[Alley]
(The
big red robot is advancing on Rani when Gavin pushes it out of the way
with a rubbish bin.)
GAVIN: Come on.
(Clyde evades his yellow robot by pretending to be a mannequin in
Bonmarché.)
[Street]
RANI:
Clyde. There's this big robot thing.
CLYDE: Yeah, I saw it. Big and yellow.
GAVIN: Big and red.
CLYDE: Then there's two.
RANI: I think they've got guns in their fingers. Gavin saved me.
CLYDE: The other one nearly got me. Saved you how?
GAVIN: I chucked a bin at it.
CLYDE: That's my boy.
RANI: Seeing those robots, though, a relief, isn't it?
CLYDE: Not exactly what I was thinking, no.
RANI: Well, at least it's something we can see, something we can deal
with.
CLYDE: And how are we supposed to deal with two big robots? Chuck a few
more bins?
(Gavin spots the symbol on the computer screens.)
GAVIN: Have you seen this? What is it?
RANI: You believe us now, then? You're not scared of us?
GAVIN: You're more normal than these things. Is this their language?
CLYDE: It's more like maths. Equations.
RANI: Maybe that is their language. They're robots, what do you expect
them to speak, Spanish?
CLYDE: If it is a signal, who's it for? There's only us.
RANI: Maybe it is for us. Gavin, you don't understand this, do you?
GAVIN: Of course not. I don't know anything about this stuff.
CLYDE: Okay, which way did they go?
GAVIN: Oh, up there.
CLYDE: All right, we follow them.
GAVIN: Wait. What? They'll kill us.
RANI: We've got to track them. If they landed nearby, they might be
going back to base. You know, some sort of spaceship.
GAVIN: No, we need to get away from them.
CLYDE: The more we learn about them, the more we understand, the better
chance we've got.
RANI: You don't have to come. Wait back here for us.
GAVIN: No! What if you need saving again?
(They run around the corner.)
RANI: No sign of them.
GAVIN: That suits me.
CLYDE: Then we split up.
RANI: What? No way. We're staying together.
CLYDE: Which way first, then? They could have gone anywhere.
RANI: Okay, we need to think. Back to HQ?
CLYDE: Yeah.
[Cafe]
GAVIN:
This is HQ?
CLYDE: Okay, so there are robots. Big, alien, red and yellow robots.
But do you know what?
RANI: I'm sure we're about to find out.
CLYDE: This whole thing now makes even less sense than it did before
there were any robots.
GAVIN: It never made sense.
CLYDE: Look, lhese robots can clear everybody out of the whole planet,
except for the three of us. The leftovers. And now they've come looking
for us.
But with all their amazing power and technology, they can't find us?
RANI: Yeah, you'd think they'd have sensors or whatever, to track us
down. We could do it with the stuff in the attic, so why can't they?
GAVIN: Attic? What attic?
CLYDE: If Luke was here, he'd say look at the logic. Okay, so we've
travelled in time
RANI: Sarah Jane got taken, and She's done more time travel than
anyone.
GAVIN: Time travel? Oh, right, might have guessed.
CLYDE: Except Sarah Jane travelled through time in a phone box. We went
through a temporal fissure.
GAVIN: Shut up.
CLYDE: It's all true, so it's not that. Space travel, Gavin?
GAVIN: You've travelled in space and time? Okay, right, I'll believe
you.
RANI: We've been in the Tardis.
GAVIN: The what-dis? It would really help if you spoke English.
CLYDE: The phone box. But again, Sarah Jane has, Gavin hasn't.
RANI: What applies to us, but not to Sarah Jane?
CLYDE: Think, think. Wait a minute. There is one thing, something that
only happened to you and me.
RANI: Come on, what?
CLYDE: We got grounded by the Judoon.
GAVIN: You keep saying these really stupid words. If you're so clever,
why can't you just go out and stop the robots?
CLYDE: You and me, we were grounded. Not Sarah Jane and not Luke.
RANI: Yes! That's got to be it.
CLYDE: They slapped a ticket on us, we can't leave Earth.
RANI: So when everyone else got taken, the robots legally had to leave
us behind.
CLYDE: Because they didn't want to get in trouble with the
Judoon.
RANI: Ah, sensible robots. But you've never met any Judoon, though?
GAVIN: Why do you keep asking me this? I'm thirteen years old. I go to
school, I do my homework, I watch telly, I eat fish fingers.
I'm not important and I'm not special. I'm normal.
CLYDE: If he's right and the Judoon thing's right, then sticking with
us is the most dangerous thing he could do.
RANI: Because they're after us.
(The robots walk through the plate glass windows.)
[Cafe
kitchen]
CLYDE:
It's locked.
(Rani sonicks the back door open.)
CLYDE: Come on, come on.
[Behind
the cafe]
(Rani
sonicks the door locked.)
RANI: Gavin, go. This is not your fight.
GAVIN: Go where?
CLYDE: Just run. Get away. Hide.
RANI: Go!
(Gavin runs.)
RANI: Oh, what do we do? What do we do?
CLYDE: If I've ever let you down, I'm sorry.
(Clyde kisses Rani's cheek.)
CLYDE: Split up. I'll lead them off.
(They run off in opposite directions as the robots arrive. The red one
follows Clyde and the yellow goes after Rani. She hides in a commercial
bin until it has stomped past then runs back. Clyde gets trapped in a
dead end. The robot scans his face with its finger.)
CLYDE: I love you, Mum.
[Cafe]
RANI:
Clyde?
(The yellow robot traps Rani by the counter and scans her.)
RANI: No, please. You've never let me down.
[Dead
end]
(The
robot steps up to Clyde and makes noises.)
CLYDE: What?
[Cafe]
(The
yellow does likewise.)
RANI: What?
(It points at the screen, with the logo and symbols.)
[Dead
end]
CLYDE:
I'm not getting you, mate. No comprendo. Okay, you think about that.
I'm going to go for a walk.
(The robot follows him.)
CLYDE: Oh, you're coming too, are you?
(Meanwhile, Gavin has run back to the flat and got a rucksack.)
[Cafe]
RANI:
I do not understand you. What does that mean?
(Clyde runs in.)
RANI: Oh, Clyde!
CLYDE: Rani!
(They hug.)
RANI: They don't want to kill us.
CLYDE: But what do they want?
(The red robot joins the yellow one.)
RANI: Rani. Clyde. Ro Bots.
ROBOTS: Rani.
RANI: Yes, Rani.
ROBOTS: (pointing at Clyde.) Rani. Rani.
CLYDE: We could be here for years. Hold on. Try this.
(He picks up a newspaper and shows it to the robots.)
ROBOTS: Input. Input. Jordan love rat shock. Labour backbencher. Lady
Gaga. Aston Villa striker. Partly cloudy.
RANI: Brilliant. They've got the language. They can communicate with
us. Okay. We do not understand that.
Tell us what that means. Translate it.
(The yellow robot points at the television, and the symbols turn into
numbers. 23:02)
RANI: It's a countdown.
CLYDE: That's what it was all along?
RANI: It must be. Twenty three minutes to what?
CLYDE: I don't like countdowns. There's never anything good at the end
of a countdown, except New Year's and even that's rubbish.
I'm sorry, I'm scared. I make stupid jokes when I'm scared.
RANI: I never noticed. What does that mean?
ROBOTS: Give us air. Give us air.
(Gavin is on his bicycle.)
RANI: Why do you need our air? We can't give you the air, we need it to
breathe. And even if we could, we wouldn't.
RED ROBOT: Give us air.
CLYDE: Where is everyone?
RED ROBOT: Warp shunt. Human species suspended. Sub-dimension.
RANI: Then they're all alive?
RED ROBOT: Yes.
YELLOW ROBOT: Give us air.
CLYDE: You're robots. You don't need to breathe.
YELLOW ROBOT: No air, shunt closes. No human species return.
CLYDE: The countdown. If we don't give them our air by zero, the human
race doesn't come back. Ever.
RED ROBOT: That is correct.
CLYDE: Just when I was starting to like you.
RANI: But why?
RED ROBOT: Give us air. Bring us air.
YELLOW ROBOT: Give us the sun.
CLYDE: Oh, you want the sun, too? You don't ask for much, do
you?
ROBOTS: Give us sun and air.
RANI: Not sun and air, son and heir!
CLYDE: What are you saying?
RANI: The son and the heir. Like Prince Charles. He's the son and the
heir of the Queen.
CLYDE: Oh, you can definitely have Prince Charles. Take Camilla too, if
you want.
RED ROBOT: Give us prince.
RANI: You're not the prince, but Gavin might be. The prince of their
planet, the son and the heir. They've come to get him.
CLYDE: Gavin? What?
RANI: Gavin's dad, he ran off. What if he ran off back to their
planet?
CLYDE: What, you mean his mum, she
RANI: Mmm hmm.
CLYDE: His dad was an alien king?
YELLOW ROBOT: King is dead. King's brother is dead. Give us the son and
heir.
RANI: It's the only thing that makes sense of all this. Gavin's their
king, they've come to get him.
RED ROBOT: He is new king. He will rule. Riches and power.
YELLOW ROBOT: He will give the order to return human race.
RANI: And the prince, does he know he's the prince? Does he know about
this?
YELLOW ROBOT: Information was sent to him.
CLYDE: The energy trace last night.
RANI: He never got it. He knows nothing about this. He's the only one
that can bring everyone back. We sent him away. What have we done?
CLYDE: Gavin's place. Come on.
[Flat]
(Gavin
rests underneath a tree and looks at a photograph of himself and his
mother.)
CLYDE: Gavin?
RANI: Where is he?
(15:34)
RANI: We've got to go back down. Tell the robots we need more time.
CLYDE: No! They don't care about us, our planet, anybody.
RANI: I don't think they're evil, they're just thick.
CLYDE: How do you mean?
RANI: It's like if Prince Harry got captured abroad somewhere. The
government would send the army in to go get him.
They wouldn't care who got hurt. See, they're royal robots, protocol
and all that. The mission's gone wrong, but they don't know how to
adapt.
CLYDE: So they're programmed to bring everyone back, only when they've
got Gavin?
RANI: Yes. And that warp shunt thing's only good for another fifteen
minutes.
CLYDE: We've got to find him.
RANI: Fifteen minutes. Where do we start?
CLYDE: Where would he go? I mean, where would you go if it was you?
RANI: Somewhere I felt safe. Home.
CLYDE: I don't think he feels safe here. Like I said, this place, it's
their home, his aunt and uncle's. So where's he gone?
(They search the flat.)
RANI: Look, Gavin's mum, must be. And maybe that's his dad, the old
king.
CLYDE: Whoa, Gavin's diary.
RANI: You can't read that.
CLYDE: We've got to. It's the end of the world and all that. Nothing,
nothing. Oh, bad poems, bad poems.
Wait, what's this? Went to the circle. And again here. The circle.
What's the circle?
RANI: The Circle. Nature reserve place. We went there on a school trip,
remember.
CLYDE: Oh, the most boring day of my life.
RANI: Nature, animals, he's in to all that stuff. He's five minutes
away. We can make it. Come on!
[Outside
the block of flats]
CLYDE:
Follow us. Quickly!
[The
Circle]
(Gavin's
bicycle is by the entrance.)
CLYDE: He's here. Gavin? Look, split up. Go that way. Gavin? There he
is. Gavin!
(They trap him under the tree.)
GAVIN: What've you done? Why are they here? You told me to get away.
RANI: Gavin, we were wrong. We were wrong and you were wrong. It turns
out you're really important after all. In fact, you're the most
important person on this planet. You just didn't know it.
CLYDE: Rani, three minutes.
RANI: You've got to listen.
GAVIN: No, get off me. I told you, I'm nothing.
RED ROBOT: Where is the son and heir?
RANI: Right there.
GAVIN: They're after me, and you're helping them?
RED ROBOT: There is nobody there.
CLYDE: Are you blind? He's right there. We've got two minutes minutes.
RANI: You've got to listen to me, right? Your dad, he was an alien. An
alien king. They, they want you to be their new king.
GAVIN: I never even knew my dad.
CLYDE: Think. Tell us everything you know about your dad.
GAVIN: I don't know anything, I keep telling you this. My mum didn't
like talking about him. She said maybe when I was older.
RANI: She died before she could tell you.
ROBOTS: Where is the son and heir?
RANI: Think. They can't see you. Something is stopping them from seeing
you. Something to do with your dad.
CLYDE: Two minutes fifteen.
GAVIN: Hold on. My mum gave me this.
(A ring on his forefinger.)
GAVIN: she said my dad gave it to her, to protect me.
RANI: That must be it. To shield what you are, your alien half, to give
you a normal life. Please, Gavin, listen to us. Trust us. Just take off
that ring.
GAVIN: What are they going to do to me?
CLYDE: Gavin, please. You can save everyone. Just take off the ring.
(Gavin gives the ring to Rani. The robots scan him.)
RED ROBOT: The son and heir. Bio-damper shielded him.
CLYDE: That's why he didn't get the message last night. Send it again.
Tell him who he is.
(The red robot stomps forward and beams information about life on an
alien planet directly into Gavin's brain.)
GAVIN: It's true. It's all true. They want me. They need me. No one
ever wanted me before. I am the most important person on the planet.
CLYDE: It's just the three of us
RANI: Shush.
GAVIN: And on that planet, too. My home. My real home.
RANI: It's got to be your choice to go.
GAVIN: I've made my choice. Why would I stay here? There's a whole new
world waiting for me, halfway across the universe. My planet. So
beautiful, so peaceful.
CLYDE: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We've got one minute fifteen, Your
Highness. If you could just make the order and bring everyone back?
GAVIN: Your king commands you.
YELLOW ROBOT: Our king commands us.
GAVIN: Take me home and bring the humans back to Earth. Clyde, Rani,
thank you. Earth was never my home, not really.
But it is your home and you're lucky to have people that love you here.
Before I go, I now name you Lord Clyde and you Lady Rani.
(Gavin and the robots beam away.)
CLYDE: We've been gonged.
RANI: Lady Rani? Yeah, that'll do.
CLYDE: Thirty five seconds. Come on!
[Outside
the Circle]
(A
residential road.)
RANI: Come on, come on, bring them back.
CLYDE: We've only got ten seconds.
RANI: It was all for nothing. We were too late. What if the power
failed?
CLYDE: Come on, please.
RANI: Clyde, get out of the road!
(A car nearly drives him over. Suddenly there are people everywhere.)
RANI: Yes!
CLYDE: You know for a minute there, I thought it was just going to be
me and you. Forever.
RANI: Relief.
[Chandra
home]
(Haresh
is on the phone.)
HARESH: Gita, calm down. Give it ten more minutes, then we'll call the
police. Yes, I know. Hold on.
(Rani comes home.)
HARESH: It's her. Calm down, Gita. See you when you're back here.
Where've you been?
RANI: Oh, Dad. Yes!
HARESH: Are you okay?
RANI: I'm fine. Look at you, my dad.
HARESH: You weren't in your bed, Sarah Jane hasn't heard from you, your
Mum's gone out searching.
RANI: I'm really sorry.
HARESH: Are you sure everything's okay?
RANI: Er, yeah. Why? Is everything okay with you?
HARESH: Yes. No. Rani. An hour and a half, it just jumped. It was seven
o'clock, then suddenly it's half past eight.
RANI: Really? No. Go on, you're winding me up.
HARESH: It was on the news, we saw it. Then we couldn't find you.
RANI: Wait. Hang on, you thought this was something to do with me?
HARESH: We didn't know what to think any more. Rani, so many strange
things have happened since we've moved here.
Tell me where you were, who you were with?
RANI: I was
HARESH: Honestly, come on. I'm your dad. We don't have secrets.
RANI: Okay. Well, I
(Clyde enters, on his phone.)
RANI: I was with Clyde.
HARESH: Oh, there's a surprise.
CLYDE: Mum, I'm fine, all right? Everything's okay. I'll explain
everything later, I promise. All right, bye. Somehow. Hello, sir.
Only a sir, eh? You know, some people are lords.
HARESH: And what's that supposed to mean?
(Enter Sarah Jane, on the phone.)
SARAH JANE: It's okay, Luke, I think they're here. I'll call you later.
Oh, Clyde. Rani.
HARESH: Right, where were you?
RANI: I was helping Lord Clyde with his homework. He's got Great
Expectations too.
CLYDE: There was no signal. The network must have gone down.
SARAH JANE: Lord Clyde?
CLYDE: Tell you later. (wink)
HARESH: You scared the life out of me, Rani.
SARAH JANE: Oh, there we are, then. Panic over. I knew there'd be a
perfectly normal explanation. There always is, isn't there?
HARESH: For an hour and a half to have gone missing? I swear there's
something odd about this road. Sarah Jane, sorry to have put you out.
SARAH JANE: Oh, no problem. As long as everyone's safe and sound. Yes,
Clyde can tell me all about it. Bye, Haresh.
(Sarah Jane and Clyde leave.)
RANI: Well, I'd better go get ready for school. Love you.
HARESH: I still don't know what you see in that Langer boy.
[Attic]
SARAH
JANE: Mister Smith's fixed the official records. Gavin's moved to
Australia. I reckon the aunt and uncle will be glad to see the back of
him.
RANI: Yeah, e was happy getting away from them.
SARAH JANE: You two were brilliant. Worked it out all by
yourselves.
RANI: Only because you showed us how to. You like, trained us.
CLYDE: Yeah, you're the Commander, we're just the space cadets.
SARAH JANE: Yeah, well, I'm not sure I like that.
CLYDE: If we'd never met you, we would have been stuffed.
SARAH JANE: If you'd never met me, and got grounded by the Judoon, you
wouldn't have been in danger in the first place.
RANI: Sarah Jane, you're like the best thing that ever happened to us.
CLYDE: Yeah. When I was a kid, I thought I'd never do anything. End up
nowhere, just dossing about. I never saw all of this coming.
SARAH JANE: One day, if it all stops, I don't want you ending up alone
like I used to be.
RANI: Hey. After today I can tell you straight, you've got no idea what
it's like being alone.
SARAH JANE: Fair point. Right. I'm getting pizza menus. Reward for
saving the human race. On me.
(Sarah Jane leaves.)
CLYDE: We're not alone though, are we?
RANI: No. We've got each other. Not a bad morning's work, my lord.
(Rani gives Gavin's ring to Clyde.)
CLYDE: Indeed, my ladyship. Score one up for the hangers-on.
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