"I'm really dead, aren't I?" "This is all actually happening." "Come with me." "How do you make humans love vampires?" "You show them something worse?" "I was protected all my life and humanity fell." "What is it that you want me to do?" "Kill me." "The Old Ones are going to be here any day now." "To stop them, we might have to do terrible things." "What choice do we have?" "You're welcome." "You're welcome!" "Who's hungry?" "Do you know who I am?" "I was in the area, as they say." "What about you, Isaac Daniels?" "Why are you in the area?" "We're on our way back from seeing my father." "He's in one of the resettlement camps in London West." "Do you know what tomorrow is?" "Of course, sir." "11th April." "Ten years ago tomorrow, you killed the prime minister live on television." "He was appealing for calm." "He looked so pale." "His tie was askew." "We've got parades planned, curfews, executions, so... a curious day to go visiting relatives." "Don't you think?" "My father's sick." "There's a letter there from his medical officer, along with our identification papers and our internal travel visas." "I just wanted Zoe to see her grandfather one last time before he passes." "Zoe." "She's my daughter." "She's 11." "She was born before the pregnancy embargo." "Is she the one in the car?" "She looks exhausted, poor poppet." "It's been a long day." "Well, I won't detain you any longer." "Oh, one last question." "Your daughter..." "What colour are her eyes?" "Come, Mr Daniels." "It's hardly a complex question." "What colour are your daughter's eyes?" "You don't remember, do you?" "I daresay when the other agent handed her over with her fake papers, you looked her up and down and thought," ""Is this what all the fuss is about?" ""This is the War Child?"" "But the one thing you didn't take in was the colour of her eyes." "And, now, of course, you're thinking that you've taken too long to reply, so, instead, you're calculating the chances of fighting your way out and which of us to disable first." "You won't win, you know!" "I think we already have." "Humanity will survive somehow." "You can't kill us all." "I don't intend to." "You're delicious." "Run, Eve, run!" "Follow her at a distance." "Make sure she reaches her rendezvous safely." "She's a very precious cargo." "Be seeing you, Eve." "Why am I still here?" "Does everyone just become a ghost for a wee bit?" "No." "No, you must have unfinished business." "Something we must resolve, before you can pass over." "Well, we can poke around my business later." "First, I want to beat seven shades of shite out of Cutler." "Hey, maybe that is my unfinished business?" "Unfinished business tends to be something more life-affirming than beating someone up." "Not if you're Scottish." "She's right." "We get Cutler." "First we try the docks." "If he ain't there, we go to his office." "But we don't stop until we find him." "Um..." "I'm just going to go and sit in the van for a bit." "You're her first werewolf." "We forget." "It's a lot to process." "I ain't never felt frightening before." "Thank you." "I could've killed all those people." "I could've killed you." "Alex got the people out." "I just lured you into the van." "I can't believe I let it happen!" "I'm always dead stealthy with my transformations." "I've taken a step backwards too." "I've been drinking blood." "The first time was genuinely to gain Cutler's trust, Tom, the second wasn't." "Where are you now?" "Leo once said that we were on the outside of humanity so that we might guard it." "He made it sound like a privilege, rather than a burden." "I don't think any of us deserve that job any more." "Then we must earn it back." "And you are?" "Er, Cutler." "Nick Cutler." "There was no-one here to greet us," "Cutler, Nick Cutler." "We..." "We weren't sure when you were arriving." "It's been..." "I'm all that's left." "Everyone else ran away or got proper dead." "How?" "Werewolves." "We had a bit of an infestation." "Do you hear that, Milo?" "Your brothers have been causing a rumpus." "So..." "You're the last man standing?" "A tribute must be paid, nonetheless." "I last came to Britain in 1779." "My people took me to a village." "They'd killed all the adults and used the bodies to create a tableau of scenes from our history." "The children sang to me." "And then we made wine from their blood." "I was so touched." "What do you have for me, Cutler, Nick Cutler?" "Ooh." "Only the world." "I was planning just to take the world." "I didn't realise I needed you to give it to me." "Oh." "Something to ease the transition then." "OK." "Advances in technology have given humanity the means to coordinate and marshal their forces in a way they never could before." "But, more than that, they're so used to having the run of the place," "I don't think they'll capitulate..." "What's the matter?" "He's here." "And taking the world by force may entail decimating a significant part of our future food stocks." "But what if we could make them welcome us?" "Is that even possible?" "We have to get out of here!" "Yes." "By presenting them with something worse." "Worse than me?" "Well..." "Not worse, of course, but something less elegant, perhaps." "Werewolves." "What was that, you little fuck?" "What are we doing?" "Please, just keep moving." "Who was that guy?" "Big cheese guy?" "He's called Mr Snow." "And he's the very worst thing in the world." "Why are we running away?" "Did he see you?" "I wouldn't be here if he had!" "Why, cos he'd have killed you?" "No!" "Because he'd have told me to join him and I would." "Nice to know." "You don't understand." "Snow was one of the first." "The blood that's passed from vampire to recruit, generation after generation, you can trace it back to him." "He's in our DNA." "We have to get away from here." "But we were gonna get Cutler?" "Cutler doesn't matter any more." "Well, maybe not to you." "God's sake!" "Mr Snow is here." "That changes everything." "The longer I stay here, the more chance there is of me... of him finding me." "Last night, humanity saw the beginning of the end of its reign." "Welcome to Britain, Mr Snow." "The revolution is being televised." "Judging by this, we'd be doing them a favour." "In 2001, William chose to study geography..." "Am I missing something?" "Is he giving me a television set?" "I don't understand." "Someone must have reported it." "Because I already have a television the size of a bed sheet." "They must be suppressing it somehow." "There were witnesses!" "Witnesses to what?" "I had a werewolf," "I let him loose in a nightclub, I saw them filming him." "The world would've found out about them, they would've been terrified, they'd want us to save them." "Thanks to you, breweries the world over are safe from piss-ups." "But I've been working on this!" "My own blood." "It'll sting." "A tribute must still be paid, Cutler, Nick Cutler." "It's a question of protocol." "Or there'll be consequences." "The War Child." "The human saviour, the child from the myth - she's here." "I know where they're hiding her." "I could go there now and I could kill her for you." "No-one touches that child." "But the skin parchments say she'll destroy vampires." "That's the final piece." "Death of the Godhead." "Humanity lives." "What?" "To save humanity, she must be killed." "And, therefore, she must live." "But we didn't know." "These eyes have looked upon pharaohs and the son of the carpenter." "And, now, they must look at you... proudly showing me your idea, like a child with a handful of its own excrement." "I have never known humiliation, failure or obscurity." "How does it make you feel?" "Like coming home, I imagine." "I've already forgotten your name." "My name's Cutler." "I'll make sure you remember that!" "You're nothing but a relic." "I'll make sure you remember my name!" "Oh, yeah, meant to say." "Annie's back." "Where have you been?" "!" "To the future." "Annie, the Old Ones have arrived." "We saw them at the warehouse." "Yeah, Eve said they'd be here soon." "Eve's been here the whole time." "Grown-up Eve." "She died an adult." "She travelled back through purgatory to find me, because there was something I needed to know." "She took me into her corridor..." ""Took me into her corridor"!" "Sorry, misjudged the mood." "Who is that?" "Um, this is Alex." "THAT drank my blood." "It had to happen, I guess." "I saw it in the future, what happens to all of us." "Where I go." "How Tom dies." "And how you..." "Revert... to what I once was?" "So much worse." "Each time it tends to amplify." "But this was a momentary blip, nothing more." "What a minute..." "Baby Eve took you to the future?" "That's crackers." "Before Mitchell could bring me back from purgatory, he had to revisit moments from his past." "The places that Eve took me were moments from her past, just moments that hadn't happened to us." "Yet." "I had to see... how terrible the future is... because what I have to do to stop it is really, really hard." "Eve must die." "It's the last part of the myth." "Eve saves humanity... by dying." "Does the Nemesis..." "Whoever it is with the burn, is that who kills her?" "She is the Nemesis." "She has the burn." "I'm just... the weapon." "Right, first off, we need to get her out of here." "This is not a group decision." "I saw the future." "Me." "And Eve made it very clear that if she lives, then I'm responsible and nobody else." "You don't believe it, do you?" "I don't know!" "Everything else on that bloody parchment's come true!" "Annie." "Are you saying you might hurt Eve?" "How could you even say that to me?" "I could never, ever hurt a child!" "But if someone else tried to harm her... what would you do then?" "Jesus." "OK, look." "If we can concentrate our energies on destroying the Old Ones, perhaps we can remove Eve from the equation entirely." "We blow 'em up." "Of course, brilliant." "Do vampires die if you blow them up?" "Most things die, if you blow them up." "Sadly we can't, what with us, ha, not living in a cartoon." "Well, actually, Mr bloody Radio 4, we can." "And I'll show you how." "My team, with me." "Look, I'm still not comfortable leaving them alone together." "We could take Eve with us." "To your explosives workshop?" "!" "No way." "Uh-uh." "Eve needs protecting." "Yeah, but by me?" "!" "I'm dead." "Yet I've never met anyone so unaffected by their own mortality." "You've got one hour." "By which time, I'll have worked out whether that was a dig or not." "What do you think?" "I've been putting a bit aside every day." "It's the cooking oil?" "You can make explosives out of cooking oil?" "Well, there's a bit more to it than that." "What's all that junk you've been gathering?" "You didn't really think I was building a swimming pool in the back garden, did you?" "How long have you been planning this?" "!" "Not really been planning anything." "Just picked it up off McNair." "Always be kind and polite and have the materials to build a bomb." "So, what do we do?" "We make 'em." "Then I strap 'em to myself, walk into the vampires' nest and set 'em off." "Need to get some more bits." "Pass us the order pad, I'll write 'em down for you." "Wait a minute." "Tom... then you'll get blown up too." "Well, I don't know how to build a remote detonator." "McNair always did 'em." "I just knocked out the explosives." "Tom!" "Well, what else do we do?" "!" "Even you said, if we target the Old Ones, we take Eve out of the abrasion." "You really are one of the most remarkable people I've ever met." "All right, calm down!" "Let me come too." "Well, then, you'll cop it and all." "I've had a good innings." "What if Mr Snow tells you not to?" "Then... you must bring matters to a swift conclusion." "I didn't think you liked shaking hands?" "Well, today is a day of firsts." "And lasts." "So..." "Make-up!" "What do you use?" "Avon?" "Do they still make Avon?" "And shoes!" "Ha!" "Got to love shoes!" "What's your favourite... shoe?" "God, I love your... woolly... welly... th..." "Oh, I have no idea what I am talking about." "I've spent the last seven years with four smelly men." "I've completely forgotten how to talk to other women." "Don't worry." "Look," "I'll be out of your hair soon enough." "When Hal gets back, we're gonna go and do my... unfinished business thing and then I... climb through a magic window, or something." "Do you have any idea what it might be?" "He thinks it's about someone finding my body, giving my family closure." "What about you?" "You're still here." "What's your unfinished business?" "I think my unfinished business ship has sailed." "I think I'm here to stay." "I think..." "I think that they're scared of me." ""They"?" "They're the men with sticks and ropes." "I saw them when I died." "Thought they were evil morris dancers." "What are they?" "Your basic agents for the afterlife, but... they're all bluff." "I mean, just stay... stay frosty, and you'll be fine." "How'm I doing?" "You know, girl talk?" "Yeah." "You're doing fine." "Well, you're just like a bloke, really." "Well, a bloke with tits." "Or, to put it another way, my dad!" "Great!" "Well, hopefully, Hal and you will get your body back to your family and that'll be that." "But, um... just in case you're here for a while, why don't I teach you some of the tricks of the ghost trade, hmm?" "Come on." "I think we could both do with the distraction." "Right, nearly done!" "All we need are those two rucksacks..." "It's Tom, isn't it?" "What do you want?" "Well, I suppose a bacon sandwich is out of the question?" "Kitchen's closed, mate." "Really?" "Cos you're cooking something back there." "Is that... muriatic acid?" "And peroxide?" "Tom..." "What are you up to?" "Let's start again." "I'm Milo." "I think you saw me at the warehouse." "And I think I saw you." "We need to talk about Eve." "Now, Tom, it's very important that you answer this question." "Is she safe?" "I'm not telling you where she is." "I didn't ask you that." "I asked if she was safe." "She's with her mum." "But is it secure there?" "Do you really think she's the humans' saviour?" "Are you being sponsored to avoid answering my question?" "Whether she is or not is immaterial." "The vampires believe it." "Now, Tom, can Eve's mum protect her?" "You need to give her to us." "To me and the vampires." "Why would I do that?" "Cos once the other werewolves, the ghosts, any vampires with human sympathies, once they find out Eve's death is the key to humanity's survival, they'll fall on that house like a plague." "And even you won't be able to fight them all off." "Well, maybe I've already got a plan." "Oh, yeah." "Your home economics bomb." "Or I'll run away." "Look after her myself." "They'll find you and they'll kill you both." "What are you doing, hanging around with a load of vampires?" "Because there's nothing noble about being on the side that loses." "I bet you support Manchester United as well, don't you?" "You know, they're an incredibly skilful team..." "Do you know what vampires do to us?" "They don't do it to me." "They will." "Then I'll review the situation." "How can you look at yourself in the mirror?" "!" "There's not much call for mirrors in our bit of Bolivia." "There's one in the back." "Go and have a look, I dare you." "It's simple survival, Tom." "You find the biggest kid in the playground... and you stand next to him." "I didn't know cowards had their own school." "You have no idea what I had to do to be accepted by them." "So you can call me an opportunist, you can even call me a traitor... but never, EVER call me a coward." "Kill her, keep her, hand her over." "I'll survive whatever you do." "I'm telling you this as a... favour, from one werewolf to another." "Everyone in the world wants that baby dead." "Except the vampires." "Yes!" "Ah, you learn quickly, Skywalker." "I thank you." "Rentaghosting's still my favourite though." "Oh..." "What's the biggest thing you've ever Rentaghosted with?" "Er, hey, listen." "This is not a party trick." "This is an invaluable defensive weapon." "An armchair." "OK, I know." "But, listen, you cannot Rentaghost with a living thing." "That's the only rule." "Shit!" "That's him!" "That's the vampire that killed me." "Oh, OK." "Um..." "I want you to go upstairs and wait in one of the rooms until..." "Well, until it's all over." "And what are you going to do?" "I, um..." "I don't know." "That looks a lot easier in films." "Hey." "Didn't I kill you?" "Believe me, I'm as surprised that we're having this conversation as you are." "Ask me in." "No, I can't." "I can't." "Ask me in!" "Argh!" "Argh!" "Annie!" "Please, Annie, do something!" "Argh!" "Annie, let him." "Please, let him do this." "Who's that?" "Argh!" "Oh, my God." "OK, I don't really know what I am talking about here, but apparently the baby needs to stay alive for the vampires to do their thing, so, you hurt her and you will get struck by lightning or fall down a well." "Something." "I know." "Right, good." "What?" "The baby dies, the vampires die." "That's why I'm here." "I tried to help, but you wouldn't even let me explain." "Annie, let him do it, please!" "No!" "Please, this has to happen." "I always knew I'd make history." "Least no-one will forget me now." "You know, I..." "I should say something." "I am signing the death warrant for my entire species." "I should mark the occasion somehow." "So..." "This is how it ends..." "This is what it was all for." "No!" "Annie, no!" "Annie, what have you done?" "Oh, God, Eve!" "I'm so sorry!" "I'm so sorry!" "Shh, shh!" "I'm so sorry." "Shh, shh!" "Shh." "I'm sorry." "Sorry?" "Annie, you saved her!" "No." "No, you don't understand." "I've betrayed you all." "I'd rather let the world burn than hurt her." "I let the vampires win and I'm always gonna let them win." "You, er..." "You need to get Hal." "And find your body." "And pass on, because things are going to get very bad, very, very quickly." "Trust me." "Trust me, you don't want to be here for what happens next." "Tell me something." "Am I totally invisible?" "What are you doing?" "!" "You're supposed to be looking after Eve." "Fine." "Annie had a change of heart." "Cutler came back to kill Eve and Annie kebab-ed him." "What, Cutler's dead?" "If we nipped back to my caravan now, where my family are, would they see me?" "Cos I would really like to get a change of clothes." "I mean, I wore them for our date, which, frankly, was a mixed success." "Are you OK?" "Yes, sorry." "It's just there was a time when Cutler and I were friends." "Thin ice, Hal." "Hm?" "Thin... ice." "You can't change clothes." "Ghosts are stuck in whatever they died in." "I'm stuck like this?" "For ever?" "!" "But I look like a girl!" "OK, OK." "That's it." "We are finding my body and I am totally passing over." "The policeman said there was a bomb scare." "No mention of werewolves, no panic." "All very routine and unexciting." "Have they found my body?" "I don't understand." "Cutler wouldn't have prepared a cover story." "He was too sure his plan would work." "It's like somebody's tidying this up." "Hal." "Did you ask about my body?" "No." "I thought that might have looked a little suspicious." "They can't arrest you for asking a question." "No, but it would imply I was involved." "You were involved." "Tangentially." "I was involved tangentially." "You weren't drinking my blood "tangentially"!" "How many times are you going to bring that up?" "!" "I don't know, I mean, you're the expert." "What's the usual amount, hm?" "Anyway..." "There was no mention of a body." "Well, we should go and have a look." "You can Rentaghost in." "What about me?" "I can't just walk past the policemen." "Cutler took me in through a different door." "Come on." "Before anyone finds me, can you do something with my body, please?" "Um..." "like... take away all those tubes and stuff?" "I don't want my family to think that it was any more brutal and weird as it was." "So, um... what do we do next?" "Alert the police." "That will begin the process and, if that completes your business, your door will appear." "Shit." "They must have heard us." "Turn off the lights." "Certainly a little neater than we're used to." "Shall we say 45 seconds, gentlemen?" "Sir?" "37 seconds." "Very deft, gentlemen, very deft." "But let's not dally." "I think we've got company." "Who the hell were they?" "!" "I've no idea." "But they weren't vampires, or they'd have seen you." "You should follow them." "What if my door comes?" "I'll stall it." "I thought it was a momentary blip." "Your cafe is cleaner than most operating theatres and yet, here you are, licking congealed blood off a floor." "Is that the hold it has over you?" "That must suck spectacularly." "It's been a very long... 500 years." "Who are those men?" "Did you see where they went?" "They took me and put me in a van they had parked round the back." "What, an ambulance, a police van?" "Just a van van." "And then they drove off." "Great!" "No fucking door then?" "By the pricking of my thumbs... something wicked this way comes." "I want you to run Britain for me." "When the hurly-burly's done." "The devil showed him all the kingdoms of the world and said," ""All this I will give you if you will bow down and worship me."" "You think I'm tempting you?" "Surely the point of temptation is to prompt a decision that's not yet been made?" "What do you mean?" "What do you stay alive for?" "That endless scurrying from bad to good to bad again?" "Must've been exhausting." "And each return to bad brought with it a little flurry of deaths." "Tell me... if you admired humans so much... why did you keep inflicting your failures upon them?" "Because I think... one day, I'll win." "And if the lion wishes hard enough... perhaps one day, he'll become a lamb." "You have a whole army." "Why this interest in me?" "For time spent." "Services rendered." "Blood shed." "But it's not just that." "Having one of the Old Ones on the outside," "I don't like the aesthetic." "Then I could flee." "I've hid from you for 55 years." "I could do it again." "Back to Southend?" "With a new werewolf and ghost, like Leo and Pearl and Tom and Annie?" "Something about that format clearly appeals to you." "How did you know?" "Oh, Hal..." "You weren't hiding." "I was just giving you the afternoon off." "What are you waiting for?" "Just tell me to join you." "Why did you move to this city?" "My friend came here to die." "And you stayed?" "There was stability." "Of sorts." "And us, in time." "I don't want any part of this!" "A man who wants to stop gambling doesn't move to Las Vegas." "Never was someone so tortured for so long, so needlessly." "But it's over now." "We've come to rescue you." "As you knew we would." "Why haven't I told you to join me?" "Because I have you already." "Heart and mind." "Shh, shh, shh." "I have a condition." "I stay with her." "With you." "To make sure nothing happens to her." "You'll be given chores." "You won't like them." "You don't have to take her." "I'm not going anywhere." "A quick cuddle." "It's fine." "You're all right." "Look at her." "So soft." "So cruel." "Hail!" "Hail!" "Hail!" "Hail!" "Hail!" "Hail!" "You were right." "I stayed here because I knew you were coming." "No, Hal, don't do this." "But not to join you." "There was something else I had to do." "Tom, get the baby and get out." "It'll never end." "I'll never be free until I do this." "There's no shame in this." "I want you to know that." "Get back!" "It's just the death rattle of your humanity." "Mercy's last hurrah." "Let it fade and decay, Hal." "Fade and decay." "Untangle yourself... from its grip." "Celebrate and be glad." "For this, your brother, was dead and is alive again." "He was lost... and is found." "Give me back my fucking baby." "Get out of my way!" "You need to stay out here." "I'm so pleased to finally meet you, Annie." "Can I just say... it was an honour watching you in action." "I think you'll be a worthy guardian for this precious cargo." "What?" "Surely you must know by now that we want her kept alive?" "And who better to safeguard our future than you." "Is this a joke?" "Change of plan, that's all." "I had considered... raising her myself." "She's have been fed, worshipped, kept safe in a tower of bone." "Oh, I think we'd have got a good 80 years out of her, before she passed of her own accord." "By which time, any remaining humans would have been docile or... utterly demented." "But now I'm not so sure." "Of course, you'll have to keep the truth about her secret from any remnants of resistance." "Become furtive, lie to your friends." "Let them die to keep her alive." "But at least she'll live." "So... can we get you a taxi?" "I don't understand." "How does keeping her alive save you?" "I've often wondered that myself." "Perhaps the remaining humans wait so long for her to save them that they never build a cohesive defence." "That's the funny thing about saviours." "It can make one a little... dependent." "And what will you do... to the world?" "Pluck it apart." "Like a child with a spider." "Hal isn't a living thing." "What?" "Hal isn't a living thing." "I love you." "Where's Annie?" "Where's Eve?" "No!" "Eve?" "Eve!" "Oh!" "Oh!" "You did it, Annie!" "So, am I really here?" "That was your unfinished business." "All you had to do was save the world." "And I can't go back?" "No." "But, then, you never were one for following rules." "Go on." "They're expecting you." "Who?" "Who do you think?" "Oh, come with me!" "I want them to meet you." "I can't." "There isn't time." "Eve, you're..." "you're fading." "I never happen now." "I never grew up." "I never saw the things I saw." "That's the only me now." "I'm sorry." "Don't be!" "You saved us all." "There are things that should be seen." "And things that should remain hidden." "Last night, in that nightclub, you caught a glimpse of something you shouldn't have." "Like when Dorothy sees the wizard behind the curtain." "That wasn't your fault." "You weren't to know." "But see those things you did." "And that means you have been noticed." "By me." "And you don't want to be noticed by me." "They're not new things." "They're very, very old." "And you're not the first to see them." "So why were they a surprise?" "Why didn't you know about them years ago?" "Because, for as long as there have been creatures like that... there have been men like me." "Silent, modest men, whose job it is to keep the secret things secret." "Think of us as the domestic staff of the world." "We appear in the dead of night and sweep up the mess and bury the bodies, so the world is clean and smart for you the next day." "We don't work for these creatures." "Most of them don't know we even exist, now." "We work for you." "But men like me... are magicians too." "And, if we need to, we can make people disappear in a puff of smoke." "Do you understand what I'm saying?" "Now..." "I believe you captured the creature on your phone?" "I would very much like to have that phone." "Mr Rook!" "We haven't seen you down here in quite a while." "Busy as the veritable bee, Arthur." "Are you well?" "Fine, thank you, sir." "And the weather's on the turn, finally." "My primroses are out." "Zhivago's Nightclub, Barry." "Type one, query, types two and three." "That's a new file, isn't it, sir?" "Might be on my list of drop-offs." "I could take it for you." "Er, Barry..." "Bristol... 63..." "No." "I'm afraid not, sir." "Drop it on the trolley." "Save you the bother." "Wouldn't dream of it, Arthur." "Um..." "Aisle 209, sir." "Right you are." "Thank you, Arthur!" "Time for a cup of tea, sir?" "Another time." "I've got a five o'clock with the Secretary of State." "You know what they say, no rest for the wicked." "I wasn't ready." "You crept up on me." "You shouldn't have had your music so loud and you'd have heard us coming, wouldn't you?" "Let's start tomorrow, I need to defrost the freezer." "We've started already, mate." "Hey." "Untie me, you fucking hound, or I will tear your throat out!" "Ooh, language!" "Untie me, bitch!" "Do it!" "Now!" "Hal, shush, you're being rude now." "I'm sorry." "Alex, I'm very sorry." "It goes in cycles." "50 years, then 55, from good to bad to good to worse." "Maybe we can stop the cycle." "Force you to stay good and then you'll break it?" "Like a fever." "But I'll scream." "And I'll shout and I'll plead and I'll threaten you." "We don't understand most of what you're saying anyway." "Then why are you doing this?" "Cos you're my best mate."