LARABE (startled):
Huh? What are you doing here?
ANTI-LARABE:
If you withdraw, I won't be able to help you.
LARABE:
But - (he goes, swiftly)
ANTI-LARABE:
Of course, they had to send you, didn't they. No! don't move.
LARABE:
What do you want?
ANTI-LARABE:
What do I want? (laughs) Why don't you tell me, Mister secret agent...just what is so secret, anyway?
LARABE:
You know very well.
ANTI-LARABE:
Oh? What do I know very well?
LARABE:
Let's just cut out the games and get it over with.
ANTI-LARABE:
What's the matter, don't you want to play anymore? And just when things
were getting interesting...I'm going to give you a fighting chance. Here is your
weapon. You may shoot me down in cold blood, as I shot the Jovian
ambassador...Well, go on! What are you waiting for?
LARABE:
I'm supposed to take you in.
ANTI-LARABE (sighs, exasperated):
Oh, very well. (he shoots Larabe)
LARABE:
What the hell...?...strange...everything is all splotchy...
ANTI-LARABE:
It's your brain. (voice is chopped up)
LARABE:
"Oh"...and all these sounds are broken up...
ANTI-LARABE:
Your brain is too coarse and too slow to distinguish each phonon. But you needn't worry about that now. (points to Larabe's corpse on Mt. Palomar)
LARABE:
Hey - I've been splattered!
ANTI-LARABE:
No more secrets now. What really is the difference between us?
LARABE:
You know very well.
ANTI-LARABE:
You know very well. (echoes rapidly compound, then cease abruptly)
LARABE:
It's a matter of truth.
ANTI-LARABE (suddenly Pontius Pilate):
What is truth?
(Larabe is taken before the multitude)
LARABE:
Wait! They mustn't see me like this, without a brain!
ANTI-LARABE:
I find no fault with this man. (faces Larabe) Does he find fault with me? After all, I blew his brains out.
(A scream rises from silence, and Larabe is instantly at the
observatory.)
LARABE:
Oh, it was a dream. (he looks down and sees his corpse. It speaks to him.)
CORPSE:
If you withdraw, I won't be able to help you.
(Return to the splotchy room)
LARABE:
Just who are you? What have you done to me? What are you plotting?
ANTI-LARABE:
My, but we are full of questions. Have you forgotten already that you have no brain?
LARABE:
There's a word for the likes of you.
ANTI-LARABE:
Several words, no doubt. Question is, do you really have time for them all? That "comet", as you call it, is steadily gaining momentum, and it isn't going to wait for you to figure it out.
LARABE:
I'm confused...I have to think!
ANTI-LARABE:
You have no brain, remember?
LARABE:
Wait a minute, dammit!
ANTI-LARABE:
Tick-tock, tick-tock...
LARABE:
Let's see...Martians, Jovians...Uranians; can't forget the Uranians...
ANTI-LARABE:
It'll make Shoemaker-Levy look like a firecracker.
LARABE:
Oh, then there's Shoemaker-Levy, the Grays, the men in black...
ANTI-LARABE:
Whoop! there it is. Man, it's a big one.
LARABE:
FBI, CIA, KGB, NSA, DOD...
ANTI-LARABE:
"She'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes..."
LARABE:
Hitler, F.D.R., Oppenheimer, Truman, Eisenhower, J.F.K....
ANTI-LARABE:
Who were they working for?
LARABE:
United Nations, Vatican, Bilderbergers, global corporate regime, novus ordo seclorum...
ANTI-LARABE:
Who do they serve?
LARABE:
They want absolute control of reality - but is that the end, or just the means to a more complete end?
ANTI-LARABE:
How time flies when you're having fun!
LARABE:
Christ, anti-Christ, Ripplepolarchrist, subtle usurper, holy cult of death...
ANTI-LARABE (mockingly, histrionically):
O, father! Why hast thou forsaken poor li'l old me?
LARABE:
God almighty, what will I do???
LARABE'S COLLEAGUE:
Horses, fishes and trees do not build telescopes.
(Larabe runs up to the observatory telescope and views the comet.
It smashes the great mirror into millions of tiny fragments,
churning, along with a helpless Larabe, in the sea...millions of
tiny reflections.
Finally, he is on lying on the beach, alone.
Fish key chain washes up to his outstretched hand.)