GREAT ONE [OC]:
Stop! Have you brought the crystal to me?
DOCTOR:
Well if I had not, why should I have returned?
GREAT ONE [OC]:
Very well. Very well, advance.
(The Doctor walks around a corner and sees the universes biggest spider.)
DOCTOR:
I've brought you the crystal.
Now why don't you just take it and leave the humans in peace, both here and on Earth?
GREAT ONE:
You think I care for the puny plans of my subjects? Earth?
One paltry planet among millions?
Give me the crystal.
I thirst for it!
I ache for it!
DOCTOR:
Well, why is it so important to you?
GREAT ONE:
You see this web of crystal above my head?
It reproduces the pattern of my brain.
One perfect crystal and it will be complete.
That is the perfect crystal I need.
DOCTOR:
And then?
GREAT ONE:
My every thought will resonate within the web, and grow in power until, until, until....!!!
DOCTOR:
But you've built a positive feedback circuit. You're trying to increase your mental powers to infinity.
GREAT ONE:
Exactly!
I shall be the ruler of the entire universe!
DOCTOR:
Now listen to me. Listen.
I haven't got much time left.
What you're trying to do is impossible.
If you complete that circuit, the energy will build up and up until it cannot be contained.
You will destroy yourself.
GREAT ONE:
You waste the little time remaining to you.
Even now the cave of crystal is destroying the cells of your body.
I will grant you one last favour.
You may watch the completion of my triumph before you die!
(The crystal flies out of the Doctor's hand and becomes the keystone of the web lattice.)
GREAT ONE:
I am complete!
Now I am total power!
All praise to the Great One!
DOCTOR:
Stop. Stop!
Don't you see what's happened to you?
GREAT ONE:
All praise to the Great One!
All praise to me! Bow down before me, planets!
Bow down, stars!
Bow down, all galaxies and worship the Great One!
The me! The Great, all-powerful me!
Argh!
(The giant spider starts to glow red.)
GREAT ONE:
I hurt! Help me!
I am burning! My brain is on fire!
(The Doctor runs out of the cave.)
GREAT ONE:
Help me!
DOCTOR:
Compressed information, streaming into her. Reports from every city, every country, every planet, and they all get packaged inside her head. She becomes part of the software. Her brain is the computer.
ROSE:
If it all goes through her, she must be a genius.
DOCTOR:
Nah, she wouldn't remember any of it. There's too much. Her head'd blow up.
The brain's the processor. As soon as it closes, she forgets.
ROSE:
So, what about all these people round the edge?
DOCTOR:
They've all got tiny little chips in their head, connecting them to her and they transmit six hundred channels.
Every single fact in the Empire beams out of this place.
Now that's what I call power.
EDITOR:
I started without you.
This is fascinating.
Satellite Five contains every piece of information within the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire.
Birth certificates, shopping habits, bank statements, but you two, you don't exist.
Not a trace. No birth, no job, not the slightest kiss.
How can you walk through the world and not leave a single footprint?
ROSE:
Suki. Suki! Hello?
Can you hear me? Suki?
What have you done to her?
DOCTOR:
I think she's dead.
ROSE:
She's working.
DOCTOR:
They've all got chips in their head, and the chips keep going, like puppets.
EDITOR:
Oh! You're full of information. But it's only fair we get some information back, because apparently, you're no one. It's so rare not to know something. Who are you?
DOCTOR:
It doesn't matter, because we're off.
Nice to meet you. Come on.
(Suki grabs Rose's arm. Two other zombies grab the Doctor.)
EDITOR: Tell me who you are.
DOCTOR: Since that information's keeping us alive, I'm hardly going to say, am I.
EDITOR: Well, perhaps my Editor in Chief can convince you otherwise.
DOCTOR: And who's that?
EDITOR:
It may interest you to know that this is not the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. In fact, it's not actually human at all. It's merely a place where humans happen to live.
(Growl, snarl.)
EDITOR:
Yeah. Yeah, sorry. It's a place where humans are allowed to live by kind permission of my client.
(Who we finally see is a giant lump hanging from the ceiling, with a very nasty set of teeth in a mouth on the end of a pseudopod.)
ROSE: What is that?
DOCTOR: You mean that thing's in charge of Satellite Five?
EDITOR: That thing, as you put it, is in charge of the human race. For almost a hundred years, mankind has been shaped and guided, his knowledge and ambition strictly controlled by it's broadcast news, edited by my superior, your master, and humanity's guiding light, the mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe. I call him Max.
(Down on Floor 139 Adam avoids Cathica as she goes to take another look at the schematic that the Doctor called up. Then she goes to the lift and punches in the code for Floor 500.
Meanwhile, the Doctor and Rose have been placed in hefty sets of manacles.)
EDITOR: Create a climate of fear and it's easy to keep the borders closed. It's just a matter of emphasis. The right word in the right broadcast repeated often enough can destabilise an economy, invent an enemy, change a vote.
ROSE: So all the people on Earth are like, slaves.
EDITOR: Well, now, there's an interesting point. Is a slave a slave if he doesn't know he's enslaved?
DOCTOR: Yes.
EDITOR: Oh. I was hoping for a philosophical debate. Is that all I'm going to get? Yes?
DOCTOR: Yes.
EDITOR: You're no fun.
DOCTOR: Let me out of these manacles. You'll find out how much fun I am.
EDITOR: Oh, he's tough, isn't he. But, come on. Isn't it a great system? You've got to admire it, just a little bit.
ROSE: You can't hide something on this scale. Somebody must have noticed.
EDITOR: From time to time, someone, yes, but the computer chip system allows me to see inside their brains. I can see the smallest doubt and crush it.
(Cathica arrives on Floor 500. Adam goes to the broadcast room on 139.)
EDITOR: Then they just carry on, living the life, strutting about downstairs and all over the surface of the Earth like they're so individual, when of course, they're not. They're just cattle. In that respect, the Jagrafess hasn't changed a thing.
(The Doctor and Rose spot Cathica behind the Editor's back.)
ROSE: What about you? You're not a Jagrabelly
DOCTOR: Jagrafess.
ROSE: Jagrafess. You're not a Jagrafess. You're human.
EDITOR: Yeah, well, simply being human doesn't pay very well.
ROSE: But you couldn't have done this all on your own.
EDITOR: No. I represent a consortium of banks. Money prefers a long-term investment. Also, the Jagrafess needed a little hand to install himself.
DOCTOR: No wonder, a creature that size. What's his life span?
EDITOR: Three thousand years.
DOCTOR: That's one hell of a metabolism generating all that heat. That's why Satellite Five's so hot. You pump it out of the creature, channel it downstairs. Jagrafess stays cool, it stays alive. Satellite Five is one great big life support system.
[Adam's home]
(Adam settles in the broadcast chair and opens his portal, then phones home.)
ADAM [OC]: It's me again. Don't wipe this message. It's just going to sound like white noise, but save it because I can
[Newsroom]
ADAM: Translate it, okay? Three, two, one and spike.
(Information beams into Adam.)
[Floor 500]
EDITOR: But that's why you're so dangerous. Knowledge is power, but you remain unknown. Who are you?
(The Editor snaps his fingers and energy surges through the manacles. Back in the now, the little dog watches energy encircling the telephone answering machine.)
DOCTOR: Leave her alone. I'm the Doctor, she's Rose Tyler. We're nothing, we're just wandering.
EDITOR: Tell me who you are!
DOCTOR: I just said!
EDITOR: Yes, but who do you work for? Who sent you? Who knows about us? Who exactly
(He stops. The Jagrafess growls.)
EDITOR: Time Lord.
DOCTOR: What?
EDITOR: Oh, yes. The last of the Time Lords in his travelling machine. Oh, with his little human girl from long ago
DOCTOR: You don't know what you're talking about.
EDITOR: Time travel.
[Newsroom]
(Adam screams as information is sucked out of his brain.)
ADAM: Help!
[Floor 500]
DOCTOR: Someone's been telling you lies.
EDITOR: Young master Adam Mitchell?
(The Editor calls up the holo-monitor showing Adam in the broadcast chair.)
ROSE: Oh, my God. His head!
DOCTOR: What the hell's he done? What the hell's he gone and done? They're reading his mind. He's telling them everything.
EDITOR: And through him, I know everything about you. Every piece of information in his head is now mine. And you have infinite knowledge, Doctor. The Human Empire is tiny compared to what you've seen in your T A R D I S. Tardis.
DOCTOR: Well, you'll never get your hands on it. I'll die first.
EDITOR: Die all you like. I don't need you. I've got the key.
(The Tardis key rises from Adam's pocket.)
DOCTOR: You and your boyfriends!
EDITOR: Today, we are the headlines. We can rewrite history. We could prevent mankind from ever developing.
DOCTOR: And no one's going to stop you because you've bred a human race that doesn't bother to ask questions. Stupid little slaves, believing every lie. They'll just trot right into the slaughter house if they're told it's made of gold.
(The Jagrafess snarls, and Cathica leaves.)