POLO

  Then again, perhaps I am a figment of your imagination.

  BD

  This is starting to get…wait…what did you just say?

  POLO

  Sorry, that’s one that…well, it probably goes over your head.

  BD glances at his watch.

  BD

  You are wasting my time.

  POLO

  Father of Lies, indeed! What else is on your agenda?

  BD

  Do you think you’re the only smartass, trying Daniel Webster tricks in order to…

  POLO

  I’m sure you have thousands, perhaps millions of pitches and deals going at once. We now understand parallel processing, down…or up…on Earth. So don’t tell me you don’t have time to—

  BD (POUNDS FIST)

  First, you may not give me orders!

  POLO

  Oops, I guess I got—

  BD

  Second, next time you interrupt me, there will be consequence!

  POLO

  Consequence? As in—

  BD points a finger. A ZAP sound and POLO SCREAMS, startling the audience.

  BD

  —as in pain you’ve never known!

  BD snaps fingers. It stops.

  POLO rises off floor, quivering. He clears his throat, straightening clothes. He sits. Guzzles water.

  POLO

  Thanks for the demonstration.

  BD

  You’re welcome. A taste of what we give the uncontracted damned. You can expect something less brutal—if you sign on.

  BD pushes contract forward. POLO picks it up and starts leafing.

  POLO

  Sorry. I’m still not impressed.

  BD

  Do you want another?

  POLO

  Of course not! Since a human is 90% animal, you can likely shape my behavior with pain.

  Condition neural paths and responses. Carve at me till I’ll not just sign your contract. I’ll jibber and caper and dance to any tune you play…but you won’t win a thing.

  BD

  Oh? Why not?

  POLO

  Historical comparison. Gandhi told the British occupiers of India: “I will inconvenience you till you relent.” “And if we kill you?” they asked. “Then you will have my dead body. But history will move against you, even harder than before.”

  BD (AMUSED)

  So now history will answer your prayers, great Hari Seldon?

  POLO

  Hm, a nerdy, sci-fi reference. Who are your favorite authors?

  BD

  We might discuss that for eternity.

  POLO

  But no, I cited Gandhi to make a point about torture. Sure, you rocked me with that jolt, just now. Made me take this more seriously. But threatening to do that to me forever?

  BD

  Most would find that prospect compelling.

  POLO

  Oh, I’m sure your dungeons and lakes of fire are filled with ‘sinners’ screaming for centuries. But…really? I’ll bet…

  BD

  I think I see what’s going on here. Why you’re so relaxed and argumentative. You don’t think any of this applies to you!

  POLO

  Actually, my point was that repetitious pain—

  BD

  That jolt made you realize this is more than an emergency room delirium. So you’ve fallen back on rationalization.

  You think you’re somehow safe from damnation!

  POLO

  Not at all. But now that you mention it, this contract thing…you’ve shown me a carrot, and lots of sticks. But unless I’m already damned, you can’t carry out your threat.

  BD

  Coming from a guy who doesn’t know his own credit score, you seem bizarrely confident as to your state of Grace.

  POLO

  Hey, I’m no angel. But all my worst days taken together don’t…unless…are you saying Original Sin is an actual thing? I inherit automatic damnation because of an orchard theft by a pair of dopey teens, 6000 years ago?

  BD

  That doctrine was made up by spiteful men. There are no children down here.

  POLO

  Well, yay for that. Thumbs up for both of you.

  BD

  Both of…thanks…I think.

  No, it occurs to me that you don’t think you’re a sinner!

  POLO

  Someone who committed crimes meriting eternal damnation? Of course not. Though the point I was trying to make—

  BD

  Honestly, you moderns…even when you’re religious, you’re sickeningly “entitled”—either fantacizing you’re part of some “elect” or else convinced damnation’s off the table, so long as you don’t actually murder someone. Maybe write an occasional check to Meals on Wheels. Look kid, I know your rap sheet. You’re by no means “safe”. You forget your victims.

  POLO

  Uh, victims?

  BD

  Time for another demonstration.

  BD points at POLO who reflexively cringes. Only this time thunder crashes. The lights turn crimson with spots on the actors’ faces. Out steps PERSEPHONE wearing a blonde wig, dressed like an ’90s college student.

  BD waves his finger. POLO drops into a memory trance—a different kind of pain.

  POLO

  J…Jill?

  PERSEPHONE (AS JILL)

  You were such a jerk.

  POLO is resisting trance, murmurs to BD.

  POLO

  Memories. Using my conscience against me…

  BD points harder at POLO. Whose trance state deepens as we’re left with only spotlights on faces.

  PERSEPHONE (AS JILL)

  You dumped me.

  POLO

  I’ve been…dumped and hurt too. It happens to every—

  PERSEPHONE (AS JILL)

  When I needed you most!

  POLO

  I’ve thought about you. Regretting how I handled it. But…you had gotten so hostile. I—

  PERSEPHONE (AS JILL)

  I hated you. Cursed you.

  POLO

  I checked in on you later. You were married, with a kid. You seemed okay.

  PERSEPHONE (AS JILL)

  Did you calculate the kid’s age, smart guy?

  POLO (CRINGING)

  It…the possibility occurred to me. Though you had other men, during our last months…it’s one reason I left. Are you saying she’s mine?

  By force of will, POLO manages to turn toward BD.

  POLO

  Are you saying the child is mine?

  PERSEPHONE (GRABS POLO’S FACE)

  You never asked me!

  POLO

  Your hate…like a hot wind… But… But I could have…

  BD

  You should have.

  POLO

  I should have pushed up-wind. So tell me now! Is the child mine?

  Persephone-Jill backs away into shadows.

  PERSEPHONE

  Still a self-centered bastard. Everything isn’t about you! Damn you… Damn you.

  Blinking out of the trance as lights rise, POLO turns to BD, who shrugs.

  POLO

  Is the child mine?

  BD

  I am un-knowing. Isn’t that how Bergman put it? Anyway, this is not about facts. It’s about pain, callously caused to others. It’s about guilt. How’s that for pain?

  POLO, grimaces, clenches fists, then exhales and nods.

  POLO

  Thank you sir. May I have another?

  BD

  Seriously? I can ladle up more tasty lumps from your cesspool of regret.

  POLO

  Cavemen.

  BD

  What?

  POLO

  We crawled out of darkness, alone, cold, always hungry. Bitten by vermin and also a newborn pest—a conscience. Saddled with ten thousand animal instincts, dimly aware that things could be better.

  BD

  Is that an excuse? “Instinct made me do it”?

  POLO

  Religions chided us to be better. At-best, that helped a bit. At-worst, you made us hate ourselves for good or natural things.

  BD

  And bad things.

  POLO

  No real villain would be guilt-wracked by what you showed me. But I don’t need lava pits and pitchforks to cringe over past mistakes. A decent person’s purgatory is to learn and do better. So, again: Thank you sir—may I have another?

  BD

  You take shelter behind sanctimony and martyrdom, like some pretentious saint. I expected better from you.

  POLO

  Sorry to disappoint.

  BD

  Humans never disappoint. Sit down!

  BD busies himself at his tablet while POLO sits. Has some water.

  POLO

  You know, since we’re on the topic… I heard a legend…of a sort of “super-saint.”

  BD

  We are wandering far afield.

  POLO

  It’s pertinent! After all, isn’t your typical, martyred “saint” an archetype of selfishness, acting on a good business deal!

  BD

  What?

  POLO

  Offered eternal bliss and influence, in exchange for enduring maybe an hour of Earthly torment at the hands of Nero’s torturers? What rational person wouldn’t take that deal? Providing you’re sure…and you have enough self-control to stick it through getting flayed or burned alive.

  BD

  Easier said than done.

  POLO

  Stipulated. Still, suppose you truly feel certain that reward awaits. No wonder they express self-centered glee at martyrdom—

  BD

  —and wind up down here. Go on. Who’s this “super saint”?

  POLO

  Picture someone who spent her life helping the downtrodden, obeying every commandment. All that. On her deathbed, after last rites, she seems a shoo-in for heaven. Only at the last instant she deliberately commits a mortal sin.

  BD

  To what end?

  POLO

  In order to go to hell! The place with the most suffering souls. To help, by ministering to the damned.

  BD

  Hm. There’s a parallel in Buddhism. They believe that a bodhisattva comes back to Earth…to instruct…

  POLO

  For a short span. Not ‘eternity’ in a sadistic torture chamber.

  Think how our super-saint knows she’ll suffer! Not an hour on Nero’s rack or Peter’s cross, but endlessly. And yet, unlike other “saints,” she doesn’t value her own self above all.

  Like Jesus harrowing Hell, she’ll walk the scorching sands, offering comfort. Love. Hope.

  BD

  Arrogance! Challenging an arrangement between the Creator and his greatest angel!

  POLO

  So? What’s her punishment for that? Hell? Or else, maybe her sacrifice is deemed high virtue, her mortal sin gets over-ruled and she’s sent to the heights of Heaven, where her conscience becomes a pest, a perpetual irritation to the smug order.

  BD is silent. He looks unhappy.

  POLO (CONT’D)

  Wait, Has this happened?

  BD

  It’s…happened…

  POLO

  Both ways?

  BD

  Yesssss…

  POLO

  And…?

  BD

  You aren’t here to question me!

  POLO

  Then why am I here? Questioning stuff is the only thing I was ever good at!

  BD

  Some inquiries are off limits.

  POLO

  But you made it the topic by inflicting pain. Threatening more. Please don’t point that finger. I totally believe agony will work on me! Only—

  BD

  Only what?

  POLO

  Only—I wanted to make this point a while back—have you bothered to haul one of your older…clients out of the fire and interviewed the wretch, lately? Taken a random sampling?

  BD

  To what purpose?

  POLO

  For…er…quality control. Best practices? Uh…organizational effectiveness benchmarking?

  BD

  I invented most of that terminology! Buzz words to slow you humans down and clog your projects—

  POLO

  Updating the old Tower of Babel trick—I figured as much. Still, seriously. You mean you’ve never done an internal audit? Jeez, even once-a-century cell-check on the prisoners?

  BD

  Of course not, I’m busy enough at the Border. What a ridiculous waste of…escape is impossible. Every body is accounted for.

  POLO

  Screaming bodies, sure. But a closer look might show there’s nothing left but a shell. Heck, it won’t require “harrowing” by a super-saint. Just monotony!

  BD

  Are you saying—

  POLO (NODS)

  Repeat anything enough—even torture—it becomes meaningless. Consciousness flickers out. All you’ve done is turn their bodies into screaming marionettes.

  BD

  You’re guessing!

  POLO

  I bet many of the “damned” just aren’t there, anymore. Not as humans, capable of self-awareness…or regret. Go check.

  BD glares at POLO, then turns toward the audience, eyes rolling. Hands move, as if parting curtains to peer at vistas, beyond normal sight. POLO keeps talking.

  POLO (CONT’D)

  Empty puppets, “screaming” in “pain” as programmed. But as for what made them human—gifted, flawed, impatient, regretful, ambitious, contradictory, jumped-up cavemen and cavewomen whose bad decisions landed them here—by now, all that’s gone. I bet a lot of them have drifted away…escaped.

  BD’s fists clench.

  BD

  Silence!

  POLO

  I will be silent…under protest.

  BD

  Don’t you quote Bergman at me. Shut it!

  POLO shuts it as BD peers, left…right…in growing realization. He pounds the desk. Screams! He glimpses POLO smiling. Points a finger. We hear the zap! POLO screams.

  Both scream for different reasons, but POLO squeezes in a pained guffaw as he collapses and the First Scene ends with lights out.

  POLO

  Ow ow ow…so cool.

  Scene change musical riff: ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ by the Stones.

  == SCENE II ==

  Slumped across a cheap, leatherette couch in an office cubicle, POLO rouses from a stupor, quivering. He turns to see the woman assistant PERSEPHONE giving orders on a princess phone. Through a translucent partition we see slumped shadows of the damned shambling by.

  PERSEPHONE

  It doesn’t matter. All they are is spiritual protoplasm now. Empty. Get whatever you can for them.

  Persephone notices POLO sitting up and looking at her. He lunges for a carafe of water, shaking as he pours.

  PERSEPHONE

  Ah, Awake. The boss said to let you rest. Anyway, your earthly body was in surgery.

  POLO

  So…how’d that go?

  PERSEPHONE

  Touch and go. There’s a chance you’ll survive. It’s why you’re still here.

  POLO