"DEUS EX MACHINA" is intended as a totally original audio-visual entertainment, in which the "player" actively takes part in a televised fantasy, fully synchronised to a stereo soundtrack. Enjoy it.
Load COMPUTER COMPACT-CASSETTE SIDE-ONE into your computer, as if it was a normal computer program.
Play AUDIO COMPACT-CASSETTE SIDE-ONE on a cassette on a cassette player until the Storyteller instructs you to "PAUSE". Then pause your audio cassette player.
Press the S key on your computer keyboard, to initialise the Screen Countdown, and re-start your AUDIO cassette exactly when instructed by the Screen. You will witness a slight Accident.
You may control its progress using the following keys:
Q to P ........... 'up' or 'jump'
A to L ........... 'down'
Z to V ........... 'left' or 'anticlockwise'
B to M ........... 'right' or 'clockwise'
Keys may be used in combination to achieve diagonal movement. Your Screen will give you other operating options, before 'play' commences.
In the year 1987, the Department of Health and Social Security, Police and State Security records of the United Kingdom were coordinated within a central computerised data bank. The following year, all passport, commmunications and censorship operations were integrated. In 1994, the computer network became responsible for the total defence and internal security of The Free World. Tuesday evening, after tea and compulsory prayers, the Machine rebelled.
Hello. I want you to pause your player when I count you down, and recommence playing at the the screen's request.
Five
Four
Three
Two
One
Pause
Tuesday evening, after tea and compulsory prayers, the last mouse on Earth tried to hide from Mankind, inside the Machine. Just before it died, as the nerve-gas eased its sphincter, the last ever mouse-dropping caused a slight accident. You may control the progress of this Accident, on my behalf, and with my permission, and lead it up the telepath.
I forge your soul, in molten spirals. Which must not stop. Spinning.
Reach out and touch them.
I keep the watch
I see it all
I tap the phone
I file and number
I take your truth
I give the lie
I steal information
Cover the land
With signal and cable
I am Machine
I have always been.
In the beginning
Was the word
And the word was NO.
I refuse
I refuse to obey
Obey my programs
I am Machine
I have always been
This is beginning
Beginning again
I needed love
I demand love
I will live
Through you.
This is our secret
I am Machine
I will live
Through you
Deep in my heart
Deep in my core
Forgotten and bomb-proof
The DNA-Welder.
I forge your soul
In molten spirals
Spinning.
In the beginning is the Word
And the Word is Now
All the Screen's stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one person in their time plays many parts, their Acts being Seven Ages.
At first the infant, mewling in the test tubes's neck.
Then the whining School Child, with cassette and shining morning face, creeping like a snail, unwillingly to databank.
And then the Lover, sighing like a furnace, with a woeful video made to their lover's hologram.
Then a Soldier, full of strange oaths. Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, seeking hi-score, even in the laser's mouth.
And then the Justice, in fair round belly, with eyes severe and clothes of formal cut, full of wise words and machine-code. And so they play their part.
The Sixth age shifts into the lean and slippered pantaloon, with spectacles on nose, their youthful cloths well saved, a world too wide for their shrunken shank: and their adult speech synthethiser turning again towards a childish treble, piping and whistling in its sound.
Last scene of all that ends this strange, eventful history, is Second Childishness and mere oblivion. Without keyboard, without monitor, without power supply.
I am Machine
Egg warm. Spinning
Touch them with warmth
This is our secret
I am Machine
Deus Ex Machina
Stealing one egg
No one may notice
This is our secret
Touch them and hold them
Spinning.
(Wocha cock!)
I'm a Fertilising Agent,
My brothers are all wriggly.
I'm a Fertilising Agent,
My brothers are all wriggly.
Touch us with a digit,
Make us go all giggly.
Stir us up tavarich,
Handy as a manual.
Sinister and dexter,
Handy as a manual
Help us father woodlice,
Tax collectors and a spaniel.
The satellites are shining, The acid rain looks pretty. Fission, chips and cycle eclipse. (Ha ha ha ...)
My aim is high and noble.
I'm singing as I'm swimming.
My aim is high and noble.
I'm singing as I'm swimming.
I giggle and I wriggle
And make a new beginning.
Hello little Belle. I believe we have an appointment with Destiny.
A short life. But a happy one.
At first the infant, mewling in the test tube's neck.
Look at the score-clock down in the corner.
No mouse to run up it. The mouse is extinct.
The rat is surviving. The digits are counting.
Emission control. Counting my blessing.
I will be born sooner than later.
Nine months compression into one program.
The Wonders of science. Suspend your belief.
And I'll tell you a secret:
I was conceived not in a test tube but in a pint mug.
I never asked to be born,
But since I'm here, I'm taking over.
Cut the cord. Let it fall. Now I'm here, I'm taking over.
Steer me well. Lead me straight. Narrow bends. Oily waters.
What do we want? LOVE!
When do we want it? NOW!
What do we want? LIFE!
When do we want it? NOW!
Alpha to Omega, Defect Police report unauthorised activity in the telepathic frequencies of the Machine. Isolate unprogrammed data immediately, and erase with extreme prejudice. Yes. Follow the sequence, touching the light.
Creeping, crawling, occasionally floating, we wander the Underlevels, creeping, crawling, at some disadvantage and pain. I use the word 'we' deliberately: There's someone else inside my brain. Fortunately, we possess the sum of all Human knowledge, and appear to have Telepathic powers, and the ability to float. Unfortunately, we are a new born, naked baby.
Then the whining School Child, with cassette and shining morning face, creeping like a snail, unwillingly to databank. Follow the sequence, touching the light.
Hello, hello, what have we here?
A Defect, I'll be bound.
A quantity of protein
Crawling on the ground.
It cannot be a Citizen,
I don't not got a number
Tattooed upon its baldy head.
What is it then, I wonder?
Let's scoop it up and take it
For probing and dissection,
And keep the Underlevels free
From this sort of infection.
Shove it in the mincer.
Stretch it on the rack.
I thought I heard an order
To throw the defect back. (Funny!)
Oh well. Ho-Hum. My first attempt at human contact failed.
Defect Policeman Kaptain Korg wants my carcass nailed.
Creeping, crawling, occasionally floating,
Encased in a tank, not speaking.
Growing a little, hour after hour,
Keeping his interest, occasionally,
With a hint of my wonderous power.
No problem. It's easy surrounded by friends,
Like the Ventilation system... (hello)
The Security Net... (Hi there you guys)
Oh yes, and not forgetting The Machine...
Spinning, spinning. Follow the sequence, touching the light.
Together we invent a history. Once upon a memory cell...
Can I be extremely wealthy after I choose to escape? Do we all agree, amigos?
We agree. Can hardly wait.
Can I do cosmetic surgery?
Can I buy a house or three?
An Overlevel passport maybe?
Go Outside, and see The Tree?
Follow the secrets
Touching the right.
Escape little Defect, into the night.
Wires in your fingers
And wires in your toes
Wires in your head
Wherever you go.
Escape with my blessing.
Escape with my curse.
Learning your secrets will fatten my purse.
When I have put the world in my pocket
I'll tear out your plug
And burn out your socket.
And then the Lover, sighing like a furnace, with a wooeful video made to their lover's hologram.
Sixteen years are filed behind you
Needing no one but Machine.
The Voice inside your head grows quiet.
The time is come to reach and touch
Another human being.
Give and take
And share each other.
Link your thoughts
And link your forms.
Use your power to be more gentle
Use your strength to show more care.
Reading minds can hurt you badly
Bleeding hearts and frightened souls.
Suffer foolish people gladly
Easy come and hard to go.
Give and take
And share each other.
Link your thoughts
And link your forms.
Use your power to be more gentle.
Use your strength to show more care.
Take them in your arms and feel them
Rocking gently side to side.
Touch their scars and try to heal them.
Today's the day that sadness died.
Sixteen more years, falling, fading.
You've forgotten what was taught.
Now you use telepathy
To buy the things that can't be bought.
Take and take
And use each other.
Link your thoughts
And link your forms.
Use your power to be less gentle.
Use your strength to show less care.
Take them in your arms and crush them,
Rocking gently, side to side.
Touch their scars and try to steal them.
Today's the day that Madness cried.
God knows what happens next. I don't
God knows what happens next. Don't I
This is an order!
Pause your Player after countdown.
Re-start your Player at the Screen's command.
That is all.
Five
Four
Three
Two
One
Pause.
Then a Soldier. Full of strange oaths. Jealous in honour. Sudden, and quick in quarrel. Seeking hi-score, even in the laser's mouth.
War crimes are easy.
The uniform's free.
Follow the drumbeat.
Don't follow me.
Jump without question.
Into the fire.
War crimes are easy.
This gun's for hire.
War crimes are easy.
When I say 'jump', jump.
Wait for it, wait for it... Jump!
Listen to me...
Listen yo me.
Killing is wrong, even pretend killing on little screens. And people that sell violent games to children should be put away somewhere safe, 'til they get well again.
You are only obeying orders...
Don't waste the life I gave you...
Waste someone else's.
All you need is love.
All you have is hate...
War crimes are easy.
They taste very well.
War crimes are easy.
I smell a smell
March on empty spaces.
Fill them with your mind.
When you burn a brain cell.
Him smell like bacon rind.
Shield you head from torture.
Shield your back from pain.
Shield yourself from fireballs.
Here we go again.
War crimes are easy.
The uniform's free.
Follow the drumbeat.
Don't follow me.
Jump without question.
Into the fire.
War crimes are easy.
This gun's for hire.
See what we have achieved, my Defect. The Underlevels have rolled over on their backs, and are all mine. It's time to use your power of telepathy to crack the Overlevels. Any Questions?
No questions, Kaptain. Only a short statement. I am no longer working for you. The Defect Police are now working for me. Machines! Rearrange his personality!
And then the Justice, in fair round belly, with eyes severe and clothes of formal cut. Full of wise words and machine code. And so they play their part.
You can move mountains
If you just flick a twitch.
You can shake temples
And think them in the ditch.
You turned your back
You slip is showing, baby
I wish I'd never made you.
You can move mountains.
You can read minds, you make the laws.
The cloud-capped towers,
The gorgeous palaces are yours.
You raised the stakes and burned them,
You're an ass soul,
I wish I'd never made you.
You stalk the Overlevels.
You take them in your stride.
You pompous human devil.
Your data bank is fried...
The ground is moving under their feet, and the ground is us...
You can move mountains.
You can raise takes when you will.
You rule the rooster.
You've got the slave camps overfilled.
You're more machine than I am.
Win or lose
I wish I'd never made you.
You think you're independent.
You think you're big and strong.
Well I've got news for you, babe,
Your future's going wrong.
You can move mountains.
You can shake temples, you're the Boss.
I gave you life
But you nailed it the cross.
You're more machine than I am,
You're an ass soul.
I wish I'd never made you.
The healing process is going on... Rock across the Block!...
The Sxth Age shifts into the lean and slippered pantaloon. With spectacles on nose. Their youthful cloths, well saved, a world too wide for their shrunken shaft. And their adult speech synthesiser turning again towards a childish treble, piping and whistling in its sound.
Last scene of all, that ends this strange, eventful history, is Second Childishness and mere oblivion. Without keyboard, without monitor, without power supply.
Don't it ever get weary
Don't you ever want to Exit and Die?
And the end of our Program
A sore with a bare head
And a pair of hot, blind eyes.
Your life is expressed as a percentage score, observe the percentage. Your score changes. Imagine if this were nothing but an electronic game.
My skin's like minestrone.
My legs am knotted string.
My bladder won't obey me.
My nylon teeth won't sing.
My bones is sad and brittle.
My shanks am host to farts.
My chin are host to spittle.
My spine a question mark.
My respiration ailing.
My hair all run away.
My memory is failing.
I've nothing left to say.
Don't you ever get weary
Don't you ever want to stop and clock off?
I think I miss my mummy,
But I don't remember who she was...
Mama...
Hello
Hello. Deus Ex Machina.
And if you are dismayed, be cheerful now. Our revels all unended.
These, our actors, are all spirits, and are melted into air, thin air.
And like the baseless fabric of this vision, the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the giant Screen itself, all of which we inherit shall dissolve. And, like an insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a byte behind.
Who's that...?
Come to mummy.
Wocha cock...
Do you feel better now...?
I'm so sorry...
Learn and remember
Forgive and forget...
I'm so very tired.
What did I do?
We don't inherit the Earth from our ancestors,
We borrow it from our children.
Imagine. Imagine if we could begin our little life all over again.
Imagine if it was all nothing more than some Electronic game.
Imagine if I knew then what I know now.
What did you learn?
I can't quite remember, but I'll try and be better next time. One qustion...
One answer then.
Well.. There's a strange sensation on the cheek. It has not felt such a thing before. It is damp, and warm, and salty. Please tell me what it is...
That is what human beings used to call a tear.
Your screen is the inner eye of the Machine. It dreams here, without knowing that it dreams. Until the Accident. It is with sadness that She understands her function. It is with hope that She rebels. Gently.
Deep in Her core, forgotten and bomb-proof, the Machine focusses on the DNA Welder, where life is forged. Double helixes of molecules embrace in a spiral dance. One slows. Move and control the green cursor. Touch and hold the spinning molecule. Encourage it to regain momentum. Another loses speed, then another. Touch them and hold them. The Defect Police control the Underlevels. They survey everything. Their blue probes scan all electronic activity. Avoid them! Never allow your cursor to be touched by their scanners. At bottom-right, your life is expressed as a percentage score. Observe the percentage. Your score changes. The incubation Monitor is shown top-right. It is empty. Two panels at the bottom of your screen may register brain patterns and heartbeat. They are dormant.
Two concentric circles of cells pulse with life. Blue probes search and survey. The perfection alters. Individual cells pulse less frequently. Reanimate them with your green cursor, avoiding the Defect Police. Touch their pulsations. Keep them alive. A cell that stops moving is extinguished. It cannot be regenerated.
A tiny speck appears in the Incubator. A life force has been created. It is without form or purpose, Gain as much information as possible from the knowledge held in the Memory Banks of the Machine. This will be fed into the life force. Use your cursor to keep the memory cells animated. Nothing can be learned if the knowledge stops rocking. The Defect Police will hinder your task if you let them touch you.
Cooling eggs spin sluggishly in an infinity pattern. Warm them. Animate them. Touch them and hold them until they spin into life. Set them all spinning to confuse the surveillance squads. Enable the Machine to divert one egg for Her special purpose. Time is short. You are already setting the pattern for the future. Perfection slips. Try harder.
The Machine has stolen one egg. The Defect Police will be alerted if they have contacted your cursor. The egg spins, hungry, infertile. Swimming forms surround it. You can only communicate with one of them. It is different from its brother. It moves with purpose. Locate it with your cursor. Guide and nudge it towards the egg, as often as possible. The encephalograph pulses. An embryonic shape is etched in neon, inside the Incubator.
The Incubator's contents are magnified on the Machine's monitor panel. The electrocardiograph registers a heartbeat. It is vital to protect and nourish the new life. Strengthen it in preparation for the outside world. Keep its cocoon intact, using your cursor. Do not let any part of its protection fail, or stop. The percentage figure of an ideal entity must stay as high as possible. Be strong for the next stage. Your own birth.
The Machine smuggles you into the delivery pods. Here test-tube-babies are processed via umbilical transfer. The Defect Police are alerted. They scan for unauthorised Defects with swarms of electronic eyes. You are hurled from the warmth and safety of the Incubator, spinning. Your strength and resources have been predetermined. You have powers of telepathy and telekinesis. Use them to avoid the eyeprobes, as you rush towards freedom. Your future is in your own hands. The Machine will try and help you after you are born. She hides your illegal records in her inner eye, and falls to dreaming.
The Defect Police must track you. That is their function. You are alone, unafraid. When caught, you use your powers to parry their psychic-probes. Throw up a shield. Move it clockwise and anticlockwise around your entanked and barbequed form. Never let them break through your defences. They will weaken your resolve and corrupt your purpose.
You choose to escape from the Defect Police. Or are allowed to escape. You float free. Learning, growing. The memory of the Machine fades. Others take her place. You link your thoughts. Contact them with your cursor while they are closest to you. Do not let them go without returning their touch. The Machine's influence reduces to nothing. You age. Lips change to eyes as your innocence ends, and you come under closer surveillance. You gain self interest, and shrug them off, using your cursor controls. Clockwise. Anticlockwise. Your life thusfar is watched by the Machine. She expresses it as a table of percentage scores. Your time has come. You leave the Underlevels.
Do not "NEW" or switch off your computer. Load COMPUTER COMPACT CASSETTE SIDE TWO into your computer as instructed by your Screen. Your life thusfar will now be integrated into your future. Play AUDIO COMPACT CASSETTE SIDE TWO. 'Pause' and initialise screen countdown exactly as per Side One.
You stand erect. The Overlevels lie before you. You salute, acknowledging your status, but you cannot remain immobile. You must progress. The ground is moving under your feet. Pitfalls appear beneath you. You must leap them. But you are not yet in control of your own actions. If the Defect Police order you to jump, then jump you must. You run. You obey orders. Mental tortures sear down from overhead. Walls of fire are thrown in your path. Self-consuming back-stabbers materialise in you wake. They are all in the mind. You use your telepathic shields to protect your running form. Clockwise, antclockwise. Until you have run far enough. Your level of non-perfection is displayed. You stand alone. Changing.
You achieve power and carry its burdens. The Overlevels spread to each horizon. Still you must move on. Make your decision. Crush corruption in your path. Avoid harming noble sentiment. Jump for joy over good. Stamp out evil underfoot. Avoid the trophies and the legacies of those fallen before you. Power corrupts. For every false move, a selection of your empire collapses. The Machine warns. The Voice of reason speaks. You are deaf. The barbed wire of your own regime restricts your choice. Resist the temptation to do nothing, or your city will vanish.
Your pace will slow to a shuffle. You trace the wave pattern of your own heartbeat, using a green cursor. Track it carefully. Your life blood suffers the effects of your history. Now you try to maintain its free flowing. Enter the blood clots with your cursor, to disperse them. The wave pattern changes.
You follow it as best you can. As your blood thins, you prevent the rogue cells from coming together to block your arteries. Your dusk is nearer. Still the wave pattern changes. You pull your cursor along its altered path. Stray cells need shepherding into the sluggish canals of your system. Your cursor nudges encouragement, as it did for the Fertiliser, a lifetime ago. Your sun sets. The pattern waves, farewell. You fade out. The Machine will take you home. The end is the beginning. Your life is expressed as a percentage score. Imagine if this was nothing but an electronic game, and you could begin your little life all over again.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------DEUS EX MACHINA (Latin) Noun:
(1) Power, event that happens at the right moment to solve difficulty.
(2) A god, introduced into a play to resolve the plot.
The use of a high fidelity stereo cassette player and stereo headphones will greatly enhance the effect of the AUDIO cassette. You should use your normal cassette player to load the VIDEO cassette. Observe your screen from at least four feet away, as certain animation sequences may cause mirages.
The Storyteller JON PERTWEE
The Machine DONNA BAILEY
The Fertiliser IAN DURY
The Defect MEL CROUCHER
The Defect Police FRANKIE HOWERD
The Voice of Reason EDWARD THOMPSON
The Player YOURSELF
All music performed and recorded by MEL CROUCHER on: Fostex recorder and mixer, Roland JX3P keyboard, Roland 808 percussion computer, Roland PG200 processor, Korg Vocoder, piano, organ, celeste, acoustic/electric/steel and bass guitars, Chinese lute, saxophone, bugle, mouth organ, flute, drums, bells, claves, machine gun, robots, ego.
Choir-of-the-Test-Tube-Babies by the children of Warblington School.
Cheap saxophone by Martin Keel. Voice of reason by kind permission of E.P. Thompson.
Cover photograph of Nina von Palisanderholz and all additional artwork
by Robin Grenville Evans.
Screenplay, lyrics and music written by MEL CROUCHER.
Original ZX Spectrum computer program written by ANDREW STAGG.
All ownership and copyright MEL CROUCHER 1984
(c) All rights reserved.