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{{script|Complicatio}}: My division’s consigned, by unfunny fate | {{script|Complicatio}}: My division’s consigned, by unfunny fate | ||
To live | To live unloved upon the ledger. We are but cost. | ||
’tis the rust and stain of clammy machinery | ’tis the rust and stain and curse of clammy machinery | ||
To require ruinous peopling. We’ve cut our cloth as best can do | |||
Each is | But these needed myriad technicians, though housed in meagre lairs | ||
And kept safe and well away from clientry, are yet a weight. | |||
Each speaks in fractured runes of jargoned tongues | |||
In dialects native to their scattered silos. | |||
The patter is, til cup is cold, steep’d in leaves of arcane science. | |||
Upon whose saddled back our fiscal fate depends. | We understand them not. Nor they each other. | ||
Yet, this is our strife: this is the bewild’ring scape | |||
Of contraptions yoked and tethered as a measurèd beast — | |||
Upon whose saddled back our fiscal fate depends. | |||
And, O! Dilemma! The very men who work these chainèd cranks — | And, O! Dilemma! The very men who work these chainèd cranks — | ||
And women — and those unsure, or curious, or as yet unaligned— | {{Script|Queen}}: Men? Just men? | ||
{{script|Complicatio}}: And women — and those unsure, or curious, or as yet unaligned— | |||
{{Script|Queen}}: The heavens doth anoint! | {{Script|Queen}}: The heavens doth anoint! | ||
{{script|Complicatio}}: Milady? | {{script|Complicatio}}: Milady? | ||
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Their majesty doth get the point. | Their majesty doth get the point. | ||
{{script|Queen}}: It is a pretty speech so far. But has it any meat? | {{script|Queen}}: It is a pretty speech so far. But has it any meat? | ||
{{script|Complicatio}}: I — we — | {{script|Complicatio}}: I — we — they — are and am obliged. | ||
Those eager souls whose allied cadences power our jalopy | Those eager souls whose allied cadences power our jalopy | ||
By their inevitable heft, they play as weighty anchors. | By their inevitable heft, they play as weighty anchors. | ||
{{Script|Nuncle}}: “Weighty anchors”? None call the Reverend Spooner! | {{Script|Nuncle}}: “Weighty anchors”? None call the Reverend Spooner! | ||
{{script|Complicatio}}: | {{script|Complicatio}}: Eager but, yegads, inconstant. Oafish! Fickle! Slow! | ||
I wouldst speed their outputs up, | I wouldst speed their outputs up, only worser comes with sooner. | ||
And so, my liege, my battle plan: set | And so, my liege, my battle plan: set these [[Morlocks]] free. | ||
{{Script|Queen}}: To do what? | |||
Should we set crankshafts free from work-to-rule | Should we set crankshafts free from work-to-rule | ||
To run through night and day without cease | To run through night and day without cease | ||
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Know you who can work without food or rest? | Know you who can work without food or rest? | ||
{{Script|Complicatio}}: Aye: In a call centre near by Bucharest. | {{Script|Complicatio}}: Aye: In a call centre near by Bucharest. | ||
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