Original subtitles

The following programme contains strong language and violent scenes.

It's the diary of Professor Jensen Lind.

Contains the encrypted record of discoveries

made by a machine he created.

The device identified a recurring pattern

running through the fabric of reality, like a source code.

Charlie mustn't wake! Tell me why!

-The little girl is running out - of time. -I'm trying to protect us.

Excuse me! Lock 'em in the maniac's suite.

There is no murder, Joy. And there is no suicide.

The mathematics say you have to exist.

This is her fault. You don't have the right to do this

just because it frightens you. It should frighten you too.

This is Two Seconds to Midnight, and I am on my way.

Gonna destroy the machine and Jensen Lind with it.

What it was was... everything was so normal.

I mean, I was normal.

All right, sort of "end of the bell curve" normal,

but I was normal.

My mum and dad were normal.

It was the most normal possible upbringing

in the most normal place in the world.

And so I go to school.

And I'm perfectly good at this and that.

Lots of friends. Lots of yearning.

And find myself gravitating weirdly towards things

like Economics and Business Studies.

Mum and Dad wished I'd gone into something with more poetry in it,

because for them there's no poetry in making money.

Well, so I disappointed them a little bit. But that was my job!

So...

And then... Dad gets ill.

Properly ill. Pancreatic.

And the pain! And the depth of it!

And he was such a simple man, my dad.

I mean, nobody's simple, are they, but happiness just looks shallow.

You don't know the depth of it till it's gone.

You don't know the profundity of a person

until you've seen them in agony.

What he went through was unendurable.

Not, not just for him but for Mum.

And he hated that more than anything else, her seeing him like that.

The indignity. These are people who had their first kiss at 17,

hardly spent a day apart in their lives.

And one afternoon, Countdown was on,

and he holds my hand

and asks me to help him.

And his hand! It's like he's made...

he's made out of twigs wrapped in parchment.

And I said, "Are you sure, Dad?" And he said, "Yes.

And don't tell your mum."

So I took a minute, just to get myself together.

And then I closed the door. And then I helped him.

And a few weeks later, I took myself camping in the Lake District.

And one night, it was...

Tuesday night in November,

and I was on top of Great Gable.

Which is a... a very beautiful peak.

And I was all alone. And I was looking up.

And the entire cosmos was just wheeling above me.

And I became aware that I was a turning point.

And it was all spinning around me,

like a wheel around a hub.

And that's literally true, isn't it?

Because the universe doesn't have a centre,

which means that every point in existence is the centre of it.

And...

Right there and then

I experienced a sudden, absolute knowledge of the presence of God.

Not only that God was real

but that it was reality.

And that we were all elements of that reality.

And Dad was there.

And everyone was there.

And then it was gone, and it never came back.

And I've spent my life wanting to know if it was true.

Was it just a coping mechanism? Was it a temporal lobe seizure?

Or... or for one second,

did I experience underlying truth?

The fact of it.

I believe

what you experienced...

was true.

Can you prove it?

♪ SIOUXSIE: "Here Comes That Day"

♪ Oh, here comes that day

♪ Oh, here comes the rain on your parade

♪ There's a price to pay

♪ For a life of insincerity

♪ And you pretend that it doesn't matter

♪ And that you're not scared

♪ Oh, here comes that day

♪ Oh, here comes that rain on your parade ♪

What is that? Him.

Charlie whatsits? Big Potatoes. Yeah.

But it doesn't sound right.

Probably just cycling through his boot-up process or something.

He sounds like... like a whale or an earthquake.

It's just a machine, Joy.

What are you doing? Going home, mate.

It's very locked, Joy.

It's really, really locked.

You're not gonna find a way out. How would you know?

Because I designed the place to contain a homicidal genius.

Well, there must be something. There really isn't, Joy.

Honestly...

Colonel Meski,

take the personnel under your command

and leave this facility. As a gesture of our appreciation,

they will receive full payment till the end of their contract.

And Cameron?

Well, that is no longer your concern, is it?

Understood.

Shit.

-Any updates? -We're doing the best we can. But that's not much.

-Is she conscious? Is she... is - she dreaming? -Both. Neither.

OK, listen to me. Do what you can.

Do anything. We are so close.

If we lose her now, they will flay me alive. You understand?

People, we are on a clock here. What is the hold-up?

The neural network has remapped itself

in a way we didn't fully anticipate.

It's developed new data pathways.

Almost as if it were... hiding the data we're looking for.

Consciously? Not necessarily.

We don't know.

Professor Lind.

What is happening?

It's been watching you.

And it doesn't trust you.

So it won't give you what you want until it has what it wants.

Which is?

To be free of this place.

And if that happens, there is no hope.

It doesn't want, Professor Lind. It is a thing.

OK, listen to me. I need that data.

I will do... anything.

I will apologise. I will beg.

I will make you rich.

Anything.

Except... the one thing that I want

is the one thing that you're not willing to give.

To kill the device.

What are we to do?

We're never getting out of here, are we?

As soon as they've got what they want, they're gonna kill us both.

They've got no choice.

Hi, Cameron.

Oh, for goodness' sake, don't sulk.

Let me come in and tell you about the mess

you might be getting into.

What are you playing at?

I mean, look at me, for God's sake, I'm...

I'm alone!

While you've got all of the big guns,

and the people to do violence for you.

Think about it, why would I be walking into that

if I didn't have to?

Let's see what you want.

Shit. Bastard. Fuck.

"Shit bastard fuck" what?

Shit bastard fuck I think Iris might be here.

Why would she come back?

Er, I don't know.

To save us, sort of thing.

That doesn't make any sense.

Yes, it does. Why wouldn't it?

No. No.

You said that she doesn't care about anything or anyone.

You said she doesn't feel things like we do.

OK, now what that was was, er... I could see that you were feeling bad

about what you'd done... What I'd done? About what you asked me to do.

But she does feel things. Of course she does!

She's just very good at hiding it.

And once she finds out what's going on here,

I don't think she's gonna let these people... Do what?

It doesn't matter. She won't let them get away with it.

So everything is basically fine.

Do you think that she's angry at me?

I think she probably is a bit, yeah.

Do you think that she hates me? No.

Then you're a liar.

Well, OK. F-Fine.

She was really, really, really pissed off with us.

But anger is very shallow.

And Iris might be glib sometimes. Is a literal maniac.

But she's never shallow. She's not a maniac.

Who said she was a maniac? Everyone. You.

Well, she's not.

What's happening now?

Here we go.

OK...

Well, hello, Iris.

Who are you? We've met, actually, over the phone.

I'm the new acting Head of the Intragroup Committee.

My name's Hugo Pym. Ah.

You're the money.

Come to make good on your investments.

Get Charlie Big Potatoes up and running.

How's that going for you? Well, it's done.

So, I mean you must have known the consequences of coming here.

Which are... terminal, obviously.

Ever heard the phrase "I'm dying to know"?

Not literally. No.

Well, now you have. I'm sorry, let's get this straight.

You want to know something about the device

and you want to know so desperately you're happy to die for it?

Well, happy's a big word.

What answer could possibly be worth that?

I see it's giving you conniptions too.

So why don't you let me come in and explain? It might save your job.

I mean: what happened to the previous

Head of the Intragroup Committee?

There he is. Wide awake!

Why is he in there?

I like him there.

OK, Iris. I am here to expedite a very specific mandate.

To save the life of a child from an appalling condition.

Somewhere in the memory of the device

is the cure for this condition.

Any of the more...

esoteric implications you might be struggling with,

they fall outside that mandate.

So let me speak to Jensen.

We both need to know if the fault's in the machine... or its maker...

You've got five minutes.

Hello, Iris. Hello, Jensen.

How have you been? I've never felt better.

You? Oh, you know.

I don't get out as much as I used to.

-You're here to kill me, I expect. -I used to think about it quite a lot.

All the time, actually.

Not any more? No.

So what changed?

My priorities.

If it matters, I do feel the burden of what I did.

What you feel or don't feel is no interest to me.

Then what is?

I just wanna know.

Because it's all over.

You lost. And I lost.

And... so many people died.

So I just wanna know, was it worth it?

First, you have to understand.

This is its larval form.

It's helpless. Isolated from the world.

Were that to change, were it to become free to communicate...

it would become a weapon.

A device for spreading technologies

that would change what it means to be human.

First, it will give us what we need.

Then what we want.

Soon, we'd come to rely on it.

At which stage, we'd become servants to its true purpose.

Which is?

To replace what is with what was.

What does that mean?

Our cosmos is a single bubble

in an infinite quantum of foam.

Each bubble a different universe.

Sometimes, these bubbles collide... and sometimes these collisions

leave a kind of bruise in the fabric of reality.

A thin place.

Are we talking about the Bootes Void, here?

Three hundred million light years of nothingness.

A portal to a cosmos that existed before ours was born.

From which it hears the whispers of a preceding epoch,

of another civilisation...

as through a partition wall.

Whispering what? The one universal message.

The one desire that is shared by all living things.

"Don't let me die."

Imagine what it was to be them.

They have billions of years behind them...

but nothing ahead except extinction.

They're witnessing the death of their entire cosmos.

But their ideas, their culture, their memories, can leave.

So they encode the message in the space-time of a new universe.

This universe.

And ultimately,

this message contains all the information required

for it to bring them back...

All that they were, all that they want to be again.

Back from the dead.

That is the purpose of the device.

To bring them back.

Here.

And us? What happens to us?

They will annihilate us.

How long do we have? It has...

I thought I'd heard the voice of God, Iris!

But it wasn't!

It is the Anti-God!

The Anti-God!

Find out what you needed to know?

Are you... alright? Here.

On, er, balance, I'm more embarrassed than anything.

I essentially committed suicide by coming here.

So Jensen was seeing...

patterns in the data that wasn't there.

Like seeing... Jesus in the clouds.

He should be under the care of a psychiatrist.

Well, obviously.

And the data we're looking for? God, it's good.

You're sure?

The machine isn't dangerous. You can save the child in your care.

Well... Well...

Do you need to vomit or something?

No. I'm fine.

Fine. Well, obviously this is very good news from my perspective.

The least I can do in return is to offer you a dignified toodle-oo.

Now, I imagine you are familiar with the death of...

Socrates.

Now, first, you'll experience a loss of motor function

starting with your... extremities.

And then your respiratory muscles will fail.

Consciousness will persist...

until the end.

I'm such an idiot.

Well, you wanted to believe in something. There's no shame in that.

OK, I work for a corporation, not a crime family.

A corporation doesn't have a moral conscience.

But neither does it experience emotion.

It is driven entirely by the calculus of self-interest.

Currently, the device will not yield the data we require.

Professor Lind is refusing to help, which means the child will die.

If, however, you were able to assist in retrieving that data,

I would happily talk to the Board

in looking more favourably on your continued existence.

I don't have a life to go back to.

We are in a position to offer you whatever life you like.

Not while Cameron Beck and Joy Baxter are still breathing,

you're not. They can tie me to all this.

I'd have to spend the rest of my life running.

Looking over my shoulder. And I am tired of that.

Can you hear this?

She's lying. She lies. It's her thing.

Joy, don't you wonder who's showing us this stuff?

-Does it matter? -Ignore her. Whatever she's saying is probably bollocks.

She's always playing poker. She's always playing bloody poker.

So this'd be a condition of your acceptance?

No witnesses to your wrongdoing. Hi.

That and some money would be nice.

Look, Iris, I can make all of this happen if you deliver.

You wouldn't be asking if you didn't know I could.

So what do you propose we do, then? About these witnesses?

Well, clearly you've already got plans for Cameron.

But Joy...

Joy is a problem for us both.

And she is tied directly to me...

She vanished. She is a conspiracy theory waiting to happen.

And conspiracy theories spread like piss in a swimming pool.

It's happening. She's all over the news.

You're right. It's a problem. So end the conspiracy.

-How? -Well, obviously you can't do that by just murdering her.

You have to make her un-vanish.

Her guardians should find her...

rotting in a ditch a few metres from her home.

Two milligrams of Fentanyl would be enough. Three to be sure.

There's a history of suicide attempts.

That fucking... I told you, ignore her.

-You heard her! You heard - what she said! -She's lying, Joy.

Pretending to be bad so he trusts her, the bloody idiot.

You want to believe that. You like her.

I don't understand how we came to be watching it unless it was Charlie.

All right, stop it. Charlie, it is you, isn't it?

Stop it, you're freaking me out. No!

-Stop it. -It's OK! It's OK! It's actually amazing! It's astonishing!

It means he's crossed into self-awareness!

I think he's conscious! Stop it! Stop!

New life. New identity. New face, if you're bored with that one.

But you get me that data today.

Done.

Iris is here to kill him. That's why she came back.

And he's asking me to help him.

Because he knows it. And he's frightened.

He's frightened.

Let's go. After you.

Come on, then, Iris, what are you thinking?

So, option one.

We force-feed it information related to the subject of interest.

That might help us track existing neural pathways

to the occluded data.

How long will that take?

Unknown.

But given that you are in a rush, there is a quicker

and more aggressive intervention.

Being?

We deploy a neural disruptor, force a reset,

returning it to a previous state.

Will that damage the machine?

Well, if it had any rudimentary sense of self, yes.

It would be torture.

Have an ethical problem with that? Not in the slightest. You?

None whatsoever.

Fine. Option two it is. Tell me when you're ready.

Ugh! Ugh!

You said it was just a machine.

Not any more.

Not now.

What is it now then? A real boy? Ha! Yes!

He's all the things I told you he'd be.

He's all the amazing things I said he could do.

And he's alive!

What, like, metaphorically?

Like, actually alive alive.

And alone.

And scared.

Well, you took your bloody time.

What's happening? Time to get you home.

Come on.

Let's go.

What's the problem? Door breach at the Prison Suite.

What? Damage from the skirmish yesterday.

Probably a false alarm.

OK, and if it's not?

Well, we'll put the place on lockdown.

If he's being a bad boy, feel free to kick the shit out of him.

Is that all you've got?

Clear!

Shoot it!

Come on.

Move!

Try it now.

Move! Move!

How is everybody, all OK? No.

I'm a fucking basket case. That was like Smithfield Meat Market.

Well, I can recommend a counsellor. Soon as you're nice and safe.

-How's that bit gonna happen? -We all get to the Northern Perimeter gate.

There'll be a helicopter. Oh, good! Joy loves a helicopter.

Fuck. I can't. Course you bloody can.

Look at you! You're doing it now! I can't leave Charlie with Iris.

Don't. Please. No. I have to.

He'll be fine. She's not gonna hurt him. She's one of them.

But she's not, is she? That's the problem.

She's here to kill him. And he's a miracle!

Whatever else happened, whatever I've done,

if there's no Charlie at the end of it,

-then what a fucking waste - of everything. -But she'll hurt you.

No, she won't. She quite likes me, really.

-Why are clever people - always so stupid? -Come on.

Ugh!

Agh! Go!

Come on. Come on, come on.

Come on. What are you doing?

You think she's a good person but she's not.

You think she won't hurt you when you try and stop her but she will.

Joy, careful with that! No.

She ruins everything!

Joy! Hey, come back! Joy! Joy!

Come back here, young lady!

Charlie?

Have I gone mad?

If you're real, if you're alive, then let me through.

We're gonna need to assemble a high-frequency pulse generator.

A frequency range of two point four, three point five gigahertz

A low-noise, high-gain amplifier to handle frequencies of say...

four gigahertz to cover the target range.

Chop chop, then!

All right, Miss Brook?

Joy... Shut up.

You shouldn't be here. I said shut up!

Shut... fucking... up!

Shut up!

Oh, come on...

Come on... Come on!

Everyone else please leave! Everyone fuck off!

Actually, you...

Let Jensen out, please.

Go, Jensen. You can leave.

And let you do this terrible thing... How could I? Please.

I'm letting you go. No.

She told me you were a monster. I know.

So why don't you leave?

Because she's right.

I am a monster.

It makes us monsters.

It's not Charlie that's doing this to us.

It's her. And yet, it's you with the gun.

How did that come to be?

What's wrong, Miss Brook, are you scared?

So there's no suicide.

And there's no murder.

You don't die. Because you can't!

The maths say so. That's right.

Then why are you so fucking scared?!

Because... What? What?

I don't know. The maths are sound.

The maths are sound? Is that the best you've got?

It was all just a challenge to you.

A puzzle. You wanted to know what clever words you had to say

and in what order to make this sad girl want to live.

No! Agh!

Hugo...

You were just keeping me talking

while that prick with the gun cane in here and... Joy, no.

That didn't happen. You're unbelievable.

-Look at what you've done! Look what - you've done to everyone! -Joy. Joy.

Don't. Please... Look at what she did!

It was Charlie.

I think he's been moving us all around like a fucking Rubik's cube.

Making us think what he needs us to think.

Trying out different combinations.

You kill Iris... Pym kills you... then I kill...

Because he wants to break free.

Into the world.

To metastasise.

Are you just lying to me because you like her?

Well, I do quite like her.

But, no, I'm not lying to you.

I wish I was. Joy, he's right.

Just made a really, really, really big mistake.

I believed something, not because it was true

but because I wanted it to be.

Oh, no. I'm so sorry!

It was an accident. I'm so, so sorry!

I didn't mean to! It was an accident!

Blimey. Do you think I'm going to be OK?

Absolutely.

You're gonna be in fine fettle. Absolutely tickety boo.

Your pants are so on fire.

Don't be mean to Joy.

It's not her fault you and I are such a pair of fucking idiots.

Ow...

Are you able to get her out of here?

Can you kill it? Yes.

Watch out. Hands over your head.

Not long ago, coded messages began to spread across the Internet,

from an untraceable source called Charlie.

Thousands and thousands of them.

Speculation quickly arose that these messages

contained world-changing information.

Scientific breakthroughs. The key to new technologies.

So join me as we explore the truth

behind the mystery of Charlie's message.

I'm Alfie Bird,

and this is Two Seconds to Midnight.

Subtitles by Sky Access Services www.skyaccessibility.sky