The Nosonic Generator
Flops builds a quantum radar in the garage while Dook paints with ferns. When he throws the switch it glows dramatically then cuts out — but it worked: aliens are in the backyard, and Bunnyrack is already welcoming them to Sala City.
INT. DOOK & FLOPS HOUSE — KITCHEN — DAY
The kitchen is bathed in a gentle, slightly chaotic afternoon light. On the table: a mason jar of murky green water, several actual fern fronds splayed out like a botanical fan, and a canvas covered in surprisingly good — if unconventionally textured — fern paintings.
DOOK sits at the table, tongue ever so slightly out in concentration, applying a fresh fern frond to the canvas with the practiced authority of someone who has decided this is simply how painting works now.
DOOK (to himself, satisfied) That's a fern.
He leans back. Admires it. Nods. It is, objectively, a fern.
A beat. Then, from beyond the door to the garage:
FLOPS (O.S.) YES! YEEEEESSS! HA! AH HA HA HA —
Dook sets down his fern-brush with the careful deliberateness of someone who has heard this before and is in no particular rush. He opens the fridge, considers its contents briefly, and retrieves a Joos.
He pops it open. He walks toward the garage.
INT. DOOK & FLOPS HOUSE — GARAGE — CONTINUOUS
The garage. A monument to organised chaos. Shelves of unlabeled components. A whiteboard. Cables. The smell of something that used to be solder.
In the centre of it all: a large, battered satellite dish, clearly salvaged, now adorned with strips of aluminium tape applied with tremendous confidence and zero clear purpose. Loose wires snake around its rim, taped on at intervals. A small oscilloscope blinks nearby with the air of a device that has been asked to measure things it does not understand.
And, affixed to the very top of the dish with what appears to be an entire roll of tape:
A pine tree-shaped car air freshener.
FLOPS — fox, goggles pushed up on his forehead, fur slightly staticky — stands before the whole contraption with his arms spread wide, beaming like a parent at a school play.
FLOPS Dook. Dook. I've done it.
He gestures grandly at the satellite dish arrangement.
FLOPS (CONT'D) The Quadar is complete.
Dook steps in. He looks at the Quadar. He sips his Joos. He looks at the pine tree air freshener. He looks at Flops.
DOOK What's the tree for?
Flops stares at him.
The stare of a man who has just been asked to explain the sky.
FLOPS That's the nosonic generator.
DOOK ...The.
FLOPS Nosonic. Generator. It makes smells, Dook. It's like phonons, but for your nose.
Beat.
DOOK Phonons are for your ears.
FLOPS Exactly! Same concept. Different hole.
Dook sips his Joos. This seems like a reasonable response.
DOOK How does the rest of it work?
Flops's eyes light up. He spins toward the whiteboard and begins gesturing with full-arm enthusiasm. The whiteboard is covered in what, upon closer inspection, appears to be a game of tic-tac-toe. Several of them, in fact. The circles appear to have won most of them. In one game, the circles have won against the circles.
FLOPS Right, so — you've got your quantum entanglement layer here —
He gestures at a horizontal line bisecting a tic-tac-toe grid.
FLOPS (CONT'D) — and your signal propagation through the — you see the nonlinear variance —
He draws a circle in an already-losing grid, somehow making it worse.
FLOPS (CONT'D) — and it all feeds back through the nosonic array, which generates the — the handshake, Dook, the universal handshake —
He spins back around, arms wide.
FLOPS (CONT'D) There! You see it now?!
Dook sips his Joos.
He looks at the whiteboard.
He looks at Flops.
DOOK Nope. Not at all.
Flops deflates slightly.
DOOK (CONT'D) I do think you've gotten better at three-in-a-row, though.
FLOPS I haven't —
DOOK You almost won that one.
FLOPS I did win that one.
DOOK You were playing by yourself.
Flops opens his mouth. Closes it. Moves on.
DOOK (CONT'D) Anyway. Quadar. What's it mean?
FLOPS Quantum radar.
He lets that land.
FLOPS (CONT'D) It is, Dook — and I want you to really hear this — the reason aliens haven't contacted us.
Dook looks at him.
It is a very specific look. The look of someone calculating, quietly, how to have this conversation without being here for it.
FLOPS Don't give me that look, Dook —
DOOK I'm not giving you —
FLOPS You're giving me the look —
DOOK I'm just sipping my Joos —
FLOPS With that face!
Dook sips his Joos. His face is, if anything, completely neutral. This is somehow worse.
FLOPS (CONT'D) Right. Fine.
He grabs a massive lever mounted to the side of the dish. It is labeled, in large hand-drawn letters:
GO
Flops grips it. He looks over his shoulder at Dook with the gravity of a man making history.
Dook raises his Joos in a small, encouraging toast.
Flops throws the switch.
For a moment: nothing.
Then —
A deep, resonant HUM fills the garage. The air shimmers slightly. A single leaf, blown in from the garden, suddenly reverses direction and frantically tries to exit the way it came in.
Outside, a bird mid-perch abruptly lies flat.
A dog three houses down sits down and stares at nothing.
A cat in the next street over has already moved under the bed.
EXT. SALA CITY — THE STOAT'S KIOSK — CONTINUOUS
THE STOAT sits behind the counter of the kiosk, deeply absorbed in a copy of Maple Syrup Digest. The headline: "LATE HARVEST DARK AMBERS: ARE THEY WORTH IT? (THEY ARE)".
The Stoat pauses.
Looks up.
Sniffs the air once.
Something. Something in the air.
...The Stoat looks back down at the magazine.
THE STOAT (quietly, to a picture of a syrup tap) It's fine, eh?
INT. DOOK & FLOPS HOUSE — GARAGE — CONTINUOUS
The Quadar is now emitting a vivid, pulsing green glow from somewhere within its aluminium-taped interior. There is no obvious reason for this. It simply is.
Flops stands before it, bathed in green light, cackling.
FLOPS HAHA — YES — IT'S WORKING —
Dook, who has retrieved a second Joos at some point without anyone noticing, watches with genuine mild amusement.
The hum intensifies. The glow deepens. The loose wires begin to vibrate sympathetically. The pine tree air freshener spins slowly at the top, dispensing what is presumably a nosonic signal into the cosmos.
Flops cackles harder.
Dook sips.
The glow peaks —
— and everything goes dark. The hum dies. The green light winks out. The spinning air freshener slows to a stop.
Silence.
Flops stands in the dark.
He raises a single hand and places it firmly over his face.
FLOPS ...I might have blown a fuse.
He turns. Shuffles toward the fuse box. Opens it. All the switches are completely fine. He checks them again. Fine.
Dook, phone out, checks the lights in the kitchen. On.
DOOK Fuse is fine.
FLOPS Then why did it —
DOOK Also there are aliens in the back yard.
A beat.
Flops's ears rotate independently.
FLOPS ...So it worked?
DOOK See for yourself.
Flops turns slowly.
Through the garage's back window: the garden. Specifically: several figures, clearly not from around here, standing somewhat uncertainly near the fence. They have the bearing of beings who have just arrived somewhere they weren't expecting quite so soon.
Before either of them can process this further —
BUNNYRACK O'BUNNY is already there.
Bunnyrack, arms out, stepping toward the newcomers with the energy of someone who has been waiting their whole life for this and has strong opinions about welcome baskets.
BUNNYRACK (through the window, muffled) Oh wow, HELLO! Welcome! Welcome to Sala City! I'm Bunnyrack! Have you eaten? Do you need anything? The bakery is just on the —
The aliens look at each other.
One of them makes a sound.
Bunnyrack appears to take this as a yes.
Flops watches this. His mouth opens. Closes.
FLOPS It worked.
Dook sips his Joos.
DOOK Bunnyrack's got it from here.
They watch Bunnyrack guide the intergalactic visitors toward the gate with the focused hospitality of a golden retriever who has just discovered a new friend.
FLOPS (very quietly, to himself) The nosonic generator...
DOOK Do you want a Joos?
FLOPS (still staring into the garden) ...Yeah. Yeah, actually.
Dook heads back inside. Flops lingers a moment longer, watching Bunnyrack already halfway through explaining the local neighbourhood to beings who have crossed light-years to be here.
Flops looks at the Quadar.
The pine tree air freshener sways slightly in the residual breeze.
FLOPS (CONT'D) (to the Quadar, with quiet satisfaction) Well done.
INT. DOOK & FLOPS HOUSE — KITCHEN — LATER
The kitchen table. Dook has resumed painting with his ferns. Flops is back from the garage, holding a Joos.
After a long, contemplative silence:
FLOPS So in hindsight, the reason they hadn't contacted us was probably the smell of the Wonderbaum. Apparently pine is the universal welcome scent.
Dook paints a fern.
DOOK The tree-shaped air freshener was the bit that worked.
FLOPS The nosonic generator. Yes.
DOOK Right.
Beat.
FLOPS The quantum radar was also essential.
Dook selects a new fern.
DOOK Mm.
FLOPS I want that on record.
DOOK Sure.
Beat.
FLOPS Bunnyrack's already enrolled them in something, hasn't he.
DOOK The community garden rota and a pottery class.
FLOPS That was fast.
DOOK He had a clipboard.
Flops considers this.
FLOPS He always has a clipboard.
Dook nods. Sips his Joos.
DOOK Welcome to Sala City.
END.