The Empty Child

[TARDIS]

(The TARDIS is in pursuit of a small spacecraft.)

ROSE: What's the emergency?
DOCTOR: It's mauve.
ROSE: Mauve?
DOCTOR: The universally recognised colour for danger.
ROSE: What happened to red?
DOCTOR: That's just humans. By everyone else's standards, red's camp. Oh, the misunderstandings. All those red alerts, all that dancing. It's got a very basic flight computer. I've hacked in, slaved the TARDIS. Where it goes, we go.
ROSE: And that's safe, is it?
DOCTOR: Totally.

(Bang!)

DOCTOR: Okay, reasonably. Should have said reasonably there. No, no, no, no! It's jumping time tracks, getting away from us.
ROSE: What exactly is this thing?
DOCTOR: No idea.
ROSE: Then why are we chasing it?
DOCTOR: It's mauve and dangerous, and about thirty seconds from the centre of London.

[Alleyway]

(The TARDIS materialises in a back alley between two terraces.)

DOCTOR: Do you know how long you can knock around space without happening to bump into Earth?
ROSE: Five days? Or is that just when we're out of milk?
DOCTOR: Of all the species in all the Universe and it has to come out of a cow.

(Something is watching them from above.)

DOCTOR: Must have come down somewhere quite close. Within a mile, anyway. And it can't have been more than a few weeks ago. Maybe a month.
ROSE: A month? We were right behind it.
DOCTOR: It was jumping time tracks all over the place. We're bound to be a little bit out. Do you want to drive?
ROSE: Yeah. How much is a little?
DOCTOR: A bit.
ROSE: Is that exactly a bit?
DOCTOR: Ish.
ROSE: What's the plan, then? Are you going to do a scan for alien tech or something?
DOCTOR: Rose, it hit the middle of London with a very loud bang. I'm going to ask.

(The Doctor shows Rose his psychic paper ID for the occasion.)

ROSE: Doctor John Smith, Ministry of Asteroids.
DOCTOR: It's psychic paper. It tells you-
ROSE: Whatever you want it to tell me, I remember.

(They come to a door marked Deliveries Only.)

DOCTOR: Sorry.
ROSE: Not very Spock, is it, just asking.
DOCTOR: Door, music, people. What do you think?
ROSE: I think you should do a scan for alien tech. Give me some Spock, for once. Would it kill you?

(The Doctor opens the door with the sonic screwdriver, and looks at Rose's Union Flag top.)

DOCTOR: Are you sure about that t-shirt?
ROSE: Too early to say. I'm taking it out for a spin.
CHILD [OC]: Mummy? Mummy?
DOCTOR: Come on if you're coming. It won't take a minute.

(The Doctor goes inside.)

CHILD [OC]: Mummy?

(Rose sees a little boy in a gasmask up on a nearby roof.)

ROSE: Doctor? Doctor? There's a kid up there!

[Nightclub]

(The Doctor follows a waiter through a bead curtain to where a saxophonist and jazz band is accompanying a woman in 1940s clothes.)

SINGER: (singing) For nobody else gave me the thrill. When I have uphold silence still, it had to be you, wonderful you

[Alley]

ROSE: Are you all right up there?
CHILD: Mummy?

(Rose runs up a metal fire escape staircase.)

[Nightclub]

SINGER: It had to be you.

(The Doctor takes the woman's place at the microphone.)

DOCTOR: Excuse me. Excuse me. Could I have everybody's attention just for a mo? Be very quick. Hello! Might seem like a stupid question, but has anything fallen from the sky recently?

(Silence, then laughter.)

[Roof]

(Rose gets to a flat roof. The child is still above her.)

CHILD: Mummy?
ROSE: Okay, hang on. Don't move!

(Suddenly a rope dangles down in front of Rose. She takes hold of it and pulls. It seems secure.)

[Nightclub]

DOCTOR: Sorry, have I said something funny? It's just, there's this thing that I need to find. Would've fallen from the sky a couple of days ago.

(An air raid siren sounds. Everyone starts to leave.)

DOCTOR: Would've landed quite near here. With a very loud-
MAN: Quickly as you can, down to the shelter.

(The Doctor spots the poster on the wall - Hitler will send no warning!)

DOCTOR: Bang.

[Roof]

(Rose is using the rope to help her climb up to the child.)

CHILD: Mummy. Balloon!

(The barrage balloon drifts, pulling Rose away from the wall and the child, and dangling her over the alleyway.)

ROSE: Doctor! Doctor! Doctor!

(Searchlights comb the sky. Explosions and fires start in various parts of London. A squadron of German planes head for her.)

ROSE: Okay, maybe not this t-shirt.

[Alley]

DOCTOR: Rose?

(A cat meows.)

DOCTOR: You know, one day, just one day, maybe, I'm going to meet someone who gets the whole ‘don't wander off’ thing. Nine hundred years of phone box travel, it's the only thing left to surprise me.

(The TARDIS police telephone rings. He opens the small door.)

DOCTOR: How can you be ringing? What's that about, ringing? What am I supposed to do with a ringing phone?

(He gets out his sonic screwdriver. A young woman has walked up the alley.)

NANCY: Don't answer it. It's not for you.
DOCTOR: And how do you know that?
NANCY: 'Cos I do. And I'm telling you, don't answer it.
DOCTOR: Well, if you know so much, tell me this. How can it be ringing? It's not even a real phone. It's not connected, it's not-

(Nancy has gone, so he answers the phone.)

DOCTOR: Hello? Hello? This is the Doctor speaking. How may I help you?
CHILD [OC]: Mummy? Mummy?
DOCTOR: Who is this? Who's speaking?
CHILD [OC]: Are you my mummy?
DOCTOR: Who is this?
CHILD [OC]: Mummy?
DOCTOR: How did you ring here? This isn't a real phone. It's not wired up to anything.
CHILD [OC]: Mummy?

(The dialling tone. The Doctor knocks on the TARDIS door.)

DOCTOR: Rose? Rose, are you in there?

(He hears a noise and runs out of the alley.)

[Street]

MRS LLOYD [OC]: The planes are coming. Can't you hear them? Into the shelter. None of your nonsense, now move it!

(The Doctor climbs onto a dustbin and looks over the wall into a back garden, where a well-fed middle-aged woman is shepherding a young boy into an air raid shelter.)

MRS LLOYD: Come on, hurry up, get in there. Come on. Arthur! Arthur, Will you hurry up? Didn't you hear the siren?

(Her equally well-fed husband comes out of the house.)

LLOYD: Middle of dinner, every night. Blooming Germans. Don't you eat?
MRS LLOYD: I can hear the planes!
LLOYD: Don't you eat?
MRS LLOYD: Oh, keep your voice down, will you? It's an air raid! Get in. Look, there's a war on.
LLOYD: I know there's a war on. Don't push me.

(With the family safely in the shelter, the Doctor watches Nancy enter the garden and go into the house. Once in the kitchen, she starts taking tinned goods from a cupboard.
Meanwhile, dangling over the Thames near St Paul's, Rose has an excellent view of a typical night raid during the Blitz.)

[Officer's mess]

(An officer in a great coat stands on a balcony using a pair of very non-WW2 binoculars. He spots Rose in her predicament.)

OFFICER: Get those lights out, please. Everyone down to the shelter.
ALGY: Jack? Are you going down to the shelter? Only I've got to go off on some silly guard duty. Ah, barrage balloon, eh? Must've come loose. Happens now and then. Don't you RAF boys use them for target practice?

(Jack zooms in on Rose's derriere and speaks with an American accent.)

JACK: Excellent bottom.
ALGY: I say, old man, there's a time and a place. Look, you should really be off.
JACK: Sorry, old man. I've got to go meet a girl. But you've got an excellent bottom too.

[The Lloyd's dining room]

(Nancy finishes filling her little sack with provisions and heads for the front door. In the hallway she stops and looks into another room and smiles, then goes outside into the street, where she whistles twice then goes back inside. A pair of urchins run in to see the feast she's discovered.)

NANCY: Many kids out there?
JIM: Yes, miss.

(Jim and his friend dive for the food.)

NANCY: Ah! Still carving. Sit and wait. We've got the whole air raid.
JIM: Look at that. Bet it's off the black market.
NANCY: That's enough.

[Mid-air]

(High over Westminster, Rose finally loses her grip on the thick rope. Screaming, she falls, and is caught in a beam.)

JACK [OC]: Okay, okay, I've got you.
ROSE: Who's got me? Who's got me, and you know, how?
JACK [OC]: I'm just programming your descent pattern. Keep as still as you can and keep your hands and feet inside the light field.
ROSE: Descent pattern?
JACK [OC]: Oh, and could you switch off your cell phone? No, seriously, it interferes with my instrument.
ROSE: You know, no one ever believes that.

(Rose turns off her phone.)

JACK [OC]: Thank you. That's much better.
ROSE: Oh, yeah, that's a real load off, that is. I'm hanging in the sky in the middle of a German air raid with the Union Jack across my chest, but hey, my mobile phone's off.
JACK [OC]: Be with you in a moment.

[Jack's spaceship]

COMPUTER: The mobile communication device indicates non-contemporaneous life form.
JACK: She's not from around here, no. Ready for you?

[Mid-air]

JACK [OC]: Hold tight!
ROSE: To what?
JACK: Fair point.

[Jack's spaceship]

(Rose hurtles down the light field into Jack's arms.)

JACK: I've got you. You're fine, you're just fine. The tractor beam, it can scramble your head just a little.
ROSE: Hello.
JACK: Hello.
ROSE: Hello. Sorry, that was hello twice there. Dull, but you know, thorough.
JACK: Are you all right?
ROSE: Fine.

(Jack puts Rose down.)

ROSE: Why, are you expecting me to faint or something?
JACK: You look a little dizzy.
ROSE: What about you? You're not even in focus.

(Rose faints into his arms and he puts her on a nearby bunk.)

[The Lloyd's dining room]

(Something watches two more small boys run down the street to join the feast.)

ERNIE: It's got to be black market. You couldn't get all this on coupons.
NANCY: Ernie, how many times? We are guests in this house. We will not make comments of that kind. Washing up.

(The children laugh.)

ERNIE: Oh, Nancy.
NANCY: Haven't seen you at one of these before.
BOY: He told me about it.
NANCY: Sleeping rough?
BOY: Yes, miss.
NANCY: All right, then. One slice each, and I want to see everyone chewing properly.

(A plate of slices of meat is handed round.)

JIM: Thank you, miss.
ERNIE: Thanks, miss.
BOY: Thank you miss.
DOCTOR: Thanks, miss!

(The children panic.)

NANCY: It's all right. Everybody stay where you are!
DOCTOR: Good here, innit? Who's got the salt?
NANCY: Back in your seats. He shouldn't be here either.
DOCTOR: So, you lot, what's the story?
ERNIE: What do you mean?
DOCTOR: You're homeless, right? Living rough?
JIM: Why do you want to know that? Are you a copper?
DOCTOR: Of course I'm not a copper. What's a copper going to do with you lot anyway? Arrest you for starving? I make it 1941. You lot shouldn't even be in London. You should've been evacuated to the country by now.
ALF: I was evacuated. Sent me to a farm.
DOCTOR: So why'd you come back?
ALF: There was a man there
JIM: Yeah, same with Ernie. Two homes ago.
ERNIE: Shut up. It's better on the streets anyway. It's better food.
JIM: Yeah. Nancy always gets the best food for us.
DOCTOR: So, that's what you do, is it, Nancy?
NANCY: What is?
DOCTOR: As soon as the sirens go, you find a big fat family meal still warm on the table with everyone down in the air raid shelter and bingo! Feeding frenzy for the homeless kids of London Town. Puddings for all, as long as the bombs don't get you.
NANCY: Something wrong with that?
DOCTOR: Wrong with it? It's brilliant. I'm not sure if it's Marxism in action or a West End musical.
NANCY: Why'd you follow me? What do you want?
DOCTOR: I want to know how a phone that isn't a phone gets a phone call. You seem to be the one to ask.
NANCY: I did you a favour. I told you not to answer it, that's all I'm telling you.
DOCTOR: Great, thanks. And I want to find a blonde in a Union Jack. I mean a specific one. I didn't just wake up this morning with a craving. Anybody seen a girl like that?

(Nancy takes the Doctor's plate away.)

DOCTOR: What have I done wrong?
NANCY: You took two slices. No blondes, no flags. Anything else before you leave?
DOCTOR: Yeah, there is actually. Thanks for asking. Something I've been looking for. Would've fallen from the sky about a month ago, but not a bomb. Not the usual kind, anyway. Wouldn't have exploded. Probably would have just buried itself in the ground somewhere, and it would have looked something like this.

(The Doctor holds up a rough sketch of the craft the TARDIS was following. Basically, a tube. A knock on the door makes everyone jump.)

CHILD [OC]: Mummy? Are you in there, mummy?

(The Doctor looks out of the window. It's the boy in the gas mask.)

CHILD [OC]: Mummy?
NANCY: Who was the last one in?
ERNIE: Him.
NANCY: No, he came round the back. Who came in the front?
ALF: Me.
NANCY: Did you close the door?
ALF: Er
NANCY: Did you close the door?
CHILD [OC]: Mummy? Mummy? Mummy?

[The Lloyd's hallway]

(Nancy runs into the hallway and bolts the front door.)

DOCTOR: What's this, then? It's never easy being the only child left out in the cold, you know.
NANCY: I suppose you'd know.
DOCTOR: I do actually, yes.
NANCY: It's not exactly a child.
CHILD [OC]: Mummy?

[The Lloyd's dining room]

NANCY: Right, everybody out. Across the back garden and under the fence. Now! Go! Move!

(The children grab their coats and flee. Nancy speaks to the sole remaining little girl, who can't be more than four.)

NANCY: Come on, baby, we've got to go, all right? It's just like a game. Just like chasing. Take your coat, go on. Go!

[The Lloyd's hallway]

CHILD [OC]: Mummy? Mummy? Please let me in, mummy. Please let me in, mummy.

(A little hand comes through the letter box.)

DOCTOR: Are you all right?
CHILD [OC]: Please let me in.

(Nancy throws something that breaks, and the hand withdraws.)

NANCY: You mustn't let him touch you!
DOCTOR: What happens if he touches me?
NANCY: He'll make you like him.
DOCTOR: And what's he like?
NANCY: I've got to go.
DOCTOR: Nancy, what's he like?
NANCY: He's empty.

(The telephone rings.)

NANCY: It's him. He can make phones ring. He can. Just like with that police box you saw.

(The Doctor picks up the phone.)

CHILD [OC]: Are you my mummy?

(Nancy puts the phone back on the hook. The radio starts up in the dining room.)

[The Lloyd's dining room]

CHILD [OC]: Mummy? Please let me in, mummy.

(Then a clockwork monkey starts up.)

MONKEY: Mummy, mummy, mummy.
NANCY: You stay if you want to.

[The Lloyd's hallway]

(Nancy leaves by the back door. The boy puts his hand through the letterbox again. There is a scar on the back of it.)

CHILD [OC]: Mummy? Let me in please, mummy. Please let me in.
DOCTOR: Your mummy isn't here.
CHILD [OC]: Are you my mummy?
DOCTOR: No mummies here. Nobody here but us chickens. Well, this chicken.
CHILD [OC]: I'm scared.
DOCTOR: Why are those other children frightened of you?
CHILD [OC]: Please let me in, mummy. I'm scared of the bombs.
DOCTOR: Okay. I'm opening the door now.

(The boy pulls back his hand and the Doctor unbolts the front door. When he opens it, the boy has gone and the street is deserted.)

[Jack's spaceship]

JACK: Better now?
ROSE: You got lights in here?

(Jack turns on the lights. It's a small, cramped, spaceship with bundles of wires hanging from the ceiling.)

JACK: Hello.
ROSE: Hello.
JACK: Hello.
ROSE: Let's not start that again.
JACK: Okay.
ROSE: So, who're you supposed to be, then?
JACK: Captain Jack Harkness, One Three Three Squadron, Royal Air Force. American volunteer.

(He hands her his ID card.)

ROSE: Liar. This is psychic paper. It tells me whatever you want it to tell me.
JACK: How do you know?
ROSE: Two things. One, I have a friend who uses this all the time.
JACK: Ah.
ROSE: And two, you just handed me a piece of paper telling me you're single and you work out.
JACK: Tricky thing, psychic paper.
ROSE: Yeah. Can't let your mind wander when you're handing it over.

(She gives it back.)

JACK: Oh, you sort of have a boyfriend called Mickey Smith but you consider yourself to be footloose and fancy free.
ROSE: What?
JACK: Actually, the word you use is available.
ROSE: No way.
JACK: And another one, very.
ROSE: Shall we try and get along without the psychic paper?
JACK: That would be better, wouldn't it?
ROSE: Nice spaceship.
JACK: Gets me around.
ROSE: Very Spock.
JACK: Who?
ROSE: Guessing you're not a local boy, then.
JACK: A cell phone, a liquid crystal watch, and fabrics that won't be around for at least another two decades. Guessing you're not a local girl.
ROSE: Guessing right.
JACK: Burn your hands on the rope?

(A bomb whistles past.)

ROSE: Yeah. We're parked in midair! Can't anyone down there see us?
JACK: No. Can I have a look at your hands for a moment?
ROSE: Why?
JACK: Please? You can stop acting now. I know exactly who you are. I can spot a Time Agent a mile away.
ROSE: Time Agent?
JACK: I've been expecting one of you guys to show up. Though not, I must say, by barrage balloon. Do you often travel that way?
ROSE: Sometimes I get swept off my feet. By balloons. What are you doing?

(Jack wraps his scarf around her wrists.)

JACK: Try to keep still.

(He presses a button. A glowing bundle zooms into Rose's burnt palms)

JACK: Nanogenes. Sub-atomic robots. The air in here is full of them. They just repaired three layers of your skin.

(The glow dissipates and he unties her wrists.)

ROSE: Well, tell them thanks.
JACK: Shall we get down to business?
ROSE: Business?
JACK: Shall we have a drink on the balcony? Bring up the glasses.

(Jack opens a hatch to the top of his spaceship.)

[On Jack's spaceship]

(The fires of London are burning below, and searchlights pass through where the spaceship is.)

ROSE: I know I'm standing on something.

(Jack uses a remote control and the ship appears.)

ROSE: Okay, you have an invisible spaceship.
JACK: Yeah.
ROSE: Tethered up to Big Ben for some reason.
JACK: First rule of active camouflage. Park somewhere you'll remember.

(Jack opens the bottle of champagne and fills the glasses Rose brought with her.)

[Nancy's hide-out]

(Nancy goes to a shack in some railway sidings and hides the food she took from the Lloyd's kitchen. She stands up to see the Doctor, smiling.)

NANCY: How'd you follow me here?
DOCTOR: I'm good at following, me. Got the nose for it.
NANCY: People can't usually follow me if I don't want them to.
DOCTOR: My nose has special powers.
NANCY: Yeah? That's why it's-
DOCTOR: What?
NANCY: Nothing.
DOCTOR: What?
NANCY: Nothing. Do your ears have special powers too?
DOCTOR: What are you trying to say?
NANCY: Goodnight, Mister.
DOCTOR: Nancy, there's something chasing you and the other kids. Looks like a boy and it isn't a boy, and it started about a month ago, right? The thing I'm looking for, the thing that fell from the sky, that's when it landed. And you know what I'm talking about, don't you?
NANCY: There was a bomb. A bomb that wasn't a bomb. Fell the other end of Limehouse Green Station.
DOCTOR: Take me there.
NANCY: There's soldiers guarding it. Barbed wire. You'll never get through.
DOCTOR: Try me.
NANCY: You sure you want to know what's going on in there?
DOCTOR: I really want to know.
NANCY: Then there's someone you need to talk to first.
DOCTOR: And who might that be?
NANCY: The Doctor.

[On Jack's spaceship]

ROSE: You know, it's getting a bit late. I should really be getting back.
JACK: We're discussing business.
ROSE: This isn't business. This is champagne.
JACK: I try never to discuss business with a clear head. Are you travelling alone? Are you authorised to negotiate with me?
ROSE: What would we be negotiating?
JACK: I have something for the Time Agency. Something they'd like to buy. Are you in power to make payment?
ROSE: Well, I, I should talk to my companion.
JACK: Companion?
ROSE: I should really be getting back to him.
JACK: Him?
ROSE: Do you have the time?

(Jack uses his remote. The clock face lights up and Big Ben strikes nine thirty.)

ROSE: Okay, that was flash. That was on the flash side.
JACK: So when you say your companion, just how disappointed should I be?
ROSE: Okay, we're standing in midair.
JACK: Mmm-hmm.
ROSE: On a spaceship, during a German air raid. Do you really think now's a good time to be coming on to me?
JACK: Perhaps not.
ROSE: It was just a suggestion.
JACK: Do you like Glenn Miller?

(The magic remote again. Moonlight Serenade plays. Jack takes Rose in his arms and they dance.)

JACK: It's 1941, the height of the London Blitz, the height of the German bombing campaign, and something else has fallen on London. A fully equipped Chula warship. The last one in existence, armed to the teeth. And I know where it is, because I parked it. If the Agency can name the right price, I can get it for you. But in two hours, a German bomb is going to fall on it and destroy it forever. That's your deadline. That's the deal. Now, shall we discuss payment?
ROSE: Do you know what I think?
JACK: What?
ROSE: I think you were talking just then.
JACK: Two hours, the bomb falls. There'll be nothing left but dust and a crater.
ROSE: Promises, promises.
JACK: Are you listening to any of this?
ROSE: You used to be a Time Agent, now you're some kind of freelancer.
JACK: Well, that's a little harsh. I like to think of myself as a criminal.
ROSE: I bet you do.
JACK: So, this companion of yours, does he handle the business?
ROSE: Well, I delegate a lot of that, yeah.
JACK: Well, maybe we should go find him.
ROSE: And how're you going to do that?
JACK: Easy. I'll do a scan for alien tech.
ROSE: Finally, a professional.

[Limehouse Green]

(The Doctor uses super-binoculars to scan the area.)

NANCY: The bomb's under that tarpaulin. They put the fence up over night. See that building? The hospital.
DOCTOR: What about it?
NANCY: That's where the doctor is. You should talk to him.
DOCTOR: For now, I'm more interested in getting in there.
NANCY: Talk to the doctor first.
DOCTOR: Why?
NANCY: Because then maybe you won't want to get inside.
DOCTOR: Where're you going?
NANCY: There was a lot of food in that house. I've got mouths to feed. Should be safe enough now.
DOCTOR: Can I ask you a question? Who did you lose?
NANCY: What?
DOCTOR: The way you look after all those kids. It's because you lost somebody, isn't it? You're doing all this to make up for it.
NANCY: My little brother. Jamie. One night I went out looking for food. Same night that thing fell. I told him not to follow me, I told him it was dangerous, but he just. He just didn't like being on his own.
DOCTOR: What happened?
NANCY: In the middle of an air raid? What do you think happened?
DOCTOR: Amazing.
NANCY: What is?
DOCTOR: 1941. Right now, not very far from here, the German war machine is rolling up the map of Europe. Country after country, falling like dominoes. Nothing can stop it. Nothing. Until one, tiny, damp little island says no. No. Not here. A mouse in front of a lion. You're amazing, the lot of you. Don't know what you do to Hitler, but you frighten the hell out of me. Off you go then do what you've got to do. Save the world.

(Something watches Nancy walk away.)

[Albion Hospital ward]

(The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to open the padlock on the ornate metal gates to the hospital grounds. Inside the long, dark wards, every bed has a very still patient in it, and they are all wearing gasmasks. An elderly, grumpy doctor appears, leaning on a walking stick.)

CONSTANTINE: You'll find them everywhere. In every bed, in every ward. Hundreds of them.
DOCTOR: Yes, I saw. Why are they still wearing gas masks?
CONSTANTINE: They're not. Who are you?
DOCTOR: I'm, er. Are you the doctor?
CONSTANTINE: Doctor Constantine. And you are?
DOCTOR: Nancy sent me.
CONSTANTINE: Nancy? That means you must've been asking about the bomb.
DOCTOR: Yes.
CONSTANTINE: What do you know about it?
DOCTOR: Nothing. Why I was asking. What do you know?
CONSTANTINE: Only what it's done.
DOCTOR: These people, they were all caught up in the blast?
CONSTANTINE: None of them were.

(The doctor chuckles then coughs. He sits in a chair by the desk where the ward sister would usually be.)

DOCTOR: You're very sick.
CONSTANTINE: Dying, I should think. I just haven't been able to find the time. Are you a doctor?
DOCTOR: I have my moments.
CONSTANTINE: Have you examined any of them yet?
DOCTOR: No.
CONSTANTINE: Don't touch the flesh.
DOCTOR: Which one?
CONSTANTINE: Any one.

(The Doctor points his sonic screwdriver at the nearest patient.)

CONSTANTINE: Conclusions?
DOCTOR: Massive head trauma, mostly to the left side. Partial collapse of the chest cavity, mostly to the right. There's some scarring on the back of the hand and the gas mask seems to be fused to the flesh, but I can't see any burns.
CONSTANTINE: Examine another one.
DOCTOR: This isn't possible.
CONSTANTINE: Examine another.
DOCTOR: This isn't possible.
CONSTANTINE: No.
DOCTOR: They've all got the same injuries.
CONSTANTINE: Yes.
DOCTOR: Exactly the same.
CONSTANTINE: Yes.
DOCTOR: Identical, all of them, right down to the scar on the back of the hand.

(Doctor Constantine also has that scar.)

DOCTOR: How did this happen? How did it start?
CONSTANTINE: When that bomb dropped, there was just one victim.
DOCTOR: Dead?
CONSTANTINE: At first. His injuries were truly dreadful. By the following morning, every doctor and nurse who had treated him, who had touched him, had those exact same injuries. By the morning after that, every patient in the same ward, the exact same injuries. Within a week, the entire hospital. Physical injuries as plague. Can you explain that? What would you say was the cause of death?
DOCTOR: The head trauma.
CONSTANTINE: No.
DOCTOR: Asphyxiation.
CONSTANTINE: No.
DOCTOR: The collapse of the chest cavity
CONSTANTINE: No.
DOCTOR: All right. What was the cause of death?
CONSTANTINE: There wasn't one. They're not dead.

(He hits a waste basket with his stick and the noise makes the patients sit up in their beds.)

CONSTANTINE: It's all right. They're harmless. They just sort of sit there. No heartbeat, no life signs of any kind. They just don't die.
DOCTOR: And they've just been left here? Nobody's doing anything?

(The patients lie down again.)

CONSTANTINE: I try and make them comfortable. What else is there?
DOCTOR: Just you? You're the only one here?
CONSTANTINE: Before this war began, I was a father and a grandfather. Now I am neither. But I'm still a doctor.
DOCTOR: Yeah. I know the feeling.
CONSTANTINE: I suspect the plan is to blow up the hospital and blame it on a German bomb.
DOCTOR: Probably too late.
CONSTANTINE: No. There are isolated cases. Isolated cases breaking out all over London. Stay back, stay back. Listen to me. Top floor. Room eight oh two. That's where they took the first victim, the one from the crash site. And you must find Nancy again.
DOCTOR: Nancy?
CONSTANTINE: It was her brother. She knows more than she's saying. She won't tell me, but she might Mummy. Are you my mummy?

(Starting with the mouth, Doctor Contantine's face turns into a gasmask.)

JACK [OC]: Hello?
ROSE [OC]: Hello?
JACK [OC]: Hello?

[Albion Hospital corridor]

JACK: Good evening. Hope we're not interrupting. Jack Harkness. I've been hearing all about you on the way over.
ROSE: He knows. I had to tell him about us being Time Agents.
JACK: And it's a real pleasure to meet you, Mister Spock.

(Jack walks forward to the ward.)

DOCTOR: Mister Spock?
ROSE: What was I supposed to say? You don't have a name. Don't you ever get tired of Doctor? Doctor who?
DOCTOR: Nine centuries in, I'm coping. Where've you been? We're in the middle of a London Blitz. It's not a good time for a stroll.
ROSE: Who's strolling? I went by barrage balloon. Only way to see an air raid.
DOCTOR: What?!
ROSE: Listen, what's a Chula warship?
DOCTOR: Chula?

[The Lloyds dining room]

(Nancy returns for the remains of the meal. The radio switches on.)

CHILD [OC]: Please, mummy. Please let me in. I'm scared of the bombs, mummy. Please, mummy.

(The front door slams.)

CHILD: Mummy. Mummy.

(Nancy hides under the table as the child walks along the hallway.)

[Albion Hospital ward]

(Jack is using a wrist tricorder thing to examine the patients.)

JACK: This just isn't possible. How did this happen?
DOCTOR: What kind of Chula ship landed here?
JACK: What?
ROSE: He said it was a warship. He stole it, parked it somewhere out there, somewhere a bomb's going to fall on it unless we make him an offer.
DOCTOR: What kind of warship?
JACK: Does it matter? It's got nothing to do with this.
DOCTOR: This started at the bomb site. It's got everything to do with it. What kind of warship?
JACK: An ambulance! Look.

(Jack produces a hologram of it from his wrist device.)

JACK: That's what you chased through the Time Vortex. It's space junk. I wanted to kid you it was valuable. It's empty. I made sure of it. Nothing but a shell. I threw it at you. Saw your time travel vehicle, love the retro look, by the way, nice panels. Threw you the bait-
ROSE: Bait?
JACK: I wanted to sell it to you and then destroy it before you found out it was junk.
ROSE: You said it was a war ship.
JACK: They have ambulances in wars. It was a con. I was conning you. That's what I am, I'm a con man. I thought you were Time Agents. You're not, are you.
ROSE: Just a couple more freelancers.
JACK: Oh. Should have known. The way you guys are blending in with the local colour. I mean, Flag Girl was bad enough, but U-Boat Captain? Anyway, whatever's happening here has got nothing to do with that ship.
ROSE: What is happening here, Doctor?
DOCTOR: Human DNA is being rewritten by an idiot.
ROSE: What do you mean?
DOCTOR: I don't know. Some kind of virus converting human beings into these things. But why? What's the point?

[The Lloyds dining room]

CHILD: Mummy? Where's my mummy? Mummy?

(An apple falls onto the floor. The child bends to pick it up. Nancy tries to run for the door but the child points and it slams shut.)

CHILD: Are you my mummy?

[Albion Hospital ward]

(The patients suddenly sit up.)

PATIENTS: Mummy. Mummy. Mummy? Mummy?
ROSE: What's happening?
DOCTOR: I don't know.

(The patients and Doctor Constantine all stand up.)

[The Lloyds dining room]

CHILD: Mummy?
NANCY: It's me. Nancy!

[Albion Hospital ward]

PATIENTS: Mummy.
DOCTOR: Don't let them touch you.
ROSE: What happens if they touch us?
DOCTOR: You're looking at it.

[The Lloyd's dining room]

CHILD: Are you my mummy?
NANCY: It's Nancy, your sister.

[Albion Hospital ward]

(The patients close in on the Doctor, Rose and Jack.)

PATIENTS: Help me, mummy.

[The Lloyd's dining room]

NANCY: You're dead, Jamie. You're dead!
CHILD: Mummy. Mummy.

[Albion Hospital ward]

PATIENTS: Mummy. Mummy. Mummy. Mummy. Mummy. Mummy.

Transcript originally provided by Chrissie. Adapted by TARDIS.guide. The transcripts are for educational and entertainment purposes only. All other copyrights property of their respective holders.

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