Página PrincipalInternal dating:Starts with Scully's birthday, thus placing it as 23rd February 1997. Mulder's watch shows the end of "Max" to be March 8th 1997
The man in the suit notices Max noticing him. The suited man stands and walks to the lavatory. In the bathroom, he pulls out a plastic gun and loads it with live rounds. As he goes to leave the john, the plane experiences terrible turbulence. In the cockpit, alarms are going off as the crew tries to right the plane.
The suited man tries to make his way back to Max but the plane is in chaos. Passengers are screaming as luggage flies out of the overhead compartments. Suddenly, a bright light appears in the emergency exit window near Max. As the light gets brighter, the emergency exit door starts pulling away from the plane. As the door opens, the plane is bathed in white light.
The credits roll: The Truth is Out There.
Back in DC, a cupcake with a sparkler is delivered to Mulder and Scully's table in a pub. The waiters and Mulder sing Happy Birthday to Scully. At the bar, a blonde haired woman is watching them.
Scully is shocked and a little embarrassed that Mulder remembered her birthday after forgetting it for the last four years. Mulder smiles and says he only celebrates her birthday every four years, like dog years. Scully is not thrilled with the dog years remark but is blown away when Mulder pulls out a nicely wrapped birthday gift.
Mulder tells Scully the gift is a little something that reminded him of her. She jokes that he got her an alien implant. Mulder jokes back that he got her two and made them into earrings. Mulder actually got her an Apollo 11 key chain -- commemorating the first trip to the moon.
As Scully thanks Mulder, the woman from the bar approaches them and introduces herself as Sharon Graffia, Max Fenig's sister. Max told her to contact Mulder and Scully if something ever happened to him. Max, Sharon explains, was on his way to DC to show Mulder something he discovered, something Max thought the government would kill to protect. The plane crash may have been a way to stop Max.
Mulder and Scully walk into a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) meeting at 4:02am in Northville, NY. The meeting is of NTSB staff and local law enforcement, being lead by Mike Millar. According to Millar, the plane went down 30 miles north of Albany at 7:52pm. Millar plays the last transmission of the flight, a civilian air traffic controller, according to Millar is talking to the flight 549 pilot. The tape sounds normal until alarms go off and the pilot starts yelling about an "intercept". The transmission ends suddenly. Millar, telling the group all information must stay confidential, tells the meeting there are 134 passengers, flight crew members, all believed dead.
As Millar announces to the group that they are going to the crash sight, Mulder introduces himself and asks Millar if the plane was shot down. Mulder is suspicious of the word "intercept" on the tape. Millar states what he was told -- there was no other planes, no military activity, nothing in the area. A man with a mustache who looks like a cross between Jeff Foxworthy and Sam Elliot, sizes Mulder up while sitting at the briefing table. He has an NTSB ID with the name Garrett on it.
Mulder goes off about Max, a multiple alien abductee or "repeater", being on the plane. He thinks that Max was carrying a secret that the government would kill to keep quiet. Half of the folks at the briefing are offended by Mulder's insensitivity about the 133 other crash victims, the other half are laughing at him. A man with the flight manifest notes that a "Max Fenig" is not on the plane. Scully stares at her shoes embarrassed as Millar tells Mulder that he will get all the credit for figuring out the crash if they find Mr. Spock's phaser or alien green goo.
In daylight, the crash sight is shown. A scene of mass destruction, there are little parts of plane scattered among body bags, oil, luggage, debris and body parts. Scully and Mulder are horrified. The plane, according to info Scully has, flew straight into the ground at about 300 miles per hour. The early word on the crash is a lightening strike. Mulder disagrees. He thinks government forces killed 133 innocent people just to get to Max.
In another part of the crash site, Garrett finds the corpse of the suited assassin sent to kill Max. With a henchman, Garrett removes the gun and a watch from the dead assassin's body. The henchman uses a spray of acid to burn off the assassin's fingerprints.
Scully finds a hand and wrist with a watch attached, but no person. The time on the watch reads 8:01 pm. Mulder finds a loose watch -- no hand attached -- which also has an 8:01pm stop time. Mulder says the crash time was at 7:52 -- 9 minutes earlier. Mulder asks Scully if she remembers the last time they lost 9 minutes (a reference back to their first case together when they lost 9 minutes of time on a Washington State road).
Scully logically explains that the 7:52pm crash time was an estimate since no one had the plane on radar according to Millar. Mulder, however, has a new idea. He thinks Max was removed from the plane by someone or something before it crashed. Before Scully can reply, a live victim is found. Scully rushes to the badly burned body of Max's seatmate, Larold.
At 7:52pm - about 24 hours after the crash, Scully waits for Max's sister Sharon at a small airport. Sharon has all the letters Max wrote to her over the last four year, per Scully's request. Scully explains that Max's seatmate was exposed to very high levels or radiation. Scully thinks Max may have been carrying sometime radioactive at the time of the crash.
A few hours later, Scully meets with Mulder at the airplane hanger where the NTSB is rebuilding the plane. Plane parts are being checked with a Geiger counter for radiation. Mulder thinks that Max sat next to the sole survivor Larold. Mulder is now sure Max was removed from the plane. Scully has news for Mulder. In the letters to Sharon, Max gives an alias, Paul Gidney, who was listed on the flight manifest. Scully also tells Mulder that Max was working at a nuclear plant and may have grabbed some plutonium. The plutonium on the plane could have caused the plane to crash. Mulder still argues that the radiation burns were caused by Max being removed from the plane and abducted. When Max is returned, he tells Scully, Max will confirm his beliefs.
Scully tells Mulder that Max has been returned. His body was in a make shift morgue at the airport. He was covered in burns, just like Larold. Mulder races to ID Max.
In her hotel room, Sharon is organizing Max's letters. Suddenly the room starts to rattle and a white light fills the room. The door blows off and Sharon is abducted.
Mulder enters the makeshift morgue with over 100 body-bags. Mulder finds what is left of Max's body. He is dead, badly burned. Mulder seems sad, but his grief is nothing compared to the relatives of the crash victims, who weep openly over their dead loved ones. As Mulder looks through Max's pockets, he finds one of his own business cards. Mulder takes the card and looks for Max's watch, but it's gone. Mulder checks several other bodies, but all are missing their watches.
Back at the airplane hanger, Scully is listening to another one of Millar's briefings. She tells an arriving Mulder that the new official story is that the plane suffered a complete systems failure but the NTSB guys found the flight recorder and hope to learn something there. Scully also tells Mulder that the investigators are looking at the emergency exit door near where Max was sitting - it has been exposed to radiation. Mulder calls the systems failure a claim to ignorance and if this continues, the truth will be lost.
Mulder advises Scully that all the watches were missing from the DOAs in the morgue. Scully thinks Mulder is accusing the NTSB workers of stealing, but he's not. Mulder thinks the watches were removed to steal evidence which will lead to the truth. Scully believes the NTSB workers are doing their best, and so does Mulder. Mulder thinks, however, they are working on the plane and the reason for the crash. Mulder thinks his job, with Scully, is to find the missing 9 minutes.
At 9:30am the next morning, Scully and Mulder drive out to a local Air Force base. A Lt. Col. Frish meets the pair at the air traffic control building -- he is a controller. Frish retells the story of the night of the crash -- he did this once before for the NTSB. The plane was on the radar at 7:51pm and missing one minute later. He tried to raise them after they went down, but no luck. Frish says it is policy not to contact civilian aircraft unless they are in military airspace, so he never spoke with the pilot. Frish is obviously saddened by what happened, telling Mulder and Scully that watching the plane fall off the radar was the worst moment of his life.
As Mulder and Scully walk to their car, Mulder is suspicious of Frish. Millar told them that there was no radar sighting of flight 549, so Frish's story didn't work with the official story. Scully reminded Mulder that they missed some of the briefings, so its possible it was brought up but they missed it.
As Frish watches Mulder and Scully drive off, his co-worker, a Lt. Armando Gonzales comes out of the building. Frish admits he lied to Mulder and Scully -- those were his orders. Gonzales is not happy about the lies - 134 people died. The two argue about telling the truth. Frish, annoyed at Gonzales, drives off.
Mulder and Scully go to Sharon's hotel. The place is trashed, Max's letters are all over the room and the parking lot outside. The metal hotel room door was pulled off by its hinges. It has melted in some parts. Mulder asks Scully to explain this -- to give it her best shot. She has no explanation. Mulder thinks Sharon has been abducted.
Mike Millar arrives at the hotel room with photo evidence supporting Mulder. Mulder and Scully are shocked. The plane's fuselage had cracks -- not uncommon in older planes. Flight 549, however was a brand new plane. The cracks are uniform and indicated that some one outside the plane opened the emergency exit.
Frish returns to his post to apologize to Gonzales. Too late, Gonzales has been executed. Assassins, lead by Garrett, pull up to the air traffic control area and look for Frish. He hides on the roof.
At 7pm in his hotel room, Mulder is listening to a copy of the final transmission from flight 549. He recognizes a voice and asks Scully to come over. Despite working 36 straight hours, she agrees to join him. As she walks to his room, a man grabs her and covers her mouth. It's Frish. He tells Scully that he caused the crash.
Mulder and Scully take Frish to Millar, who does not believe him. Frish tells Millar he was ordered to lie. It is Frish's voice on the transmission, not a civilian aircraft controller. Millar now realizes he was lied to. Frish also saw flight 549 on his screen at 8pm. A second jet was right behind it and Frish was ordered to give flight 549's coordinates to the military man. 15 seconds later, flight 549 was down.
Mulder, Scully and Millar are amazed. Frish believes the second plane shot down the flight 549. Mulder disagrees. He thinks there was another craft up there -- one with stealth technology -- which was the target. Flight 549 came down because it was in the way. Scully sees some logic in Mulder's argument but thinks they'd have found the other craft by now. Mulder disagrees, since the searchers were looking in one spot. The other plane may have crashed near by.
Millar goes to look for the other crash sight while Mulder and Scully take Millar into protective custody.
Mulder, Scully and Frish are driving out of the airport when the assassins start to chase them. Fleeing, the trio wind up on a runway with an incoming plane. The plane doesn't see them. Frish tells Mulder to just keep driving, the plane should clear the car. It does, barely, but causes their pursuers to spin out.
Meanwhile, Millar is out at the crash sight. A hovering craft is shining a spotlight on the crash area. The craft disappears suddenly only to reappear over Millar's head. It files off, but Sharon Graffia has now been returned. She is crying, begging Millar to stop her from being abducted again.
As Scully and Frish wait for Mulder in a small plane, Mulder comes by with a map. The trio plot the flight conditions on the night of the crash and figure that the stealth craft probably fell into a nearby lake -- The Great Sacandaga Lake. Scully agrees to take Frish back to DC and into protective custody. She insists Mulder keep her up on things.
Mulder drives to the lake and at 1am, hires a local boat owner to take him to a place where the owner saw a search and rescue operation.
In DC, Scully gets her things at her place. Frish is worried that he will be charged with 134 murders. Scully consoles him, telling him its not his fault. As Scully packs, Frish calls his girlfriend to tell her he's OK.
Mulder, in rented scuba gear, prepares for a dive where there are some bubbles are coming up from underwater. Mulder admits to the boat owner that he's never done scuba before but dives right in anyway.
At the same DC pub where Mulder celebrated her birthday several days earlier, Scully and Frish wait for a US marshall. As Scully goes to the bar to get them both a drink, she runs into a very drunk Special Agent Pendrell. Its last call and Pendrell wants to buy Scully a birthday drink. Scully tries to get away from him while keeping eye on Frish, but Pendrell insists. When she finally tells him she's with someone, Pendrell sizes up Frish, and offers to buy them all a drink. Scully reluctantly agrees and returns to the table.
As Scully rejoins Frish, she notices Garrett enter the bar. Scully recognizes him as he recognizes her. Both pull their guns. Garrett fires at Scully, but Pendrell is walking by. He is shot in the chest. Scully fires at Garrett, hitting him in the leg. Pendrell, gagging, is dying on the barroom floor. Scully starts tending to his wound, telling him to breathe.
Back in the lake, Mulder finds the second downed aircraft underwater. It is a UFO, with an alien in the cockpit. A white light, shines on Mulder and starts coming to him.
TO BE CONTINUED.
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