Página PrincipalInternal dating: The telegram, sent at the end of the movie, is dated September 6th 1998.
Two figures struggle across a barren Arctic wasteland. Snow and ice cover the land as far as the eye can see. Barely visible through this whiteness is the mouth of a cave.
The two men enter the cave. Bearing torches, they explore it. One of the men unwittingly stumbles across the remains of another man, whose skin is transparent, revealing a creature within his body. As the man stares at it, he is attacked by another creature, and driven to the ground.
His companion comes to his aid, but the first man is killed. The second man pursues the creature, and upon finding it, attacks, killing it. As the creature bleeds, black oil oozes from its body. Slowly coalescing into one large globule, this oil makes its way up the man's body.
We see his horrified eyes, then as we pan away, he screams.
****
North Texas Present Day
Four boys out playing are suddenly stopped when the ground gives away, dropping one of them to the ground far below. The others call out to him, "Hey, Stevie, you okay?"
Stevie, who has only been winded by his fall, wanders off a ways, then comes back into the shaft of light coming into the cave. In his hand he carries a human skull, with one side crushed in. His friends want him to come up and share, but Stevie claims the skull as his own.
Turning it over in his hands, Stevie gazes at it, then stops when he sees black oil oozing around his shoes. Stunned, he can only watch as smal worm-like threads detach themselves from the oil and move up over his shoes. They disappear into his flesh. Stevie drops the skull.
His three friends begin calling to him, frantically, as Stevie watches the worms move up his body, his arms. He raises his face upward, and the last of the oil covers his eyes, darkening them.
The boys run.
****
Having been called for help, the Blackwood County Fire Department arrives. The chief sends two men into the cave to find Stevie, and when he cannot raise them on the radio, sends two more in.
A helicopter arrives, and a HazMat team gets out, followed by a man in a suit named Ben Bronschweig.
The HazMat teams descends into the hole and comes up with Stevie, who lays comatose in a sealed gurney. "What about my men?" the fire chief wants to know, but Bronschweig ignores him.
As unmarked tanker trucks begin pulling into the area, Bronschweig pulls out a cell phone. "It's me," he says. "That impossible scenario we never planned for? You better start coming up with a plan."
****
Federal Building Dallas, Texas
SAC Darius Michaud arrives via helicopter to the roof of the building. A bomb threat has been called in; the building has been evacuated, and the dogs sent through. Michaud orders them through again.
Across the street, Scully and Mulder walk on the roof of another building. They are part of SAC Michaud's team, and right now are feeling rather useless. "What are we doing here?" Mulder asks.
Scully tells Mulder that she knows he is bored, but that the X-Files are closed, unconventional thinking is not protocol anymore. Mulder protests that he isn't bored.
The two agents enter the building and head down to the lobby. Mulder goes to the vending machine room to buy something to drink. The machine takes his money, but does not dispense any drinks. Mulder shakes the machine, then looks behind it, noticing it is not plugged in.
He calls Scully, telling her he has found the bomb. She does not believe him at first, thinking he is joking, and only realizes he is telling the truth when she sees the keyhole has been filed off of the doorknob. Shouting for an immediate evacuation of the building, Scully calls SAC Michaud, saying he has the wrong building.
Michaud cuts through the door to the vending machine room, freeing Mulder. With only four minutes left, Michaud orders the building to be cleared. Mulder doesn't want to leave, saying someone needs to stay with Michaud. Scully asks if he can defuse the bomb, and he says he can, then orders them out again.
Once outside the building, Mulder stops, saying something is wrong.
Scully grabs his arm. "Mulder!" she cries, "there's no time!"
The agents get into a police car.
SAC Michaud sits in front of the bomb as it counts down.
The bomb detonates, blowing off one face of the building.
****
FBI Building Washington, DC
The Office of Professional Review has convened a board to sift through the evidence of the Dallas bombing. Assistant Director Skinner sits on the board, which is headed by Assistant Director Jana Cassidy.
Mulder walks in late, in time to hear AD Cassidy say five people died in the bombing: SAC Michaud, three firemen and a young boy. He is chastised by Cassidy for being late, and she asks him to leave. As Mulder sits outside the board room, Skinner comes out, and intimates that Mulder and Scully are going to be blamed for the Dallas bombing. "You and I both know that if it looks bad, it's bad for the FBI."
Mulder protests that Scully should not be blamed, that he was the one who broke protocol. Skinner replies that Scully is telling the OPR board the same thing.
Scully leaves the meeting and tells Skinner they want him back inside. Mulder tells Scully not to let OPR do this. "They want to divide us."
"Mulder they have divided us," Scully replies. "They're splitting us up."
Scully adds that when OPR originally assigned her to the X-Files, she believed she could make a difference. She now longer feels that way. She suggests to Mulder that he should look in himself, see if he still has the heart to go on.
Before Mulder can reply to this, Skinner comes out and says the board is ready for Mulder's testimony now. He goes in, and Scully walks off.
****
Casey's Bar
Thoroughly disheartened by the news that Scully is quitting, Mulder sits at the bar, getting very drunk. At the end of the bar, an old man in a suit watches.
The bartender takes pity on him and as she pours him a drink, asks, "So what do you do?"
Mulder: What do I do?
Bartender: Mmm hmm.
Mulder: I'm the key figure in an ongoing government charade in a plot to conceal the truth about the existence of extra-terrestrials. It's a global conspiracy, actually, with key players from the highest levels of power and it reaches down to the lives of every man, woman, and child on this planet. [he sighs/laughs after seeing how the bartender is looking at him] So of course no one believes me. I'm a...I'm an annoyance to my superiors, a joke to my peers. They call me Spooky. Spooky Mulder, whose sister was abducted by aliens when he was just a kid. Who now chases after little green men with a badge and a gun, shouting to the heavens or to anyone who will listen that the fix is in, that the sky is falling, and when it hits it's gonna be the shit-storm of aaaaaall time."
The bartender doesn't look fazed at all. Presumably she's heard worse. "Well, I guess that about does it, Spooky."
Mulder pays for his drinks, then heads to the restroom. Finding it out of order, he goes into the alley behind the bar to relieve himself.
As he stands there, the man from the bar approaches him. "Is that official FBI business?"
Mulder turns. "What?"
"What they're accusing you of at the Bureau. Standing around holding your yank while all around you bombs are exploding."
The man introduces himself as Dr. Alvin Kurtzweil. He follows Mulder as the agent goes back through the bar and outside to hail a cab.
Kurtzweil says he knew Mulder's father, that they had worked together. He goes on about the bombing in Dallas, calling SAC Michaud a patriot, whose loyalty extended beyond the FBI.
As a cab pulls up, Kurtzweil begins talking faster. He has to convince Mulder, and quickly. The bomb was not in the federal building in Dallas, but in the other one because of the location of the office of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA. The place where the bodies were found. "You see, that's the thing," he says, "the thing you didn't know. That you'd never think to check. Those people were already dead."
Mulder is disbelieving. The bomb was intended to hide the bodies of three firemen?
"And one little boy," adds Kurtzweil.
Mulder tells Kurtzweil he is full of shit, then gets in the cab.
He tells the driver to go to Arlington, then changes his mind, and says Georgetown.
****
Scully's Apartment Georgetown, Virginia
3:00 a.m. and Scully is unable to sleep. When the pounding comes at her door, she answers it quickly.
Mulder walks in. "I woke you. Did I wake you?"
Scully frowns at him. "No."
"Why not? It's three a.m."
"Mulder, are you drunk?"
"I..I was until about twenty minutes ago, yeah."
"Was that before or after you decided to come here?" asks Scully.
"What are you implying, Scully?"
She lets it drop, asks Mulder to leave. He insists she get dressed and come with him.
****
Blackwood, Texas
Two black helicopters land at the site where Stevie fell into the cave, a site that is now a Haz Mat site.
Cigarette-Smoking Man alights from one of the choppers, then enters the base. Bronschweig takes him down into the cave, where he has lowered the temperature in an effort to control the alien's gestation.
CSM looks on in horror at the body of the last fireman. Although technically and biologically still alive, the man is dying. An alien being grows within him, digesting his bone and tissue as it matures.
Bronschweig asks if they should destroy it.
CSM shakes his head. "We need to try our vaccine on it."
"And if it's unsuccessful?"
"Burn it. Like the others."
****
Montgomery County, Maryland Bethesday Naval Hospital
Mulder and Scully bluff their way past a young security guard and make their way to the morgue. Mulder finds one of the bodies of the firemen who supposedly died in the bomb blast in Dallas.
Scully picks up his chart, saying the man has been autopsied, and that he died from concussive organ failure.
Mulder lifts the sheet covering the body, having to peel it away. "Does this fit the description you just read me, Scully?"
The body of the fireman is nearly translucent, his tissue jelly-like. Scully is horrified, saying she has never seen anything like it, that she cannot say what the man died of.
Mulder wants Scully to do an autopsy, and when she hesitates reminds her that the two of them are being blamed for the man's death--"I'd like to know what he died of."
****
Dupont Circle Washington, DC
Mulder pulls up to Dr. Kurtzweil's apartment. It is swarming with police, who are following a tip that the doctor supposedly sells child pornography over the Internet. When Mulder leaves, he sees Kurtzweil hiding in the alley between his building and the next one.
"You see this shit?" Kurtzweil says. "Someone knows I've been talking to you.....I was right about Dallas, wasn't I?"
Kurtzweil asks Mulder if he is familiar with the Hanta virus, and Mulder reponds that it was a virus spread by mice in the southwest US a few years ago. Kurtzweil tells Mulder about the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA. He says that FEMA allows the White House to suspend the constitution during a national emergency, asks why FEMA was in Texas during the last outbreak of the Hanta virus.
Mulder suggests it wasn't a small outbreak, like was reported. Kurtzweil shakes his head. "I'm saying it wasn't the Hanta virus."
He details to Mulder the government's plan: "A plague to end all plagues. A silent weapon for a quiet war. The systematic release of an indiscriminate organism for which the men that will bring it on still have no cure. They've been working on this for fifty years. While the rest of the world was fighting gooks and commies, these men were secretly negotiating a planned armageddon."
"Negotiating with who?" asks Mulder.
"I think you know," replies Kurtzweil. He goes on to say the timetable is set. The outbreak will occur over a holiday, FEMA will sweep in, a national emergency will be declared, all government will come under the control of FEMA.
Kurtzweil urges Mulder to go back to Dallas, dig, find evidence.
****
Bethesda Naval Hospital
In the middle of conducting her autopsy, the young sergeant comes down to the morgue, with other soldiers. Scully is forced to hide in the cold storage room.
While hiding Mulder tells her he is booking a flight to Dallas, and will get one for her, too. She refuses--"Mulder, I'm way past the point of common sense here", citing the fact that she has a hearing with OPR tomorrow, and hangs up on him.
****
Dallas FBI Field Office 11:21 a.m.
A field agent tells Mulder that the only remains found in the explosion were sent to DC, but that later, other bones were found. They were in FEMA's office, and were explained as being fossils found on an archaeological dig.
As the field agent is explaining, Scully walks into the office. "I'd like this person take a look at them," Mulder says.
While the agent is retrieving the fossils, Scully tells Mulder that the fireman died of a virus, but not of anything she has ever seen before. The agent returns, and she looks at one of the fossils under a microscope, her eyes widening.
Mulder asks where the fossils were found.
****
Blackwood, Texas
Bronschweig prepares to inject the fireman with the vaccine against the virus. When he enters the alcove where the body is, he finds the body torn apart: the alien has escaped.
He is on his way back to the surface when he pauses. "I can see it," he says, in mingled awe and revulsion.
As he approaches the alien, it attacks him. Bronschweig is just able to inject the creature with the vaccine before it leaps off him and vanishes.
Mortally injured, Bronschweig crawls back to the ladder, begging for help. To his horror, the cave is sealed, and dirt is flung over the entrance.
Trapped in utter darkness, a hand reaches up and grabs him.
****
County of Somerset, England
Well-Manicured Man sits on his back porch, sipping tea, watching his grandchildren play under the watchful eye of their nanny. A servant comes out and says he has a phone call.
WMM picks up the phone. "Yes."
CSM speaks. "We have a situation." There is a meeting in London, called by Strughold.
WMM hangs up, angry. Outside, one of his grandchildren falls to the ground with a cry, having just broken his leg. The Project forgotten, WMM races outside.
****
Kensington, England
WMM is the last to arrive at the meeting. The others mill around a large study, some of them drinking, some watching a surveillance tape on a TV. As WMM enters, CSM pauses the tape to show Mulder and Scully, in the hallway at Bethesda Naval Hospital.
"We have been forced to reassess our role in Colonization," says Strughold.
"The virus has mutated," says the First Elder.
"Into what?" WMM asks, in shock.
He is furious with the other members. They do not appear to wish to fight back, to follow up with the vaccine. "This isn't about Colonization!" he cries. "This is spontaneous repopulation. All our work...If it's true, they've been using us all along. We've been laboring under a lie!"
Strughold and CSM council continued cooperation. They will continue to advance the project, spread the virus. They plan to turn over a body infected with the gestating organism to the colonists. They will continue to use the colonists, much as they are being used, if only for time to test the vaccine.
CSM brings up another concern: Mulder. He has seen the body of the fireman. Strughold wishes to kill Mulder. WMM objects, saying to do is to "risk turning one man's quest into a crusade."
Strughold replies, "Then we must take away that which he cannot do without."
****
Blackwood, Texas
Perplexed, Mulder and Scully walk through the housing development they have been directed to by the Dallas field agent. This is where the fossils were found, yet there is no evidence of an archaeological dig.
There is, however, a brand-new playground over brand-new grass, and as the two agents peer about, three boys ride up on bicycles. They are the same boys who witnessed Stevie's fate.
Mulder asks the boys if they have seen anybody digging. The oldest boy, clearly the leader, says they aren't supposed to talk about it. Says who, asks Mulder. "Nobody," answers the youngest boy.
"I think you better tell us," Scully says sternly.
Silently, the boys point in one direction.
****
Mulder and Scully drive across Texas, encountering nothing in their pursuit. Mulder muses as they go: "Unmarked tanker trucks...and where are they going with it?"
Eventually they reach a crossroads. Left or right, there is only "about 100 miles of nothing," as Scully says. Taking a chance, Mulder goes straight, following a road that is unpaved.
By nightfall, they reach railroad tracks, marked with No Trespassing signs. Disgusted, Scully gets out. "This is great. This is fitting." She is mad that she won't make her OPR hearing.
Mulder says they aren't chasing the trucks but what is in them. The bomb in Dallas was allowed to go off to hide the bodies infected with this virus. At Scully's skepticism, he confesses that the virus they are following is extraterrestrial, and Scully sighs. "I don't believe this."
The railroad crossing begins to clank and flash. A train passes, carrying two unmarked tanker trucks.
Instantly Mulder and Scully jump back in the car and give pursuit. At the top of a ridge they stop the car and go on foot. The top of the bluff provides a perfect viewpoint for what is in the valley below: two lighted white domes at the edge of a cornfield.
The agents make their way down the hill and through the corn.
"This is weird, Mulder," Scully says.
"Very weird."
"Any thoughts as to why somebody would be growing corn in the middle of the desert?"
"Not unless those are giant Jiffy Pop poppers out there," Mulder says dryly.
The domes are huge, billowing white shapes against the night. When the agents enter, a ventilation system kicks on.
The building is empty. A gridwork of boxes lays on the floor, with a droning hum emanating from below. Louvered vents cover the floor and ceiling.
Mulder kneels down and places his ear against the closed floor vents, listening. As he sits up, a metallic clang echoes through the building, as the ceiling vents open. Suddenly Mulder looks up at Scully.
"Scully? Run!"
Row after row of the vents open, emitting clouds of bees. They swarm the agents, who begin running for the doors, panicked.
Outside, they calm down. Neither one has been stung.
Before they can get their bearings, two bright lights arc over the horizon. Helicopters. They run for the cornfield.
The helicopters chase them through the corn at perilously low altitudes. Mulder and Scully barely make it to the edge of the field, and back up the bluff to their car.
****
FBI Building Washington, DC
Late for the OPR hearing, Scully comes breathlessly into the outer hall, still in the same clothes she was wearing the night before. She has not had time to change. Skinner is standing outside, and he alerts the board that Scully is here.
She has new evidence, Scully reports, fossils from the bomb site in Dallas. AD Cassidy is stunned when she hears Scully has gone back to Dallas. With whom, she wants to know. "With Agent Mulder," Scully admits.
Unfelt and unnoticed, a small bee works its way out from under Scully's collar, walks across her back, then goes back under her collar on the other side.
Scully says she believes the bomb in Dallas was allowed to go off, to hide evidence, and that SAC Michaud knew this.
"Those are very serious allegations, Agent Scully," AD Cassidy says sternly.
"Yes, I know," Scully replies tiredly.
****
Casey's Bar
Mulder finds Kurtzweil at a darkened booth. He tells the doctor that he had been back to Dallas, that he had found evidence of an experiment.
Kurtzweil is excited and wants to know what it looked like. "Bees and corn crops," Mulder answers.
"What do you think?" asks Kurtzweil.
"A transportation system," Mulder says. "Transgenic crops. The pollen genetically altered to carry a virus."
Kurtzweil says that would be his guess.
Mulder is furious. "I thought you said you had answers!" He yells at Kurtzweil, believing he is being used, and Kurtzweil flees the bar, not wishing to draw attention to himself.
In the alley behind the bar, Kurtzweil tries to defend himself, saying Mulder would be nowhere if not for him and his clues. He put his ass on the line just by talking to Mulder.
"Your ass?" Mulder cries. "I just got chased across Texas by two black helicopters--"
Kurtzweil interrupts. "And why do you think you're standing here, talking to me? These people don't make mistakes."
He walks off. Overhead, a man stands on a fire escape, and as Mulder peers up at him, he walks into the building.
****
Mulder's Apartment
Attempting to discern if Kurtzweil is telling the truth, Mulder pulls out an old photo album. He thumbs through it until he finds a photo of his family, at a barbecue. Standing beside Bill Mulder, a drink in one hand, is a younger Alvin Kurtzweil.
There is knocking on door, then Scully opens the door and walks in.
Mulder: What's wrong?
Scully: Salt Lake City, Utah. Transfer effective immediately. I already gave Skinner my letter of resignation.
Mulder: You can't quit now Scully.
Scully: I can Mulder. I debated whether or not even to tell you in person because...
Mulder: (interrupting) We are close to something here! We're on the verge.
Scully: You're on the verge Mulder. Please don't do this to me.
Mulder: After what you saw last night, after all you've seen, you can just walk away?
Scully: I have. I did. It's done.
Mulder: I need you on this Scully.
Scully: (interrupting) You don't need me Mulder. You never have. I've just held you back. (pause) I gotta go.
Scully leaves Mulder's apartment. Mulder is left standing there in shock. Mulder follows her out into his hallway.
Mulder: You want to tell yourself that so you can quit with a clear conscience, you can, but you're wrong!
Scully: Why did they assign me to you in the first place Mulder? To debunk your work? To reign you in, to shut you down.
Mulder: But you saved me. As difficult and as frustrating as it's been sometimes, your goddamn strict rationalism and science have saved me a thousand times over. You've kept me honest. You made me a a whole person. I owe you everything Scully, and you owe me nothing. I don't know if I want to do this alone...I don't even know if I can. And if I quit now, they win.
In tears, Scully looks up at him and attempts a smile. She reaches for Mulder and they embrace. Scully kisses Mulder's forehead, and his hands come up to frame her face. Their eyes meet, and they lean close, lips almost touching...
With a cry, Scully jerks back. "I'm sorry," Mulder mutters.
"Something...stung me," Scully says. She reaches behind her neck and pulls out a dying bee. "It must have gotten in your shirt," Mulder says.
Abruptly, Scully gasps. She is having pain in her chest, losing control of her motor functions. She sags forward and Mulder catches her. She tells her, in a labored voice, that she has a funny taste in the back of her throat. Mulder guesses she is going into anaphylactic shock, but she denies having an allergy.
Mulder races into his apartment and calls 911.
As the EMT's load Scully into the ambulance, Mulder hovers over her, telling the paramedics that the bee that stung her may be carrying a virus. He goes to the driver and asks what hospital they are taking Scully to.
The driver stares at Mulder coldly. It is the same man from the fire escape behind Casey's. He raises and gun and shoots Mulder, who falls back into the street, bleeding from a wound on the left side of forehead.
****
National Airport Washington, DC
A cryolitter, with an unconscious Scully inside, is lifted into a cargo plane.
Calmly, smoking, CSM watches this.
****
George Washington University Hospital
Mulder wakes to find the Lone Gunmen in his room. He was merely grazed by the bullet, a lucky thing indeed. "Three centimeters to the left and we'd all be playing harps," Langly jokes.
Mulder is frantic when he remembers what happened to Scully. He sits up, ignoring the pain from his wound. AD Skinner walks in, and tries to talk Mulder out of leaving saying that "they" will know the instant Mulder leaves; his room is guarded.
"What can we do?" asks Langly.
"You can strip Byers naked," Mulder says wearily.
Dressed in Byers' suit, Frohike and Langly provide a screen for Mulder as the three men exit the hospital room. Byers lays in the bed, with Skinner standing over him, pretending to talk on his cell phone. The guard is wary, but is fooled.
Outside the hospital, Mulder calls Kurtzweil and arranges to meet at Casey's Bar.
****
Behind Casey's Bar
Kurtzweil waits fearfully. As he decides to re-enter the building, the door opens. Well-Manicured Man steps out. Kurtzweil turns to flee the alley, and an unmarked sedan pulls up.
****
Casey's
Mulder arrives at Casey's and does not find Kurtzweil inside. He goes out back, where he sees WMM and the driver of the car, closing the trunk.
"Where's Kurtzweil?" asks Mulder.
"He's come and gone," answers WMM.
Mulder asks where Scully is. WMM holds up a dark envelope. "The location of Agent Scully. And the means to save her life." He gestures to the car. "Please..."
Mulder gets in and the driver heads off.
WMM gives Mulder the envelope, saying that he has been given a weak vaccine, one that can save Scully, but which must be administed in 96 hours.
Mulder thinks WMM is lying.
"No," the older man says, "although I have no way to prove otherwise. The virus is extraterrestrial. We know very little about it, except that it is the original inhabitant of this planet."
"A virus?"
"A simple, unstoppable life form. What is a virus but a colonizing force that cannot be defeated? Living in a cave underground, until it mutates. And attacks."
The aliens were here before man was on the planet, WMM says, leaving at the last Ice Age, but for some that remained behind. Those beings have mutated now. They use humans as host, gestating within them. The vaccine Mulder holds is their only defense.
"My group has been working cooperatively with the alien colonists," says WMM, "facilitating programs like the one you saw. To gain access to the virus, in hopes that we might secretly develop a vaccine."
WMM is almost sorrowful. He knows his life will be over, once he finishes telling Mulder what he knows. The driver of the car will kill him. He admits to killing Kurtzweil, and Mulder demands to be let out of the car.
The driver stops on WMM's orders, and Mulder tries to get out, but the door will not open. "I was ordered to kill Dr. Kurtzweil," WMM says, "as I was ordered to kill you." He slowly lifts a gun, then suddenly spins and shoots the driver in the head. "Trust no one, Mr. Mulder."
Mulder recoils, and WMM orders him out of the car. Reluctantly, Mulder does so. "You have precious little time," WMM says. "What I've given you--the alien colonists don't know it exists...yet. You have in your hand the power to end the Project....The vaccine you hold is the only defense against the virus. Its introduction into the alien environment may have the power to destroy the delicate plans we have so assiduously protected for fifty years."
"May have?" Mulder cries.
"Find Agent Scully. Only then will you learn the scope and grandeur of the Project. Go."
Mulder hesitates, and WMM raises the gun, points it at Mulder. "Go now."
Mulder begins walking away, and WMM gets back into the car. Shortly after he does, it explodes.
(Note: Some important dialogue was cut from this scene. Click here to see it.)
****
Wilkes Land, Antarctica 48 Hours later
A Snowcat lumbers across the glacial ice and snow, appearing insignificant beside nature. Inside the cab, Mulder sits, periodically rubbing the windshield and checking the coordinates of the GPS he has.
WMM has given him the coordinates of Base 1.
South 83 degrees 00 minutes Latitude
East 63 degrees 00 minutes Longitude
326 feet.
The Snowcat dies, and Mulder sets out on foot. He climbs a rocky incline, then falls to his belly, not wishing to be silhouetted against the horizon. Ahead of him lies a base. CSM is getting into one of the Snowcats outside the small buildings.
Mulder makes his way across the snow toward the base. Halfway there, the ice collapses under him and he falls downward for several feet, landing hard beside another shaft going down into the earth.
The shaft is actually an air vent, but Mulder does not know this as he makes his way down. He comes out into a corridor lined with ice-covered pods. Inside, are people in various stages of "hosting" alien beings.
Slowly making his way through the corridor, Mulder comes out onto a ledge overlooking a cavernous room. More pods crisscross the huge chamber, and down below, utterly abandoned, lies a cryolitter.
Outside the Base, CSM finds Mulder's abandoned Snowcat.
Mulder begins climbing down, and his feet slip out from under him. He hangs on for a few moments, then his hands slip, and he slides down the chute at breakneck speed. He hits a ledge and swings out, hanging by one hand for a few perilous seconds. He manages to get his feet under him again and works his way slowly and carefully back down to the floor.
CSM enters the base, alerting the men, telling them to arm themselves.
The cryolitter is open, and Scully's clothes lie inside. Mulder is about to walk away when his flashlight shines on Scully's necklace. He takes it, then walks away.
Mulder goes down another corridor lined with pods. He begins peering into them, and halfway down one row, he finds Scully. Her eyes are frozen wide with horror, and a tube is inserted down her throat. Mulder pounds on the ice with his bare hands, to no avail.
He runs back to the cryolitter and unhooks one of the oxygen tanks. Using that, he smashes the ice of the pod holding Scully. A greenish liquid pours out. Mulder takes the vaccine from his pocket, inserts the needle into the vial and withdraws the amber liquid there. He injects it into Scully's shoulder.
Immediately something travels back up the tube from her throat, and the tube itself shrivels and dries up. Mulder pulls it from her throat, and Scully coughs, then shivers. "Cold," she whispers.
Above, in the base, an alert goes off. There is a contaminent in the system. CSM orders everybody out. What about Mulder? asks one of the men. "He'll never make it," predicts CSM.
Mulder frees Scully from the pod, then dresses her in the outer layers of his clothing. He carries her out of the ice corridor, staggering under both her weight and the heaving motions of the base. They make their way up to the next level, where more rows of pods stand.
Steam is beginning to escape from within the earth, and the ice is melting. With the temperature rising, the aliens gestating inside the humans are coming to life. As Mulder urges Scully to grab onto an overhead vent, they stir in the pods surrounding them.
Scully does not move. Mulder lays her down and frantically performs CPR on her, crying for her to Breathe! The aliens are attempting to break free of their icy prisons now.
Finally Scully coughs and inhales shakily. Mulder pulls her upright and pushes her above him, into the vent. As he reaches up himself, an alien bursts free, grabbing his foot, dragging him downward. For a moment there is a struggle, then Mulder kicks free and joins Scully in the vent. "We have to keep moving," he cries.
One of the aliens chases them through the vent, and as they reach the snow where Mulder fell, it seems to have caught them. Mulder pushes Scully ahead of him, closes his eyes and waits for the inevitable.
A tremendous blast of steam shoots upwards, incinerating the alien. Mulder follows Scully out, onto the snow and ice.
Wearily, the two agents lie for a moment, then an ominous cracking sounds. Mulder looks down and realizes the ice and snow are falling away. Not very far off, the base collapses. He picks Scully up, draping her arm over his neck, and the two begin running, keeping just ahead of the devastation.
They stumble, and the collapsing ground catches up with them. They fall, landing on top of the alien ship as it rises from the earth, and as it continues to rise, they fall down, back onto the snow.
Moving slowly, almost stately, the ship begins moving through the sky. Scully lies face down, nearly unconscious, but Mulder turns over, watches the ship glide over their position, wonder and awe on his face. "Scully, you gotta see this," he breathes. She does not look up.
The ship flies forward, then is lost in the clouds.
Mulder turns to look at Scully, and then slowly, he gives in to his exhaustion and the cold and passes out. With an effort, Scully sits up and gathers him into her arms.
Together they sit, on the very edge of an enormous crater in the earth.
****
Washington, DC
OPR has convened for a final meeting. Scully, evidence of frostbite still lingering on her face, sits impassively as AD Cassidy looks at Scully's report and says, "...the other events you've laid down here seem too incredible on their own, and quite frankly, implausible in their connection."
"What is it you find incredible?" Scully asks coolly. AD Cassidy clasps her hands.
"Where would you like me to start?"
And in Dallas, a black-clad figure moves through the FBI field office, a gloved hand removing the fossils found in the FEMA office.
In DC, Cassidy's scorn continues. "Bees and corn crops do not exactly fall under the rubric of domestic terrorism.
And in rural Texas, a cornfield is set afire.
In DC, Cassidy now looks vaguely sympathetic. "I realize the ordeal you've endured has clearly affected you--though the holes in your account leave this panel with little choice but to delete these references to our final report to the Justice Department."
And in Texas, a tanker truck now reads "Nature's Best Corn Oil."
In DC, Cassidy expresses the need for hard evidence. Scully stands, and comes forward. She gives Cassidy a small vial with a dead bee in it--the one that stung her.
Quite calmly, Scully says, "I don't believe that the FBI currently has an investigative unit qualified to pursue the evidence at hand."
****
The Mall Washington, DC
Mulder folds up a newspaper in disgust, having just read an article saying an outbreak of the Hanta virus in Texas has just been contained.
Scully walks up, and Mulder hands her the paper. "They're burying it," he says. "How many times have we been here? Right here. You were right to quit. You were right to leave me. You should get as far away from me as you can. I'm not going to watch you die because of some hollow personal cause of mine. Go be a doctor, Scully."
"I can't," she replies. "I won't. I will be a doctor, but my work is here with you." She encourages him, saying that whatever happened to her, there is a cure. "You held it in your hand. How many other lives can we save? And if I quit now, they win."
Scully takes his hand, and together, they walk off.
****
Foum Tatouine Tunisia
An unmarked helicopter flies across the desert, imprinting its shadow on the dunes below.
CSM walks along a cornfield, and an Arab summons Strughold. "We have business to discuss," CSM says. Involving Mulder.
Strughold makes a face. "Agh. That name. Again and again."
"He's seen more than he should," CSM says.
"What has he seen?" replies Strughold. "Of the whole he has seen but pieces."
"He's determined now. Re-invested."
"He is but one man. And one man cannot fight the future."
CSM hands Strughold a telegram. "Yesterday I was given this."
Strughold reads it, then drops it to the sand. The two men walk off, leaving us with the telegram.
"X-Files reopened. Stop. Please advise. Stop."
Across the cornfield, there are two white domes.
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