Sigma

 

What about This One?

…no. You’ve not Turned.

Faithful to The Last. Go.

Join Your People —

while you still can.

HALPEN: 

Mister Kess, what's the situation?

[Detention area]

KESS: 

We've contained it, sir. Fenced them in. 

But the red eye seems to be permanent this time. 

It's not fading. Worse than that, sir, 

there's more of them going rabid. 

In my opinion, sir, I think we've lost them. 

The entire batch contaminated.

[Office]

HALPEN: What's causing it? Why now? What's changed?

(Halpen strokes his head, and some hair comes away in his fingers.)

HALPEN: 

How many Ood in total?

[Detention area]

KESS: I'd say about two thousand, sir.

HALPEN [OC]: 

We can write them off. 

That's what insurance is for.

[Office]

HALPEN: 

Drink. We've plenty more 

on the breeding farms. 

Let's start again. Fetch the canisters.

[Detention area]

HALPEN [OC]: 

No survivors.

KESS: 

My pleasure, sir. 

You lot. Canisters.

[Factory complex]

DOCTOR: 

This way.

(They arrive at a door.)

DOCTOR: Oh, can you hear it? I didn't need the map. I should have listened.

[Ood Conversion]

(The Doctor sonics the door lock.)

DONNA: Hold on. Does that mean we're locked in?

DOCTOR: Listen. Listen, listen, listen, listen.

(The ethereal music.)

DOCTOR: Oh, my head.

DONNA: What is it?

DOCTOR: Can't you hear it? The singing?

(Groups of Ood are sitting in cages. They turn away from the Doctor and Donna.)

DONNA: They look different to the others.

DOCTOR: That's because they're natural born Ood, unprocessed, before they're adapted to slavery. Unspoilt. That's their song.

DONNA: I can't hear it.

DOCTOR: Do you want to?

DONNA: Yeah.

DOCTOR: It's the song of captivity.

DONNA: Let me hear it.

DOCTOR: Face me.

(The Doctor makes a mind meld with Donna.)

DOCTOR: Open your mind. That's it. Hear it, Donna. Hear the music.

(The song is sad and beautiful. Donna cries.)

DONNA: Take it away.

DOCTOR: Sure?

DONNA: I can't bear it.

(The Doctor disconnects her from the telepathic field.)

DONNA: I'm sorry.

DOCTOR: It's okay.

DONNA: But you can still hear it.

DOCTOR: All the time.

[Outside Ood Conversion]

HALPEN: Come on. What's the hold up?

RYDER: It's the experimentation lab. Maximum security. He's fused the system.

HALPEN: Don't just stand there, get the bolt cutters. Rip that door off. Solana, go back to the reps, I don't want any of them wandering off and seeing this. And get them away from the Ood, just in case. Hurry up!

SOLANA: Yes, sir.

[Ood Conversion]

(The Doctor sonics open the cage.)

DONNA: They're breaking in.

DOCTOR: Ah, let them.

(The Ood cower in the corner.)

DOCTOR: What are you holding? Show me. Friend. Doctor, Donna. Friend. Let me see. Look at me. Let me see. That's it. That's it, go on. Go on.

(The Ood opens his hands. He is holding a small brain.)

DONNA: Is that?

DOCTOR: It's a brain. A hind brain. 

The Ood are born with a secondary brain. 

Like the amygdala in humans, 

it processes memory and emotions. 

You get rid of that, you wouldn't 

be ‘Donna’ any more. 

You'd be like an Ood. 

A processed Ood.

DONNA: 

So The Company cuts off their brains?

DOCTOR: 

And they stitch on The Translator.

DONNA: 

Like a lobotomy. I spent all that time 

looking for you, Doctor, because I thought 

it was so wonderful out here. 

I want to go home.

(Crash!)

GUARD [OC]: They're with the Ood, sir.

(The Doctor locks himself and Donna in with the Ood.)

DOCTOR: 

What you going to do, then? Arrest me? 

Lock me up? Throw me in a cage? 

Well, you're too late. Ha!

[Office]

(The Doctor and Donna are handcuffed to some pipes.)

HALPEN: 

Why don't you just come out 

and say it? FOTO activists.

DOCTOR: 

If that's what Friends Of The Ood are trying to prove, then yes.

HALPEN: The Ood were nothing without us, just animals roaming around on the ice.

DOCTOR: 

That's because you can't HEAR Them.

HALPEN: They welcomed it. It's not as if they put up a fight.

DONNA: You idiot. They're born with their brains in their hands. Don't you see, that makes them peaceful. They've got to be, because a creature like that would have to trust anyone it meets.

DOCTOR: Oh, nice one.

DONNA: Thank you.

HALPEN: The system's worked for two hundred years. All we've got is a rogue batch. But the infection is about to be sterilised. Mister Kess. How do we stand?

[Detention area]

KESS: Canisters primed, sir. As soon as the core heats up, the gas is released. Give it two hundred marks and counting.

[Office]

DOCTOR: You're going to gas them?.

HALPEN: Kill the livestock. The classic foot and mouth solution from the olden days. Still works.

(In different places, Ood both unconverted and red eyed form circles and sing.)

[Presentation area]

SOLANA: I'm sorry. If I could ask you one more time, could all the reps please come through to the Education Suites.

REP: Why move now? It's a free bar.

SOLANA: Could I ask all the Ood to withdraw. It's feeding time.

The Oods put their hands to their heads.)

REP: Ah, you've upset them. Leave them alone.

SOLANA: I have to insist. If all the Ood could please leave.

The Ood's eyes have turned red.)

SOLANA: Ladies and gentlemen, change of plan. If you could leave by the fire exits.

REP: I could sell this. You could offer different colours.

(An Ood kills him. Panic ensues and more people die.)

MAN: Get out of here! Get out of here!

(Solana runs outside.)

[Factory complex]

GUARD: They've gone insane, Miss. They've gone mad, all of them.

SOLANA: Just shoot them. Shoot to kill!

(Solana runs away as the guards open fire, and is killed by a lone Ood.)

[Office]

(An alarm sounds.)

HALPEN: What the hell?

[Detention area]

(The countdown passes 51.)

KESS: What's going on out there?

(More Ood enter.)

[Factory complex]

TANNOY: Emergency status. Emergency status. All exits sealed. All Ood declared hostile. Ood distribution centre now

(KaBOOM! goes something very combustible.)

RYDER: It's a revolution.

(Sigma follows Halpen as he goes back inside.)

[Detention area]

(The Ood have freed their comrades and locked Kess in a cage. The countdown reaches 1.)

KESS: Come back. Let me out of here.

(The gas is set off.)

[Office]

HALPEN: Change of plan.

RYDER: There are no reports of trouble off-world, sir. It's still contained to the Ood Sphere.

HALPEN: Then we've got a public duty to stop it before it spreads.

DOCTOR: What's happening?

HALPEN: Everything you wanted, Doctor. No doubt there'll be a full police investigation once this place has been sterilised, so I can't risk a bullet to the head. I'll leave you to the mercies of the Ood.

DOCTOR: But Mister Halpen, there's something else, isn't there? Something we haven't seen.

DONNA: What do you mean?

DOCTOR: A creature couldn't survive with a separate forebrain and hind brain, they'd be at war with themselves. There's got to be something else, a third element, am I right?

HALPEN: And again, so clever.

DOCTOR: But it's got to be connected to the red eye. What is it?

HALPEN: It won't exist for very much longer. Enjoy your Ood.

(The Doctor and Donna are left alone.)

DOCTOR: Come on.

[Factory complex]

HALPEN: Doctor Ryder. Warehouse Fifteen.

RYDER: Well, what about this one?

HALPEN: No. You've not turned. Faithful to the last. Go. Join your people, while you still can.

(Halpen and Sigma bow to each other, 

then Sigma leaves.)

HALPEN: Come on.

[Office]

DONNA: Well, do something. You're the one with all the tricks. You must have met Houdini.

DOCTOR: These are really good handcuffs.

DONNA: Oh well, I'm glad of that. I mean, at least we've got quality.

(Three Ood enter.)

DOCTOR: Doctor, Donna, friends.

DONNA: The circle must be broken.

DOCTOR: Doctor, Donna, friends.

DONNA: The circle must be broken.

DOCTOR: Doctor, Donna, friends.

DONNA: The circle must be broken.

DOCTOR: Friends, friends, friends.

DONNA: The circle must be broken.

(They continue to repeat themselves while the unconverted Ood connect with the others and share their knowledge of the Doctor and Donna.)

OOD: Doctor. Donna. Friends.

DOCTOR + DONNA: Yes. That's us. Friends. Oh, yes.

[Factory complex]

(An Ood attacks Halpen and Ryder's escort.)

HALPEN: No, leave him.

(Elsewhere -)

DOCTOR: I don't know where it is. I don't know where they've gone.

DONNA: What are we looking for?

DOCTOR: It might be underground, like some sort of cave, or a cavern, or

(Halpen unlocks a door).

COMPUTER: Warehouse Fifteen door open.

(The Doctor and Donna are knocked down by an explosion.)

DOCTOR: All right?

(As the smoke clears, Sigma is standing behind them.)

[Warehouse 15]

HALPEN: It's always been an option. My grandfather drew up this plan. That's the advantage of a family run business, Doctor Ryder. The personal touch.

RYDER: But we should evacuate. If we can get to the rocket sheds, we can

HALPEN: No need. We've got this. Detonation packs. Place them around the circumference. We're going to blow it up. This thing dies, so do the Ood.

(They place the devices on the catwalk around the mysterious something we haven't seen yet. Meanwhile, the Doctor sonics the door controls and they get in. He looks down on -)

DOCTOR: The Ood Brain. Now it all makes sense, That's the missing link. The third element, binding them together. Forebrain, hind brain, and this, the telepathic centre. It's a shared mind, connecting all the Ood in song.

HALPEN: Cargo. I can always go into cargo. I've got the rockets, I've got the sheds. Smaller business. Much more manageable, without livestock.

RYDER: He's mined the area.

DONNA: You're going to kill it?

HALPEN: They found that thing centuries ago beneath the Northern Glacier.

DOCTOR: Those pylons.

DONNA: In a circle. The circle must be broken.

DOCTOR: Damping the telepathic field. Stopping the Ood from connecting for two hundred years.

HALPEN: And you, Ood Sigma, you brought them here. I expected better.

SIGMA: My place is at your side, sir.

HALPEN: Still subservient. Good Ood.

DONNA: If that barrier thing's in place, how come the Ood started breaking out?

DOCTOR: Maybe it's taken centuries to adapt. The subconscious reaching out?

RYDER: But the process was too slow. It had to be accelerated. You should never give me access to the controls, Mister Halpen. I lowered the barrier to its minimum. Friends Of The Ood, sir. It's taken me ten years to infiltrate the company, and I succeeded.

HALPEN: Yes. Yes, you did.

(Halpen throws Ryder over the catwalk railing and onto the giant brain, which absorbs him.)

DONNA: You murdered him.

HALPEN: Very observant, Ginger. Now, then. Can't say I've ever shot anyone before. Can't say I'm going to like it. But er, it's not exactly a normal day, is it? Still.

SIGMA: Would you like a drink, sir?

HALPEN: I think hair loss is the least of my problems right now, thanks.

(Sigma stands in front of the Doctor.)

SIGMA: Please have a drink, sir.

HALPEN: If, if you're going to stand in their way, I'll shoot you too.

SIGMA: Please have a drink, sir.

HALPEN: Have, have you poisoned me?

SIGMA: Natural Ood must never kill, sir.

DOCTOR: What is that stuff?

SIGMA: Ood graft suspended in a biological compound, sir.

HALPEN: What the hell does that mean?

DOCTOR: Oh, dear.

HALPEN: Tell me!

DOCTOR: Funny thing, the subconscious. Takes all sorts of shapes. Came out in the red eye as revenge, came out in the rabid Ood as anger, and then there was patience. All that intelligence and mercy, focused on Ood Sigma. How's the hair loss, Mister Halpen?

(More hair comes away in Halpen's hand.)

HALPEN: What have you done?

DOCTOR: Oh, they've been preparing you for a very long time. And now you're standing next to the Ood Brain, Mister Halpen, can you hear it? Listen.

HALPEN: What have you? I'm not.

(Halpen's face goes blank. He drops his gun, reaches for his head and peels the skin off. Then tentacles come out of his mouth.)

DONNA: They, they turned him into an Ood?

DOCTOR: Yep.

DONNA: He's an Ood.

DOCTOR: I noticed.

(Halpen sneezes and a small hind brain flops into his hands.)

SIGMA: He has become Oodkind, and we will take care of him.

DONNA: It's weird, being with you. I can't tell what's right and what's wrong any more.

DOCTOR: It's better that way. People who know for certain tend to be like Mister Halpen.

(Beep beep.)

DOCTOR: Oh!

(The Doctor deactivates the explosives.)

DOCTOR: That's better. And now, Sigma, would you allow me the honour?

SIGMA: It is yours, Doctor.

DOCTOR: Oh, yes! Stifled for two hundred years, but not any more. The circle is broken. The Ood can sing.

(The current around the Brain is shut off and the song starts up, slow but happy.)

DONNA: I can hear it!

(The fighting stops. The Ood raise their palms to the sky and join in.)

[Planet surface]

DOCTOR: The message has gone out. That song resonated across the galaxies. Everyone heard it. Everyone knows. The rockets are bringing them back. The Ood are coming home.

SIGMA: We thank you, Doctor Donna, friends of Oodkind. And what of you now? Will you stay? There is room in the song for you.

DOCTOR: Oh, I've, I've sort of got a song of my own, thanks.

SIGMA: I think your song must end soon.

DOCTOR: Meaning?

SIGMA: Every song must end.

DOCTOR: Yeah. Er, what about you? You still want to go home?

DONNA: No. Definitely not.

DOCTOR: Then we'll be off.

SIGMA: Take this song with you.

DONNA: We will.

DOCTOR: Always.

SIGMA: And know this, Doctor Donna. You will never be forgotten. Our children will sing of the Doctor Donna, and our children's children, and the wind and the ice and the snow will carry your names forever.

(The Doctor and Donna go into the Tardis, and it dematerialises.)