The Kid from Silicon Gulch - the play and its plot - part 2 - an electronic musical by Robert Calvert

Spark heads off into quite another part of the Gulch:
"When I reached the apartment on the 26th floor I was heading for I saw the body of the next suspect on my list stretched out under a white sheet being carried between two cops on his way to his last elevator-ride. SARGEANT KARELLI had beaten me to it."
Well, here he is for the first time: SARGEANT KARELLI - played by Pete Pavli, who lends him a wonderful voice 'n' attitude...though it must be said: KARELLI is sort of dumb-witted... - His constant trying to interrogate Spark (EVERYtime they meet) if he finally paid that parking-fine is the running gag of the play... and KARELLI meets SPARK at EVERY crime-site he shows up....
What's the story on this one? KARELLI passes the facts:
"Well it was probably an accident. We don't know yet. One of your micro processor things got maladjusted. It's automatic door locking device refused to open. We had to break it down. The guy had been dead for 3 months. - also: the phone was cut off. Seems the computer refused to pay his bills as well..."
SPARK enters Steve Tanners - the victim's - apartment to interrogate JUKE, Tanner's computer.
Another of those great dialogues btw. Spark and the machines sets in. --- Read it
HERE
Ending the tiring dialogue with JUKE and leaving him to his 'logic', SPARK snoops around the victim's place. Finds yet another cigar butt with badly cut tip ... and yet another joint (drugs, that is.)
SPARK wonders why a rich-guy like HYMY SPENCER was visiting a kinda messy place like this - being linked-up to Tanner's computer JUKE, he wouldn't need to - hence: it must be the drugs.
SPARK, being obviously kind of an expert on mary-jane, knows after just a little one-inhaler, that this here is good stuff. Jamaican. But he can't indulge. Can't get stoned right now... because he must keep it together. AND because he has seen what this stuff can do to a man... and now follows another little side-kick persiflage: one of those (usually) tiring little Vietnam anecdotes we've seen in counteless american movies. ... Well, after induldging in some Viet-memories: "Lying out under the stars and the soft bursting of the Howitzers in the distance and the villages burning...", Brad get his act together again:
"I ain't got time for philosophy right now. I've got work to do."
With this he falls into the next song:

ON THE CASE
At the end of the song we find ourselves back in SPARK's office.
SPARK: By the time I got back to the office I was feeling like an amputated leg. Zyte didn't help either. It's that voice of his. Listening to him's like having your head wrapped up in cellophane."
Needless to say, ZYTE starts to unload his info on BRAD....
He's actually scanning some photos, group shots of top-job man - one of them (they all seem to be ugly "dough features") is the first victim HYMY SPENCER.
ZYTE: I'm nearly through here Brad. Two things you oughta know. SPENCER was head of Data International Corporation. DIC.
SPARK: Head of DIC?
ZYTE: Right Dic head. Get it? Dick head.
SPARK: Sometimes I wish I hadn't typed in that second-hand humour program, Zyte.
ZYTE lays out that DIC are, or rather: were the biggest mainframe computer manufacturers in the world, but business went down dramatically since the boom in micro-computers. And what's more: Steve Tanner, the second victim -found dead after 3 months, locked in his apt. - was an employee at DIC. Might this be a suicide pact? Quite unlikely, thinks SPARK. And where does that dope come in? Just as ZYTE want's to explain his further deductions SPARK interrupts him:
SPARK: "Wait a minute Listen to this. This is the answer to my prayers. Someone has just invented a direct thought interface."
Well, that's a little electrode-thingie that cuts out the need for speech-synthesis (i.e.: talking with your computer) altogether. SPARK is enthusiastic:
"That means I won't have to listen to your smart ass back chat all day."
He wants to ring the company called BIOTRON right away and order himsef one of this miracle-gadgets. Strangely enough, BIOTRON can't be found in the directory - at all...
SPARK wanting the thing very badly goes down to the given address right away.
And things get stranger... - there isn't even a building where it's supposed to be.
No building, no BIOTRON company.
No one around has even heard of it...
SPARK's private-dick-instinct tells him: something's very wrong right here.
Where the building's supposed to be there's just a parking lot. SPARK snoops around and finds someting unusual for a parking lot. A garbage can. He inspects it. Finds it has BIOTRON written on it. Looks inside. Finds a card. It has a TRIANGLE printed on it. Then a HOOD with a stocking over his head appears from behind and points a gun at him. After some fighting and trying to talk "reasonably" with his fiend, the Hood finally blackjacks SPARK. The Hood exits with the garbage can and card. SPARK's fading into unconsciousness - which fades into the next song:

WHY DO YOU CALL ME A PIG?
- sung by Sgt. KARELLI

Click on to part III of The Play + The Plot
Click back to part I of The Play + The Plot

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