The Iris Affair (2025) s01e08 Episode Script

1
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.