Blood and mercury seep across the screen and congeal in the caption: "LATE NIGHT BACCARA". The white limbo of the background then flares through the lettering and we white out again.

Over this is the ominous "da da da der" of the Late Night Poker buffer stab.

Moderately cosy, tall square room, with a large, frosted, glass dome roof, and a large stained-glass window (light-boxed). Despite the windows, the lighting should be skilfully subdued; the overhead dome provides moody table light, for there at the centre of the room is a decagonal, wood-framed, green-baized table, with a peripheral glass counter. One apex of the decagon is levelled off, so creating eight conventional sides and a ninth longer side. There are nine comfortable seats around the table, and each counter has a frosted frame to hold two playing-cards, except the wider ninth side which is fully baized.

The room is just big enough to allow us some occasional crane-based trackery. The walls are of dark wood, and are livened up by dark red velvet curtains. The floor is black and white zig-zags, a la Lynch.

We crane a bit as:

Adjoining this set is a long gallery based on that a Cragside. But there's no art, just architecture. This corridor is behind the long side of the table. We will be shooting from this side for the most part. In most cases, unless otherwise made clear, this corridor will be obscured by red velvet curtains. But now, the curtains pull open of their own accord, to reveal, at the far end of the white-lit hallway:

JIM_SD, wearing full snooker outfit. He walks steadily towards our room.

BOND, wearing his tuxedo.

JIM_SP is dressed as a championship-winning Alex Higgins.

LUCY appears, wearing a red satin dress with a rucked neckline and low back. She has a well-fitted Veronica Lake wig, and a black shawl. Also a decent amount of jewellery.

INANNA now, wearing her established black outfit and accessories.

JIM_AH wearing a tweedy suit and geography-teacher's tie, plus lightly tinted glasses.

ALEX in a casual black suit, with long thin black tie, and usual mirrored glasses.

JIM_DT is still dressed like a tramp.

Shot of the eight players in their seats.

Each player has a print-newspaper full of chips.

JIM_DT has a conker as a card-guard, and drinks from a brown paper bag. His paper is the Daily Sport.
ALEX is drinking rum. His paper is the Sun.
JIM_AH is drinking whisky. His paper is the Times.
INANNA has a black and white layered cocktail. Her paper is the Daily Mirror.
LUCY is smoking a cigarette with a long holder. She is drinking blood from a spirit vial. Her paper is the Sheffield Star.
JIM_SP is smoking, with a shorter holder. He is drinking brandy. His paper is the Manchester Guardian.
BOND is smoking silk cut, and drinking from a bottle of Johnny Walker. His paper is the Telegraph.
JIM_SD is drinking cider. His paper is the Independent.
 
 

Shot of THOMAS and MARINA (Kremser); her sat, him stood, by the dealing position on the long side of the table. Aqua-Marina plays over for a measure.

Murmurs of agreement.

MARINA cuts a pack of cards to reveal a credit-card CD, which she then feeds into a small slot at the very centre of the table. The glint of the CD should make the artefact understandable to even those who've never seen such a novel shape of CD before. On the CD, in black marker, is written "Baccara". Once inserted, we hear the click and whirr of an engaging CD player. Then: Music.

Subdued disco-funk blungs from some Rhodesian machinery. Then a flurry of strings introduces some breathy umming vocals. Everyone at the table is liking what they hear.

The beat kicks in. The stained-glass light box window proves to be disco-ready, and the dome is in fact capable of simulating a giant glitterball.

And then the curtains to the corridor whip open to reveal, at the near end of a disco-ed up catwalk, the lovely Spanish female duo: BACCARA. One wears a black outfit. The other wears white. One or the other of them, and occasionally both, sing.

They enter the room and make their way around the players, like pros. Meanwhile, the players move cards about the place.
ALEX always seems to have spades in his hand.

After every move, the player in question removes an accessory or item of clothing.

JIM_SP pulls out a black-glazed monocle, cleans it and puts it on.

One of BACCARA takes JIM_SP's monocle away.

Towards the end of that, on an odd beat in the music, BOND sustains a heart attack. Fortunately, he regenerates during the following:

BOND has regenerated into NIGEL (Nigel Bond). He still wears what remains of his snooker-friendly wedding costume.

Meanwhile, LUCY and INANNA, in fierce competition, have developed an obvious dislike for each other.

The curtains part again and the duo leave along the corridor, still singing.

The curtains close again.

By now all eight players are completely naked.

The CD ejects into the air and is caught by MARINA.

The Late Night Poker stab sounds again and we...

FX:

All frames are converged. By way of a special effect, the latticework from BOTTOM RIGHT unravels across the screen as a single flexible mesh to create a large board of elongated white rhombi on a black background. Ultimately, after a handful of pleasing transformations, it looks like this:

The above arrangement tilts away as a single structure. This is the Vortex. It is made of shimmering white starlight energy.

At each side materialises a large anchor of matter: on the left, a mock-up of the no-smoking side of the Cask & Cutler PH... a sort of old woman's sitting room thing with a fireplace. On the right, the zjunging Tardis console with the Crystal of Enderon rising up and down.

INT - SITTING ROOM / VORTEX

GALENA, JASON, JIM_SD, SIDDOR, PICHOLL, LEON, ALEX, JIM_SP, NIGEL, JIM_DT, JOE, ZOE, JIM_AH and LUCY materialise.

They look around, confused.

To their left, in a large pot, is a pineapple tree. ALAN enters from the right, rubbing his hands.

The pineapple vibrates. It is PERCY:

LEON and ALEX exchange glances.

ALAN walks up to PERCY, and puts an affectionate arm around her pot.

ANT enters from stage left.

LEON discretely checks his watch-face that he keeps in his pocket. He then grimaces at GALENA who looks sheepish.

ANT places a quality glass halo over PERCY. The halo hovers in place. And PERCY gives a satisfied

ANT and ALEX bow before their Empress.

He whistles some Shostakovich and casually steps onto one of the first three nodes.

We see the Vortex as some colourful 8-bit graphics, flashing away in Mode 5 at the opposite end of the grid. ALAN crouches over a control panel in front of PERCY, and confers conspiratorially.

The screen folds down to just take up the BOTTOM frames. The TOP frames are also combined.
 

TOP LEFT	BOTTOM LEFT	BOTTOM RIGHT	TOP RIGHT
EXT - SIWARD'S HILL, YORK - NIGHT A light moaning can be heard as we establish this hill, with a military-looking water tower on top. We move about and see that drilled onto the wall with steel bolts are three naked figures: HANNAH (Annabel Giles), STEW and STEPH (Sarah Lancashire). All three figures seem to be dead, but the light moaning suggests that at least one of them is still hanging on.	LEON picks his way across the Vortex. Ad lib.		(conjoined with TOP LEFT)
The three crucified are flanked by MOODY and SPILLAINE. SPILLAINE checks his watch.	He eventually makes it across. LEON That was fun. He touches the control panel and dematerialsies. LEON Ooh...
Two cowled figures approach MOODY and SPILLAINE. They have a whispered conversation, and money is exchanged between the right hand figure and SPILLAINE. The right hand figure turns around and pulls down his cowl, looking down from the hill. It is LEON. The other figure pulls out a large cordless drill from his cloak. It has an adaption for unbolting large bolts. He gives it a burst.	ALEX now steps onto the grid.
He locks the tool onto the bolt through STEW's right wrist and drills. The bolt unscrews and pops out of the wall, talking STEW's arm with it. The figure pulls back his hood and wipes sweat from his brow. It is ALEX.	He too makes it across. He touches base and dematerialises.
ALEX unbolts STEW's other arm, with LEON supporting STEW's floppy torso. Then ALEX unbolts STEW's feet.	Next it's JIM_SD. He has a near miss.
	But he comes through and dematerialises.
This frame breaks away to: INT - PRISON CELL - NIGHT JIM_SD materialises in the cells in Sheffield. They seem in a bit of a state. TOMY, in the next cell, grins at JIM_SD. Then TOMY eats a spider he's got in his hand.	PICHOLL now. Very confident after what he has seen.		With the TOP LEFT breaking away, this frame continues the action. ALEX and LEON lug STEW down from the wall.
JIM_SD checks the cell door. It is locked. He slumps to the floor.	PICHOLL steps onto the Vortex and is blasted into atoms.		They roll him down the hill and he dematerialises.
EXT - PEACE GARDENS - APOCALYPSE The remains of the Peace Gardens, with a big hole in the middle. The Novotel comes sweeping along Pinstone Street and makes an impromptu crash-landing in the hollow.	Next up is a tentative JIM_DT.		They follow the hill down to a puddle and step in, dematerialising themselves.
The Wedding Cake flies over and fires a last volley at the Novotel saucer. The Novotel saucer explodes.			MOODY and SPILLAINE are looking in the purse of money they've got. SPILLAINE tips it out and counts. SPILLAINE Wow. Thirty denarii. MOODY Truly this was the son of God.
MIX TO: TOP frames combined: INT - PEACE GARDENS CRYPT INANNA's corpse still hangs splayed out backwards like the man in the harp in the third panel of Garden of Earthly Delights. Only she's on a pitchfork. The fork is lodged in the remains of the helical wooden lattice. But the lattice column's contents are not there, and nor is the control console. The column is an empty broken shell. Raining in is the debris of the Novotel saucer, and with it falls blood and gore and bits that are recognisably parts of STEW's body. Several bits of STEW-gore fall into INANNA's gaping mouth. Spasmodic peristalsis in INANNA's neck. INANNA glows a golden glow. INANNA begins to wretch in the rain of falling flame, debris and godflesh. It's also raining. Enter from the right, ALEX and LEON, dragging a prone but cleaned off STEW. STEW's paws and head are bandaged and he wears the white dress of a God. He is pretty rigid from his crucifixion.  LEON wears his brown EDS uniform while ALEX is in the dinner-jacket element of his penguin outfit. STEW looks up. LEON Just in time for communion.	Making it across, JIM_DT offers words of encouragement to ZOE who goes next.		MIX TO: TOP frames combined: INT - PEACE GARDENS CRYPT (see TOP LEFT)
STEW I feel numb. ALEX Still? STEW Is she going to be the new Lucy then? ALEX She and Omra will rotate stewardship of the new Utopia. STEW Oh. You've got it all worked out, haven't you. LEON Well it's more a work in progress.	ZOE makes it, to the disappointment of ANT and ALEX. JOE next.
INANNA convulses, clutching her stomach. She lets out a terrifying squeal. LEON Should we get her down, do you think? ALEX Did we better feed her a bit more Stew first? He picks up an arm. LEON I think that's one of the Toshists. ALEX picks up another bit of arm. LEON Looks more like it.	JOE gets vapourised. JIM_DT holds ZOE. They move to the console and dematerialise.
FADE & CUT TO: VORTEX SET POV from JIM_AH. He looks about and sees it's his turn to cross the Vortex. He looks back at LUCY and then steps out. As this is a POV we cannot see the Vortex sprite. JIM_AH takes his steps deliberately.	FADE & CUT TO: INT - PEACE GARDEN CRYPT POV from LEON. He looks at ALEX who is harvesting bits of the Novotel STEW from the floor. He looks at the other STEW propped up, rigidly, against the wall. LEON jumps up and tugs INANNA's dress, trying to yank her down. INANNA swings and then comes crashing down. LEON leaps away, and looks over at ALEX. ALEX looks back, hearing the crashing INANNA. LEON checks that INANNA is not too badly hurt by her impact with earth.	FADE & CUT TO: EXT - CROISSANT - OVERCAST POV from ALEX. He looks along the side of the WEDDING CAKE which has crashlanded into the moorland. Beyond are the ruins and dead sheep of the city.  Pan scan of the scene, right.   ATOO enters from the right. The silver Tardis then materialises with a zjungy zjungy noise, to the left of shot, in ATOO's line of approach. ATOO drives into the side of the Tardis, whirrs and chirps as the robot rebounds.	FADE & CUT TO: INT - PEACE GARDEN CRYPT POV from a disembodied eye which lies on the floor looking at LEON, ALEX and STEW. STEW has been propped, rigidly, against the wall. LEON is jumping and tugging at INANNA's dress, trying to yank her down. The pitchfork yaws in its mooring, and INANNA comes crashing down. LEON leaps away out of the way. LEON looks over at ALEX (oos). He checks on INANNA.
He looks back at LUCY. He moves onto the next node.	LEON She's down.	The Tardis door opens and out step JIM_DT and ZOE. They are still in fancy dress. But they're carrying futuristic laser weaponry; two guns apiece.	LEON She's down.
Our view whites out, then reds out, then the deep-red field fragments into a multitude of dots of red on a black field.	LEON drags INANNA over and removes the trident. He looks over at ALEX. LEON We ready? He watches ALEX. He looks at the red blood on his own hand and wipes it down his trousers.	JIM_DT throws a gun to ALEX who catches. ZOE throws a gun to OMRA who we see through pan right. OMRA clicks his gun. JIM_DT We ready? Camera nods. OMRA picks up ATOO and we enter the Tardis.	ALEX obscures our shot.  He bends down to pick some more STEW up.  He sees us. He comes over. He picks us up. ALEX A-huh.
Slowly, the red dots turn green, and begin to expand within their black frames.	He picks up a nearby bit of STEW-flesh and drops it INANNA's mouth. LEON There you go. Yum yum. INANNA involuntarily eats the flesh. LEON Good girl. Feeling better already. ALEX approaches with his arms full of smouldering bits of STEW.	INT - TARDIS CONTROL ROOM JIM_DT bashes a few things. ALEX looks about the place. ZOE is clearly upset / angry. OMRA is looking a little out of his league. He pops ATOO down in a corner. The Tardis starts zjunging and rocking about, and ATOO falls over and rolls about the room.	Rather needlessly clever shot of the eye's POV of itself reflected in ALEX's sunglasses. We pat ourselves on the back for being so clever. It's just a bloody contact lens. ALEX scoops us up into his palm and we black out.
The screen is now just a pulsating field of differing shades of dark green.	ALEX Where's Jim, anyway? LEON Maybe he got zapped.
Little pulses of red light whip in from the edges.  Sparkles of electricity flash across the screen. Gradually we mix in a POV shot of a huge square lump of flesh from which emerge the heads of ANT and ALEX, and the uppermost fronds of PERCY.	ALEX Could he not just regenerate? LEON We'd not know him if he did. They start feeding the bits of STEW to INANNA. LEON We'll just have to wait and see. ALEX Mm.	The Tardis comes to a gradual halt after the usual array of ad-libbed chaos and confusion. The crew begin to exit.	The eye is now in a new position, gaining light from an angle in the pile of STEW-bits. We can't see much of the action though, if any. Just a random view of the room. At one bit the pile moves and we get a new view.
JIM_PD Can someone with some medical knowledge please remove this huge tumour from my belly-button? We have JIM_PD's POV... the lump of flesh is attached by an umbilical cord to JIM_PD's belly.  JIM_PD looks across to the remaining party: GALENA, JASON, SIDDOR and NIGEL. GALENA steps forwards, producing her sonic toothbrush. She holds it against the umbilical cord which, after a beat or two, pops with a pleasant spatter of blood.	ALEX wields a big chop at INANNA's mouth. She chomps the flesh from it. LEON This better work. ALEX If it doesn't, we just go back again. LEON Not once the Stargate's sealed. ALEX No. I suppose not. LEON What I don't get is why we just don't go back and stop any of this. ALEX How much do you wipe out then?	INT - THRONE ROOM, HEAVEN - DAY ALEX's POV as he steps out of the Tardis: The large round window. Arranged uniformly around the window, nailed to its frame, are the arms, legs and wings of GABRIEL. GABRIEL's head and torso hang from a steel rope, in half-sillhoette in front of the window. Gold blood drips from the severed joints. CHE_F steps forwards, brandishing a kalashnikov. He's covered in gold paint from head to foot. Feathers are lodged in the paint at random intervals. He falls on one knee before us. ALEX puts out a hand to CHE_F's head.
JIM_PD (relieved) Ah... He looks about. JIM_PD We lost Lucy, did we?	LEON Mm. He looks across at STEW, propped against the wall. STEW is flexing his fingers. STEW sends a pained grin back at LEON.	CHE_F steps backwards and we enter the room properly.  We look about. Bits of angel and a sea of angelblood. The second bloody coup in this room in as many days. ALEX pulls off his cowled habit.	ALEX picks us up. He tosses us about in his hands.
NIGEL Fraid so. JASON Now what happens?	ALEX pops the eye into INANNA's mouth. STEW Now what happens?		He pops us into INANNA's mouth and we bleach out.
A view of the block of flesh with ANT, ALAN and PERCY lodged immobile inside. A view of the Vortex. A view of the party.	INANNA leans up, supporting herself. ALEX Hello there. INANNA Where's Bessy?	He drapes the habit over the throne and turns to OMRA. OMRA sits in the throne. JIM_DT hands his crown to ALEX, who places it on OMRA's head.

All frames white out.

FX:

Blood and mercury seep across the screen and congeal in the caption: "ANS X". The white limbo of the background then flares through the lettering and we white out again.