The Thingies

Synopsis:   They came from another world, Negavo, Tiny Energy vampires appear on our planet and find a smorgasbord of things to feast upon.   Of course, they find Silicon Valley and begin to siphon the power.   The tech geeks soon find themselves up a creek without a paddle until the fellow stoner at Intel Corp explains he has been seeing mysterious ‘thingies’ eating energy during the Witching Hour…

~&~CAST~*~

Buddy Kierney: (Intel Corp’s Local Stoner)

Ivor Gretsky:  (the Boss)  

Natalia Gretzky: (his wife)

Yacov Gretzky: (his son)  

Devorah Gretzky: (His daughter, the youngest)

Amarah Patel:

Samarah Patel: (Twin Sister)  

Jared King:  

Malachi Creed:   

Ophelia Rogers:   

Xavier Duval:  

And a Hoard/drove of Thingies

Doctor Darius Harcourt:   

Doctor Otto Cantor:  

Scene 1--The Lights Go Dim in Silicon Valley

(The scene begins normally enough in the evening hours, but the mood changes as soon as the music becomes ominous.   A dark energy orb hurtles to earth and a singular Thingy Emerges.  It has four glowing eyes and a maw of razor sharp teeth.  It has four clawed talons to rip things to shreds.   Right now it craves one thing, energy and it is heading toward its hub…)  

Buddy:  (smoking a joint)  Man, it’s been a day and a half.  I couldn’t wait for 4:20 to roll around.  

AmaraH:  You’re a hoot, BUd.   

Bud:  That’s what everyone tells me, Amarah.   I’ll be seeing you tomorrow.  Tell Samarah I thought her ensemble was particularly stunning today.  

Amarah: Tell her yourself, Romeo. (winks at him)  

Bud:  (quickly puts out his ‘recreational’ drug)  Oh, Sam.  I uh, didn’t see you there.  Must’ve been all the smoke. (fake cough)  

Sam:  I overheard, and thank you.   How about we meet tomorrow night at 5:00 for dinner.   

Bud:  If it’s your chicken masala, you needn’t twist my arm.  

Sam:  (tenderly)  It’s a date then.  (kisses his cheek)

(The two walk off)  

Bud:  Bye, Ladies.   See you tomorrow, Sam.  

Sam:  Sleep well, Bud.   

(The rest of the employees tell Sam goodnight as he locks up Intel Corp for the evening.  All seems normal until Sam sees something.  At first, he believes he must still be stoned.  He rubs his eyes but there it is, creeping close to a powerline.)  

(Thingy begins to embrace the power line and start to drain energy from it.  It starts to bob up and down, shiver and shake, phase in and out of existence and then, suddenly, it duplicates.)  

Bud:  What in the heck ?   How is it doing that ?   That is definitely not of this planet…

(Thingy notices him and stares blankly at him for a moment.   It seems curious, so he approaches Bud.)  

Bud: What are you ?   (touches it)  Ow.   Damn.  Sharp, prickly thingy.   

(The thingy, now many thingies, can’t really communicate in English well.  They haven’t absorbed the ability yet.   They only speak in gibberish.)

Bud:  Your spikiness seems to have hurt me but it’s just a scratch.  

(The thingy doesn’t look impressed, grows bored and en masse, starts to retreat quickly to a place where it can sleep for the night.)  

Bud:  That was odd.  If I hadn’t been smoking this Ganga maybe I’d believe my own vision more, but I clearly have proof they exist.   That one I touched was clearly more Needley than a Porcupine.  (pause)  Should I tell the others about this ?  (Mulls it over)   I have to...they’re going to start draining the power out of everything if I don’t !  

(LOcks everything down and heads home, clearly disturbed by the Thingies ability to multiply so fast and what that could mean for Silicon Valley.)

Scene 2--You Guys Aren’t Gonna Believe This…

Bud: (during lunch)  I tell you, I saw them with my own two eyes.  

Mal:  Bud, you’re absolutely nuts.   I think you should lay off the reefer.   

Bud: Ok, Mal, so I was smoking some ganja, but that wasn’t what affected me.  

I’ll prove it to you.   I am not insane.  

Ophelia:  Suuuuure you aren’t.   

Bud:  Ophelia, give me a chance.   Look, you guys.  I’ll prove it all to you.  Hang around during closing time and I’ll show you where I saw these unusual, creepy beings.   

Xavier:  I bet you anything that there’s going to be Zilch.   

BUd:  Thanks for the vote of confidence, X.  

(They all laugh, eating their lunches and savoring time outdoors.  Bud smokes his typical roach of the day and comes back inside to work.  The day winds by until the evening and the company is closed for the day.)  

BUd:   Ok, now just wait.   You’ll see what I mean.  

Ivor:  (from the corner of his eye, he can see one of the creatures)  What on earth is that ?  

Nat:  Ooh, they’re hideous !   You aren’t all strung out, Bud.  

Yacov:  Did you see them when they landed ?  

Bud:  I saw every detail.   There was a massive meteor.   One sprung out from it but once it started sucking up energy, it multiplied.   

Devorah:  (shudders)  That’s just creepy.   Look at them, they’re looking for power again.   

Ivor: We can’t let them do that.   

Sam:  What do you suggest, Boss ?   

Yacov:  Yeah !   They’re a veritable army.   

Bud:  We could try overloading them.  It might be too much for them to handle.   

Sam:  The city would most likely have a power outage.   I think we should turn off the power for a while.   The creatures will more than likely wither away due to starvation.   

Ama:  Don’t you think that’s a little extreme, Sis ?   I know I shouldn’t be taking the Thingies side, but what we’re doing might be considered ethically wrong.    Put yourself in their place  !  

Yacov:  Both you girls are right, but I think I have a better idea.   

Ivor:  (prompts his son to go ahead with a confident nod) Go on then, Yacov.  

Yacov:   We should gather them together and reason with them.   Maybe then we can decide what to do with them.   

Ivor:  We need a lot of energy.   Jared, Nat, Yacov, Malachi.   You are going to be our Prime Team.   Gather every sort of flashlight in your home.   We’ve got a homing beacon to fabricate.   

(scene fade)  

Scene 3--So, Where do You Ungodly THings Hail From ?  

(The next evening.   Some rather Lively classical music plays as the Thingies are rounded up and cornered.   They don’t seem very happy, and they aren’t that reasonable.  All they want is food.)  

Sam:  I think they’re just hungry.   They’re probably cranky from going without power for nearly the whole day.   

Xavier:  I can’t afford to lose my wifi connection though.  These little morons cut me off last night.   I was watching an especially good episode of Community.    I say...tar and feather these little creeps.  

Thingy #1:  (Blathering about in an Irate way)

Ama:  I think it’s trying its best to simulate our language.   

Thingy #2:  (points at flashlight and then at what is probably its stomach.  Licks lips and says ‘Mmmm nom nom’)   

(Thingies rejoice)  

Ama:  Uh, here you go, you Unusual critter.  

(Thingies devour the flashlight and grow in number)  

Bud:  Well, crap.   Now there are more of them.   How are we supposed to hold them now ?  It’s like a battalion !  

Sam:  I think we can still reason with them.   Let me try…

Look, we don’t know where you’re from or why you’re so intent on garnering our energy.   

Thingy #1:  Negavo.    

Ivor:  The creature speaks ?  

(Thingies start conversing with each other, deliberately, trying to synthesize English but it isn’t easy.)  

Thingy #3:  Negavo home planet.   Ran out of Energy.  Saw Urf, Your Homeworld in Neighborhood.  

Thingy #4:  Urf plentiful in electricity.  Keep Negavo Alive.   But now We feel hungry again.  

Thingy #5:  We no mean to be rude.   We just starving and Negavo no longer have energy to sustain us.  

Mal:  I have a friend who is an engineer.  He’s been working on a plasma battery prototype.   It can run for years off solar energy.   

Thingy #7:  Never thought to use solar energy before.  

X:  Maybe it’s time you thought more about that.   

Jared:  There’s only so many flashlights we have to tide you over.   

Thingy #13:  Is enough.   We cannot multiply further.   OUr society has reached its breech.    

Thingy #27:  I feel we should all sleep for the night.  

Thingy #1:  All in favor, aye !  

Thingies:  Aye !  

Bud:  Where will you go ?  

Thingy #2:  The forest is plentiful enough.  We will retire there.   

(Saying their goodbyes, the Negavo amble off into the forest to sleep for the night.   Scene fade..)  

Scene 4--Working on A Better Option

Ivor:  I’ve been able to contact Doctor Darius Harcourt and his assistant, OTto.   They should be here soon.  

Mal:  What if the prototype doesn’t work ?  

Ivor:  Then we’ll probably be up in our armpits in thingys.    It’ll be an apocalyptic scenario and none of us have a solution for ground zero.

(There’s a bit of hubbub but it soon dies down.)  

Darius:  We came as soon as we could.   

Otto:  I know that this is one of our last hopes of survival.

X:  Gee, when you put it like that, Otto, it sounds pretty goddamned dire.   

Otto:  It is.   Physicists are known for being very blunt.   I’m sorry if it came out a bit more harshly than anticipated.  

Devorah:  No, we needed to hear the worst.  

Darius:  I’m certain this will work though.  Otto and I have been testing our plasma cells for years.   They have worked with zero glitches.

Otto:  We’ll teach the Negavo how to use them and then get to work on getting them back home.   Hopefully they haven’t become too comfortable here.  

Mal:  If they have I can think of ways of making them vamoose.  

Sam:  Sometimes I wonder if you even have a soul, Malachi.

Mal:  I do, I just don’t like strangers from other planets slurping up our resources.   I mean, come on, we’re doing a good enough job destroying Earth on our own accord.  

X:  (nonplussed)  SOmetimes I think you’re the most macabre individual alive and then I realize I’m right.  

Mal:  (irritated) Oh, shut up.   I do make a viable argument.  

X:  True but at least inject some levity into this tense situation if you could.

Mal:  (sighs and starts singing)  Oh, I’m just mad about thingies and thingies are mad about me…

(The Doctors give the Techies the plasma engine and explain it to the leader of the thingies.)  

Thingy #1:  Thank you, kind sir.  We do our best to learn how to use Engine to best of our ability.   

Thingy #3:  We developed own way back home but will take while.  

Thingy #19:  We will borrow a little energy to do so.  

Thingy #30:  We hope that is acceptable.   

(The techies converse with each other for a couple seconds.)  

Yacov:  I don’t think there is any harm in them taking a little energy to return to negavo.  

Ivor:  From the mouths of babes, guys.  (he hugs his son close and ruffles his hair)

Yacov:  (slightly mortified)  Ugh, Dad.  Really ?  

Bud:  (narrating)  OUr normal existence had been turned on its head forever.  My coworkers and I would never be able to look at the stars in a similar way ever again.   We could not speak of what had caused the ‘power outages’ in silicon Valley for fear that we would be thought of as lunatics.   NASA kept the information secret until time became opportune.   I feel unusual being a ‘glitch’ in our otherwise normal world, but someday, all will know that truth is out there.   I wonder what the negavo are doing with their plasma engine now.    Perhaps we will never know.  

(Life reverts to somewhat usual, mundane repertoire and our heroes and heroines continue creating infastructure and new technology.   The Negavo go about their lives more peacefully and less prodigally than before.   They have learned from their terran friends and live independently.   They are less angry and more civilized and reaching out to help other civilizations that were ignorant of energy usage.  Through this subtle ripple effect, the Universe is learning how to become more symbiotic with the sum of its parts: Energy.)