The Metaphysical Engine, or What Quill Did Class

You could destroy the entire species who killed our people

and yet, oh, here we stand...in a school!

You shouldn't avenge genocide with genocide -

-that's what the Doctor said.

-Oh, the Doctor...

It isn't your decision, Quill.

Nope.

But detention is.

Hey!

You've all got an hour's detention and I've got things to do.

You're sworn to protect me.

And that's why I'm locking you in, Prince.

It's so you won't come to any harm.

< What are you going to do? Quill? Hey! Hey!

Ready.

Is that what you're wearing?

Is that what you are?

They'll stay in the classroom?

Don't want them trying to solve any mysteries while we're away.

Oh, they're such goody-two-shoes,

they'd probably stay in there without a key or a teacher.

Now, come on, are we leaving or aren't we?

Are you really so eager?

The chances of you surviving this...

I'll either end today dead or with this thing out of my skull.

Are you entirely sure about that?

The Arn knows your thoughts, yes?

Yeah.

Then it knows you want it out.

And surely the only reason it hasn't killed you already

is that you yourself don't believe that this will work.

What are you getting at?

At some point today, should everything go according to plan,

there will come a moment...

..when you start to believe.

And when that happens...?

There will be no going back.

You really will either end today dead or with your freedom.

Then let's begin.

I wish to be free.

And who, I wonder,

IS Quill when she's free?

I am war itself.

# What have I been waiting for?

# Been wasting all my time

# Watchin' my youth slip away surely is a crime?

# We go on and on, and on and on

# And on, never knowing where Never knowing where we gonna

# We gonna We gonna end up in the morning

# We go on and on, and on and on

# And on, never knowing where Never knowing where we gonna

# We gonna We gonna end up in the morning. #

What exactly are we waiting for?

Ah, there he is.

HIGH-PITCHED PULSING

You're late.

The Governors keep alien prisoners?

Does Unit know about this?

ENERGY PULSES

PULSING CEASES

Remarkable.

Who is this person?

Quill, Ballon. Ballon, Quill.

That's all either of you need to know for now.

Stay out of my way.

You stay out of mine.

What's that?

Very old technology, which, I confess,

I don't fully understand.

-DEVICE RINGS

-It's quite unstable.

Liable to kill us all at any moment.

Is that why they sent you?

Expendable?

DEVICE DINGS THEN RATTLES

Three...two...one...

BOOM! DOROTHEA GASPS

PULSING AND CRACKLING

BOOM! Aah... Oh...

LOUD THROBBING OF ENERGY

SHE GRUNTS

RATTLING AND BANGING

RINGING

CREATURE BELLOWS IN DISTANCE

SHE RETCHES

I know. Me, too.

There'll be a period of adjustment.

Oh, what the hell just happened?

Kind of atomic fuzzing.

Makes us quite nearly not exist in the traditional sense,

but it can take one to the most extraordinary places.

Gosh!

Right, well, if you ever do something like that again

without warning me,

I'll pluck the eyelids from your screaming face.

Interesting company we make.

CREATURE SHRIEKS IN DISTANCE

PLANTS SQUEAL

We didn't get buzzed atomically to the Peak District, did we?

Because, you know, there are trains for that!

Oh, my, no.

OK.

I'll just ask...

Where are we, o' wise head teacher

and mistress of nauseating space travel?

-Someplace wonderful.

-Shhh! They're near!

Who?

Can't hear anything.

She said you were meant to be a soldier.

We're flying a little blind here,

but our best zoological thinking is that you need to talk about your childhood.

-Zoological...?

-What are your first memories? Quickly!

-It feeds on those. We think it'll come hunting.

-What...?

-Your first memory!

-Shedding your quills?

-Now!

-Suckling in the nest?

I can sense them moving away - now, soldier, now!

-Quickly!

-The-the death of our mother!

Well, birth is the last thing that a Quill does, right?

She gives birth to her litter and dies.

And then, her body...

-And then you eat it, don't you?

-God!

-For nourishment?

Yes, yes! A contemptible tradition,

and medically unnecessary in modern times,

-but there are archaic cultural pressures, all right...

-That's enough.

They're coming.

CREATURES SQUAWK IN DISTANCE

HE YELLS

HE YELLS

Aah!

Yah!

Aargh!

HE YELLS OUT

-That's it?

-It's stronger than it looks.

Well, what was all the, "Aargh!"?! That's the size of a kitten.

Are kittens dangerous?

Only if you insult their worshippers online.

-Are we safe?

-Are you kidding me?

-We're safe, it's dead.

-For... Enough!

YELLS: Where are we,

who is this Little Lord Growls-A-Lot

and why are we all so bothered that he just killed a kitten?!

No.

Oh, yes.

That is impossible.

Indeed. We are in the birthing grounds of the Arn.

We need the pheromones of a fresh specimen

to calm the one in your head enough for the procedure.

What procedure?

No... No, the Arn are a grown life form,

they're genetically modified.

They don't live in some forest.

Those are the facts that everyone knows to be true

but it's not, apparently, what the Arn believe.

What the Arn believe?

HE GROANS

DEVICE CLICKS

-DOROTHEA SIGHS

-All right.

This, as best we can tell, is a metaphysical engine.

Metaphysics? Metaphysics aren't real, it's just thought.

Thought, yes.

Everything in the universe is conserved,

everything, even belief.

Get millions of creatures believing something strongly enough

for long enough and even space responds.

You are quite right that the Arn weren't exactly wild creatures,

but parts of them were

and they dream like us of what comes after.

I'm sorry, are you actually saying that we are stood...

..in Arn heaven?

-Don't be ridiculous.

-Good, because...

We're in the idea of it.

The belief itself, making it so.

You are absolutely in...

It just moved.

That's the first time it's ever moved without hurting.

You see?

It believes.

All right...

DEVICE CLICKS AND RATTLES

How many times have you travelled on this...device?

Headmistress?

Headmistress!

This is my first actual time, though we've run several simulations.

-QUILL AND BALLON:

-Your first?!

I've been fully briefed, I know what I'm doing...

ALL YELL

BALLON GROANS

OK, so, basically, we're in the hands of a learner driver.

You're in the hands of the only one of us who's done the research

on how to stay alive while using it.

I mean, this is like a geek vomited.

BANGING

The Governors study the tears in space and time at Coal Hill.

There are those who think the tears aren't accidental,

that they were placed there to provide for those who will listen.

Coal Hill provides, it always provides.

And what do you get out of this, then?

-My freedom.

-And who is Ballon when he is free, I wonder?

Some kind of hunter, I reckon.

Oh, no-no, my dear - he's your surgeon.

You can't get an Arn out through surgery.

You can if the surgeon is a shape-shifter.

That's the theory, anyway.

Shape-shifter, eh? I've heard of you on Earth.

-Yeah, you're a Zygoat.

-I am a Law...

Who was posing as a Zygon.

One shape-shifter posing as another, eh?

-That's meta.

-It is a fine way to hide, Zygons are protected on Earth.

So what did you do?

You are on this trip as well, Quill.

What did YOU do?

I'm a victim of circumstance.

-As am I.

-Yes.

I'm sure the families of the people you both murdered

would be happy to consider themselves "a circumstance".

-No-one was supposed to die.

-RINGING

BALLON YELLS

Remember what I promised you.

Ask yourself, what would being unfrozen mean to you?

Everything!

-But why?

-ALL YELL

BOOM! ALL YELL

-QUILL GROANS

-Uh...

DOROTHEA GASPS AND PANTS

No!

-This isn't real.

-Does no-one listen to the posh any more?

No, it is not real, but, yes, we are really here.

-Oh, God... WHERE?!

-This is Law...

Law hell, more or less.

Isn't it amazing?

Surprisingly quiet, for hell.

An awful, awful quiet.

We are creatures that flow.

We live in the constant flow.

And this is the opposite of flowing.

A punishment I already suffer.

You said the second step was the retrieval of the key.

CREATURE ROARS

No.

-ROARING

-No!

This seems cruel, even for you.

His hands need to shift to get into your brain.

For that, I need a key to unlock them.

But it is impossible to reverse the freezing of a shape-shifter...

Except in an impossible place.

CREATURE ROARS

So, what's this key then?

It's the blood of our god.

CREATURE ROARS

What, we're supposed to get the blood of a god?!

-That's the theory!

-You just say theory again, I dare you!

-CREATURE GROWLS

-Get up!

You'll have to do it alone. There is a special knife...

Whoa! No... No, no, I can't use knives, remember?

That is the whole point of this trip!

Oh. Oh, dear, that was an oversight.

CREATURE ROARS

What can I do?

Soldier, tell me what I need to do!

DOROTHEA PANTS

Listen to me.

Listen to me. In Quill, we call this the first fear.

This is the one you always go back to and the one you can't face,

and everyone has it, everyone, even Quill.

-Law, we call it cowardice.

-No, that is not true.

A soldier without fear is useless, inefficient.

They win battles, but they lose wars.

CREATURE ROARS

-How can we overcome it?

-Hopefully quickly.

CREATURE ROARS

Yeah, we'll need that.

Come on!

Oh!

Oh, I don't even have a shot!

Hold the knife out.

Hold it out! SHE PANTS

I will be your arms, soldier!

BOTH YELL

CREATURE GROWLS

Medical degradation seems at least 50% faster than originally...

-< Aah!

-..theorised.

Request further information from the...

CREATURE GROWLS

This won't look good on the report.

-Oh!

-DOROTHEA PANTS

-How?

-It thought we were already statues!

-Ah...

-So, is that how you Law see the rest of us then?

Like we're pretty much already dead?

Yes.

Now we can unfreeze your hands.

BALLON PANTS

It's, erm...

..been too long since I've fought side-by-side with an actual soldier.

Yes.

For me, too.

Oh, right! Yeah, sure, you're welcome(!)

YELLS: Aah!

That hurt!

You're starting to believe this might work,

which means this really is your last chance to turn back.

From here on, there is only death or freedom.

An unfree life isn't a life.

So, come on...

..where to next?

You wouldn't believe me.

BOOM! LOUD THROBBING OF ENERGY

Will you just stop doing that?!

Whoa!

I don't know how long we're going to last.

-What?

-Why? How far is where we're going?

What, you...? You have to check your notes?

How...? How did you even get picked for this?!

I volunteered.

I had to fight to convince the Governors

that we should continue at all.

No-one else was all that committed to saving you, Quill.

Is that such a surprise?

No, not really.

Now, if you'll just let me read my notes.

The Arn sits on your midbrain,

yet I must only see the pathway there.

And as all Quill brains were destroyed on Rhodia

and you're using yours at the moment...

Where are you going to find a Quill brain?

No, our afterlife myth, that died out, like, 1,000 years ago!

Let us hope not, or this will be a very short trip.

RINGING Oh!

SHE YELLS Oh...

Dammit!

So, where is this exactly?

QUILL LAUGHS

Well, our information isn't omniscient, but if our theory...

Oh, for... If you say theory again, I swear to this guy's god, I'm...

It is correct. This is where the Quill goddess is about to be born.

-QUILL CHUCKLES

-So THIS is YOUR heaven?

Oh, right! Well, excuse me, statue boy...

but we only believed in all this before we realised

that the only thing out there protecting us was us.

Huh! No goddess in a Quill nest looking out for our best interest!

It's so sad you think that's what belief is.

-Yes.

-And do I really need to do to you two

what I did to those very nice people

who no longer come to my front door?

RUMBLING

What's happening?

Oh, for...

OK, so this is a Quill nest.

This is the first Quill nest, allegedly.

The Quill goddess is supposed to...

..emerge from the underworld...

Where she has been trapped.

Isn't that correct?

And she rises with...

Fury and venom, according to the text we have.

Oh, how exciting!

Yeah, I beginning to think you don't know as much about my people as you think you do.

RUMBLING GROWS STRONGER

-Oh!

-Oh!

LOW GROWL

LOUD THUMP

Well...

Get to it.

GODDESS ROARS

GODDESS HISSES AND SNARLS

HE YELLS

Hey!

QUILL GRUNTS

Ugh!

GODDESS GROWLS

QUILL GROANS

You don't deserve my belief!

Do you know how oppressed Quill have been for centuries?

We died!

And died again! And where were you?

I should rip your head off for even daring to exist!

Do it!

I was a soldier and you weren't there to stop them taking that from me, and where am I now, hey?

QUILL PANTS

GODDESS HISSES

GODDESS EMITS A LOW GROWL

What? What are you saying...?

BALLON YELLS, GODDESS SHRIEKS

No! No, stop!

No! Stop!

BALLON YELLS, GODDESS REELS IN PAIN

GODDESS GROANS

BALLON PANTS

No! I... I think she was about to speak to...!

I could have been the first Quill ever...!

Would you REALLY want to hear what your god would say?

Well, as a matter of fact, yeah!

-If it meant...

-Yes!

-..that YOU would have to believe in her?

If it meant that you would have to worship her?

That you would have to change everything you think about yourself,

about your universe?

-But you believe!

-I always have.

It's part of who I am.

Your self has already formed.

BALLON PANTS

Yeah, well, we didn't decapitate YOUR god, did we?

No, we just took a blood sample.

If she's right, if this is a metaphysical place,

your goddess will rise again.

She will always be born.

All gods are.

I thought perhaps... she was your first fear.

I thought perhaps you needed the arm of a... A fellow soldier.

DOROTHEA GROANS

SHE UNZIPS BAG

-Ugh!

-Why don't you just use that blood to unfreeze yourself?

There's not nearly enough.

I don't see why you...

Well, we... We start in the nest, we end in the nest, it's...

It's our way.

But this isn't even your real goddess.

Yeah, well, that wasn't your real devil,

but you were still petrified of it.

Because it could still freeze me for ever in one shape.

It's a fate worse than your death.

The fate you're in now.

I was caught as I shifted.

I'm neither one thing nor the other.

Their punishment was doubly unjust.

You killed people.

HE SIGHS

Look, my planet was attacked by an enemy we could not hope to fight.

I lost everything.

The Law I loved.

The rest of my family, scattered.

We'd intended to meet on Earth,

to seek sanctuary there together, but...

..when I arrived...

..I found neither them...

..nor any form of welcome.

We have a poet on Earth and she says...

no-one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark.

I did not mean for anyone to die.

I'd just arrived.

I was starving.

It was the home of a family.

When they caught me, "Monster," they said.

"Freak," they said.

They beat me. They would have beaten me to death.

-So you killed...?

-I did not mean to.

I'd heard of Unit -

all arriving refugees do.

I thought I'd be arrested, but the Governors got to me first...

-..and ruined me.

-But now they're setting you free.

If I can get that thing out of your head without your death...

Sounds cheering(!)

I...lost the Quill I loved.

He was...killed...

in the destruction of your planet?

No.

No, he was killed in the war with my enemies.

He died in the same battle that they arrested me.

Took him from me.

And took my will...

And you know what they did next?

The worst thing they did?

Made me used to it.

I shout my power.

I shout my toughness and my danger, but I'm shouting it to children.

It's like they just...

They just amputated the essential part of who I was.

(Who I am.)

You were frozen, too.

I'm sorry.

I don't want your pity.

I do not offer you pity.

I offer you shared sorrow.

What a soldier would ask next is...

how do I make them pay?

Yeah, and that is part of my problem...

..cos they've gone...

..all of them,

without being made to pay for their crime.

All but one.

SHE INHALES

You OK?

No.

No, I don't think I am.

I think I just started to believe that this might work.

DOROTHEA STIRS

What hap...?

-You got its head?

-HER head.

-And, yes.

-Oh...

-What's wrong?

It's the Arn -

-it's fighting her.

-Then we're out of time.

DEVICE CLICKS

-ALL:

-Oh!

QUILL PANTS

Oh, good...my own personal hell(!)

No... No, no, this is inappropriate.

It's not sterile, it's not antiseptic...!

But it is a place I can control.

I suggest you get started quickly.

No!

MUSIC STANDS CLANG AND RATTLE

Oh, are you not staying?

-To watch me die?

-The mission didn't go as planned, I'll have to explain.

Ah, yes, your mysterious Governors.

SHE SHRIEKS

QUILL MOANS AND PANTS

There are bigger things in the universe than this life,

hidden things we can't even imagine,

and if a place can be created from belief, if a goddess...

Then what else might you be able to make...

..if you just believe hard enough?

Try not to die.

You are...

intriguing.

Pheromones of Arn...

..the blood of my god...

..and a Quill brain.

It works...

..in theory.

-I will shift my finger to avoid nerves.

-Huh...?

There will be some pain as the Arn comes out.

-How much pain?

-Would you turn back now if you knew?

No.

Ah...

SHE INHALES DEEPLY

This will be horrible.

SHE GASPS

Ah...

I've found the Arn. You have to be very still.

It's releasing.

Here it comes.

ARN SQUEALS Aah!

Get it out, get it out!

BALLON YELLS

SHE SCREAMS

QUILL GROANS IN PAIN

Quill, Quill! Look at me. Look at me.

We're about to do a sacred thing.

Oh, great(!) Just do it quick!

Please! SHE SCREAMS

SHE PANTS

(How can I still see?)

How do I still have my eye? I...

The blood of my devil, as you call him,

allowed me to manipulate your flesh.

Though, you are scarred.

Oh, yeah.

Well...

What good is a soldier without a scar?

HE EXHALES

SHE PANTS

SHE GRUNTS

SHE YELLS

SHE PANTS

Quill celebrate victory in battle in a certain way.

-HE CHUCKLES

-All species say that.

All are lying.

It has been too long since I was close to someone.

Oh, don't worry about it, the last person I kissed was a robot.

Mmm...

SHE PANTS

It's made me course, unshifting...

..like this form I wear.

Yeah, we do wear forms...

..you and I, don't we?

All I want is to be free.

(I want that, too.)

A place you recognise, perhaps?

No, where are we? Where's the school gone?

You were never there, I'm afraid.

A hologram.

We had to come to here,

but the chances of you reacting badly were rather high.

This is the closest to Rhodian soil we could find,

increased the survival chances of the surgery by nearly 4%.

We're in the Cabinet of Souls?

We're in a cabinet?

Oh, yeah, it's... It's way bigger on the inside.

And so beautiful.

Wish I hadn't had to leave.

What?

Another hologram, I'm afraid.

The reliquary really is dying.

I had to come home or there was a chance I would never get back.

Though I did send you back a present.

Go ahead, open it.

-QUILL GASPS

-A Quill needs her gun.

Uh-uh, not yet, I'm afraid.

You have a mighty dilemma facing you - both of you.

Ever Upward Reach calculated an 85% chance only one of you

would survive the trip.

You've already beaten some pretty long odds, but, unfortunately,

that ends now.

Despite my arguing, the Governors have voted.

There's only enough energy in the reliquary for one of you to return.

If it's any comfort, the decision at least is yours.

What, you're leaving one of us here to die?!

You're breaking your word.

So we're supposed to, what? Agree to die so the other lives?

It's not what I wanted, I assure you.

In another life, you and I could have been great friends, Miss Quill.

Oh, I'd rather swim in my own vomit.

Regardless,

the little we know of both your species

suggests a fight to the death.

But, again, up to you.

I just saved her life...

..I will not now take it.

-Ditto.

-There's something else I need to tell you.

It turns out there is another Law on Earth - your niece.

Wait.

She's alive.

No.

This is a lie. I never sensed another Law.

I have been assured that she is alive and well and waiting for you,

if you return.

No. We will not fight each other.

You will never be free unless you do!

Never return from this living death!

Never see your family again!

And YOU, a Quill, with the greatest weapon her people ever made,

enough to force a certain Prince to wipe the Shadow Kin

from the grinning, smirking face of the universe.

You say you are war itself, now you actually can be.

I have been told to say the gun is set for open firing, but don't delay.

Time passes differently here.

You may awake tomorrow and find you are already old.

Don't.

SHE GRUNTS

I have been imprisoned for too long.

-Yes, so have I.

-My family...

-If that's even true.

-Is that not a risk you would take yourself?

-Ooh!

-Aah!

It's a risk I would take for a fellow soldier.

-Yah!

-Aah!

We just fought side-by-side.

-I know.

-If you have no loyalty on the battlefield...

I know!

HE GROWLS

SHE GRUNTS

But if a soldier isn't fighting for the safety of his family...

HE GROANS, SHE GRUNTS

..why does he fight at all?

SHE GRUNTS

I'm sorry.

SHE GROANS

That's a sorrow I share.

HE GRUNTS

Aah! Stop.

Stop.

So, you really believe she's going to set you free.

I have to take that chance.

Look away.

I will not.

Do it.

Forgive me.

Oh, I do.

SCREAMS: No!

SHE SOBS

(She did it, she set the gun.)

No!

Ah, now you come.

Ha! You come to see me grieve!

SHE GRUNTS

SHE YELLS

"Time passes differently here."

How much of my life am I losing?

You just keep taking.

Is that all you ever did?

But I fought you and I will still fight you.

Because you know what?

I am free.

I am free

and you are not the last.

There is one of you still living.

Show me the way out.

'I suffered in your home world...

'..and I have suffered in your heaven,

'but I will suffer no more.

'No more!

'Because I...

'I am war itself!'

SHOUTING

STUDENTS SHOUT AND PLEAD

You can't even handle detention right.

SHE SIGHS

-How can...? How can you...?

-I'm in no mood to talk.

I'm... I'm gone!

Aren't you going to go after him?

-No!

-But if the rope was making us angry...

-You'll understand when you get a boyfriend.

-And there it is!

-SHE SIGHS

-Why do we rely on other people?

How can you fire a gun?

You do not want to talk to me after the day I've had.

Day?

You've only been gone 45 minutes.

Really?

Seemed like a lifetime.

What's happened to your eye

-and your hair?

-And how can you fire a gun?

I just saved you, didn't I?

Isn't that my punishment?

-But...

-Yeah, well, consider it my last favour, Prince.

Last?

-It's...

-It's the Arn.

I'm no longer your slave, Prince.

I have my free will back...

..and I have my gun.

GUN CHARGES

And things...

Yeah, things are going to change around here.

# Live fast, die young Bad girls do it well

# Live fast, die young Bad girls do it well... #

No.

N-n-no, it can't be.

Oh.

'Look at you and your little circle...

'..pretending to be heroes who never expected to pay a price,

'and you will keep paying

'till you've lost yourself.'

'And the war begins again...'

..today.