Ice

Internal dating: The transmission which starts this whole thing was on November 5th 1993. Mulder and Scully go up shortly afterwards, though it's not clear how many days later. It is a Wednesday when they travel up there. In November 1993, the nearest Wednesday after the 5th was the 10th. Sadly, "Eve" also starts on Novemeber 7th 1993.

Arctic Ice Core Project, Icy Cape. Several bodies lie on the floor as another man, bloodied and holding a gun, sends a transmission. "We are not who we are?" he repeats. "It goes no further than this. It stops right here, right now." Suddenly another man attacks him and the two fight violently, ending up facing each other, guns drawn. Looking intently at each other, they lower the guns and instead put them to their own heads. There are two gunshots.

Mulder and Scully watch a video of the man in teaser, whose name is Richter. In the video, he and several other men - all of them scientists in the Arctic Ice Core project - report great success in drilling deeper than ever before into an ice sheet. Mulder then shows Scully a second video made a week later, November 5th 1993. This is the same transmission we saw Richter making in the teaser. So far, bad weather has prevented people investigating, but, as Mulder says, "they either think us brilliant or expendable because we've pulled the assignment."

Doolittle Airfield, Nome, Alaska. Mulder and Scully meet up with Murphy, a geology professor and football fan, and Dr Da Silva (female - a toxicologist) and Dr Hodge (male - a medical doctor). Hodge is suspicious, demanding to see proper ID. "I want to make sure we are who we say we are," he says. He also assumes that Mulder and Scully know more than they are telling the others. He then tries his suspicious approach on Bear, the pilot, but Bear points out that they'd better trust him and no-one else is willing to fly them. "If you don't like those credentials, walk," he says, to Murphy's obvious amusement.

They arrive at Icy Cape, to find it cold, dark and full of bodies. Murphy immediately takes a look at the ice core samples, as the camera lingers menacingly. Just as the lights come on, Mulder is attacked by a dog, but Bear and the others pull it off. In the tussle, Bear is bitten. Examining the dog, they find black nodules under in its armpits (if dogs have armpits) and see something moving around under the skin of its neck.

Treating his bite wound, bear finds black nodules under his own arms.

Scully performs autopsies on all five men and finds that three of them killed each other and the other two killed themselves. Bear anxiously asks if any of them had the black nodules and she says no, but Hodge then reveals that the nodules on the dog have disappeared now as well. He suggests the spots could be symptoms of a disease in an early stage.

Mulder consults Murphy about some date he's found, by which we learn that the Project was digging inside a meteorite crater.

Scully and Hodge start fighting over the results of a blood test taken from one of the bodies. Scully claims to have found Ammonium Hydroxide, but Hodge says that's not possible. Da Silva agrees with him, saying she's found no evidence of nay toxins in the air, but Murphy says he has found evidence of it in the ice samples. There was a high ratio of ammonia to water in the ice core, he tells them - higher than would ever be found on earth even back in prehistory. He shows them a sample of the ice in the microscope, showing a little wiggly thing in the ice. Scully says she also found this in Richter's blood and wonders if it's the larval stage of some larger animal. Hodge opposes, saying it's an implausible leap, but Scully says "the evidence is there." Murphy suggests that the thing from the ice somehow got into the men and made them into what they became, but Hodge and Da Silva think this is implausible.

Bear suddenly interrupts their argument, saying it doesn't matter anyway. All that matters is that they get out of there as soon as possible, having done what they were sent to do and found all the bodies. Hodge agrees, saying they should send the bodies to the proper authorities to make a more informed diagnosis (this with a meaningful look at Scully), but Mulder thinks they must stay, in case they are infected too. Everyone bickers again, until Scully suggests they all submit samples to see who's affected. Bear refuses, preparing to fly out alone if necessary. After Bear storms out, Mulder suggests a vote on whether they should force Bear to stay. Murphy joins Mulder and Scully in voting in the affirmative, so Mulder goes as spokesman to ask Bear to stay and be tested.

Bear appears to agree, but then knocks Mulder over in an attempt to escape. Scully and Mulder manage to wrestle him to the ground, but, as they do so, they see a strange movement under his neck, like the one they saw on the dog. Mulder wants to study it, but everyone else goes ahead with a gory medical procedure to cut it out. Mulder seems to find this particularly repulsive and bolts away in horror when Hodge and Scully pull a long stringy thing from Bear's neck. bear dies in the operation.

Mulder rushes to the radio to request pick-up and quarantine but it told that the weather prohibits their rescue.

Everyone studies the worm that was taken from Bear's neck. Even Hodge, desperately trying to see it as something familiar, admits it's something completely new. Scully says that all five bodies also had the worm, although only one has been recovered alive. It seems to attach itself to the hypothalamus gland - the gland that secretes the hormone that produces violent behaviour. Hodge theorises that the worm makes its hosts violent, but doesn't kill them, not unless you try to remove it violently as they did with Bear. Richter and Campbell must have realised what was happening and killed themselves in an attempt to stop it spreading, Mulder says.

Late at night, Scully is checking on the bodies when Mulder finds her. He suggests he get some sleep - that they will all be calmer after some rest - but she says she's so tired she can't sleep and that she doesn't want to waste a second that cold be spent trying to find out how to kill this thing. Mulder says he thinks they shouldn't kill it. It was found in a meteor crater, it survives in ammonia and sub-zero temperatures, therefore is likely not to be of this world. "No," Scully says, backing off as Mulder's eyes light up with his theory. She says it's just not safe to risk letting it live, but he says it's not safe to let it die without studying it - finding out what to do if it later turns up in another crater somewhere else.

As Mulder and Scully shout in an adjoining room, Hodge says he's sure they're discussing their "government secrets." He's sure they know about it before they all came here, he says. Hearing Scully's raised voice, he reminds Da Silva that Bear's infected blood did get on her during the operation, but she points out that it got on him too. He walks in on Mulder and Scully. "Is there something going on that we should know about?" he asks, and Scully, containing her anger, tells him everything's fine.

Hodge suggests that they have to check each other for spots. The men examine each other, as do the women. ("Before anyone passes judgement, remember we are in the Arctic," Mulder says, as he takes his clothes off.) The result reveals everyone to be clear.

Everyone retires to bed. Pausing at their doors, Mulder and Scully say goodnight to each other, as truce to their previous argument. "At least everyone's okay," Scully says, but Mulder reminds her that the black spots disappeared on the others. Scully studies the family photographs in the room she's in, then barricades the door and sits tensely on the floor. In his room, Murphy sits upright listening to football, while Hodge writes a list of the ways all the others could have been infected, excluding himself and Da Silva. Da Silva, looking upset, tries to sleep.

Mulder leaves his gun by the bed, and falls asleep, but is woken with a start by a noise. He gets up to investigate and finds Murphy's room empty. Seeing some blood dripping to the floor, he opens a closet and Murphy's body tumbles out on top of him, just as the others come in. They all assume he's the one who's killed Murphy. "You could have done it and not even know," Da Silva says, rubbing her head, but Scully leaps to his defence saying "he said he didn't do it," as if that's all the proof she needs. "It was one of you!" Mulder shouts, approaching the others, but Scully yells at everyone to shut up. Scully shouts at Mulder to put the gun down and let Hodge give him a blood test, but he refuses, saying Hodge will doctor the result or even try to kill him with the needle. Scully asks him at least to turn around and let them look at his neck, but he shouts "I'm turning my back on anyone. As far as I'm concerned, you're all affected." Hodge reaches for a weapon, but Mulder points the gun at him, and Scully aims her own gun at Mulder. "Put it down!" he yells, as he turns round and points the gun at her. "You put it down first!" she shouts back. They stare at each other for a while, then Mulder says, "for God's sake, it's me." "Mulder, you may not be who you are," she says. He lowers the gun.

Mulder is confined in a storage room. "In here I'll be safer than you," he tells Scully, as she locks him in.

Scully is edgy and suspicious. Seeing Hodge and Da Silva asleep she creeps up behind them to examine their necks, but they start awake. They point out that she's the only one with a gun, putting her at an advantage if she gets infected, so she throws it outside. As the atmosphere gets tense, Hodge says it's no time for the three of them to fall out. "There's four of us," Scully says, but Hodge says Mulder isn't one of "us". Scully says it's not his fault if he's infected - "he needs up to help him." Hodge still insists that, if he is infected, he doesn't go back with them.

Examining the blood samples, Da Silva messes up the samples and gets shouted at by Hodge. She accidentally puts one sample of affected blood on top of another. To their surprise, the two wiggly things in the two samples kill each other. They deduce that each worm hates all others and wonder what would happen if they introduces a worm into an already infected body. This they test on the dog, letting the worm slide into its ear. If twitches and whimpers, but is revealed to be cured. Later, it passes the dead worms in its stools.

The plan is to do the same to Mulder, but Scully wants to talk to him first. She says she can't do this to him until she's sure he really is infected. Inside, she tells Mulder what they've found, but she still insists he's not infected - that he will be infected if they give him one worm. If that's so, she says, why didn't he let them examine him? "I would have," he whispers, "but you pulled a gun on me. Now, I don't trust them, but I want to trust you." He turns his back on her and lets her examine his neck, which is unaffected. As she turns to go, he grabs her and examines her neck, which is also unaffected.

"She's not going to let us give it to him," Da Silva says. "He'll convince her somehow." As she thought, Mulder and Scully emerge at that moment, saying neither of them are infected so it mist be one of them. Hodge seems to agree to be examined, but suddenly grabs Mulder and wrestles him to the floor. Scully is pushed into the small room and locked in by Da Silva. As Mulder struggles to avoid getting a worm in his ear, and Scully bashes her way through the door, Hodge suddenly notices a movement at the back of Da Silva's neck. "It's her!" he shouts, as she runs away. They struggle, and Mulder insists that the worm be given to her even though it's the last one they can study. They manage to get the worm into her ear and she quietens. "It's all right," Scully soothes her. "It all stops right here, right now."

Doolittle airfield. Da Silva is driven away into quarantine, but Mulder, Scully and Hodge's tests are normal so they can go. Mulder says he wants to go back to site to research further, but Hodge says the place was torched just after they were rescued. It was the military, or the CDC, or someone, he says. "You ought to know," he says. "They're your people." "It's still there, Scully," Mulder says, but she says they should "leave it there."

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