Gwen: All right Glyn? What’s occurring?
Glyn: I’ve been watching the bay. No sea monsters.
Gwen: Ah, still early.
Gwen: Anyone in? You two having shenanigans in the dark? Jack?
Dr. Rupesh Patanjali: You were neighbors, is that right?
Jack: We lived next door.
Ianto: He’s got no family to speak of. All on his own. We just keep an eye on him, you know.
Dr. Rupesh Patanjali: Well I’m sure he appreciated it. If only there were more like… you two in the world.
Ianto: He thought we were together. Like a couple. He said, “You two.” The way he said it, was like “ah… you two.”
Jack: Well we are. Does it matter?
Ianto: Dunno. It’s all a bit new to me, that’s all.
Dr. Rupesh Patanjali: Sorry, one more {sees the extraction}… thing.
Jack: There! Oo. Now look at it. That’s not human, is it? Does that look human? No it does not. It’s just a hitchhiker he picked up. Didn’t kill him.
Ianto: Some say they’re positively beneficial. They release endorphins into the bloodstream. He died a happy man. {pulls out a plastic bin.} And I’ve got Tupperware.
Jack: And we’re very considerate. We don’t leave any mess. Thank you very much.
Ianto: We’ll just get out of your way.
Dr. Rupesh Patanjali: You’re Torchwood!
Jack: Never heard of them.
Dr. Rupesh Patanjali: There are bodies going missing.
Jack: How many?
Dr. Rupesh Patanjali: This whole city talks about you.
Jack: What bodies, where?
Dr. Rupesh Patanjali: It started two months ago. Bodies, taken down to the mortuary, then the records just stop. Five of them. Five in two months. And none of them white. One of West Indian descent, one African, three Chinese. All male.
Ianto: What was your name again?
Dr. Rupesh Patanjali: Rupesh. Rupesh Patanjali.
Jack: What do you think?
Ianto: NHS.
Jack: Yeah, too much red tape. Sorry, but good luck with it.
John Frobisher (Peter Capaldi): Just tell me it’s something small. Tell me it’s a meteorite or a shadow on the moon. Just for once, tell me it’s easy.
Colonel Oduya (Charles Abomeli): Might be nothing, sir. But it’s my job to inform the government even if it turns out to be a false alarm.
John Frobisher: Then what is it?
Colonel Oduya: Children, sir. It’s the children.
Ianto: You are going to get us killed.
Jack: No, you get killed, not me. You die like a dog. Like an ugly dog.
Gwen: Oi, Chuckle Brothers. I found something.
Jack: Yeah, well I want you to do a check on St. Helen’s Hospital, specifically the morgue.
Gwen: Well there’s a computer, do it yourself. {Ianto laughs.} Meanwhile I’ve been getting reports this morning of seventeen-odd traffic accidents happening right across the country. All the way from Glasgow to St. Ives.
Jack: Sounds about average.
Gwen: Well they all occurred between 8:40 and 8:41. Seventeen-odd traffic accidents happening at exactly the same minute and every single one of them involving children.
Ianto: That’ll be the school run.
Gwen: All of them just standing in the road. Not crossing the road. Just standing. I saw it myself, Jack. Two kids on Market Street, though. Well they just stopped.
Colonel Oduya: But the accidents are just one part of the picture. Because every other child stopped at the same time. And not just in Britain.
Ianto: Same reports from France. Fifteen road traffic accidents. All timed around 9:40. They’re an hour ahead so it was simultaneous.
Gwen: All of them with children?
Ianto: Yep, hold on. Still cross-referencing. Here we go. Reports coming in of RTAs in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Luxembourg…
Colonel Oduya: …Germany. India. Egypt. Guyana…
Ianto: …Spain, Portugal, Bosnia, Tokyo…
Colonel Oduya: …Singapore. At 8:40 GMT most of America was asleep. But even there, I’m beginning to get reports. I think we can assume it’s all of them, sir. As far as we can tell, at 8:40 this morning, every single child in the world stopped.
Gwen: Seen anything like this before, Jack?
Jack: No way. Kids.
Oduya: Until we receive further information, we don’t know if it’s extraterrestrial in origin. Though the United Nations have taken UNIT up to yellow alert just in case.
Frobisher: Bloody hell.
Oduya: You have two daughters, is that right?
Frobisher: Yeah. maybe I should get them home from school.
Oduya: I’d be careful, sir. I wouldn’t do anything to draw any attention. Right now this thing’s random enough to go unnoticed, and if anyone files a news report, we’ll be crushing it. So far we’re the only ones with the software clever enough to piece this together. Well… us and Torchwood.
Frobisher: Do you want me to talk to them? They’re a pain in the backside but they can be helpful.
Oduya: We’re on to them right now.
Jack: Of all the times for Martha Jones to go on holiday. I get Sergeant Grunt. I’m talking to a sergeant.
Gwen: Don’t you dare phone her. She’s on her honeymoon.
Ianto: You’re right. He’s back.
Jack: Ha ha! I said so.
Gwen: Who’s back?
Jack: What’s he doing?
Ianto: Waiting. Just like you said. He’s been here twenty minutes.
Jack: Persistent.
Ianto: Good sign.
Jack: Dogmatic.
Ianto: Always a plus.
Gwen: Oh Christ, never work with a couple, you two talk like twins. Now tell me who he is.
Ianto: Rupesh Patanjoli. He saw the hitchhiker. He’s the “bodies going missing” man.
Jack: Doctor Patanjoli. We need a doctor.
Gwen: What, and you just let him follow you?
Ianto: Ask about Torchwood and most people point towards the bay.
Gwen: Oh. Hm. {pause} You bastards. That’s exactly what you did to me the first time we met. Well sod that. I’m promoting myself to recruitment officer.
Ianto: She’s calling us a couple now.
Jack: What’s your problem?
Ianto: I’m just saying.
Jack: I hate the word couple.
Ianto: Me too.
Patanjali: What’s it like? Inside Torchwood? I mean, what do you do?
Gwen: Why are you so interested?
Patanjali: Well. From what I’ve heard it just sounds… I don’t know.
Gwen: Exciting?
Patanjali: I suppose.
Gwen: Glamorous?
Patanjali: No! More like, sort of…. The thing is, we’ve all seen it now the past few years. Alien life. Even though half the world’s still denying it. For me…. Okay. It’s the suicides. The past few years suicide rates have doubled. And that’s ever since the first alien. My first case—my first death—was a suicide. Do you know why she did it? ‘Cause she’d written all these letters. She’d been a Christian all her life and then alien life appears. She wrote this bit, she said, “It’s like science has won.”
Gwen: Lost her faith.
Patanjali: More than that. She said she saw her place in the universe. It was tiny. She died because she thought she was nothing.
Gwen: I went through that. Even now I get terrified. But at the same time, it is brilliant and, and beautiful. And completely bloody magic. It’s bigger, you know. It’s like the whole wide world is bigger. My life is bigger.
Jack: What’s she doing? What’s that noise?
Gwen: I don’t know.
The Children: We! We! We! We are! We are! We are coming! We are coming! We are coming!
Frobisher: Who’s got children? Find me a kid. Find me a bloody kid now.
Nurse: He won’t stop. He keeps saying the bloody thing over and over.
Gwen: Who are you? Who’s coming? {the kids suddenly return to normal}
Nurse: Are you all right?
Timothy White (Paul Cople): They’ve found me!
Gwen: Woah woah woah. Where do you think you’re going?
Patanjali: I don’t know. I could help.
Gwen: You’re bleeping.
Jack: This whole city’s come to a standstill. They’re gonna need you in A & E.
Gwen: We’ll get back to you, promise.
Patanjali: What’s in there?
Gwen: Big science fiction super base.
Mr. Dekker (Ian Gelder): 456. I warned you.
Jack: You’re working for the home office and you’ve never heard of Torchwood?
Lois Habiba (Cush Jumbo): I’m new. Started today.
Jack: Just what I need. Sorry, not your fault. You picked a hell of a day.
Dekker: I kept the original equipment. Call it nostalgia. And this morning it woke up. 8:40 and again at 10:30. Transmitting on the 456. Just five seconds in duration, but that’s enough.
Frobisher: What’s it say?
Dekker: Well I think it’s a burst of compressed information but I’m running it through the translators. Might take a bit. But the point is, the 456 was open.
Frobisher: Why would they change?
Frobisher: I’ll have to tell the Prime Minister.
Dekker: Elected officials, they just come and go. The 456 was here before him, they’ll be here long after he’s gone. So will we. The civil service, John. Cockroaches of government.
Frobisher: Have you got kids?
Dekker: Too busy working. Turns out to be a godsend.
Gwen: So every single child in the world is talking in unison. Every single child. And one man.
Jack: What the hell. Who’s he?
Gwen: Name’s Timothy White. He’s a patient in a psychiatric ward.
Rhys: So what do you think’s causing it?
Gwen: Can’t say. Top secret.
Rhys: You haven’t got a clue, do you?
Gwen: No idea.
Gwen: Oh my god. Severn Bridge. I’m going into England. Farewell forever.
Rhys: Good luck. Have you got currency?
Gwen: Yes, and I’ve had my injections. See ya!
Frobisher: We’ll have to issue a Blank Page.
Prime Minister Brian Green (Nicholas Farrell): No.
Frobisher: Then what do we do?
Prime Minister Green: I’m not having my name on this. You never told me. I was never a part of it. I never knew. Is that understood?
Frobisher: Yes sir. Then I take it that that leaves the Blank Page with me.
Jack: Good to see you. How’s things?
Alice Carter: Terrifying.
Rhiannon Davies (Katy Wix): About about Saturday?
Ianto: I’m kind of busy on Saturday.
Rhiannon: You’re a civil servant. They don’t work weekends. They invented weekends.
Rhiannon: You and me, we’ve got things to talk about.
Ianto: What things?
Rhiannon: You’ve been seen.
Jack: How are you off for money?
Alice: Don’t worry about that. You give me enough. Kind of easy, writing checks, huh?
Jack: Alice, you’re the one that asked me to stay away. I’d come around here every week if you wanted me to. Every day.
Alice: Yeah. I just can’t stand it, Dad. I look older than you do and it’s never gonna stop. I get older and older and you stay the same. One day you’re gonna be standing at my funeral looking just like you did when you were standing at mum’s. No wonder she was so furious. You make us feel old.
Alice: You are not experimenting on that boy, Dad. Not ever. That’s why I want you to stay away. Because you’re dangerous.
Rhiannon: You never tell me anything these days. Dad died, you were off. You couldn’t wait. Like I did something wrong. I didn’t… did I?
Ianto: It’s not you. It’s my job. It’s difficult. It’s… He is very handsome.
Rhiannon: No!
Ianto: Now stop it.
Rhiannon: You’re kidding me! Really though? Really? Christ almighty! He’s nice though? Is he? Is he? Oh my… I mean since when.
Ianto: It’s weird. It’s just different. It’s not men. It’s just him. It’s only him. And I don’t even know what it is really, so no broadcasting it.
Rhiannon: Oh no. Honest. I won’t say. If you want it kept quiet, I swear I won’t say a word. I promise.
Johnny: Hey hey, Gay Boy!
Gwen: You said, “We are coming.” Can you remember why? Do you know what I think it was? Aliens.
Timothy White: There’s no such thing.
Gwen: Those days have gone. I don’t mean to scare you, because you’re perfectly safe, but I think aliens are using you to speak. What do you think?
Timothy White: No such thing.
Gwen: I’ve met aliens. It’s part of my job.
White: What’s that thing?
Gwen: The technical name is a “gizmo”.
Timothy White: They told us… they said we were going to a new home.
Gwen: Who did? Who said?
Timothy White: The staff.
Gwen: A care home?
Timothy White: They drove us away for miles and miles. They were there, in the sky.
Gwen: What did they look like?
Timothy White: The light. The light. Took them.
Gwen: Took who?
Timothy White: My friends.
Gwen: But not you.
Timothy White: I ran. There was something, there were people.
Gwen: You’re all right. You’re safe now. You’re safe.
Timothy White: But they’re coming back. I’ve been smelling them for months. In the air. Long time coming.
Frobisher: You’ll find the names under “456”.
Bridget Spears (Susan Brown): And what do you want me to do? {he hands her a folder with a blank page}
Patanjali: What changed the orders?
Agent Anderson (Liz May Brice): The children.
Jack: Ianto. We’re having a baby. {to Gwen} Have you told Rhys?
Gwen: I’ve only just found out myself.
Jack: Oh, you told me before him. He is going to love that.
Ianto: Congratulations. Would now be a good time to tell you I lost the car?
Jack: Oh my God.
Ianto: It’s a bomb. There’s a a bomb inside your stomach.
Jack: I’ll come back. I always do.
The Children: We are coming back.