Heathrow Airport, London, U.K. 11 am
Rex: You. World War II. I’ll take this. {he takes Jack’s personal teleport}
Jack: That’s nothing. It’s harmless.
Rex: Then you won’t mind me having it.
Rex: What the hell do you think you’re doing here?
Lyn (Dichen Lachman): I’ve been told to assist you in escorting the prisoners to Langley.
Rex: No no no. This operation is mine. I thought of it, it’s my idea. My execution.
Lyn: You wanna piss on the plane? Make that yours too?
Gwen: How’s that cut on your arm?
Jack: I’ll survive. I’m mortal, not dying. Well technically I guess I am dying, but slowly.
Gwen: But this thing that’s happening to the world—this miracle. It must have something to do with you.
Jack: Great, so it’s my fault?
Gwen: Can’t be a coincidence, Jack.
Rhys: Of course it’s not a coincidence. Doesn’t mean to say it’s his fault.
Jack: Rhys, are you defending me?
Rhys: Well it’s like it all got switched, isn’t it? Nothing to do with Jack if the wires got crossed. Everything mortal becomes immortal. So every immortal becomes mortal. See? I can be useful.
Rex: Just sit back and relax. The next six hours will be filled with boredom followed by monotony.
Gwen: Every time you turn up it always goes wrong.
Esther: Yes, but. The way Torchwood disappeared online, sir. I spent six months compiling the malware list—it’s kind of a passion of mine and, whatever that intrusion was, it was fascinating and… I just thought I could help.
Brian Friedkin (Wayne Knight): So, ah, are you thinking of changing Directorates?
Esther: I wouldn’t mind going where the fun is.
Friedkin: That sounds like Rex. His idea of fun may be misleading.
Friedkin: So, ah, you’re working closely with him? He’s keeping you up to date?
Esther: Yes sir. We make quite a good team.
Friedkin: Well. I’ll bear that in mind. Thank you. Esther.
Jack: Be fair. I had no way of knowing Rex was going to pull that stunt.
Gwen: You know the way it works, Jack. Every time anyone ever gets close to you, nobody has a normal life again. And you know what really—and I mean it—really pisses me off? What took you so long? I have to nearly explode before you turn up?
Jack: Did you miss me?
Gwen: Yes.
Gwen: Where did you go, Jack?
Jack: Long way away.
Gwen: And did it help?
Gwen: Tell me, Fly Boy. What happens when we get to America?
Rex: Oh, you’ll be interrogated.
Gwen: You stupid, tiny, bloody little man. For starters we don’t know anything, and even if we did, why didn’t you just ask?
Jack: The amazing thing about the miracle is not that no one’s dying, it’s not that the human race has become immortal. It’s that it happened to everyone at the same time. Don’t you see? It was instantaneous and that’s a morphic event on a scale that I have never seen before. So whatever’s happening to this planet, it is massive!
WWCN Studios, New York, New York, U.S.A. 9am
Oswald Danes: I spent six years in solitary confinement. That’s when you can really taste it. {the PA looks lost} The piss. The piss that they put in my food. Oh, I’d cover it with cream and gravy and salt but that’s the thing about piss. It has a way of enduring.
Oswald Danes: There’s going to be a mob outside my door for the rest of my life. And life is now a very long time. So excuse me if I take food where I can find it.
PA: I hope you choke.
Rex: Dr. Juarez. You have something that I want.
Dr. Juarez: You sound like my ex-husband.
Rex: So does he call wanting drugs and sex?
Dr. Juarez: Yes.
Rex: Good man, but for now I’ll just settle for the drugs.
City County General Hospital, Washington, D.C., U.S.A. 10am
Dr. Juarez: The first sixty minutes after a trauma? The Golden Hour. There is no Golden Hour anymore. All our reflexes are wrong.
Jack: Water? I’m American too! Can’t I contribute to our global cultural hegemony with a nice frosty cola?!
Danes: I don’t need you.
Jilly Kitzinger (Lauren Ambrose): I disagree, Mr. Danes. You have what we call “high media quotient.”
Danes: Oh, everybody hates me.
Jilly: No. No, that interview has you trending on Twitter and the hash tags as forgive. You’re really very good.
Jilly: Of course there’d be a fee, but I’d only take ten percent of your earnings.
Danes: Good luck. That’s ten percent of nothing.
Jilly: You didn’t get paid for that?
Danes: It was a news show. They don’t pay.
Jilly: Oh, Oswald. That’s really very funny.
Jilly: There’s a good reason the churches are empty. People don’t want to hear about Heaven. They’d rather hear from the man who has gazed into Hell itself, and that’s you. Frankly I think if the Devil himself were to walk this earth, he’d need representation.
Danes: If the Devil himself walked this earth, he’d surely be working in PR.
City Hall, Washington D.C., U.S.A. 11am
Jim: The point is, the hibernation isn’t fixed. There’s a natural oscillation they’ve been tracking.
Oscillation? You mean like someone turning a radio dial up and down on life?
Jim: Well basically up. Yes.
Dr. Juarez: The human race has becoming germ incubators. Hospital beds are filling up because the people who should die, don’t. Including people with infections.
Esther: But I haven’t got fifty thousand dollars.
Banker: It was a wire transfer made at midday today.
Esther: Made by who?
Banker: There’s no name, only a passcode. But the transaction came from China.
Esther: I have to go.
Gwen: Hold on. You went to supervise him. That’s what you said, “supervise.” Who needs to supervise pouring a drink. What did you “supervise” exactly?
Lyn: So now you’re accusing anyone?
Gwen: It’s either you or the big gay steward, so my money’s on you.
Rex: You know no one can die.
Gwen: What if you’re wrong, Rex? What if your big success is one Welsh woman and a dead body?
Gwen: What’s EDTA?
Dr. Juarez: Who are you?
Gwen: Just tell me. What’s EDTA?
Dr. Juarez: Ethylene diamine tetracyclic acid
Gwen: What’s that when it’s at home? I mean what is it made of?
Dr. Juarez: I don’t know, I’m a doctor. Not a chemist. Is there nobody in the entire CIA that’s a poisons expert?
Rex: Yeah, but the CIA just poisoned him.
Gwen: That was your last chance.
Lyn: Yeah? And what’re you gonna do about it? You’re the best England’s got to offer.
Gwen: I’m Welsh.
It’s proof. We have absolute proof. We compared the telomeres from yesterday with the telomeres from forty-eight hours ago. There’s no doubt. They’re shortening. Which means we’re still aging.
What kind of immortality is that?
Jim: It’s the story of Tithonus. One of the Greek goddesses asks Zeus to make Tithonus immortal, but she forgot to ask for eternal youth. He became so ancient and decrepit that he eventually shrank into a cicada. He begged for death.
This is no miracle. This just, this just means that sooner or later we’re all going to hell.
Dr. Juarez: I don’t need your help.
Jilly: I disagree.
Washington Dulles International Airport, VA, U.S.A. 5pm
Esther: We are being set up. They cleaned out your office and there’s fifty thousand dollars in my bank account. Whoever’s doing this, I bet they’ll be waiting for you when you arrive. Someone’s trying to erase Torchwood, right? What if they’re also trying to erase anyone who’s ever had any contact with Torchwood.
Gwen: You you get us arrested, you break up my family, you nearly get Jack killed. Why should we go anywhere with you?
Rex: Because I have a car.
Gwen: What sort of getaway car is this? I thought you Americans all had these big SUVs. This is rubbish!
Jack: Rex you gotta work on these escape plans.
Esther: What was that? Was that Lyn? What the hell is going on?
Gwen: Welcome to Torchwood.