Auton Trilogy s01e01 Episode Script

Just keep the door covered.
Janice, have you got a screwdriver? Hello, Doctor Arnold? No, Winslet, it's Janice.
Doctor Sal's a little tied up at the moment.
- Tell him not now, Winslet.
- Not now, Winslet.
Wait a minute.
Doctor Arnold specifically asked me to find any other containers with the same serial number as the one that contained that sphere thing.
Said it was very important.
Now I've been doing that over and above everything else I'm supposed to be doing down here.
I've given it my full attention.
Taken me the best part of two weeks.
And, as a matter of fact, I have found a large number of crates with the same code.
- Triple A stroke RH stroke 2961.
- Thank you, Winslet.
No time.
Some of them have the letters A, U, T O, N.
Winslet, not now.
I have a satellite downlink, an expensive satellite downlink, due any - Oh God, I'm tired.
- We could always use some of next week's - satellite window.
- You must be joking.
I'm going to beat this thing if kills me.
- I can't believe you used Meccano.
- Nothing wrong with that.
Ah, here we go.
- Anything? - Still just background radiation.
Let's see if I can filter out some to the extraneous stuff.
Ah, nobody loves you.
Janice, get your notepad.
Note the time.
My God, what have I done? Perhaps we should shut it off now.
It's picked up on something.
Or something's picked up on it.
It's having a conversation.
It's transmitting.
Terminating the satellite link.
That's it.
Janice, keep away! Sincro: F.
B Cavalcante Doctor Arnold.
- Code Seven now on site.
- Protocol one nine zero.
All non-essential personnel are evacuated to safe house with full decontamination.
Listen, do you have any idea what Heard those nasty rumours about containment teams? You don't think.
They'll be here any minute now.
- Winslet? - What? - I'm sorry I said you had bad breath.
- When? When did you have bad breath, or when did I say it? - Doesn't matter.
- Don't move! The laboratory's been secured, sir.
If you'd like to come this way.
This is where it was.
Dead? Dead.
Make a preliminary examination.
The usual tests.
Open your box of tricks.
Did you know her? Do you think we could put our hands down now? Doctor Sally Arnold, Facility director and head of research? Pleased to meet you.
May I ask - And who is that? - Winslet.
Graham Winslet, archivist.
Non-essential.
What are you doing here, Mister Winslet? - You should have been evacuated.
- I'm afraid I wasn't ready in time.
- Oh.
- Sorry.
Sorry.
All right, lads.
You'd better let them have a general sniff around, Ramsay.
- Is there a guard on the main entrance? - Already taken care of.
Diligent as always, Ramsay.
I hope you didn't burn your clothes.
It would be such a waste.
Is this yours, Doctor.
Yes.
Useful when I'm working late.
Which is most nights.
Particle traces on here? What about the woman? Massive localised energy release.
Knocked out her entire nervous system.
- Did the thing just explode? - No.
If it just exploded, there'd - be more debris left.
- What are you saying? That it did something a bit cleverer than just exploding.
My name is Lockwood.
I am the head of this containment team.
This is a code seven situation, so your death certificates have already been prepared by UNIT.
With luck, we won't find it necessary to issue them.
This is Doctor Daniel Matthews, my assistant.
Let me remind you that under the terms of your contract with UNIT, you're obliged to give me the fullest cooperation during this investigation.
Mister Winslet, perhaps you'd like to go and put your clothes back on and wait in your office.
Right.
Did you think my men were going to shoot you? At one point, yes, it did cross my mind.
You thought you'd glimpsed the forbidden fruit, that we were here to stop the truth getting out.
Something like that.
Perhaps we are here to stop something getting out.
Was she a friend? I knew her too.
It was years ago.
She's in shock.
She's no use to me at the moment.
Take care of her, Doctor Matthews.
I feel stupid.
It's just shock.
Yes.
Carry on.
You've worked here for six years, according to your records.
Very fastidious, not a great socialiser.
Seven years.
Seven.
Yes.
How come you didn't make it to the safe house? - I told you, I wasn't ready in - In time.
Yes, I know.
- But why weren't you ready in time? - I don't know.
- Not like you.
- How would you know? Not like your personality profile.
On the computer at UNIT HQ.
Geneva.
Been there? Geneva? No.
I can't believe you used Meccano.
Perhaps we should shut it off now.
- All right? - Fine.
Thanks.
You should finish your tea.
It's hot and sweet.
It's good for shock.
How did you know Janice? Oh, at university.
Did you like her? It was a long time ago.
Is your Mister Lockwood always so cold? Lockwood? He's a breed apart.
But I've worked with him long enough to know he's the best there is.
I see.
Do you have any idea what's happened here? -Yes, we have plenty of ideas.
-Like what? Oh, need to know, is it? Why is Lockwood so convinced there's no contamination risk? I mean, that thing exploded.
I don't know what was inside it.
If you didn't know what was inside it, why did you subject it to transmissions from UNIT's most powerful deep-space scanning satellites? Because Because it was the only course of relevant experimentation left.
I'd drawn a blank with the damn thing, thought it was dead.
I tried every test I could think of.
That is my job, Doctor Matthews.
Assess and catalogue.
I knew it was of extra-terrestrial origin.
Wasn't just a meteor.
It appeared to be manufactured, so I speculated - Oh, you speculated.
- Yes.
We don't exactly have information here at our fingertips, I'm afraid.
This place was a sort of forgotten Aladdin's Cave until about five years ago.
It was a mess.
Mountains of old paperwork.
Winslet hasn't even got a tenth of the way through it.
We're working blind-folded most of.
Are you saying you know more about it? Where do you get your information? I think you're ready to speak to Lockwood.
Are we in danger? It's possible.
So where were you when it all happened? Storage bay one, you said just now.
- Yes.
- And you heard the alarm, and you thought I think I'll just stay here and pick my nose, is that it? - No, no.
- Well then, what? Doctor Arnold was conducting her experiment in her laboratory on this alien artefact, serial code triple A stroke RH stroke 2961, and she asked me to find any other containers - with that code.
- Because she thought there might - be more of them? - Or anything that would help her identify - what she was dealing with.
- She wasn't dealing with anything, Mister Winslet.
She was tampering with the unknown, which is always pretty dangerous.
Did you find any other crates with the same code on them, by the way? - No.
- Greyhound One to Greyhound Leader.
-Greyhound Leader.
-We have a problem.
- Same as the woman? - I should say so.
- Mister Lockwood, what is going on? - Just Lockwood.
No Mister.
What is going on? Exits are already secured.
- What are we looking for? - I don't know, exactly.
Whatever it is, it can't be very big.
- Well, he didn't see it coming.
- Where is it going? Well, presuming it started here Oh, let's presume.
- Too many variables give me a headache.
- It's going through the storage bays, whatever it is you're talking about.
Look.
Well, what are you talking about? Carry on, Ramsay, and see that Doctor Arnold is kept out of harm's way.
What have we got? We haven't got any of the right equipment, for a start.
This was a code seven, contamination risk.
Yes.
Bit of a balls-up, isn't it.
I should have twigged there was no danger of contamination the moment I saw the code.
- Triple A - RH 2961.
Seems no one here knew what it meant.
But I didn't expect it to turn into a bug hunt either.
- This is something new.
- Should we call for back-up? To pick over our remains.
Great sense of humour, Lockwood.
Great.
Sorry.
What did he say? - Who? - This Lockwood.
- Not much.
What do you think of him? I think he's a bit high-handed.
Sorry about Janice.
We've got to find a way to track the damn thing.
There's nothing feasible with the level of equipment we've got here.
What is it they say about a bad workman? Oh, you're calling me a bad workman.
What do you want to do, Dan? Join the search.
See what else has got hidden away here, what it might be after.
Our esteemed Doctor Sally Arnold apparently instructed Mister Personality Winslet to conduct a thorough search for anything else with the same code.
But would he draw back? I still thinkit's worth double-checking.
I never trusted the brain cell count in research establishments.
All right, Have Ramsay bring Sally Arnold to her laboratory.
I shall be waiting to give her my charm offensive.
Doctor Arnold? Come with me, please.
- You just sit tight, Mister Winters.
- Winslet.
Graham Winslet.
Archivist.
Whatever.
So he's finally deigned to speak with me, has he? - Who would that be, Doctor? - Your boss, Lockwood.
I believe he does want a word with you, yes, Doctor.
I suppose all this is pretty routine for you, Sergeant.
- That's right, Doctor.
- Where exactly are you taking me? - Your laboratory, Doctor.
- This is the long way.
Come on, I'll show you a short cut.
Do sit down.
What did you make of these symbols? What did I make of them? I've never seen anything like them.
All right, all right.
Did you think, oops, dear me, what have I done? Because I'd like to put to you that is what you should have been thinking, given that something is now crawling around the building apparently with the intention of wiping out my team.
- Something? What is this something? -That.
You mean it didn't just vaporise when it exploded.
Doctor Sal is thinking.
Doctor Sal, that's what all your chums call you, isn't it? The insightful UNIT research scientist? Gifted, highly qualified? A working class comprehensive school girl who ended up with degrees in medicine, physics, chemistry and biology.
I see you've read my file.
You're a bit of a maverick in the scientific community.
Not afraid to put forward new and untested ideas.
I suppose that accounts for the stupidity of your actions here.
- It's easy to be wise with hindsight.
- Wisdom does not come into it.
Some excrement has hit the fan, and you, Doctor Sal, were the idiot who turned the fan on.
I was doing my job.
It's a job which I happen to consider important.
I can't help it if UNI doesn't fund us properly.
I work with the best information that I have available to me.
In my opinion, underfunding of this facility makes it a dangerous liability.
However, these are not matters for mere slaves of the UNIT bureaucracy like ourselves.
I'm here to pick up the pieces.
I'm your alien artefact serial code triple A RH 2961.
You connect me up to the widest range of deep-space signals available to mankind.
Why? Because it hadn't responded to any other kind of test.
God save us from mavericks.
You can test a gun all you like, but it doesn't work until you pull the trigger.
You're saying I pulled the trigger? It recognised one of the signals from out there in deep space.
It came alive and received instructions.
Now, what kind of an instruction is please vaporise? Not a very friendly one.
And this artefact was undoubtedly talking to a friend, so perhaps it was instructed to do something else.
So you're saying it atomised in order to reform itself into something that could move? And kill.
You saw nothing.
I saw a flash.
I heard Janice and I blacked out.
It's the mobility that's important.
It's going somewhere.
It wants something.
That'll be us in the shit, then.
Are there any other artefacts in the warehouse like this one? I don't know.
Maybe.
I asked Winslet to look for anything with the same coding.
- Yes, I know.
- You obviously know what it was.
- Is.
Yes, I'm afraid I do.
- Well? It's an energy unit.
It's part of the Nestene Consciousness.
It has an affinity for plastic.
It's hostile, and God help us if you have any more artefacts coded triple A RH 2961.
- Greyhound Five to Greyhound One.
- Receiving.
There's no radio contact with Greyhound Four.
Winslet's office.
Check it out and report back.
Greyhound Leader.
Greyhound Leader, come in.
Please.
Over Go ahead, Dan.
We've found a crate coded triple A RH 2961.
-And it's marked Auton.
-Auton.
- Is that the only one? - So far.
Has the crate been opened? - No.
- Any sign of activity? - No.
- Where are you? - Storage bay one.
- Keep an eye out for more.
I'm on my way down.
Out.
You recognised that word.
How? Auton.
I remember Winslet saying it over the phone just before.
He'd found some crates marked Auton.
- He told me he didn't find anything.
- I didn't pay much attention at the time, but I distinctly remember him saying it.
- Stay here.
- Wait a minute! What is going on? - What is Auton? - It's none of your concern.
Isn't it? I am right in thinking you blame me for all this, aren't I? Well, if it's my fault, then I at least think I have the right to know what Auton is.
Autons are plastic automata which can be controlled by the Nestene Consciousness.
They're deadly and virtually indestructible, and it seems you've got one in your storage bay, Doctor Sal.
Storage bay one? Let's go.
Doctor Matthews? Security door.
- Dan? - Here.
I suppose you didn't know about this, either.
We're probably looking at top-grade signal shielding here.
How do we get it open? The question is, do we want to get it open? Retina scan lock.
It's bound to have your retina print on its memory.
But what about the entry codes? I don't suppose you have the code book for this? I didn't even know it was here.
Can you do it? We have to know what we're dealing with.
Ramsay, I'd like some of your men here, just to be on the safe side.
Sir.
This is Greyhound One to Greyhound Six and Seven.
Report to Storage bay one immediately.
- Sergeant.
- Defensive positions.
What are you expecting? You know that danger you were asking me about earlier? Keep them peeled, lads.
Keep them peeled.
Another one.
Was the first one just like this? Identical.
Why? What's the matter? I'm not sure.
There's something different.
Not quite what I expected.
A metamorphosis? The same as before.
Something's communicating with it.
The other energy unit.
We've got to get out of here.
Now! Take this.
All right, Ramsay.
They're not after a conversation.
Open fire! We're not going to get out of this alive, are we? I'm open to suggestions.
Why not? Let's try it.
- Ramsay? - Go! Go! Go! Go! No, this way.
No, no, this way.
This way, Doctor Dan! Here.
They're jamming us.
-Which way is the exit? -Over this way.
Poor bastard.
He's still alive.
They must have copied him.
That's what they do.
They're using the real Winslet s a source of information, like a template.
Lockwood tell you this? So they could copy anyone.
We'd never know the difference.
Move it.
This is the only way to the exit.
They've got us trapped.
And what is this thing? I don't know, but I've got a good feeling about it.
Can you get us to your laboratory? Er, yes.
We can cut through here.
Barricade the door.
Help me with this.
Hold it, hold it.
Couldn't you stop them? -Not a chance.
-Have they taken the exits? -Yes.
-Shit.
Lockwood Lockwood! Just resting my eyes.
As your grandmother used to say.
How did you know that? Your psychoanalysis tests.
We're all on the great UNIT database.
Not even our personalities is safe from trespass.
Has anyone ever told you you're a very bitter, cynical, person, Lockwood? Don't presume to psychoanalyse me.
That's one degree you don't have, Doctor Sal.
Only my friends call me that.
Then I'll refrain.
What do they want? I suspect they want what's in that tank in that sealed chamber.
Which is? Would you take a look at this? There must be some simple reason why it isn't working.
And in answer to your question, the thing in the tank is a mystery to me; As yet.
Well, it looks like some sort of transmitter but Okay, it's not as bad as it looks.
How does it look? I feel like I've had a shave with a cheese grater.
Off the wall humour in the face of excruciating pain? We'll make a soldier of you yet, Doctor Dan.
Lockwood.
Bloody place is crawling with them.
Do you think Lockwood made it? Yeah.
He's indestructible, isn't he? What about the others? Didn't stand a chance.
Oh Christ, I think I'm going into shock.
Oh shit Ramsay.
How the hell are we going to get out of this one? Hello? Whatever this is, it's got a flat battery, so I'm recharging it, all right? Oh for God's sake, Lockwood.
Doctor! Doctor Arnold! Doctor, are you in there? Doctor Arnold! Winslet, where the hell have you been? Hiding, Doctor.
Those dummies.
What is going on? Everyone out here is dead.
It's me you want.
Kill her and you'll have to kill me.
You're very perceptive, Lockwood.
Something different about you.
In some ways you're quite like us.
They've captured L ockwood and that Doctor.
Best you don't move.
Do you know how many times he's saved my life? We both know how much pain he goes through for us.
He wouldn't let us down, would he? What are you going to do with it when you've got it? That sad remnant in there.
Just a bit of slurry, isn't it? Left-over scrapings from a body you tried to create yourself decades ago.
I expect it's got a bit of mildew You will open the retina scan door.
Wel Don't you wish you'd been a little more pleasant to me? What? If I don't help him, he's probably going to kill you.
Right? I can't say I really care.
Of course, then he'll kill me.
Then what will you do? Cut my head off and use my retina print? You still won't have the code.
You are like us.
You're linked to something.
What does he mean? You should be attending to your battery charger Doctor Sal.
- Come with me.
- We're not leaving him.
Yes, you are, if you want to save him.
Leave them.
They're unimportant.
My God, it works.
What the hell is that? I've got no idea.
Lockwood UNIT's creature.
You cannot resist us.
You can fight, but you can't win.
Soon.
Soon all the chaos will be over and you'll be at one with us.
Marvellous.
The return of the maverick.
Who the what the hell are you? Think how many people you've killed.
Why'd you do it? Because that's what we do.
Don't do it.
Don't go in there.
It's too dangerous.
Just keep the door covered.
We'll lock it Get the experts to deal with this thing.
Maybe find out some of its weaknesses for next time.
Next time? They've tried before.
They'll try My God.
Bloody hell.
Where does that lead? Straight to the surface.
Call for back-up.
Greyhound One.
Not a bad bit of workmanship, Doctor John Smith.
Just returned from the outlying area, sir.
How far did you go? We estimated a fifty mile radius.
Moorland, mainly.
A few farmhouses, cottages, and suchlike.
Nothing? Not a trace.
You've done a good job, Ramsay.
- I can ask for no more.
-Pack up and go.
-Sir.
See you back at base, sir.
You're a good chap, Ramsay.
I used to think your sort only existed in black and white war films.
Always salutes when he can't think of anything to say Have you noticed? How's your face? It's a life-enriching experience.
We found particle traces of the Nestene creature in the external air vents.
It's out there somewhere.
Put it in the bin, Sal.
Memories can eat away at you, if you let them.
Come to escort me to my debriefing? - Yes.
I also came to thank you.
Thank me for being the idiot who threw excrement at the fan, or whatever it was you said? For being insightful gifted, a bit of a maverick.
You saved my life, Doctor Sal.
I think I'm going to enjoy working with you.
- Working? - Yes.
High-handed of me, I know, but I've had you reassigned to my team.
I'm not sure I know what to think about that.
You're saying I have no choice.
Wretched, isn't it? I don't think I'm ready for your kind of work.
Why not? I caused everything that happened here.
- I killed all those people - It was out there waiting to happen.
You made a mistake.
We all do that.
A mistake? Yes.
We can never know the future but we mustn't let the past haunt us.