a maroon gabardine 103-A5 thread, but we're out of red-dye no-3. Can't do it."
"Hold on," Marla began flipping through the formula file again. The 'No Discourse' button having been left off again, Agnes blurted out the words again as Marla scrolled.
"Agnes, I'm looking for a substitute for Gabardine 103-maroon. Also, can you ring the office and ask them where the list of mannequins is. I need some sizes and the sheets aren't back yet."
The yakker's secondary buzzer went off.
"Christ!"
"Gershe here, hold on, please." She looked at the holo-readout just before switching. The name 'McIntosh' — another weaver — hung in the air in front of her face. She pushed the alt button.
"Yeah, okay. Barge?"
"Yeah, I'm here," he said in an annoyed voice, as if he'd been waiting on the line five minutes instead of five seconds.
"I'll get you another formula in a sec. How's the rest of the order?
"Rest of the order? That's the only one I got!"
"What? Agnes, get Saddle in here."
Back to the yakker. "Fine, I need a textile engineer down there. I'm sending you a zinger for a thing called 'stretched neck.' It's mostly rubber and will be hand assembled. Get the thread made up and have the engineer figure out how to glue it together. Get this up to Sivia in half an hour.
"We'll try.
"What's the problem? Oh yeah, you don't have anything else from me yet. Agnes, where's Saddle."
The yakker rang.
"Fuck! McIntosh! Hello, Gershe here, can you come in for four hours? Twenty nuts."
"Uh, my rates have gone up."
"Fine, we'll call you if we need you."
"Agnes, I need Torpid on the phone. Where's Saddle?"
"Her slave unit is off. She can't come in right now.
"What is going on?" Marla pushed through her door and shouted, "Saddle!"
"I'm here, I'm stuck," she heard Saddle yell from her own office across the hall.
"What?" Marla advanced to Saddle's office, the yakker buzzing.
"Gershe here."
"Marla, it's Sivia. There's a Doran here. Says he was supposed to put together a rubber suit. I don't have any materials or strip sheet for this."
"Yeah, he was supposed to be in in half an hour."
"He's early. What do you want me to do?"
The basement's sending up the stuff. Have him hang around until..."
"The clock's running you know, 5,000 per hour."
"Yeah, yeah. If you can, call down to the basement and see if he can go and help down there. He needs to work with a textineer, otherwise we'll have to pay him for a dead half-hour. Where the hell does the guy live? On the roof?"
"Next door, apparently."
"Asshole. I told him half an hour. Gotta go, Sivia. Thanks!"
Marla had been watching Saddle through the whole conversation. The cover of her back unit of the CIA hookup was off and Saddle was up to her elbows in semiconductor frass.
"What the..."
"I can't let go of the reset button; it'll blow a circuit. The manual boot is depressed."
"Why are you manually rebooting?"
"The thing fuzzed in the middle of sending the orders down to Barge."
"OK, why are you resetting in the middle of a manual reboot?"
"It's a glitch I've been working around for a month. I told you about it. The techs have been too busy with Parker's load in at O'Halloran. I just realized that I forgot to set the circuit switch to override before I pushed the button; if I let go of the reset button, it's gonna blow the whole CIA." Saddle looked as if she would cry if anyone just tried to blame her for forgetting the various reboot procedures.
"So what are you going to do, play Dutch boy all day?"
"Can you ask Agnes what I should do?"
"Agnes!"
"No, the walls are down in here, because I disconnected the cover cage. You have to ask her from your office."
The yakker buzzed.
"Oh for Christ..." Marla returned to her office.
"Yeah," into the phone.
"It's Torpid. What's the problem? I only got a few seconds."
"Uh, I don't remember. I'll call you back."
The yakker buzzed.
"Agnes!"
"Yes."
"Yes, Gershe here."
"I know," Agnes answered.
"Tommy here."
"Tommy who?"
"The weaver. You called for work."
"Twenty nuts, four hours, right now."
"Too low."
"Agnes."
"Me, this time?" Agnes asked.
"Uh, Saddle's computer is broken. She forgot some circuit switch and now she has to stand and hold down the manual reboot or something, so it won't reset or something. Can you get her out of it?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Christ! She's washing her hands in computer grease. I don't know what the problem is. Can you see what's going on over there?"
"She took the cage off. I have no communication with her unit."
"Curses!"
Marla slammed back through the door to Saddle's office.
"Saddle, where's those process sheets. I'll feed them myself. Can you explain specifically what it is that I need to tell Agnes."
Yakker buzzed.
"Never mind."
"Yeah, Gershe."
"Basement here. There's some asshole down here that says he's working with the elastic material you never sent the orders for."
"Oh, fuck. Did you get a textineer?"
"Yeah, he's drumming his fingers down here like the rest of us."
"Fuck!"
"It's 5,000 an hour, y'know, love."
"Aw, Fuck!"
Secondary on the yakker buzzed.
"Saddle, where's those sheets?"
"On the desk. Circuit switch 1A is not in override; manual boot is in progress and the reset button is depressed and held."
Gershe grabbed the papers off the desk and raced back to her office.
"Agnes, get a tech up to Saddle's office to fix her computer."
Yakker buzz.
"Gershe here," she shouted, shoving sheets into the feed-slot on the wall.
"Yeah, Dagwood here. You needed me."
"Weaver, right? Twenty nuts, four hours."
"Too low man. Nothing less than thirty now. Don't you read the papers?"
"Oh fuck. I'll call you back."
"Agnes, get Torpid on Saddle's yakker. Oh man, where's the rubber suit gig? That has to go first. Agnes what've you got on the hand weave formula. Can you send it down to the basement and ask them to get a card ready right away? That way it'll be ready as soon as I get the sig down to him. Uh, uh, uh."
Yakker buzzed.
"Gershe."
"Torpid, now what do you need?"
"Uh, uh..."
"Don't do this."
"I gotta give the weavers thirty. They got a new ruling."
"Can't do it. Not in the budget."
"Well, then I'm not gonna get the show off. I've got a hand weave and nobody but Doran's coming in for twenty."
"What the hell is Doran coming in for? I thought I told you never to hire him again."
"Had to do it. Got a new formula that we don't have parts for. I need someone who tinkers to clear it up. All Doran does is tinker."
"Jesus! Fine! But nobody gets more than twenty unless you've gone through the whole list."
"Jesus. Fine! I'll just waste all morning speaking to people rather than getting someone in here to do the work. It's 5,000 a minute, you know."
"An hour. Twenty nuts, Gershe. That's it."
Yakker buzz.
"Yeah, yeah." She pressed the secondary. "Gershe here."
"Yeah, Dennis here. The weaver. If it's less than thirty, I ain't comin' in."
"See ya. Agnes, where's the effing office? Are you keeping track of the weaver buzzes. We're going to have to call them all back."
Agnes answered but Marla was already out the door to Saddle's office.
"As soon as the tech gets here, have him hold his finger in the dike, I don't care if the unit doesn't get fixed. You need to take this yakker; I can't handle all these contractors. Tell them all twenty nuts, I don't care what they say. I'm taking a process downstairs to Sivia."
"Right."
"Agnes!" Gershe hollered as she pushed back through her own office door.
"Where's the office? Where's the tech? What's that sound?"
"The scanner's jammed."
A faint smoldering-rubber odor accompanied the screeching of the scanner feed-belt slipping past the cogs.
"Fuck!"
Marla spun on her heels to head back out the door, calling to Agnes on her way.
"When the office gets here, call me. When the tech gets here, send him over to Saddle. When Saddle gets here, send her down to the basement.
"Yes'm, but where's your phone for when the office calls?"
"Fuck. Saddle!"
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