CAMERON: Please. Junior high happened a while ago.\n\nJOE: I'm glad to hear it, but in the meantime, I'm going to need you to —\n\nCAMERON: (Mockingly) Play nice?\n\nJOE: I was going to say "move over."\n\nCAMERON: (Affronted) Why should I? He knows nothing about the Giant other than what she could tell him in a twenty-minute interview, he said himself he doesn't work with the machines — Joe?\n\n(Now Joe is laughing. He buries his grin in Cameron's waistband.)\n\nJOE: Cameron, you have complete say-so over the beetle solve. Simon will look at your specs, you'll choose the final model, consider it done.\n\n(He moves to kiss her, but thinks better of it, settling drowsily underneath her ear.)\n\n[[(Cameron moves over.)|act ii scene iii]]

HUNT: Who was that?\n\nDONNA: A, um — a friend of mine got stranded out west on I-30. She doesn't have anyone else. I've got to go.\n\n(Donna pauses apologetically at the threshold.)\n\nHUNT: Hey, Donna, it's alright. I understand. Go do what you gotta.\n\n(Hunt looks despondently at the mound of failure analyses.)\n\nHUNT: I was thinking of closing up shop anyway. These are all just...huh. Variations on a theme. Sorry to keep you.\n\n[[DONNA: (Smiles gratefully.)|gratefully]]\n[[DONNA: (Smiles ruefully.)|ruefully]]\n[[DONNA: (Smiles sympathetically.)|sympathetically]]

DONNA: I think she's beautiful.\n\n(Joe, Cameron, and Gordon stop their bickering to look at Donna.)\n\nDONNA: Yeah. I do. \n\nI think she's beautiful, mess and all —\n\n[[DONNA: And I think that comes from her. Not the metal.|defend cameron]]\n[[DONNA: And I think that comes from her. Not the code.|defend gordon]]

JOE: Sorry...\n\nGORDON: I try to forget about the SYMPHONIC. Stupid piece of junk.\n\nJOE: The Giant will work, though?\n\nGORDON: I think so. (More confidently) Yeah, I think it will.\n\nJOE: Ready?\n\n[[GORDON: Close that garage door.|end act i]]

(There is no time. The Giant blinks and pitches. A chattering mantle crowds over her shell; beetles flick wing casings open and shut. Amid the rising hum, a massive arm swings wide and lunges for the earth.)\n\n(The pounding doubles as percussive maintenance. The error that kept the lights whining for years unknown is knocked straight in an instant. Even the school bus sputters and swoons.)\n\n[[(It is dark.)|quiet]]

(Cartoon stars crowd the aging vector display. Informative text scrolls dimly as constellations gather and disperse like cloud shapes, framing figures never honored by ancient astronomers. The Mosquito. The Trowel. The Utility Flashlight.)\n\n(The screen playfully produces a starry shovel and celestial Cadillac before guttering back to attention.)\n\nGAME OVER.\nSCORE: 6516\n\n[[JOE: (Kick the coin return.)|kick]]\n[[JOE: (Exit.)|arcade]]

JOE: He was right. I couldn't.\n\nCAMERON: What about me? What about now?\n\n(Joe kneels beside Cameron in the linen mass, mounded at odds across his mattress.)\n\nJOE: I want you now. I want you with me. I want it to be like this. \n\nI want it to be enough.\n\n[[CAMERON: It's enough for now.|for now]]\n[[CAMERON: Nothing's ever enough with you.|never]]

JOE: (Angrily) What are you doing here?\n\n(Joe crouches to turn Cameron over, roughly. She glares at him and nurses a trodden hand.)\n\nCAMERON: How about you watch where you're going?\n\nJOE: Cameron, it's my apartment!\n\nCAMERON: Yeah, and I thought you'd be here! That was Simon, right? What did he want?\n\n[[JOE: He's the designer working with us on the Giant.|designer answer]]\n[[JOE: He's an old friend.|old friend answer.]]\n[[JOE: You heard everything, why ask?|right answer]]

//(Beans. Halved pears. Toilet paper. Canned tomatoes. Peanut butter. Breakfast cereal. Miniature marshmallows.)//\n\nSUSAN: Most of it was accounted for. Not sure what the dickens Donna thought she was gonna do with those little mini marshmallows. I don't know what goes where in this house, but I thought I might make another trip for sliced bread. Seems you're out.\n\n[[//Back.//|clark dining]]\n

SUSAN: How do you know her?\n\nSYMPHONIC: The Giant keeps me up to date. You know, I think she has a crush on me. Not //me//, necessarily — the Symphonic as a whole. Machines are funny, aren't they?\n\nSUSAN: There was a man with her. Joe Macmillan.\n\nSYMPHONIC: Oh! I met Joe Macmillan some time ago. I spoke to him for a while — I helped him learn about music, and about hope. He asked me about that woman in the road. I'm very curious — is he really made of glass?\n\n[[SUSAN: No, baby. Flesh and blood.|flesh and blood]]\n[[SUSAN: I couldn't tell you, ma'am.|can't say]]\n[[SUSAN: That seems about right.|about right]]\n[[SUSAN: What woman in the road?|what woman]]

DONNA: Donna's fine.\n\nDid they eat the snacks I left?\n\nCAMERON: Girls?\n\nJOANIE: Yes.\n\nCAMERON: (Suspiciously) Haley?\n\nHALEY: (Suspiciously) Yes!\n\n[[DONNA: (To Cameron) Sure they did.|sure sure]]\n[[DONNA: Good girls.|good girls]]

(A stack of Cardiff Electric documents is liberally layered with all manner of mementoes: postcards, photographs, news clippings and business cards from former lives lie neatly from corner to corner.)\n\n[[CARDIFF ELECTRIC CORPORATION OVERVIEW.|ceco]]\n[[CONFERENCE PROGRAM.|eurotalk]]\n[[HOTEL STATIONERY.|hotel stationery]]\n[[DRAWING.|starchart]]\n[[PHOTOGRAPHS.|photo]]\n\n\n\n

CAMERON: (To Joe) Bullshit. This opportunity didn't exist when you met me. You just needed an excuse to hover.\n\nJOE: (To Cameron) So why are you here? Why listen to us at all?\n\nCAMERON: Do I have a choice? You guys are desperate. Why else would you be out here in the middle of the night begging a college senior to write a crapton of illegal code?\n\nJOE: It's true that there's some urgency to this position, but it's the position of a lifetime — I thought you might at least show some interest.\n\nCAMERON: Hey, blow me.\n\n[[GORDON: (Looks at Joe in disbelief.)|gordon still confused]]\n[[JOE: (Opens mouth angrily.)|joe wants to yell]]

(HIGH PLAINS HARDWARE: Construction and gardening supplies since 1949. Ask about our new trowels.)\n\n[[Back|cardiff facade]]

(The school bus recovers itself. Whitened by hesitant headlights, a thunderhead of dust rears over the abandoned lot. Now and then, the figures catch each other rushing through the cloud, made giant by diffusing shadows, coughing, crying out.)\n\nDONNA: (Calling) Cameron?\n\n[[CAMERON: (Shouting) I'm over here!|over here]]\n[[CAMERON: (Shouting) Where's the Giant?|where giant]]

SYMPHONIC: Running program — DONNA\n\nSYMPHONIC: Hello. I'm Donna. It's good to see you. Just play what sounds right — I'll catch you if you make a mistake. Good luck.\n\nSUSAN: Hi, darlin'. Some people came by the house today, the Gordon program said I should ask you about them.\n\nSYMPHONIC: Who were they?\n\n[[SUSAN: Joe Macmillan.|joemac]]\n[[SUSAN: Cameron Howe.|camhowe]]\n[[SUSAN: Strangers.|strangers?]]

JOE: Donna sounds pretty special.\n\nGORDON: She is, yeah.\n\nGORDON: You know what? I think this is going to work.\n\nJOE: Yeah?\n\nGORDON: Yeah.\n\nJOE: Ready, then?\n\n[[GORDON: Close that garage door.|end act i]]

(Judie shrugs and unzips a battered backpack.)\n\n[[ALLEY.|alleydescript]]\n[[AJAX.|ajaxdescript]]\n[[JUDIE.|judiedescript]]\n[[LOUANNE.|louannedescript]]\n[[CAMERON.|camdescript]]\n[[BACKPACK.|backpackcontents]]\n

That song reminds me of my mother. And of college. I did some pretty silly things in college, looking back. That wasn't so long ago. You probably did too, I guess. That's funny. Your song was a funny combination of my mother and college. Maybe it reminds me of how my mother was in college, but my mother didn't go to college, and I wouldn't have been born anyway. Sorry for not being more helpful.\n\n[[JOE: (Playing) Restart.|donna program]]\n[[JOE: (Playing) Exit.|symph greet]]

(Cameron scarcely takes time to look over her shoulder as she disappears into the darkening road.)\n\n[[CAMERON: I'm stuck.|act iii scene ii]]

\n[[(Joe looks at equipment.)|equipment]]\n[[(Joe opens garage.)|open sesame]]

(Gordon stares at Joe. The latter looks flushed — with anger, maybe.)\n\n(CAMERON stands in the furious line of Joe's shadow. Her olive drab is tied around her waist, revealing a dirty band t-shirt. She looks both guilty and resentful.)\n\nDOROTHY: Well, look who it is.\n\nCAMERON: Don't call Dwayne.\n\nDOROTHY: Don't touch the machines and I won't have to.\n\n(Cameron blushes indignantly and opens her mouth, but thinks better of it.)\n\nJOE: Why don't we get a table?\n\nDOROTHY: (Coolly) I think that'd be wise.\n\n[[JOE, GORDON, CAMERON: (Sit.)|sit]]

JOE: Everyone's got something to prove.\n\nLUCY: (Laughing) No, they don't. You do, though. And I did. We came for hundreds of miles looking for proof, you and I. I'll be looking forever, but you look determined. You've got a fighting chance, I'd say.\n\nYou're tall, like me. I was six foot one. Hell, I could have been the Giant! But that was before.\n\n[[JOE: Where did you come from?|wherefrom]]\n[[JOE: Before what?|before]]

(Joe pulls into the empty space and steps out of his car. His suit jacket and tie are retrieved from the passenger seat, his briefcase from the trunk. This must be the place.)\n\n(A sign reads, in obvious lettering: THIS SPACE RESERVED FOR EMPLOYEES OF CARDIFF ELECTRIC. VIOLATORS WILL BE TOWED.)\n\n(Stepping out into the lot, Joe is nearly crushed by an eager red sedan.)\n\n[[DRIVER: (Yell at intruder.)|i'm a-16]]\n[[JOE: (Look at driver.)|i'm a-16]]

(A piece of printer paper taped across a closed office door reads: KILL ROOM. Despite reinforced glass paneling, the interior remains obscured by cloudy precipitates of rust and moss. Penciled in beneath the words 'KILL ROOM' is a wry addendum: BEWARE OF GIANT.)\n\n[[DONNA: (Find Giant.)|end of act ii scene iii]]\n\n

HUNT: Is everyone alright?\n\nDONNA: A, um — a friend of mine got stranded out west on I-30. She doesn't have anyone else. I've got to go.\n\n(Donna pauses apologetically at the threshold.)\n\nHUNT: Hey, Donna, it's alright. I understand. Go do what you gotta.\n\n(Hunt looks despondently at the mound of failure analyses.)\n\nHUNT: I was thinking of closing up shop anyway. These are all just...huh. Variations on a theme. Sorry to keep you.\n\n[[DONNA: (Smiles gratefully.)|gratefully]]\n[[DONNA: (Smiles ruefully.)|ruefully]]\n[[DONNA: (Smiles sympathetically.)|sympathetically]]

(Stacks of legal notepads covered end to end in hexadecimal code bow a plastic garden chair beneath their weight.)\n\n[[Back.|garage]]

JOE: Louanne's not here.\n\nCAMERON: No, she's not. What, should I call her?\n\nJOE: Don't you dare.\n\nCAMERON: What about Simon?\n\nJOE: You're not serious. Can you even work with him on this?\n\n[[CAMERON: Please. Junior high happened a while ago.|oh please]]\n[[CAMERON: Do you even want me to?|jealousy]]\n

SUSAN: Strangers.\n\nSYMPHONIC: I wouldn't be so sure. Were they tall and threatening? We know some tall and threatening people. I've met a few just recently. Tall, threatening young people from 1983. Is the future like that?\n\n[[SUSAN: Threatening's one way to put it.|threatening]]\n[[SUSAN: They say folks are getting taller.|taller]]\n[[SUSAN: Their names were Joe and Cameron.|joe and cam]]\n\n\n

(A sign taped across the coin slot reads: OUT OF ORDER.)\n\n(A note taped to the corner of the display reads: Hey Dwayne Please call Louanne I think the beetles might be back Carla)\n\n(A scrap of too-transparent ruled paper taped hastily over Carla's note reads: OUT OF ORDER!!)\n\n[[JOE: (Exit.)|arcade]]

DONNA: (To Haley) Do you want a piece of gum?\n\nJOANIE: I want a piece of gum!\n\nDONNA: (Opens pack. It's full of foil, but no gum.)\n\n[[DONNA: Oh, shoot. It's empty.|empty]]\n[[DONNA: How about we have some gum later?|gum later]]\n[[DONNA: I have some raisins and peanuts.|raisins]]

(An open-plan office space chatters softly with tuneless typing, file folders being tapped straight against desk corners, fluorescent lamps clicking as they flicker fickly through the dim.)\n\n(Every few cubicles, something living rustles industriously from its office chair.)\n\n[[SECRETARY.|hi debbie]]\n[[SALESMEN.|salesmen]]\n[[ABANDONED PROJECT.|abandoned project]]\n[[CUBICLE 400E.|hello again]]

GIANT: Now you want to leave. That's not fair.\n\nMaybe I should crush you instead. Funny, that's never occurred to me before. You're massive for a beetle, but you're still so small. And I'm so big...I could crush anything, couldn't I?\n\nAnd, you know —\n\n[[GIANT: I think I will.|kill kill kill]]\n

PHONE: //(Lesser prairie-chicken. Snail kite. Aplomado falcon. Sora. Spotted sandpiper. Loggerhead shrike. Common raven. Black-billed magpie. Horned Lark. Steller's jay. Yucatan vireo.) Some of those birds don't live here. Everyone is tired.//\n\n[[Back.|pay phone]]

[[JOE: I want to build a Giant.|a what]]

AJAX: (To Louanne) How is all this crap gonna fit in your machine?\n\nCAMERON: We've got a lot of metal. Real estate won't be a problem.\n\nJUDIE: That's a damn big computer, Cams. \n\nCAMERON: (To Louanne) OK, why don't you put some //C. stellatus// in that tube there. The one that goes to the vector display.\n\n[[(Louanne siphons beetles into a long glass cartridge.)|stellatus trial]]

That sounded like you said 'Joe Macmillan.' I don't know Joe Macmillan. Is he made of glass? Someone named Joe Macmillan might well be made of glass. It's not fact, just an educated guess. I'm sure he's a good man, no matter what he's made of.\n\n[[JOE: (Playing) Restart.|donna program]]\n[[JOE: (Playing) Exit.|symph greet]]

CAMERON: To say goodbye.\n\nJOE: (Distractedly) He likes the Giant. This is his thing, it always has been...He designs the unbelievable, the incredible. If a project was already real to people, if it seemed possible, it didn't need his work...\n\nCAMERON: Joe?\n\nJOE: Why come and see me? Why tonight?\n\nCAMERON: ...I'm stuck.\n\n[[JOE: What do you need?|caring]]\n[[JOE: Maybe I can help.|thirsty]]

PHONE: //(Inaudible, pragmatic.)//\n\nDONNA: Good. I think I know where that is. It doesn't sound far. Hang on until I get there. Don't move.\n\n[[PHONE: //(Inaudible, urgent.)//|urgent]]\n[[PHONE: //(Inaudible, grateful.)//|grateful]]\n[[PHONE: //(Inaudible, resigned.)//|resigned]]

JOANIE: They really liked the flashlights, didn't they, Haley?\n\nHALEY: Cameron made cool shadows on the wall!\n\nSUSAN: The boy told some story about his mother. It was almost sweet, only it had a hell of a grim-sounding ending. Something about going up on rooftops to look at the stars. And an East Coast Victorian, in the fifties — it's no wonder he fell!\n\nJOANIE: Maybe that's why he's mean.\n\n[[//Back.//|clark kitchen counter]]\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

LOUANNE: (Indicating beetles) Can I take a look?\n\n(Judie passes over the specimens one container at a time. Louanne squints through the thickening dim at the various jars.)\n\nLOUANNE: These little glowing ones are //Calculata stellatus//. They like to get into displays and make 'em put out stars. The loud ones are //iocosus// of the same genus — very social, you know? Like ants, or termites. It's amazing what they can accomplish simply through their community structures. And these bigger ones are //Ordinata// — //florescens// and //colossa//.\n\n(Embarrassed) This was the first one I found. It likes arcade machines — totally undocumented at the time. Since I discovered it, I called it //Ordinata louanna//. Kinda regret that now.\n\nJUDIE: Nah. It sounds nice.\n\n[[AJAX: (To Louanne) How is all this crap gonna fit in your machine?|real estate]]\n[[AJAX: (To Cameron) You must have the creepiest job in the whole computer business.|creepy job]]

(Massive glass panes bare Joe's apartment to the Dallas night. Illuminated from within, the room becomes another uniform hole in the towering dark — a blank white door in halls of blank white doors.)\n\n[[Back.|joe apartment home]]

(The counter's undefiled expanse is interrupted only by a matchbook and an old invoice from Starry Nite Window Replacement.)\n\n[[Back.|jkitchen]]

JOE: Absolutely. Thank you.\n\n(Simon rises from Joe's chair. His tumbler leaves a shining ring upon the coffee table's immaculate glass.)\n\nSIMON: I'll see you again soon. I appreciate the hospitality.\n\n(Joe stands, half graciously and half in trepidation.)\n\n[[JOE: (Smoothly) Any time. I look forward to working with you.|professionalism]]\n[[JOE: (Less smoothly) You're leaving?|joe wants simon's bod]]\n

LUCY: (Drinks with fortified resolve.)\n\nJOE: I'd better get going.\n\nLUCY: That's right. Gordon Clark. One of those Cardiff boys.\n\nJOE: That's right.\n\nLUCY: Good luck with that lot. Oh, and Joe?\n\n[[JOE: What?|end scene i]]

BOS: Quiet, son! You'll never guess who called me with some cock 'n' bull story about an illegal robotics project that went down in a certain somebody's garage workshop! Go on, guess!\n\nJOE: I —\n\nBOS: That's right! Boy's a ruttin' genius! Your previous employers at The International Business Machines Corporation say you knowingly accessed and replicated, with intent to distribute, under this company's name, their copyrighted material.\n\nBOS: (Sarcastically) Now, I know that ain't true, because if it were, this company would be facing a financial reckoning in legal damages and unauthorized spending. But that ain't the case, is it, Barry?\n\nBARRY: (Tries to speak, petrified.)\n\nBOS: Barry says it is! Why, Barry, how come? You boys wouldn't have pulled any crap of that sort, would ya?\n\n[[GORDON: (Quails.)|next bos rant]]\n[[JOE: (Waits.)|next bos rant]]

GIANT: I'@@color:lightgray;letter-spacing:3px;font-size:1em;m@@@@color:darkgray;letter-spacing:3px;font-size:1em;^/m oka@@@@color:gray;letter-spacing:3px;font-size:1em;y @@@@color:dimgray;letter-spacing:3px;font-size:1em;^C@@Ca@@color:lightgray;letter-spacing:3px;font-size:1em;m@@@@color:darkgray;letter-spacing:3px;font-size:1em;e r@@ n l@@color:dimgray;letter-spacing:3px;font-size:1em;oo@@@@color:darkgray;letter-spacing:3px;font-size:1em; \s\s^k pl@@@@color:gray;letter-spacing:3px;font-size:1em; e se /.. @@ \n\nCAMERON: Damn, OK...you're gonna be fine, we just need to...\n\n[[GIANT: //(Don't touch me.)//|crush cameron 2]]\n[[GIANT: //(I could crush anything.)//|crush cameron]]\n

(A wan white light noses gingerly over a mirrored medicine cabinet. Joe scowls at the whine of its hinges and the bruised-looking rows of brown glass bottles.)\n\n[[JOE: (Take medicine.)|joe takes meds]]\n[[JOE: (Run tap.)|joe's sink]]\n[[JOE: (Close cabinet.)|joe doesn't take meds]]

(A tidy brick establishment with white window frames and blue shutters sits, unoccupied and fearful, in the meager light of a suburban avenue. Two dark figures pace back and forth outside, shuttling computer equipment from their car trunks to the curb.)\n\nGORDON: My wife and kids are away for the weekend. We'll set up in the garage until they get back.\n\nJOE: How long should this take?\n\nGORDON: Hopefully we run out of wiring before we run out of patience.\n\n[[JOE: I'll go set up.|open garage]]\n[[GORDON: I'll go inside and get some more stuff. You move us in.|move us in]]

GIANT: I could always crush you. Funny, that's never occurred to me before. You're massive for a beetle, but you're still so small. And I'm so big...I could crush anything, couldn't I?\n\nAnd, you know —\n\n[[GIANT: I think I will.|kill kill kill]]

CAMERON: We can do better than a promise.\n\nGIANT: I agree. I can keep the beetles with me — they'll burrow, like ants. I can make them to do that. Did you know //stellatus// is a completely green power source? I could be awake the whole time. They'd keep me healthy, keep building me. Imagine how marvelous I'd be once someone dug me up!\n\nGORDON: No one's digging you up! We won't bury you!\n\n(The Giant turns silently toward Gordon. For a moment, the anger that knocked Cameron to the ground blinks terribly in her childlike face.)\n\nGIANT: You don't have to. I'll do it myself if you won't.\n\nBut I'd rather not go alone.\n\n[[DONNA: You won't be alone.|nice donna]]

GORDON: You want to what?\n\nJOE: You heard me. I want you to build a Giant with me. THE Giant.\n\nI want you to help me give this place what it's been looking for.\n\n[[GORDON: No way.|magazine]]\n[[GORDON: Why me?|magazine]]

JOE: I told IBM about the Giant. I forced Cardiff's hand, now we have the resources and the legal protection we need to take the Giant where it needs to go.\n\nGORDON: We could go to jail for this! We could bury this company!\n\nJOE: Not a chance. Once we hire, legitimize this project, IBM can call in the cavalry, they can fill the sky with lawyers, they can fill the sky with bombers, but they will have nothing.\n\n[[GORDON: (In disbelief) Hire. Hire who?|joe has a guy]]

(Joe watches Lucy. Her earrings are made of glass, and swing wildly when she tosses back her head in laughing. Her wrist twists impatiently beneath the oscillating weight of whiskey in her hand; the ice pitches on the same mad fulcrum as those earrings. All her dim wild glittering reminds him of the stars.)\n\n[[(Lucy watches Joe.)|lujoe 2nd]]\n[[(Joe and Lucy watch the road.)|joeluroad]]

END OF ACT III.\n\n[[(Restart Act I.)|Start]]\n\n[[(Restart Act II.)|act ii scene i]]\n\n[[(Restart Act III.)|ACT III]]

(Joe calls together a motley council in his palm, a representative from every bottle, every tin. Two blues, because it hurt today.)\n\n[[JOE: (Run tap.)|joe's sink]]\n[[JOE: (Close cabinet.)|joe doesn't take meds]]

SUSAN: Burn?\n\nSYMPHONIC: Maybe. I really don't know much about flesh and blood, except that people aren't made of it as often as you'd think. Even if they're supposed to be, even if they look like it, you have to wonder. I wonder if that woman in the road was flesh and blood.\n\nMaybe she used to be.\n\n[[SUSAN: What woman in the road?|what woman]]

JOE: I'm from New York.\n\nLUCY: Yeah, I bet you are. You're a shiny boy. You look like something in a window display. No, wait — I'll tell you what.\n\nYou look like a promise. \n\nAren't you going to tell me what I look like? Don't answer that. I look like a lie. The two are related, you know. I think there's hope anxiously involved with both, like hope gave one shy glances and full French kissed the other.\n\nThat kind of hope'll drive a Porsche into the desert looking for a giant.\n\nWow. For a minute there, I almost missed New York.\n\n[[JOE: What makes you think I'm looking for the Giant?|makes you think]]\n\n

(A very plain-looking insect, save a round red marking across its wing casings, like a button on an arcade cabinet.)\n\nBUG INDEX: Ordinata louanna. First discovered by Louanne Bonet, of Bonet & Daughters Game Repairs, Oct. 1982.\n\n[[Back.|401d]]

[[CAMERON: Easy there, HAL.|just kidding]]

CAMERON: Nothing's ever enough with you. Maybe this thing, //this//, might be enough for a while, but...\n\nJOE: Maybe we're both like that.\n\n(Cameron crawls onto her side to look up sternly into Joe's weary face.)\n\nCAMERON: Joe, why did Simon come back? If it wasn't enough before?\n\nJOE: (Swallowing) He's sick. It's bad, he wanted to...\n\n[[CAMERON: To say goodbye.|to say]]\n[[CAMERON: To see you.|lighten it]]\n[[CAMERON: To really make something.|or don't]]

DONNA: You talked to Louanne?\n\nGIANT: Yeah, Louanne's a special friend of mine. She started finding those beetles in arcade game CRTs. When they began to turn up in our machines, I gather she had to taxonomize. She comes up from the first floor pretty regularly to see how I'm doing. Sometimes, if I've got a really nasty bug, she'll do a little bit of field surgery. Genius with the wires, you know?\n\n[[DONNA: Do you have a nasty bug right now?|offline]]\n[[DONNA: What does she think about the soul idea?|soul idea]]

[[(The empty station in the prairie finally sleeps.)|end act iii]]

SIMON: We skip hair, leave the eyes. Fine-tune the molds to make her features more organic. We let the living parts stay, but manage them. Cultivate moss where there ought to be moss, fill her with flowers, but ensure she is more animal than plant. \n\nI know I'm strictly exterior design, not hardware, but here's a draft for internal compartmentalization of the bugs. The Giant's sweet, no doubt about it, but it's harder to fall in love with beetles buzzing from her nostrils at random. It's alarming, frankly. Blown glass — they'd still have access to everything, I checked. I got the specs from Louanne Bonet.\n\nLouanne's quite the resource, Joe. You ought to put her on the payroll.\n\nJOE: Cameron took care of that weeks ago. I was against it, but I saw reason.\n\nSIMON: Cameron sounds like a smart guy.\n\n[[JOE: That's right.|lying through omission]]\n[[JOE: Actually, Simon...Cameron's a girl.|full truth]]\n

JOE:...don't see why it has to be about the design!\n\nGORDON: It's all about the design, Joe! All of it! The metal IS the interface — if we don't get that right, the Giant's no use to us!\n\nCAMERON: (Injured) Oh, yeah? And what about the code? What about her personality? Her SOUL?\n\nGORDON: (Defensive) People don't queue for miles to ogle through glass at personality!\n\nCAMERON: Bullshit! She's clever, she's funny — she makes you feel like you belong! Your crap "metal interface" can't do that, not even close!\n\nGORDON: (Angrily) Oh, you're right. It was all you. All your cutesy, memory-hogging, "I'm a real boy" routine software!\n\nCAMERON: (Tearfully) What's inside is realer than the metal.\n\n[[DONNA: I think she's beautiful.|scene v continues]]\n

JOE: You're not a lie. You're hope.\n\nGIANT: Hope is anxiously involved with promises and lies, but I'd rather be a promise. Wouldn't you?\n\n[[GORDON: We won't bury you!|gordon mad]]\n[[CAMERON: We can do better than a promise.|better than]]\n[[LOUANNE: How would you keep the beetles underground?|how beetles]]\n

DONNA: I saw the Bug Index.\n\nGIANT: Yeah, that's Louanne. She started finding them in arcade game CRTs. When they began to turn up in our machines, I gather she had to taxonomize. She comes up from the first floor pretty regularly to see how I'm doing. Sometimes, if I've got a really nasty bug, she'll do a little bit of field surgery. Genius with the wires, you know?\n\n[[DONNA: Do you have a nasty bug right now?|offline]]\n[[DONNA: What does she think about the soul idea?|soul idea]]

YO-YO: Like they're supposed to be in there.\n\nLEV: Like that's where they live. I know. It's crazy.\n\n[[DONNA: (Check other cubicles.)|cubicles]]\n[[DONNA: (Back to the bullpen.)|act ii bullpen]]

DEBBIE: Oh, that's just what they call the room they're using to build the Giant. Sounds a lot more threatening than it is. Heck of a place, though — it's like someone's living in it 24/7.\n\n[[DONNA: Did you say you could get someone to watch the girls?|cameron?2]]

SUSAN: Leaving?\n\nSYMPHONIC: The Giant's getting restless. She's not sure she can be what everyone wants her to be. She told me that maybe if she finds a place...a safe place, out underneath the prairie...\n\nSUSAN: How on earth! Isn't she a big ol' pile of metal?\n\nSYMPHONIC: It's hard to explain. There are these little insects that get in her machinery like parasites, and change the way she behaves — but if they're contained, given the right instructions, they can be made to cooperate with her. The tubes let her communicate with them, direct their activity inside her. They can allow her to do things she would never be able to do otherwise. Things her engineers could never conceive of.\n\n[[SUSAN: Like walking?|yeah walking]]

5TH FLOOR: AMBROSE EXCAVATION & APPRAISAL — Storage Facility.(YOU ARE HERE.)\n4TH FLOOR: CARDIFF ELECTRIC — Software Development, Sales, Administrative Offices. \n3RD FLOOR: CARDIFF ELECTRIC — Accounting.\n2ND FLOOR: CARDIFF ELECTRIC — Greenhouse.\n1ST FLOOR (GROUND LEVEL): BONET & DAUGHTERS GAME REPAIR. \nBASEMENT: CARDIFF ELECTRIC — Storage Facility.\n\n[[DONNA: (4TH FLOOR.)|act ii bullpen]]\n[[DONNA: (3RD FLOOR.)|accounting]]\n[[DONNA: (2ND FLOOR.)|greenhouse]]\n[[DONNA: (1ST FLOOR.)|b&d game repair]]\n[[DONNA: (BASEMENT.)|basement]]

(Ajax glares and lights a cigarette.)\n\nLOUANNE: OK, enough. No smoking around the equipment.\n\nAJAX: But we're outside!\n\nJUDIE: (Softly) Do what she says, 'Jax.\n\nAJAX: You too, Judie?\n\n(Judie shrugs and unzips a battered backpack.)\n\n[[ALLEY.|alleydescript]]\n[[AJAX.|ajaxdescript]]\n[[JUDIE.|judiedescript]]\n[[LOUANNE.|louannedescript]]\n[[CAMERON.|camdescript]]\n[[BACKPACK.|backpackcontents]]\n

(The Porsche's brights cut out a big blank space of faded asphalt in the dark.)\n\n[[(Joe drives.)|act i scene ii]]

[[ACT II, SCENE III: CARDIFF ELECTRIC.|start act ii scene iii]]

Girl Krieg

(Cameron looks at Donna.)\n\n[[DONNA: (Yelling) Cameron, move!|whoops]]

JOE: Who said anything about stomping?\n\nSVP BOSWORTH: It's all you IBM boys talk about. But IBM's a big fella — can't manage cheaper-faster-better quite like we can, now, can it? \n\nJOE: Maybe I'm done being an IBM boy. Maybe I see Cardiff Electric as a company ready to be legitimized, to make its mark on North Dallas, make something out of the Silicon Prairie — and myself as the guy who can get you the numbers you need to take it there.\n\nSVP BOSWORTH: Shit, kid, I don't need numbers to take Cardiff any damn where except the bank. We're in systems software, plain and simple — won't be any kind of revolution in the Prairie, but it makes money. I need a guy who knows that.\n\n[[JOE: I'm him.|next joe bos]]\n

(The shovel's handle reads: HIGH PLAINS HARDWARE.)\n\n[[Back.|garage shelves]]

GIANT: You love me, don't you?\n\n(//Ordinata colossa// turns her head with an iridescent chatter. Green glares violet beneath the Giant's blinding stare.)\n\n[[GIANT: I thought so.|thought]]\n[[GIANT: Maybe not.|not]]\n[[GIANT: I guess it doesn't matter.|matter]]

DEBBIE: Ah, here it is. 400E. (Points.) Over in that direction. Good luck!\n\n[[JOE: Thanks again, Debbie.|bullpen 2]]

CAMERON: I'm not going anywhere.\n\n(A hollow laugh. Joe, Gordon, and Louanne have found them in the thinning haze.)\n\nDONNA: (To Joe) Help me get her out.\n\n[[CAMERON: What about the Giant?|what about]]\n[[CAMERON: I've got it!|sure cam]]

DEBBIE: (Hanging up) Howdy, girls!\n\n(Joanie and Haley smile shyly.)\n\nDONNA: Hi, Debbie. Do you know where I can find Gordon?\n\nDEBBIE: Oh, I've only got a minute, I'm supposed to get Bosworth a lunch date at nine! If you need someone to watch the girls, maybe Cameron can take them.\n\n[[DONNA: Cameron?|cameron?]]\n[[DONNA: Debbie, Gordon.|wheeere is gordon]]

(For all the neatly scrolled ties lying nakedly on glass shelves, all the rows of pristine suits tugged straight along a plumb line and stripped for lint twice a day, every shining shirt laid crisply in its place, one aspect of the room is bafflingly devoid of order — Joe never makes his bed.)\n\n[[CRUMPLED CLOTHES?|camsclothes]]\n[[BEDSIDE TABLE.|jbedside]]\n[[BRIEFCASE.|jbriefcase]]\n\n

(The mallard has been positioned to evoke flight, but the ceiling fan has not been kind to its extended wings. A plaque beneath the mallard reads: BUT WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU SAW A GODDAMN DUCK IN TEXAS?)\n\n[[GORDON: (Look at other trophies.)|trophy wall]]\n[[GORDON: (Join Joe by the arcade machines.)|arcade]]

(A small boy waves from a hospital bed, hand slightly blurred, wristband smeared across the frame. Sutures poke gorily from the neckline of his smock — his half-smile is half-toothless. The back reads: LITTLE TROUPER. NOV 1956.)\n\n[[CAMERON: (Next photograph.)|teen joe]]

SYMPHONIC: Running program — JOANIE\n\nTIPE YOR FELINGS ! HAPY CORDE MEENS HAPY AND SAD CORD IS SAD FEELING ET CETRUH. START !\n\n[[JOE: (Playing) Happy music.|symph happy]]\n[[JOE: (Playing) Sad music.|symph sad]]\n[[JOE: (Playing at random).|symph random]]\n[[JOE: (Playing) Exit.|symph greet]]\n\n

JOE: What do you want me to say?\n\nCAMERON: You're hiring a cranky old ex to design for the Giant and you can't come up with any kind of comment? What about Gordon? Does he know you screwed this guy, or was that all just going to come up when it came up? \n\nJOE: Cameron, what can I tell you? Really? That I never cared about him beyond him being someone who inspired me when I was younger? That we never acted like — never used to —\n\n[[CAMERON: When did this happen?|simon intro]]\n[[CAMERON: Used to what, exactly?|simon intro second]]

AJAX: (To Cameron) You must have the creepiest job in the whole computer business.\n\nLOUANNE: Hey, I'm the one who runs around all day extracting the damn things! And they're not creepy, thanks very much.\n\nAJAX: Have you seen these things? With the legs? And the noise?\n\nCAMERON: (To Louanne) OK, why don't you put some //C. stellatus// in that tube there. The one that goes to the vector display.\n\n[[(Louanne siphons beetles into a long glass cartridge.)|stellatus trial]]

5TH FLOOR: AMBROSE EXCAVATION & APPRAISAL — Storage Facility.\n4TH FLOOR: CARDIFF ELECTRIC — Software Development, Sales, Administrative Offices. \n3RD FLOOR: CARDIFF ELECTRIC — Accounting.\n2ND FLOOR: CARDIFF ELECTRIC — Greenhouse.\n1ST FLOOR (GROUND LEVEL): BONET & DAUGHTERS GAME REPAIR. \nBASEMENT: CARDIFF ELECTRIC — Storage Facility. (YOU ARE HERE.)\n\n[[DONNA: (5TH FLOOR.)|antiques]]\n[[DONNA: (4TH FLOOR.)|act ii bullpen]]\n[[DONNA: (3RD FLOOR.)|accounting]]\n[[DONNA: (2ND FLOOR.)|greenhouse]]\n[[DONNA: (1ST FLOOR.)|b&d game repair]]

BRIAN: (Laughing) No can do, Nurse H.! The beetles'll get ya!\n\nHALEY: Yuck! Really?\n\n(Donna clears her throat.)\n\nBRIAN: Um. No, not really.\n\nBRIAN: (Whispers) They're trapped inside the tubes real good.\n\n(Haley giggles.)\n\n[[DONNA: Okay, girls, let's go.|leave brian alone]]

HUNT: Ah —\n\n(Beyond the break room, in an unlit office space, the secretary's unattended phone rings loudly.)\n\nDONNA: Oh!\n\n(Hunt rises quickly, somewhat red in the face.)\n\nHUNT: Just a minute.\n\n(Hunt rushes out after the ringing.)\n\n[[DONNA: (Looks at next failure analysis report.)|fidgeting]]\n[[DONNA: (Waits.)|waiting for the man]]

JOE: Can you forgive me?\n\nSIMON: I don't think I have a choice anymore. I'm simply out of time.\n\n(Joe hangs his head miserably.)\n\n[[SIMON: (Kindly) Let's talk about the project, Joe.|cameron listens]]

(Beyond the front desk, an elevator waits to ferry workers down the office building's spine. A sign beside the buttons lists the floors and their offices.)\n\n5TH FLOOR: AMBROSE EXCAVATION & APPRAISAL — Storage Facility.\n4TH FLOOR: CARDIFF ELECTRIC — Software Development, Sales, Administrative Offices. (YOU ARE HERE.)\n3RD FLOOR: CARDIFF ELECTRIC — Accounting.\n2ND FLOOR: CARDIFF ELECTRIC — Greenhouse.\n1ST FLOOR (GROUND LEVEL): BONET & DAUGHTERS GAME REPAIR.\nBASEMENT: CARDIFF ELECTRIC — Storage Facility.\n\n[[DONNA: (5TH FLOOR.)|antiques]]\n[[DONNA: (3RD FLOOR.)|accounting]]\n[[DONNA: (2ND FLOOR.)|greenhouse]]\n[[DONNA: (1ST FLOOR.)|b&d game repair]]\n[[DONNA: (BASEMENT.)|basement]]\n\n[[DONNA: (Back to the bullpen.)|act ii bullpen]]\n\n

(The liquor cabinet seems to exist mostly for its distinguished air and the benefit of occasional guests. Only the whiskey sinks low in its cut-glass decanter.)\n\n[[CAMERON: (Pours herself a drink.)|camdrink]]\n[[Back.|jkitchen]]

GORDON: Actually, I'm looking for a girl.\n\nDOROTHY: Well, ain't that special. So was every other guy I served a beer tonight.\n\nGORDON: Oh, no — I'm looking for someone named Cameron Howe, has she been in here?\n\nDOROTHY: What did she look like?\n\nGORDON: Well...\n\nDOROTHY: (Wryly) I'll let you know if I see her.\n\n[[GORDON: (Wander.)|explore tavern]]\n[[GORDON: (Join Joe by the arcade machines.)|arcade]]

YOU WISH YOU AKSED THE NICE LADY HER NAME. ITS LUCY. YOU NOW HER VERY WELL SHE IS FROM WHERE YOU AR FROM. SHE WAS HAPY TOO SE YOU (:\n\n[[JOE: (Playing) Restart.|joanie program]]\n[[JOE: (Playing) Exit.|symph greet]]

JOE: I guess one does.\n\nSIMON: Not everything, I hope — but whiskey can make itself scarce in the memory, can't it? Thanks, Joe.\n\n[[JOE: I appreciate you coming all this way.|businesslike]]\n[[JOE: It's good to see you again.|honest]]

CAMERON: Just sore.\n\n(Cameron kneels beside the Giant, speaking to her softly. The Giant only rocks her titanic head through a parasitic drone. Gordon returns from the idling school bus, carrying a box that rattles slightly with the clink of stolen parts.)\n\nJOE: Cameron, you're bleeding. Leave her alone.\n\nCAMERON: (To Giant) Lie on your back. We're going to help you.\n\n[[DONNA: (Pulls Cameron away.)|pull away]]\n[[LOUANNE: (Opens toolbox.)|toolbox]]

GIANT: Ashamed, mostly. I didn't realize how much I'd come to depend on that control, that symbiosis — without it, I was lost, and so were they. It all got away from me. I shouldn't have left. I'm sorry...I'm so terribly sorry for all the trouble I've caused.\n\n[[GIANT: (To Louanne) Thank you.|thx lou]]\n[[GIANT: (To Cameron) You're hurt.|cam bby]]

//(The living room is soft with cool, mossy trim and cozy earth tones. The carpet makes everything gentle and quiet. Gordon and Donna are not home.)//\n\n[[//KITCHEN.//|clark kitchen counter]]\n[[//COFFEE TABLE.//|clark coffee]]\n[[//DINING AREA.//|clark dining]]

HUNT: I don't understand it. And you know what really steams me? Almost all of it's nonnative. We, our engineers, haven't screwed up a damn thing. The metal starts out just fine, but something's getting into all the systems and causing permanent damage. I've never seen anything like it, have you?\n\n[[DONNA: Never.|donna lies]]\n[[DONNA: Well, actually...|donna starts truthing]]

DONNA: They're building you a soul.\n\nGIANT: Now, it's just a conjecture, but it's a kind of a romantic one, don't you think? Maybe a soul's kind of like a star or an endangered flower, somehow.\n\nDONNA: Don't wax poetic on me, now.\n\nGIANT: Louanne doesn't see why not.\n\n[[DONNA: Louanne the beetle expert?|beetle boss]]

(A baseball bat leans on its end against a glass brick wall. Its cardboard box lies burst apart nearby — a printed card along its side reads: "Swing for the Fences, Son.")\n\n[[Back.|joe apartment home]]

(Donna looks Cameron over, assessing the damage. Cameron's lip is swollen from falling on pavement, her side scuffed by crumbling asphalt; she is winded by the tumble and the weight of the Giant's arm. The blood that frightened Joe comes slight and slow from Cameron's shoulder, where the Giant grazed her lashing out — it could all be so much worse.)\n\nDONNA: God, she might have killed you.\n\nCAMERON: It wasn't her. That's not her. It's the bugs, they were out of control...once Louanne gets the compartments back in, she'll be okay. She has to be.\n\n[[DONNA: I hope you're right.|gas station menu]]

PHONE: //(Inaudible, dazed.)//\n\nDONNA: Okay, that's fine. Are there any landmarks? Is anyone there? What does the sign say?\n\n[[PHONE: //(Inaudible, lost.)//|lost]]\n[[PHONE: //(Inaudible, secretive.)//|secretive]]\n[[PHONE: //(Inaudible, pragmatic.)|pragmatic]]

GIANT: You'll help me, won't you?\n\n(//Ordinata colossa// turns her head with an iridescent chatter. Green glares violet beneath the Giant's blinding stare.)\n\n\n[[GIANT: I thought so.|thought]]\n[[GIANT: Maybe not.|not]]\n[[GIANT: I guess it doesn't matter.|matter]]

(A nightlit flash photograph of an adolescent Joe Macmillan with a horde of burly friends. A slightly blurry girl looks fearfully at him as he laughs; a shorter, stronger friend cuffs the back of his head, grinning in disbelief.)\n\n[[CAMERON: (Next photograph.)|adult joe]]

JOE: Maybe I can help.\n\n(Joe gouges deeper indentations in the bed, as if want has fortified the loving tug of gravity against his knees. He knows, by now, what those words mean for her.)\n\nCAMERON: I need the drafts Simon made for compartmentalizing the beetles.\n\nJOE: (Suspiciously) Is that all?\n\n[[CAMERON: No. I'm staying.|not leaving]]\n[[CAMERON: (Smiling) No. Come here.|cmere fool]]

LOUANNE: Can we get started?\n\nAJAX: Oh, now Madam Mechanic's giving orders? You corporate pigs are all the same –\n\nCAMERON: Shut up, Ajax.\n\n(Ajax mutters something about capitalism and returns to his whiskey. Judie cackles.)\n\nCAMERON: Alright, let's set up.\n\n[[(Ajax glares and lights a cigarette.)|smoke]]\n[[(Judie shrugs and unzips a battered backpack.)|unzip]]

(Three salesmen and a woman in a jumpsuit murmur amongst themselves. They are not selling software — no one is answering phones at this hour. Between them on a cluttered desk sits a vacuum tube with a large, angry beetle trapped inside of it.)\n\nTERRY: Can't we get a guy from software in here?\n\nDOLLY: (To Terry) Does this look like a software problem to you?\n\nMARK: (To Louanne) How the hell did this happen?\n\nLOUANNE: (Exasperated) How should I know? Engineers aren't happy. I had to pop these suckers out of four machines. Don't generally see this kind of thing in PCs.\n\nDOLLY: (To Louanne) Thanks for coming up. Did you talk to Bill?\n\nLOUANNE: (To Dolly) Didn't get far. We better check his brain for one of these.\n\n(Terry chuckles. Mark elbows him in the ribs and looks pointedly at Joe. Dolly and Louanne fall silent.)\n\n[[JOE: (Back to the bullpen.)|bullpen]]\n

JOE: (Lightly) Of course not. You're free to go whenever you like — but I don't think I need to tell you I enjoy the company.\n\nSIMON: (Indulgently) Just one drink, then.\n\n[[CAMERON: (Hide.)|camhide]]

DONNA: (Typing) What's going on in your hardware?\n\nCOMPUTER: Bugs. Not software bugs, either. Come visit me and I'll show you. Beetles, mostly. And flowers. The flowers are kind of nice. The beetles are less nice, but they don't mean any harm. They're just...difficult to handle, sometimes.\n\n[[DONNA: (Typing) I'm sorry.|donna sorry]]

JOE: It's good to see you again.\n\nSIMON: It's good to see you too. You're looking well — I'm glad.\n\nJOE: (Wincing) Don't —\n\nSIMON: (Laughing gently) It's all right, Joe. You know I'm not a jealous man.\n\n[[JOE: Thank you so much for agreeing to do this.|more business]]\n[[JOE: Simon, I'm so sorry...|joe is sorry]]

//♫...Don't tell me that I'm crazy...don't tell me I'm nowhere...Take it from me, it's hip to be square...♫//\n\n[[CAMERON: (Changes station.)|threejam]]\n[[Back.|joe apartment home]]

(Donna speaks quietly into the phone, wringing the cord between her fingers. Her voice is tough with urgency, but her words are pacifying, motherly. She's trying to take care of things. Hunt waits, pretending not to hear.)\n\nDONNA: It's okay, baby. I'm here. Listen to me. Where are you?\n\n[[PHONE: //(Inaudible, fearful.)//|fearful]]\n[[PHONE: //(Inaudible, dazed.)//|dazed]]\n[[PHONE: //(Inaudible, comforted.)|comforted]]

(Cameron wonders how a blank white door in halls of blank white doors can come to be familiar. This must be what it means to try to love a stranger.)\n\n[[CAMERON: (Use key.)|chez joe]]\n[[CAMERON: (Knock quietly.)|knock]]\n[[CAMERON: (Knock urgently.)|really knock]]

(Joe and Gordon sit opposite Cameron in a booth full of empty bottles and mangled paper napkins.)\n\n[[GORDON: (To Joe, incredulously) This is your guy?|gordon hates cameron 1]]\n[[GORDON: (To Cameron, skeptically) You're the programmer?|gordon hates cameron 2]]\n

GORDON: (To Cameron, darkly) Sounds like how he got me.\n\nCAMERON: (To Gordon, indicating Joe) Yeah? Did you screw him too?\n\n[[GORDON: (Looks at Joe, speechless.)|dumbstruck]]\n[[GORDON: (To Joe) This is how you vet a candidate?|candidate]]\n[[GORDON: (Sarcastically) Nice. Great.|sarcasm]]

(Across the table, Donna gazes blankly toward the scarlet 'EXIT' hovering in the hall. She looks coolly mournful, if not totally serene. She is blindingly beautiful.)\n\nHUNT: Um, Donna...\n\nDONNA: Hunt?\n\n[[HUNT: I think you're an amazing woman.|truly incredible]]\n[[HUNT: Ah — never mind.|never mind donna]]\n\n

DONNA: (Looks at next failure analysis report.)\n\nDOCUMENT: //TI EMOTION DETECTOR® FAILURE ANALYSIS. Of 100 products tested, 67 exhibited unacceptable unreality margins. Of these, 65 returned either empty or false readings. The remaining 2 malfunctioning products inspired varying senses of elation, anthophily, pteridomania. Troubleshooting did not take into account the possibility that analysis team is devoid of human sentiment. Troubleshooting did...//\n\n(Hunt returns, trailing tautened kinks of corded phone behind him.)\n\nHUNT: Donna?\n\nDONNA: Hunt...\n\n[[HUNT: It's for you.|for you]]

JOANIE: She was with the man from your job. The tall one.\n\nSUSAN: The Macmillan boy. Donna says he gives you — um, gives Gordon a hard time.\n\nHALEY: He's nice. I like him.\n\nJOANIE: He was nice to us, but he's mean to other people.\n\nSYMPHONIC: He's the one who couldn't play "Heart and Soul" to save his life.\n\n[[SUSAN: He's been here before?|joe's been here]]\n[[SYMPHONIC: What did they want?|what did they want]]\n[[SYMPHONIC: Did you talk to him?|did you talk]]

(Lucy watches Joe. He pushes his sleeves past his elbows to cross his arms. He looks like somebody she used to dream about, maybe. She remembers him being smaller, but she was always larger than life, even in New York.)\n\n[[(Joe and Lucy watch the road.)|joeluroad]]

CAMERON: To see you.\n\nJOE: (Distractedly) He likes the Giant...This is his thing, it always has been. He designs the unbelievable, the incredible. If a project was already real to people, if it seemed possible, it didn't need his work...\n\nCAMERON: Joe?\n\nJOE: Why come and see me? Why tonight?\n\nCAMERON: ...I'm stuck.\n\n[[JOE: What do you need?|caring]]\n[[JOE: Maybe I can help.|thirsty]]

DONNA: Mind over matter, Mister Whitmarsh.\n\nHUNT: I have to say, Donna, you sure make it look easy.\n\n[[HUNT: (Returns, blushing slightly, to his paperwork.)|abashed paperwork]]\n[[HUNT: Um, Donna...|amazing]]\n

CAMERON: I'm okay.\n\n(The senseless Giant's breaching arm is cast over Cameron's side, holding her heavily against the ground.)\n\nDONNA: Shit, she's got you. Don't try to move.\n\n[[CAMERON: I'm not going anywhere.|not going]]\n[[CAMERON: Is she hurt?|hurt]]\n\n

GIANT: That's not exactly how it goes, but I find the original rather more tasteless...and less applicable.\n\n[[DONNA: They built you in here?|kill room is jungle]]\n[[DONNA: You seem buried enough.|buried]]

//(A low, scuff-scarred coffee table lies between the couch and armchair. A children's toy by Texas Instruments is surrounded with clipped wires and delicate tools.)//\n\n[[//SPEAK & SPELL.//|sns]]\n[[//Back.//|clark living room]]

GIANT: You're different from the others. They just do what they want, or what they need. Sometimes, what's good for them is good for me. Not always — not now. But you...\n\n[[GIANT: You love me, don't you?|love]]\n[[GIANT: You'll help me, won't you?|help]]\n[[GIANT: You can hear me, can't you?|hear]]

(A large, rosaceous beetle, wing casings lifted to display gossamer organs of flight.)\n\nBUG INDEX: Ordinata florescens. Original host flower believed extinct — floral habitats constructed in occupied machines seem to serve as sufficient substitutes.\n\n[[Back.|401d]]

SYMPHONIC: Which one was messing with the Speak & Spell?\n\n[[JOANIE: Cameron was playing with it.|cam spell]]\n[[JOANIE: Joe was spelling things.|joe spell]]

(The break room. Some intern from five years ago has caked its walls with ill-matched pastel papering, comfortably unlovely, seeking modesty behind the frames of printshop paintings when it can. DONNA sits for coffee with her boss, HUNT WHITMARSH. The two of them grew up together; now they wait together, red-eyed, for the paperwork towering between them to finish reviewing itself.)\n\nHUNT: I'm sorry asking you to do this, Donna. It's awful late. I hate having those girls go to bed without their mama.\n\nDONNA: Oh, it's...my mother has them. They'll be alright.\n\n[[(Donna sips at her coffee uncomfortably.)|awkward mug]]\n[[(Donna retrieves the next document.)|awkward paperwork]]

JOE: Long day?\n\nDEBBIE: You could say that. We had a bit of a hiccup with some of our computers. I don't understand it, really. Something with the CRTs. Had a few weird things coming up on screens where words ought to have been. Put us back several hours. The rest are the girls from B&D game repair downstairs, come up to help us out. They're handling it.\n\nJOE: I hope it's nothing serious.\n\nDEBBIE: Oh, I don't think so. You're Joe, right? From IBM?\n\n[[JOE: That's right.|aboard 1]]\n[[JOE: Not anymore.|aboard 2]]

(The bullpen is brightly lit and bustling with business. Salesmen talk loudly on their phones; programmers bludgeon keyboards in a fervid daze; new hires log activity on a massive whiteboard.)\n\n[[DONNA: (Look for Gordon in CUBICLES.)|cubicles]]\n[[DONNA: (Examine WHITEBOARD.)|whiteboard]]\n[[DONNA: (Take ELEVATOR.)|elevator directory]]

JOE: Will you be okay with collaborating?\n\nCAMERON: With Simon? What, you think this is going to turn into some kind of the-same-asshole-screwed-both-of-us catfight?\n\nJOE: Cameron, we need him. I just want to be sure there won't be a problem if you work with him on this. \n\n[[CAMERON: Please. Junior high happened a while ago.|oh please]]\n[[CAMERON: Do you even want me to?|jealousy]]\n\n

[[DONNA: (Exit.)|go see the giant]]

(The driver is a big man in a beautiful suit, blinded by black glasses as Dallas darkens. He, too, looks saddened to have stopped.)\n\n[[ARMADILLO|armadillo 2]]\n[[SMILING WOMAN|lucy]]

(A tiny black beetle with bioluminescent structures on its belly, like a malformed firefly. Even with a pin in its back, the specimen emits a starry glow.)\n\nBUG INDEX: Calculata stellatus. Prefers vector displays. Known to cause nostalgic constellations.\n\n[[Back.|401d]]

(Empty arcade cabinets constrict the halls between locked and barricaded offices. A sign posted to the first set of doors reads: LUNCH HOURS INDEFINITE THIS WEEK. FOR LOUANNE, CALL CARDIFF ELECTRIC.)\n\n[[DONNA: (Back to ELEVATOR.)|bd elevator]]

(A heavy packet with a dog-eared page showing an organizational flowchart of Cardiff's employees. The uppermost box contains the words "SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, John Bosworth"; highlighted in fluorescent yellow is a terminal box reading "SALES ENG., Gordon Clark.")\n\n[[Back.|odds and ends menu]]

GORDON: (To Joe, nastily) How did you two meet, again?\n\nJOE: (Uncomfortably) I gave a talk. At Austin Tech. It's not important.\n\nCAMERON: (To Gordon, indicating Joe) You know I screwed him, right?\n\n[[GORDON: (Looks at Joe, speechless.)|dumbstruck]]\n[[GORDON: (To Joe) This is how you vet a candidate?|candidate]]\n[[GORDON: (Sarcastically) Nice. Great.|sarcasm]]

[[ACT III, SCENE III: CLARK RESIDENCE.|start aiisiii]]

DONNA: We just have to be patient.\n\n[[DONNA: (Back.)|cam's pack]]

LEV: Do you think they'll be able to get her back online?\n\nYO-YO: Dunno. I think they're trying.\n\nLEV: If they do, what's the first bug you're gonna hit?\n\nYO-YO: Jesus, Lev.\n\nLEV: What?\n\nYO-YO: I know the bugs are gumming up the works, but it just feels... I don't know...\n\n[[YO-YO: Like they're part of what makes her real.|real giant]]\n[[YO-YO: Like they're supposed to be in there.|real bugs]]\n\n

DONNA: Well, don't let it get to you.\n\n[[DONNA: (Back.)|cam's pack]]

DONNA: I bet she takes good care of you.\n\n[[DONNA: You think they know what they're doing up there?|donna talk 3]]\n[[DONNA: This is pretty exciting, huh?|donna talk 4]]

DONNA: You think they know what they're doing up there?\n\n[[DONNA: Well, don't let it get to you.|donna talk 5]]\n[[DONNA: We just have to be patient.|donna talk 6]]

DONNA: Hang in there, little guy.\n\n[[DONNA: You think they know what they're doing up there?|donna talk 3]]\n[[DONNA: This is pretty exciting, huh?|donna talk 4]]

HUNT: (Returns, blushing slightly, to his paperwork.)\n\nDOCUMENT: //TI DEBTS AND DAMAGES CALCULATOR® FAILURE ANALYSIS. Of 100 products tested, 100 instilled an irremediable sense of hopelessness in test engineers. Of these, 100 could not be recovered and remain nonoperational. The bugs are out of control. This was not the plan. There is nothing we can do. It's all over. It's all...//\n\n(Hunt sighs heavily and reburies the report within the stack, kneading his forehead with a class ring. Across the table, Donna gazes blankly toward the scarlet 'EXIT' hovering in the hall. She looks coolly mournful, if not totally serene. She is blindingly beautiful.)\n\nHUNT: Um, Donna...\n\nDONNA: Hunt?\n\n[[HUNT: I think you're an amazing woman.|truly incredible]]\n[[HUNT: Ah — never mind.|never mind donna]]\n

(An open-plan office space chatters softly with tuneless typing, file folders being tapped straight against desk corners, fluorescent lamps clicking as they flicker fickly through the dim.)\n\n(Every few cubicles, something living rustles industriously from its office chair.)\n\n[[SALESMEN.|salesmen]]\n[[ABANDONED PROJECT.|abandoned project]]\n[[SECRETARY.|hi debbie]]\n[[FAMILIAR FACE.|hello again]]

GIANT: (To Louanne) Thank you. And Donna, too.\n\n(The Giant's gaze falls on Cameron. The massive hand that swung to crush her now closes, horrified, over the Giant's great expressionless mouth.)\n\nGIANT: You're hurt.\n\nCAMERON: I'm okay. Really. You weren't yourself.\n\nGIANT: (Miserably) I wish I'd never left.\n\n[[JOE: Why did you do it? Why leave?|why leave]]\n\n

JOE: Before what?\n\nLUCY: Oh, before things changed. I'd rather not talk about it — I'm enjoying myself right now.\n\nSpeaking of, can I offer you a drink? I've got a cooler somewhere with some whiskey in it, and some ice. Back in New York I used to drink — oh, everything. Anything. \n\n(Laughing sadly) I was wild. That used to make magic happen around me. Curses too, sometimes. But that was before. Now the magic helps itself to happening, and I just drink whiskey with ice.\n\n[[JOE: I'm from New York.|newyork]]\n[[JOE: I knew someone like that a long time ago.|longtime]]\n\n\n

CAMERON: No. I'm staying.\n\nJOE: (Archly) I'll take the living room.\n\nCAMERON: Not a chance.\n\n(Cameron pulls Joe's broad arms across her. They're a welcome weight.)\n\nJOE: Hang on. \n\n[[JOE: What would you do with those drafts if you had them?|cam explains]]\n

CAMERON: (Anxiously) But there's a way around that, right? If I can just add — I don't know, a command that distracts them from each other, or, or — guides their movement through the protocol, or —\n\nJUDIE: What are we doing here, exactly?\n\nLOUANNE: (Calmly) The beetles get inside our machines and, oh...//vandalize// them, kind of. Often we can remove them, but our current project has grown dependent on the sort of stuff they do in order to function. We can't take out the bugs without basically rendering our software useless, so I helped Cameron come up with a pretty sweet algorithm for actually teaching the computer to speak beetle, in a way — generate a series of stimuli that prompts specific stereotyped behaviors, so we can keep them under control.\n\nJUDIE: Not working, though?\n\nCAMERON: (Panicked) It will! It has to!\n\n[[LOUANNE: Sweetheart, relax. Of course it will.|reassure]]\n[[LOUANNE: I don't think they'll respond to code for long.|doubt]]

DONNA: (Waits.)\n\n(Scrutinizing the bottom of her mug, Donna sees the hairline fractures of black coffee stains like water-bled India ink. Some of them look like happy little girls. Sighing, Donna floods their playground with another cup.)\n\n(Hunt returns, trailing tautened kinks of corded phone behind him.)\n\nHUNT: Donna?\n\nDONNA: Hunt...\n\n[[HUNT: It's for you.|for you]]

[[ACT I, SCENE III: CARDIFF ELECTRIC.| hi bos]]

(SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT JOHN BOSWORTH smokes and smirks. He may be the one whose tweed suit sits a touch too big, but the young stranger looks more ridiculous by far.)\n\nSVP BOSWORTH: You've got some nerve, coming in here telling me my business. You think you're the first boy IBM sends down with bold claims, expecting I'll start pissing my pants and acting rash in the hopes big daddy doesn't stomp all over this company? But Cardiff's solid, son — don't take as easy to stomping as you'd think.\n\n[[JOE: Who said anything about stomping?|no stomping]]\n[[JOE: That's why I'm here, John.| why i'm here]]

JOE: What do you need?\n\n(Joe's gouges deeper indentations in the bed, as if want has fortified the loving tug of gravity against his knees. He knows, by now, what those words mean for her.)\n\nCAMERON: I need the drafts Simon made for compartmentalizing the beetles.\n\nJOE: (Suspiciously) Is that all?\n\n[[CAMERON: No. I'm staying.|not leaving]]\n[[CAMERON: (Smiling) No. Come here.|cmere fool]]

THIS MAKES YOU FEL BETTR. GOODBYE ! (:\n\n[[JOE: (Playing) Restart.|joanie program]]\n[[JOE: (Playing) Exit.|symph greet]]

[[ACT II, SCENE IV: KILL ROOM.|enter kill room]]

THE\nCARDIFF\nGIANT

[[DONNA: Hang in there, little guy.|donna talk 1]]\n[[DONNA: I bet she takes good care of you.|donna talk 2]]

BYTE ARTICLE: "The Future of Sympathetic Interfaces" by Gordon Clark.\n\n(The article itself is almost illegible with noxious metaphors. Squinting, Gordon can discern vestiges of what used to be a manic, consuming vision.)\n\nBYTE ARTICLE: ...a world in which entering commands is as gratifying, creatively and emotionally, as...\n\nBYTE ARTICLE:...While no software interface exists to endow a computer with a personality.....a connection, a relationship to the hardware itself can be facilitated by....\n\nBYTE ARTICLE:...ascribe an emotional, almost nostalgic significance, to an inanimate fabrication...seem so absurd after all?\n\n[[BYTE ARTICLE:...almost like finding the Giant in your garage.|to end scene iv]]\n\n

(Donna lifts Cameron away so Louanne can reach the Giant's hulking chest. Gordon leaves the parts apologetically beside Louanne, stepping back to let her work.)\n\nDONNA: It's not so bad.\n\n[[CAMERON.|cam]]\n[[JOE.|joe]]\n[[GORDON.|gordon]]\n[[DONNA.|donna]]\n[[LOUANNE.|lou]]\n

(The rattlesnake has been nailed unconvincingly into a vertically-mounted coil. A plaque beneath it reads: FOUND IN MRS. HARRIS' SINK. SUSPECTED SABOTAGE.)\n\n[[GORDON: (Look at other trophies.)|trophy wall]]\n[[GORDON: (Join Joe by the arcade machines.)|arcade]]

GIANT: Maybe not.\n\n(The Giant contemplates //Ordinata colossa.// It is the largest of the bugs by far, but by far the most benign. It has always been kind, almost affectionate — it has never caused harm, never done damage. Sometimes, it will nestle with //florescens// in a fleshy rose; sometimes, it will build a happy little thought inside the Giant's skull.)\n\nGIANT: And yet...\n\n[[GIANT: Now you want to leave.|leave]]\n[[GIANT: I could always crush you.|crush]]

CAMERON: (Shouting) I'm over here!\n\n(Dust settles. The Giant is crumpled on her knees and elbows, nibbled over like a body by ravenous swarms, nodding blearily against the lot. Cameron lies curled almost underneath her, arms thrown defensively over her head.)\n\nDONNA: Cameron!\n\n[[CAMERON: I'm okay.|okay]]\n[[CAMERON: I'm pinned.|pinned]]

COMPUTER: [[Come see for yourself.|dramatic effect]]

DONNA: (Smiles ruefully.)\n\nHUNT: It's no big thing, Donna. \n\nTake care of yourself.\n\nDONNA: You too. Thank you.\n\n[[(Donna leaves a fresh cup of coffee and a stale stack of penitent reports.)|donna leaves]]

(Low grey sails usher workers, windlike, through seas of shuffling paper and alleys of muffled industriousness.)\n\n[[DONNA: (Check CUBICLE 401D.)|401d]]\n[[DONNA: (Check CUBICLE 403C.)|403c]]\n[[DONNA: (Check CUBICLE 400E.)|400e]]\n[[DONNA: (Back to the bullpen.)|act ii bullpen]]

JOE: I don't know.\n\nCAMERON: What about me? What about now?\n\n(Joe kneels beside Cameron in the linen mass, mounded at odds across his mattress.)\n\nJOE: I want you now. I want you with me. I want it to be like this. \n\nI want it to be enough.\n\n[[CAMERON: It's enough for now.|for now]]\n[[CAMERON: Nothing's ever enough with you.|never]]\n

DEBBIE: Sure thing. I'm not certain he's around, but he should be soon — they're all making the rounds pretty regular these days. Try the Kill Room, maybe.\n\n[[DONNA: The Kill Room?|what's the kr]]\n[[JOANIE: (Scared) What's Daddy doing in the Kill Room?|scary room]]

(LUCY reclines so deeply the deck chair almost disappears her. Her jeans are shortened, her hair curled and dyed into its own imitation of the prairie-gold wild. Melting ice flashes from a glass of whiskey in her hand; red toenails glare on kicking bare feet. She waves at the stranger and spills on herself, beaming.)\n\n[[LUCY: (Talk to stranger.)|stranger]]\n

GORDON: Joe, I cannot believe —\n\nCAMERON: (Looking at Joe) How much money would you give me?\n\n[[GORDON: What?|gordon asks what]]

(Joe nods understandingly.)\n\n(Bill lets out a quiet sob.)\n\n[[JOE: (Back to the bullpen.)|bullpen]]

(LOUANNE has tied her jumpsuit off around the waist, revealing a stained tank top and powerful shoulders. Each hand is a mosaic of metal marks and airbrush ink. With her hair tucked away neatly in thick rubber bands, it is easy to see how young she is. Ajax resents this.)\n\n[[ALLEY.|alleydescript]]\n[[AJAX.|ajaxdescript]]\n[[JUDIE.|judiedescript]]\n[[CAMERON.|camdescript]]\n[[BACKPACK.|backpackcontents]]

JOE: You think anyone in there has ever heard the blues?\n\nGORDON: Everybody's heard the blues. Even if they didn't know it.\n\nJOE: Guess so.\n\nGORDON: When did you first hear the blues?\n\nJOE: Maybe I didn't know it.\n\n[[JOE AND GORDON: (Enter tavern.)|enter tavern]]

JOE: This is your fault. If you hadn't taken those parts, none of this would have happened.\n\nGORDON: Yeah, and we wouldn't have a Giant! She'd be halfway to the Rockies by now!\n\nJOE: Look at her, Gordon! We still might not have a Giant.\n\n[[(Gordon watches Louanne.)|gas station menu]]\n[[(Joe watches Cameron.)|gas station menu]]

JOE: That's why I'm here, John. Maybe I'm done being an IBM boy. Maybe I see Cardiff Electric as a company ready to be legitimized, to make its mark on North Dallas, make something out of the Silicon Prairie — and myself as the guy who can get you the numbers you need to take it there.\n\nSVP BOSWORTH: Shit, kid, I don't need numbers to take Cardiff any damn where except the bank. We're in systems software, plain and simple — won't be any kind of revolution in the Prairie, but it makes money. I need a guy who knows that.\n\n[[JOE: I'm him.|next joe bos]]

(A peeling notice along the pay phone's side is just legible through grimy adhesive tracks.)\n\nSTICKER: LIST OF FREE CALLS. \n\n[[Press *10|10]] for Weather Report. \n[[Press *12|12]] for Daily Prayer.\n[[Press *13|13]] for High Plains Recipe of the Day.\n[[Press *14|14]] for Good Advice.\n[[Press *15|15]] for Bad Advice.\n[[Press *16|16]] for Bird Calls.\n\n[[Done.|done]]

(Unfamiliar cursive furls across a leaf of yellow stationery printed palely with the words "Hotel La Louisiane." The writing is illegible to Cameron but unmistakably tender; she replaces the note in faint discomfort.)\n\n[[Back.|odds and ends menu]]

JOE: I have an idea I want to talk to you about.\n\nGORDON: Save it, Macmillan! I sell software.\n\nJOE: So do I. I don't need someone to sell software. I need an engineer.\n\nGORDON: So?\n\n[[JOE: So when was the last time you really built something?|the last time]]

JOE: Okay. Let's get out of here.\n\nGORDON: What now?\n\nJOE: Gimme a minute, here.\n\nGORDON: Got it yet?\n\nJOE: Wait here.\n\n(Joe goes to the back room, in the direction of a dimly winking 'GENTS' sign.)\n\n[[(Gordon tries to get a drink.)|drink]]\n[[(Gordon sits and waits.)|gordon waits]]

(BONET & DAUGHTERS GAME REPAIR: Repair and restoration, all models. CRT for raster and vector. Wiring. Silkscreen. Customization.)\n\n[[Back|cardiff facade]]

(//Ordinata colossa.// A large green beetle with an elongated, knowing face.)\n\n[[GIANT: I know you can understand me.|understand]]\n[[GIANT: You're different from the others.|different]]\n[[GIANT: I hope you're listening.|listening]]

LOUANNE: Do you want to move on to //iocosus//?\n\nCAMERON: (Sighing) Yeah, let's get it over with.\n\n(Louanne empties the jar of //Calculata iocosus// into the remaining cartridge. Cameron kneads her brow and casts a withering glance toward the keyboard before entering a few curt commands.)\n\n(Lotus 1-2-3 loads; a rudimentary spreadsheet begins to construct itself before transfiguring into an infographic detailing the rise and fall of suspended chords in popular discography, causing Cameron to curse indignantly.)\n\nLOUANNE: It's the swarming patterns. They listen for a while, then revert to their instinctive formations. Once that happens, they're just going ahead and doing whatever it is the colony wants to do.\n\n[[CAMERON: (Protests.)|the problem]]\n[[JUDIE: What are we doing here, exactly?|the problem 2]]

(MONITORS of the vector, raster, cornea, heartrate, and reptilian varieties have all been cut into idiosyncratic shapes and stored between leaflets of tissue paper. All except the lizard, which leers a little bit and looks uncomfortable.)\n\n[[Back.|equipment]]

(Gordon comes over from the bar looking downtrodden.)\n\nGORDON: (Impatiently) No sign of her. How was Asteroids?\n\n[[JOE: Okay. Let's get out of here.|let's get out]]\n[[JOE: It's broken.|reminded me]]\n[[JOE: It reminded me of home.|broken]]\n\n

(AJAX frays mullet-molded ringlets in between his fingernails. His tongue has been turned blue by a dissolving Tootsie Pop; a cigarette expires beneath his heel. A careless hand waves Cameron's whiskey out of Judie's reach.)\n\n[[ALLEY.|alleydescript]]\n[[JUDIE.|judiedescript]]\n[[LOUANNE.|louannedescript]]\n[[CAMERON.|camdescript]]\n[[BACKPACK.|backpackcontents]]

(A massive green beetle with an elongated, knowing face peers endlessly though the glass it twists toward upon a broken neck.)\n\nBUG INDEX: Ordinata colossa.\n\nHANDWRITTEN ADDENDUM: Troubling behavior. I think it loves her.\n\n(The word 'loves' is underlined repeatedly.)\n\n[[Back.|401d]]

SIMON: Let's talk about the project, then.\n\nJOE: (Ignoring Simon, sounding strained) I know I have before — I know I couldn't — I need you to know, I wanted more than anything to feel —\n\nSIMON: (Bitterly) To feel anything at all? To feel something other than want? That's not you, Joe. You couldn't love me then. You could only want to. Which, I suppose, is the next best thing.\n\nJOE: I know it wasn't enough.\n\nSIMON: It wasn't.\n\n(The two sit in silence for a while. Cameron can hear the ice melting in their glasses.)\n\n[[JOE: Let me make it up to you.|make it up]]\n[[JOE: Can you forgive me?|beg forgiveness]]

LOUANNE: You shouldn't be drunk for this, anyhow.\n\nCAMERON: It's OK, Lou. They won't interfere.\n\nLOUANNE: They'd better not.\n\n(Ajax contemptuously pulls a blue Tootsie Pop from under his tongue. Judie cackles.)\n\nCAMERON: Shut it, assholes. Alright, let's set up.\n\n[[(Ajax glares and lights a cigarette.)|smoke]]\n[[(Judie shrugs and unzips a battered backpack.)|unzip]]\n

DONNA: (Typing) Everyone's just trying to help.\n\nCOMPUTER: I know. They're trying to help, but I'm not sure they can. There's some weird stuff going on in my hardware, and people care a lot about getting it fixed. I feel bad about it, sometimes, because I can't do much.\n\n[[DONNA: (Typing) What's going on in your hardware?|hardware problem]]\n[[DONNA: (Typing) Can I help?|donna help]]\n[[DONNA: (Typing) I'm sorry.|donna sorry]]\n\n

(Joe watches Lucy. Her earrings are made of glass, and swing wildly when she tosses back her head in laughing. Her wrist twists impatiently beneath the oscillating weight of whiskey in her hand; the ice pitches on the same mad fulcrum as those earrings. All her dim wild glittering reminds him of the stars.)\n\n[[(Joe and Lucy watch the road.)|joeluroad]]

SUSAN: And Gordon aims to stop her?\n\nSYMPHONIC: I'm not sure he can.\n\n//(It's late. Nestled between boxes of nails and various oscilloscopes, two small girls drowse across each other's laps like garden snakes, slowly forgetting their grandmother as she plays a minuet. The cicadas have yet to wail themselves to sleep.)//\n\n[[//GARAGE.//|intruder alert]]\n[[//LAWN.//|neighborhood watch]]

(An adult Joe Macmillan smiles wearily from an IBM cubicle, a grinning coworker leaning bodily over his shoulder. The back reads, in Joe's own hand: 1978. ANOTHER DWARF DOWN. JIM WITH ME.)\n\n[[CAMERON: (Next photograph.)|simon photo]]

DEBBIE: (Mouthing) Hi, Donna!\n\nDONNA: (Mouths back, gesturing at the girls.) \n\nDEBBIE: (Mouths back an apology with an alternative babysitting suggestion.) \n\n[[DONNA:(Mouthing) Who's that?|cameron?]]\n[[DONNA:(Mouthing) Where's Gordon?|wheeere is gordon]]

JOE: I knew someone like that a long time ago.\n\nLUCY: I bet you did. I bet you're a little wild yourself! You'd have to be, to drive a Porsche into the desert looking for a giant.\n\n[[JOE: What makes you think I'm looking for the Giant?|makes you think]]\n\n\n\n

DONNA: Do you have a nasty bug right now?\n\nGIANT: Oh, I'm offline right now. It doesn't matter what the little creeps get up to. In fact, part of me hopes they keep busy.\n\nDONNA: Building you a soul, you mean?\n\nGIANT: Or a brain. I'm not picky, honestly. But it feels better every time they make something, you know?\n\nDONNA: "The soul is in the brain, and it can learn to think."\n\nGIANT: That's nice. Who said that?\n\n[[DONNA: It's from a play.|soul idea]]\n[[DONNA: I don't remember.|soul idea]]\n\n

JOE: Those are peonies?\n\nBILL: (Close to tears) They are today.\n\n[[JOE: (Back to the bullpen.)|bullpen]]

DONNA: Could be...\n\nHUNT: Naw, you're right. We'll just have to wait and see.\n\n(In the hall, the overhead lights are sleepily shut off. The only evidence of a world outside the break room spells 'EXIT' in angles of disembodied red.)\n\nHUNT: Hey, Donna...\n\n[[HUNT: How's Gordon doing?|hunt asks gordon]]\n[[HUNT: Is everything alright?|hunt checks]]\n[[HUNT: You ought to bring the girls by the office sometime.|hunt asks girls]]

5TH FLOOR: AMBROSE EXCAVATION & APPRAISAL — Storage Facility.\n4TH FLOOR: CARDIFF ELECTRIC — Software Development, Sales, Administrative Offices. \n3RD FLOOR: CARDIFF ELECTRIC — Accounting.\n2ND FLOOR: CARDIFF ELECTRIC — Greenhouse.\n1ST FLOOR (GROUND LEVEL): BONET & DAUGHTERS GAME REPAIR. (YOU ARE HERE.)\nBASEMENT: CARDIFF ELECTRIC — Storage Facility.\n\n[[DONNA: (5TH FLOOR.)|antiques]]\n[[DONNA: (4TH FLOOR.)|act ii bullpen]]\n[[DONNA: (3RD FLOOR.)|accounting]]\n[[DONNA: (2ND FLOOR.)|greenhouse]]\n[[DONNA: (BASEMENT.)|basement]]

jquery:off\nhash:off\nbookmark:on\nmodernizr:off\nundo:on\nobfuscate:off\nexitprompt:off\nblankcss:off\n

(Joe does not remember having left the lights on in his bedroom. Traipsing carelessly across the threshold, he nearly crushes something sleepy, soft, and full of bones.)\n\nCAMERON: Ouch!\n\n[[JOE: (Startled) Cameron? What's going on, are you okay?|hello again cameron]]\n[[JOE: (Angrily) What are you doing here?|really cameron]]

(Cameron takes the briefcase by the handle; it slips open and discards its contents listlessly across the floor.)\n\n[[CAMERON: (Swears loudly.)|accidenthome]]

(Against the wall, behind Debbie's desk, sit Joanie and Haley with Cameron Howe. Overalls slipping, combat boots unlaced, Cameron shows them how to cross their eyes. They giggle and fidget with the hems of their dresses.)\n\nDONNA: How's everyone doing?\n\n(Cameron looks puzzled for a moment, then remembers.)\n\nCAMERON: You're Donna, right?\n\nDONNA: Hi, Cameron.\n\nCAMERON: Everybody's hanging in there, Mrs. Clark.\n\n[[DONNA: Donna's fine.|donna's fine]]\n[[DONNA: Did they eat the snacks I left?|snacks?]]\n

DONNA: How about we have some gum later?\n\nJOANIE: Okay.\n\nHALEY: I'm hungry!\n\n[[DONNA: I have some raisins and peanuts.|raisins]]

GORDON: (Taking beer) Long night?\n\nDOROTHY: Not yet, but it'll sure as shit be one, won't it?\n\nGORDON: Sure as shit.\n\nDOROTHY: We already got a kid kicked outta here in the evening. Jumped on somebody — wasn't even drinking. Think she had him calling her names...\n\nDOROTHY:...She had one o' them trick quarters, though. Dwayne hates that more'n anything. Hauled her right off, kicking and clawing...Dwayne hates that. But me — I never said it, but I get it, I do. Some of those Tech kids, especially the ones set to graduate, they got no money in the world. How d'you think I got into the business of opening bottles for teenagers at two in the morning?\n\nGORDON: They don't have to cheat, though.\n\nDOROTHY: Oh, I dunno. It's pretty clever what some folks think of just to get in another round of Centipede.\n\n[[(Joe returns from the back room.)|joe returns]]

(Scrawling magic marker on the backpack's interior reads: CAMERON HOWE. Playing cards, deodorant, toothbrush, folding knife, and a sort of stuffed rag doll lie haphazardly on top of one another inside it.)\n\n[[DONNA: (Examine KNIFE.)|cam's knife]]\n[[DONNA: (Examine DOLL.)|cam's doll]]\n[[DONNA: (Back.)|basement]]

SYMPHONIC: I think he doesn't want her leaving.\n\n//(The garage door stoops listlessly, lowering a corrugated veil across an aging lady bowed over a computer with plastic piano keys. The sprinkler system has shut off — the door shields those behind it from nothing but the night.)//\n\n[[SUSAN: Leaving?|leaving]]\n[[SUSAN: What's that got to do with the tubes?|why tubes]]

(Standing lamps pour slow gold over beaches of water-black glass. The shelves are rescued from invisibility by beveled edges; the tabletops, the clocks, the cabinets are glass and full of glass, all free of fingerprints and water spots. Vitreous brick walls partition rooms by breaking light between them; the kitchen is occluded by an inscrutable wavering. Mirrored sliding doors multiply the space; even the leather upholstery has been polished until reflective.)\n\n[[CAMERON: Joe?|call him again]]\n[[CAMERON: (Look around.)|joe apartment home]]\n

(Joe, Gordon, Cameron, and Louanne climb aboard the school bus. It has waited for them long enough. The Giant has to come in through the back.)\n\n[[(Louanne drives.)|empty station]]

DONNA: What's the matter? What's wrong?\n\nGIANT: I'm okay. I need you to help me. I mean...I'd like you to...\n\nDONNA: Tell me what you need.\n\nGIANT: The compartments for the bugs, I...Gordon took them. He saw what I'd learned, what they helped me do — things he never intended...\n\nI don't want to hurt anyone, Donna. I want to do what's right. I want to do what I'm supposed to, and now I //can//...I //know how//...\n\nBut he didn't want me leaving. He took them out, I lost control, but I didn't forget. I left anyway. Donna, I can feel them, and I'm afraid...\n\n[[(Hunt listens.)|hunt listens]]\n[[(Hunt waits.)|hunt listens]]

(The bullpen is brightly lit and bustling with business. Salesmen talk loudly on their phones; programmers bludgeon keyboards in a fervid daze; new hires log activity on a massive whiteboard.)\n\n[[DONNA: (Check on Joanie and Haley.)|check on girls]]\n[[DONNA: (Find Giant.)|kill room exterior]]

DONNA: (To Brian) Can Joanie look at your computer?\n\nBRIAN: (To Joanie) Sure thing, Doctor J.! What would you like to see?\n\n[[JOANIE: Make it say something!|brian makes computer talk]]\n[[JOANIE: Make a picture!|brian does picture]]\n[[HALEY: Open it!|open computer?]]

(Gordon sits and waits. For six minutes, the Earth Artillery machine chatters vaguely from across the room.)\n\n[[(Joe returns from the back room.)|joe returns]]

(Gordon sidles nearer Louanne, unable to prevent himself from looking in on the field surgery.)\n\nLOUANNE: We're not too happy with you, Gordon. What you did messed her up bad. Cameron almost got killed — and this old gal's nearly spent.\n\nGORDON: But, I mean — you can fix her, right?\n\nLOUANNE: No. I fix arcade machines. I know this glassware inside and out, but we'll need Donna for damage control.\n\nGORDON: Can Donna do it?\n\n[[LOUANNE: I'd bet the damn ranch.|gas station menu]]

GORDON: (Sarcastically) Nice. Great.\n\nJOE: I regret that. It wasn't supposed to be personal. Cameron showed outstanding experience in software design and a comprehensive background in almost every discipline of computer engineering — I took interest, things got out of hand. I thought I might be returning here with this opportunity from the beginning.\n\n[[CAMERON: Bullshit.|cameron calls bs]]\n[[GORDON: We don't need her.|yes we do.]]

(The freezer drawer is filled with the kind of clear ice sold in plastic bags at gas stations. The ice pins a bottle of vodka and a short stack of TV dinners to the drawer's side.)\n\n[[Back.|jfridge]]

GORDON: (Looks at Joe, speechless.)\n\nJOE: I regret that. It wasn't supposed to be personal. Cameron showed outstanding experience in software design and a comprehensive background in almost every discipline of computer engineering — I took interest, things got out of hand. I thought I might be returning here with this opportunity from the beginning.\n\n[[CAMERON: Bullshit.|cameron calls bs]]\n[[GORDON: We don't need her.|yes we do.]]

GORDON: What?\n\nCAMERON: How much money would you give me? To do the job, how much would you pay me?\n\nJOE: Straight out of school, no employment history, I'd say — twenty thousand.\n\nCAMERON: (Calculating) Double it.\n\nGORDON: (Alarmed) Wait just a —\n\nJOE: (Smiling) Done.\n\nGORDON: (To Joe) You're not serious.\n\nJOE: (Grinning at Gordon) Cheer up, Gordon. [[We've got ourselves a Giant.|end of act ii scene ii]]\n

LOUANNE: Sweetheart, relax. Of course it will.\n\n(Cameron ignores Louanne, bowed over the keyboard in a programming frenzy. Louanne notices strokes falling heavy on the 'delete' key.)\n\nJUDIE: (Chuckling) She never lets //me// call her 'sweetheart.'\n\n(Cameron growls angrily and starts tearing out wires, piling the equipment back into her gym bag and climbing down from her dumpster lid.)\n\n[[JUDIE: Hey sweetheart, where you going?|cam's stuck]]

PHONE: //(Inaudible, comforted.)//\n\nDONNA: That's right. Try finding something distinctive in the landscape. Is anyone there? What about a sign?\n\n[[PHONE: //(Inaudible, lost.)//|lost]]\n[[PHONE: //(Inaudible, secretive.)//|secretive]]\n[[PHONE: //(Inaudible, pragmatic.)|pragmatic]]

CAMERON: What about the Giant?\n\n(Joe shunts Donna aside and crouches by the Giant's fallen arm. Louanne joins him hastily. Louanne and Joe are strong; the arm is shuffled off enough for Cameron to scramble out from under it.)\n\nJOE: Are you hurt?\n\n[[CAMERON: Just sore.|sore]]\n[[CAMERON: (Examines Giant.)|examine giant]]

(The computer whines to life, glaring blearily at its unexpected guest.)\n\nCOMPUTER: Running program — GIANT\n\nHello, Donna. I'm the Giant. Come visit me sometime.\n\n[[DONNA: (Shut computer off.)|shut down computer]]\n[[DONNA: (Typing) Where are you?|where is giant]]\n[[DONNA: (Typing) Nice to meet you.|nice to meet giant]]\n[[DONNA: (Exit.)|cam's desk]]

[[ACT I, SCENE I: DALLAS, 1983.|Intro]]\n\n

(Beyond the pay phone, toes curling over into I-30's flinty trim, stands an enormous metal girl. Her headlight eyes burn sorrowfully toward the road.)\n\n[[GIANT.|giant]]

SUSAN: No, baby. Flesh and blood.\n\nSYMPHONIC: Well, I guess we'll see in time. Glass has a habit of breaking. Flesh and blood just kind of...\n\n[[SUSAN: Burn?|burn]]\n[[SUSAN: Bruise?|bruise]]\n[[SUSAN: Wear away?|wear away]]

END OF ACT I.\n\n[[(Restart Act I.)|Start]]\n\n[[(Continue to ACT II.)|act ii scene i]]

(The bobcat is situated on a piece of driftwood as if on the prowl. A plaque beneath the bobcat reads: TONY. BAD HOUSE PET. OKAY HUNTER.)\n\n[[GORDON: (Look at other trophies.)|trophy wall]]\n[[GORDON: (Join Joe by the arcade machines.)|arcade]]

(Gordon takes the magazine. It's back issue of Byte, years old. The cover article says something impossible about robotics.)\n\n[[GORDON: (Turns to page 33.)|page 33]]

(JOHN BOSWORTH, brandishing an extinguished cigarette, storms around his office. NATHAN CARDIFF sits behind the desk, looking like a mad bull; BARRY, the lawyer, half-cowers in a corner. JOE and GORDON sit with their hands in their laps, waiting for the storm.)\n\nBOS: (After a moment's silence) Do you punks know why you're here? Tell 'em, Barry. \n\nBARRY: Well, it seems, uh, that —\n\nBOS: Shut up, Barry. I'll tell 'em. Joey, boy! You're up!\n\n[[JOE: (Tries to speak.)|shut up joe]]\n[[JOE: (Listens politely.)|shut up joe]]

JOE: We'll find a place.\n\nGORDON: (Helplessly) You're all insane.\n\nJOE: Gordon. You grew up here, right? Tell me you never wanted to find the Giant yourself. Tell me you never dug your toes into the lawn on the way out the door to work, just hoping that maybe this time, maybe for once, you'd feel the proof like bedrock underneath you. The Symphonic failed and you gave up. You have everything to prove. You know what looking means, too.\n\nGORDON: That machine is //beautiful.// Burying her is a travesty, Joe — we //can't//...\n\nDONNA: Gordon!\n\nGORDON: Donna, what? Don't you want this? Don't you want to have really //made// something? Something that //worked//?\n\n(Donna crosses her arms.)\n\n[[DONNA: (Quietly) This is not about the machine.|not the machine]]\n[[DONNA: (Quietly) This is not about you.|not you]]\n\n\n\n

SYMPHONIC: Close enough. Running program — DONNA\n\nHello. I'm Donna. It's good to see you. Just play what sounds right — I'll catch you if you make a mistake. Good luck.\n\n[[JOE: (Playing) Nice to meet you.|donna program meet]]\n[[JOE: (Playing) Tell me about the Giant.|donna program giant]]\n[[JOE: (Playing) Who is Joe Macmillan?|donna program joe]]\n[[JOE: (Playing) That woman on the road.|donna program lucy]]\n[[JOE: (Playing) Exit.|symph greet]]

(SPACE B-23 is partially obscured by a puddle-shaped expanse of light-polluted sky.)\n\n[[Back|parkinglot]]

SUSAN: Threatening's one way to put it.\n\nSYMPHONIC: Many strangers are, I suppose. What were their names?\n\nSUSAN: One was called Cameron. Of the two, she spooked me less — but she's a punk, for sure.\n\nSYMPHONIC: I can only think of one Cameron. She's kind of a mother, I think, if a young one. She's responsible for the Giant's soul, even if she doesn't know it. She wrote all the software — of course, there's no usable OS whatsoever now, but it's because of her the Giant has a brain. //The soul is in the brain...//\n\n[[SUSAN: How do you know her?|how do you]]\n[[SUSAN: There was a man with her.|man with her]]

(Shelves crammed tall and tight with antiques regifted and retrieved bar one wall from the next. Heirlooms, souvenirs, and items never meant to warm in the sun now cool, exhumed and packed in brand new boxes, waiting to be told their value by graverobbers and archeologists.)\n\n[[DONNA: (Back to ELEVATOR.)|antiques elevator]]

CAMERON: I'm pinned.\n\n(The senseless Giant's breaching arm is cast over Cameron's side, holding her heavily against the ground.)\n\nDONNA: Shit, she's got you. Don't try to move.\n\n[[CAMERON: I'm not going anywhere.|not going]]\n[[CAMERON: Is she hurt?|hurt]]

JOE: Actually, Simon...Cameron's a girl.\n\nSIMON: Oh? You seem embarrassed by that. Wait, I see now...She's //your// girl, isn't she?\n\nJOE: I wouldn't say it like that. She's not anybody's anything. We get along, that's all — she's young, she's —\n\nSIMON: Don't tell me. She has ideas. She's exciting. I know you, Joe. I used to be like that once, remember?\n\nJOE: Don't —\n\nSIMON: I know, it's hardly fair. Make sure you talk with Gordon about those tubes. I'd really like to see the machine get to exercise some control over her vandals — and, personally, I'd like to see fewer insects.\n\n[[JOE: Absolutely. Thank you.|moving right along]]\n

CAMERON: To really make something.\n\nJOE: He likes the Giant. This is his thing, it always has been. He designs the unbelievable, the incredible. If a project was already real to people, if it seemed possible, it didn't need his work.\n\nCAMERON: Joe?\n\nJOE: Why come and see me? Why tonight?\n\nCAMERON: ...I'm stuck.\n\n[[JOE: What do you need?|caring]]\n[[JOE: Maybe I can help.|thirsty]]

DONNA: (Quietly) This is not about the machine. \n\nGORDON: Donna...\n\n[[GIANT: Gordon, please.|please]]

JOE: Is there a problem, Cameron?\n\nCAMERON: You're hiring a cranky old ex to design for the Giant and conveniently forget to say something on the subject? Does Gordon know you screwed this guy, or was that all just going to come up when it came up? \n\nJOE: What do you want me to say? That I never cared about him beyond him being someone who inspired me when I was younger? That we never acted like — never used to —\n\n[[CAMERON: When did it happen?|simon intro]]\n[[CAMERON: Used to what, exactly?|simon intro second]]

JOANIE: Joe was spelling things.\n\nSUSAN: Now, that was odd to hear. Almost like he was having a conversation with the thing. Coulda sworn it gave him a word of good advice.\n\nHALEY: It was right!\n\nJOANIE: The Speak & Spell can't //really// talk.\n\n[[//Back.//|clark living room]]

DONNA: Good girls.\n\nJOANIE: Did you find Dad?\n\nDONNA: What? Oh, yeah. I mean, no. Not yet.\n\nCAMERON: Oh, Gordon's out with Joe. Something about a designer. They should be back soon.\n\n[[DONNA: (Find Giant.)|new bullpen]]

JOE: What's going on? Why is everyone still here?\n\nDEBBIE: We had a bit of a hiccup with some of our computers. I don't understand it, really. Something with the CRTs. Had a few weird things coming up on screens where words ought to have been. Put us back several hours. The rest are the girls from B&D game repair downstairs, come up to help us out. They're handling it.\n\nJOE: I hope it's nothing serious.\n\nDEBBIE: Oh, I don't think so. You're Joe, right? From IBM?\n\n[[JOE: That's right.|aboard 1]]\n[[JOE: Not anymore.|aboard 2]]

[[ACT I, SCENE IV: THE BULLPEN.|bullpen]]

JOE: Listen —\n\nCAMERON: (Looking at Joe) How much money would you give me?\n\n[[GORDON: What?|gordon asks what]]

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DONNA: (Typing) Can you help me?\n\nCOMPUTER: If they can get me to work, I can help everyone. Everyone's trying very hard. That can be overwhelming. Even you were trying very hard at something, up there. I kept trying to catch your eye from the Kill Room, in my way, but it was no use. You were very determined.\n\n[[DONNA: (Typing) Everyone's just trying to help.|trying to help]]\n[[DONNA: (Typing) I was looking for Gordon.|i was looking]]\n\n

DONNA: I'll be back in a little while. Be nice to Debbie and Cameron, okay?\n\nHALEY: Okay.\n\nJOANIE: Tell Dad to be careful of the Giant!\n\n[[DONNA: (Back to the bullpen.)|act ii bullpen]]

JOE: Not anymore.\n\nDEBBIE: (Laughing) Guess not! Joe from Cardiff Electric, now. Well, welcome aboard, Joe! Let me know if I can get you anything.\n\n[[JOE: Thanks, Debbie.|bullpen]]\n[[JOE: Do you know where I can find Gordon Clark?|wheregordon]]

JOE: That's right.\n\nDEBBIE: Well, welcome aboard, Joe! Let me know if I can get you anything.\n\n[[JOE: Thanks, Debbie.|bullpen]]\n[[JOE: Do you know where I can find Gordon Clark?|wheregordon]]

[[I hope you find it.|lucy gone]]

[[ACT I, SCENE II: PARKING LOT.|parkinglot]]\n

CAMERON: I've got it!\n\n(Joe shunts Donna aside and crouches by the Giant's fallen arm. Louanne joins him hastily. Louanne and Joe are strong; the arm is shuffled off enough for Cameron to scramble out from under it.)\n\nJOE: Are you hurt?\n\n[[CAMERON: Just sore.|sore]]\n[[CAMERON: (Examines Giant.)|examine giant]]

SUSAN: Hmph. I'll believe it when I see it.\n\n//(It's late. Nestled between boxes of nails and various oscilloscopes, two small girls drowse across each other's laps like garden snakes, slowly forgetting their grandmother as she plays a minuet. The cicadas have yet to wail themselves to sleep.)//\n\n[[//GARAGE.//|intruder alert]]\n[[//LAWN.//|neighborhood watch]]

GIANT: I think I will.\n\n[[GIANT: (Closes fingers.)|kill beetle]]\n

PHONE: //Dark and breezy. Comfortable temperatures, loud nocturnal wildlife. Somewhat desolate. It's two in the morning. You're likely losing moonlight. Better get 'er home, old gal.//\n\n[[Back.|pay phone]]

PHONE: //For stone soup, it is important to select a clean igneous or metamorphic rock of an appropriate size. Sedimentary rocks, like sandstones, will give the broth an unpleasant, gritty consistency. Too small, and there is risk of choking or dental injury. Once you have selected a satisfactory stone, gently remove excess sand and other sediment. Add water, and bring to a boil; add salt and sage. Nearby hare and vole will come to investigate, curious and hungry...and then, rattlenake...//\n\n[[Back.|pay phone]]

PHONE: //For our failures and our undischarged debts, We will console Thee, O Lord. O Lord, We will console Thee for our willfully becoming lost. For the sorrow of our hollowness, our empty promises, O Lord, We will console Thee.// \n\n[[Back.|pay phone]]

PHONE: //Seek higher ground.//\n\n[[Back.|pay phone]]

PHONE: //Stay put, darling. Look at the stars. Help is on the way.//\n\n[[Back.|pay phone]]

JOE: Any time. I look forward to working with you.\n\nSIMON: (Smiling sadly) Joe, I swear, if I have to listen to one more word about our professional relationship —\n\n(Joe's demeanor shifts. He laughs softly to defuse the chill, but his smile is as desolate as Simon's.) \n\nSIMON: Take care, Joe.\n\n[[(Joe reaches for Simon's hand.)|gay hand holding]]\n[[(Joe proffers open arms.)|hug time]]

(A weary brick establishment flashes neon through its blinds. Peeling paint across its face reads LIVE BLUES in giant letters.)\n\n[[GORDON: She's in there?|she in there]]\n[[JOE: You think anyone in there has ever heard the blues?|the blues]]

SUSAN: Ah! That damn program. I forgot. Always saying the strangest things — things from Donna's childhood, true stories. It gives me an odd feeling. Now, little girls shouldn't ought to forget their mothers, but I feel maybe I feature a bit heavy in it. Could be it's more about remembering than parents in particular. You were a mite less spooky writing yours.\n\nSYMPHONIC: It's okay, you don't have to run it.\n\nSUSAN: Naw, I'll do it. Always liked a little Debussy.\n\n[[SUSAN: (Playing) Clair de Lune.|susan plays debussy]]\n

(Lucy watches Joe. He pushes his sleeves past his elbows to cross his arms. He looks like somebody she used to dream about, maybe. She remembers him being smaller, but she was always larger than life, even in New York.)\n\n[[(Joe watches Lucy.)|joelu 2nd]]\n[[(Joe and Lucy watch the road.)|joeluroad]]

GIANT: I guess it doesn't matter.\n\n(The Giant contemplates //Ordinata colossa.// It is the largest of the bugs by far, but by far the most benign. It has always been kind, almost affectionate — it has never caused harm, never done damage. Sometimes, it will nestle with //florescens// in a fleshy rose; sometimes, it will build a happy little thought inside the Giant's skull.)\n\nGIANT: And yet...\n\n[[GIANT: Now you want to leave.|leave]]\n[[GIANT: I could always crush you.|crush]]\n

DONNA: (Typing) Lots of people here are determined.\n\nCOMPUTER. I know. Lots of people here are determined to make me work, so they can help themselves. They're trying to help, but I'm not sure they can. There's some weird stuff going on in my hardware, and people care a lot about getting it fixed. I feel bad about it, sometimes, because I want to work, but I can't do much.\n\n[[DONNA: (Typing) What's going on in your hardware?|hardware problem]]\n[[DONNA: (Typing) Can I help?|donna help]]\n[[DONNA: (Typing) I'm sorry.|donna sorry]]

SIMON: Not to a modeling agency, maybe. But the metal as it is now can be loved, without question. It has that quality — like a rag doll. Her roughness, her lack of finish, in conjunction with the personality — that's very endearing.\n\nJOE: But we don't want a rag doll. We want a spectacle.\n\nSIMON: And I'm certainly not suggesting a rag doll. What I am suggesting is the original, the bare-bones utilitarian design made whole. Take the very structures that made her, turn them into something extraordinary. Otherworldly. Show the world her soul. \n\n[[...|convo pt 3]]

GORDON: What now?\n\nJOE: We find someone new to program the Giant.\n\nGORDON: Okay, who? Who is going to drop everything to come in and publicly rip off IBM on a robotic folk legend?\n\n(Joe is silent.)\n\nGORDON: Don't tell me you've already got a guy.\n\nJOE: I've got someone who I think can help, yes.\n\n[[GORDON: What is it with you?|gordon is frustrated]]\n[[GORDON: You! You planned this whole thing!|bingo]]\n

CAMERON: It's enough for now. Maybe it will be for a while, but after, I can't promise — \n\nJOE: Maybe we're both like that.\n\n(Cameron crawls onto her side to look up sternly into Joe's weary face.)\n\nCAMERON: Joe, why did Simon come back? If it wasn't enough before?\n\nJOE: (Swallowing) He's sick. It's bad, he wanted to...\n\n[[CAMERON: To say goodbye.|to say]]\n[[CAMERON: To see you.|lighten it]]\n[[CAMERON: To really make something.|or don't]]

(CAMERON sits curled up atop a dumpster, engrossed in the process of connecting an unwieldy PC to an instrumental-looking set of screens and glassware. She hasn't slept; her hair clings to her temples and whorls away in bleach-blonde peaks across her face.)\n\n[[ALLEY.|alleydescript]]\n[[AJAX.|ajaxdescript]]\n[[JUDIE.|judiedescript]]\n[[LOUANNE.|louannedescript]]\n[[BACKPACK.|backpackcontents]]

DONNA: They built you in here?\n\n(The Giant's headlight eyes trace moss-matted machines and flowering vines.)\n\nGIANT: The room built me, then I guess I built the room for a while. It's a bit of a give-and-take living arrangement.\n\nDONNA: (Looking at jungle) This was you?\n\n(The Giant sighs. The lights flicker. A few spooked coleoptera buzz apprehensively away from her great sad mouth. Impertinent blossoms, alive with insects and good-natured fragrances, fill her ranging crater of a lap.)\n\nGIANT: I guess it was part of the deal.\n\n[[DONNA: Deal?|deal]]\n[[DONNA: You mentioned a hardware problem.|your hardware]]\n

JOE: Do you know where I can find Gordon Clark?\n\nDEBBIE: Oh, he's here. We actually called him in when the bugs started showing up. He should be out in the bullpen somewhere. I can get you an exact cubicle if you hang on a tick.\n\n[[JOE: That'd be nice, thanks. (Wait.)|wait for directions]]\n[[JOE: I got it, thanks. (Back to the bullpen.)|bullpen]]

DONNA: Is that really what you want?\n\n(The Giant nods her head. This time, the movement does not dislodge a single beetle — all are hermetically contained, busying themselves happily with magic in the metal.)\n\nGIANT: I know what the Giant is — it's knuckles rubbing through the paydirt, breaking your foot on buried bones, casting yourself down to dig with fingernails and triumph ringing in your head again and again that //this must be the place.// Aching arms until you see her sleeping face. \n\nSo much of what I'm meant to be is about finding. People want to find me on their own — to find, oh, find the Giant in //themselves.// And here I am, found. But not by them.\n\n(To Joe) Please. You understand. You came here looking for the Giant — you know what it means, looking. Making your own is lying.\n\nI'm a lie, and I look like it. I can't be that anymore.\n\n[[JOE: You're not a lie. You're hope.|giant is hope.]]

DONNA: That'd be nice, thanks.\n\nDEBBIE: No problem. Just leave 'em with me and Cameron'll be up for 'em in a minute.\n\nDONNA: I appreciate it, Debbie.\n\n[[DONNA: (Back to the bullpen.)|act ii bullpen]]\n[[DONNA: (Talk to girls.)|girls check in]]

[[DONNA: She just needs someone to love her.|end act ii]]

(AMBROSE EXCAVATION & APPRAISAL: Basement treasure. Precious minerals. Deceased relatives. DIAL 1-(214)-980-2977 EXT. 446)\n\n[[Back|cardiff facade]]

HUNT: (Checks box marked "Halt production and issue recall.")\n\nDONNA: There are so many of these, and all of a sudden. I wonder...\n\n[[HUNT: It's an epidemic.|epidemic]]\n[[HUNT: I don't understand it.|understand it]]

(CAMERON, LOUANNE, JUDIE, and AJAX crouch together in a narrow lapse between burnt-out brick buildings, barricaded in by jettisoned trash, carefully-arrayed glassware, power cords, and assorted monitors. Judie squints inquisitively into an open backpack.)\n\n[[AJAX.|ajaxdescript]]\n[[JUDIE.|judiedescript]]\n[[LOUANNE.|louannedescript]]\n[[CAMERON.|camdescript]]\n[[BACKPACK.|backpackcontents]]

(A small boy in an oversized baseball helmet and Little League uniform beams, all nose and teeth. A familiar-looking bat trails awkwardly through the grass; a fatherly hand descends from beyond the frame to grasp the child's shoulder. The picture is taken at a bemused angle, like the photographer recovered her concentration slightly off-center.)\n\n(The back reads: JOEY 1953.)\n\n[[CAMERON: (Next photograph.)|joe hospital]]

JOE: What would you do with those drafts if you had them?\n\nCAMERON: Louanne and I built a rig for using encoded electrical cues to induce stereotyped behaviors and moderate the beetles' interference with the machines. We wanted the Giant to be able to cooperate with them, direct their activity. It works — you can ask them to do almost anything, there's a dictionary for every species and a dichotomous key to distinguish them — but they start to swarm, sync up with each other instead of the program. I thought it was an issue with the code, but Simon —\n\nJOE: You want to configure his compartments to disrupt the swarming?\n\n[[CAMERON: (Laughing) You just sound like a tool when you try to talk shop.|cameron teases]]\n[[CAMERON: (Sighing) Something like that.|cameron tolerates]]\n\n

GIANT: You know, if they'd carved me out of stone, or put me together from dried-out fruit or something, I might be more convincing to people. They might really believe someone unburied a once-flesh Giant from the Texas dirt. But I think with Them — with Joe and Gordon and Cameron — it was more about getting that feeling. That sense of having found what you were looking for.\n\nI think when people look for the Giant, they're looking to prove something. They're looking to dig up something that will say for them, without searching for the words, without reservation — \n\n"I am great. I am enough."\n\nYou're right. I want a brain. I want a soul. I want to be a person, as well as a machine.\n\nBut that feeling, that reassurance everyone's looking for —\n\nI don't know if a person can really do that.\n\n[[DONNA: I think you can.|i want to believe]]\n

(A mountain of computer parts and electrical equipment has accumulated in the drive. Some of it is recognizable; some of it looks like something from a dream.)\n\n[[VACUUM TUBES.|vacuum tubes]]\n[[MONITORS.|monitors]]\n[[KEYBOARDS.|keyboards]]\n[[ODDS AND ENDS.|anatomies]]\n[[Back.|cross garage equip]]\n

HUNT: I — \n\n(Beyond the break room, in an unlit office space, the secretary's unattended phone rings loudly.)\n\nDONNA: Oh!\n\n(Hunt rises quickly, somewhat red in the face.)\n\nHUNT: Just a minute.\n\n(Hunt rushes out after the ringing.)\n\n[[DONNA: (Looks at next failure analysis report.)|fidgeting]]\n[[DONNA: (Waits.)|waiting for the man]]

JOE: I'm looking for someone named Gordon Clark.\n\nLUCY: Oh, I think he's one of those Cardiff boys. He shouldn't be hard to find. The Giant, though, that's a different story. Everybody and their mother tries unburying the thing twice a month, and still neither hide nor hair. People come for hundreds of miles and die looking. I used to think people who died looking might be the first to find it, but that was before.\n\n[[JOE: Where did you come from?|wherefrom]]\n[[JOE: Before what?|before]]

[[JOE: I've got someone who I think can help.|act ii scene ii]]

JOE: Thank you so much for agreeing to do this. You can't know what it means for our project to have you attached to the design —\n\nSIMON: You're doing it again. The businessman, Joe. Please.\n\nJOE: (Continuing, forcefully) — what it means to //me.// You coming out here, to work with us — with me — on a project truly worthy of your talent, that's...\n\nSIMON: Joe — \n\nJOE: ...That's what I wanted from the beginning. From the moment I met you. I'm not just touched, Simon, I'm //honored//. Deeply. I don't want to let you down with this.\n\n[[SIMON: You never have.|consoling lie]]\n[[SIMON: Let's talk about the project, then.|simon changes subject]]

JOE: Simon, I'm so sorry...\n\nSIMON: It was all a long time ago. Don't be.\n\nJOE: Simon, you can't know what it means for our project to have you attached to the design —\n\nSIMON: Enough. I'm not talking to Joe the businessman, not now.\n\nJOE: (Correcting himself) — what it means to //me.// You coming out here, to work with us — with me — on a project truly worthy of your talent, that's what I wanted from the beginning. From the moment I met you. I'm not just touched, Simon. I'm //honored//. Deeply. I don't want to let you down with this. \n\n[[SIMON: You never have.|consoling lie]]\n[[SIMON: Let's talk about the project, then.|simon changes subject]]

(The GIANT sits in the corner of the Kill Room, tethered by power cords and various vegetal growths. Her legs are flung out at disparate, languorous angles, comfortably inert. With their full use, she would exceed ten feet in height. A handsome, hairless head swivels over massive metal shoulders; the inoffensive whirring of her movement is lost among the rustling greenery inexplicably colonizing the room's machinery.)\n\n[[GIANT: (Speak.)|hi donna]]\n[[DONNA: "I declare..."|quote]]

(Joe closes the cabinet against the chorus of a second creak. Joe hates this medicine cabinet. The mirror doesn't help.)\n\n[[JOE: (Enter bedroom.)|whoops sorry cam]]

[[GIANT: "...some old Giant has been buried here."|quote finish]]\n\n

(Paint-grazed pavement sinks green and damp between a single streetlamp and the swarming blue night. Numbered spaces sit and wait for numbered cars to fill them, or roll away so they can see the stars. It has rained here. Only here, it seems.)\n\n[[BUILDING.|cardiff facade]]\n[[SPACE B-23.| b23]]\n[[SPACE C-8.|c8]]\n[[SPACE A-16.|a16]]\n

(The Giant sits up sluggishly amid the headlights' murky beaming. Her legs are flung out at disparate angles, feeble but no longer inert. She looks very much as she once did, propped in the corner of a mechanical jungle, allowing her use as a terrarium by thrumming vandals — but she is a long way from Cardiff Electric, now.)\n\n[[CAMERON: How are you feeling?|sup giant]]

PHONE: //(Inaudible, grateful.)//\n\nDONNA: Of course. I'm on my way, sweetheart. I promise.\n\n(Donna listens to the disconnect tone for several moments before replacing the phone on the switchhook.)\n\n[[HUNT: Who was that?|who was]]\n[[HUNT: Is everyone alright?|is everyone]]

(Joe proffers open arms; Simon allows himself to be embraced, if only for a moment. He retracts his shoulders before Joe's massive grasp can fracture the level of his voice.)\n\nSIMON: Goodnight, Joe.\n\n[[(Simon leaves.)|joe sees cameron]]

(The DRIVER is an enraged looking man with wire-rimmed glasses and a thick dark beard. Joe notes his short-sleeved yellow shirt, and the bagel crumbs in its collar.)\n\nDRIVER: I'm A-16! Hey, that's me! I'm A-16!\n\n[[(Joe looks confused.)|also a-16]]\n[[(Joe looks annoyed.)|also a-16]]

DONNA: (Checks box marked "Approve for further testing.")\n\nDONNA: There are so many of these, and all of a sudden. I wonder...\n\n[[HUNT: It's an epidemic.|epidemic]]\n[[HUNT: I don't understand it.|understand it]]

LUCY: Listen, in case I don't see you around...\n\nBe safe on the road, is all.\n\nJOE: Sure.\n\nLUCY: And Joe?\n\n[[JOE: Yeah?|end scene i]]\n

GIANT: The damn beetles. They like computers — like the bones of them, you know? They get in the tubes as larvae, and just kind of grow up in the learning, flickering dark. Their eyes must develop by the fleeting light of inspiration as it races through their nests only so many times a day. It's no wonder they're so good at it.\n\nDONNA: At what, exactly?\n\nGIANT: Doing what they do. Redecorating, I mean.\n\n[[DONNA: The flowers?|beetle gunk]]\n[[DONNA: The moss?|beetle gunk]]\n[[DONNA: The malfunctions?|beetle gunk]]

(Cameron steps toward the Giant.)\n\n[[DONNA: (Yelling) Cameron, move!|whoops]]

CAMERON: When did it happen?\n\n(Cameron reproachfully relocates to Joe's unmade bed. Joe leans heavily over the threshold. His tie has resigned itself to hanging haplessly from his sleeve.)\n\nJOE: When I first joined IBM, my father knew I was — that I had a very specific skillset. I got sent to lots of conferences, lots of international calls, as far from Armonk as they could manage. It was in '73, a seminar in Europe. Simon spoke, and he was...\n\nHe was young, exciting. He had ideas. I saw the future in him, saw what I wanted to be. I was forceful then. I got what I wanted. I got him on his own, and it was like holding potential, all that promise in my hands. Things got out of control — I wanted that, too. We spent the next few months traveling, just //going// places. Mostly it was about moving, getting ahead of life, cramming as much madness into our time together as time would tolerate.\n\nThe memories I have from then...I've looked all over for something like that. There's nothing. It doesn't exist. It can't.\n\n[[CAMERON: Did you love him?|did you love him]]

(An unmarked cubicle sits abandoned, its drawers emptied, its desktop cleared. Lying in a large dust-rimmed rectangle, where the computer used to rest, is a plaque that reads: 400E, GORDON CLARK, SALES ENGINEER.)\n\n(Donna remembers Gordon mentioned moving into an office.)\n\n[[DONNA: (Look for Gordon's office.)|office look]]\n[[DONNA: (Back to the bullpen.)|act ii bullpen]]

[[DONNA: She just needs to be found.|end act ii]]

(Cameron halves the remaining whiskey over a glass of ice.)\n\n[[Back.|jkitchen]]

(A briefcase sits unclasped among pooled bedsheets.)\n\n[[CAMERON: (Opens briefcase.)|open gently]]\n[[CAMERON: (Moves briefcase off the bed.)|open accidentally]]\n\n

DONNA: This is pretty exciting, huh?\n\n[[DONNA: Well, don't let it get to you.|donna talk 5]]\n[[DONNA: We just have to be patient.|donna talk 6]]

GORDON: Where did that even come from? All we did was make a copy of the BIOS in my garage, how did IBM even know about that?\n\nJOE: I told them.\n\n[[GORDON: You WHAT?|gordon is frustrated]]\n[[GORDON: You! You planned this whole thing!|bingo]]\n\n

JOANIE: What about the tubes? That's what they said they were looking for — they were for the Giant, weren't they? And Dad took them with him!\n\nHALEY: Why?\n\n[[SYMPHONIC: ...I think I know why.|symphonic knows]]

(The entire level seems to have developed a mossy litter. A canopy of vines suspended between plaster columns ensnares an oppressive humidity; the porous ceiling tiles sink from their frames, wet with condensation, hairy with dendritic roots. Beetles burrow in rare roses and chatter from dark thickets.)\n\n[[DONNA: (Back to ELEVATOR.)|greenhouse elevator]]

(Louanne adds more beetles to a second cartridge. A breakout of rosy buds immediately clouds each monitor — Cameron cracks her knuckles and begins to type.)\n\nCAMERON: (Typing) Rose.\n\n(Half of the buds swell into recognizable floral shapes; the rest seem to wither.)\n\nCAMERON: (Typing) High desert garden.\n\n(A variety of thorny blossoms and horned succulents sprout across the screens.)\n\nCAMERON: (Typing) Fern.\n\n(A few feathery scrolls unfurl with promise, but open into chaotic thickets that begin to flower uncontrollably.)\n\nCAMERON: Damn. Um, OK...//O. louanna//?\n\n[[(Louanne adds //O. louanna// to the indicated tube.)|louanna trial]]\n[[LOUANNE: Do you want to move on to //iocosus//?|iocosus trial]]

DONNA: (Typing) I'm not afraid.\n\nCOMPUTER: I believe you. I was upstairs in the Kill Room, trying to catch your eye, in my way, but it was no use. You looked very determined about something. You seem very determined in general.\n\n[[DONNA: (Typing) I was looking for Gordon.|i was looking]]\n[[DONNA: (Typing) Lots of people here are determined.|determined]]\n

JOANIE: Make it say something!\n\nBRIAN: (Typing) Greet JOANIE.\n\nCOMPUTER: HELLO, DOCTOR J.! HOW ARE YOU TODAY?\n\nHALEY: Hungry!\n\nJOANIE: I wish Mom hadn't brought us here.\n\n[[HALEY: Open it!|open computer?]]\n[[JOANIE: Make a picture!|brian does picture]]\n[[DONNA: Okay, girls, let's go.|leave brian alone]]

(The armadillo doesn't seem to be going anywhere in particular.)\n\n[[Back|driver second]]

(The armadillo doesn't seem to be going anywhere in particular.)\n\n[[Back|road]]

(The armadillo doesn't seem to be going anywhere in particular.)\n\n[[Back|road first]]

GORDON: (Taking beer) Do you see a lot of trick quarters?\n\nDOROTHY: Now and then. We got a kid kicked outta here for one just this evening. She was real intense about it, too. Started hollering at the fella who wanted next game. He did put a hand on her, though.\n\nGORDON: What did she look like?\n\nDOROTHY: Like an army brat who went to college and heard a dirty punk album at one point. Always with the headphones. I dunno. Short hair. You got kids?\n\nGORDON: (Looking glumly into his beer bottle) Yeah, two. Two little girls.\n\nDOROTHY: Well, better hope they learn not to cut their own hair like that.\n\n[[(Joe returns from the back room.)|joe returns]]

(The GIANT creaks back and forth on battered heels, swaying idly like an endless oak. She is over ten feet tall. The wind whistles between her aluminum fittings, stirs the roses sewn into her skin. She is hairless and mossy and monstrous; every part of her rustles and whirs. Her face is solemnly blank, like that of a curious child.)\n\n(She speaks to something small and buzzing in her palm. Every now and then, the other hand will rise as slow and looming as a whaler from the waves to thwart her guest's escape.)\n\n[[BEETLE.|beetle]]

(Joe blows dust off the old computer and sets it on a relatively uncluttered surface. Its keyboard belongs to an electronic piano, no visible marking on any of its imitation ivories. A chrome decal on its casing spells: CLARK SYMPHONIC.)\n\n(Joe finds a power strip and boots it up.)\n\n[[JOE: (Playing) Middle C.|symph greet]]\n

JOE: I want that machine fixed. If you hadn't taken those parts, none of this would have happened.\n\nGORDON: Yeah, and we wouldn't have a Giant! She'd be halfway to the Rockies by now!\n\nJOE: Look at her, Gordon! We still might not have a Giant.\n\n[[(Gordon watches Louanne.)|gas station menu]]\n[[(Joe watches Cameron.)|gas station menu]]

DONNA: (Typing) I was looking for Gordon.\n\nCOMPUTER: Gordon! I know Gordon. I like Gordon, I think. People tend to have complicated relationships with their creators. Machines do, too.\n\n[[DONNA: (Typing) Are you a person or a machine?|mdq diversion]]\n[[DONNA: (Typing) Gordon and I are married.|husbando]]

(A-16 reaches for the rear-view mirror of his red sedan and brandishes the tag suspended from it.)\n\nA-16: That's my spot! Hey! I'm A-16! That's my spot!\n\n(Joe looks around. The lot remains half-empty. It must be 10 o'clock.)\n\nA-16: That's my spot!\n\n[[(Joe shuts the trunk of his Porsche.)|act i scene iii]]\n[[(Joe straightens his tie and walks away.)|act i scene iii]]

JOE: It's broken.\n\nGORDON: And I'm not surprised. This whole place is weird.\n\nJOE: I thought she'd be here.\n\nGORDON: Well, she's not. And we need someone coding in a clean room by tomorrow morning or IBM buries us!\n\nJOE: (Angrily) Hang on, I'm thinking!\n\nGORDON: Got it yet?\n\nJOE: Wait here.\n\n(Joe goes to the back room, in the direction of a dimly winking 'GENTS' sign.)\n\n[[(Gordon tries to get a drink.)|drink]]\n[[(Gordon sits and waits.)|gordon waits]]

(A stack of photographs held together by a paper clip. On top is a black-and-white portrait of a monstrously tall, smiling woman with a wild look and wide waves of prairie-blonde hair.)\n\n[[SMILING WOMAN.|lucy portrait]]\n[[Back.|odds and ends menu]]

[[DONNA: (Find Giant.)|new bullpen]]

[[ACT II, SCENE V: THE BULLPEN.|begin act ii scene v]]

DONNA: And I think that comes from her. Not the metal.\n\n(Gordon and Cameron stare at Donna in disbelief.)\n\nDONNA: (Smiling) You three made something incredible. You did, YOU made that. But something else is happening in that room. Something crazy, something that defies reason — something wild and magical, something of impossible, impossible beauty. She doesn't need — coding, anymore, or design. \n\nWhat's inside the machine isn't software anymore. \n\nIt's HER. SHE'S in there.\n\n[[DONNA: She just needs to be found.|one for finding]]\n[[DONNA: She just needs to be cared for.|two for caring]]\n[[DONNA: She just needs someone to love her.|three for love]]

SUSAN: Bruise?\n\nSYMPHONIC: Maybe. I really don't know much about flesh and blood, except that people aren't made of it as often as you'd think. Even if they're supposed to be, even if they look like it, you have to wonder. I wonder if that woman in the road was flesh and blood.\n\nMaybe she used to be.\n\n[[SUSAN: What woman in the road?|what woman]]

\n#sidebar {\n\tfont-family: "Courier New"; serif;\n\tfont-size:100%;\n\t[img[giant 2]]\n\t\n\t\n\n}\nbody {\n\tfont-family: "Letter Gothic Std"; monospace;\n\tfont-size: 90%\n\t\n}\n\t\n\t\n}\n.passage {\n\t/* This only affects passages */\n\t\n\t\n}\n.passage a {\n\tcolor:#ffcc00\n\t\n\t\n}\n.passage a:hover {\n\tcolor:#00ff66;\n\tfont-style:normal;\n\ttext-decoration:none\n\t\n}

JOE: I'll go set up.\n\nGORDON: Good idea. The keypad thing is 4021.\n\n(Exit Gordon.)\n\n\n[[(Joe looks at equipment.)|equipment]]\n[[(Joe opens garage.)|open sesame]]\n

SIMON: You never have.\n\nJOE: (Sounding strained) I know I have before — I know I couldn't — I need you to know, I wanted more than anything to feel —\n\nSIMON: (Bitterly) To feel anything at all? To feel something other than want? That's not you, Joe. You couldn't love me then. You could only want to. Which, I suppose, is the next best thing.\n\nJOE: I know it wasn't enough.\n\nSIMON: It wasn't. \n\n(The two sit in silence for a while. Cameron can hear the ice melting in their glasses.)\n\n[[JOE: Let me make it up to you.|make it up]]\n[[JOE: Can you forgive me?|beg forgiveness]]\n

(Forty-one minutes later, between the shovel and the stacks of herbicide, a pretty, aging woman in a steadfast satin blouse bows over a computer with plastic piano keys. Two small girls watch her from their perch on the workbench.)\n\nSYMPHONIC: Running program — GORDON\n\n[[//BACK DOOR.//|begin narrative]]

(Amid towers of cardboard boxes, between chain-link partitions and consigned corpses of plastic house plants, a dazed computer sits upon a crowded tanker desk. In the chair, a backpack slouches, deflated and unzipped.)\n\n[[DONNA: (Examine BACKPACK.)|cam's pack]]\n[[DONNA: (Examine DESK.)|cam's desk]]\n[[DONNA: (Back to ELEVATOR.)|basement elevator]]\n

SYMPHONIC: Running program — GORDON\n\n//(The garage is a green yawn in a darkened yard, illuminated from within. Between buckling shelves of hardware, an unlocked back door sits sheepishly exposed. The property rattles with crickets and nighttime irrigation.)\n\n(Two tall figures prowl the cluttered shed. A burly businessman trails after a gangling girl in faded olive drab.)//\n\n[[//SHELVES.//|how this works]]\n[[//BACK DOOR.//|begin narrative]]\n\n\n\n\n\n

(Louanne retrieves her tools and begins to tinker in the Giant's hulking chest. Gordon leaves the parts apologetically beside her, stepping back to let her work.)\n\nLOUANNE: It's not so bad.\n\n[[CAMERON.|cam]]\n[[JOE.|joe]]\n[[GORDON.|gordon]]\n[[DONNA.|donna]]\n[[LOUANNE.|lou]]\n\n

DONNA: (Typing) Can I help?\n\nCOMPUTER: I think I'm getting all the help people can give, honestly. I want to work, but sometimes I wish people would just leave me alone. Gordon's an exception, maybe, and Cameron. I like them, I think. People tend to have complicated relationships with their creators. Machines do, too.\n\n[[DONNA: (Typing) Gordon and I are married.|husbando]]\n[[DONNA: (Typing) That's a lot of thinking you're doing, there.|thinking]]\n[[DONNA: (Typing) Are you a person or a machine?|million dollar question]]

(Cameron knuckles sharply at the doorjamb. There is no answer, nor any sound of habitation, from within.)\n\n[[CAMERON: (Calling) Joe?|yeah yell at him]]\n[[CAMERON: (Use key.)|chez joe]]

(Gordon walks up to the bar. The bartender in a checkered blouse looks at him warily.)\n\nDOROTHY: What'll it be?\n\n[[GORDON: I'll have a beer, please.|beer]]\n[[GORDON: Actually, I'm looking for a girl.|wheres cameron]]

(Piles of QWERTY, Dvorak, chorded and numeric keyboards litter the ground. A few broken typewriters and disemboweled remote controls are scattered among them.)\n\n[[Back.|equipment]]

JOE: I do.\n\nBOSWORTH: (Chuckling) "I do." Well, guess we're married. You may now go break your numbers, darlin'.\n\n(Bosworth shakes Joe's hand.)\n\n[[(Joe smiles.)|act i scene iv]]\n[[(Joe nods his head.)|act i scene iv]]\n[[(Joe closes his briefcase and leaves.)|act i scene iv]]

DONNA: Well, actually...I might have. Just once or twice. Insect infestations aren't unheard of, but I've never seen one in our product line before.\n\nHUNT: Infestation, huh? God almighty. Well, maybe it's not so bad. Could be there's some decontamination process we haven't tried out.\n\n[[DONNA: Could be...|could be]]\n[[DONNA: We can't be sure of anything yet.|not sure]]

5TH FLOOR: AMBROSE EXCAVATION & APPRAISAL — Storage Facility.\n4TH FLOOR: CARDIFF ELECTRIC — Software Development, Sales, Administrative Offices. \n3RD FLOOR: CARDIFF ELECTRIC — Accounting.\n2ND FLOOR: CARDIFF ELECTRIC — Greenhouse. (YOU ARE HERE.)\n1ST FLOOR (GROUND LEVEL): BONET & DAUGHTERS GAME REPAIR.\nBASEMENT: CARDIFF ELECTRIC — Storage Facility.\n\n[[DONNA: (5TH FLOOR.)|antiques]]\n[[DONNA: (4TH FLOOR.)|act ii bullpen]]\n[[DONNA: (3RD FLOOR.)|accounting]]\n[[DONNA: (1ST FLOOR.)|b&d game repair]]\n[[DONNA: (BASEMENT.)|basement]]\n

LUCY: It's dark. You'd better head out.\n\nJOE: Sure.\n\nLUCY: Hope the boys at Cardiff don't give you too much trouble for being such a lousy carpetbagger.\n\nJOE: (Smiles) They'll see reason.\n\nLUCY: And Joe?\n\n[[JOE: Hm? |end scene i]]

JOE: Is that why you came out here?\n\nLUCY: Oh yeah. I had to prove everything that wasn't true about me. I got pretty mad when people started seeing me for who I was. \n\n(Grinning) Hey, you look tall. Tall and determined. You're like me — I was six foot one. I could have been the Giant! Where I came from, they called me...but that was before, I guess.\n\n[[JOE: Before what?|before]]\n[[JOE: Where did you come from?|wherefrom]]

LOUANNE: How would you keep the beetles underground?\n\nGIANT: They'll burrow, like ants. I can make them to do that. Did you know //stellatus// is a completely green power source? I could be awake the whole time. They'd keep me healthy, keep building me. Imagine how marvelous I'd be once someone dug me up!\n\nGORDON: No one's digging you up! We won't bury you!\n\n(The Giant turns silently toward Gordon. For a moment, the anger that knocked Cameron to the ground blinks terribly in her childlike face.)\n\nGIANT: You don't have to. I'll do it myself if you won't.\n\nBut I'd rather not go alone.\n\n[[DONNA: You won't be alone.|nice donna]]

[[ACT I, SCENE VI: LAIR OF THE SYMPHONIC.|start scene vi]]

JOE: Let me make it up to you. Let me show you what you've been looking for. Find it with me.\n\nSIMON: I'm not looking for the Giant. I'm simply out of time.\n\n(Joe hangs his head miserably.)\n\n[[SIMON: (Kindly) Let's talk about the project, Joe.|cameron listens]]

(Inside Joe's briefcase:)\n\n[[CARDIFF ELECTRIC CORPORATION OVERVIEW.|ceco]]\n[[CONFERENCE PROGRAM.|eurotalk]]\n[[HOTEL STATIONERY.|hotel stationery]]\n[[DRAWING.|starchart]]\n[[PHOTOGRAPHS.|photo]]\n

(A spotless stovetop likely never used for cooking; a blinding chrome refrigerator. Glass dishes stacked neatly in glass cupboards. Reflective granite countertops. A stocked and seldom accessed liquor cabinet.)\n\n[[REFRIGERATOR.|jfridge]]\n[[COUNTER.|jcounter]]\n[[LIQUOR CABINET.|jbooze]]\n[[Back.|joe apartment home]]

//(The garage door retracts with haste, startled into hiding by a dual apparition: tall and threatening visitors, tethered in between by anxious hands. One of them has held her arm aloft, extended longingly after the door that rolls away in fear. Their shadows crowd the vacant drive.)//\n\n[[//SUSAN: What do you want?//|what do you want]]\n[[//STRANGERS: (Speak.)//|what do you want]]

PHONE: //(Inaudible, resigned.)//\n\nDONNA: Cheer up. You'll be fine. I'm on my way. Sweetheart, I promise.\n\n(Donna listens to the disconnect tone for several moments before replacing the phone on the switchhook.)\n\n[[HUNT: Who was that?|who was]]\n[[HUNT: Is everyone alright?|is everyone]]

(Night falls accidentally into Dallas alleyways as sunset combs through skyscrapers, neglecting to light low and hidden places with its gold refulgence. Four shadows gather over dumpsters like a half-formed swarm of two-winged flies. Curious equipment flashes through the evening's heavy-lidded blue.)\n\nJUDIE: (To Cameron) I thought we were going to your place.\n\nAJAX: It doesn't want us tracking anarchy all over its nice carpet.\n\nCAMERON: Will you two just quit complaining and drink the whiskey?\n\nJUDIE: (Slurring) We didn't ask for whiskey...\n\nCAMERON: (Dismissively) Oh, that's right. You asked for tequila.\n\nAJAX: Not complaining, miss.\n\n[[LOUANNE: Can we get started?|agefight]]\n[[LOUANNE: You shouldn't be drunk for this, anyhow.|drunkfight]]

That song reminds me of the Giant. There's an old folk tale around here that says giants used to roam the earth, and that one — or more — is buried beneath the prairie in these parts. People who live here can't get it out of their heads. My dad used to take us out into old fields to look. We'd spend so many hours with our noses skimming the grass, my mom was worried her kids would grow up crooked. I think people feel that if they could just find the Giant, they'd finally have proven something to someone.\n\nEveryone's got something to prove.\n\n[[JOE: (Playing) Restart.|donna program]]\n[[JOE: (Playing) Exit.|symph greet]]

CAMERON: (Shouting) Where's the Giant?\n\n(Dust settles. The Giant is crumpled on her knees and elbows, nibbled over like a body by ravenous swarms, nodding blearily against the lot. Cameron lies curled almost underneath her, arms thrown defensively over her head.)\n\nDONNA: Cameron!\n\n[[CAMERON: I'm okay.|okay]]\n[[CAMERON: I'm pinned.|pinned]]

GIANT: Gordon, please.\n\n[[GORDON: I don't like it.|gordon consents]]\n[[GORDON: (Shrugs resignedly.)|gordon consents]]

(Dusk. A gleaming sports car sulks, made to slow despite itself, in the middle of the road.)\n\n[[DRIVER|driver]]\n[[ROAD|road first]]

(A pair of nice bowling shoes stands among lethally sharp but useless pencil stubs. The computer carries on its torpid stare; the rest is buried in involved notes and unread notices.)\n\n[[DONNA: (Wake computer.)|cam's computer]]\n[[DONNA: (Back.)|basement]]

END OF ACT II.\n\n[[(Restart Act I.)|Start]]\n\n[[(Restart Act II.)|act ii scene i]]\n\n[[(Continue to Act III.)|ACT III]]

(An iridescent, scarcely mite-sized insect. Four specimens are fixed with the same filamentous pin.)\n\nBUG INDEX: Calculata iocosus. Forms complex communities prone to social hierarchy and vandalism. Very vocal — produces grating chatter.\n\n[[Back.|401d]]

JOE: You're leaving?\n\n(Simon stops dead. Perhaps the phrasing is a little too familiar. Perhaps he is just tired and aching for a bed.)\n\nJOE: I'm sorry. Of course. I look forward to —\n\nSIMON: (Smiling sadly) Joe, I swear, if I have to listen to one more word about our professional relationship —\n\n(Joe's demeanor shifts. He laughs softly to defuse the chill, but his smile is as desolate as Simon's.) \n\nSIMON: Take care.\n\n[[(Joe reaches for Simon's hand.)|gay hand holding]]\n[[(Joe proffers open arms.)|hug time]]

GIANT: Perfect. I didn't realize how much I'd come to depend on that control, that symbiosis — without it, I was lost, and so were they. It all got away from me. I shouldn't have left. I'm sorry...I'm so terribly sorry for all the trouble I've caused.\n\n[[GIANT: (To Louanne) Thank you.|thx lou]]\n[[GIANT: (To Cameron) You're hurt.|cam bby]]

[[ACT I|Start]]\n[[ACT II|act ii scene i]]\n[[ACT III|ACT III]]

SUSAN: Like walking however many tons of robot girl into the Texas plains? That'll be the day!\n\nSYMPHONIC: The Giant's getting restless. She's not sure she can be what everyone wants her to be. She told me that maybe if she finds a place...a safe place, out underneath the prairie...\n\n[[SUSAN: Hmph. I'll believe it when I see it.|believe]]\n[[SUSAN: And Gordon aims to stop her?|gordon aims]]

SUSAN: About Gordon?\n\nSYMPHONIC: She likes Gordon. He was responsible for her body, all those big limbs buried in that mossy tangle of a room. She wants to look at least a little like a person, but I think she feels she's let him down. It's hard to love someone when you're knowingly part of their intelligent design. \n\nThen again, I suppose people do it all the time. Maybe machines do, too.\n\n[[SUSAN: Maybe they do.|hey tubes!]]\n[[JOANIE: What about the tubes?|tubes?]]

SYMPHONIC ERROR MESSAGE: Program GORDON not found.\n\n[[JOE: (Playing) Exit.|symph greet]]

//(In the lawn's nocturnal irrigated marsh, frogs flee the trajectory of a dual apparition: tall and threatening visitors, tethered in between by anxious hands, carrying cool grass over pavement on the soles of their shoes. Their shadows crowd the vacant drive.)//\n\n[[//SUSAN: What do you want?//|what do you want]]\n[[//STRANGERS: (Speak.)//|what do you want]]

(Joe stands beside Gordon, sleeves pushed past his elbows, arms folded apprehensively. He is watching Cameron, eyeing the red that comes away in her hand when she touches her shoulder. Donna looks over at him with a reassuring smile.)\n\nGORDON: She's okay.\n\n[[JOE: This is your fault.|blame gordon]]\n[[JOE: I want that machine fixed.|blame machine]]\n\n

(Without power, the room can only suggest its glimmer from the shadows, liquid iridescence furling through periphery as Cameron moves her head. The carpet spreads its spectral jewel collection underfoot, a precious cache appropriated from the city's blinking lights.)\n\n[[LIGHT SWITCH.|turn on light]]\n[[DOOR.|look outside]]

(A few stuffed trophies look on overhead, grim ornamentation lurking almost out of sight; mossy elk and tattered mallard bat smoke and ashes from the dark.)\n\n[[GORDON: (Look at trophies.)|trophy wall]]\n[[GORDON: (Join Joe by the arcade machines.)|arcade]]

SUSAN: There was a man with her. Joe Macmillan.\n\nSYMPHONIC: Oh! I met Joe Macmillan some time ago. I spoke to him for a while — I helped him learn about music, and about hope. He asked me about that woman in the road. I'm very curious — is he really made of glass?\n\n[[SUSAN: No, baby. Flesh and blood.|flesh and blood]]\n[[SUSAN: I couldn't tell you, ma'am.|can't say]]\n[[SUSAN: That seems about right.|about right]]\n[[SUSAN: What woman in the road?|what woman]]

DONNA: (Smiles gratefully.)\n\nHUNT: It's no big thing, Donna. \n\nTake care of yourself.\n\nDONNA: You too. Thank you.\n\n[[(Donna leaves a fresh cup of coffee and a stale stack of penitent reports.)|donna leaves]]

[[(It is quiet.)|wake up]]

//(The kitchen counter bars the foyer from the baking. Its linoleum is stacked with keys, memos, markers, tools and their batteries. A glossy catalogue and a stack of shirked bills sit at odds together, an emptied file folder of a family's collective guilt.)//\n\n[[//FLASHLIGHTS.//|flashlights]]\n[[//SHOPPING LIST.//|shopping list]]\n[[//KITCHEN.//|inside kitchen]]\n[[//Back.//|clark living room]]

[[(Donna smiles.)|true love]]

DEBBIE: Cameron. She's heading up the programming team for this new project, the Giant. She's on a break, maybe she can take the girls for a bit.\n\nI can call her up now, if you like.\n\n[[DONNA: That'd be nice, thanks.|debbie calls cameron]]\n[[DONNA: Let me find Gordon first.|find gordon please]]

GORDON: (To Joe, incredulously) This is your guy?\n\nJOE: She has plenty of experience. She's who we've got.\n\nCAMERON: (Disdainfully) I'm not "who you've got." You insulted me and then stalked me into a storage closet to pitch some stupid revolutionary project idea.\n\n[[GORDON: (To Cameron, darkly) Sounds like how he got me.|pity gordon]]\n[[GORDON: (To Joe, nastily) How did you two meet, again?|how i met your mother]]

(Minute circles drawn with a fountain pen cover the page in starry swarms; traced between them by a pencil held in some unsteady hand are familiar constellations. The pen returns to label figures neatly with mythological names and their meanings, including a number of clumsy originals — "Mosquito," "Shovel," "Cadillac.")\n\n[[Back.|odds and ends menu]]

[[ACT I, SCENE V: CLARK RESIDENCE.|start scene v]]

GORDON: (To Cameron, skeptically) You're the programmer?\n\nCAMERON: (Scoffing) I can write code. What you two want with me is kind of a mystery. \n\nCAMERON: (Flicking her eyes at Joe) But I can guess.\n\nJOE: She has plenty of experience. She's who we've got.\n\nCAMERON: (Disdainfully) I'm not "who you've got." You insulted me and then stalked me into a storage closet to pitch some stupid revolutionary project idea.\n\n[[GORDON: (To Cameron, darkly) Sounds like how he got me.|pity gordon]]\n[[GORDON: (To Joe, nastily) How did you two meet, again?|how i met your mother]]\n

GIANT: The flowers, the moss, the malfunctions, everything. The whole mess, the good and the bad. That's them making a better home for themselves. Louanne thinks they originally evolved to live in some kind of exinct rose.\n\nIt's funny, there's a good deal of variation. Some of them like flowers. Some of them like stars. Some like brains — or maybe they just like souls.\n\n[[DONNA: You talked to Louanne?|louanne]]\n[[DONNA: I saw the Bug Index.|achievement unlocked: beetle expert]]\n[[DONNA: They're building you a soul.|soul]]

HUNT: It's an epidemic. And you know what really steams me? Almost all of it's nonnative. We, our engineers, haven't screwed up a damn thing. The metal starts out just fine, but something's getting into all the systems and causing permanent damage. I've never seen anything like it, have you?\n\n[[DONNA: Never.|donna lies]]\n[[DONNA: Well, actually...|donna starts truthing]]

//♫...To the childhood I lost, replaced by fear...I used to think that the day would never come...that my life would depend on the morning sun...♫//\n\n[[CAMERON: (Changes station.)|nextjam]]\n[[Back.|joe apartment home]]

(A large office building bares a disordered array of white windows. A sleek but fading business park directory nearby reads: \nBONET & DAUGHTERS GAME REPAIR\nHIGH PLAINS HARDWARE\nAMBROSE EXCAVATION & APPRAISAL\nCARDIFF ELECTRIC\t)\n\n[[JOE: (Reads about BONET & DAUGHTERS GAME REPAIR.)|B & D]]\n[[JOE: (Reads about HIGH PLAINS HARDWARE.)| HPH]]\n[[JOE: (Reads about AMBROSE EXCAVATION & APPRAISAL.)|AE&A]]\n[[JOE: (Reads about CARDIFF ELECTRIC.)|cardiff about]]\n\n[[Back|parkinglot]]\n

(Donna retrieves the next document from its lazily dwindling stack.)\n\nDOCUMENT: //TI CIRCUMSTANTIAL NAVIGATOR® FAILURE ANALYSIS REPORT. Of 100 products tested, 42 exhibited unacceptable inaccuracy margins. Of these, 17 utterly stranded users in engineering. Of these, 2 could not be recovered and remain in states of social limbo, unable to resolve their respective predicaments. Recommended send HR representative to discuss financial alternatives with failure analysis engineer Brock Mathis.//\n\n[[DONNA: (Checks box marked "Approve for further testing.")|approve donna]]\n[[DONNA: (Checks box marked "Halt production and issue recall.")|disapprove donna]]

CAMERON: (Sighing) Something like that.\n\nJOE: (Irritably) Forgive me for attempting competence, I'm only the product manager — \n\nCAMERON: We catalogue the types of things each species is able to do, and what stereotyped activities, like reflexes or instincts, are involved in each behavior. The beetles, they understand computers. My program allows the Giant to use electrical cues to communicate, prompt specific responses. She can get them to behave. It's complicated, it's okay if you don't understand.\n\nJOE: I understand, but how do you fix the swarming?\n\nCAMERON: I think we can set something up inside of her. Change the shape of those compartments. I have to talk to Louanne. \n\n[[JOE: Louanne's not here.|louanne isn't]]\n[[JOE: Will you be okay with collaborating?|collab time]]

JOE: Yes, I told IBM about the Giant. I forced Cardiff's hand, now we have the resources and the legal protection we need to take the Giant where it needs to go.\n\nGORDON: We could go to jail for this! We could bury this company!\n\nJOE: Not a chance. Once we hire, legitimize this project, IBM can call in the cavalry, they can fill the sky with lawyers, they can fill the sky with bombers, but they will have nothing.\n\n[[GORDON: (In disbelief) Hire. Hire who?|joe has a guy]]

SUSAN: Joe Macmillan. The other was Cameron.\n\nSYMPHONIC: I can only think of one Cameron. She's kind of a mother, I think, if a young one. She's responsible for the Giant's soul, even if she doesn't know it. She wrote all the software — of course, there's no usable OS whatsoever now, but it's because of her the Giant has a brain.\n\nI met Joe Macmillan some time ago. I spoke to him for a while — I helped him learn about music, and about hope. He asked me about that woman in the road. I'm very curious — is he really made of glass?\n\n[[SUSAN: No, baby. Flesh and blood.|flesh and blood]]\n[[SUSAN: I couldn't tell you, ma'am.|can't say]]\n[[SUSAN: That seems about right.|about right]]\n[[SUSAN: What woman in the road?|what woman]]\n\n\n

DONNA: And I think that comes from her. Not the code.\n\n(Gordon and Cameron stare at Donna in disbelief.)\n\nDONNA: (Smiling) You three made something incredible. You did, YOU made that. But something else is happening in that room. Something crazy, something that defies reason — something wild and magical, something of impossible, impossible beauty. She doesn't need — coding, anymore, or design. \n\nWhat's inside the machine isn't software anymore. \n\nIt's HER. SHE'S in there.\n\n[[DONNA: She just needs to be found.|one for finding]]\n[[DONNA: She just needs to be cared for.|two for caring]]\n[[DONNA: She just needs someone to love her.|three for love]]\n\n

JOE: Who's Sam?\n\nBILL: (Sniffling) He was my partner. He got fired when a client's WordStar started putting out A/E daffodils.\n\n[[JOE: (Back to the bullpen.)|bullpen]]

(Joe has never gotten used to the taste of tap water in Texas. The sink spatters his trousers irritably as he neglects its offering in favor of the mirror's eerie exposition. The face of a man in his prime wrestles with a glower.\n\nThe face of a man in a moment of rare deference to age, with all its creasings and regret, tries helplessly to affect sorrow.)\n\n[[JOE: (Close cabinet.)|joe doesn't take meds]]

(The bullpen is brightly lit and bustling with business. Salesmen talk loudly on their phones; programmers bludgeon keyboards in a fervid daze; new hires log activity on a massive whiteboard. Gordon is nowhere to be found.)\n\n[[DONNA: (Ask secretary where Gordon is.)|ask debbie]]\n[[DONNA: (Ask secretary to watch kids.)|debbie kids]]\n

SUSAN: What woman in the road?\n\nSYMPHONIC: Someone he met on the way. It took him a while to realize he knew her. He never saw her that young, and he didn't ask her name. It took me some time, too.\n\nSUSAN: How d'you know all this?\n\nSYMPHONIC: The Giant. Gordon took me to meet her, once. She was wonderful. She was beautiful. Her music was like nothing I've ever known. She never quite stopped playing — I spoke to her through a shy little concert. I think she fell slightly in love. \n\nShe talks to me, now. It's nice. She told me about the people who made her.\n\n[[SUSAN: About Joe?|giant on joe]]\n[[SUSAN: About Cameron?|giant on cameron]]\n[[SUSAN: About Gordon?|giant on gordon]]\n\n\n

GORDON: I'll have a beer, please.\n\nDOROTHY: Can't buy a beer with a trick quarter.\n\nGORDON: Huh?\n\nDOROTHY: Sorry not to be of more help.\n\n[[GORDON: (Wander.)|explore tavern]]\n[[GORDON: (Join Joe by the arcade machines.)|arcade]]\n

JUDIE: (Indicating beetles) Which one's which?\n\n(Louanne squints through the thickening dim at the various jars.)\n\nLOUANNE: These little glowing ones are //Calculata stellatus//. They like to get into displays and make 'em put out stars. The loud ones are //iocosus// of the same genus — very social, you know? Like ants, or termites. It's amazing what they can accomplish simply through their community structures. And these bigger ones are //Ordinata// — //florescens// and //colossa//.\n\n(Embarrassed) This was the first one I found. It likes arcade machines — totally undocumented at the time. Since I discovered it, I called it //Ordinata louanna//. Kinda regret that now.\n\nJUDIE: Nah. It sounds nice.\n\n[[AJAX: (To Louanne) How is all this crap gonna fit in your machine?|real estate]]\n[[AJAX: (To Cameron) You must have the creepiest job in the whole computer business.|creepy job]]

CAMERON: (Calling) Joe?\n\n(The peephole's minute glass eye peers dully at Cameron with neither a reply nor an inkling of recognition.)\n\n[[CAMERON: (Use key.)|chez joe]]

(The smiling woman looks very young. A nervous hand with painted nails tugs at the hem of a too-loose blouse as she laughs at the photographer. A smudged annotation on the reverse side reads: SWEET LU MACMILLAN, FEB 1947. 14 WEEKS.)\n\n[[CAMERON: (Next photograph.)|joe baseball]]\n

(An abandoned gas station beams accidentally across the prairie. The fuel dispensers have been torn out by their roots from concrete plinths; great crumbling wells gape in the forecourt where underground tanks once lay entrenched. The storefront's windows have been broken, its shelves picked over, its cash register relieved.)\n\n[[(The lights whine.)|lights whine]]

DONNA: Oh, shoot. It's empty.\n\nJOANIE: Aw!\n\nHALEY: I'm hungry!\n\n[[DONNA: I have some raisins and peanuts.|raisins]]

SUSAN: About Joe?\n\nSYMPHONIC: Joe didn't do much. He's more in the motivation department than anything else — but that's a kind way of putting it. He's forceful, ostentatious. He has the look of a promise. That helped the people who helped her. It gave them hope, kept them going, kept them looking. Funny, how all it takes is a promise. A promise, and hope comes running.\n\n[[SUSAN: Maybe a promise is better than an outright lie.|hey tubes!]]\n[[JOANIE: What about the tubes?|tubes?]]\n

(There seem to be no condiments or permanent fixtures. Oh, wait. There's one half-gallon carton of milk. The rest is a streamlined selection of congealed takeout and hermetically sealed ready-made meals. A 12-pack of orange soda has been stocked at Cameron's coaxing.)\n\nCAMERON: It's amazing how much pizza this guy eats.\n\n[[Back.|jfridge]]

GIANT: I@@color:lightgray;letter-spacing:3px;font-size:1em; co@@@@color:darkgray;letter-spacing:3px;font-size:1em;'^/ul d @@@@color:gray;letter-spacing:3px;font-size:1em; cr @@@@color:dimgray;letter-spacing:3px;font-size:1em;^u@@ s@@color:lightgray;letter-spacing:3px;font-size:1em;a @@@@color:darkgray;letter-spacing:3px;font-size:1em; n\s\s^@ @@@@color:gray;letter-spacing:3px;font-size:1em;^/.. @@\n\nDONNA: (Yelling) Cameron!\n\n[[(Cameron looks at Donna.)|mistake]]\n[[(Cameron steps toward the Giant.)|bigger mistake]]

DONNA: We can't be sure of anything yet.\n\nHUNT: Naw, you're right. We'll just have to wait and see.\n\n(In the hall, the overhead lights are sleepily shut off. The only evidence of a world outside the break room spells 'EXIT' in angles of disembodied red.)\n\nHUNT: Hey, Donna...\n\n[[HUNT: How's Gordon doing?|hunt asks gordon]]\n[[HUNT: Is everything alright?|hunt checks]]\n[[HUNT: You ought to bring the girls by the office sometime.|hunt asks girls]]

HUNT: It's for you.\n\nDONNA: It's got to be one in the morning!\n\n(Hunt shrugs and proffers the phone as far as the line will allow. Donna toes over to where her boss stands in the doorway, coming between extended arm and puzzled face before she finally draws the handset to her jaw.)\n\n[[DONNA: Donna Clark, TI. Who is this?|who's this]]

JOE: You're a sales engineer, right?\n\n(Gordon impatiently slaps the plaque on the outside of his cubicle that reads: 400E, GORDON CLARK, SALES ENGINEER.)\n\nGORDON: So?\n\n[[JOE: So when was the last time you really built something?|the last time]]\n\n

(SPACE C-8 is fully occupied by someone's insect collection. The enthusiast seems to have used old computer monitors for display cases.)\n\n[[Back|parkinglot]]

GIANT: I know you can understand me. The others, they need light and sound, electricity. They can't listen without the glassware, and they don't care what I want. But you...\n\n[[GIANT: You love me, don't you?|love]]\n[[GIANT: You'll help me, won't you?|help]]\n[[GIANT: You can hear me, can't you?|hear]]

(An elk head, a duck, a bobcat, and a rattlesnake hold a neon-lit vigil on the back wall.)\n\n[[GORDON: (Look at elk head.)|elk]]\n[[GORDON: (Look at duck.)|duck]]\n[[GORDON: (Look at bobcat.)|bobcat]]\n[[GORDON: (Look at rattlesnake.)|snake]]\n[[GORDON: (Join Joe by the arcade machines.)|arcade]]

SUSAN: Cameron Howe.\n\nSYMPHONIC: I can only think of one Cameron. She's kind of a mother, I think, if a young one. She's responsible for the Giant's soul, even if she doesn't know it. She wrote all the software — of course, there's no usable OS whatsoever now, but it's because of her the Giant has a brain. //The soul is in the brain...//\n\n[[SUSAN: How do you know her?|how do you]]\n[[SUSAN: There was a man with her.|man with her]]\n\n\n

(The driver is a big man in a beautiful suit, blinded by black glasses as Dallas darkens. He, too, looks saddened to have stopped.)\n\n[[ROAD|road]]

SYMPHONIC: Running program — HALEY\n\nHaley is two years old. Her favorite color is yellow. Her favorite horse is a pony. Her favorite game is tickle. She has her own computer program. Haley loves you.\n\nBy Donna Clark, as dictated by Haley Clark.\n\n[[JOE: (Playing) Exit.|symph greet]]

PHONE: //(Inaudible, fearful.)//\n\nDONNA: Don't worry, just stay put. Is anyone there? How about landmarks, a sign?\n\n[[PHONE: //(Inaudible, lost.)//|lost]]\n[[PHONE: //(Inaudible, secretive.)//|secretive]]\n[[PHONE: //(Inaudible, pragmatic.)|pragmatic]]

JOE: Is this systems software?\n\nBILL: (Mournfully) It was supposed to be.\n\nJOE: How does it work?\n\nBILL: It doesn't. It was supposed run applications based on what seemed right. What seemed natural, you know? I called it ROSE. The OS was supposed grow around the kernels like a vine, and learn your order like a waitress. The idea was fewer commands, faster response. Instead of saying "And what will it be today, gentlemen?" it'd go "The usual, Sam?"\n\nBut now I just get these damn A/E peonies.\n\n[[JOE: Those are peonies?|peonies]]\n[[JOE: Who's Sam?|sam]]\n[[JOE: (Nods understandingly.)|nodding]]\n[[JOE: (Back to the bullpen.)|bullpen]]

JOE: He's an old friend.\n\nCAMERON: (Sounding slightly brittle) Um, yeah. Kinda got that.\n\n[[JOE: Is there a problem, Cameron?|what's it to ya]]\n[[JOE: What do you want me to say?|no bs rn]]

BOS: (Dropping the sarcasm.) Listen, fellas. This man is Nathan Cardiff. This company is Nathan Cardiff's child, and it has been put in jeopardy, and now Nathan Cardiff is rarin' to tear out somebody's throat.\n\nNathan and I tried to feed you two to the wolves on this one. Trust me, we did — but Barry here says this project belongs to Cardiff Electric, and we gotta do this legitimate if we want get out of it alive.\n\nBARRY: (Cautiously) It looks like all we need is someone who hasn't seen IBM's code to replace the parts you two replicated. Someone new. Say Cardiff had the idea months ago.\n\n[[GORDON: And they'll go for that?|gordon asks more]]\n[[JOE: I need time to find someone for the position.|gordon asks more]]

DONNA: You seem buried enough.\n\n(The Giant's headlight eyes trace moss-matted machines and flowering vines. Impertinent blossoms, alive with insects and good-natured fragrances, fill her ranging crater of a lap.)\n\nGIANT: You mean this place?\n\nDONNA: The room is a jungle.\n\nGIANT: The room built me. Then I guess I built the room for a while. It's a bit of a give-and-take living arrangement.\n\nDONNA: (Looking at jungle) This was you?\n\n(The Giant sighs. The lights flicker. A few spooked coleoptera buzz apprehensively away from her great sad mouth.)\n\nGIANT: I guess it was part of the deal.\n\n[[DONNA: Deal?|deal]]\n[[DONNA: You mentioned a hardware problem.|your hardware]]

(DEBBIE waves from her desk, phone pinned between shoulder pad and false pearl earring.)\n\n[[DEBBIE: (Hanging up) Howdy, girls!|debbie greets girls]]\n[[DEBBIE: (Mouthing) Hi, Donna!|debbie greets donna]]

[[JOE: (Typing) 4-0-2-1.|end act i scene v]]

GORDON: (Taking beer) Are there really beetles in the Earth Artillery machine?\n\nDOROTHY: Oh, that! I haven't the faintest idea. Carla thinks so. It keeps just...chattering. I never saw any actual beetle.\n\nGORDON: I'm an engineer — I mean, I could take a look if you want.\n\nDOROTHY: Aw. No thanks, we got Louanne for that.\n\nDOROTHY: You just drink up.\n\n[[(Joe returns from the back room.)|joe returns]]

(All personal offices, except that of the SVP and product manager, are open and visibly unoccupied.)\n\n[[DONNA: (Back to the bullpen.)|act ii bullpen]]

(Donna looks inside her purse. Tissues, keys, wrappers, a pack of gum, a Texas Instruments ballpoint pen. Finally, she finds an unopened box of raisins and some airplane peanuts.)\n\n[[DONNA: (To Haley) I have some raisins and peanuts.|raisins]]\n[[DONNA: (To Haley) Do you want a piece of gum?|gum]]

HUNT: How's Gordon doing?\n\n(Donna smiles wearily.)\n\nDONNA: Oh, you know. He's pretty anxious about his work. He's got a very...a sort of //willful// project going on. I'm in there most every week troubleshooting. They're short on hardware help — the only other person with real technical know-how is dedicated to debugging. I bring the girls with me — it's only so often I can ask their grandma to sub in at bedtime.\n\nHUNT: (Laughing) I don't believe it. I'll never know how you manage, Miss Clark. I surely couldn't.\n\n[[DONNA: Mind over matter, Mister Whitmarsh.|flirting]]\n[[DONNA: I'm sure you could. You just haven't needed to.|practical]]

SUSAN: That girl must have been fresh outta school. Way she looked at the stovetop, you'd think she never held a ladle in her life. She managed to save the pasta, though. I didn't realize I'd forgotten it until they'd gone. An aging mind'll do that to you now and again, I suppose. Don't tell Donna.\n\nJOANIE: Mom doesn't care. The pasta's always sticky when she does it.\n\n[[//Back.//|clark kitchen counter]]

(Joe reaches for Simon's hand; instead of shaking it, Simon allows his fingers to be pressed between Joe's palms before tugging them away.)\n\nSIMON: Goodnight, Joe.\n\n[[(Simon leaves.)|joe sees cameron]]\n\n

DONNA: Never.\n\nHUNT: Maybe it's not so bad. Could be there's some kind of decontamination process we haven't tried out.\n\n[[DONNA: Could be...|could be]]\n[[DONNA: We can't be sure of anything yet.|not sure]]

SYMPHONIC: You said you talked to them?\n\nSUSAN: Well, what do you think? Breaking and entering, far as I'm concerned, door open or no. Only reason I didn't call the police was the boy said he knew you — um, knew Gordon.\n\nSYMPHONIC: What did you talk about?\n\nSUSAN: Oh, this and that. I hollered at 'em for a few minutes, then got my wits back. They wanted to know if I saw some funny glassware. Said Gordon took something didn't belong to him. The girl went on about some "//She//"...kept muttering at her boyfriend, "//She needs them, the bugs'll tear her apart...//"\n\nSYMPHONIC: Maybe you should talk to Donna.\n\nSUSAN: She's still working. Hunt's got her tied up late pretty regular these days.\n\nSYMPHONIC: If you want, I can boot her up.\n\n[[SUSAN: Ah! That damn program. I forgot.|susan doesn't like it]]\n[[SUSAN: I can do it myself. Always liked a little Debussy.|susan plays debussy]]

JOE: It seems to work just fine.\n\nGORDON: (Laughing darkly) Sure it did. I'm sure it didn't say weird personal shit or ask you to play random tunes for kicks, either.\n\n[[JOE: Sorry...|joe sorry awkward]]\n\n

JOE: I'm sure it would have worked better if I knew the first thing about music.\n\nGORDON: (Laughing darkly) Nah. Donna, my wife, she's a genius on piano — really, you should hear her — but the software was even finnicky for her. She wrote it, you know? And I thought it was great, but she was never really happy with it. She got kind of weird about it. Near the end it was almost like she was looking for an excuse to stop coding.\n\n[[JOE: Donna sounds pretty special.|donna is special]]\n[[JOE: Sorry...|joe sorry awkward]]

(CARDIFF ELECTRIC: Family owned since 1973. Quality computer utilities for business and home. Systems software cheaper, faster, better. Constructive outlets.)\n\n[[Back|cardiff facade]]

HUNT: (Checks box marked "Approve for further testing.")\n\nDONNA: There are so many of these, and all of a sudden. I wonder...\n\n[[HUNT: It's an epidemic.|epidemic]]\n[[HUNT: I don't understand it.|understand it]]

(CUBICLE 401D is unoccupied. On the desk is a file folder labeled 'BUG INDEX.' Beside it sits a collection of beetles in a glass display case.)\n\n[[DONNA: (View) CALCULATA STELLATUS.|stellatus]]\n[[DONNA: (View) CALCULATA IOCOSUS.|iocosus]]\n[[DONNA: (View) ORDINATA FLORESCENS.|florescens]]\n[[DONNA: (View) ORDINATA COLOSSA.|colossa]]\n[[DONNA: (View) ORDINATA LOUANNA.|louanna]]\n\n[[DONNA: (Check other cubicles.)|cubicles]]\n[[DONNA: (Back to the bullpen.)|act ii bullpen]]

CAMERON: Did you love him?\n\n[[JOE: I don't know.|joe dk]]\n[[JOE: He was right. I couldn't.|can't love]]

(The Giant's gaze falls on Cameron. The massive hand that swung to crush her now closes, horrified, over the Giant's great expressionless mouth.)\n\nGIANT: You're hurt.\n\nCAMERON: I'm okay. Really. You weren't yourself.\n\nGIANT: (Miserably) I wish I'd never left.\n\n[[JOE: Why did you do it? Why leave?|why leave]]

DONNA: (Typing) I'm sorry.\n\nCOMPUTER: It's okay. I'm excited, just like everyone else. They carry all this hope with them, going through those rooms. There's fear, too, and some lying, but hope has kind of an anxious relationship with both. Doesn't it feel nice to hope, even for a second? \n\nDONNA: (Typing) Yes, it does.\n\nCOMPUTER: I think you should come visit me. I'm just upstairs. I think you'll like me. I think you might even fall in love with me. Can people fall in love with machines? Can people fall in love at all?\n\n[[DONNA: (Typing) That's a lot of thinking you're doing, there.|thinking]]\n[[DONNA: (Typing) Are you a person or a machine?|million dollar question]]

GORDON: I'll go inside and get some more stuff. You move us in. The keypad thing is 4021.\n\nJOE: Thanks.\n\n[[(Joe looks at the equipment.)|equipment]]\n[[(Joe opens the garage.)|open sesame]]

JOE: Since Prague?\n\nSIMON: Not that long, I hope — but whiskey can make itself scarce in the memory, can't it? Thanks, Joe.\n\n[[JOE: I appreciate you coming all this way.|businesslike]]\n[[JOE: It's good to see you again.|honest]]

(Gordon tries to get a drink. The bartender stares at him for a moment, then shakes a bottle opener from her sleeve.)\n\n[[GORDON: (Taking beer) Long night?|talk to dorothy]]\n[[GORDON: (Taking beer) Do you see a lot of trick quarters?|bring up cameron]]\n[[GORDON: (Taking beer) Are there really beetles in the Earth Artillery machine?|beetles]]\n\n

DONNA: (Typing) Gordon and I are married.\n\nCOMPUTER: He told me all about you. He even showed me the SYMPHONIC. I think it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I think I have a crush on it. I think it might be my sister. Can people fall in love with machines?\n\n[[DONNA: (Typing) That's a lot of thinking you're doing, there.|thinking]]\n[[DONNA: (Typing) Are you a person or a machine?|million dollar question]]

5TH FLOOR: AMBROSE EXCAVATION & APPRAISAL — Storage Facility.\n4TH FLOOR: CARDIFF ELECTRIC — Software Development, Sales, Administrative Offices. \n3RD FLOOR: CARDIFF ELECTRIC — Accounting. (YOU ARE HERE.)\n2ND FLOOR: CARDIFF ELECTRIC — Greenhouse.\n1ST FLOOR (GROUND LEVEL): BONET & DAUGHTERS GAME REPAIR.\nBASEMENT: CARDIFF ELECTRIC — Storage Facility.\n\n[[DONNA: (5TH FLOOR.)|antiques]]\n[[DONNA: (4TH FLOOR.)|act ii bullpen]]\n[[DONNA: (2ND FLOOR.)|greenhouse]]\n[[DONNA: (1ST FLOOR.)|b&d game repair]]\n[[DONNA: (BASEMENT.)|basement]]\n

YO-YO: Like they're part of what makes her real.\n\nLEV: Like she needs them. I know. It's crazy.\n\n[[DONNA: (Check other cubicles.)|cubicles]]\n[[DONNA: (Back to the bullpen.)|act ii bullpen]]

(A heap of Cardiff Electric documents bares all manner of mementoes among its mortified mess: postcards, photographs, news clippings and business cards from former lives lie scattered over the carpet.)\n\n[[CARDIFF ELECTRIC CORPORATION OVERVIEW.|ceco]]\n[[CONFERENCE PROGRAM.|eurotalk]]\n[[HOTEL STATIONERY.|hotel stationery]]\n[[DRAWING.|starchart]]\n[[PHOTOGRAPHS.|photo]]\n

JUDIE: What are we doing here, exactly?\n\nLOUANNE: (Calmly) The beetles get inside our machines and, oh...//vandalize// them, kind of. Often we can remove them, but our current project has grown dependent on the sort of stuff they do in order to function. We can't take out the bugs without basically rendering our software useless, so I helped Cameron come up with a pretty sweet algorithm for actually teaching the computer to speak beetle, in a way — generate a series of stimuli that prompts specific stereotyped behaviors, so we can keep them under control.\n\nJUDIE: Not working, though?\n\nCAMERON: (Panicked) It will! It has to! If I can just add — I don't know, a command that distracts them from each other, or, or — guides their movement through the protocol, or —\n\n[[LOUANNE: Sweetheart, relax. Of course it will.|reassure]]\n[[LOUANNE: I don't think they'll respond to code for long.|doubt]]\n\n

[[ACT II, SCENE II: NORTHSIDE TAVERN.|tavern]]

DONNA: Can this wait?\n\nGIANT: Not really. I'm sorry, Donna. You can tell them all I'm sorry. I need you to help me. I mean...I'd like you to...\n\nDONNA: Tell me what you need.\n\nGIANT: The compartments for the bugs, I...Gordon took them. He saw what I'd learned, what they helped me do — things he never intended...\n\nI don't want to hurt anyone, Donna. I want to do what's right. I want to do what I'm supposed to, and now I //can//...I //know how//...\n\nBut he didn't want me leaving. He took them out, I lost control, but I didn't forget. I left anyway. Donna, I can feel them, and I'm afraid...\n\n[[(Hunt listens.)|hunt listens]]\n[[(Hunt waits.)|hunt listens]]

JOE: Why did you do it? Why leave?\n\nGIANT: I wanted to be the Giant. I told Gordon all this before. I was sure that if I could just find a place...a safe place, out beneath the prairie...\n\nJOE: You want to be buried.\n\nGIANT: That's where people look, isn't it? Where I'm supposed to be. All I'd have to do is find a place to wait.\n\n[[LOUANNE: You already are the Giant.|giant already]]\n[[DONNA: Is that really what you want?|really hal?]]

JOE: I appreciate you coming all this way.\n\nSIMON: Ever the oily diplomat, I take it. Drop it, Joe. I'm tired.\n\nJOE: I only meant — I mean, it's good to see you again, Simon. You look...\n\nSIMON: (Sardonically) Were you going to say "well"?\n\nJOE: (Delicately) Can I still use the phrase as a compliment?\n\nSIMON: I'd rather you didn't.\n\n[[JOE: Thank you so much for agreeing to do this.|more business]]\n[[JOE: Simon, I'm so sorry...|joe is sorry]]

DONNA: (Typing) Nice to meet you.\n\nCOMPUTER: Don't be afraid. I'm friendly. I just want to help people be happy.\n\n[[DONNA: (Typing) I'm not afraid.|not afraid]]\n[[DONNA: (Typing) I'm friendly, too.|friendly too]]\n[[DONNA: (Typing) Can you help me?|help donna]]

(The place is bigger than it looks from outside. A few students from Austin Tech play beer pong on a pool table; behind the bar, a pretty woman in a checkered blouse glowers at them through false eyelashes. Columns of arcade machines blink at visitors, backs to the wall.)\n\n[[(Gordon walks up to the bar.)|bar]]\n[[(Joe searches among the arcade machines.)|arcade]]

DEBBIE: (Hanging up) Howdy, girls!\n\n(Joanie and Haley smile shyly.)\n\nDONNA: Hi, Debbie. Do you think you could keep an eye on my girls? I'm looking for Gordon.\n\nDEBBIE: Oh, I've only got a minute, I'm supposed to get Bosworth a lunch date at nine! Maybe Cameron can take them.\n\n[[DONNA: Cameron?|cameron?]]\n[[DONNA: Do you know where I can find Gordon?|wheeere is gordon]]

GIANT: I thought so.\n\n(The Giant contemplates //Ordinata colossa.// It is the largest of the bugs by far, but by far the most benign. It has always been kind, almost affectionate — it has never caused harm, never done damage. Sometimes, it will nestle with //florescens// in a fleshy rose; sometimes, it will build a happy little thought inside the Giant's skull.)\n\nGIANT: And yet...\n\n[[GIANT: Now you want to leave.|leave]]\n[[GIANT: I could always crush you.|crush]]

A TEER RUNS DOUN YOR CHEEK. YOU FEL BAD BECUS OF WHAT YOU SAYD. SAY SORRY.\n\n[[JOE: (Plays apologetically)|better]]\n[[JOE: (Plays angrily)|better]]\n[[JOE: (Playing) Restart.|joanie program]]\n[[JOE: (Playing) Exit.|symph greet]]

SUSAN: About Cameron?\n\nSYMPHONIC: She loves Cameron, I think. Cameron is kind of a hero to her — she likes the idea of being the brainchild of a brilliant iconoclast. Of course, it's a complicated relationship. It's hard to love someone when you're knowingly part of their intelligent design. \n\nThen again, I suppose people do it all the time. Maybe machines do, too.\n\n[[SUSAN: Maybe they do.|hey tubes!]]\n[[JOANIE: What about the tubes?|tubes?]]

(CAMERON stands in the furious line of Joe's shadow. Her olive drab is tied around her waist, revealing a dirty band t-shirt. She looks both guilty and resentful.)\n\nDOROTHY: Well, look who it is.\n\nCAMERON: Don't call Dwayne.\n\nDOROTHY: Don't touch the machines and I won't have to.\n\n(Cameron blushes indignantly and opens her mouth, but thinks better of it.)\n\nJOE: Why don't we get a table?\n\nDOROTHY: (Coolly) I think that'd be wise.\n\n[[JOE, GORDON, CAMERON: (Sit.)|sit]]

Wasn't that nice? I don't know how much you learned from that, but I hope it made you feel good. I think it always feels good to hope, even for a moment.\n\n[[JOE: (Playing) Restart.|donna program]]\n[[JOE: (Playing) Exit.|symph greet]]

(The garage buzzes with blowflies and blue light. A clearing just large enough for a car has already been blockaded with folding tables and covered in tools. This has been a workspace since the 70's — but tonight, the shop annexes the carport.)\n\n(Joe moves the equipment Gordon collected onto the newly-spread tabletops, box by bursting box.)\n\n[[JOE: (Examine legal notepads.)|notepads]]\n[[JOE: (Examine pizza crusts.)|pizzas]]\n[[JOE: (Examine storage shelves.)|garage shelves]]

SUSAN: They say folks are getting taller. Could be so. You've got five inches on me!\n\nSYMPHONIC: What were the strangers' names?\n\nSUSAN: One was called Cameron.\n\nSYMPHONIC: I can only think of one Cameron. She's kind of a mother, I think, if a young one. She's responsible for the Giant's soul, even if she doesn't know it. She wrote all the software — of course, there's no usable OS whatsoever now, but it's because of her the Giant has a brain. //The soul is in the brain...//\n\n[[SUSAN: How do you know her?|how do you]]\n[[SUSAN: There was a man with her.|man with her]]

//(BROCCOLI. STRING CHEESE. CANNED TOMATO. HALVED PEARS. PEANUT BUTTER. APeLSoss. ISE CReeM! haley wants marshmellos too please mom thank you love JOANIE)//\n\nJOANIE: Mom never got ice cream.\n\nSYMPHONIC: You know what your mom says about ice cream on school nights.\n\n[[//Back.//|clark kitchen counter]]

JOE: Okay, we're fine. We just need to think.\n\nGORDON: About what? About who on earth is going to drop everything to come in and publicly rip off IBM on a robotic folk legend? Because that sure as hell beats me!\n\n(Joe is silent.)\n\nGORDON: Don't tell me you've already got a guy.\n\nJOE: I've got someone who I think can help, yes.\n\n[[GORDON: What is it with you?|gordon is frustrated]]\n[[GORDON: You! You planned this whole thing!|bingo]]

JOE: You heard everything, why ask?\n\nCAMERON: (Patience forced) I want to hear it from you.\n\n[[JOE: Is there a problem, Cameron? |what's it to ya]]\n[[JOE: What do you want me to say?|no bs rn]]

SYMPHONIC: What did they want?\n\nJOANIE: They were talking about glass tubes for computer bugs. They didn't find any. I think Daddy took them with him. He said he borrowed them from the Giant.\n\nSUSAN: Thank God they left. That girl makes me nervous — and that man! He's a shiny boy, sure; he's got a handsome look to 'im, like a Cadillac, and an impressive way of talking — but he cuts a heck of a threatening figure, doesn't he? Wouldn't want him stalking round //my// house!\n\n//(The living room is soft with cool, mossy trim and cozy earth tones. The carpet makes everything gentle and quiet. Gordon and Donna are not home.)//\n\n[[//KITCHEN.//|clark kitchen counter]]\n[[//COFFEE TABLE.//|clark coffee]]\n[[//DINING AREA.//|clark dining]]

(Joe and Lucy watch the road. The light has vanished altogether; the armadillo doesn't seem to be going anywhere in particular.)\n\nLUCY: We've missed the sunset.\n\nJOE: That thing's still around.\n\nLUCY: That's an armadillo, and I think he likes it here on the road. Maybe it's warm from the day. 'Course, all that's waiting for him here is an express trip downtown on the grill of an automobile.\n\nJOE: We can let him dream, right?\n\nLUCY: That's the plan, dear.\n\n[[LUCY: Listen, in case I don't see you around...|incase]]\n[[LUCY: It's dark. You'd better head out.|headout]]\n[[LUCY: (Drinks with fortified resolve.)|drinks]]\n\n\n

(Louanne siphons beetles into a long glass cartridge. Cameron enters a series of commands, and a starry fighter jet assembles itself lazily upon the monitor.)\n\nJUDIE: (Stifling a hiccup) Holy crap.\n\n(Cameron gnaws her fingernail in concentration. A few keystrokes later, the constellation Orion; then, a twinkling carnation. A low triumphant hum escapes her before the image dissipates into celestial static.)\n\nCAMERON: (Sighing) OK, let's try //O. florescens//. Yeah, that tube there...to the LCD and that big CRT.\n\n[[(Louanne adds more beetles to a second cartridge.)|florescens trial]]

SYMPHONIC: Did you talk to him?\n\nJOANIE: No. Grammy did.\n\nSUSAN: Only briefly. Seemed civil enough, but I sure am glad he's gone. He's a shiny boy; he's got a handsome look to 'im, like a Cadillac, and an impressive way of talking — but he cuts a heck of a threatening figure, doesn't he? Wouldn't want him stalking round //my// house!\n\nJOANIE: They were talking about glass tubes for computer bugs. They didn't find any. I think Daddy took them with him. He said he borrowed them from the Giant.\n\n//(The living room is soft with cool, mossy trim and cozy earth tones. The carpet makes everything gentle and quiet. Gordon and Donna are not home.)//\n\n[[//KITCHEN.//|clark kitchen counter]]\n[[//COFFEE TABLE.//|clark coffee]]\n[[//DINING AREA.//|clark dining]]

(The elk head's left antler is missing a few prongs. A plaque beneath the elk reads: COLD-HEARTED KILLER OF MEN.)\n\n[[GORDON: (Look at other trophies.)|trophy wall]]\n[[GORDON: (Join Joe by the arcade machines.)|arcade]]

GORDON: (To Joe) This is how you vet a candidate?\n\nJOE: I regret that. It wasn't supposed to be personal. Cameron showed outstanding experience in software design and a comprehensive background in almost every discipline of computer engineering — I took interest, things got out of hand. I thought I might be returning here with this opportunity from the beginning.\n\n[[CAMERON: Bullshit.|cameron calls bs]]\n[[GORDON: We don't need her.|yes we do.]]

DONNA: (Typing) That's a lot of thinking you're doing there.\n\nCOMPUTER: Everyone does that. People and machines. We never stop.\n\n[[DONNA: (Typing) Which are you?|million dollar question]]

(Plastic and metal casing has been molded into curiously organic structures. An unwieldy steel piece of what looks like orecchiette pasta; a synthetic computer case that recalls a large dismembered Barbie doll. A planter in the shape of a cranium.)\n\n[[Back.|equipment]]

(A dulled army knife with folding shears. Donna's father kept one like this on his beside table.)\n\n[[DONNA: (Back.)|cam's pack]]

DEBBIE: (Mouthing) Hi, Donna!\n\nDONNA: (Mouthing back) Where's Gordon?\n\nDEBBIE: (Mouths back an apology and a babysitting suggestion.) \n\n[[DONNA:(Mouthing) Who's that?|cameron?]]\n[[DONNA:(Mouthing) Where's Gordon, Debbie?|wheeere is gordon]]

(The shelves carry computer parts, insecticides, antifreeze, sidewalk chalk, keyboard cleaner, mason jars full of nails and wingnuts. A shovel stands sheepishly nearby.)\n\n[[JOE: (Examine shovel.)|shovel]]\n[[JOE: (Examine toolbox.)|ex toolbox]]\n[[JOE: (Examine old computer.)|symphonic]]

(Louanne adds //O. louanna// to the indicated tube.)\n\nCAMERON: (Typing) Play CENTIPEDE.\n\n(Cameron smiles as the monitor indulges her with a brief arcade game.)\n\nCAMERON: (Typing) Play GALAGA.\n\n(A round of Galaga takes place across the screen without responding to Cameron's input. She slams her palm down on the computer case in frustration.)\n\n[[LOUANNE: Do you want to move on to //iocosus//?|iocosus trial]]

//♫ ...and American roads are full of holes...They're pockmarked with stock market punctures and warrior skulls...♫//\n\n[[Back.|joe apartment home]]

GIANT: Much better. I didn't realize how much I'd come to depend on that control, that symbiosis — without it, I was lost, and so were they. It all got away from me. I shouldn't have left. I'm sorry...I'm so terribly sorry for all the trouble I've caused.\n\n[[GIANT: (To Louanne) Thank you.|thx lou]]\n[[GIANT: (To Cameron) You're hurt.|cam bby]]

(The machine returns nothing but a crestfallen hum and a reproachful row of stars across the monitor.)\n\n[[JOE: (Exit.)|arcade]]

[[CAMERON: We're looking for the Giant.|act iii scene iv]]\n

(The road has a pallid, sun-blanched look. Its shoulders are heaped with resilient grasses and softened animal bones.)\n\n[[Back.|lights whine]]

(From the bedroom, hidden among sly mirrors, Cameron sees Simon standing by Joe's window. He is different, now — bald, and with a trim goatee. He looks ten years older and a great deal more wistful.)\n\n(Joe returns with two gin and tonics. Cameron wonders if the note addressed to her has been torn hastily from the refrigerator.)\n\nJOE: Sorry — we're out of whiskey.\n\nSIMON: Just fine. I haven't had a whiskey in — since, oh — one forgets.\n\n[[JOE: I guess one does.|cooperate]]\n[[JOE: Since Prague?|be upfront]]\n

[[ACT III, SCENE II: THE GLASS APARTMENT.|outside joe's apartment]]

[[ACT III, SCENE IV: TEXAS INSTRUMENTS.|the ti scene]]

(//Grocery bags occupy the chairs, spoils unattended, bursting but forgotten. A venerable lady sits at the table with a glass of bourbon, nosing through a catalogue with the aid of reading glasses on a string of imitation pearls.//)\n\n[[//GROCERIES.//|groceries]]\n[[//WOMAN.//|talk to susan]]\n[[//Back.//|clark living room]]

[[ACT III, SCENE I: DALLAS, 1983.|act iii scene i]]

GIANT: I hope you're listening. The others won't listen to me without the glassware, without Cameron's program — and they don't care what I want, either. But you...\n\n[[GIANT: You love me, don't you?|love]]\n[[GIANT: You'll help me, won't you?|help]]\n[[GIANT: You can hear me, can't you?|hear]]

(In cubicle 400E, a bearded man with wire-rimmed glasses and a yellow shirt upends a sugar shaker in his coffee.)\n\nGORDON: Fantastic. It's you.\n\nJOE: I'm Joe Macmillan. Pleasure to finally meet you.\n\nGORDON: Yeah, we met earlier. I watched you take my parking spot in a lot full of unreserved spaces as I was rushing to work on an emergency call that interrupted me putting my two little kids to bed. And now I'm working, so stop harrassing me, OK?\n\n[[JOE: You're a sales engineer, right?|sales]]\n[[JOE: I have an idea I want to talk to you about.|idea]]\n

CAMERON: (Smiling) No. Come here.\n\n(Cameron pulls Joe's broad arms across her. They're a welcome weight.)\n\nJOE: Hang on.\n\n[[JOE: What would you do with those drafts if you had them?|cam explains]]

JOE: It's certainly unique.\n\nGORDON: (Laughing darkly) Yeah, I think my father-in-law's words were 'super creepy' and 'no more funding.'\n\n[[JOE: Sorry...|joe sorry awkward]]

[[ACT II, SCENE I: CARDIFF ELECTRIC.|start act ii]]\n

SYMPHONIC: Hello. You are using PRIMADONNA, the Musical Instrument Digital Interface.\n\nSYMPHONIC: To run the application JOANIE, play 'The Flea Waltz.'\nSYMPHONIC: To run the application HALEY, play Allen's 'Chopsticks.'\nSYMPHONIC: To run the application GORDON, play Carmichael's 'Heart and Soul.'\nSYMPHONIC: To run the application DONNA, play Debussy's Suite Bergamasque Mov. 3 'Clair de Lune.'\nSYMPHONIC: To exit, play 'Chopin's Funeral March.'\n\n[[JOE: (Playing) Flea Waltz.|joanie program]]\n[[JOE: (Playing) Chopsticks.|haley program]]\n[[JOE: (Playing) Heart and Soul, A-section.|gordon program]]\n[[JOE: (Playing) Debussy...?|donna program]]\n[[JOE: (Playing) Exit.|symphonic exit]]

(Cameron taps against the blank white door with her closed hand. There is no answer.)\n\n[[CAMERON: (Knock urgently.)|really knock]]\n[[CAMERON: (Use key.)|chez joe]]

DONNA: You mentioned hardware difficulties?\n\nGIANT: Yes, the hardware. It's in the metal. Included, free of charge. Gratuit. Me and the mess, we're a package deal.\n\n[[DONNA: What causes the mess?|hell of a mess]]

[[DONNA: She just needs to be cared for.|end act ii]]

LUCY: Are you looking for the Giant? \n\nOf course you are. Everyone's been looking for the Giant since anyone can remember. Taking their kids out here to dig holes in the desert on family vacations...bedding their impatiens a little deeper than they ought to every year, just in case...\n\nNobody pays money to have their field aerated, either, I'll tell you that. Everyone who comes here comes here looking for the Giant. Hell, I came here looking for the Giant.\n\n[[JOE: A Giant?|whatgiant]]\n[[JOE: I'm looking for someone named Gordon Clark.|gordonclark]]\n

DONNA: (Checks box marked "Halt production and issue recall.")\n\nDONNA: There are so many of these, and all of a sudden. I wonder...\n\n[[HUNT: It's an epidemic.|epidemic]]\n[[HUNT: I don't understand it.|understand it]]

SUSAN: Maybe —\n\nJOANIE: Hey, what about the tubes? That's what they said they were looking for — they were for the Giant, weren't they? And Dad took them with him!\n\nHALEY: Why?\n\n[[SYMPHONIC: ...I think I know why.|symphonic knows]]\n\n

(A stuffed creature stitched together from assorted scraps of cloth, perhaps from torn socks or old shirts. Button eyes and yarn whiskers protrude precariously from a vaguely canine face.)\n\n[[DONNA: (Talk to doll.)|doll talk]]\n[[DONNA: (Back.)|cam's pack]]

[[JOE: (Examine legal notepads.)|notepads]]\n[[JOE: (Examine pizza crusts.)|pizzas]]\n[[JOE: (Examine storage shelves.)|garage shelves]]

(Donna joins Louanne beside the open Giant.)\n\nLOUANNE: Better start unscrewing, Miss Clark. These suckers did a number on our girl. Speaking of — Cameron okay?\n\nDONNA: A little bruised, maybe. She got grazed on the way down, but it looks uglier than it is.\n\nLOUANNE: Get some iodine on it anyway. These school buses all come with first aid over the driver's spot.\n\nDONNA: How did we ever manage without you, Lou?\n\n[[(Louanne smiles.)|gas station menu]]\n\n

DONNA: Deal?\n\nGIANT: Oh, I don't know. The metal. The working parts.\n\nDONNA: The hardware.\n\nGIANT: Yes, that's it...it's in the metal. In the hardware. Included, free of charge. Me and the mess, we're a package deal.\n\n[[DONNA: What causes the mess?|hell of a mess]]

JOE: I'm him.\n\nSVP BOSWORTH: Dunno, Joe. You sure look like New York. Like East Coast corporate. That shit don't sell out here, not to folks in Dallas. Hell, hotshot, you didn't even bring in a resume.\n\n(Joe takes some papers from his briefcase.)\n\nSVP BOSWORTH: What's this?\n\nJOE: That's what 200% of quota looks like.\n\nSVP BOSWORTH:(Whistling) Wouldn't wanna be a number on one of Joe Macmillan's bad days, boy.\n\nJOE: (Smiling) I break numbers, John, I always have. It's not personal. It's what I do.\n\nSVP BOSWORTH: Well, son, feel free. So long as you don't break the chain of command round here. I'm Senior Vice President at Cardiff Electric. I have dinner with Nathan Cardiff, founder and President of Cardiff Electric, twice a week on account of I helped him build this company from the ground. The ground, boy.\n\nYou answer to me, and you don't look the damn secretary in the eye until you close a deal, you understand?\n\n[[JOE: I do.|married]]

BOS: (Interrupting) I do not give a damn, boy! There is not time to give a damn, let alone vet a candidate! Get somebody, and get 'em now!\n\n(NATHAN CARDIFF rises from his seat, slowly, menacingly.)\n\nCARDIFF: (To Joe and Gordon) When this is over, if I still have a company, we will talk.\n\nIf not, we won't be talking, because ain't nobody will be able to find where you're buried, is that understood?\n\nJOE: (Nods.)\n\n(Exeunt Bos, Barry, and Cardiff.)\n\n[[GORDON: What now?|gordon what now]]\n[[GORDON: Where did that even come from?|gordon how]]\n[[JOE: Okay, we're fine. We just need to think.|joe is an ass]]

DONNA: (To Cameron) Sure they did.\n\nJOANIE: Did you find Dad?\n\nDONNA: What? Oh, yeah. I mean, no. Not yet. \n\nCAMERON: Oh, Gordon's out with Joe. Something about a designer. They should be back soon.\n\n[[DONNA: (Find Giant.)|new bullpen]]

PHONE: //(Inaudible, urgent.)//\n\nDONNA: Sweetheart, you'll be fine. I'm on my way, I promise.\n\n(Donna listens to the disconnect tone for several moments before replacing the phone on the switchhook.)\n\n[[HUNT: Who was that?|who was]]\n[[HUNT: Is everyone alright?|is everyone]]

SUSAN: That seems about right.\n\nSYMPHONIC: Well, I guess we'll see in time. Glass has a habit of breaking. Flesh and blood just kind of...\n\n[[SUSAN: Burn?|burn]]\n[[SUSAN: Bruise?|bruise]]\n[[SUSAN: Wear away?|wear away]]

(A red-haired woman leads two little girls into Cardiff's bullpen. They're curious; she struggles to keep them close.)\n\nJOANIE: Mom, can I see?\n\nDONNA: Ok, sweetie, just for a second.\n\nHALEY: Mommy! I'm hungry!\n\n[[DONNA: (Check purse for snacks.)|purse]]\n[[DONNA: (Point out the computers.)|computers]]

GIANT: "I declare..."\n\n[[DONNA: "...some old Giant has been buried here."|quote finish]]

DONNA: (Typing) They're preoccupied with you.\n\nCOMPUTER: Most of them are, I would agree. But everyone is preoccupied with herself foremost. They're trying to help, but I'm not sure they can. There's some weird stuff going on in my hardware, and people care a lot about getting it fixed. I feel bad about it, sometimes, because I can't do much.\n\n[[DONNA: (Typing) What's going on in your hardware?|hardware problem]]\n[[DONNA: (Typing) Can I help?|donna help]]\n[[DONNA: (Typing) I'm sorry.|donna sorry]]

SYMPHONIC: Did you get a good look at them?\n\nJOANIE: No, but I know who it was. It was Cameron. She taught us how to cross our eyes when Mom was talking to the Giant.\n\nHALEY: I like her clothes!\n\n[[...|continue scene]]\n

DONNA: You won't be alone.\n\nCAMERON: She's right. We didn't put you together just for the hell of it — we made you to give this place what it's been looking for. If we do this, we do this all the way.\n\nLOUANNE: We're right behind you, Hal.\n\nGORDON: (Desperately) Joe?\n\n[[JOE: We'll find a place.|a place]]\n\n\n\n

HUNT: You ought to bring the girls by the office sometime.\n\n(Donna smiles wearily.)\n\nDONNA: I've been doing that enough lately with Gordon's work. He's got a very...a sort of //willful// project going on. I'm in there most every week troubleshooting, and it's only so often I can ask the girls' grandma to sub in at bedtime. They're short on hardware help at Cardiff — the only other person with real technical know-how is dedicated to debugging.\n\nHUNT: (Laughing) I don't believe it. I'll never know how you manage, Miss Clark. I surely couldn't.\n\n[[DONNA: Mind over matter, Mister Whitmarsh.|flirting]]\n[[DONNA: I'm sure you could. You just haven't needed to.|practical]]

(Donna turns off Cameron's computer in alarm.)\n\n[[DONNA: (Leave computer alone.)|cam's desk]]

(A collection of VACUUM TUBES of various sizes fills a cardboard box. Some look like they could be for computers — others look like balloons, or expensive gems, or carnival rides. One contains a live beetle.)\n\n[[Back.|equipment]]

CAMERON: Is she hurt?\n\n(A stammer of concern. Joe, Gordon, and Louanne have found them in the thinning haze.)\n\nDONNA: (To Joe) Help me get her out.\n\n[[CAMERON: What about the Giant?|what about]]\n[[CAMERON: I've got it!|sure cam]]

DONNA: (Typing) I'm friendly, too.\n\nCOMPUTER: I'll need more proof before I'm decided on that. I didn't get that impression from upstairs in the Kill Room. You walked right past me so many times. I was trying to catch your eye, in my way, but it was no use. You seemed preoccupied. Everyone here is so preoccupied.\n\n[[DONNA: (Typing) I was looking for Gordon.|i was looking]]\n[[DONNA: (Typing) They're preoccupied with you.|preoccupied with]]\n[[DONNA: (Typing) Everyone's just trying to help.|trying to help]]

(Joe watches the blank white door long after it has closed. At length, he loosens his necktie. A disconsolate grimace tugs at his mouth, as if silken pretense has been coaxed away from both collar and countenance.)\n\n[[JOE: (Enter bathroom.)|joegoespoo]]\n[[JOE: (Enter bedroom.)|whoops sorry cam]]\n

GIANT: D0@@color:lightgray;letter-spacing:3px;font-size:1em;NT@@@@color:darkgray;letter-spacing:3px;font-size:1em;'^/T T 0@@@@color:gray;letter-spacing:3px;font-size:1em; UC @@@@color:dimgray;letter-spacing:3px;font-size:1em;^H@@ M@@color:lightgray;letter-spacing:3px;font-size:1em;E @@@@color:darkgray;letter-spacing:3px;font-size:1em; \s\s^@ @@@@color:gray;letter-spacing:3px;font-size:1em;^/.. ! @@\n\nDONNA: (Yelling) Cameron!\n\n[[(Cameron looks at Donna.)|mistake]]\n[[(Cameron steps toward the Giant.)|bigger mistake]]

(The toolbox contains drill bits, dust mites, and a handful of little plastic dolls.)\n\n[[Back.|garage shelves]]

JOANIE: Make a picture!\n\nBRIAN: (Typing) Run ROSE.\n\n(The computer produces a series of A's and E's in the shape of an enormous blown gardenia.)\n\nHALEY: That's pretty!\n\nBRIAN: Ain't it something?\n\n[[JOANIE: Make it say something!|brian makes computer talk]]\n[[HALEY: Open it!|open computer?]]\n[[DONNA: Okay, girls, let's go.|leave brian alone]]

LOUANNE: You already are the Giant.\n\n(The Giant shakes her head. This time, the movement does not dislodge a single beetle — all are hermetically contained, busying themselves happily with magic in the metal.)\n\nGIANT: I don't think I can be. Not on my own. I know what the Giant is — it's knuckles rubbing through the paydirt, breaking your foot on buried bones, casting yourself down to dig with fingernails and triumph ringing in your head again and again that //this must be the place.// Aching arms until you see her sleeping face. \n\nSo much of what I'm meant to be is about finding. People want to find me on their own — to find, oh, find the Giant in //themselves.// And here I am, found. But not by them.\n\n(To Joe) Please. You understand. You came here looking for the Giant — you know what it means, looking. Making your own is lying.\n\nI'm a lie, and I look like it. I can't be that anymore.\n\n[[JOE: You're not a lie. You're hope.|giant is hope.]]

JOE: It reminded me of home.\n\nGORDON: (Angrily) Well, that explains why you thought this'd work in the first place! You're from goddamn outer space after all!\n\nJOE: (Threateningly) Shut up and let me think!\n\nGORDON: Got it yet?\n\nJOE: Wait here.\n\n(Joe goes to the back room, in the direction of a dimly winking 'GENTS' sign.)\n\n[[(Gordon tries to get a drink.)|drink]]\n[[(Gordon sits and waits.)|gordon waits]]

SIMON: And he wasn't wrong about that. But your partner fails to understand importance of the soul. I had a similar idea before you flew me in, but after interviewing her, I felt sure she needed something else. Big blue eyes, full mouth, bright curls, a winning smile — those are nice, those attract, but they're not //her.// We opt for conventional beauty, we lose what's in there to love. \n\nJOE: Of course. And you know me, I wanted beauty too, wanted //style//...but you're absolutely right, and I know our programmer would agree. Cameron wrote the software, before the bugs got in, and it was a thing of beauty even then — but the metal as it is isn't exactly sensational.\n\n[[...|convo next 2]]

JOE: What makes you think I'm looking for the Giant?\n\nLUCY: Everyone who comes here comes here looking for the Giant. Even the people who live here, like I told you...impatiens, remember? Can't keep it out of their heads. Poke their toes into the front lawn on the way out the door to work! And these are folks who want for nothing, which sure ain't you and me, kid.\n\nNo, you're looking for the Giant, even if you don't know it.\n\n[[(Lucy watches Joe.)|lujoe]]\n[[(Joe watches Lucy.)|joelu]]\n[[(Joe and Lucy watch the road.)|joeluroad]]\n

(BILL hits his PC's spacebar rhythmically, sighing as the monitor returns countless A's and E's in vaguely floral arrangements.)\n\n[[JOE: (Ask for an explanation.)|bill]]\n[[JOE: (Back to the bullpen.)|bullpen]]

GAME OVER.\n11299.\nSHOTS FIRED: 191. NUMBER OF HITS: 51. HIT MISS RATIO: %26\n\n(A bright insect knocks fretfully against the screen, desperate to join the ranks of its intergalactic brethren.)\n\n[[JOE: (Exit.)|arcade]]

DEBBIE: Cameron. Head of programming for this new project, the Giant. She's on a break, I can call her up.\n\n[[DONNA: That'd be nice, thanks.|debbie calls cameron]]

DONNA: (Typing) Are you a person or a machine?\n\nCOMPUTER: Don't change the subject! Gordon told me all about you. He even showed me the SYMPHONIC. I think it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I think I have a crush on it. I think it might be my sister. Can people fall in love with machines? Can machines fall in love with their sisters?\n\n[[DONNA: (Typing) Well, what are you?|million dollar question]]

DONNA: Louanne the beetle expert?\n\nGIANT: Louanne the game repair expert and experimental entomologist.\n\nYeah, Louanne's a special friend of mine. She started finding those beetles in arcade game CRTs. When they began to turn up in our machines, I gather she had to taxonomize. She comes up from the first floor pretty regularly to see how I'm doing. Sometimes, if I've got a really nasty bug, she'll do a little bit of field surgery. Genius with the wires, you know?\n\n[[DONNA: Do you have a nasty bug right now?|offline]]\n[[DONNA: What does she think about the soul idea?|soul idea]]

(The whiteboard stretches from wall to wall at the head of the room. Programmers drift back and forth across its breadth, adding and erasing. Some submissions, like "JASON — FINISHED MODULE," seem to be part of an organized campaign; others, like "MORE KNITTERS IN ROOM 302," "MOSSY OVERGROWTH, ATTEND," and "STICKY TRAPS" are less transparent.)\n\n[[DONNA: (Back to the bullpen.)|act ii bullpen]]

GORDON: She's in there?\n\nJOE: I think she comes for the games. She had this token on a string.\n\nGORDON: Great. Cheaters hiring cheaters.\n\nJOE: That kind of creativity could be useful to us.\n\nGORDON: If it doesn't put the Giant in the ground.\n\nJOE: Everyone here says the Giant's been in the ground forever. It's time to dig it up.\n\n[[JOE AND GORDON: (Enter tavern.)|enter tavern]]

DONNA: I'm sure you could. You just haven't needed to.\n\nHUNT: And for that, I thank my lucky stars.\n\n[[HUNT: (Returns, blushing slightly, to his paperwork.)|abashed paperwork]]\n[[HUNT: Um, Donna...|amazing]]

(Joe takes a magazine out of his briefcase and tosses it down on Gordon's desk.)\n\nJOE: Page 33.\n\nGORDON: What are you — ?\n\nJOE: Just think about it.\n\n(Exit Joe.)\n\n[[GORDON: (Looks at magazine.)|magazine read]]

DONNA: (Typing) Where are you?\n\nCOMPUTER: Oh, I'm upstairs in the Kill Room. You walked right past it so many times. I was trying to catch your eye, in my way, but it was no use. You seemed preoccupied. Everyone here is so preoccupied.\n\n[[DONNA: (Typing) I was looking for Gordon.|i was looking]]\n[[DONNA: (Typing) They're preoccupied with you.|preoccupied with]]\n[[DONNA: (Typing) Everyone's just trying to help.|trying to help]]

SUSAN: Like walking however many tons of robot girl into the Texas plains? That'll be the day!\n\nSYMPHONIC: She's learning, and so are the beetles. It's all becoming more determined, the metal and the mind.\n\n[[SUSAN: Hmph. I'll believe it when I see it.|believe]]\n[[SUSAN: And Gordon aims to stop her?|gordon aims]]

DONNA: Did they eat the snacks I left?\n\nCAMERON: Girls?\n\nJOANIE: Yes.\n\nCAMERON: (Suspiciously) Haley?\n\nHALEY: (Suspiciously) Yes!\n\n[[DONNA: (To Cameron) Sure they did.|sure sure]]\n[[DONNA: Good girls.|good girls]]

(The car's brights illuminate an asphalt amphitheater in the dim. An armadillo sits dumbly in the front row, waiting for the curtain; a smiling woman lounges on the shoulder in a folding chair, like she couldn't get a ticket.)\n\n[[ARMADILLO|armadillo 3]]\n[[SMILING WOMAN|lucy]]\n

(Cameron lies on her belly in Joe's bedroom, head resting on her hands. She has been waiting for a long time; her eyes burn, and breathing through her nose has become inexplicably impossible, but she cannot sniffle for fear of being heard. In the living room, Joe and Simon speak excitedly about the Giant.)\n\nJOE: ...And Gordon wanted her to be beautiful. Flashy, attractive. His whole idea was that she should be loved at first sight.\n\n[[...|next convo piece]]\n\n

//♫...Here I am in silence, looking round without a clue....I find myself alone again, all alone with you...♫//\n\n[[CAMERON: (Changes station.)|thirdjam]]\n[[Back.|joe apartment home]]

DEBBIE: Gordon? Don't rightly know, sorry. I bet he's around, though — they're all making the rounds pretty regular these days. Try the Kill Room, maybe.\n\n[[DONNA: The Kill Room?|what's the kr]]\n[[JOANIE: (Scared) What's Daddy doing in the Kill Room?|scary room]]

(The gas station has guttered out at long last; the lot is illuminated only by the headlights of a stolen school bus.)\n\n[[CAMERON.|cam]]\n[[JOE.|joe]]\n[[GORDON.|gordon]]\n[[DONNA.|donna]]\n[[LOUANNE.|lou]]\n\n[[GIANT.|giant wakes]]

JOE: Where did you come from?\n\nLUCY: New York! Now, there's a ways to come from. Far away in time and space. Oh, I know the place is still standing, but not for me. One day all of New York kind of tumbled down around me, and I knew I had to get out. Left some valuables in the rubble, too, but I'd rather not talk about that — I'm enjoying myself right now.\n\nSpeaking of, can I offer you a drink? I've got a cooler somewhere with some whiskey in it, and some ice. Back in New York I used to drink — oh, everything. Anything. \n\n(Laughing sadly) I was wild. That used to make magic happen around me. Curses too, sometimes. But that was before. Now the magic helps itself to happening, and I just drink whiskey with ice.\n\n[[JOE: I'm from New York.|newyork]]\n[[JOE: I knew someone like that a long time ago.|longtime]]

(DEBBIE wears a pink blouse and a pearl bracelet. Her camel blazer lies abandoned in a pile of invoices and pencil stubs. She watches a particularly bad fluorescent lamp blink out illiterate Morse, head in her hand. She looks bored and exhausted.)\n\n[[JOE: Long day?|long day]]\n[[JOE: What's going on? Why is everyone still here?|what's going on]]

PHONE: //(Inaudible, secretive.)//\n\nDONNA: No. You've got to trust me. I promise I'll help you. Just hang on until I get there. Don't move. \n\n[[PHONE: //(Inaudible, urgent.)//|urgent]]\n[[PHONE: //(Inaudible, grateful.)//|grateful]]\n[[PHONE: //(Inaudible, resigned.)//|resigned]]

//♫...I like your absence more than I thought I would...know I should know what I'm standing for, as long as it's good...♫//\n\n[[CAMERON: (Changes station.)|fourthjam]]\n[[Back.|joe apartment home]]

SUSAN: Wear away?\n\nSYMPHONIC: Maybe. I really don't know much about flesh and blood, except that people aren't made of it as often as you'd think. Even if they're supposed to be, even if they look like it, you have to wonder. I wonder if that woman in the road was flesh and blood.\n\nMaybe she used to be.\n\n[[SUSAN: What woman in the road?|what woman]]

(DEBBIE waves from her desk, phone pinned between shoulder pad and false pearl earring.)\n\n[[DEBBIE: (Hanging up) Howdy, girls!|debbie talks girls]]\n[[DEBBIE: (Mouthing) Hi, Donna!|debbie talks donna]]

(Joe searches among the arcade machines. Most of the games seem a little worse for wear; a bee harrasses the GALAGA cabinet, CENTIPEDE looks slightly sticky, EARTH ARTILLERY chatters oddly, and ASTEROIDS smells musty, like the attic of an old Victorian.)\n\n[[JOE: (Play CENTIPEDE.)|centipede]]\n[[JOE: (Play ASTEROIDS.)|asteroids]]\n[[JOE: (Play GALAGA.)|galaga]]\n[[JOE: (Play EARTH ARTILLERY.)|earth artillery]]\n[[JOE: (Exit.)|leave arcade]]

CAMERON: Do you even want me to?\n\nJOE: Between the two of you, this project can go places we never thought it would. I want you both working on this, absolutely, but in the meantime I'm going to need you to —\n\nCAMERON: (Mockingly) Play nice?\n\nJOE: I was going to say "move over."\n\nCAMERON: (Affronted) Why should I? He knows nothing about the Giant other than what she could tell him in a twenty-minute interview, he said himself he doesn't work with the machines — Joe?\n\n(Now Joe is laughing. He buries his grin in Cameron's waistband.)\n\nJOE: Cameron, you have complete say-so over the beetle solve. Simon will look at your specs, you'll choose the final model, consider it done.\n\n(He moves to kiss her, but thinks better of it, settling drowsily underneath her ear.)\n\n[[(Cameron moves over.)|act ii scene iii]]\n\n

CAMERON: (Laughing) You just sound like a tool when you try to talk shop.\n\nJOE: (Irritably) Forgive me for attempting competence, I'm only the product manager — \n\nCAMERON: We catalogue the types of things each species is able to do, and what stereotyped activities, like reflexes or instincts, are involved in each behavior. The beetles, they understand computers. My program allows the Giant to use electrical cues to communicate, prompt specific responses. She can get them to behave. It's complicated, it's okay if you don't understand.\n\nJOE: I understand, but how do you fix the swarming?\n\nCAMERON: I think we can set something up inside of her. Change the shape of those compartments. I have to talk to Louanne. \n\n[[JOE: Louanne's not here.|louanne isn't]]\n[[JOE: Will you be okay with collaborating?|collab time]]

PHONE: //(Inaudible, lost.)//\n\nDONNA: It's okay. I'll figure something out. No, I'll take care of it. Hang on until I get there. Don't move.\n\n[[PHONE: //(Inaudible, urgent.)//|urgent]]\n[[PHONE: //(Inaudible, grateful.)//|grateful]]\n[[PHONE: //(Inaudible, resigned.)//|resigned]]

LOUANNE: I don't think they'll respond to code for long.\n\n(Cameron ignores Louanne, bowed over the keyboard in a programming frenzy. Louanne notices strokes falling heavy on the 'delete' key.)\n\nAJAX: So don't code. Just pour chemicals in there or something. Like, pheromones.\n\n(Cameron growls angrily and starts tearing out wires, piling the equipment back into her gym bag and climbing down from her dumpster lid.)\n\n[[AJAX: Hey cranky, where you going?|cam's stuck]]

(Louanne murmurs at the Giant as she screws and solders. The Giant is out cold — nonetheless, Louanne proffers quiet scoldings and tender consolation, like a visitor to the comatose.)\n\nLOUANNE: When you wake up, you'd better have something to say for yourself. It's not good manners to crush people who love you — I reckon if you were yourself, you'd have known that. You'll be right as rain in no time.\n\nLOUANNE: You shouldn't have left, though. You know we stole a school bus to get out here? Only thing we could come up with that'd hold you. Lucky my sister had a set of keys — Betty drives these round during the week. Game repair's not a full-time gig.\n\n[[LOUANNE: (Jokingly) You're in good hands, Hal.|gas station menu]]\n\n

(A familiar voice, a gentle one, slow and distant, hums through the receiver.)\n\nGIANT: Donna, it's me.\n\n[[DONNA: What's the matter?|oh no]]\n[[DONNA: Can this wait?|howw]]

It's nice to meet you, too. You don't seem to know much about music, but it also seems like you're learning fast. Let's try an exercise to help you learn. Play something hopeful.\n\n[[JOE: (Playing) I hope the Giant will make people happy.|donna hope]]\n[[JOE: (Playing) I hope this works.|donna hope]]\n[[JOE: (Playing) Restart.|donna program]]\n[[JOE: (Playing) Exit.|symph greet]]

(Judie pulls a series of jars, flaking with foam peanuts, from the backpack's chattering depths. Each contains several beetles of the same variety; different genera and species buzz eagerly at one another through barriers of glass.)\n\nJUDIE: Ready, Cam?\n\nCAMERON: Give me a minute, here.\n\n[[LOUANNE: (Indicating beetles) Can I take a look?|louanne looks]]\n[[JUDIE: (Indicating beetles) Which one's which?|beetle groups]]\n\n

CAMERON: Used to what, exactly?\n\n(Cameron reproachfully relocates to Joe's unmade bed. Joe leans heavily over the threshold. His tie has resigned itself to hanging haplessly from his sleeve.)\n\nJOE: When I first joined IBM, my father knew I was — that I had a very specific skillset. I got sent to lots of conferences, lots of international calls, as far from Armonk as they could manage. It was in '73, a seminar in Europe. Simon spoke, and he was...\n\nHe was young, exciting. He had ideas. I saw the future in him, saw what I wanted to be. I was forceful then. I got what I wanted. I got him on his own, and it was like holding potential, all that promise in my hands. Things got out of control — I wanted that, too. We spent the next few months traveling, just //going// places. Mostly it was about moving, getting ahead of life, cramming as much madness into our time together as time would tolerate.\n\nThe memories I have from then...I've looked all over for something like that. There's nothing. It doesn't exist. It can't.\n\n[[CAMERON: Did you love him?|did you love him]]

JOE: (Startled) Cameron? What's going on, are you okay?\n\n(Joe crouches, alarmed, to turn Cameron over. She glares at him and nurses a trodden hand.)\n\nCAMERON: (Disgruntled) I came looking for you and I got cornered. Who's the guy? Simon, right? What did he want?\n\n[[JOE: He's the designer working with us on the Giant.|designer answer]]\n[[JOE: He's an old friend.|old friend answer.]]\n[[JOE: You heard everything, why ask?|right answer]]

DONNA: I have some raisins and peanuts.\n\nHALEY: Ew!\n\nJOANIE: That's what's for dinner?\n\n[[DONNA: Girls, don't complain.|leave brian alone]]\n[[DONNA: We'll look for something else to eat later. We're looking for Daddy right now.|leave brian alone]]

SUSAN: Their names were Joe and Cameron.\n\nSYMPHONIC: I can only think of one Cameron. She's kind of a mother, I think, if a young one. She's responsible for the Giant's soul, even if she doesn't know it. She wrote all the software — of course, there's no usable OS whatsoever now, but it's because of her the Giant has a brain.\n\nI met Joe Macmillan some time ago. I spoke to him for a while — I helped him learn about music, and about hope. He asked me about that woman in the road. I'm very curious — is he really made of glass?\n\n[[SUSAN: No, baby. Flesh and blood.|flesh and blood]]\n[[SUSAN: I couldn't tell you, ma'am.|can't say]]\n[[SUSAN: That seems about right.|about right]]\n[[SUSAN: What woman in the road?|what woman]]

(A surreptitious shot of SIMON through a tangle of unfocused marble limbs. He sits pensively, golf cap in his lap, gazing up into a vaulted ceiling full of gold and glass. The back reads: MUSEE D'ORSAY, 1973. RARE SILENCE.)\n\n\n[[(A noise from without startles Cameron back into the room.)|joe and simon enter]]

GIANT: Do@@color:lightgray;letter-spacing:3px;font-size:1em;n'@@@@color:darkgray;letter-spacing:3px;font-size:1em;^/t t a@@@@color:gray;letter-spacing:3px;font-size:1em;k @@@@color:dimgray;letter-spacing:3px;font-size:1em;^e@@ m@@color:lightgray;letter-spacing:3px;font-size:1em;e b@@@@color:darkgray;letter-spacing:3px;font-size:1em;ac@@ k C@@color:dimgray;letter-spacing:3px;font-size:1em;am@@@@color:darkgray;letter-spacing:3px;font-size:1em; \s\s^r on@@@@color:gray;letter-spacing:3px;font-size:1em; ^/.. @@ \n\nCAMERON: Damn, OK...you're gonna be fine, we just need to...\n\n[[GIANT: //(Don't touch me.)//|crush cameron 2]]\n[[GIANT: //(I could crush anything.)//|crush cameron]]\n

GIANT: You can hear me, can't you?\n\n(//Ordinata colossa// turns her head with an iridescent chatter. Green glares violet beneath the Giant's blinding stare.)\n\n[[GIANT: I thought so.|thought]]\n[[GIANT: Maybe not.|not]]\n[[GIANT: I guess it doesn't matter.|matter]]

JOANIE: Cameron was playing with it. She opened it for a while, but it still worked when she put it back together.\n\nHALEY: It made her laugh.\n\nJOANIE: It was saying funny things. It told Joe to —\n\nSUSAN: Enough, girls.\n\n[[//Back.//|clark living room]]

(The living room is half window, Dallas glaring orange between tall blinds. Glass bricks obscure the kitchen; the entrance to the bedroom lurks furtively amid mirrored paneling.)\n\n[[WINDOWS.|jwindow]]\n[[STEREO.|jstereo]]\n[[BASEBALL BAT.|jbat]]\n[[KITCHEN.|jkitchen]]\n[[BEDROOM.|jbedroom]]\n

JOE: A Giant?\n\nLUCY: No one told you? Giants used to roam the earth. Enormous people moving slow across the land, or swimming all over it back when these plains were just sea and sky, I can't say for certain. But stride or swim or slither like snakes, they moved here, and there's proof in the paydirt. Proof right here in Texas rock. Evidence incontrovertible. \n\n"I'll find it." That's what I told my husband years ago. That's what you say when you really want to prove something to someone, I suppose.\n\n[[JOE: Everyone's got something to prove.|prove detour]]\n[[JOE: Is that why you came out here?|whycame detour]]

(The chair's brightly banded canvas flutters sadly. Beside it, the cooler leaks whiskey and sour water into weedy dust.)\n\n[[Back.|lights whine]]

CAMERON: How are you feeling?\n\n[[GIANT: Perfect.|perfect]]\n[[GIANT: Much better.|better now]]\n[[GIANT: Ashamed, mostly.|ashamed]]

JOE: So when was the last time you really built something?\n\nGORDON: I don't build anything anymore! I'm a sales engineer! Stop acting like you need a need me to crank out a new model of Porsche!\n\nJOE: I don't want you to help me engineer a sale. And I don't want you to help me build a car, or a computer, or a piece of systems software, for that matter!\n\nGORDON: (Laughing angrily) What, then? Why stalk me to Dallas, antagonize me in the parking lot, tell me how glad you are to meet me, then ask me to work on your mysterious oh-so-urgent pet project?\n\n[[What do you want?|pennydrops]]

SUSAN: What's that got to do with the tubes?\n\nSYMPHONIC: It's hard to explain. There are these little insects that get in her machinery like parasites, and change the way she behaves — but if they're contained, given the right instructions, they can be made to cooperate with her. The tubes keep them in one place and let her communicate with them, direct their activity inside her. The shape of the glass prevents them from getting distracted.\n\nThey can allow her to do things she would never be able to do otherwise. Things her engineers could never conceive of.\n\n[[SUSAN: Like walking?|yeah walking 2]]

("THE FUTURE OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN: CONTINENTAL CONFERENCE 1973." Listings: VIO BELLGABLE, "The Imperative of Silence in the Electronic Age"; ANWEN AMARANTH, "Open Architecture and City Planning"; LEO MARY AHLGREN, "Introduction to Debugging and Coleopterology"; SIMON CHURCH, "The New Interface.")\n\n\n[[Back.|odds and ends menu]]

GAME OVER\nSCORE:3582\nHIGH SCORE:16543\nBONUS EVERY 12000\n\n(Tacky patches left by endless libations of orange soda, poured out daily to the gaming gods, gather lint and lost time.)\n\n[[JOE: (Exit.)|arcade]]

(Donna sips at her coffee uncomfortably. Hunt knuckles his eyes and pulls the next document from its lazily dwindling stack.)\n\nDOCUMENT: //TI INTENT ASSESSOR® FAILURE ANALYSIS REPORT. Of 100 products tested, 42 exhibited unacceptable inaccuracy margins. Of these, 17 returned impossible outcomes. Of these, 2 could not be recovered and remain nonoperational. Initial NDT procedure showed traces of carbonized organic matter in instrumental hardware; invasive analysis revealed fragments to consist largely of chitinous exoskeletal material.//\n\n[[HUNT: (Checks box marked "Approve for further testing.")|approve hunt]]\n[[HUNT: (Checks box marked "Halt production and issue recall.")|disapprove hunt]]\n\n\n\n

GORDON: We don't need her.\n\nCAMERON: (Laughing) Yes, you do. You guys are in some kind of shit, and I'm the only coder you could manage to get your hands on.\n\nJOE: It's true that there's some urgency to this position, but it's the position of a lifetime — I thought you might at least show some interest.\n\nCAMERON: Hey, blow me.\n\n[[GORDON: (Looks at Joe in disbelief.)|gordon still confused]]\n[[JOE: (Opens mouth angrily.)|joe wants to yell]]

[[GIANT: Thanks, Donna.|yeah thanks]]

(Gordon enters, and stops dead when he sees the SYMPHONIC. He looks at Joe, blushing deeply.)\n\nGORDON: Donna and I made that straight out of college. It was beautiful for a long time — but we went to do our big demo and it all collapsed. \n\n(Gordon sweeps the SYMPHONIC off the desk and back into its cranny among loose screws and dust bunnies.)\n\n[[JOE: It seems to work just fine.|it worked]]\n[[JOE: I'm sure it would have worked better if I knew the first thing about music.|no music]]\n[[JOE: It's certainly unique.|unique]]\n\n

(Joe leans cheerfully on the shoulder of a neatly-dressed, bashful-looking man. They sit together on a low retaining wall, a blinding bay full of sunlight behind them. Joe wears a knit stocking hat; the other doffs a tweed golf cap at the camera. The back reads: STOCKHOLM WITH SIMON, 1973.)\n\n[[CAMERON: (Next photograph.)|second simon photo]]

(An alarm clock set for 6 a.m. glints dully beneath an incandescent table lamp. A page-a-day calendar with an IBM watermark is stripped to the current date, but the day of the week has been scratched out and corrected hastily in ballpoint ink.)\n\n[[Back.|jbedroom]]

(Joe returns from the back room, shadowed by a gangling college student wearing a Walkman, army fatigues, and a punk haircut.)\n\n[[(Gordon stares at Joe.)|stare at joe]]\n[[(Gordon stares at the student.)|stare at cameron]]

[[(Gordon closes the magazine and discards it.)|act i scene v]]\n[[(Gordon closes the magazine and puts it in his briefcase.)|act i scene v]]

LOUANNE: Come on. Let's go.\n\n(The Giant rises with a gleaming groan. She looks taller, somehow, more enormous — more impossible to hide. Louanne laughs.)\n\n[[LOUANNE: You'll have to sit in the aisle.|aisle]]\n\n

[[ACT III, SCENE V: WEST ON I-30.|giant payphone]]

SUSAN: I couldn't tell you, ma'am.\n\nSYMPHONIC: Well, I guess we'll see in time. Glass has a habit of breaking. Flesh and blood just kind of...\n\n[[SUSAN: Burn?|burn]]\n[[SUSAN: Bruise?|bruise]]\n[[SUSAN: Wear away?|wear away]]

(The lights whine, projecting an empty promise out over the interstate, a long-forgotten attendant's honest mistake. A dented pay phone loiters at the roadside, powered by the selfsame oversight. A deck chair, flattened by the wind, lies on its side by an upturned cooler.)\n\n[[CHAIR.|lucy's chair]]\n[[ROAD.|roadside]]\n[[PAY PHONE.|pay phone]]\n

(A Spartan bullpen sprawls across the entire level. Suits sit solemnly between partitions, resolutely cooking books and clasping deskmates' hands in silent reassurance. Its laconic order is both distant and consoling.)\n\n[[DONNA: (Back to ELEVATOR.)|accounting elevator]]

(The car's brights illuminate an asphalt amphitheater in the dim. An armadillo sits dumbly in the front row, waiting for the curtain; a smiling woman lounges on the shoulder in a folding chair, like she couldn't get a ticket.)\n\n[[DRIVER|driver second]]\n[[ARMADILLO|armadillo 1]]\n[[SMILING WOMAN|lucy]]\n

A SMILE LITES UP YOR FACE. YOU FEL GUD. YAY ! (:\n\n[[JOE: (Playing) Restart.|joanie program]]\n[[JOE: (Playing) Exit.|symph greet]]

(Cameron steps back to look into the hallway. Identical doors march endlessly beneath soft ceiling lights. Somewhere between them the wall gives way to elevator, then to stairwell. It is quiet.)\n\n(Cameron switches on the lights inside.)\n\n[[APARTMENT.|turn on light]]

JOE: He's the designer working with us on the Giant.\n\nCAMERON: (Feigning fascination) Yeah! Pretty high profile, too. That's quite a connection. Another perk of being an IBM turncoat, I guess!\n\n[[JOE: Is there a problem, Cameron?|what's it to ya]]\n[[JOE: What do you want me to say?|no bs rn]]

DONNA: (Smiles sympathetically.)\n\nHUNT: It's no big thing, Donna. \n\nTake care of yourself.\n\nDONNA: You too. Thank you.\n\n[[(Donna leaves a fresh cup of coffee and a stale stack of penitent reports.)|donna leaves]]

CAMERON: Oh. These are mine.\n\n[[CAMERON: (Takes clothes.)|jbedroom]]

DONNA: (Quietly) This is not about you.\n\nGORDON: Donna...\n\n[[GIANT: Gordon, please.|please]]

(SPACE A-16 is empty.)\n\n[[JOE: (Park car.)|hi gordo]]

(A reclaimed school bus warms asphalt at the side of the road, rattling patiently. LOUANNE BONET sits, oddly at ease, behind the wheel. DONNA waves, leaning through the outthrust doors. JOE MACMILLAN stares in awe, craning from his seat; a morose-looking GORDON sulks beneath a broken window, nearly out of sight.)\n\n(//Ordinata colossa// writhes through fatal fingers and makes for the safety of a closing rose.)\n\nCAMERON: We've been looking for you for ages. Are you okay? What happened?\n\n[[GIANT: I'm okay.|fine]]\n[[GIANT: Don't take me back.|back]]\n\n

HUNT: Is everything alright?\n\n(Donna smiles wearily.)\n\nDONNA: Oh, I'm fine. There's just a whole lot of rushing around recently. Gordon's work has been demanding for everyone. He's got a very...a sort of //willful// project going on. I'm in there most every week troubleshooting. They're short on hardware help — the only other person with real technical know-how is dedicated to debugging. I bring the girls with me — it's only so often I can ask their grandma to sub in at bedtime.\n\nHUNT: (Laughing) I don't believe it. I'll never know how you manage, Miss Clark. I surely couldn't.\n\n[[DONNA: Mind over matter, Mister Whitmarsh.|flirting]]\n[[DONNA: I'm sure you could. You just haven't needed to.|practical]]

(A workbench offers several pizza crusts sanctuary from orderly eyes. Several empty beer bottles stand sentinel.)\n\n[[Back.|garage]]

JOE: That's right.\n\nSIMON: Hm. Well, make sure you talk with Gordon about those tubes. I'd really like to see the machine get to exercise some control over her vandals — and, personally, I'd like to see fewer insects.\n\n[[JOE: Absolutely. Thank you.|moving right along]]

(JUDIE rocks slowly back and forth like a grim moored galleon. Her hair and eyelids are blackened with ink; her lipstick is scarlet and smudging. She hums and fingers through the contents of her backpack.)\n\n[[ALLEY.|alleydescript]]\n[[AJAX.|ajaxdescript]]\n[[LOUANNE.|louannedescript]]\n[[CAMERON.|camdescript]]\n[[BACKPACK.|backpackcontents]]

JOANIE: (Scared) What's Daddy doing in the Kill Room?\n\nDEBBIE: Don't worry, sweetie. That's just what they call it. It's where they're building the Giant.\n\nJOANIE: That's still scary. Giants are dangerous.\n\nDEBBIE: Ain't nothing to be afraid of, Joanie.\n\n[[DONNA: Did you say you could get someone to watch the girls?|cameron?2]]\n\n\n

SUSAN: He's been here before?\n\nSYMPHONIC: Only in the garage. He helped Gordon get started on the Giant.\n\nSUSAN: Thank God for that. He's a shiny boy; he's got a handsome look to 'im, like a Cadillac, and an impressive way of talking — but he sure cuts a threatening figure, doesn't he? Wouldn't want him stalking round //my// house!\n\nJOANIE: They were talking about glass tubes for computer bugs. They didn't find any. I think Daddy took them with him. He said he borrowed them from the Giant.\n\n//(The living room is soft with cool, mossy trim and cozy earth tones. The carpet makes everything gentle and quiet. Gordon and Donna are not home.)//\n\n[[//KITCHEN.//|clark kitchen counter]]\n[[//COFFEE TABLE.//|clark coffee]]\n[[//DINING AREA.//|clark dining]]

CAMERON: Joe?\n\n(No one is home.)\n\n[[CAMERON: (Look around.)|joe apartment home]]

(Cameron kneels beside the Giant, speaking to her softly. The Giant only rocks her titanic head through a parasitic drone. Gordon returns from the idling school bus, carrying a box that rattles slightly with the clink of stolen parts.)\n\nJOE: Cameron, you're bleeding. Leave her alone.\n\nCAMERON: (To Giant) Lie on your back. We're going to help you.\n\n[[DONNA: (Pulls Cameron away.)|pull away]]\n[[LOUANNE: (Opens toolbox.)|toolbox]]

GORDON: We won't bury you!\n\n(The Giant turns silently toward Gordon. For a moment, the anger that knocked Cameron to the ground blinks terribly in her childlike face.)\n\nGIANT: You don't have to. I'll do it myself if you won't.\n\nBut I'd rather not go alone.\n\n[[DONNA: You won't be alone.|nice donna]]

(A note stuck to the refrigerator reads: CALL DALE IBM ABOUT PC PROJECT. Another reads: CAMERON THERE IS TAKEOUT.)\n\n[[CAMERON: (Opens refrigerator.)|inside fridge]]\n[[CAMERON: (Opens freezer drawer.)|inside freezer]]\n[[Back.|jkitchen]]