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Main Timeline:
2001
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2001
January 1, 2001
The actual beginning of the millennium, with the beginning of the
2001st year AD of the Julian calendar system, in spite of the
misunderstanding of many people, who think that the millennium began a
year earlier.
Early 2001??
-
Surekill. At
night a man, Carleton Chase, runs up to a payphone on a city street in
Worcester, Mass. He leaves a message on an answering machine, saying to
call "him" off and give Chase a chance to explain. He runs off and enters
a police station. Another man is seen following him. Chase is frantic
and officers put him in a holding cell after he tries to grab an officer's
gun. He screams that he is not safe in the cell, then through the door
window the officers see blood splatter.
Scully looks at
an x-ray - the man was shot by an armor piercing bullet. She and Doggett
eventually determine that the gun was fired through the roof of the police
station, but it was an impossibly lucky shot because there was no way for
the shooter to see to target his victim. A woman, Tammi, enters the office
of AAA Surekill Exterminators. She plays the answering machine message and
hears the message, in which Chase says to check the right desk drawer. Tammi
looks in the drawer and finds her record book in a lock box, but she is interrupted
by her boss, Dwight Cooper. Dwight's brother, Randall, also works there and
is the man who we saw following Chase. Outside, near a dumpster, Dwight asks
Randall what happened last night. Randall found Chase stealing. Dwight says
Randall has to get the money before doing "his thing." They are going out
again that night.
Doggett and Scully
visit Chase's real estate office. He did a lot of business with the exterminating
company. In a back room, Doggett finds a .45 shell - not the same caliber
as the bullet that killed Chase. The room has several bullet holes in the
walls. That night, Dwight enters a warehouse where three men, apparently
drug dealers, are working. Dwight wants the pile of money they have on the
table and they fall from bullet wounds, fired through the wall by Randall.
The next day, Scully and Doggett visit the scene with police. Outside the
room where the men died are bullet holes that perfectly match up with the
victims. Scully speculates that someone with exceptional vision might have
the ability to see at wavelengths that allow targeting through the walls.
Doggett isn't impressed with the thought of "X-ray vision."
At the Surekill office, Dwight calls Tammi into a room for a tryst.
As she undresses she says she doesn't like having Randall right outside.
Randall watches intently through the wall but is distracted when Scully
and Doggett walk in. Dwight comes out to talk with them. Dwight says has
been legally blind since birth. The agents ask Dwight about the bills
found Chase's office. On a piece of fabric found at the police station,
apparently from a cloth wrapped around the gun to silence it, was soaked
in pesticide chemicals. Dwight served jail time a long time ago, but he
and his brother are chamber of commerce members now. The agents ask why
Chase called their office a few minutes before he was murdered. Dwight
says they had all gone home and there was no message on their machine.
After the agents leave, Dwight asks Tammi about the message and she claims
that she accidentally erased it before listening. Dwight peers into
Tammi's eyes, holding up a lighter flame to see clearly by, saying that by
seeing her eyes he can see the truth.
Doggett finds the record of Dwight's 1986 arrest for grand theft auto.
Since he is blind, Dwight must have had a driver. Randall was also
arrested at the same time, but didn't serve much time. The two brothers
are twins. At home that night, Randall and Tammi are in adjoining
apartments. He watches her through the walls as she undresses and
prepares for bed. The next day, Tammi gets to work early and rushes in to
learn what is inside the desk drawer. She finds a lock box, but Dwight
and Randall interrupt her. They take the box and as they begin to open
it, Doggett and several police officers enter with a search warrant.
Doggett opens the box but finds it empty. Scully, however, finds several
file folders which result in Dwight and Randall being taken in for
questioning. Their little company billed over Chase for over $700,000.
Dwight and Randall are looking at each other through the questioning room
walls. Scully asks Randall point black whether he can see through the
wall. She speculates that he shoots drug dealers through walls then takes
their money, right? Randall says he's just an exterminator. Scully says
she thinks it's all Dwight's idea and that it's time for Randall to think
for himself.
The agents then question Tammi together - she claims she just keeps the
books and didn't know about the murders. The agents think that Chase was
the fence and that he was killed because of a relationship between him and
Tammi. While the agents question Tammi, the brothers agree that Tammi is
a problem that they have to take care of. Tammi is not under arrest and
goes home. In Tammi's phone records the agents find several late night
calls to chase. Tammi goes next door - she tells Randall she knows it was
him that killed Chase. He has tender feeling toward her and she
apparently reciprocates.
The next day,
at a bus station, Tammi tells Randall that she needs the book Randall took
out of the box to protect her from Dwight. He gives it to her and the book
has a key in it. She tells Randall she will be back in a half hour and drives
off. The agents visit Tammi's apartment - her clothes are gone and she is
apparently running. Doggett checks her phone and determines that her last
call was to the bus company. Tammi has picked up the money from a bank safe
deposit box and gets back into her car. Dwight is in the back seat. Police
arrive at the bus station and Randall slips away. At the Surekill office,
Dwight discovers that Tammi has been keeping two sets of books and has stolen
$100,000. Tammi claims that Chase was blackmailing her, and making her "do things," the
implication of which is sexual. Randall killed Carleton because of what
he was doing to Tammi. Randall arrives back at the office. Dwight wants
Randall to kill Tammi, taunting him that Tammi used him. Dwight tells
Randall that blood is thicker than anything, and leaves the room so that
Randall can kill her. She pleads for her life as Randall wraps a cloth
around the gun to silence it. He aims and shoots
- but shoots through the wall and kills Dwight.
At the police station, Randall has declined representation. Tammi has
not been found. Scully muses that Randall could look at anything in the
world and looked at her - maybe he say something that she didn't even see
in herself. Doggett replies that if he saw into her heart, they're out of
FBI territory. The episode ends with Randall looking through the wall at
the computer display of Tammi's picture.
January 2001??
-
Salvage.
Nora and Carl mourn for Nora's husband, Ray, who recently died. Carl was
a co-worker and they say that Ray got sick because he fought in the Gulf
War. As Carl drives off, he is surprised to find a man standing in the
middle of the street. The car hits him and seems to split around him, as
if the man was an immovable mass of metal. Ray is injured but through the
broken window, he sees Ray, who he thought was dead. Ray reaches for Carl
and Carl screams.
Scully and Doggett are at the scene. The engine compartment of the car
is split, but the body of the driver is not in the car. The object hit by
the car would have to be hundreds of times as sense as steel, the agents
indicate. As the car is lifted up by a wrecker, there are what appear to
be footprints under the engine compartment. Nora comes up and is
distressed. Doggett talks with her until Scully calls him over - she has
found Carl's body. It has holes in the forehead that look like finger
holes poked in clay. The autopsy shows that the body was pulled through
the windshield and that there are five holes in the skull that match up
with the positions of five fingers of a human hand. Meanwhile, a
fingerprint and blood are found at the scene that are identified as Ray's
and were clearly not left before Ray died.
Ray wakes up in a halfway house. He goes to a mirror and uses nail
clippers to remove individual hairs of his beard. When they fall into the
sink they are like little bits of wire. Doggett goes to Nora's home.
Harvey is also there. He owns a salvage yard and was both Ray's and
Carl's employer. Ray's body was to be cremated, but Doggett's research
found no record of the cremation. Doggett wonders if Ray might possibly
still be alive. Harvey says that Ray was a good man who couldn't walk or
even lift his head just before he died. Meanwhile, Ray is eating in a
common room of the halfway house. Larina approaches, saying that she
helps out at the halfway house and offers to talk, if he wants. He
rebuffs her, but not before she notices that he is eating the aluminum
foil wrapping, along with the sandwich inside.
In the auto salvage yard, Ray spray paints some waste barrels blue,
then goes inside his office to feed several invoices through a shredding
machine. Ray enters the room. Harvey fires a gun at him and Ray is
propelled backwards through a glass door. Harvey finds a severed hand with
what appears to be metal growing out of the stump. Ray, missing an arm,
walks up and Harvey screams.
Doggett studies
Harvey's body. There is blue paint around Harvey's fingernails. He sees that
Harvey was shredding papers, and it is clear that someone "took a hit" from the shotgun. It is hard to imagine that
someone injured by the shotgun that way could then kill Harvey. Doggett
finds that one page in the shredder is only partially shredded, allowing
him to read the invoice. Ray is back at the halfway house, cleaning
himself. The wounds of the shotgun pellets look like metal rather than
injured skin. Larina enters his room - people saw blood on him when he
came in and she wants to help, but he orders her out. Doggett visits
Chamber Technologies, the company on the partially shredded invoice. Dr.
David Clifton, whose name is on the invoice, is no longer employed there.
A scientist who is Clifton's successor says that all of Clifton's work was
conceptual, developing "smart metals" that can rebuild themselves. They
certainly always dispose of waste legally.
Scully concludes
that Ray's entire cellular structure had been transformed by being exposed
to something. Doggett says that a "metal
man" only happens in movies, to which Scully says, "does it?" Norina
hears the news report about Harry's murder and telephone's Ray's home.
Scully gets blood tests back. It was certainly Ray's blood, but it has
enough metal alloy in the blood to kill an elephant. It doesn't make
sense to Doggett. Ray had been treated for substance abuse but turned his
life around, met Nora and got married. He's the kind of guy you want to
cheer for, not a murderer. Scully counters that even if they can find
him, who is to say that they can stop him.
The scientist is at his computer at Chamber Technologies. Ray enters
and the scientist lures Ray into a test chamber. The door slams shot and
locks, and Doggett and Scully rush in with a SWAT team. It was a setup to
trap Ray. Ray begins pounding on the four-inch metal walls, but soon the
pounding stops and the agents realize that Ray has escaped through another
wall. Scully looks closely on blood left on the jagged metal where Ray
escaped. The blood is turning itself into metal. As they take the
scientist away to safety, Doggett notices that several hazardous waste
barrels at Chamber Technologies are painted blue.
Ray returns to
his room and Nora is waiting for him. She can't understand why he didn't
contact her, but he says, "I'm not me." He shows
her that his body is turning to metal and he wants to make the people who
did it to him pay. At the salvage yard, Doggett examines some blue waste
drums he noticed earlier. You can still see some of the Chambers company
logo that Harvey painted over. Doggett tips over a barrel and a body
spills out, looking strangely metallic. It is Dr. Clifton. Questioning
Clifton's replacement at Chamber Technologies, they learn that Clifton had
been working on an alloy that had genetic material in it, to give it
memory and allow it to repair itself. He knew he was dying but nobody
knew what would happen to his body. The waste barrels were supposed to go
to a proper disposal facility. Doggett sees Nora down the hall and checks
to see what she is doing at the office of her supposedly dead husband. She
is on the phone to Ray, but Doggett interrupts her. She confesses that
she was looking for the name of who was responsible but says she didn't
have time to give the name to Ray.
A swat team raids the halfway house. Ray suffocates Larina in order to
keep her from giving him away. Later, Doggett and Scully tell Nora about
Ray killing Larina. They take Nora home and watch the house, but Ray
slips in. When he leaves, Nora runs outside saying that Ray made her give
him the name she found. The name is Owen Harris. Ray intercepts Harris'
car, as he did with Curt, except that Harris gets the car stopped before
hitting Ray. Ray pulls Harris outside and Harris pleads that he's just an
accountant, why is Ray doing this. Harris' children in the car cry in
terror.
Later, Doggett and Scully drive up. Harris is being treated by an
ambulance team. Harris authorized sending the hazardous waste to the
salvage yard, so he is responsible for Ray's condition. The agents don't
understand why Ray ran away but it is clear to the audience that the fear
in of the Harris children caused Ray to back off. Scully sums up that
Ray's body died and what was left was not really a man, but maybe what
saved Harris and his family was a flicker of humanity. In the final
scene, we see a car being dropped into a crusher at a junk yard. Ray is
inside the car, choosing to be crushed, too.
Notes: A newspaper
mentions George Bush succeeding Bill Clinton as President, probably placing
this episode in December or January. The reference to "Metal Men" is an
in joke about Robert Patrick's role in the movie Terminator II.
January 2001??
-
Badlaa.
In India, a heavyset man in a suit, Hugh Potocki, enters a crowded airport
-- he is going to America. Nearby is a beggar without legs, sitting on a
wheeled platform. The man gives the beggar a few coins, but the beggar
drops the coins. In the bathroom, the beggar comes in and the man is
violently pulled out of the stall, under the stall door. Later, the man
arrives in a Washington DC hotel room. The beggar's wheeled platform is
among his luggage. After the bellboy leaves, the man sits on the bed and
blood begins flowing from his body, his eyes red.
Scully and Doggett arrive at the hotel. The man was an importer from
Minneapolis. Preliminary tests show nothing. The maid found the body 20
minutes after the bellboy left. One thing that the police missed the
first time was a bloody handprint that appears to be that of a child.
Neither agent is ready to believe that a child would be involved. At an
elementary school in Maryland, a principal interviews a man for a job as a
custodian, but viewers see that while the principal sees a European man,
it is actually the Indian beggar sitting in the chair. In the autopsy,
Scully finds massive abdominal tissue damage, but it's hard to tell
whether something went in or out of the abdomen. Doggett suggests a drug
smuggling connection, however it doesn't account for some of Scully's
findings. Several indicators show that the body had been dead 24-36 hours
when found, meaning he would have been dead before leaving India.
At the school, several boys get into a scuffle, including Trevor, who
is in seventh grade and Quentin who is in sixth. Quinton's father, who is
picking him up from school, breaks up the scuffle. The beggar is nearby
but people see him as the custodian. Doggett finds a report from India
that several days earlier, another American businessman was found dead in
India under similar circumstances. Various documents show a 33-pound
discrepancy in body weights before and after death. Both victims were big
men. Scully asks what if whatever it is killed these men entered and
exited of its own free will, living inside the victims as a stowaway of
sorts. Doggett thinks the theory doesn't work. At night, Quinton sees a
reflection of the beggar in a mirror in his bedroom. His dad tells him it
wasn't real. The father goes downstairs and settles in to watch TV, and
the beggar is on the floor near him. The Red-Headed Boy hears his father
scream and goes downstairs to check. The father is still sitting in the
chair, not moving, with his eyes red.
Scully and Doggett
are at the Red-Headed Boy 's house. The father is dead. Quinton tells Scully
that the person he saw was a "munchkin" -- a
small person with no legs. Doggett finds the same small handprints and
evidence that the person came in through a window. The father, however,
has none of the abdomen damage of the other victims. Only the red eyes,
caused by burst blood vessels, is similar. Scully does an autopsy and in
the pathology lab finds that the father's stomach has swelled to a very
large size. She dictates that she is doing an unauthorized procedure --
and cuts into the distended abdomen. When she makes the incision, a hand
reaches out of the abdomen. Scully grabs her gun, but whatever it was in
the stomach has disappeared, leaving blood and hand marks on the floor.
She follows blood marks to a storage closet. She sees nothing inside, but
viewers see the beggar.
The principal
reprimands the custodian for being late for work. He gets out a wheeled pail
for a mop, and Trevor sees the custodian's body, lit from behind by a doorway.
The body is flickering. Scully and Doggett talk to Chuck Burks, who shows
video he took in Indian in the 70s. Chuck can't figure out what is going
on with this case. He describes a secret order of the occult having powers
of the mind and the ability to manipulate reality. One of these mystics could
make you believe that you cannot see him in a room, or disguise himself.
Doggett asks and Chuck explains that he runs the advanced imaging lab at
the University of Maryland, and says, "I dabble." Doggett isn't impressed. Trevor goes to
Quinton's the home. Although they squabbled earlier, Trevor tells him.
"I think I know who did it."
Chuck returns to the X-Files office to talk with Scully. She says she
is just trying to see this case as Mulder would. The talk about the
Indian mystics, who chuck says are very religious. Murder would endanger
their eternal souls. What would cause them to break that faith? Maybe
revenge? Scully shows a report of an American chemical plant that
released a small cloud of gas six months ago. 118 people were killed.
The father of one victim of that disaster is listed in records as a holy
man of the beggar class. But if he is out for revenge, why is he killing
the people that he is killing?
Trevor walks down
the street and hears the sound of the casters on the beggar's platform, although
he can't see anyone. He runs home. His mother follows him into the back yard
and sees Trevor underwater in the swimming pool. She jumps in and discovers
that the body is the beggar. Scully and Doggett, and other officials, are
at Trevor's home. His mother is dead. As she is taken away, Scully and Doggett
talk by the pool. Doggett doesn't know how the death fits into the case.
It is close to another death and the woman's eyes are red, Scully says. Doggett
questions Scully's methodology. She counters that there is a motive and a
pattern that they can find, but not if they are fighting each other.
Trevor comes home and claims that "the little man" was there and followed
him.
The agents have the janitor in for questioning, based on Trevor's
report. Chuck arrives. Doggett tells him that the man doesn't speak.
Scully left after four hours of trying to interrogate him. Chuck sets up
a video camera because he suspects that the man sitting there may not be
as they see him. The video camera shows that nobody is in the chair where
they clearly see the janitor. Doggett is befuddled, but realizes that if
the man is not there, he could be anywhere.
Scully returns to Trevor's home because she has more questions for him.
Doggett phones her cell phone to ask her to return. It turns out that
Trevor isn't home, anyway. At the school at night, the principal sees the
janitor. He doesn't speak. Knowing that he had been called in for
questioning, the principal phones Scully. Trevor is at school watching
the Janitor and communicating with Quinton by radio. Trevor follows the
beggar and attempts to throw acid from a science storeroom on the Beggar,
but as soon as the bottle drops, the beggar is not there. It doesn't work
and the beggar is soon chasing Quinton through the school halls. In a
classroom, he can't get windows open to escape. Trevor is outside the
window and yells that he will get help. The beggar advances on Quinton.
Scully and the principal enter and can't see the beggar, who has
transformed into the appearance of Trevor. Quinton screams and pleads at
Scully to shoot him. Scully can't bring herself to shoot. Doggett drives
up and hears shots. Rushing into the classroom, he finds Scully and the
principal with the dead beggar on the floor.
Later, Scully is still disturbed. Doggett sort of understands what
happened. She shot a young boy. Doggett says that the good news is that
she was wrong and it only appeared to be Trevor. Why did you shoot?
Because of what the boy saw. Scully says that in an instant she realized
that it is what Mulder would have seen or understood. She cries because
she is not capably of having as open a mind as Mulder. Doggett says this
whole thing doesn't make sense.
In the final scene of the episode, we see the same beggar in the
airport in India.
February 2001??
-
The
Gift.
A car drives down a country road in the rain. It drives up to a rural home in
Pennsylvania. A man gets out and enters the house. Another man and woman
are there, as is another man who looks like a Neanderthal, with sores and
wounds on his face. The first man fires at a monster, then leaves. The man
with the gun is Mulder. He gets back in his car and drives off. The scene
is a flashback.
John Doggett drives in his car. He is remembering conversations about Mulder -- about
Mulder's terminal sickness, and about Doggett's pledge to find Mulder. Doggett arrives
at a Pennsylvania sheriff's office. The sheriff says Mulder was there in the spring,
investigating a missing woman. It turned out to be a false report. The woman, named
Marie, never left her house. Cell phone records show that Mulder was here the week
before disappeared. Doggett and the Sheriff go to talk with Marie and her husband. the
husband does most of the talking. Marie has kidney disease. Doggett knows that Mulder
was investigating a statement Marie had made to her sister that she was about to
disappear. She didn't want her sister to worry. The husband claims nothing happened.
On Saturday May 6, Mulder came back, according to cell phone records. The husband
denies that they saw Mulder again. There is a local folk legend about a creature that lives
in the woods. Mulder twisted that into a theory that the creature was going to come and
eat Marie alive.
Doggett sees three
gunshot holes plastered over in the wall, but doesn't ask about them. Doggett
searches Mulder's apartment and feeds the fish. He does a thorough search
this time and finds a gun taped under the sink. Doggett and Skinner talk
about the gun. The clip was three rounds short of being full. Mulder never
filed a report on the case or on the discharge of his weapon. Tests done
for Doggett have found micro blood spatters on the gun. Skinner is forceful
that Mulder really did disappear. He denies that Mulder may have shot someone
and them deliberately disappeared. Doggett feels that he can't ask Scully,
because she signed case reports for Mulder, and thus could be implicated.
Doggett, however, is not going to take it to OPR, i.e. the people who do
internal FBI investigations. The sheriff has had a grave opened in the cemetery.
The sheriff, with several other men, dogs and pickup trucks, drive up to
a house where a blonde women lives. They give her two minutes to produce "it." As
they wait, someone runs through the nearby woods. The men give chase and
catch the man in a net. He struggles and makes sounds like an animal. The
blonde woman pleads but they put the man into a cage on the back of a truck.
Doggett and Skinner arrive at the sheriff's office. They drove from Washington when they
couldn't reach the Sheriff by phone. He misleads them and claims he was hunting. They
ask about a death certificate of a unidentified transient, found on Sunday May 7. Doggett
thinks everybody in the town is lying. The agents go the cemetery where the body was
buried and find that the grave has been opened. Inside are the remains of a casket, but a
hole in the bottom of the casket makes it appear that someone tunneled out of the grave.
The sheriff goes to Marie's house where her husband is painting a circle and cross symbol
in chicken blood. They agree that they have to move fast. Marie doesn't want to do that
they want but is told she has no choice. The truck with the cage is outside and the man-
animal is inside. Marie lies down on the floor and kisses her husband. He will be waiting
for her. The sheriff opens the cage and we see the man-animal. It enters the house opens
its mouth very wide and blood spatters. Later, Doggett and Skinner drive up to the house
and interview Marie's husband. They speculate that the sheriff was there. Mulder came
back here and shot someone, and they are all lying. They want to talk to Marie, but she is
not there. Skinner finds blood on the floor. In a cave or underground passage, we see the
man-animal on his knees, retching, and the vomit is shaped like a human body.
Police are now at Marie's house. Doggett is trying to understand what happened when
Mulder returned. The man claims his wife coughed up the blood. Doggett concludes that
Mulder was trying to protect Marie from the man who is supposed to be buried in the
coffin. In UV light, officers they find the remains of the circle and cross symbol. Via
Internet, the Lone Gunmen advise Doggett and Skinner that the symbol looks like a
Native American medicine wheel. Legends date back for hundreds of years about a
shaman who could be summoned by the wheel symbol to help the sick. Doggett sees a
connection with Marie's kidney disease. He goes to see the blonde woman. She was the
one who reported finding the body in the woods near her home in May. Doggett wants to
know what the secret is that people are keeping. He recites his theory that Mulder
thought it was some sort of soul eater. She tells him that he has it all backwards, and
that there things have been this way for hundreds of years. He finds a cellar door and
investigates. It leads deep underground to the caves and tunnels. Following them, he finds
Marie's body, naked in a kind of goo. As he checks her, she awakes. He carries her out,
wrapped in a blanket.
Doggett watches
in the hospital as Marie's husband puts her wedding ring back on her. She
is fine and her kidneys have healed. She is in perfect health. This "soul eater"
actually took her to cure her, it seems. It is clear to Doggett that Mulder was not trying
to protect Marie. Doggett returns to the blonde woman's home. She finally agrees to
explain it to Doggett. This thing looks the way it does because it doesn't cure the disease,
it consumes it. This is why it looks covered with sores and is in constant pain. Doggett
realizes that Mulder came to try to save himself from his brain disease. First preparing to
do the ritual himself, Mulder saw how it suffered and shot it to take its pain away. They
buried it but it can't die. The blonde woman protected it in her home, but now that they
know it's back, they will make it suffer again. The creature is there and Doggett begins to
take it into protective custody, but the sheriff and his posse drive up. They won't let him
take it. "We have sick people who need what he has," they say. In a confrontation,
Doggett is shot through the chest and dies. The creature escapes and they bury
Doggett's body. The blonde watches it all.
The man-animal brings Doggett back to life in the cave, absorbing the gunshot would.
The blonde is in the cave beside the prostrate creature when Doggett awakes. It took
Doggett's death, she says, and died itself. Doggett finally freed it. Back at the office,
Doggett tries to write his case report, but he can't figure out how to start. Skinner
compliments him that he got inside Mulder's head and understood what Mulder was doing.
Skinner encourages Doggett to not submit a report. It would open up a world of trouble
for Scully and take months to prove that Scully was not involved. Skinner and Doggett
both know what happened. Skinner says nobody else needs to. Doggett imagines Mulder
standing in the office, watching him.
February 2001
-
Medusa.
A man is alone in a subway stop in Boston -- another man approaches, dressed
in black. The first is an undercover cop, who describes the second into
a hidden microphone. The second could be planning a mugging. The train arrives
and the cop enters the car. The second man enters the car a few moments
later from the rear. Suddenly, the train loses power and the breaks screech.
The two men struggle and we hear screams. At the next stop, passengers find
the body of the officer, his skull and portions of his body apparently eaten
away, as if from acid.
At the Boston transit operations center, Scully and Doggett talk with authorities. The
local transit supervisor is upset that one of the main subway arteries is closed and
announces that the line must be open for the evening commute. One third of the dead
man's body tissue was eaten away. Scully doesn't want the line reopened until they
determine what caused the death. Transit police Lieutenant Bianco thinks it was an
assailant, using acid or something. Doggett, Bianco, the man who was construction
supervisor of the tunnel a few years earlier and a woman from the Centers for Disease
Control don assault gear and enter the tunnel. Scully will remain in transit control and
communicate by radio. Doggett also carries a small TV transmitter with a camera on his
headset. Doggett acknowledges that Scully has the experience with this kind of matter.
He is just tagging along. Ventilation was shut down, making the tunnel hot. The
construction supervisor screams -- he has a burn on his neck. Liquid in a puddle a few
yards back might contain acid. The woman from CDC does an instant test, but the puddle
is only seawater that has seeped in.
The team sees movement -- there is someone else in the tunnel. The go find him. They
pass a tunnel connection to an old, obsolete, about a mile from there the train lost power.
Doggett has a hunch, and enters the tunnel. As the members of the team debate returning
to the main tunnel, Doggett is attacked. Doggett is stunned, but soon wakes up. The
assailant is the one responsible for the police officer's death and portions of his body
apparently eaten away. Bianco pushes to leave, saying that they have found the man
responsible for the death, but the Construction supervisor finds three bodies, wrapped in
plastic. They have been there for some time and all show signs of the same tissue damage.
There may be a contagion at work after all. The woman from CDC sees a shadow
indicating that there is someone else in the tunnel, but they can't find the person. At
Scully's direction, the team leaves the bodies and continues up the main tunnel. The
construction supervisor screams again -- his arm is burning. Scully quickly orders them to
pour fresh water on the burns, which is done from a canteen. Doggett and Bianco leave
the woman from CDC to care for the construction supervisor, pending arrival of a
quarantine team to be sent by Scully. Bianco sees a green glow on his hand, but does not
report it.
Scully meets the hazardous chemical team as they remove the construction supervisor
from the tunnels. The team also has the three bodies, and Scully prevents them from being
taken away by transit workers. She suspects that the transit supervisor wants to cover up
the problem, suspecting that he knew that the bodies were there. The bodies are taken to
the CDC after all. Doggett and Bianco continue, and Doggett discovers the green
fluorescent glow on the Bianco's face. It burns other people, but hasn't had any effect on
the Bianco yet. Doggett has to pulls a gun on Bianco to keep him from leaving. They
fight and Doggett is knocked down. A marine biologist comes to talk to Scully. She
analyzed the salt-water sample. There are medusas -- a kind of microscopic jellyfish -- in
the water. They glow with bioelectricity, but the bioelectricity does not burn people on
contact. Something triggers it. In the tunnels we see that Doggett is unconscious and
also has the green glow of the medusa on him.
Scully's repeated
radio calls wake Doggett up. Lt. Bianco is not there. Doggett discovers the
green glow on his skin. Scully wants to send a quarantine unit, but Doggett
insists on stopping Bianco, in order to keep the medusa from spreading. The
transit supervisor tells Scully that there are already passengers waiting
on many platforms. They can't block the tunnels to keep Bianco in. Doggett
finds Bianco, lying in the tunnel. Scully tells Doggett to get out, but Bianco
asks him to stay. Doggett puts an arm under Bianco's shoulder and helps him
walk. They see a shadow of another person. Doggett finds a child, a boy who
points up the tunnel. He is uninfected. Scully thinks she has it figured
out -- sweat may trigger the electrical burns. Sweat will conduct electricity
and a child's sweat glands are not fully developed. Doggett follows the boy
through a green glowing chamber that has a big leak of water seeping in from
the bay. The boy is leading them to a nearby access point. Doggett and Bianco
cross the chamber into another tunnel, but the trains are rolling and one
is coming right toward Doggett. In moments it will splash through the seawater
that contains the medusa, probably contaminating everyone on the train. Doggett
has an inspiration he uses his gun to short out the rail that carries
the electric power for the trains, feeding a high electrical charge into the
puddles of seawater. The electrical discharge kills the medusa, including
wiping it off Doggett's and Bianco's skin.
At the hospital, Scully informs Doggett that his body is rid of the organism. He can be
discharged. The boy is with social services. The others who are injured will be worked
on by plastic surgeons. Doggett wants to charge the transit supervisor with reckless
endangerment, but the organism can no longer be found. There is no evidence and the
officials can easily claim that they were just doing their job by keeping the trains running.
Doggett is frustrated, but Scully has experience with this kind of unsatisfactory ending to a
case. Doggett recognizes Scully for figuring it out. He was just the yes and ears.
The February
date stamp is taken from the reference to the "Survivor II" television
series and from Doggett's reference to it being the middle of winter.
February 2001?
-
Per
Manum.
A woman, Kath, is in the hospital, about to give birth and the doctor orders
an emergency C-Section because the baby's heart rate is high. When her husband,
later identified as Duffy Haskell, leaves the room to scrub, a nurse locks
the door behind him. The mother is distraught and is knocked out with drugs.
When the baby is born, it appears to be alien.
When Scully arrives at the office, Haskell is there, talking to Doggett. He
is with the Ohio Mutual UFO Network and he
communicated with Mulder eight years ago, claiming that his wife was a multiple
abductee. He says she is dead, killed by doctors after giving birth to an alien baby. He
has an ultrasound showing that the baby was not normal, and his wife wasn't supposed to
be able to have babies. When Haskell leaves, Doggett points out that his wife's story is
very similar to Scully's, which Doggett has read in the X-Files, except for the baby, but
Scully tells Doggett that her personal files are private. In the elevator, Scully has a
flashback to when she first told Mulder that she could not have children. He, in turn, told
her about finding her ova in the research facility run by the Kurt Crawford clone. He
immediately took the ova sample to a specialist, who said that they were not viable.
Doggett interrupts her reverie and she tells him that there is nothing to do on the Haskell
case.
Scully goes to
Zeus Genetics in Germantown, MD. Nobody greets her, so she walks down a hall
and hears voices a man calming several disturbed women. Scully ducks into
a room to hide and finds dozens of deformed fetuses in storage bottles. The
doctor discovers her and she lies, claiming to be with a friend, then she
rushes home to call her doctor, Dr. James Parenti. He agrees to meet with
her, and viewers see that he is in the room with the deformed fetuses, unwrapping
the body of an alien baby. Scully has another flashback to her conversation
with Parenti when he told her that he and his colleagues believed that there
was a chance that under their care she could become pregnant, but, of course,
she needed a father. She said she had someone in mind, but had to figure
out how to ask him. The flashback over, she meets with Parenti who says her
ultrasound looks fine. He encourages her to tell the FBI about her pregnancy.
When Scully returns
to the office, Doggett has received a call from Parenti's office about a
sonogram Scully left there. He thinks she is investigating the Haskell case,
since the Haskells had consulted Parenti in connection to their pregnancy.
Haskell is called back in to the FBI to be questioned in Skinner's office.
He has a history of making threats, in the letters to Mulder and to the Haskell's
current doctor, Dr. Lev. He tells a convincing story about what happened
to his wife, but Doggett says there is no record that they were ever married.
When Haskell leaves, he telephones Dr. Lev and it is clear that they are
conspiring together. When Scully returns home that evening we see a flashback
to Mulder visiting her apartment. She had earlier asked him to be the father
of her child, and he gives her his answer yes. He is complimented, but
doesn't want this to come between them in any way. He will talk to the doctor
about the donor procedure. As the flashback ends, Mary Hendershot knocks
on Scully's door. She was at Zeus Genetics earlier, and says that both her
baby and Scully's are in danger.
Doggett drives
his pickup up to an all-night restaurant, where he meets Skinner and Scully.
Skinner tells Doggett that Scully has requested a leave of absence, but they
don't reveal why. He is unhappy that they are not being candid with him,
but Scully promises that she is not putting Doggett at risk. He sees her
get into her car, where Mary Hendershot is waiting. Doggett doesn't know
who Mary is, but it adds to the mystery he is trying to figure out. Scully
takes Mary to Walden-Freedman Army Hospital, where they have an expert obstetrics
team. She explains the suspicion that the baby may not be human and the team
prepares to induce labor in Mary. Meanwhile, Dr. Miryum, a woman doctor,
takes Scully into another examining room and does another ultrasound that
looks completely normal. Joe Farah, an FBI agent friend of Doggett's, reports
that Haskell's fingerprints match the records of a Marine named Haskell who
died in 1970. David Haskell was buried in a Virginia cemetary in a Marine
honor goard ceremony. Doggett talks to another friend, Knowle Rorer, who
is apparently part of an intelligence agency. Rorer agrees to look into it
and see if Haskell is a "spook," i.e. an intelligence agent. If he his,
then his visit to the X-Files office had hidden agendas.
Doggett confronts Skinner, telling him that Haskell was a setup to get Scully to go
wherever she went. Under pressure, Skinner admits the name of the Army research
facility and Doggett rushes off. After Scully's tests, she is left alone to rest. She notices
a VHS videotape in playback mode. Removing the tape, she sees that the label has
another woman's name on it, Nancy Boxwell, with the date 11/23/00. Scully suspects
that she has been duped. She rushes to get Mary and escape the Army facility. As they
slip out into a parking garage, Rorer is there
with a team of commandoes. He says he is a friend of Doggett's and hustles the two
women into a suburban. As they drive away, military police chase them, but
the suburban eludes them. Mary goes into
labor and Scully demands that the vehicle stop. When they stop, the commando team
members prevent Scully from attending Mary, injecting Scully with a drug that causes
her to pass out.
Scully wakes up
in a hospital room and finds Doggett sitting near her. He reports that both
she and the baby are fine. Mary is also fine, with a healthy son. Scully
believes that the boy was substituted for Mary's alien child, but there is
no proof. Everyone says Scully overreacted. For example, they said that the
videotape was of her sonogram, just recorded on an old tape. Scully is convinced
that she and Doggett were used to get Mary's baby, and now they are also
being used to cover it up. Why didn't she tell Doggett about her baby? She
was afraid that "they" would use it to take her off the X-
Files, and she would never find Mulder. Doggett repeats his pledge to help her
find Mulder.
The episode ends
with another flashback. Scully returns home to find Mulder waiting for her.
The artificial insemination did not work and Scully will not have a baby.
She feels it was her last chance, but Mulder hugs her and advises, "Never
give up on a miracle."
(Note: Dating of the flashbacks is difficult. A reference in the episode script,
not seen on the air, indicates that all flashbacks took place about a year earlier.
For several reasons, this dating seems unlikely. Mulder acquired Scully's Ova in Momento
Mori in February 1997. The first flashback appeared to have happened somewhat after
Scully was cured from cancer, which was in Redux II, set in October 1997. There was
no reference in this episode to Scully's child Emily, but it was in Christmas Carol,
set December 21, 1997, that Scully told her mother that she can't have children. She
may have learned she could not have children sometime during her cancer tests. So the first
flashback of this episode could have been as early as late 1997. At Christmas 1997 Scully learns
about Emily, and shortly thereafter Bill Scully and his wife have the baby that they
have been trying to have for years. One could imply that Bill and his wife employed
the services of a fertility and/or genetic clinic. In spite of the reference in the script,
this timeline concludes that these two things likely inspired Scully to consult a specialist,
leading to Dr. Parenti's claim that there was a chance of Scully having a child.)
February 2001?
-
This
Is Not Happening. Near
Helena, Montana, a UFO zooms over a deserted rural area. A young man in
a car is pursuing, taking photographs with one hand and dictating into
a pocket recorder as he goes. It is Richie, who Mulder and Scully met in
Bellefleur, OR, in the episode Requiem. The UFO hovers and Richie stops
his car and gets out. He runs to the top of a hill, saying "This is not
happening" to
himself, and finds that the UFO has disappeared, but he sees
someone walking nearby. Running after the man, Richie trips and finds a
body on the ground.
Scully arrives at the X-Files office -- Doggett has called her
in and takes her to Skinner's office. Teresa Hoese, formerly Nemmen, has been
found. She was abducted just before Mulder and is now in a
Montana hospital, just hanging on to life. Scully, Doggett and
Skinner fly to Helena and rush to the hospital. The doctor says
she has been severely mistreated. It is as if someone was
experimenting on her. In addition to many other injuries, there
are marks on her face as if the skin had been pierced and
stretched. Police deliver their report to Doggett, after which
the three FBI agents go to see Richie. He is in Montana looking
for his friend, Gary, who was also abducted. Internet chat rooms
have told him that there has been a lot of UFO activity nearby
over the last couple of weeks. He claims to have seen someone
with Teresa and police evidence also found footprints -- of
Nikes. Doggett pressures Richie, asking if he thinks aliens wear
Nikes. Richie responds that it it wasn't an alien, what about
his spaceship? Doggett is disgusted. Scully sees it as
their first break in the search for Mulder. Doggett tells
Scully that he thinks she is also afraid to find Mulder,
because of what might have happened to him.
Scully wakes from a bad dream about Mulder being experimented
on. She goes to Skinner's room and they talk outside the
motel. Scully relates a conversation with Mulder about
starlight and about how the light we see may be millions of years
old. Mulder thought that souls dwell in starlight and she hopes
he's right. Skinner says it sounds like she is trying to prepare
herself, but encourages her to stop -- Mulder may be
fine. Jeremiah Smith, first seen in the episode Talitha Cumi,
enters the hospital and morphs to look like Teresa's doctor. He
tells a nurse to prepare Teresa to be transferred to another
facility. He is wearing Nikes. Scully's phone wakes her up
with the news that Teresa is gone and the doctor denies having
transferred her.
Skinner and Scully
drive up to the open field where Teresa was found. Doggett has called them
to meet him there. He introduces Monica Reyes, an FBI agent from the New
Orleans office who specializes in ritualistic crime. Doggett asked her to
help with the case. She suspects that the abductions may be the work of a
UFO cult, similar to Heaven's Gate, an opinion which rubs Scully the wrong
way. Doggett follows and tells Scully that if she is going to contend that
there is an alien bounty hunter involved, they have to part
company. "Enjoy your new company," Scully says.
A man later identified
as Absalom enters a rustic rural building. Jeremiah is in the building with
Teresa. He is using the alien power to heal wounds on her. Absalom cries
with joy while Jeremiah is performing the healing. They were almost
too late, he observes. Scully finds Reyes at the hospital,
looking at Teresa's x-rays. She says she is looking for evidence
of implants. Scully doesn't understand. Reyes says she still
believes that this is the work of a cult, but that she doesn't
disbelieve the reports of alien abductions, and implants are
often reported in such cases. She has worked on many cases of
satanic ritualistic crimes, but never found direct evidence is
Satan. ("We should talk," quips Scully.) Reyes believes that
there are energies in the universe that she is sensitive to. She
can sense Scully's fear. Later, Reyes is driving down a rural
highway, sees a UFO and follows it. It has left another person
behind. Jeremiah and Absalom are loading the body into a pickup
truck when Reyes runs over a nearby hill, calling that she is a
federal agent. The two men drive off before she can approach
them. In the grass nearby Reyes finds a second body -- it is
Richie's friend, Gary.
Scully does an
autopsy on Gary. He has all of the same kinds of injuries Teresa did. Scully
is more scared than ever for Mulder. Doggett and Reyes talk in the hall.
When they worked together before, she helped during a three-day search for
Doggett's son. She knows that Scully fears finding what Reyes
and Doggett did find, i.e. Doggett's dead son. She understands
that this is why Doggett is so
determined to find Mulder. Reyes recognized Absalom in the
field. He was a doomsday cultist who believed that an alien
invasion would begin at the start of the Millennium. When that
didn't happen, he got involved in credit card fraud, and other
activities. Reyes also saw the license number of the pickup and
traced it to a place about an hour drive away. Absalom's people
are eating outdoors, around a campfire. Jeremiah comes up and
says "they are coming" and "you can't let them find him." The
compound is soon raided by law enforcement, including Scully,
Doggett, Skinner and Reyes. There are dozens of people there,
many sleeping in rough dormitory buildings. In one, Scully finds
Teresa, alive and well. They question Absalom who is
evasive. He now thinks that the alien invasion really did begin
with the new millennium, but just not the way he expected. There
are video cameras all over the compound, which he claims are to
give the abductees a feeling of safety -- so they can see if the
aliens return for them. Scully shows him a picture of
Mulder, but Absalom shakes his head, no. In her motel room,
Scully sees a vision of Mulder standing before her, but when she
looks away for a moment, he is no longer there.
Reyes has reviewed
the tapes and shows scenes to the others. On one, Scully recognizes Jeremiah,
who she recalls Mulder believed had the power to heal. They see him morph
on the video tape, changing to look like Doggett, although Doggett was
never in that building. The agents return to the compound,
where riot troops are still in control. Scully asks for
Jeremiah. Picking out one likely suspect from a crowd, she
questions him privately. He morphs and really is Jeremiah. He
says that he saves abductees and he was trying to help Mulder,
too. Skinner comes in. "You'd better come with us," he
says. They have found Mulder, wrapped in a blanket, on the
ground a distance away from the compound.
Scully rushes
up, frantic to help him, but Doggett holds her back, saying that it is too
late. Knowing that Jeremiah has the power to heal, she turns and runs through
the dark back to the compound, but finds a UFO hovering over the main building,
a light beaming down into it. She enters the shaking building;
there are many of the abductees still inside. When the light goes
out, Scully discovers that Jeremiah is gone. She sinks to her
knees, crying, and moaning, "this is not happening." To be
continued in April.
February and May 2001?
-
Deadalive. A
graveside service is held for Fox Mulder in Raleigh, North Carolina. Doggett,
the Gunmen, Skinner, and Maggie and Dana Scully are among those gathered.
The pastor recites the Bible verse, "Whosoever believeth in me shall never
die." Scully
murmurs to Skinner how everyone else on Mulder's family is now gone, but
the truth he worked so hard to find was never truly revealed to him.
She can't believe she is really standing there. Scully crumbles
a handful of dirt into the grave.
Three months later...Doggett and Skinner meet with Kersh. He
is commending them, citing their efforts in the recovery of
Mulder. Kersh has asked Skinner to also write a letter
transferring Doggett off the X-Files and Doggett is being
considered for promotion. Doggett thanks Kersh, but says he'd
like to give the transfer some thought. In The X-Files office,
Doggett and Scully talk. Her pregnancy is showing. Skinner told
Scully about the meeting the Kersh. Scully tries to convince
Doggett that it would be crazy to stay. He counters that in six
weeks, Scully goes on maternity leave. If Doggett is transferred
out, the X-Files office door will be locked, maybe forever.
Doggett still has lots of questions about the Mulder
disappearance and considers it an open case. Scully tells him to
get out when he can or he may never get out.
On a fishing trawler in a storm 50 miles off Cape Fear, North
Carolina, the crew finds a human body in their nets. Later, at the morgue, the medical examiner begins the
autopsy but he body, which has clearly long been in the water,
begins to move. Doggett gets a call at home, from Skinner. The
body found in the ocean is Billy Miles and he is alive, in
Wilmington, NC. Skinner and Doggett drive to the cemetery where
Mulder is buried. Skinner is determined to open Mulder's grave
but Doggett thinks it's crazy. Skinner feels that if Billy
appeared to be dead but is now alive, Mulder may also really be
alive, even after three months. Skinner has the casket taken to the same medical
examiner who helped revive Billy. Although a local coroner attempts to
intervene, they open the casket and find
Mulder, his body showing signs of decay.
Scully rushes up to Skinner at the US Naval Hospital
at Anapolis, MD. She demands to know if what she has heard is true.
Mulder is alive, clinically, but his body and brain are all in a
state of decomposition. Doggett urges her not to see Mulder, but
she does, entering the room alone. She feels his chest to feel
him breathe, and puts her head to his chest, crying. Back at FBI
headquarters, Doggett is called into Kersh's office at night.
Kersh has been in that office for six months and hasn't yet seen
a sunrise from it. Kersh got a call about Mulder - he wants
Doggett to drop the investigation. It's bad for the FBI. At the
hospital, Scully looks in on Billy Miles, who has a brief
convulsion while she is there. Scully has to explain to a nurse
- she was just looking for an indication that Billy might be
getting better, but she thinks the equipment may have
malfunctioned, because for a moment there appeared to be two
heartbeats.
At the FBI, Skinner isn't well. He staggers
while walking down a hall, holding his chest. It is certainly
the nanobots Alex Krycek implanted in Skinner's system months
earlier. Making his way to an elevator, he finds Krycek.
Skinner tells him to go to hell, but Krycek sends him another
attack and Skinner returns to ask what Krycek wants. They go to
the X-Files office. Krycek wants to give Skinner a chance to
save Mulder's life but Skinner isn't sure it can be saved.
Krycek tells Skinner that he has a vaccine developed by Mulder's
father to fight the alien virus.
In the hospital, Billy regains consciousness, his body still
decayed from weeks in the water. He gets out of bed and showers.
The dead skin washes off his body. Doggett comes to Mulder's
room. Scully is sitting there, holding Mulder's hand. Doggett
has concerns about Scully's well being. Scully says that after
her initial reaction to Doggett, he changed her opinion about
him. She is thankful to know about him, and thankful for his
concern, but that he was wrong to feel that the grave should not
be opened. This is not because of her personal feelings, but
because he is assigned to The X-Files. The truth about what
caused this is what matters. A
nurse enters and asks Scully to come - it is Billy Miles,
standing in the hallway, naked and disoriented.
Billy's body looks
healthy. He doesn't remember much when Scully gently questions him. He remembers
the water and being on the spacecraft. They took so many people this time,
but now he understands, he says. "They're here to save us." Doggett walks
off and Scully follows. She accuses that he doesn't believe the
evidence of his eyes. He says he isn't ready to accept a load of
crap but Scully says he's just bull-headed. He asks if Scully
believes the story about aliens coming to save the world, a
question she doesn't answer. Later, Scully and Skinner talk.
He came down after hearing about Billy. Scully reports that
there isn't a piece of medical data on Billy that isn't 100%
normal. It doesn't make sense, but it's like Billy literally
became a new person. Skinner asks if it could be due to an alien
influence, such as a virus. Scully demands to know what Skinner
knows. He says there may be a vaccine, but it doesn't come
without a price. At a corrections facility in Perkey, West Virginia,
Doggett talks with Absalom. Doggett wants to know about the
people he finds left for dead. Absalom quotes scripture but
Doggett wants to know how he healed the people.
Skinner goes to Mulder's room and finds Krycek there. Krycek
says to get the vaccine, Skinner will have to make sure Scully's
pregnancy doesn't come to term. Skinner is shocked and refuses.
Krycek says we all have lives in our hands - the question is who
is willing to sacrifice. Doggett returns and sees Krycek, making
him suspicious. Doggett talks with Scully, who tells him that
she believes that Mulder is infected by a virus that keeps him
just alive enough to transform him into an alien. Absalom also
told Doggett that the abductees, if not cured, would be
resurrected as aliens as part of the plot to take over the world.
The double heartbeat Scully heard in Billy maybe be evidence for
this. Scully is on her way to a surgical bay - Mulder's body has
to be stabilized in order to administer the vaccine she has asked
Skinner to get her. Doggett searches out Skinner, who is in
Mulder's room disconnecting Mulder from the equipment, apparently
an attempt to kill Mulder. Skinner couldn't kill Scully's
baby in order to get the vaccine. Doggett wants to know where
Krycek is and finds him in a car in
the parking garage. Krycek tries to run Doggett down and Doggett
grabs him through the car window as the car careens through the
garage, but Doggett is finally thrown free. Krycek, however,
stops, backs up and gets out of the car, holding up the vial
containing the vaccine. As Doggett approaches him, Krycek drops
the vial, allowing it to break on the floor, then drives off
before Doggett can get to him
Doggett storms back into the hospital. He doesn't have the
vaccine. Doggett tells Skinner he was right - Krycek wasn't to
be trusted. Scully is in the operating room with Mulder when
Doggett enters. Scully has realized that by keeping Mulder on
life support they were helping the virus incubate. When Skinner
took him off the equipment, Mulder's temperature dropped but his
vital signs were unchanged. Maybe they can give him courses of antiviral
drugs to help him. Doggett is called to Kersh's office again.
It's going to be awful crowded down in that X-Files office, Kersh
says, meaning that the promotion is no longer available to
Doggett.
At the hospital,
Mulder wakes up. Seeing Scully holding his hand and crying tears of joy,
he jokingly asks "Who are you?". Then he
asks, "Anybody miss me?" Doggett looks
in, but when he sees what is happening he withdraws.
May 2001?
-
Three
Words. A
man, later identified as Howard Salt, walks along the iron fence along
the street outside the White House. He puts on gloves and climbs the fence,
running toward the building. Secret Service agents intercept him as he
calls out "He needs to
know," and "Aliens are taking over the United States, he needs to
know." Salt pulls a gun out of his belt, and as the agents
wrestle for control of the arm, the gun fires into Salt's
abdomen. As Salt passes out, he hands a CD-ROM to an agent,
asking him to give it to the President. On the CD-ROM is
written, "Fight the Future."
Mulder is in his hospital room, gently touching the wounds on
his face and remembering what was done to him during his
abduction. Scully and a doctor enter. They have important news.
In addition to Mulder's incredible recovery, Mulder's terminal
disease is no longer detectible. The virus is gone, after the
treatment with antiviral drugs and blood transfusions. The scars
on his face and body are repairing themselves. He is in perfect
health. Mulder says he feels like Austin Powers. Later, Scully
takes Mulder home to his apartment. He looks around and notices
that one of his fish is missing. Scully tells Mulder he can't
understand what it was like -- learning of his abduction,
searching for him, finding him dead and now having him back.
Her prayers have been answered. Mulder says that her pregnancy
is also an answer to her prayers, and he is happy for her. He,
however, has no idea where he fits in now. He is having trouble
processing what has happened to him.
At the federal
prison in Perkey, WV, a trustee is circulating library books to prisoners
in a common area. He has the new Harry Potter book. He hands Absalom a book, "The Coming
Apocalypse." Inside the front cover is a newspaper clipping
about a census worker shot on the White House lawn. Deputy
Director Kersh is watching a TV report about the census worker
when Doggett and Skinner enter his office. People are so rarely
what they seem, comments Kersh. Scully has submitted an
application to reinstate Mulder on The X-Files. Kersh intends to
deny the application. The success rate on the X-Files since
Doggett was assigned is much higher than during the time when
Scully and Mulder worked together, he says. The FBI is no place
for a personal crusade, Kersh says, and directs Doggett to tell
Mulder that he will not be reinstated. Kersh says the
alternative is closing the X-Files completely.
Skinner and Scully actually tell Mulder about Kersh's
decision. Mulder thinks it's something that was set up eight
years earlier. For the first time, Mulder is told that Scully
has had a partner for the last several months. Doggett doesn't
know much about the paranormal, but Scully says he is above
reproach and is also being maneuvered. Mulder intends to go back
to work anyway. In Bassett County, WV, a prison work crew,
including Absalom, is working on a road. In the dirt, Absalom
finds a board with a nail sticking out and slips it into the
sleeve of his orange jumpsuit. As the prisoners are loaded into
a van, he uses the board to strike a guard and runs. He is
pursued, but he eludes the guards by running in front of a
passing train, which blocks pursuit.
Later, Doggett
returns home to find Absalom waiting for him. Absalom grabs Doggett's gun
and holds it on him. Doggett is ordered to put his hands behind him and lean
forward so Absalom can check the back of his neck. He has to make sure that
Doggett is still Doggett, he says. Doggett is shown the newspaper
clipping. Absalom claims "they" killed Salt for what he knew,
just as Absalom's life is threatened. He vows to show Doggett
after which Doggett will spread the word. The invasion has
begun. They are already here. As Absalom utters Biblical
phrases, the phone rings but Doggett is not allowed to answer.
It is Scully calling. She is with Skinner in a briefing about
Absalom's escape. The words "Fight the Future" were found on the
wall of Absalom's cell. The agents in the room are skeptical
about reports that Absalom made claims about alien abduction,
healing and alien invasion. Skinner stresses that while the
claims are not substantiated, neither have they been refuted.
The evidence of torture was real. Skinner tells Scully that this
is obviously an X-File and he wants Doggett to be running it.
Scully answers that she is "all over it." As they talk, Scully's
cell phone pager beeps with a message from Mulder, "Where is
everybody, come on down."
They find Mulder in his office, feet up on his desk. By being
there, he could be endangering the X-Files, but he brushes off
such warnings. Mulder already knows about Absalom and has
noticed that Salt is seen in a photograph taken of people at
Absalom's compound. Mulder doesn't know any more than that, but
has a big hunch. Salt, he says, was a multiple abductee, was
trying to get word to the President and was killed for what he
knew. Scully and Mulder visit the FBI evidence room. Mulder
locates Howard Salt's personal effects, including Salt's laptop.
The entire hard drive is taken up with a ten gigabyte encrypted
file. He removes the hard drive and they leave the evidence
room.
Absalom and Doggett arrive at the Federal Statistics Center in
Crystal City, VA. Absalom has taped a gun to Doggett's back so
that it would fire into Doggett's skull. Absalom has his hand on
the gun. Doggett's FBI credentials get them through the guard
post, but a hidden x-ray locates the gun. Absalom wants access
to the place they compile the data from the current census. He
thinks there's proof in the census data that the aliens are
already among us. As the two are about to enter the computer
room, guards appear with guns. Doggett calls to them to back off
and lower their weapons, but one guard shoots Absalom through the
forehead, killing him instantly.
Doggett is in
Skinner's office. Skinner asks about Absalom's claim that the census records
contain proof. Mulder enters and Skinner has to hold him back from roughing
up Doggett. Mulder thinks Doggett is busy burying the truth. He got Absalom
killed for what he knew. Later, Frohike greets Mulder at the door to
Scully's apartment. It's not fair, Frohike says, that Mulder has
been dead for six months and still looks better than Frohike.
Byers and Langly are also happy to see him, although Langly
implies that Mulder may have been involved in a "certain blessed
event." The Gunmen were able to partially decrypt the file on
Salt's hard drive. The data was downloaded from the Federal
Statistics Center (FSC) the day Salt died. Fifteen minutes after
Salt was shot, firewalls went up on the databanks of the FSC.
Mulder thinks that means he's right and that they would kill to
protect what is in the files. Unless Mulder can find a password,
there is no way to get into the data. What is on the hard drive
is apparently just a directory structure. Scully has gotten the
Gunmen to try to convince Mulder to let this one go, but Mulder
remarks that this is America - just because you get more votes
doesn't mean you win.
Doggett approaches
his friend, Rorer as Rorer is jogging. rorer compliments Doggett for dodging
a bullet. Doggett wants to know if he is being used. Rorer can't tell him
that, but he can tell him three words. Later, Doggett stops Scully outside
her apartment building. He can't go upstairs because Mulder doesn't
trust him. Doggett tells her that Salt had a computer diskette
that he was trying to get to the President, according to
Doggett's source. The password for the data is "fight the
future." Scully goes inside, where Mulder is waiting. She
hesitates, but tells him of Doggett's information.
Someone knocks on Doggett's door - it is Skinner. Scully
called, beside herself. Mulder somehow got access to a password
to a federal database filled with names of people of a certain
genetic profile being tracked using the US Census. Doggett
confesses that he gave Scully the password, but now he doesn't
know which side he is helping. He declined to tell Skinner more.
At the FSC, Scully is parked outside in a car when Doggett knocks
on her window. Mulder wouldn't listen to her. Doggett tells her
to leave. She thinks she can't do that to Mulder, but Doggett
tells her to do it for herself. He thinks he may have set Mulder
up. Doggett runs into the FSC. Mulder and the Gunmen are
inside, working to penetrate the FSC security.
With the Gunmen's help, Mulder gets inside without the
security guards noticing. Doggett finds the guard's office
empty. Mulder arrives at the computer room and the Gunmen
remotely open the locks. He uses a workstation to access the
data and prepares to e-mail the data. Doggett pounds on the
door, which is now locked again, calling that Mulder's life is in
danger and to get out of the room. Mulder ignores him. Doggett
fires his gun through the glass door, jumps through the door and
again warns Mulder of the danger. Mulder thinks Doggett is
trying to protect the data, which Mulder says proves that aliens
are targeting certain people based on their genetic profile for
abduction and replacement by alien facsimiles. He begins to send
a copy to the Washington Post. Guards drive up in military
vehicles. Scully sees them arrive and uses her cell phone to
warn the Gunmen that Mulder has to get out. Mulder again thinks
Doggett has set him up, but Doggett says they've both been set up
and they will both be killed. Langly radios to Mulder that the
data has been trapped and can't be uploaded for transmission.
Byers has a long shot idea for how they can get out. The guards
storm into the computer room and Doggett and Mulder are not
there. They are hiding above the suspended ceiling.
Rorer is jogging again. As he stops at a drinking fountain,
Doggett approaches him. Why shouldn't Doggett expose Rorer?
Skinner is walking toward them across the park. If Rorer walks,
Skinner will see to it that Rorer's name goes in lights. Rorer
asks if Doggett exposes him, where will he get his answers?
Doggett is standing on the tip of an iceberg, he says. It's not
about Mulder, Rorer says, it's about the truth. Doggett has it
all right in front of him in the X-Files. Rorer says he is just
trying to point Doggett in the right direction. As Doggett walks
away, we see that Rorer has a lump on the back of his neck.
May 2001?
-
Empedocles.
In New Orleans, an executive and his assistant have to fire an employee -
you've done a good job here but the economy is the result. As the
employee, Jeb Duke, leaves the building, he witnesses a police chase and
the car being chased slams into another vehicle, exploding. As Jeb
stares, it appears to him that the driver of the car, burning on fire,
gets out of the car and walks past Jeb. Jeb's eyes blaze for a moment,
and then Jeb runs off. Later, he returns to the office and shoots his
former boss and the assistant.
Monica Reyes arrives at the crime scene. The officer in charge has
reason to believe that the killings may be satanic. Jeb had some artwork
at his desk that appeared to be satanic, but Reyes recognizes them as
artwork used by a popular recording artist. Reyes doesn't think there is
a satanic angle, until she sees the arm of one body under a sheet and has
a vision of it turning to ashes. Mulder calls on Scully at her
apartment. She was waiting for the pizza man and Mulder jokes, implying
that Scully is having an affair with the pizza man. He sneaks a wrapped
present into her house. She finds the package - he says it is an old
family keepsake he came across. The pizza man comes to the door, but as
Scully begins to open the package, she has severe abdominal pains.
Mulder arrives at the hospital in the ambulance with Scully. Doggett
soon shows up, having received the news about Scully. While they wait,
Reyes phones Mulder asking for help on her case. He refers her to The
X-Files unit, but she says she can't call Doggett because it involves
him. He says to call when she gets to Washington. Scully, it turns out,
is not in immediate danger and the doctors are going to run some tests.
Jeb is at a motel. He picks up his gun and holds it to his head, but
it glows red-hot and burns his hand, and he cannot kill himself. His
scratches his face, and he seems to be glowing with fire inside his body.
At FBI headquarters, Reyes is reviewing boxed files in a storeroom when
Mulder enters. She reminds him that she was there when they found him in
the woods. Her case involves the death of Doggett's son, Luke, when
Doggett was with the New York City Police Department. Reyes was the lead
investigator for the FBI and worked closely with Doggett on the case.
The killer was never found. She doesn't want to put him through this
again, unless she knows whether what she saw means anything. When they
found Luke, Reyes had a vision, as if for a moment the body was changed
to ashes. Doggett saw it too, although he later tried to convince
himself that he didn't. Now she has seen it again on a seemingly
unrelated case. There has to be a reason. Doggett is still at the
hospital, checking in on Scully, who is sleeping. He has a flashback to
the discovery of his son in a wooded field. A nurse interrupts the
flashback, kicking him out of the room.
Mulder is in the basement of the FBI office when Doggett accosts
violently him for sneaking through files relating to Doggett's personal
life, i.e. his son's death, but Reyes comes down the hall and intervenes
and tells Doggett about her vision. Bob Harvey was a suspect in the
death of Luke, but was not charged. Harvey was killed in the car crash
that Jeb witnessed. Doggett is adamant that there is no connection and
he wants them to leave it alone. Reyes is still sure that there is some
connection. She calls on Jeb's sister, Katha Duke, who lives with her
young daughter. Jeb lived in the house with them until he moved south.
She doesn't recognize the name Bob Harvey. While Reyes is there, Jeb
calls, claiming that it was somebody else who killed those people. Jeb
is calling from a rural phone booth and a woman who says she has a flat
tire stops him. Doggett visits Scully in her hospital room again. She
is still feeling the effects of sedatives. He asks her about Mulder and
how she came to believe in the paranormal. What changed her mind was
realizing that she was afraid to believe. Doggett has another flashback
to the discovery of his son and cuts the conversation with Scully short.
Reyes finds Mulder in the X-Files office, even though it is not his
office anymore - just habit, he says. He has several files similar to
the vision Reyes saw, but in the cases the visions seem random and don't
have much relevance to the cases. Mulder thinks Harvey's death was a
coincidence, but Reyes disagrees. Reyes accuses Mulder of not having
an open mind.
Jeb walks through the countryside and arrives at the minivan with the
flat tire. In the window he sees the reflection of himself with flames
behind him. He gets in the car, now with its tire replaced, and drives
off. Later, police are at the scene later when Doggett drives up.
Mulder is there and has summoned Doggett. The woman's body has been
found a short ways off the road and Reyes thinks the killer is Jeb.
When Doggett looks at the body, he says he does not see a vision of it
turning to ashes. Reyes suggests that he is afraid to see it. She can't
blind herself to the connections. What if this is a threat of evil,
connecting through time and men and opportunity back to Doggett.
Doggett just can't bring himself to see it. Later, Mulder calls on
Scully. She had a problem with her placenta and needs to be monitored,
but she should be fine. She asks where Mulder has been and he tells her
about it. She tells Mulder that Doggett is worth the effort to help.
Jeb's sister arrives home to find Jeb there. He swears that he didn't do
what they say. Katha sees blood on his face and he claims he doesn't
know how it got there. He repeats that he is not the killer and that he
needs help.
Doggett is working on the case when Reyes enters his office. She says
he shouldn't be phone canvassing but he insists that proper police work
will find Jeb. She wants him to be honest about what he saw and his
feelings. She asks him what he's scared of. He replies that he's got to
believe that he did everything he could to find his son and to save him.
He is afraid that he let his son down, and if these other possibilities
are real, then it represents something else he could have done to save
Luke. The phone rings - it is Jeb's sister. Doggett and Reyes rush off.
Jeb is reading to his young niece. Katha wants him to talk to Reyes, but
Jeb reacts strongly, grabbing his niece. Jeb and Doggett soon are in a
confrontation, Jeb's gun on Doggett. Reyes shoots Jeb to save Doggett
and the niece. At the emergency room, Doggett and Reyes come in with the
ambulance. Reyes thinks maybe saving the little girl is why this all
happened. She sends Doggett home, but instead he goes to Scully's room
in the same hospital and has yet another flashback. He sees Luke dead on
the ground and sees the ashes. Mulder steps in and wants to talk to
Doggett. When Mulder first worked for the violent crimes unit, he saw
the worst of humanity and began to think of evil as a disease. Most
people can stifle that momentary urge to kill, but some people experience
tragedy or loss that overwhelms that urge. Does that mean that Jeb is
effectively evil, Doggett asks? Mulder says Doggett may never know for
sure.
Katha is with
Jeb in Intensive Care when he goes into convulsions. His heart stops and
doctors can't save him but something passes from Jeb to Katha, and her eyes
glow momentarily. Reyes enters and Katha attacks her. Doggett rushes in
and subdues the sister, knocking her unconscious. He tells Reyes "it's over now" and she says "it's never over." Scully
is back home and Mulder is visiting. He brought pizza of his own. She
finally gets the present opened and finds a child's rag doll, which
Scully with cherish. The other gift he gave her is courage, a gift she
will try to pass on. At the hospital, Doggett is keeping watch on Katha,
who still appears to be unconscious.
May 2001?
-
Vienen.
On an oil-drilling platform at sea, the workers are in a
bar/lounge/restaurant area. The TV goes out and the drill rig
boss, Bo Taylor, hits the TV, causing it to work again. One of
the workers, Simon do le Cruz, goes off by himself to a shop
where another man is repairing a radio. Simon carries a knife
from the kitchen. In the lounge, the TV goes out again and
pounding on it doesn't fix it. Taylor goes to find the rig's
communications officer. He finds Simon battering the radio.
The Communications man is dead. Simon is there, and is clearly
frightened. Taylor's body begins to glow and Simon screams.
At FBI Headquarters, Doggett finds the door to the X-Files
office locked. He unlocks it and enters to find Mulder looking
through the file drawers, researching the recent death of an oil
worker. Doggett understands that Mulder is interested, but
points out that he is not assigned to The X-Files. Simon's body
washed ashore with serious burns. The oilrig's communications
officer is also reported as missing. The medical examiner said
the burns are consistent with radiation burns. Doggett is well
aware of the files on the Black Oil that is radioactive and can
allegedly take over human bodies, but he is not convinced about
it. The phone rings - it is Scully in Kersh's office. There is
an oil executive there who says somebody in the X-Files office
contacted him. It was Mulder, working unofficially.
Mr. Ortega is waiting in Kersh's office, and Kersh is unhappy
that Mulder has been investigating the case. They have a
sensitive situation - the company has located what appears to be
a huge new oil reserve, which may spread into Mexican territory.
In order to diffuse the possible international situation, Kersh
reluctantly agrees to have the case investigated. He sends
Doggett, who arrives at the platform by helicopter, 150 miles out
to sea. A new communications specialist also arrives. Doggett
discovers that Mulder is already there. Taylor tells the two
agents that Simon went crazy and tried to blow up the rig,
causing a gas valve to explode, also killing the communications
chief. When Mulder and Doggett aren't looking, viewers see that
Taylor has black oil in his eyes. Later, in private, Mulder and
Doggett argue. Mulder isn't supposed to be there. Both agree
that Taylor is lying.
Scully does an autopsy on Simon's body. In his brain, she
found evidence of the alien virus, but it is dead. What killed
it? Scully demands an evacuation of the oilrig, in case the
virus is loose. The new communications specialist is working on
the radio, which is still nonfunctional, when Taylor enters.
There is some sort of high frequency interference being received
over a large range of channels. Taylor knocks the man out and
black oil drips out of Taylor's eyes and mouth, infecting the
communications man. Later, Scully uses the now working radio to
send a message to the oilrig and is surprised to learn that
Mulder is there. He suggests that Kersh doesn't need to know
that he is there. She confirms that the virus was in the body
but is dead. Could the radiation have killed it? It seems
unlikely, since the black oil is radioactive itself. Everybody
in the rig is in danger. Scully wants to evacuate the rig and
quarantine the people. Mulder counters that Scully needs to find
what killed the virus. Doggett overhears part of the
conversation and demands from Mulder to know what is happening.
Later, the news is announced to the workers that Doggett has
ordered the rig has been quarantined - nobody can leave or arrive
at the rig. The workers all grumble.
Mulder has reviewed the crew manifest. There is one other
crewmember missing, Diego Garza. He is a deck hand and was a
friend of Simon. Nobody has any idea where he might be. Scully
shows Simon's body to Ortega. He says there is no evidence of
any disease and if they can't give him any, he'll call in the
crew and rotate a fresh crew to the platform. Mulder is looking
for Diego but Doggett thinks Mulder isn't giving straight
answers. Mulder claims he doesn't know what the oilrig workers
are hiding. Mulder has seen how this substance can take over a
man's body. It body jumps from man to man and it's not in all
oil. Mulder thinks the new oil complex is already being pumped
and that the oil is filled with the virus, ready to infect the
planet. Maybe Diego is hiding because he knows what is going on.
As they talk, an alarm goes off. It's the radio room, on fire.
Mulder grabs a fire extinguisher and as Doggett runs down the
hall to get another, Diego knocks him unconscious.
Kersh and Skinner
visit Scully in the morgue. The body should have been well on its way back
to Mexico by now. Kersh got a call from Martin Ortega about the rig being
shut down. Kersh intends to order the quarantine lifted. Scully counters
that communications is out so the order lifting the quarantine can't
be delivered. Kersh threatens Scully and Skinner that they are
running out of mistakes. As the sun sets on the platform, Mulder
concludes that the fire that damaged the radio equipment was
arson. Doggett wakes up to find Diego holding a knife on him.
Diego pokes him to see if his blood is red. Doggett doesn't
speak very good Spanish and their conversation is halting, in
English and Spanish. Diego set the fire to keep the others from
using the radio. "They" have to be stopped before it is too
late. "They" are coming. Who? The flying ships are coming.
Scully finds a large number of T-Cells in Simon's blood, cells
used to fight virus. Simon may have had a genetic immunity to
the virus because he is from a rare group of indigenous Mexican
Indian people. Scully thinks the rest of the rig workers killed
him because he was a threat. It could actually put Mulder and
Doggett in danger if they did get word to them.
Doggett and Diego continue to talk. Doggett says if Diego
stays there, the other workers will find him. Doggett promises
to help Diego get home. Later, Doggett crawls out of the space
where Diego was holding him, apparently having reached agreement
with Diego. Taylor intercepts Doggett, knocking him down and
beginning to drip oil, but Mulder arrives and knocks Taylor
unconscious, saving Doggett. They head for the radio room and
lock the door. Doggett will try to get the radio working while
Mulder barricades the door. Outside, the oil workers gather can
begin to break down the door.
Mulder piles furniture against the door as Doggett gets the
radio working. Scully is on the other end. Scully thinks she
knows why they killed Simon. The choppers are on the way to
evacuate the platform, but Mulder orders that the helicopters not
land. Doggett tells Scully that only three of them on the
platform are uninfected. Mulder abruptly breaks the radio, and
when he does, the hammering on the door stops. He had to prevent
the oilrig workers from using the radio, because apparently they
would use it to signal their flying ships. The oilrig workers
are no longer outside the radio room. Mulder and Doggett
cautiously leave the room to find out why, Doggett calling to
Diego as they go. They find Diego's body, burned. They hear the
chopper arrive and continue making their way up to the deck of
the platform. Mulder thinks that the workers are about to blow
the rig. Flames break out as the two agents run over catwalks
and through equipment rooms. In one area, Taylor and his men
block their way. Explosions rock the platform. Ultimately, they
come to a catwalk and jump into the water as the platform
explodes, to soon be rescued by a hovering helicopter.
Back at the FBI office, Doggett again finds Mulder in the
office. Doggett has been called to Kersh's office. The oil
company has lost the right to drill on that undersea oil complex.
Mulder wants the oil to stay where it is. Mulder tells Doggett
that the blame will be properly fixed - on Mulder. He is out of
the FBI. Mulder is taking a fall for Doggett, for the X-Files.
Doggett has seen the oil for himself. Doggett is in charge now
of The X-Files now. Mulder walks out the door as the episode
ends.
May 2001?
-
Alone. On
a stormy night in Ellicott, NY, Gary Sacks drives up to a house and enters.
An older man, his father named Arlen, is in a wheelchair in the house.
They discuss whether Arlen should be in a hospital, and about how the locks
have to be checked every night. Gary says his father doesn't owe "Stytes" anything.
When Gary leaves the room we see that a window is open. Arlen's heart monitor
begins beeping faster and faster. Gary, in the kitchen, hears the heart
monitor beep flatline. Arlen's wheelchair is overturned and Arlen is missing.
Some sort of reptilian creature the size of a man jumps Gary.
Scully is in the
X-Files office, cleaning out Mulder's desk, looking at memorabilia from past
cases. Doggett enters. She's not staying her doctor told her to begin her
maternity leave. She gives Doggett her medallion commemorating the Apollo
11 space flight. Mulder once gave it to her, symbolizing teamwork and partnership.
She thanks Doggett, saying she wouldn't be here without him. They hug. Doggett
wants to be sure that this pregnancy leave is just a leave, and that Scully
will be coming back. She just smiles at him. Another agent enters, a young
woman named Harrison. She has a murder in up-state New York to be investigated.
She has been assigned to work with Doggett on The X-Files. In Ellicott, they
see Arlen's body being removed. It was found in the woods near the house.
Arlen was the groundskeeper of an estate. His son, Gary, is missing and is
a suspect. On the frame of the open window, and on the floor, Doggett finds
traces of slime. Harrison is young and enthusiastic, but clearly inexperienced.
It's her first time in the field. Kersh gave her the job. Doggett says she
is being used, but Harrison counters that she begged for the assignment.
She was in accounting and processed Mulder and Scully's expense vouchers.
She is excited to be part of this case. She knows about liver eating mutants
and aliens shedding skins. More slime is found where Sack's body was found.
Mulder picks up
Scully to go to the hospital. She is feeling strange about everything, especially
leaving work. She feels like a deserter. Mulder senses that she is concerned
about Doggett. He "watched her back," but Mulder says Doggett can take care of
himself. Doggett is looking through the woods and approaches a large mansion. It
appears deserted, with cloths over light fixtures and furniture. By a computer Doggett
finds a book by Robert Leakey, The Sixth Extinction. Something moves down the hall
and Doggett draws his gun, but it is Harrison. He hushes her and tells her to draw her
gun. He sends her outside to the front door whatever it is in the house, he
will try to flush it out. She goes outside and discovers the reptilian creature
on the wall above her. Doggett hears gunshots and rushes outside. Harrison is
gone. Walking through the grounds, he steps in a trap door in the ground and
falls in.
Other agents are searching the woods, lead by Skinner. Scully phones and asks if it
the report of Doggett being missing is true. She wants to come and help, but Skinner tells
her to stay put. Doggett wakes up in an underground passage. He picks up his gun and
draws a flashlight. His cell phone reports no service. Mulder and Scully are at the
morgue. Arlen Sacks died of heart failure after being blinded by some kind of substance.
Mulder says it is venom, based on the sample Doggett and Harrison sent back. Doggett
breaks through a metal gate across the passage. He finds a wine cellar, then hears a
noise. The reptile jumps him, but he fires his gun and drives it off. Harrison comes into
the room. Both of then had their eyes sprayed and their vision is blurry. She has also
found Gary, who is comatose nearby. Doggett thinks somebody provided the trapdoor to
provide meals for the reptile. Bootleggers probably built the tunnels during the
depression. Mulder drives up to the search location and talks to Skinner. Police found
Doggett's car parked at a convenience store some distance away and the search is being
moved.. Mulder decided to do his own search in the woods. Doggett is trying to climb
out of a manhole , even though his vision is blurry Mulder approaches the mansion
Herman Stytes, who says he owns the property, approaches Mulder. Mulder asks if
Herman has seen any dangerous animals. Mulder gives his name as Alvin Kersh.
Herman says he is a biologist. Mulder thinks that the reptile is a man, using some kind of
reptile venom. Mulder walks away. Doggett gets to the top of the manhole shaft, but
Stytes steps on his hand, causing him to fall back.
Doggett thinks that the man is some kind of scientist. Doggett tells Harrison to stay
with Gary while he looks for a way out. Harrison, however, discovers that Gary is gone.
Did the thing take him? Mulder is watching the mansion when Scully calls. She says
Stytes called and complained about Mulder impersonating Kersh. Scully thinks this is
some sort of reptile attack. Mulder found his Apollo medallion on the grass on Stytes'
estate, so he knows Doggett is nearby. The bacteria in the slime is breaking down the
dissolving the body of the victims, according to lab tests. Doggett and Harrison are
making their way through the tunnels. She is completely blind. Doggett catches a
glimpse of the reptile and shoots as it crawls along the walls. Gary is in the same room
with them, his body largely dissolved. Scully reports to Mulder that Stytes is a
cryptobiologist who published a monograph last year claiming to be on the verge of
creating a new species of reptile. Mulder sees something slithering around the grounds
and chases it. It climbs the mansion wall and disappears. Mulder pounds on the mansion
door, which is locked. The reptile is just inside, and transforms in to Stytes. Stytes
opens the door. Mulder wants to know where it is. Mulder and Stytes find Doggett and
Harrison in the tunnels. Doggett reports that Stytes is protecting the reptile but Harrison
claims that Stytes IS the reptile. Stytes locks them in, then transforms in to the reptile
and stalks them. Doggett can't see but Mulder directs him how to fire his gun to kill the
reptile. When it is dead, the reptile transforms back into Stytes.
At Washington
DC Memorial Hospital, Doggett is recovered, having received anti- venom treatments.
Harrison is recovering, but she has decided that she will not return to the
X-Files. Mulder wants to return the Apollo 11 medallion to Doggett, but Doggett
wants to give it to Harrison. Mulder and Scully visit Harrison, who asks
a typical fan question when Mulder went to Antarctica to save Scully from
the alien spaceship, and his snowcat ran out of gas, how did they get home.
Mulder and Scully don't answer, but begin quibbling over whether it was really
a spaceship, enjoying themselves.. Doggett listens at the door briefly, and
walks off, alone.
May 2001
-
Essence. The
episode begins with a narration by Mulder about the miracle of life or
is it just nostalgia for something commandeered by science. How did this
child come to be? Is it a miracle or a product of technology?
Scully's mother, Maggie, is helping decorate Scully's apartment for a baby shower.
Lizzy Gill arrives, a baby nurse Maggie has asked to help Scully. While the shower is
going on, Lizzy replaces the pills in Scully's prescription bottle. At Zeus Genetics, Dr.
Lev is working late when Billy Miles enters. He's there to verify that Dr. Lev's work has
been fruitful. It has, but his work is done. Billy kills Dr. Lev, dousing the body with a
chemical and setting it on fire. Doggett is cleaning his gun on a Saturday morning when
Mulder comes to his door. The Zeus Genetics building has burned and Mulder wants to
be involved because it's the place where Scully thought they were creating alien babies.
The two visit
the FBI evidence analysis facility which is sifting through the debris from
Zeus. Doggett's friend, Gene, resents that it was Mulder who initiated the
search. All of the Zeus staff is accounted for but Dr. Lev. Lev's co-founder
of Zeus Genetics was Dr. Parenti, who was Scully's obstratician for the first
two-thirds of her pregnancy. Mulder and Doggett go to question Parenti. They
gain access to the office, believing that nobody is there. Parenti actually
is there, meeting with a patient. In Parenti's office Doggett finds many
glass containers with preserved fetuses. Parenti says they are babies with
birth defects. Scully takes her perscription pills as Lizzy is about to leave.
Outside, Lizzy is picked up to Duffy Haskel. She tells him that Scully trusts
her and Haskel replies, "Good, we're almost at an end."
Dr. Parenti is
packing the things in his office when Billy enters. When Mulder and Doggett
arrive to further question Parenti, they find the doctor's head in one of
the glass canisters. Mulder finds Billy in the office, who tosses Mulder
through a glass panel. Doggett fires his gun at Billy's chest, but Billy
keeps coming. Doggett ducks into an office, and when he looks out again,
Billy has disappeared. Doggett and Mulder go to Scully's apartment, where
she cleans a cut over Mulder's eyebrow. Mulder thinks Billy is an alien "human replacement." Doggett counters that Billy bled red blood when he
was shot, and the X-Files show that aliens bleed green. Mulder speculates that Billy is
something new. Lizzy arrives while they are talking and from another room calls Haskel
to report that there is trouble that the agents are asking all the right questions.
While on the phone, Haskel is attacked by Billy.
Dogett arrives
at the crime scene where Haskel's head has been found, severed from his body.
Skinner and Mulder are there, too. Skinner says the building has been determined
to be an illegal medical facility for the purpose of human cloning and that
prenatal records indicate that Lev and Parenti were monitoring Scully's pregnancy.
Skinner asks Mulder about the fatherhood of Scully's baby. Mulder has no
idea and Skinner stresses that he needs answers. Mulder phones Scully, who
has to leave the shower to answer. She catches Lizzy substituting more prescription
pills. Scully is checked out at the hospital, and everything is fine. The
replacement pills were just vitamin supplements. Skinner, Mulder and Doggett
gather at Skinner's office to question Lizzy, who says that for ten years
she has been a scientist working on a secret human cloning project. They
were funded with government money from men who are all dead now. They were
successful with a clone combining human and alien DNA. The babies only survived
a couple of days, but they provided tissue and stem cells for other work,
which Lizzy claims to have no knowledge of. Lizzy says Scully's child is
very special a perfect human child with no human frailties. Mulder storms
out. Doggett's friend, Gene, tells Doggett that Billy has called in from
Dr. Parenti's office, offering to give himself up. Doggett takes a SWAT team
to Parenti's office, but Billy is not there.
Mulder arrives at Scully's apartment and tells her to pack a bag quickly because she
is in danger. He is going to do everything he can to protect her baby, but he can't do that
at her apartment. Doggett phones to report that Billy is not where he said he would be.
The lights go out in Scully's apartment and Mulder and Scully run. As they head down
the hall, Billy approaches from the other end of the hall. Scully's car is blocked in by
two other cars. As Billy approaches, he is struck by another car, driven by Krycek.
Although Krycek's car completely passed over Billy's body, Billy is recovering rapidly.
Krycek calls out that they don't have much time and in a split second, Mulder and Scully
decide to go with Krycek. They all gather again in Skinner's office. Krycek says that
there are others just like Billy and that they are virtually unstoppable. They are working
to end the resistance to the alien's return to the planet. Why do they want Scully's baby?
They are afraid of it, because they realize that it could be greater than them. Krycek
asked Skinner to kill Scully's baby (a few episodes ago) because he wanted to destroy the
truth. Mulder leaps to the conclusion that this truth is that there is a higher power, a God.
Krycek says that there is no hospital that is safe enough for Scully.
Doggett calls in help, including agent Monica Reyes, who is on her way to the airport
in a taxi. She diverts to the FBI building. Doggett waits for her in the parking garage
and phones to Skinner and Mulder to bring Scully down when he sees Reyes' taxi pull
up. As Reyes drives up, however, Billy is seen in the parking garage and Doggett tells
Skinner and Mulder to take Scully back up in the elevator. Billy heads up the stairs.
Skinner and Mulder leave Scully with Krycek and head out to intercept Billy. Krycek
gets her to the garage and Reyes drives off with Scully, slowly negotiating the curves of
the parking garage. Gene stops them at the parking garage exit to the street. On the roof
of the building, Skinner encounters Billy. Mulder runs up and knocks Billy over the edge
of the building. Billy falls into a garbage truck, several stories below. Gene waives
Reyes on and she drives off with Scully. Viewers see that Gene has a bump on the back
of his neck.
Late May 2001
-
Existence.
Billy Miles' remains are brought into a medical examiner's lab. The body was
crushed after falling into a garbage truck. In the pulverized remains, the
doctor finds what appears to be a metallic vertebra. He leaves it on the
counter when he leaves the room. The piece of metal spins of its own accord.
Each time it spins, it multiplies itself, as if creating a new backbone
- apparently Billy's body is rebuilding itself out of almost nothing.
Scully is riding in a car drives by Reyes. They are in Georgia, where they
hope Billy cannot find them. Reyes is concerned that she has never delivered a
baby and there will not be facilities where they are going. At FBI
headquarters, Mulder and Doggett are with Skinner and Krycek in Skinner's
office. Video from a surveillance camera shows Billy Miles leaving the morgue.
Doggett doesn't believe it is possible. Krycek can't explain it, but says Billy
is somehow a human replacement - some new kind of alien, created to aid in the
repopulation of the planet. The aliens think Scully's baby is a threat to their
plans. Agent Crane gives Doggett the message that Knowle Rorer wants to talk to
Doggett. They meet and RorerRorerRorer tells Doggett that both Billy and Scully's baby
are products of a cold war effort to create a super soldier. Scully's abduction
was by the military, and the chip in the back of her neck was used to make her
pregnant with the first organic version of the super soldier. RorerRorer wants to
stop Billy before he can get to Scully.
Scully and Reyes arrive at Democrat Hot Springs, an abandoned community in
Georgia where Doggett was born. It used to be a popular spot among the rich.
Only Doggett knows where they are. It is night and the rooms are dark and
dirty. They begin making plans for Scully's labor. Outside, Reyes sees some
kind of bluish light in the distance. Billy shows up in the FBI building
causing Krycek and Skinner to run. Skinner barely escapes Billy by jumping into
an elevator and Krycek, already in the elevator, does not lift a hand to help
Skinner. Skinner is seriously wounded. Mulder is with Skinner in the hospital
when Doggett arrives. Doggett tells Mulder about his conversation with Rorer,
making clear that Doggett doesn't trust Rorer. Mulder doesn't want Doggett to
tell anyone where Scully is - not even Mulder. Doggett is wondering whether the
fact that he knows where Scully is will catch up with him. Mulder points out
that Rorer didn't say HOW they intend to stop Billy.
Reyes has the
house cleaned up and arranged for the labor, impressing Scully. Reyes talks
about needing mood music, suggesting whale songs, reminding Scully of her
sister, Melissa. Reyes sees someone outside. It turns out to be a female
park ranger. The ranger is skeptical of the claims that she is talking to
two federal agents hiding from a very dangerous man, but she eventually gives
them the benefit of the doubt and volunteers her first aid kit, and to go
get further supplies. Scully asks Reyes if she is feeling any "vibrations." She
says something feels "off," but she can't identify it. Reyes goes outside to
get water from a pump well. The glowing blue light is still there in the
distance. Billy appears out of the dark and attacks her but the park ranger,
who has just returned, shoots Billy, saving Reyes. Scully comes outside to see
what is happening, but feels her first contraction. Her labor is beginning.
In the FBI parking garage, Mulder and Doggett see Rorer in a car with
Krycek. Doggett follows Rorer when Rorer leaves the car and Mulder watches
Krycek. Doggett sees Rorer talking with Agent Crane outside Deputy Director
Kersh's office. Doggett slips downstairs to Skinner's office - Skinner is
there, even though it is at night. He just got out of the hospital. Doggett
phones Mulder to tell him that Rorer is talking with Crane - Crane must be the
one getting people past FBI security and feeding information to Billy. Crane,
Rorer and Krycek must all be in league. Doggett calls Reyes from a phone
inside the FBI, and Crane must have tapped the call. They know where Scully is,
Mulder concludes.
Mulder says he
has to get to Scully and protect her. Doggett relents and directs Mulder
to Democrat Hot Springs in Northern Georgia. Mulder tells Doggett that Rorer
and Crane may also be human replacements and that he and Skinner are in danger.
Krycek interrupts the call by smashing the window of Mulder's car. He is
holding a gun on Mulder and indicates that he plans to kill Mulder. Krycek
says they have been on the same side all along and could have killed Mulder
many times, but he hoped Mulder would win somehow. As Krycek begins the pull
the trigger, Skinner, who has entered the parking garage unobserved, shoots
Krycek. When Krycek continues to reach for the gun that has fallen out of
his hand, Skinner shoots him twice more, the last time in the forehead. Krycek's
last words are that it would take more bullets than Skinner can ever fire
to win this game. Mulder still needs the exact location of Democrat Hot Springs
from Doggett. Skinner sends Mulder off to find Scully, saying that he will "get
it."
Upstairs, Doggett encounters Rorer and Crane, running to escape them. He
runs downstairs, Crane chasing him. Doggett bursts out into the parking garage,
encountering Skinner who turns and runs with him. They jump into Skinner's
Blazer. Crane and Rorer run into the garage. Crane runs for the truck while
Rorer runs for his own vehicle. Crane jumps on top of Skinner's car and beats
in a window, grabbing at Doggett's throat. Skinner ends up driving past a roof
support pillar, knocking Crane off the truck. Crane begins to get up, but
Rorer drives through, his car bouncing right over Crane. The car bounces into
another support pillar and explodes in flame.
Scully is in labor.
The park ranger is helping more than Reyes, but Reyes notices a lump on the
back of the ranger's neck. Reyes chooses her moment and smashes the ranger
over the head with a pot in which they have been boiling water. Several other
cars drive up and the ranger, now with facial burns, says, "This baby will be born." Reyes
sees Billy getting up from the ground. Scully is in great distress. Billy
and the others have all entered the room and are watching the labor. As she
screams with pain, Scully is also screaming to not let them take her baby.
The baby is born. Billy and the others leave. Outside, Mulder is approaching
in a helicopter. He lands as the cars are driving off and Reyes summons him
to the building where Scully is. Scully is OK, but she needs to get to a
hospital, Reyes says.
Doggett and Reyes are in Kersh's office. He is expressing skepticism about
their report. Who even assigned Reyes to the X-Files, anyway? Doggett answers
that he assigned her because he is investigating Kersh's office for a late night
meeting between Kersh, Rorer and Crane, both of whom are missing and presumed
dead. Kersh is left without anything to say. Doggett and Reyes leave.
Mulder arrives
at Scully's apartment. The Lone Gunmen are there, delivering presents. They
don't understand how Mulder arrived in time to save Scully. Doggett told
them that Doggett never reached Mulder with specific directions. Mulder says, "there was a light, I followed it." The Gunmen leave. Scully
shows Mulder her son - he is perfectly normal. She has named him "William,
after Mulder's father. Mulder holds him. Mulder jokes that the boy has
Scully's coloring and her eyes, but that he looks suspiciously like Skinner - a
reference to the bald head. Scully doesn't understand why they didn't take her
son from her. Mulder isn't sure, but maybe little William isn't what they
thought he was. That doesn't make him any less a miracle, though. From the
moment Scully became pregnant, she was afraid about how and why it happened.
Mulder says that there were many possibilities, but they both know the truth.
"Which is what?" she asks. Wordlessly, Mulder kisses Scully on the mouth.
Note about dating: Evidence seen in this episode and the next indicates
that The Lone Gunmen series finale cliffhanger All About Yves happens in the
48 hours between these two X-Files episodes. In Nothing Important Happened
Today Langly's skin is dyed blue but in Existence it is not. In All About Yves
we see the Romeo 61 list which includes recent entries on dates 5-14-01 and
5-4-01, indicating that this episode takes place not earlier than late
May. The inconsistency of these dates versus Scully's 12 month pregnancy will
probably never be addressed on screen.
Late May 2001
-
Nothing
Important Happened Today I. A man, later identified as Carl
Wormus, is having a drink in a bar. He dips his fingers into his glass
and removes the ice. A striking dark-haired woman, later identified as
Shannon McMahan, walks in and seats herself at the bar. Wormus moves
over to talk with her. He wants his drinks without water, but the bartender
always gives him drinks "on
the rocks," he tells her. He doesn't like water because of an addative, "Chloramine,"
that the government adds to water. After only a few moments of
banter McMahan suggests that they go outside "for some air." They are soon zooming
down the highway in his convertible, apparently going to her home out in the
country. Wormus slows as they approach a drawbridge because the bridge is rising.
McMahan slams her hand down on his leg, flooring the accelerator. The car crashes
through a barricade and falls into the water. Underwater, McMahan sits placidly
in her seat as Carl struggles to release his seatbelt and swim to the surface.
As he begins to rise out of his seat, McMahan grabs his ankle and holds him underwater.
It is 48 hours after last season's finale episode. Scully wakes early in the morning
because little William is fussing. Someone is in the shower but we can't tell who. In the
living room we see suitcases, all packed. The
implication is that Mulder is also in the apartment and is preparing to leave. In
rapid succession we see Doggett awake in his bedroom and Reyes awakened at her apartment by
a phone call. The call is from Brad Follmer, an FBI assistant director who she once
had a relationship with. He asks her to visit his office. Doggett makes coffee and hears a
TV report of Wormus' death. He was a deputy administrator of the Environmental Protection
Agency. Follmer is listening to the same report when he hears Reyes in
his outer office. His assistant was away and she was going to leave a note rather than
knock on his door. He attempts to kiss her and she resists, surprising him because a
couple of years ago in New York she used to ask him to close the door so them could
kiss. Doggett's investigation of assistant director Kersh is causing waves, Follmer tells her.
He gives her two security tapes from the FBI building. One shows her meeting with
Doggett. He doesn't immediately tell her the content of the other tape.
Doggett and Kersh
meet each other on the elevator in the FBI building. Doggett says that his
investigation is nothing personal. Kersh says that if Doggett can't find
anything on him, nobody can. Doggett and Reyes talk in the X-Files office.
He's upset that he is just doing his job but is getting a lot of heat. Reyes
tells him that he may be unable to do his job the second tape is from the
FBI parking garage, where Doggett and Skinner were attacked, Rorer's car
exploded and Skinner shot Krycek. The tape shows nothing but an empty garage.
The garage has been cleaned of all evidence. Doggett goes to Mulder's apartment
but it is vacant with all of Mulder's possessions removed.
At the Greater Maryland Water Reclamation Facility in Baltimore, McMahan emerges
from a huge tank of water. She is nude. A plant worker, Roland McFarland, sees her
fleetingly across the facility and walks to investigate. She grabs him and dives into the
tank with him, pulling him deep underwater. Doggett arrives at Scully's apartment
uninvited. The phone has been off the hook to keep from disturbing the baby and
Doggett panicked that Scully may have disappeared also. Scully will not explain where
Mulder went, just saying that he's gone. Reyes talks with Skinner. She and Doggett
have been unable to trace Mulder. Skinner doesn't know where Mulder is and probably
wouldn't tell her if he did. Doggett arrives and Skinner asks Doggett to drop the
investigation of Kersh. No, the bad guys didn't get to Skinner and he isn't afraid of them,
but he is afraid for the lives of Mulder, Scully and the baby if the investigation continues.
Doggett concludes that if he doesn't drop the investigation he's alone on it. Reyes
counters that she is still with him.
Later, Reyes meets
Follmer in a bar. She asked him out and is much more receptive to him now because
she wants something from him. She says there isn't going to be an investigation
of Kersh and it probably means that she will be going back to New Orleans
because if they drop the investigation the X-Files will also probably be dropped,
and it is her dream assignment. She also implies that she wanted to be in
Washington to be closer to Follmer. Without saying it she is asking for his
help to keep her assigned to the X-Files. Doggett goes to Scully's apartment
uninvited again and asks for her help. She says she doesn't know how to find
Mulder and that his disappearance makes sense in its own way. He brings up
the claim about the super soldier project. She says the baby is fine and
encourages him to drop it and when he resists she asks him to leave and not
return. He leaves without pushing further.
Back home, Doggett works to track down and telephone several buddies from his
Marine company, trying to find more information on what happened to Rorer after his
discharge. One of them, seen in a photograph of the Marine company, is Shannon
McMahan. He does not reach her. Reyes passes McMahan in an FBI building hallway.
McMahan is wearing FBI credentials. Reyes goes to the X-Files office where she edits a
report, breaking a pencil in the process. She gets up on the desk to retrieve pencils that
are stuck in the ceiling, but hears someone in the hallway outside. The elevator door is
just closing as Reyes enters the hallway, but she finds an envelope containing the
obituary of Carl Wormus.
Scully puts William down for a nap and lies down herself. She awakes to find star-
shaped ornaments on the crib mobile over William spinning slowly with William crying. Scully
stops the mobile from turning but when she releases them they begin turning again. She
phones Doggett and says she was wrong to ask him to drop the investigation. He vows
that he hasn't, and that something has come up. Scully agrees to meet him and Reyes at
Quantico, leaving Maggie Scully watching William. Doggett has obtained Wormus' body
and wants Scully to do a thorough autopsy, even though tests show Wormus was drunk when
he drowned. Skinner calls Doggett to say that Doggett made a mistake when he obtained
the body without jurisdiction. Skinner warns Doggett to watch his back. As Scully
works with Reyes watching, Doggett goes back home and meets with the Lone
Gunmen. Langly's skin is still blue (see the Lone Gunmen series finale) and Frohike
quips that they may need to charge Doggett to help their finances. They hack into
various computer systems but can't find out anything about Wormus, except that he had an
obsession about water.
Scully concludes
that Wormus did, indeed, drown. Reyes is impressed that Scully can do the
autopsy all the while being concerned that something is wrong with her baby.
Scully thinks maybe she's seeing connections that aren't really there. She
discovers marks in Wormus' ankle that spear to be from fingers, like someone
was holding him underwater. Follmer tells Kersh that Scully is at Quantico
and Kersh asks Follmer to handle it. Follmer protests that he has a conflict Reyes but Kersh can't do anything because he is
under investigation. McMahan visits Scully's apartment but Maggie does not let her in.
McMahan claims to work with Scully but when Maggie asks her name, McMahan
disappears. Scully and Reyes leave the autopsy room. The work is done and Scully
needs to get home. They see McMahan following them. They don't know who she is, but
Reyes remembers her from the FBI office. Follmer and a team of agents accost Scully and
Reyes and take them back to the examining room. Follmer tells Reyes that he is doing his
best to "cover her ass." The body is gone and Follmer demands
to know where Doggett took it. Reyes denies that Doggett took it anywhere and
suspects that Follmer slipped them Wormus' obituary to set Doggett up. This claim
appears to confuse Follmer.
Reyes talks to the Gunmen, still at Doggett's. They have discovered that Wormus was
receiving encrypted e-mail from McFarland at the water reclamation facility. Doggett
and Skinner have gone to Baltimore to investigate. They slip into the plant illegally and
locate McFarland's desk, locating files mentioning Chloramine. Follmer and the other
agents storm into the plant. Skinner and Doggett have to run to avoid them, running
through the catwalks with the other agents in pursuit. Skinner is slowed down when he
bumps into a protruding pipe. Follmer catches up and believes that Skinner is also there to
apprehend Doggett, rather than because the two are working together. Doggett hides
from Follmer in the water tank. The Chloramine files slowly drift upward, but Follmer cannot
see anything due to the reflections on the dark water. Doggett feels his ankle grabbed and we
see McMahan, nude again but obscured by the murky waste, pulling him downward deeper
into the tank. To be continued.
Late May 2001
-
Nothing
Important Happened Today II. The captain of a ship at sea
enters a security area within his vessel using a hand print scanner and
a retinal scan. He has a message for Dr. Nordlinger. It's an encrypted
message translated to read "Emergency, stop. Return to operations base
directly, stop."
The Doctor confirms that they are returning to base. On a big screen in the
background we see a microscope projection of work on a human ova. The Captain
returns to the base and orders the signal sent that, "We're coming in."
Follmer looks
around the tank that is filled with still water. Just after he turns away
bubbles break the surface. Doggett has lost consciousness underwater but
McMahan kisses him to breathe air into his lungs. Reyes meets with Follmer
and Skinner. Follmer is charged with reigning in the X-Files and he is having
trouble understanding the current investigation. He cites unauthorized autopsies
and break-ins to the water plant. He is trying to give both Reyes and Skinner
a chance to put a positive spin on what is going on. Follmer tells Reyes
that she shouldn't insist on an investigation within the FBI. It won't expose
anything but her unless she distances herself from Doggett. She walks out
of the office. Doggett wakes up in a bed, coughing. McMahan is there, dressed
in jeans and a t-shirt. His lungs are full of water. She had to pull him
under water or they would have caught him. She says she is the product of
50 years of military science a
bioengineered combat unit. She doesn't sleep and can breathe under water, she
claims. She and Rohrer were recruited right out of the Marines. They were
Adam and Eve but there are many more super soldiers now. She hates what she
is and needs Doggett's help to stop the expanding program. The two men she
killed were preparing to distribute a drug in the water supply, she says.
The ship is now in a civilian dock in Baltimore. The Captain prepares to leave the
ship although the first mate reminds him that security rules prohibit them from leaving.
The Captain walks to a pay phone on the dock and calls the office of Carl Wormus, but
gets voice mail. He doesn't know that Wormus is dead. Skinner visits Scully's
apartment because he couldn't be candid on the phone. She and Mulder asked him to
leave this matter alone and he can't understand why Scully is now getting involved. She
can't explain what happened with her baby but she needs answers. It's too dangerous for
her to contact Mulder. Skinner thinks she has made a big mistake by getting involved. In
the morning Scully gets a call from Reyes and Doggett. They may have some answers
for her. Scully arrives at Doggett's to find him, Reyes and McMahan there. McMahan
says the Chloramine being put in the water system has a changed molecular makeup and
is being delivered into every home to prime the population to breed a generation of super
soldiers. She says she is a first generation prototype but they are seven generations
advanced beyond her and a super soldier has been born from a mutated human egg.
Scully is not
inclined to trust McMahan she's heard lots of conspiracy claims before.
McMahan shows her a lump on the back of her neck that is just like one viewers have seen
on Rorer's neck. She also lifts her shirt. While Scully examines McMahan, Reyes tells
Doggett that she doesn't trust McMahan. Scully finds a small spinal deformity - the bump - but
otherwise McMahan is physically normal. Doggett still thinks she's the key to their case.
Skinner interrupts their meeting with a phone call to Doggett. As a result of the call,
Doggett bursts into Kersh's office. Doggett is being suspended for insubordination but
Doggett says that will not stop his own investigation. The Captain returns to the bridge
of his ship. His first mate has been replaced by Rorer, who says he is now second in
command. Reyes finds that McMahan is in the Department of Justice database, listing
her as an employee. The Lone Gunmen enter, Langly with his face no longer blue. They
used fake FBI passes to get into the building. Their Internet service was disconnected for
nonpayment so they use FBI access to show Reyes phone records from Wormus'
voice mail system. Someone has called several times since he died, even though his
death was big news. As they are connected to the system another call comes in. They
scramble to patch in and Frohike answers the call, pretending to be Wormus. It is the
Captain calling the ship has been ordered into port and they (the Captain and
Wormus) are under suspicion. As they had previously talked, the Captain wants
Wormus to contact the FBI and tell them about the lab on board the ship and expose
the horror and inhumanity. Rorer sees the Captain making the call.
Reyes accosts
Follmer in his office. She is asking for his help again to obtain
McMahan' Department of Justice case files. She thinks Follmer is on the wrong side in this
matter and that Doggett and all the rest of them are being set up. Later, after receiving
the files, Reyes tells Doggett and Scully that McMahan is not telling the truth. The two
men she killed had contacted her as whistle-blowers, reporting wrongdoing. Reyes
claims that McMahan hasn't been able to find the Captain of the ship so she is using
Doggett to locate him. Scully says if there really is a lab on the ship it may hold answers.
The Captain tricks Dr. Nordlinger into opening the security door and demands the
computer hard drives containing data on the "butcher shop" they are running. Scully,
Doggett and Reyes arrive at the dock. They are supposed to meet the Captain by the
pay phone. They see a man walking toward them and Doggett realizes it is Rorer.
Doggett tells Scully and Reyes to run and Doggett fires his gun at Rorer repeatedly,
without effect. Rorer attacks Doggett and beats him but McMahan appears and beheads
Rorer, saving Doggett. "You didn't trust me," she says, but a hand from Rorer's
beheaded body, which is still standing upright, slams through McMahan' torso
and they both fall into the water, apparently dead.
Scully, Doggett and Reyes board the ship. They find nobody on board but they find
the severed head and body of the Captain. Doggett goes one way and the women go
another. Doggett finds an explosive device counting down from two minutes. He rushes
off to find the other agents, locating them in the lab. Scully realizes immediately that the
lab has been used to modify ova, female eggs for transplant. As Doggett shouts that they
have to leave, Scully desperately searches through the records, looking for her own name.
Doggett shouts that there is no time (not unlike the way Scully shouted at Mulder in The
X-Files Movie) and that they'll find another way. Scully gives up. They flee and the
ship explodes just as they reach the dock.
48 hours later
Doggett enters Kersh's office with his completed report. Kersh is not implicated.
Kersh looks at it briefly and reads about super soldiers, Navy ships and
McMahan, all disappeared. The report mentions, "a conspiracy like a cancer within the US
government." Doggett says he knows that Kersh's hands are dirty in this matter, but
Doggett has concluded that Kersh is the one who left Wormus' obituary to be found.
Kersh claims that he is also a victim of threats on his life by the conspiracy and that he
encouraged Mulder to leave. Doggett realizes that it was actually Scully who convinced
Mulder to go into hiding. Kersh cites the personal diary of King George III on July 4, 1776
"Nothing important happened today" to show that revolutions can start that will change
the world forever and even kings can fail to notice. Doggett leaves Kersh's office and
meets Follmer in the elevator. Follmer has heard that Doggett has a stay on his suspension. The
Deputy Director has the X-Files operation just where he wants it. Follmer claims that he is
a friend of The X-Files and smirks that it is a comfort to have them "down there."
Underwater, we
see McMahan' body. Her eyes suddenly pop open she is alive.
Scully is sleeping on a sofa beside William's crib. She checks the baby then
lies down again and closes her eyes. William waves an arm and as the screen
goes black for the credits we hear the sound of the mobile turning again.
Fall 2001?
-
Daemonicus.
On the night of a full moon, a pickup pulls to a stop near a rural residence
in Weston, West Virginia. Inside, a man and a woman, Darren and Evelyn Mountjoy,
are playing Scrabble. Their dog begs to go outside and Evelyn lets her out.
A moment later they hear the dog yelp and the electricity goes out. Darren
orders his wife to the basement and he runs upstairs for his gun. When he
comes downstairs he sees a figure in the dark, moving toward him. The figure
ignores his warning, so he shoots, only to find that it is Evelyn, her wrists
bound and her mouth gagged with tape. Two other people, with demonic-looking
faces, approach Darren in the dark.
Reyes drives
up to the crime scene. There are other officers here and there. She enters
the living room and finds Darren and Evelyn dead, sitting at their table.
On the Scrabble board is the word "Daemonicus." Reyes feels something. A
ceiling fan, which had been turning, abruptly stops then starts again when
Doggett enters. The Mountjoys had no known enemies. The dog's neck was broken
also. He thinks the criminals wanted it to look like a satanic ritual. Reyes
thinks it may actually be satanic in nature. Doggett denies it --- there
are even fingerprints of the killers. When the coroner's staff enters to
remove the bodies, snakes are found emerging from Evelyn's torso.
Scully is speaking
to a class at the FBI Academy at Quantico. She has been assigned there to
teach forensic investigation. She tells the class that science tells us that
evil comes from men, not monsters, and only after we have completely exhausted
the scientific possibilities should we consider more extreme possibilities.
Doggett and Reyes talk with her in the morgue after class. Scully finds adhesive
residue on Evelyn's wrists. There is evidence that Daryl was held down while
he was killed. The snakes are non- venomous and were sewn into the bodies
with household thread. Reyes says that while she was alone in the house she
had a feeling of evil something she has not experienced
before in spite of many investigations of satanic crimes. Doggett receives a phone call
from Chessman Memorial mental hospital 100 miles away they think that one of
their patients committed this crime.
Doggett and Reyes
visit the hospital and talk with Dr. Monique Samson. They had a prisoner
escape last night, Dr. Richmond, who was committed after sewing poison into
patient's bodies during surgery. Reyes asks several questions about Richmond's
possible experience with satanic ritual, which Samson discounts. The agents
know they are looking for two men the second may be Paul Gerlach, a security guard at the prison
who is missing. Richmond and Gerlach walk through the woods. Richmond is carrying
a rope and both have demonic-appearing faces. Richmond drops the rope and pulls out a
gun. Doggett and Reyes visit another patient in the hospital, Joseph Kobold, who is in the
cell next to Richmond's. They want to know if Kobold noticed anything during the
escape. Doggett promises to protect Kobold. "Do you believe in the power of the
devil?" asks Kobold. Doggett says the devil is a story made up to scare people. "Then
how can you protect me?" asks Kobold. Later, Doggett and Reyes are called back to see
Kobold. He is agitated, is under restraint, and has been repeating "prince of the
apostles." Kobold says "he's speaking to me" and claims that Richmond has killed again.
He doesn't know who, but he can show the agents. They take Kobold out of the hospital
in chains with ample police escort. In the woods they find a body hanging upside down
from a tree security guard Gerlach.
Scully determines
that Gerlach was shot in the chest. His demonic face is a mask. "Prince of the apostles" is a reference to St. Paul, who story says was crucified upside
down. It is also a satanic image. Kobold is meditating when Doggett and Reyes reenter
his padded cell. They again ask for his help before anybody else gets hurt. Kobold says
that "he" is whispering to Kobold in 1,000 voices, but they are hard to hear.
He asks for a larger room with windows. Doggett thinks it's a fake but Reyes
is convinced that Kobold can help them. Dr. Samson arrives home after work. The
pickup pulls up outside her house. Later, in a bigger room, Kobold asks Doggett
why a skeptic like him would accept assignment to a unit that investigated the
paranormal. Kobold knows much more about the agents than he should. Maybe Doggett
is seeking acceptance from a woman or maybe there is a dark secret from his past
that caused him to join the X-Files? Kobold goes into convulsions, murmuring
words that Reyes understands as a reference to the physician. The pickup is driving
off as police cars race up to Dr. Samson's home. Inside Doggett and Reyes find
Dr. Samson dead in her desk chair. A dozen syringes are sticking out of her face.
Scully is at the crime scene. The syringes were filled with a drug Samson was giving
to Kobold. Doggett isn't ready to consider satanic possession. Scully councils him to not
let his objectivity be clouded. Kobold is in the car, watching them. Back at the hospital,
Doggett shows Kobold a monograph Kobold wrote six years earlier about the influence
of Satan on Renaissance thinking. Doggett thinks Kobold planned the whole thing.
Kobold counters that Doggett clearly has feelings for Scully but he can't compete with
the long-lost Mulder. He wants her, but both Scully and Reyes feel sorry for him.
Kobold goes into another convulsion, this time vomiting a continuous stream of reddish
liquid. Scully examines Kobold later and can't find anything wrong with him. They
can't explain the liquid or voices heard in Kobold's room. Reyes suggests that the liquid
might be ectoplasm. Doggett thinks the women are blinded by a hoax but Reyes can't
understand why Doggett is turning his back on evidence. That night, a storm flickers
outside the hospital. The guard watching Kobold's room looks into Kobold's room and
Kobold is looking back at him. In the lightning, his face flickers and appears to be
demonic.
Doggett calls
Scully as Scully is driving home from the Academy. Kobold told the guard
he knows where to find Richmond. Scully knows the place it is an old marina
not far from where she is at the moment. She will meet Doggett and Reyes
there. Scully gets there first and looks around. Richmond jumps her. When
Doggett and Reyes arrive with other police cars, they can't find Scully.
Doggett asks Kobold, who they have brought with them, and he says the game
is over. They hear a gunshot and rush into a building. They find Richmond,
dead. Scully is nearby. Richmond held her at gunpoint until the others arrives,
then killed himself. Doggett runs back to the car in which Kobold is being
held. The door is open and Kobold's chains are on the pavement. Doggett sees
a figure running away from the car, calls out a warning then fires. The body
falls into the water and sinks.
At Quantico, Scully tells her class about uncertainty, saying that rarely will they
encounter a case in which all variables and open questions are answered. After class,
Doggett and Reyes talk with her. Kobold's body has not been found. Doggett says
Kobold planned this all. He found information about all of them, including Mulder, on
the Internet. Kobold didn't escape with the others because he wanted to be far away
before anyone knew. He played the game brilliantly. In his cell, Doggett found a
telephone book listing for the Mountjoys. They were apparently picked at random,
because of their names. The names of Darren and Evelyn form the D-A-E part of
Daemonicus. Dr. Monique Samson formed the M-O-N-I part. The man Doggett shot
was the security guard, named Custer, forming the C-U-S part of Daemonicus. Kobold is
gone. After Doggett leaves, Reyes tells Scully that it all makes sense, as far as it goes,
but that she thinks there is something Doggett hasn't said. She thinks Doggett also felt
the presence of evil.
Note: Scully hears frogs and insects making noise as she talks around
the marina, indicating summer or fall conditions. The other scenes in the woods also
indicate warm weather.
Fall 2001?
-
4-D. A
man, later identified as Irwin Lukesh, enters the lobby of an apartment
building. Monica Reyes is working on a bicycle she is under cover, watching
him and in communications by hidden radio to Doggett and Follmer in a van
outside. Doggett says Lukesh is a psycho who has cut out several women's
tongues. Lukesh considers entering an apartment, but walks down the hall
and enters a back stairwell. Reyes follows, gun drawn, and Lukesh jumps
her. Realizing that she is out of communication, Doggett and Follmer storm
the building. Doggett finds a bloody Reyes with her throat bloody. He runs
after Lukesh and catches up with him in an alley. Doggett has a gun on
Lukesh, but when Doggett looks away for a moment to call other officers,
Lukesh disappears, reappearing behind Doggett and holding Reyes' gun. Doggett
swings around and guns go off.
Reyes is in her apartment at 67 Bennett Avenue, Washington D.C., unpacking and getting
settled. Doggett comes to the door carrying a housewarming present of polish sausages
from a food stand on nearby M Street that he is fond
of. The phone rings and Reyes answers. It is Skinner, calling to tell her that Doggett has
been shot. She is confused, but Doggett is no longer in her apartment. She rushes to the
hospital. Follmer is in charge of the investigation. He doesn't know why
Doggett was in that alley. Skinner is still at the crime scene.
Scully says Doggett is just coming out of surgery, but may be paralyzed. Reyes
repeatedly says that Doggett was with her but in the hospital room she finds Doggett,
unconscious and on a ventilator. Both Reyes and Scully are tearful over Doggett's
condition.
In the FBI ballistics
lab they examine the bullet that injured Doggett. Follmer reprimands Skinner
for not telling Follmer sooner that the slug had been found. The bullet didn't
come from Doggett's gun, but it is from a model of weapon that is used by
the FBI. Follmer orders the slug compared to the database of FBI-issued weapons.
Scully and Reyes talk about what Reyes saw. Scully tells Reyes about Scully's
father's death in 1994 when he appeared to her at the moment of his death.
Reyes calls it a "visitation," but says what happened to her is different.
Skinner phones and asks Scully to bring Reyes to the police station. There
Follmer tells her that Doggett was shot with her gun and they have an eyewitness
who places her at the scene. Irwin Lukesh is behind the one-way glass, identifying
her.
Reyes, Skinner
and Scully are back in Doggett's hospital room. She has not been arrested
because there are things that don't add up such as her being at home, 14 miles
away from the crime scene moments after Doggett was shot and the fact that her gun had
not been fired. Skinner sees Doggett's finger moving and recognizes Morse code.
Doggett spells out the name Lukesh. Lukesh enters his apartment building and opens
mailbox 4-D. He enters his apartment and his mother calls to him. He has Reyes' gun
in a drawer. His mother is an invalid and whines that he left her and she was scared,
although he points out that he returned exactly when he said he would. She is watching
"Days of our Lives" on TV and asks for a sandwich and he says he will make her
one from potted meat, but he actually uses a human tongue.
The FBI has identified the name Lukesh as Irwin Timothy Lukesh, who was in the state
mental hospital in Gaithersburg, MD, for anger in 1995 after his father died, but was
released. He lives with his invalid mother near where Doggett was shot. Reyes thinks
Lukesh shot Doggett. Follmer calls Reyes, Skinner and Scully back to the hospital. They
have set up a signaling device for Doggett, but he will only talk to Reyes. He is surprised
to see her alive because he saw her throat cut. He thought Lukesh killed her. That night,
Lukesh is in bed with his mother. When he thinks she is asleep, he slips out. In an alley,
he becomes invisible.
A doctor tests
Doggett's body for feeling, but there is none. Reyes tells Doggett that there
are so many things about this case that cannot be reconciled. She has been
thinking about what it would take for both versions of events to be true that
she was on a stakeout with Doggett and that he was at her apartment.
She mentions a theory about parallel universes and speculates that maybe
Lukesh can travel back and forth between two universes. What if Doggett somehow
followed Lukesh through, somehow forcing the other Doggett out? Lukesh is
called back in for questioning by Skinner, who tells him that Doggett has
identified Lukesh as the attacker. Lukesh says Doggett is confused. Skinner
asks about Mrs. Lukesh and Lukesh says she was asleep at the time of the
crime and is easily confused. He says he won't have them harassing her, and
walks out of the questioning room. Lukesh and Reyes meet in the hall. She
asks him how he does it, how he moves between worlds. Did it start after
his breakdown in 1995? He moves close to her and whispers, "God I enjoyed you." Back
home, Lukesh discovers that the gun is not in the drawer. His mother has
found it and confronts him. The FBI has left several messages asking to talk
to her, which she plans to agree to. He erases the tape, pulls out his straight
razor and attacks her.
Reyes is gently
shaving Doggett. He signals that he has been thinking and thinks her theory
is right. He suggests that she can fix it if she "pulls the plug" on him, he will die
and "her Doggett" will return. She realizes that he doesn't believe her theory but doesn't
want to live paralyzed. She says she would do anything for him, except that. Skinner
calls Marion Lukesh is dead, with the same M.O. They don't know where Lukesh
is, but Reyes thinks he will find them. Reyes returns home, wearing a hidden
transmitter and with her apartment wired for video. After a few moments, Lukesh
jumps her when she is in a blind spot that the camera cannot see. He pulls off
her transmitter and holds the razor to her throat. In the van, Scully's intuition
tells her that Lukesh is in the apartment. Lukesh tells Reyes that she ruined
everything and as he is about to slit her throat, the door is broken in. Follmer
bursts in and shoots Lukesh in the head. Reyes is OK.
Reyes returns
to Doggett's hospital room. She locks the door and after squeezing his hand
she turns off the machine alarm and turns off the power on the ventilator.
Doggett dies
and Reyes finds herself back in her apartment with Doggett holding the polish
sausages. She hugs him and Doggett wants to know what is wrong. "I'm good," she
answers.
Note: There is no specific date stamp in this episode. The characters are wearing
jackets and sweaters, suggesting cool but not cold fall weather.
Fall 2001?
-
Lord
of the Flies. Several
high school boys are video taping stunts for their cable TV show called "The
Dumb Ass Show." The show consists of them performing stupid stunts, such
as towing a port'a potty with a person in it behind a car. They prepare
for another stunt one of them
calling himself "Captain Dare" will roll a shopping cart down a hill and up a
ramp. They want the cart to jump over Captain Dare's girlfriend, Natalie. She
doesn't want to but other kids in the crowd who are watching pressure her. As
the cart rolls down the hill it goes off course, tipping over. Captain Dare falls
out. Natalie runs to him and one side of his face is completely collapsed.
The Ocean County,
New Jersey, medical examiner's officer has called Doggett and Reyes in on
the unexplained death case. The dead boy's parents are suing everybody involved
and he doesn't want to commit himself. Looking at the body, Reyes sees movement
under an eyelid. Opening the eye with tweezers, a swarm of flies exists the
eye socket. Scully is called in and says she has never seen anything like
it the flies fed with such intensity that the skull
collapsed. There is no evidence of head trauma from the shopping cart accident. Dr.
Rocky Bronzino enters a Rutgers university professor specializing in insects.
He says that there are exotic flies that could cause such damage, but the flies
Scully captured are simple houseflies. He flirts with Scully. Reyes says she
thinks Captain Dare's death could be murder. Doggett agrees that somebody might
have put some kind of pheromone inside the football helmet the boy was wearing
during the stunt.
At Garfield High
School in Manahawkin, N.J., Natalie is eating lunch by herself. Dylan Logansgaard,
a loner, sits at a nearby table watching her. David "Winkie" Winkle and another boy come up to
talk with her, carrying a video camera. They want her to make a statement for the
memorial episode of The Dumb Ass Show. Dylan tells them to leave her alone and
Winkie rubs food in Dylan's hair. Doggett and Reyes watch the videotape of the accident
and Winkie is brought in to talk with them. They have discovered that he offered to sell
video of his friend's death to the TV networks (only FOX contacted him back to express
interest). As they talk, Winkie jumps up and screams, scratching at his back. Pulling his
shirt up, the agents find the words "Dumb Ass" cut in blood in his back.
Dylan arrives
home. His mother, an administrator at the school, wants to talk with him
but he ignores her and goes to his room. He turns up the music and gazes
at a picture of Natalie. As he closes his eyes, flies swarm in the window.
Scully studies a fly in a microscope. Rocky found that the flies are all
female, which Scully considers to be very unusual, suggesting that there
is some kind of biological explanation. Doggett and Reyes enter. The words
on Winkie's back were caused by an infestation of lice, although Doggett
notes that the lice spell better than many students. Reyes wonders if someone
might somehow be directing the insects. They have identified Dylan as a loner
who attended all of the Dumb Ass Show tapings. At home, Dylan sees Natalie
leaving his house. He climbs out his window and down to the ground, intending
to follow her. His mother intercepts him and warns him to stay away from
her his body is going through
changes. He is not receptive to her advice.
Rocky and Scully visit the site of Captain Dumb Ass's death. He thinks pheromones
are responsible for the attacks. He has a pheromone detector, which registers nothing,
except when Dylan rides his bike past the site. Dylan catches up with Natalie. She came
by his house to see him but his mother made it sound like he was not well. She is sorry
for what happened in the cafeteria. She wishes she could turn back time to before the
accident. It is clear that as very young children they used to play together. They have
grown apart but still have affection for each other. Later, Doggett and Reyes question
Dylan in Dylan's mother's office at school. He denies having anything against the dead
boy. He is sweating and wipes his face with a tissue. His mother enters and objects to
the questioning, but when they look back at Dylan, he is covered with flies.
A few minutes
later emergency personnel rush into the building but Doggett tells them that
the bugs are gone. Dylan is unhurt and his mother is taking him home. Reyes
thinks Dylan is controlling the flies and wanted it to look like he is also
a victim. Scully examines the tissue Dylan used. Rocky finds that it is filled
with insect phemerone, but people can't emit insect phemerone. Reyes is now
convinced that Dylan is controlling the flies, not just attracting them.
The agents remember Captain Dare's girlfriend, Natalie. That night, Natalie
parks outside Dylan's house and they talk through his window. She actually
climbs up and enters his room through the window. She never said she was
sorry when his father disappeared. She knows he has always cared for her
and although they have grown apart, she hasn't forgotten and has recently
realized how special he is. She kisses him, but her lips come away bloody there is something wrong
with his tongue, she says. She rushes off in tears. Dylan follows her outside and as she
drives off (she drives a Volkswagen "bug") Winkie and his friends drive up. They force
Dylan into their car and "take him for a ride." They demand to know how Dylan
killed their friend. He agrees to tell them and opens his mouth. Things that
look like insect mandibles come out. The boys are shocked and the car swerves,
rolling.
Scully and Rocky
visit Dylan's house. The front door is still open and nobody is home. Rocky's
detector finds insect phemerones inside the house, which Scully decides could
be grounds for "probably cause," so they investigate further. Doggett and Reyes
arrive at the accident scene. Dylan is gone. The other boys in the upside down car are
encased in something that looks like spider web. They say Dylan attacked them.
Doggett phones Scully, telling her she has to see this for herself, so she goes to the scene,
leaving Rocky to continue studying Dylan's house. Monica calls on Natalie, asking for
her help to keep Dylan from hurting anyone else, but Dylan appears. He killed Captain
Dare to keep Natalie from being hurt. Rocky enters the attic Dylan's mother
is there. She opens her mouth and mandibles emerge.
Dylan and Natalie return to Dylan's house. He's getting ready to run away, taking
Natalie with him. His mother tells him that he is not like other people. Doggett finds
Reyes encased in webbing at Natalie's house. Scully enters Dylan's house with gun
drawn because she has lost phone contact with Rocky. Natalie is sitting on the sofa,
irrational. Scully goes upstairs and finds Rocky encased in webbing in the attic. Doggett
and Reyes arrive to find Scully giving Rocky CPR. (Rocky is smiling during the CPR.)
In a closing narration, Scully dictates
her case report. Four more bodies were found in the attic, including Dylan's father who
had disappeared some years earlier. Dylan and his mother were neither insect nor
completely human. No matter how much Dylan yearned to fit in, he couldn't escape the
role laid out for him by biology but biology does not control human emotions and yearnings.
Dylan and his
mother are on the run. Natalie wakes up one night and looks out her window.
She smiles when she sees myriad fireflies that form the words "I love you."
-
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