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Duane Barry was a former FBI agent who claimed to have been repeatedly abducted by aliens. In 1994, Barry escaped from a mental institution, taking psychiatrist Dr. Hakkie hostage, in an attempt to return to his original abduction site, hoping that the aliens would take Dr. Hakkie in place of him when they return.

Barry, however, is unable to remember the location of his abduction, and instead heads to a travel agency, taking several clerks hostage, along with Dr. Hakkie.


The 1980s and Abduction Experiences

Duane Barry's abduction

Duane Barry once did a tour of duty in Vietnam. By 1982, Duane Barry had been assigned to the FBI and had a wife, kids and a house. Duane Barry learned the FBI's methods of reacting to hostage situations and, according to records, Duane Barry's service in the FBI was exemplary until a drugs stakeout in 1982 when Duane Barry shot Duane Barry with a bullet from Duane Barry's own weapon that pierced the bilateral frontal lobes of Duane Barry's brain, and Duane Barry was left for dead in the woods. Apparently, the injury caused Duane Barry to experience a rare state of psychosis by effectively destroying the moral center of Duane Barry's brain, leaving Duane Barry nearly incapable of functioning in society. Consequently, Duane Barry lost Duane Barry's wife, kids, and house.


Surrounded by alien beings, Barry floats above his bed

Duane Barry was the subject of many abductions; the first time Duane Barry was taken was from Skyland Mountain and Duane Barry was abducted many subsequent times before June 1985. By that month, Duane Barry was living in a house in Pulaski, Virginia and owned a dog. On the night of June 3, Duane Barry fell asleep without turning Duane Barry's television off. As Duane Barry slept, the movie that was on the television turned to static, startling Duane Barry's dog, which began to whine and growl as humanoid figures moved outside Duane Barry's house's windows. Suddenly unable to breathe, Duane Barry awoke and soon found Duane Barry immersed in a bright white light that revealed grey, alien figures surrounding Duane Barry's house. Realizing that Duane Barry was being abducted once again, Duane Barry became panicked and screamed in extreme horror as at least eight alien beings moved to stand around Duane Barry, inside Duane Barry's home.


Duane Barry tortured by aliens, probably for experimental testing

During this abduction, or similar ones in which Duane Barry was surrounded by alien beings while lying in bed, Duane Barry's body was elevated off the bed, floating above it, and, at a different time, Duane Barry saw men dressed as government agents who calmly witnessed the aliens surround Duane Barry's bed.

In at least one abduction, Duane Barry was taken aboard an alien craft, restrained to a glass table with many white lines on it while alien beings surrounded Duane Barry's body and holes were painfully drilled into Duane Barry's teeth with a red laser, as Duane Barry's mouth was being held open by machines.

Psychiatric Care
Duane Barry's behavior proved to be harmful to others and Duane Barry was institutionalized, on and off, since before August 1984. In 1994, Duane Barry was living in secure confinement at Davis Correctional Treatment Center in Marion, Virginia. There, Duane Barry was prescribed a course of medication and would have occasional meetings with Doctor Del Hakkie. In August 1994, Duane Barry started to refuse Duane Barry's medication, a fact that Dr. Hakkie later learned.


Dr. Del Hakkie giving Barry therapy.

On August 7 of that year, Duane Barry wore wrist restraints while a guard took Duane Barry to Dr. Hakkie's office. Once inside the room, Duane Barry took a seat facing the doctor and explained that Duane Barry's refusal to accept Duane Barry's medication was due to not liking how it made Duane Barry feel. Although Duane Barry listened as Dr. Hakkie attempted to persuade Duane Barry that Duane Barry should take Duane Barry's medication, Duane Barry was unable to convince the doctor, who had previously learned that Duane Barry had been "hearing voices", of Duane Barry's sanity. Duane Barry claimed to be aware that a particular unspecified group were coming to take Duane Barry to a certain location and, rocking back and forth in Duane Barry's seat, Duane Barry added that no one could stop them. As Dr. Hakkie went to a nearby cabinet to ready a drug, Duane Barry rose from Duane Barry's seat while the doctor's back was turned and hurried out of the room, taking a pen from the doctor's desk with Duane Barry.

In the hall outside the doctor's office, Duane Barry attacked the guard who had been with Duane Barry earlier by stabbing the pen into the guard's back before knocking him unconscious. Duane Barry then took a firearm from the guard's uniform, first aiming it at the other patients, who had gathered nearby, before pointing the weapon at Dr. Hakkie, moments after the doctor had exited his own office. Although the doctor tried to settle the disturbance amicably, Duane Barry refused to surrender Duane Barry's gun and ordered the doctor to provide Duane Barry with the keys, and to release Duane Barry. Startled by the noise of a nearby alarm, Duane Barry took the doctor hostage and then escaped.

Delay at Travel Time
For several years, Duane Barry was kept in a mental hospital but devised an escape and planned to have Duane Barry's psychiatrist abducted in Duane Barry's place; Duane Barry was convinced the abductions would continue. Duane Barry claimed to have been subjected to repeated and horrific medical experiments, including laser-drilling of Duane Barry's teeth.


Fox Mulder explaining to Duane Barry that he believes his stories

With Duane Barry's hostage in tow, Duane Barry made Duane Barry's way to a travel agency in Washington, D.C. to find where Duane Barry could meet the aliens and present Duane Barry's hostage to them. The scene unfolded into a hostage situation, with Duane Barry holding a number of hostages at gunpoint. The FBI was brought in to handle the situation and Mulder and his new partner, Alex Krycek, became involved due to his familiarity with alien abductees. Mulder eventually entered the agency with Duane Barry and convinced Duane Barry to release the hostages, except, of course, for Duane Barry and the psychiatrist. Scully informed Mulder that Duane Barry was less likely an alien abductee than a victim of severe mental illness. Mulder lured Duane Barry into the view of an FBI sniper and Duane Barry was shot in the chest.


Duane Barry attacking and kidnapping Dana Scully

Duane Barry survived and was brought to a hospital. Terrified that the aliens would find Duane Barry, Duane Barry escaped custody yet again and was able to find Scully in her apartment and kidnap her. Mulder and Krycek began searching for Scully, whom Duane Barry planned to offer to the aliens in Duane Barry's place because Duane Barry's original plan failed. Mulder successfully tracked down Duane Barry to Skyland Mountain, but Scully was nowhere to be seen after a possible UFO flyby. Furious with Duane Barry, and tired of hearing Duane Barry's name, Mulder injured Duane Barry before bringing Duane Barry back to the hospital. However, the search for Scully lost its best lead soon after, as Krycek murdered Duane Barry before Duane Barry could provide any clues.(TXF: "Ascension")


Duane Barry in a newspaper

Cassandra Spender learned of Mulder after seeing the incident with Duane Barry on the news three years before she was able to meet him and discuss her abduction experiences with him. (TXF: "Patient X")

Mulder had a newspaper clipping on his wall from a story about Duane Barry. (TXF: "The End")

"Ascension" Is The Sixth Episode Of The Second Season Of The X-Files Aired October 21, 1994..

Synopsis
Mulder attempts to search for Scully when she is abducted by Duane Barry, the escaped mental patient who recently held Mulder hostage. (Part 2 of 2)

Summary
Continued from Duane Barry.

While Agent Scully leaves a message on Mulder's answering machine about what happened when she scanned the metallic implant found in Duane Barry, he mysteriously appears outside her home. He breaks in through her window, attacks and kidnaps her, taking car and her gun as well. Soon after, Mulder arrives home and checks his messages. He hears Scully's message cut short by a window breaking and her screaming for help. He arrives at Scully's home and discovers that police have already established a crime scene. Scully's mother arrives, demanding to see her daughter's apartment and meets Mulder. She tells him that she had come because of a recurring dream in which Scully is taken away from her. Mulder looks down to find blood on his hand (which he accidentally touched previously).

The next morning at F.B.I. Headquarters, A.D. Skinner briefs everyone on the search for Duane Barry and Agent Scully. Shortly after, Skinner takes Mulder off the case and orders Krycek to take Mulder home. With Scully's car, Barry is in Virginia on Route 229 until he gets pulled over by the Highway Patrol for speeding. The officer notices blood on Barry's hands and the hospital bracelet on his wrist, and orders Barry out of the car. Barry refuses, and when the highwayman gets distracted by sounds he hears Scully making from inside the trunk of the car, Barry shoots and kill him. At headquarters, Mulder listens to the recording of himself conversing with Duane Barry in the travel agency. With Krycek's help, he rewinds to the part where Barry said, "Ascend to the stars." Using a phone book, he realizes Barry is heading to Skyland Mountain, which has an ad featuring this exact phrase. Without Mulder's knowledge, while requisitioning a car, Krycek makes a call to the Smoking Man, who presumably orders him to keep Mulder from catching up to Duane and Scully.

During the drive, Krycek makes comments regarding Mulder's fatigued state of mind, particularly after they drift into oncoming traffic and nearly hit a tractor-trailer. Mulder insists on continuing. At Skyland, the tram operator informs them that Duane came and went about forty-five minutes previously, and the driving journey to the summit takes about an hour. Mulder forcibly commandeers the tram, which has only just had its cables replaced and has not been tested for safety. Leaving Krycek behind, Mulder pushes the tram far above the recommended speed, only slowing down when passing the cable support towers. Just as he nears the summit, Krycek pulls his gun and beats the tram operator unconscious, before turning the tram motor off. Confused by the lack of response over the radio, Mulder climbs onto the tram's roof and attempts to climb up to the cable. Seeing this, Krycek decides to turn the tram back on, though Mulder nearly falls from the tram in the process.

At the summit, Mulder discovers Scully's car, which is empty but has blood all over the steering wheel. Searching the trunk, he finds her cross necklace, which also has blood on it. A blinding light appears through the trees and Mulder runs toward it into a clearing, where he finds a jubilant Duane. When Mulder demands to know where Scully is, Duane only responds, "They took her!" As Mulder handcuffs Duane, the blinding light appears again, causing Duane to panic until Mulder realizes it's the spotlight of an approaching helicopter.

As Duane and Mulder are patched up in a Skyland Mountain building, Mulder aggressively questions Duane, not wanting to believe that "they" have actually abducted Scully, and repeatedly asks Duane if he killed her. Duane insists that he made a deal: give them Scully and they would spare him from being abducted again. He then sees Krycek through the window with two other men (one of whom appears to be a young Bill Mulder) and freaks out. Mulder, in restraining him, does not see the men. He does see blood and some of Scully's hairs on Duane's hospital wristband, which sends him into a rage; he gets Duane by the throat and chokes him before coming to his senses. As he leaves, Duane apologizes and hopes they "aren't hurting her too much with the tests."

Meanwhile, an unconscious Scully is being experimented on by the aliens. A tube-like device is inserted into her navel, and her abdomen distends.

Outside the room, Mulder talks with Krycek, who he is suspicious of, and orders not to let anyone in to see Duane. Approaching the window and seeing a bright light reflected in it, Mulder imagines some of the possible tests "they" might be performing on Scully. When he returns to the room, he is surprised to see Krycek talking to Duane and pulls him out of there. Krycek insists that Duane was gagging and he went in to help him. Their argument is cut off by the arrival of Skinner, who wants to question Duane. This is interrupted by Duane suddenly going into convulsions and dying for no apparent reason.

Back at FBI headquarters, Mulder attempts to question the doctor who performed Barry's autopsy. She refuses to provide details since it was performed by the military instead of the FBI, claiming no other doctors were available. Skinner notes that since there are no obvious causes of death, the only logical one is asphyxiation related to Mulder's choking him only minutes before. Mulder suggests that Barry was poisoned and that the toxicological tests made during the autopsy were covered up. Mulder and Krycek are both ordered to take polygraph tests.

Krycek meets with the Smoking Man, and suggests that they kill Mulder. However, the Smoking Man orders that Mulder be left alive, unless they want to risk "turning one man's religion into a crusade." A desperate Mulder tries to visit Senator Matheson, a patron of his work, only to be discouraged from doing so by his secretive informant, X. In his car, Mulder finds spent cigarettes from the Smoking Man's meeting with Krycek. Realizing Krycek's role in Scully's abduction, Mulder submits a report to Skinner accusing Krycek of impeding his investigation and killing Barry. Skinner summons Krycek to his office, only to learn that he has disappeared. Skinner then announces to Mulder that he is officially re-opening the X-Files.

Mulder meets with Margaret Scully in a park, and tries to give her Scully's necklace. Margaret returns the necklace to Mulder, asking that he give it to Scully when he finds her. Margaret also says that she had the dream again about losing her daughter; Mulder takes this as a hopeful sign that Scully may still be alive. A mournful Mulder later returns to Skyland Mountain, to the field where Scully was abducted. Seemingly alone without her, he looks up into the stars.

"3" is the seventh episode of the second season of The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network on November 4, 1994. The episode was written by Chris Ruppenthal, Glen Morgan and James Wong, and was directed by David Nutter.


Synopsis
With Scully missing, Mulder closes in on an "Unholy Trinity" of vampiresque killers and finds himself falling for a mysterious woman who is the prime suspect.

Summary
Teaser
HOLLYWOOD HILLS
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
12:41 A.M.

A man, Garrett Lorre, is drinking wine outside his house and surveying a fire in Malibu Canyon, directly below him. He heads inside and remarks there is ash from the fire in his wine. He says this to a woman leaning against an interior door frame. She lights a candle as he tells her he doesn't normally send his family away to leave him free for extramarital affairs, which he implies he is having with the woman. She softly cuts him off, however. They are later in a Jacuzzi. They begin to kiss, though she bites into his arm. He throws her back but she climbs back onto him as two other men jump into the tub. Somebody raises a syringe, and the victim's ashy wine-glass breaks.

Act One
At FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C., Mulder enters his old office, which has been left plastic-covered and abandoned since the X-Files were shut down. He goes about removing the wrap and flipping his calender to the proper month before heading to a file cabinet, where he files an X-file opened on Scully's abduction, along with her glasses and badge. He removes her necklace and stares at it briefly, before his phone rings.

The Los Angeles house of the man attacked earlier is now filled with uniformed investigators. One policeman heads outside to tell Mulder, who has been tracking the case, to leave, but Mulder goes through the crime scene tape anyway, saying he doesn't care about who gets the credit for the case. He continues on to say that, in the past year, there have been six similar murders in two states, and predicts that by the end of the week, there will be two more deaths and the killers will have left the area. He goes on to state case details: smashed mirrors, each victim having been drained of blood and the presence of writing on a wall in the victim's blood. Mulder then gives a profile, saying the killers view themselves as the Unholy Trinity. The cop, apparently moved by Mulder's knowledge, apologizes and starts to introduce him to a detective standing nearby. Mulder interrupts and insists he work alone. The cop admits he's working on limited resources and Mulder says he just requires one thing.

Mulder later calls a local blood blank under the guise of "Marty Mulder" from their payroll service, asking about a W4 form for a new employee. The woman on the line asks if he's talking about "Frank," the night watchman.

At the Hollywood Blood Bank, Mulder searches that facility with a flashlight and gun. He heads downstairs, where he interrupts a man who is sucking blood from a collection bag. The man tries to escape; Mulder brings him down and cuffs him.

Later, the blood-sucking man is screaming about the lights in the interrogation room causing him agony. Curled up in a ball on the floor, two annoyed-looking cops ask him questions which he doesn't answer. Mulder walks in and casually sets a red light on the table which the cops are leaning on, plugs it in, and flips off the overhead lights. Now in red, and apparently able to function again, the man cuts open his hand with a fingernail and sucks the blood. Both cops wince. The man tells them he'll only talk to Mulder, so the cops leave. The man tells Mulder, "He is the father, I am the son, she is the unholy spirit." He says he didn't murder the most recent victim, comparing it to a snake eating a fly. He further claims he will never die. Mulder looks skeptical, slightly more so when the man states he "can't be seen in a mirror," as Mulder is looking at the man's reflection in a mirror. Mulder, not commenting on this or the man's continued rambling, mentions the gas chamber and offers to take that off the table in exchange for the names of his two cohorts. The prisoner refuses because he believes they are the only people who can kill him. Mulder says he knows what can.

At daybreak, Mulder is holding a roll of tin foil. He says he'll cover the windows in exchange for the information. The prisoner refuses this deal, so Mulder leaves. In the interrogation room, time passes quickly and the sun strikes the man. He starts to smoke and burn.

Act Two
The captive is dead. A man in a white coat suggests to Mulder the detainee had porphyria. Disagreeing with this hypothesis, Mulder now seems to believe the recently deceased person was a vampire. The white-coated man admits Mulder is upsetting him "on several levels." Mulder ignores this and leans down to look at the dead man's arm, where he sees what the consultant in the white coat guesses is an ink stamp. He peels away some skin to reveal some lettering.

In Club Tepes, where many people have a lot of piercings and unusual hairstyles, Mulder spots a woman who is looking in a makeup compact without a mirror. They make eye contact and she speaks to him. He sits and they converse. She probes into his psyche and guesses he's lost someone. Mulder looks somewhat shaken, and he notes she has a syringe in her purse. He quotes the Biblical verse the killers been writing in their victim's homes and she completes it. She then continues her evaluation of him and all but admits that she's involved with the murders. Despite this, Mulder follows her to a more private section of the club. A man at the bar, who was previously in Garret Lorey's house, eyes them as they go and bites his own hand.

The woman introduces herself to Mulder as "Kristen" while she pricks her finger with one of the syringes in her purse. Though she offers the finger to Mulder, he refuses it. She gets up and walks to a man nearby, who takes her proffered finger, then she leads him away. Mulder follows and the man at the bar watches.

Having followed Kristen to a shuttered restaurant, Mulder looks in a back window to see her sucking her companion's neck. A car drives by and the lights shine on the building, attracting both Mulder and Kristen's attention. They make eye contact and she breaks into a run. He attempts to chase her but finds the restaurant's back door locked, so he runs to the front of the building. There, he is knocked down a flight of stairs by the man who Kristen picked up at the bar. Apparently, he consented to the neck-sucking. Mulder groans from his landing on the pavement.

The consenting man is later back in the restaurant and calling for Kristen. He gets punched to the ground by the observer from the bar. Both Kristen and the newcomer fall on the sufferer and consume him.

Act Three
Mulder is back at the restaurant, this time standing and accompanied by many cops. A forensic dentist has shown up, at his request. The dentist examines the area while Mulder searches around. He discovers Kristen's powder case and a tin of raspberry sauce with some red prints on it. Mulder instructs one of the cops to obtain fingerprints from these before heading back to the dentist, who tells him the bites are human and were made by three people.

In "Marty" Mulder's temporary office space, Mulder is looking at a DMV record of Kristen and an X-file labeled "Trinity Killers". He notes Kristen's two previous addresses were in Portland, Oregon, and Memphis, Tennessee, which is where the two previous Trinity murders were located. "The Unholy Spirit," he mutters.

At Kristen's home, Mulder and more cops execute a search warrant. They find a box of veterinary needles and Mulder finds what appears to be blood-filled bread in an oven, quickly shutting the oven door. He concludes aloud that Kristen is gone and won't be coming back. At 2:15 a.m., Kristen re-enters her house and turns to find Mulder there. He identifies himself and warns her the cops are looking for her. Kristen questions why he's there alone. He doesn't give an answer. She notes that a change in the wind will bring the Malibu Canyon fire their way. They then talk about her involvement in the case. She says her father beat her and then proceeds to recount an incident where her father knocked two of her teeth out, causing her to taste blood running down her throat, a sensation she remarks was the only thing that told her she was alive. She recalls having met John (The Son) in Chicago and that he beat her too. According to her, at one point, he split her lip, she retaliated by biting his lip and they then got involved with what she calls "blood sports." She goes on to say that, one day, John came home with two other men and the situation became "unnatural." She ran to Memphis but they followed each of her subsequent moves. She is now "tired of running." She pulls Dana Scully's cross necklace from Mulder's neck. Kristen expresses that she hopes he finds the person he's lost. Mulder reveals to her that the individual she lost, John, is dead. He advises her to come back to the station with him but she disagrees, intending to clean herself up, a plan he concurs with.

Later that evening, Mulder is shaving, sans mirror. Because he complains, Kristen takes his razor and says she will do it. While attempting to do so, she knicks him. He stops her from licking the blood, saying it's "not who you are." They proceed to passionately kiss. Watching through the bathroom window is none other than John.

Act Four
At 5:47 a.m., Kristen is walking through her house when John grabs her. He tells her she "can live forever" and that "we come back." She seems mildly disturbed but says nothing as he grabs two large knives. He continues rambling to her, expressing his love and telling her she needs to kill "him," meaning Mulder. Meanwhile, Mulder is sleeping in a large chair. He awakens as Kristen approaches with one of the large knives. She tells him he has to go, blaming it on the fire. As he stands up, she starts stabbing at something. Startled, Mulder dives behind the chair, watching as the man from the bar falls. Kristen tells him that John isn't dead. Mulder takes her and they both try to escape on foot. As they head for the door, John jumps him, slamming Kristen into the wall as he does. They scuffle, Mulder wins, and he ties John up with a lamp cord. Then, Mulder grabs Kristen and heads for the garage and the car in it. As he starts the vehicle, a woman jumps onto the hood, breaks through the glass and drags him out.

Meanwhile, Kristen has moved to the driver's seat and backs up, sending both Mulder and the woman to the floor. Mulder kicks the female attacker back and Kristen slams the car into her, killing her. Mulder asks Kristen if she's okay and she says she won't leave without John. Mulder moves to get him. As he does, Kristen drives away, and Mulder makes chase, eventually finding the car abandoned on the side of the road.

Back in the house, Kristen is pouring gasoline inside her garage and around her house. John tells her she can't kill him because she isn't one of them. Kristen says she is and lights a match. John shrieks as the flame hits the ground. An explosion rocks the area and Mulder sees it.

Later, Mulder is sitting on a patch of grass while a detachment of firefighters comb through the area that was once Kristen's house. One of them approaches Mulder and says that they found four bodies, just ashes and bones. He walks away when Mulder says nothing. Mulder stares into the distance before pulling Scully's cross from around his neck. Gripping it tightly, he turns his eyes back to the smoke.

"In The First 2 Episodes Minus Episode "3.. Gillian Anderson As Dana Scully Went On Maternity Leave, Chris Carter Vowed To Keep Her On The Show When Other People Thought She Should Be Replaced Because In Their Opinion She Wasn't A Well Known Actress. Chris Carter Didn't Care And Kept Her On The Show Because He Liked Her And To Him She Was Becoming A House Hold Name!
When You See Gillian (Scully) Lying In A Hospital Bed With The Company Of Mellissa Scully, Her Mother And Mulder When He Steps Into The Room That Is Why She Is Lying Down She Wanted To Continue, To Work After Having Piper Her First She Named From The 15th Episode Of The 3rd Season called Piper Maru".


Synopsis
Scully miraculously appears in a Washington, D.C. hospital, fighting for her life, as Mulder struggles to find the secrets to how she vanished and who is involved.

Summary

Dana Scully's tombstone.

Margaret Scully is telling Fox Mulder a story about how Dana Scully exhibited guilt, after she killed a snake with a new BB gun her brothers gave her for her birthday. As the snake dies, young Dana Scully shows remorse and picks up the snake, repelling her fear of serpents. Mulder advises it is too soon to give up on her. Margaret Scully says she now knows how her daughter felt, that day in the woods. Then, an object is placed on a table near the pair; it is a tombstone, with Dana Scully's name on it.


Fox Mulder being held back after rushing to see Dana Scully.

Mulder returns to his apartment, re-reading the file on Duane Barry and Scully's kidnapping on the table. He is later lying in the darkness, watching pornography, with a look of despair written across his face. The phone rings and an unknown caller informs Mulder that Scully is in Northeast Georgetown Medical Center, Washington, D.C.. Mulder speeds over to the hospital, barges down the hallways and, despite a nurse trying to stop him, bursts through the ward doors, where he finds Scully in a coma, in critical condition and on life support, as Margaret is watching Dana. Mulder snaps, demanding to know how she got into the hospital and who brought her there. He approaches a Dr. Daly and angrily asks to see the admission forms. Mulder is dragged out of the ward, threateningly screaming at Daly, worried the doctor is involved with "them" and swearing he will find out what "they" did to Scully.


Mulder depressed about Scully's condition

In a private room later, Mulder, Margaret and Dr. Daly are speaking about Scully's condition. Daly comments she is listed in critical condition, with total unawareness of self, and does not respond to external stimuli. The doctor states no-one at the hospital knows anything about Scully's arrival and admits that, because there is no recent medical history about her, he is totally at a loss regarding how to treat Scully. He can't determine why and how long she's been in this state. Mulder wants her tested for trace evidence but Daly says she's already been bathed and cleaned. Daly then mentions that Scully has very specific living terms in her will and is very clear on life support. Mulder, who signed the will as her witness, says Scully does not want to live in this condition.

At Scully's bedside, a woman remarks to Mulder that she was told not to call him "Fox" by Scully. The woman claims Scully's soul is present. Just then, Margaret arrives and they greet each other. The woman is Scully's older sister, Melissa Scully. She says Dana is deciding whether to remain in this world, or move on.

Meanwhile, inside a metaphor representing Scully's mind, Dana sits alone in a small rowboat, tied to a pier by a rope. Mulder, Melissa Scully and an unknown woman are standing on the pier. Mulder says she isn't here and Melissa tells him to stop being angry, as his negative energy is blocking her. Mulder says he needs to do more and leaves.

Back at his apartment, Mulder places tape in an "X" shape on his window to try to call for X. However, day after day, he checks, but doesn't receive anything in is daily newspaper delivery.

In the hospital, Melvin Frohike, dressed in a smart suit and with flowers, arrives. He and Mulder look at Scully's chart and Frohike spots something odd. Frohike steals the chart and all three of The Lone Gunmen then discuss it, observing how the data shows odd protein chains in the blood. The Lone Gunmen send her medical records to the so-called latest member of the group, "The Thinker". He reports the protein chains are a by-product of branched DNA, the apparent cutting edge of genetic engineering, supposedly fifty years down the line. The Lone Gunmen speculate it may be an identity tracker, or even the product of grafting human to non-human DNA. Mulder asks if she'll live, to which the Lone Gunmen exchange worried glances. They reply that Scully's immune system has been decimated and that even a healthy human may not be able to fight her illness. They tell Mulder he can do nothing.


Nurse Nurse Owens calling upon Scully that her friends want her to return and not give in to death.

Inside her mind, Scully sees the woman who spoke to her in the hospital. After introducing herself as Nurse Owens, she says she is going to look out for her and help her find her way home. Owens tells her she must leave only when it is time and that she will be there for her. Mulder arrives and Nurse Owens leaves, without saying a word. Another nurse arrives and says she must take some blood. She does so and Mulder looks behind, only to see a suspicious-looking man, staring. The nurse places the test-tube of blood the bedside table. Suddenly, elsewhere in the room, a male patient flatlines, so nurses and doctors rush to his aid. During the chaos, Mulder looks back at the table and notices the blood vial is gone. Mulder dashes out the door and chases the suspicious man, who manages to escape into an elevator at the last second. Mulder runs down the stairs, determined not to lose him. The chase continues into the underground parking garage, where X suddenly appears and grabs Mulder.


X ordering Mulder to stop looking for the truth.

Mulder tells X a man took Scully's blood but X instructs Mulder to forget about the escapee. Mulder retorts that X ignored his calls for help, yet now expects him to do what he says. X says he comes to Mulder when he needs him and that Mulder is his tool, not the other way round. X divulges that Mulder is leading "them" right to the hospital and that Mulder is not meant to know the truth. Mulder breaks loose and runs after the man once again. He closes in but the man opens fire and escapes the car park. Mulder flanks the man and demands that the man tell him who wants Scully's blood. The man doesn't say a word and instead manages to flee from Mulder, but X intercepts him, breaks his arm and tells Mulder to stay where he is. He then asks Mulder if he wants to see what it takes to find the truth and eliminates the man, execution style.


X executes the mysterious man.

Sometime thereafter, Mulder, Melissa, Dr. Daly and Margaret are again in a private room. Daly tells them that some people have lived for nine years on mechanical ventilation. He reports this is not likely to be the case with Scully, however, and that she will not improve. Margaret observes to Mulder that he and Scully had a relationship built on respect and concedes that, even though she lost her husband in the last year and is desperate not to lose Dana too, she has always respected Dana. She says it's a moment for the family but that Mulder is welcome to join them. He solemnly shakes his head, however. In Scully's dream state, the rope holding her boat snaps and Scully drifts away, into parts unknown.


Mulder grieving over Scully's condition.

A pack of Morley cigarettes lies on Assistant Director Skinner's desk in his office. The Cigarette Smoking Man places a file on the desk, saying it's all there. The CSM advises Skinner that, if he is having trouble sitting on Mulder, the CSM can deal with it, with no trouble. As the CSM leaves, Mulder enters via a side door and sees the burning stub of an abandoned cigarette. Skinner tells him to sit down and asks him about rumours that he was involved in an incident in the hospital. Mulder turns the tables on Skinner by denying all knowledge, so Skinner demands to know what's going on. Mulder tells him it's simple, accusing the CSM of all wrongdoing. Even though Skinner wants to know how Mulder is so sure about this accusation, Mulder instead asks who and where the CSM is. Skinner reminds him that they work for the Department of Justice and Mulder specifies that that is exactly what he wants. Skinner says Scully was a fine agent and, more than that, he liked and respected her.

In a white-lit void, Scully is lying on a wooden table, wearing a white dress. Her father, Walter Skinner, emerges and tells "Starbuck" about how people repeatedly talked to him concerning the shortness of life and how children grow up fast. He never listened, however, until he realized he would never again see her, his little girl. He also declares their time to be reunited has not yet come. As he disappears, Nurse Owens returns. Echoing William Scully's sentiments, Owens says that, despite death being close to Dana tonight, her time is not over.

Melissa and Mulder are speaking in the hospital cafeteria about how Mulder could spend his life hunting down who did this to Scully and it still won't bring her back. She tells him that whoever did it has an equal horror coming to them. A woman then approaches and asks Mulder if he has change for the cigarette machine, to which he replies that he doesn't. As Melissa is about to further question Mulder regarding what he thinks about Dana, the woman points out that there's a pack of Morley cigarettes already in the machine, not her brand. Realizing what is going on, Mulder examines the cellophane-sealed packet and finds a slip of paper with an address inside.


The Cigarette Smoking Man being confronted by Mulder.

While reaching for a cigarette inside his home, the Cigarette Smoking Man is startled by a noise. He reaches for his firearm but Mulder grabs him and hurls him back into his seat. Holding the CSM at gunpoint, Mulder demands an answer to Scully's abduction. The CSM simply says he likes Mulder and also likes Scully, which is why she was returned to him. The CSM purports his involvement is only because he believes that what he is doing is right. He admits a growing respect for Mulder but observes that Mulder cannot kill the CSM because if he does, he will never learn the truth. The CSM notes that, due to this predicament, he himself will consequently win. Mulder then slowly takes his finger off the trigger and leaves.

Back in his office, Mulder prints off a resignation letter for Walter Skinner and is packing away his own belongings. Skinner enters and has a brief conversation with Mulder about his early years in the FBI. Skinner then takes the resignation letter out of his pocket and tears it in half, deeming the request for resignation as unacceptable because it seems to be motivated merely by self-punishment and defeat. Mulder realizes it was Skinner who gave him the Cigarette Smoking Man's location, and put himself at great risk by doing so.

Mulder, now walking down a flight of steps, is approached by X. He gives Mulder a plane ticket and says he doesn't know why Scully was taken but can give Mulder the man who took her. He reveals that the conspirators believe Mulder will be out of town, that he has information in his apartment, and that they will break into the apartment at 8.17 p.m. X insists Mulder will be waiting, armed and ready to defend himself with "terminal intensity."

Later inside his apartment, Mulder sits in the darkness, ready to deliver his vengeance. Melissa knocks on his door. She relays to Mulder that Scully is weakening and encourages him to visit her. Though initially reluctant, Mulder accepts her invitation.

At Scully's bedside, Mulder arrives. He takes her hand and says he feels that Scully isn't ready to leave. He doesn't know that being there will help but that he is there anyway.

The next morning, Mulder arrives home and sees his apartment has been trashed, he having missed his chance to exact revenge. Struck by the seeming futility of the whole situation, he sinks to his knees and weeps.

Scully, in her hospital gown, is lying in bed. Her surroundings are at first forestland but the scene fades back to her hospital ward. A nurse passes the bed and calls for Dr. Daly, as Scully has awoken.

Mulder, sitting on his sofa with an expression of despair on his face, ignores his phone as it rings. He eventually picks it up as the voice machine kicks in. He broadly smiles.

Out of intensive care, Scully lays in bed with her mother and sister by her side. After Mulder enters, Scully says she remembers nothing after Duane Barry kidnapped her. Mulder tells Scully to get some rest, and she says that she had the strength of his beliefs. He gives her back her crucifix necklace before he leaves. A nurse comes in and Scully asks to see Nurse Owens, as she wants to thank her for looking after her. The newly arrived nurse tells Scully that she's worked there for ten years and that there has never been a Nurse Owens at that hospital. Scully holds her cross necklace as she lies back down and stares at the ceiling.

References
Washington D.C.; snake; The Thinker; Northeast Georgetown Medical Center; Starbuck; Vietnam

Quotes
"Good work, sneakin' out these charts."
"Snuck 'em in my pants."
"There's plenty of room down there."
"You look down, Mulder. Tell you what, you're welcome to come over Saturday night. We're all hoppin' on the internet to nitpick the scientific inaccuracies of Earth 2."
"I'm doing my laundry."

- Byers, Frohike, Mulder and Langly, after smuggling Scully's medical charts out of her hospital ward, with Mulder turning down a television-viewing invitation from Langly
"Tell me what happened at the hospital, last night."
"Are you referring to the tooth found in the cafeteria jello?"

- Skinner and Mulder, the latter cheekily implying ignorance
"Hello, Starbuck. It's Ahab. People would say to me, 'Life is short. Kids, they grow up fast, and, before you know it, it's over.' I never listened. For me, life went at a proper pace. There were many rewards, until the moment that I knew, I understood that I would never see you again, my little girl. Then my life felt as if it had been the length of one breath, one heartbeat. I never knew how much I loved my daughter until I could never tell her. At that moment, I would have traded every medal, every commendation, every promotion for one more second with you. We'll be together again, Starbuck. But not now. Soon."

- William Scully's speech to his daughter, Dana Scully
"Sit down!"
"How'd you find me?"
"Shut up! Tonight, I ask the questions! You're going to answer me, you son of a bitch!"
"Don't try and threaten me, Mulder. I've watched presidents die."
"Why her? Why her and not me? . . . Answer me!"
"I like you. I like her too. That's why she was returned to you."
"You should be the one to die."
"Why? Look at me. No wife, no family; some power. I'm in the game because I believe what I'm doing is right."
"'Right?' Who are you to decide what's right?"
"Who are you? If people were to know the things I know, it would all fall apart. I told Skinner you shot the man in the hospital, but I didn't really believe it. And here you are with a gun to my head. I have more respect for you, Mulder. You're becoming a player. You can kill me now, but you'll never know the truth. (Mulder wants to shoot, but doesn't) And that's why I'll win. Don't worry. This'll be our secret. We wouldn't want others to . . . start rumors."

- Mulder and the Cigarette Smoking Man
"Only the light . . ."
"Oh, enough with the harmonic convergence crap, okay? You're not saying anything to me."
"Why don't you just drop your cynicism and your paranoia and your defeat? You know, just because it's positive and good doesn't make it silly or trite! Why is it so much easier for you to run around trying to get even than just expressing to her how you feel? I expect more from you. Dana expects more. Even if it doesn't bring her back, at least she'll know. And so will you."

- Melissa Scully and Mulder
"I brought you a present: Superstars of the Super Bowl."
"I knew there was a reason to live."

- Mulder and Scully

Synopsis
While continuing work unrelated to the X-Files, Mulder apparently finds evidence of a giant, flukeworm-like monster, living in the New Jersey sewage system.

Summary
Teaser
ATLANTIC OCEAN
TWO MILES OFF THE COAST OF NEW JERSEY

Aboard a Russian ship in the Atlantic Ocean, a sailor walks along the lower decks and finds an overflowing toilet. He reports it to the ship's engineer who assigns a sailor named Dmitri to fix the problem. Later on the ship's lower decks, Dmitri works on removing a blockage that the engineer says must be dealt with before the sewage tanks can be purged. Frustrated by the assignment, Dmitri removes an access panel and is looking inside for the blockage when something grabs him and drags him into the sewage tank, even overwhelming several members of the ship's crew as they struggle to grab hold of Dmitri's legs. The ship's engineer urgently shouts orders to the other crew members to flush the tanks out to sea. The water inside the tank then begins to bubble but reveals no sign of Dmitri.

Act One
LONGSTREET MOTEL
WASHINGTON D.C.

FEDERAL WIRETAP #5A21147

FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder is disinterestedly conducting wiretap surveillance in a small, darkened room within Washington, D.C.'s Longstreet Motel when he is relieved from the assignment by an Agent Bozoff, who is accompanied to the room by an Agent Brisentine. Leaving the room, Brisentine tells


Dmitri

Mulder about his new assignment; a murder case in Newark, New Jersey, where his contact will be a Detective Norman. Mulder is surprised his reassignment was requested by Assistant Director Walter Skinner.

NEWARK, NEW JERSEY


Mulder meets Detective Norman.

At a downtown crime scene, Mulder meets up with Detective Norman. Heading to the victim's corpse, the detective leads Mulder into a sewer where he and Mulder make smalltalk about their disgust at their surroundings. Norman then shows Mulder to the body, revealing there is not much evidence. Wandering away, Mulder accepts Norman saying that the front side of the body has largely been eaten away and advises the detective to send the body to the FBI, care of AD Skinner.

At FBI Headquarters, Mulder demands to speak with Skinner, despite Skinner's secretary, Kimberly, claiming Skinner is unavailable. Seeing Skinner from Kimberly's office, a frustrated Mulder criticizes the assignments Skinner has placed him on. Once Skinner welcomes the agent into his own office, Mulder sees that a group of FBI officials are gathered around Skinner's conference table. Mulder immediately adopts a more polite air, explaining his current investigation seemed to concern merely a drugland body dumping, but he also mentions the X-Files, at which Skinner strongly reminds him that unit has been closed. Reluctantly, Mulder agrees to continue carrying out the assignments Skinner gives him, including his current investigation.


Scully and Mulder talk while sitting on a bench together.

While Mulder is sitting alone on a bench at night, Agent Scully approaches him. Mulder jokes he may be experiencing violent impulses but Scully jokingly answers that she is armed. Once Scully sits down next to him, Mulder vents his frustrations at the seeming triviality of his assignment, admitting that he has even recently been considering leaving the FBI. Scully insists she could help Mulder out with his current case, reminding him there is a dead body to be examined.

Scully later begins the examination, though the smell of the corpse at first clearly disgusts her. All the while commentating on the examination, she notices a strange tattoo on the victim's right forearm and is shocked to discover – while inspecting the man's internal organs – a form of gray flatworm that she then begins to remove.

In Newark, two sanitation workers begin work in a sewer when one, Craig, is suddenly dragged underwater, repeatedly, and screams in pain. The other man, standing on an overhead catwalk, desperately tries to save Craig, tossing a rope into the water near him. Their efforts eventually succeed and the pained man is pulled out of the water. However, he has a large wound on his back so his co-worker, horrified, speeds away to seek assistance.

Act Two
MIDDLESEX COUNTY HOSPITAL
SAYREVILLE, NEW JERSEY


Dr. Zenzola shows Craig's wound to Mulder.

A Doctor Zenzola examines Craig, who refers to a strong taste in his mouth – while Mulder enters – so the doctor duly inspects her patient's throat and gives him a piece of gum. The doctor then privately talks with Mulder, informing him the sanitation worker is claiming to have been attacked by something undetermined. Zenzola also mentions the wound on the man's back, referring to it as highly unusual. Mulder then briefly questions the victim, who suspects his attacker was a pet snake, and Zenzola shows Mulder the man's wound. Mulder receives a call from Scully, who tells him of the worm she found. Receiving another call, Mulder at first assumes that his caller is again Scully but it is actually a mysterious man who first notifies Mulder that he has a friend at the FBI and then abruptly ends the call. Mulder agrees to Zenzola releasing her patient but is privately perplexed by the strange call.

FBI NATIONAL ACADEMY
QUANTICO, VIRGINIA

After Mulder arrives in Scully's office, she shows him the flukeworm she found, wordily telling him about its parasitic nature. The pair of agents enlighten their conversation with some jokey banter. Scully then explains that she is left to conclude that the unlikely possibility that the single parasite killed the young victim. Mulder theorizes the wound on the sanitation worker's back could be from the scolex of a gigantic flukeworm. Scully starts to laugh at his theory but stops herself, realizing she had become too caught up in their discussion feeling like "old times." Scully seriously refutes Mulder's theory and he acts pleased that he doesn't have to tell Skinner the murder suspect is "a giant, blood-sucking worm." Having assumed the mysterious call he received earlier was due to Scully having launched a campaign for him, Mulder confronts her about it. She is puzzled about the matter but assures him she would never betray a confidence.

Meanwhile, Craig is in the bathroom of his own home. He tries to get rid of the taste in his mouth using an excessive amount of toothpaste. When he spits the toothpaste out, he is shocked to see blood mixed with it. He later showers but experiences an extreme choking sensation, regurgitating more blood and a flukeworm that slithers down the drain.

NEWARK COUNTY
SEWAGE PROCESSING PLANT


Ray is shown a flukeworm by Mulder.

Mulder interviews Ray, a foreman at the county sewage processing facility, who briefly introduces Mulder to a worker named Charlie. Ray tells Mulder about the plant's workings and Mulder shows him the flukeworm from the body pulled out of the sewer. Ray seems unsurprised at its discovery, remarking virtually anything could have been breeding down in the antiquated sewage system. Outside the plant, Charlie notices something moving inside one of many filtration pools. Panicking, he telephones Ray. In a large darkened area inside the plant, Charlie is joined by Ray and Mulder. Charlie explains he is back-flushing the system and tells of his experience of having seen something. What he saw in the water is revealed to the group once it is caught in a large, transparent pipe. It appears to be a slimy, nearly featureless humanoid creature with a giant scolex mouth - the monstrous Flukeman.

Act Three
Scully is doing research on her computer, in her office at the FBI Academy, when she notices a tabloid newspaper being slid under her door. She briefly exits her office to see the paper's anonymous deliverer is now gone. Scully later comes across an article that suggests officials now suspect the incident aboard the Russian ship was due to some kind of monster. Learning of this incident for the first time, she returns to her computer and brings up a magnified view of the tattoo she discovered earlier. Scully then answers a call from Mulder, who implies he has found a much larger fluke than the one she previously caught.

MIDDLESEX COUNTY PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL

The agents peer into a room of the psychiatric facility where the Flukeman is being held. After Mulder points it out to Scully, she reacts in amazement. Using technical lingo, they remark that the Flukeman shares the flatworms' characteristic of being genderless and that it has aspects of both parasitic and primate physiology. Mulder comments he will apparently have to tell Skinner the murder suspect is indeed a "giant, blood-sucking worm." Scully tells Mulder of her conclusion that the body from the sewer was a Russian engineer, a determination she made after having detected its tattoo spells "Dmitri" in Cyrillic lettering. Mulder is puzzled how she managed to determine that, so she shows him the newspaper article, also implying she believes the paper was left by the same mysterious caller who told Mulder that, within the FBI, he has an ally. She tells him of her hope that he won't decide to quit the FBI.


Mulder has a meeting with AD Skinner.

Later in Skinner's office, Skinner looks through Mulder's field report regarding the Flukeman. Skinner deems the report as being acceptable, which Mulder thinks is a humorously odd reaction to the bizarreness of both the case and the suspect. Skinner clarifies he had his reactions to those in the morning and that the current meeting is to evaluate Mulder's work. Both men argue about how the Flukeman should best be handled, Mulder disputing Skinner's plan of transferring the being to a psychiatric institution. Skinner mentions the Flukeman is now responsible for the deaths of two people, as Craig was found dead – in his own home – due to his injuries. Mulder angrily asserts that, if he and Scully had still been assigned to the X-Files, they could have saved the second victim's life. Skinner agrees the case should have been an X-file, implies that he took orders to shut down that unit from someone else and dismisses Mulder.

U.S. Marshals transport the Flukeman, bound to a gurney, into an ambulance which then drives away. The vehicle's driver finds, while driving, that the Flukeman has escaped his bonds, leaving clear slime on the gurney's straps. Moments after investigating with a shotgun, the driver screams and his firearm is shot once, noises that can be heard from outside the vehicle, which is parked near a sign for Lake Betty Park. The Flukeman then crawls into one of a pair of public port-a-john lavatories nearby and hides inside the tank.

Act Four
LAKE BETTY PARK
5:27 am

The public toilets are emptied into a tanker truck, via a suction tube that momentarily becomes blocked.

LAKE BETTY PARK
6:37 am


Arriving at Lake Betty Park, Mulder is passed by the tanker truck.

The park is now a crime scene due to the discovery of the abandoned ambulance. When Mulder arrives, he notices the septage hauler truck as it leaves. Again meeting up with Detective Norman, Mulder is told the only evidence is a dead driver and an escaped prisoner. Mulder advises the being will attempt to head back underground. He answers another call from his mysterious contact, who instructs him success in his current assignment is imperative and that reinstatement of the X-Files must be undeniable. After the mystery caller abruptly ends the call, Mulder overhears Norman being contacted by an investigator who reports the discovery of the now-empty toilet. With this information, Mulder realizes the suspect may be on the truck he himself passed.

NEW JERSEY COUNTY
SEWAGE PROCESSING PLANT
8:15 am

Mulder hurriedly arrives back at the processing plant. He again talks with the foreman, Ray, who assures Mulder that the Flukeman will definitely become trapped in the sewage system. After a period of intense waiting near the plant's filtration pools, Mulder receives a call from Scully. She tells Mulder the fluke she caught earlier was one of many the Flukeman has been transmitting through its bite, as its method of reproduction, and that the Flukeman is looking for hosts. Ray relays news to Mulder that something has been spotted in a section of pipe. Using a map of the sewers, Ray shows Mulder the exact location of the sighting, the same place where the first body was found – an overflow system connected to the harbor. Mulder suspects both that the Flukeman entered the sewer system there and that the being is working its way back out to sea.


The Flukeman screams, its body being split in half.

Mulder and the foreman hurry to the sewer. On Mulder's suggestion, Ray tries to close a metal gate over the overflow pipe, but slips and falls into the water. He is suddenly dragged underwater twice but desperate attempts by Mulder to pull him to safety are eventually successful. Mulder spots the Flukeman climbing into the overflow pipe so he races to close the gate, which agonizingly splits the being in half.

Back in Washington, D.C., Scully again meets with Mulder at their bench. Like before, they share humorous banter before Scully sits down; Mulder warns her he may slightly reek of the sewer but Scully chances sitting next to him anyway. Mulder notifies her about his mysterious contact alleging the importance of his work, although Scully at first mistakes those words as having come from Skinner. Scully lengthily informs Mulder she has determined the Flukeman, capable of spontaneous regeneration like any fluke or flatworm, is actually a human mutated by radiation from the nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl, having come off a decommissioned Russian freighter involved in the disposal of salvage material from that incident.

NEWARK, NEW JERSEY

Deep underground, the Flukeman rejuvenates, opening its eyes and breathing long, rasping breaths.

"Wetwired" is the 23rd episode of the third season and the 72nd episode overall of the science fiction television series The X-Files. The episode first aired in the United States on May 10, 1996.

Synopsis
As the agents investigate a series of murders committed by ordinary citizens angered after seeing illusory images, Scully's trust in Mulder is put to the ultimate test.

Summary
Mulder is given a newspaper article about a number of people who became psychotic and murdered several people by the Plain-Clothed Man. One man killed five people, all believing them to be the same man. Mulder and Scully travel to see this man, who is in a psychiatric hospital now under the care of Dr. Stroman. He freaks out upon seeing a news show about a war criminal in the former Yugoslavia.

Mulder and Scully travel to the man's house where they find two boys watching a movie on the man's television. The boys quickly leave and Mulder and Scully poke around. Mulder sees a cable repair company van drive by while Scully finds many recordings of a news show. She theorizes that the violence on the shows caused the man to murder the five people. That night, Scully watches some of the videos the man had in his house to try and find any reasons for the murders. When she stepped out into the parking lot for a break, she saw Mulder and the Cigarette Smoking Man talking in Mulder's car.

The next day, Mulder denies that the conversation took place. The same day, Mulder and Scully go to a woman's house where a similar murder took place. The woman thought she saw her husband in a hammock with a blond woman; in reality it was her neighbor taking a nap with his dog. Mulder sees the same cable repairman, but he drives off before he can catch him. Mulder climbs up the pole and finds a device in the cable box.

Mulder brought the device to The Lone Gunmen, who found that it interfered with the regular television, but couldn't tell him how. Mulder calls Scully to update her, but she is growing more paranoid, and combs through her hotel room, looking for listening devices after hearing clicks on the phone. Mulder arrives at her hotel room, but upon opening the door Scully fires at him four times and runs off. A team of police/FBI arrive to find Scully but Mulder says that they are searching for her like an escaped prisoner. Skinner defends the search team, saying that Scully is armed and dangerous. Mulder calls Mrs. Scully to inform her of Scully's disappearance.

The Lone Gunmen call Mulder again and Mulder goes back to their place. They tell him that the device he found in the cable box is slipping images into the television these people are watching. The Lone Gunmen believe it to be a mind control device. Mulder was not affected by these images, because he is red-green color blind.

The police find a body that they believe to be Scully's. Mulder goes to see it, but he confirms it not to be her. The doctor present mentions that Mrs. Scully hasn't been answering her phone, leading Mulder to go to her house. There, he finds Scully who is still very paranoid and points a gun at him. Scully accuses Mulder of being part of the men who abducted her and killed her sister. Mrs. Scully steps in and calms Scully down. Scully is then hospitalized. Once she is better, Mulder tells her his theory that the device amplifies people's anxieties and causes dementia.

Mulder asked Scully's doctor if she would treat someone in Scully's condition for an amphetamine addiction, like Dr. Stroman was with the first man, who killed his wife. The doctor told him no, and Mulder tries, without success, to contact Dr. Stroman. He tracks Dr. Stroman to an empty hotel room, with cigarettes in the ash tray. Mulder finds Dr. Stroman and the cable repairman in a house with the help of phone logs from the hotel room. Before Mulder can enter the house, shots are fired. When Mulder enters, both men are murdered by X. Mulder accuses X of misleading him by using a third party to inform him of the murders, and of putting him and Scully in harm. Mulder also calls X a coward, but X refutes his accusations, saying that he was being watched too closely and that Mulder needs him.

Mulder and Scully finish their report for Skinner but their evidence is not enough to present a serious case.

In a dark alley, X enters a car with the Cigarette Smoking Man inside. He reports that evidence of the case has been dealt with along with the Plain-Clothed Man. However, he claims to not know who gave the information to the Plain-Clothed Man.

Purity is an alien virus that appears in the X-Files and is one of the central themes of the series alongside The Syndicate and the Colonists. It can also be considered the overarching antagonist of the entire franchise as every species in the Galaxy is said to be infected by the virus save for humans and the Faceless Aliens.
Like many villains in the X-Files Purity is based on real-world conspiracy theories, in this case it is based upon the demonic entity known as the Black Goo.


Purity, more commonly referred to as black oil and "the black cancer" by the Russians, was an alien virus that thrived in petroleum deposits underground on Earth. The virus was capable of entering humanoids and assuming control of their bodies. It was sentient and was capable of communicating. It is the "life force" of the alien colonists, which they seemingly use to reproduce their kind, as well as infect other alien races in order to conquer the universe.
According to the Well-Manicured Man, black oil was the original inhabitant of the planet Earth.
In 35,000 B.C., two primitive humans pursued a set of strange tracks through the frozen wasteland that was North Texas. They followed the tracks into a cave, where they were attacked by a long-clawed alien that had left the tracks. Although one of the men was killed, the other managed to injure the creature. As the alien lay dormant on a rock, a form of black oil poured out of its body, covered the remaining man and painfully infected him.

In 1945, a squadron of P-51 Mustang airplanes escorted a B-29 transporting a nuclear bomb similar to those used on Japan during World War II. However, the B-29 and its accompanying squadron of aircraft crashed in the Pacific Ocean after they had a hostile encounter with a UFO that also crashed.

Later the same year, an American submarine named the Zeus Faber was deployed in an attempt to locate the crash site. The Zeus Faber found the sunken squadron but the submarine's crew also unknowingly brought the black oil aboard. The alien substance possessed the Zeus Faber's commanding officer, Captain Kyle Sanford, and manipulated him into refusing to return to port without providing an explanation.

When the crew turned on the possessed captain and rendered him unconscious (or possibly killed him), the alien entity left his body and then seemingly the submarine itself, returning to the ocean. The Zeus Faber's crew complement had been 144 when it left port, but only seven survived the return journey to Pearl Harbor. The majority of the crew had died from radiation burns due to exposure to the possessed Captain Sanford, though none of the crew were ever given an explanation for the awful burns and the survivors never discovered a reason for their own survival. The incident was never revealed to the public.

In 1995, the UFO that had crashed with the squadron of US airplanes was recovered by an American salvage ship named the Talapus. (TXF: "Nisei") While the UFO was secretly taken to San Diego and secured within a guarded warehouse there, the black oil remained within the Pacific Ocean.

In 1996, the French salvage ship Piper Maru was on a mission to locate the sunken squadron of airplanes when a diver, Bernard Gauthier, discovered one of the planes. The Piper Maru's crew had been monitoring Gauthier's progress when they lost all contact with him. Gauthier continued to inspect the plane and found that a pilot was bizarrely still alive inside, trapped in the cockpit and possessed by the black oil. By the time Gauthier returned to the surface of the water and was recovered by the Piper Maru, he had also been possessed by the alien substance. Gauthier claimed that he was unharmed and asked his crew mates to help him remove his diving suit. One man found a thin layer of oil that covered the diving suit but thought nothing sinister of it. Like the men aboard the Zeus Faber, the black oil also exposed the crew of the Piper Maru to extremely high levels of radiation. The ship slowly journeyed to San Diego, steered home by the possessed Gauthier - the only man not affected by the radiation.

The French government classified the nature of the contaminant that had irradiated the Piper Maru's crew and refused to release that information. In fact, the US Navy inspected the Piper Maru but found nothing unusual nor any radiation aboard the vessel.

The crew members suffering from the radiation were admitted to San Diego Naval Hospital but determining a course of treatment for their deteriorating condition was complicated by the secrecy regarding the incident. What could be determined was that the men had been exposed to an unnaturally high level of radiation, with a high rate of absorption. Symptoms included spontaneous internal bleeding in the mouths and intestinal tracts, blood in the urine and severe delirium — the pre-advanced stages of a coma. Though Gauthier had been held at the hospital for one day, he seemed to be in very good health and discharged himself the next morning. Joan Gauthier infected with the black oil. Gauthier, controlled by the black oil, returned to his home in San Francisco, California, where he lived with his wife, Joan.

In late 1996, a diplomatic envoy from Russia landing in Hawaii was intercepted by security guards and searched for being belligerent with them. During the search, the guards discovered a canister containing what the envoy described as a bio-hazardous material. The guard dropped the canister, shattering it and releasing its contents: Purity.

Another envoy carrying a sample of the same rock from Tunguska, Russia, arrived at Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C.. With the ironic assistance of Alex Krycek, Agents Mulder and Scully attempted to intercept the courier. However, he fled but dropped his diplomatic pouch that contained the mysterious rock. Krycek knew that the Syndicate would be looking for the rock, and he was eager to take revenge against the Cigarette Smoking Man. Krycek was then kept in Walter Skinner's apartment while Mulder and Scully tried to learn more about the rock. The CSM approached Skinner the following day demanding to know the whereabouts of the pouch, but Skinner was unable to answer because the agents hadn't revealed it to him. Scully took the rock to the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center to have it analyzed with Dr. Sacks. Sacks discovered that the rock was the same as meteorites, which prompted Mulder to travel to Tunguska in search of answers.

Mulder and Krycek traveled to Russia, where they discovered prisoners of a gulag mining for extraterrestrial rocks like the one they had intercepted. However, they were discovered and imprisoned. Betrayed by Krycek yet again, Mulder was then subjected to an experiment wherein he was exposed to the black oil. However, he survived unscathed because the Russians had developed an effective vaccine. Meanwhile, the Russians discovered the outbreak in the United States. Vassily Peskow was sent to take care of it. Ultimately, Peskow successfully covered up the presence of the black oil and destroyed much of it by blowing up an oil well in North Dakota.

In 1997, Alex Krycek discovered a boy who witnessed the burning of a group of abductees by the faceless alien rebels. In order to ensure that no one else found out what happened, Krycek infected the boy with the black oil and brought him to the United States, to barter him with the Syndicate. He also managed to smuggle a sample of the vaccine that the Russians developed, which he gave to the Syndicate. They tested it successfully on Marita Covarrubias, who had been infected with the virus by the boy.

In 1998, several people were infected with a strain of the virus lying dormant beneath suburban Dallas, Texas. The Syndicate, fearing an outbreak, hastily tried to contain the virus, and learned that it not only inhabits and controls its host, but also uses it as an incubator for a new alien life-form. Agents Mulder and Scully investigated the deaths of the infected people, and were led to a site where genetically-modified corn pollen was being harvested in order to carry the virus, which will be delivered by bees during the alien invasion. Scully is later stung by one of the bees, and infected with the virus. The Syndicate abducted her and took her to a research facility in Antarctica, where she is incarcerated along with hundreds of other infected hosts. Mulder pursued her and was able to administer a vaccine to her, which had been provided by The Well-Manicured Man.

In 2001, the black oil was encountered again. The Galpex oil company ran an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico that tapped a petroleum reserve containing the virus, infecting the entire crew. Simon de la Cruz and Diego Garza were remarkably immune to the virus. Simon was killed by Bo Taylor after he attempted to contact the mainland and Garza went into hiding aboard the rig. Fox Mulder, who had recently reappeared following his abduction, brought the FBI into the situation after Simon's corpse washed ashore in Texas. Furious that Mulder had gotten the Bureau involved, Alvin Kersh sent John Doggett to clear everything up. However, Mulder disobeyed orders and traveled to the rig on his own, beating Doggett there. With help from Scully back in Washington, Mulder was able to confirm that the black oil was indeed present aboard the rig. Doggett was nearly killed by Taylor as well and was able to witness the virus for himself. As Mulder and Doggett attempted to contact the mainland, the infected crew members tried to kill them - but they stopped as soon as Mulder destroyed the radio. Almost at once, the crew then tried to blow up the platform, but the agents were rescued before it went up in flames completely. Although Mulder took the fall for the destruction of the platform, he exhorted Doggett to keep Galpex from continuing operations on the virus-infected oil reserve.

Super-soldiers are the the main antagonists Season 9 are human replacements that look human but are actually a type of alien and like perfect aliens/humans hybrids. Fearless and virtually unstoppable, these aliens are not directed by anyone and are answerable to no-one except their own biological imperative to survive. They want to knock out any and all attempts by humans to survive the alien colonization of Earth and were created to aid in the extraterrestrial repopulation of the planet. Their collective name, "super-soldiers," derives from the aliens themselves, but was often used cynically by humans.
Origins
After the destruction of the Syndicate by the rebels, the colonists began again to kidnap people who already had them. The colonists began to experiment on them to become super-soldiers to replace the dead members of the Syndicate to prepare for the colonization of the Earth. They began to destroy everything connected with the work of the Syndicate and began to hunt for Dana Scully and her child. Soon they found Dana Scully and silently watched the birth of her child and then they left the hut.

After the disappearance of Fox Mulder, the Super Soldiers infiltrated various government structures and special services. One super-soldier who calls himself a shadow man tried to get to Fox Mulder but was destroyed by a magnetite when chasing Dana Scully. Super-Soldier Knowle Rohrer enters a room of classified information that Fox Mulder found out the date of the beginning of the colonization of the Earth. Mulder attacked Rohrer, but he directly to the exit from the room and chased him while he threw him under the installation of electricity. After the tribunal, he rose from the dead to kill Fox Mulder who was sentenced to death. Rohrer learned that Mulder escaped ordered to cover the exits. Super-soldiers closed the X-Files department and found out where Mulder and Scully went to New Mexico. They also learned that The Smoking Man was alive and ordered the helicopters to destroy the abandoned fort of the Anasazi Indians. Knowle Rohrer followed agents Doggett and Reyes and surrounded them, but coming close, Rohrer pleased magnetite and scattered into dust. What happened to the Super Soldiers is unknown they seem to have disappeared. Their further fate is unknown.

Synopsis
While traveling to a conference with Scully and two other FBI agents, Mulder stops at a roadblock to join a nearby investigation of attacks by an unidentified predator.

Summary
A pair of surveyors are working on plotting out an area of the forest in North Florida (Leon County, near Tallahassee, FL) when they are attacked by unseen assailants with glowing red eyes and killed.

Later in the day, a father, son, and their dog are hunting for possums in the same stretch of woods when they come across a bloody jacket. Finding the jacket of one of the surveyors, the father orders his son to run home as fast as he can and not stop for anything. As the son and dog take off, he loads his shotgun amidst the sounds of rustling in the underbrush ahead. The sound of the father's gun stops the son and dog in their tracks. The dog growls and tries to run back the way they just came, but the boy is able to turn him around, and they continuing running out of the woods.

Meanwhile, Mulder and Scully are sharing a road trip with Agents Kinsley and Stonecypher, en route to a leadership and "team building" seminar. A visibly uncomfortable and annoyed Mulder is relieved when they are stopped at a roadblock by local police, who inform them that they seem to have had a shooting up ahead. Mulder decides to investigate.

Mulder briefly speaks with the boy's mother, who is frantic because no one will tell her what has happened to her husband. Making their way deeper into the woods, Scully and Mulder encounter more local law enforcement who inform the pair that they haven't found the body of the father, but have evidence of a shooting.

That night, at home, the boy tells his mother that he suspects his father is dead, as he was a good shot and if he had hit what he was shooting at, he'd have been home already.

In the meantime, Mulder and Scully are at the hotel for the reception. Scully visits Mulder in his room with a plate of cheese, and Mulder informs her that no animals in the wild will attack the strongest member of its prey when a weaker target is available.

Later that night at the home of the family, the dog (Bo) is upset and begins barking. The mother goes out to fetch him and bring him back in the house, but when she tries, she sees that the door has been bolted from the inside. The boy (Louis) is cornered by one of the creatures and just barely manages to escape through the dog door where he runs into Mulder, informing him that "it" is in the house.

The next morning, law enforcement is on the scene at the house and Scully and Mulder discuss the previous night's happenings. Mulder mentions that they found some tracks outside which appear to be human, but that the weight distribution is all wrong. Also, the fact that the creature attacked and killed three grown men and disposed of the bodies, as well as luring the mother outside of the house in order to get to Louis suggests to Mulder that the creatures are paranormal in nature. That, combined with the population pressures as human habitation expands might be at work in these killings.

An expedition into the woods with law enforcement and Infrared devices proves fruitless, as one of the officers is attacked after having been separated from the rest and the creatures fail to appear on the radar. At this point, Mulder advances the possibility that the creature is related to the Mothman of Point Pleasant, WV. Shortly, Mulder and Scully lose their only other companion to the creatures (despite the fact that Scully is able to wound it with her pistol), and they are left alone, lost in the woods as night falls.

That night, Scully and Mulder attempt to build a campfire and fail miserably. In order to help stay awake, Mulder convinces Scully to sing for him, which she does rather reluctantly, belting out a sadly uninspired rendition of "Joy to the World" by Three Dog Night.

The next morning, Scully and Mulder are foraging for berries, when Scully falls through a hole, into an underground bivouac where the bodies of their missing companions are stored. She sees a pair of red eyes coming towards her and shoots, as Mulder drops into the hole with her. Having killed the creature, Mulder and Scully take a look at it and see that it is remarkably human-like, albeit with a wood-like texture to its skin. Near them the words "Ad Noctum" are found carved into a tree trunk.

Shortly thereafter, Agents Stonecypher and Kinsley, with police in tow, locate Mulder and Scully and help them out of the hole. Kinsley remarks that they got all the credit while Scully and Mulder did all the work. He also shows Mulder a crosscut of a tree with various dates inscribed on the rings including that of 1521, with Ponce de Leon searching for the Fountain of Youth in Florida. Mulder suggests that perhaps the predators are the result of Conquistadors who found the fountain and have adapted to life in the forest and are acting aggressively out of a need to defend their territory from encroachment. Kinsley ridicules the idea, although he admits that "Ad Noctum" was a phrase often used by the Conquistadors as they tortured and massacred Indians. Unfortunately, a further inspection of the cave reveals that the body of the creature Scully killed has mysteriously vanished and that they have been unable to locate it. Realizing something is amiss, Mulder rushes off to the hotel.

Meanwhile, back at the hotel room, Scully is packing. She takes her clothes from the closet and the camera lingers as if it will detect one of the predators. It doesn't. A similar thing happens concerning a chair. No dice. There is a knock at the door. It's Mulder, who, after ascertaining that Scully has finished packing, urges her firmly to vacate the room. She looks a little puzzled but leaves with him.

The camera moves back into the hotel room probing places a predator might be. The camera pans under the bed where... a pair of red eyes open.

Similar to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the show told the story of the aftermath of a hurricane in which water-based creatures infiltrate a small Florida town and begin to take over the bodies of the town's inhabitants through a cloning process (by first merging with then replacing them).
In the aftermath of a hurricane, a Florida Park Ranger and his family deal with strange occurrences, including luminescent creatures in the water and people that somehow seem to have changed after surviving the night of the disaster out in the open.
"Can you see the lights?"

Synopsis
In the North Atlantic, Mulder and Scully investigate the crew of a US Navy Ship, all of whom somehow radically aged. The agents locate the ship but, like the vessel's crew before them, Mulder and Scully also suffer from rapid aging.

Summary
The show begins with a naval ship evacuation taking place in the Norwegian Sea. Captain Barclay tells the men, who are preparing to leave, that they are committing mutiny. Lt. Harper says he will not wait for help, and that it may already be too late. Cpt. Barclay levels a gun on him, but then lets everyone go. They leave Barclay behind on the ship.

Eighteen hours later, a fishing vessel, with a crew paying cards, detects a drifting boat. They radio out a call to the drifting craft but get no response. From the deck, they spy a boat full of huddled men. They throw out a rope to reel them in. We see some weak hands holding tight to it. The fisherman call out only to find upon closer inspection the entire boat is filled with the naval crew, only much weaker and decrepit.

At Bethesda Naval Hospital, Mulder and Scully meet and speak about a missing Navy ship, that has been gone forty-two hours. According to Mulder, a Canadian troller picked up the only eighteen survivors, and now only one is left alive in the Intensive Care Unit. Mulder asks Scully to inspect the survivor and report back. Upon seeing the older Harper, Scully asks if there has been a mistake. A doctor questions Scully's credentials and clearance, and then asks her to leave before Scully can learn anything. Scully and Mulder discuss what she saw and then go over the route which the Navy ship took. Mulder says nine ships have disappeared in roughly the same place along the 65th parallel. Scully wonders if it is like a Bermuda Triangle of sorts. Mulder calls it a wrinkle in time. They discuss a 'Philadelphia Experiment', which was discontinued in light of the Manhattan Project. Mulder tells her about a ship which disappeared without explanation from the Philadelphia ship yard and reappeared in Norfolk, Virginia. It may have done so with the help of alien technology and the manipulation of wormholes of earth. The two then take off without telling Skinner they are investigating this space-time phenomena.

In the port of Tildeskan, Norway, at a shipyard bar, Mulder and Scully look over a map with a Norwegian man. It becomes apparent that no one so far is willing to take them out to where the ship disappeared. Many of the sailors in the bar give them wry looks. Scully thinks they look afraid of their undertaking. A man comes out of the shadows and explains why the men will not take them on: ships must get a certain classification before they can go out into those kinds of waters. Enter Henry Trondheim; he recommends his ship to take them out. Trondheim says the trip will be ten hours each way. Scully wonders why everyone is so afraid and Henry tells them it is because of various mythologies. When Henry asks about the nature of their visit, Mulder gives a vague answer. Henry says he will take them for a price.

Aboard the ship, Mulder looks to be sea sick. When asked why the journey is taking longer than expected, Trondheim says he has never seen the fog this thick and it is making travel difficult. Besides, Trondheim notes, they are right where they want to be. The naval ship just appeared on his radar mysteriously. As a matter of face, all of his instruments are behaving oddly. The ship appears so fast in their sight that they cannot slow down in time, causing their boat to strike it at full speed, and bounce off.

Mulder and Scully climb aboard the naval ship, which Trondheim calls a ghost ship. Everything is rotted and rusted over, including the plaque saying it was built in 1991. The entire vessel appears to be abandoned and old. They go to inspect the crew quarters and the plaque mysteriously develops another layer of sediment. In the quarters, they find several decaying bodies, which appear as though they have been dead for a long period of time. Scully tries to take a sample of some residue on a dead man's hand, but the hand snaps off. Scully and Mulder hear a noise, which turns out to be Trondheim's ship starting and leaving without them. It disappears into the fog.

Mulder and Scully work to get the ship running again, but it is covered in the same residue. Any work on it is impossible; and the radio is inoperable, as are the engine parts. Trondheim demands straight answers. Mulder tells him it might be the result of a government experiment, in which time might be manipulated. Suddenly, Halverson can be heard yelling from the depths of the ship. Upon discovering his head has been smashed in and is now dead, the trio hear someone moving through the ship. They go to investigate. In the galley freezer, they find Cpt. Barclay hiding with a bottle of Jack Daniels. He is aged horribly and frail.

Scully interrogates him and asks about a light the crew saw. Barclay says they had power loss after that; even the sea and the wind stopped. Trondheim thinks Barclay a drunkard. Barclay differs, saying time got lost for him and all his men. In a private conversation, Mulder and Scully do not think Barclay could have killed Halverson, because Barclay is so weak. In the meantime, Trondheim commits Halverson's body to the sea, and is then attacked by Olafsson. Mulder stops the fight with Olafsson, whom he believes to be important because he has not aged. Trondheim despises him because he is a pirate and a deceiver, whose friends might have taken his boat just now.

Barclay dies suddenly. Scully says he is turning into a pillar of salt. Mulder tells them to tie up Olafsson so they can get some rest. After a quick nap, Mulder and Scully begin to show signs of rapid aging. They all have—except Olafsson. They argue about what the phenomena is and who is to blame. Scully claims oxidation of cells and tissues may be caused by the very water around them, and a large metallic object could be imposing on them free radicals. The ship begins to ooze rust. Trondheim is left with Olafsson while Mulder and Scully poke around the ship. Olafsson tries to bargain with Trondheim to let him go. Mulder identifies the one pipe which has not rusted over and finds it leads to sewage processing. They find a spot where they believe Olafsson and his friends were hiding and determine the only worthy drinking water comes from there. We return to Trondheim to see he has killed Olafsson and is now drinking water from a toilet.

Mulder is not happy that Olafsson is missing. He and Trondheim argue. Scully asks for blood and urine samples. After testing, Scully finds awesome amounts of salt, which is causing rapid cellular damage. Mulder does not look to be doing so well as compared to Scully and Trondheim. Trondheim wants to stop giving him rations of water. Trondheim takes to roaming the ship one night. Scully finds he is hoarding all the clean water to himself. A standoff takes place and Trondheim locks her out of the sewage hold. Scully rummages through all the crew lockers and finds a snowglobe. Next, she tears apart the kitchen and finds a can of sardines. She combines all the moisture in the entire ship and gives it to Mulder. He tells her to have it instead because as a woman she can retain water better. He will wait for rescue. The ship begins to rock violently and the concoction is lost. Mulder thinks the ship is taking on water, as the hull has finally corroded through. We then see Trondheim taking on a lot of water in the hold. He cannot get the door open and drowns.

Fourteen hours later, Mulder jokes he always wanted to take a cruise when he got older. The service is terrible on this ship, he says. Scully speaks about her coma experience. She say they have nothing to fear when they die. She writes in her journal that Mulder has lost consciousness and the ship must sinking for sure. Among Halverson's belongings, she found a children's book of Norse mythology depicting the end of the world, and begins to concede that she may die.

A rescue crew is seen boarding the ship and finding Scully and Mulder together. Scully awakens under the care of the same doctor who threw her out at the beginning of the episode. The doctor tells her they were only able to save Mulder because of her notes about the conditions, and that the ship sunk an hour after they were rescued, so it may no longer be examined.

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Synopsis
A town celebrates a surprising number of births in a short span of time, only all the newborns have tails...

Summary
While being rolled down a hospital hallway to deliver, a pregnant woman admits the father is from another planet. She gives birth to a little girl, but the doctor looks puzzled. Out of view of the mother, he holds up the child to reveal a wiggling tail on the baby and says, "Lord, not another one..."

Mulder and Scully are driving to investigate while Scully examines a tabloid front page featuring the Monkey Babies. They interview the mother, Amanda Nelligan, who states the father was Luke Skywalker (she has seen Star Wars nearly 400 times). The agents then visit the fertility clinic where the other four babies were conceived via IVF and Dr. Pugh admits he was surprised at the 90% success rate, speculating that maybe IVF wasn't really responsible. Mulder takes a foray down the hall and finds a maintenance worker, Eddie, whose "plumber's crack" reveals he once had a tail. PCR DNA results show he's the father of all the tail babies. While in police custody, he transforms into a policeman and escapes.

The agents visit Amanda again who says she dated Eddie Van Blundht (the "h" is silent) in high school, so the agents go to his house and talk to his father. The father has a tail and performed in the circus. Mulder soon realizes the old man is really Eddie, who runs off and pretends to be the husband of a woman down the street who is the mother of one of the tail babies. A search of the Van Blundht house reveals the remains of the father, including the tail, in the attic preserved by quicklime. Scully finds anomalous striated skin muscles covered the man's entire dermal structure. Mulder revisits Amanda in the hospital again, but she says he was just there. It was Eddie pretending to be Mulder. In the hospital locker room, Eddie jumps from the ceiling tiles, locks Mulder in the basement with a sandwich, and successfully impersonates Mulder by the time Scully and the others arrive.

Eddie's mannerisms carry through into his performance as Mulder, as well as his tendency to repeat word phrases, such as "small potatoes," even throughout different personas. Although Eddie's portrayal of Mulder is not perfect, Scully and Skinner do not catch on. Skinner reprimands Mulder for misspelling "Federal Bureau of Investigation" in his report... twice. Afterwards, as Scully and Mulder are talking in the hallway, Mulder can't locate the correct key to unlock the door to his office. Later, Eddie, as Mulder, attempts to seduce Scully at her apartment with a bottle of wine. Due, presumably, to Scully's latent feelings for Mulder, the two spend a long time talking, and Eddie is very nearly successful—until the real Mulder bursts through the door. Eddie meekly surrenders.

In the final scene, Mulder visits Eddie in jail, at Eddie's request. When Mulder questions Eddie about the hat he is wearing, Eddie explains that his court-appointed therapist makes him wear it. It is revealed that Eddie is on muscle relaxers to prevent him from using his ability. During their discussion, Eddie suggests that Mulder is a loser. On their way out, Scully disagrees with Eddie's assessment. As the two agents walk down the hallway, they pass by the camera, revealing a clear view of a prisoner mopping the floor, wearing the same prison garb and hat as Eddie was wearing in confinement.

Dr. Chester Ray Banton (played by Tony Shalhoub) was a physicist who did groundbreaking research into dark matter. During a key experiment, he entered a chamber and was exposed to intense dark matter radiation that turned his shadow into a killer void that disintegrated any living matter it crossed. Banton went on the run for fear that the government would use his experiments for sinister purposes or imprison him for study and experimentation. Following the disintegration deaths of several people and two police officers, he met Mulder and Scully, in whom he saw safety. Mulder sought assistance from X in dealing with Banton, but X betrayed Mulder's confidence and used knowledge of Banton's whereabouts to find him. Banton attempted to reverse the dark matter exposure by entering the experiment chamber again, but was thwarted and subsequently apprehended by X. Banton's worst fears thus came true, as he was immediately locked in a cell for scientific observation by the government.
Synopsis
Mulder and Scully encounter a man who is afraid of his own shadow.

Summary
The episode beings at the George Mason Hotel in Richmond, Virginia. Patrick Newarth sits on his bed, sipping scotch and reading some papers, Dr. Chester Ray Banton (Tony Shalhoub) exits the elevator. Banton seems nervous, and keeps looking over his shoulder. He continues down the hallway before knocking on a door and attempts to talk to the man inside. The man initially ignores him, but finally walks over to the door. As he does this, Banton's shadow slides under the door and the elderly man is yanked downward into a strange, vortex-like blue puddle. Banton panics as the blue puddle begins to burn and char. He unscrews the lightbulb on the opposite side of the hall from Newarth's door and flees the scene.

Scully and Mulder arrive on the scene, as Scully tells Mulder that there have been several similar incidents in the past. Detective Kelly Ryan, a former student of Scully's from the FBI Academy, has asked the agents to assist her on her first case, involving these mysterious deaths.


Detective Ryan introduces herself.

Detective Ryan tells them that the most recent victim works for Morley Tobacco. He apparently had been discovered missing at 6 AM. The doors and windows were locked. Ryan shows them the remains of Mr. Newarth, which is only a burned patch of ash on the floor. Ryan tells them that the patch is mostly carbon, with potassium and traces of minerals. Mulder theorizes that Newarth was standing in front of the door, looking through the peephole. Mulder notices the unlit fixture, tapping it to reveal that the bulb has simply been unscrewed, separating the contacts. Detective Ryan is instructed to compare Mr. Newarth's prints against fingerprints found on the light bulb.

Scully asks if Mulder is blaming spontaneous human combustion for Mr. Newarth's death. They discuss this briefly before they board the elevator and go to the residence of Margret Wysnecki, the previous 'missing person'. Mulder notes that the coach lamp is out at her house, finding that when he screws it back in, it illuminates. They enter the house and find a similar patch on the floor. Scully notes that Margeret was employed by Laramie, another tobacco company, but dismiss any connection since it is such a common employer in North Carolina. They discuss that the first victim, Gail Ann Lamburgh, was an engineer for Polarity Magnetics. Mulder digs through Wysnecki's trash and finds a train ticket, with an arrival date for the same day that she disappeared. Mulder suggests that the victims are being hunted.

A tired-looking Banton is seen at the train station, seated at a bench. He walks slowly while smoking a cigarette, still looking behind him every few steps. He enters the alleyway and the lights flicker as he walks by. A police car rolls up and the lights dim. When the officer gets out, Banton flees, but is cut off by a second car. He warns them to stay away, but Officer Barney moves too close and is reduced to ashes. When the second officer comes close, he too is burned to a blue puddle of energy. Banton flees the alley in terror.

When Mulder, Scully and Ryan investigate the scene, Ryan suggests that it's a cop-killing case and that she is indirectly responsible. She tells Mulder that the fingerprints had no match for hotel employees or in the criminal database. Mulder is unwilling to share any of his theories on the case. Mulder suggests looking at the train station security camera videotapes. After initially finding nothing, Mulder points out a man who always seems to sit at the same spot on the train station, staring at the floor. Mulder recognizes the Polarity Magnetics logo on his jacket.

Scully and Mulder investigate Polarity, which appears to have been closed up. They meet Chester Banton's business partner, Christopher Davey. Davey tells them that Banton has been missing for five weeks. He assumed that he had died, since it was shortly after he was involved in a terrible lab accident.

Polarity Magnetics invented things related to magnetics, but Banton used that to fund his theoretical studies into dark matter and subatomic particles. Davey tells them of the accident. Banton had been working with a particle accelerator, bombarding an Alpha-particle target with Beta-particles, in essence, negative and positive particles. The countdown had begun when he realized that he had miscalculated something, but the countdown couldn't be stopped. There was time to make the change, but Davey had left the room when Banton went into the test chamber to make the change. While Davey was out of the room, the door locked behind Banton, trapping him inside.

Inside the test chamber, Scully and Mulder observe a gray, man-shaped mark on the wall. Davey theorizes that the particle accelerator burned Banton's shadow into the wall. He theorizes that Banton survived because the particles had no mass and therefore passed through his body, like an extremely powerful X-ray.

Scully notes that the burnt wall is a similar substance to what was found at the crime scenes. Mulder admits that he is less convinced of human combustion.

Scully and Mulder return to the train station, but Banton is nowhere to be found. Mulder is seated in Banton's spot from the video, trying to figure out what he was staring at. Scully suggests that the accident may have affected his mind and caused him to do repetitive behavior. Mulder interrupts Scully to tell her that the spot in the train station effectively has no shadows due to the soft, diffused light. Meanwhile, Banton enters the station, fleeing upon spotting the agents. He runs until they trap him by the train cars. When Mulder is about to step into Banton's shadow, Banton tells him "It doesn't care who you are. It will kill you.", Mulder shoots out two light bulbs in the area, getting rid of his shadow.

Banton is taken to Yaloff Psychiatric Hospital in Piedmont, where the psychiatrist tells Mulder that Banton insisted on being in a room with soft light, which would not make many shadows. Banton tells the agents that they wouldn't understand what was going on. He tells them that his shadow is like a black hole, splitting molecules, splitting atoms and pulling out electrons, reducing matter into pure energy. He explains that he went to see Gail, and as he stood in the doorway, she suddenly disappeared. He wants to discover the secrets behind his shadow before "they" (the government) do. He pleads with the agents to let him out.

Detective Ryan, apparently being pressured by a Detective Barron, instructs them to stop interrogating the subject. When Barron asks the agents why they are investigating the case, Scully tells them that they are there "in an unoffical capacity." Barron believes that the case is solved, but Mulder accuses Barron of not knowing anything about the case. Mulder manages to secretly tell Detective Ryan that Banton needs soft light.

Mulder has a secret meeting in the train station with X, asking him about Dr. Banton. X asks where he is being held, and then tells Mulder that he cannot interfere with the case, stating that he has nothing to gain from the case. That night at Yaloff Hospital, the lights flicker and then black out. X appears from the dark to tell the on-duty nurse that Dr. Banton is being transferred early because of the power outage. Under the protests of the nurse, X and two attendants go to Dr. Banton's room. Banton pleads with them to leave him alone as they duct tape his mouth and zip-tie his hands and ankles. The emergency backup lights activate, causing shadows that kill the two attendants instantly. Although he draws his gun, X stays away from Dr. Banton's shadow, and allows him to flee the hospital.

The agents investigate the scene, and Mulder suggests that there is government involvement. Mulder tells Scully that Dr. Banton


Dr. Davey admits to his betrayal.

only wants to control his shadow, and that he's gone to the only place where he can: Polarity Magnetics. When Davey comes in, Banton instructs him not to turn on the lights, and leads him to the particle accelerator, pleading with him to destroy the dark matter. At that moment, Detective Ryan bursts in, aiming her gun at Banton. Unwilling to be captured again, Banton steps forward so that his shadow touches her, killing her instantly. Banton leads a dumbstruck Davey to the accelerator, begging him to help him destroy himself. Davey locks the lab, but doesn't turn on the accelerator, revealing that he's working for the government. Davey phones a contact to inform him of Banton's capture, but is shot by X. Later, Mulder and Scully arrive afterwards, finding the lab vacant but the accelerator running. On the video monitor, they see a seated figure disappear into a shadow stain on the wall alongside the first. Scully theorizes that Banton killed himself, but Mulder reminds her that the chamber is sealed from the outside.


"I didn't kill him"

Mulder calls for X again, and accuses him of lying. Mulder breaks contact with X, who finally tells Mulder that he didn't kill Banton. A funeral is held for Kelly Ryan. Mulder notes that Christopher Davey has been missing since Banton's apparent death. He suggests that Banton wasn't the one who was killed in the particle accelerator. The episode ends as X enters a facility where Dr. Banton is restrained to a chair and subjected to experiments.

Synopsis
Mulder and Scully investigate the deaths of several people who were struck by lightning.

Summary

Smoke exits through Jack Hammond's mouth as he is burnt from the inside.

At a strip-mall video arcade, off-duty pizza deliverer Jack Hammond declines to let Darren Peter Oswald have back the "Virtua Fighter 2" game which Darren had left for a minute. A fight brews, as Darren's arcade-clerk friend Zero watches. But then Jack, seemingly not in control of his body, leaves and gets into his car - where he's killed by a strange electrical surge.

The next morning at Lloyd P. Wharton County Building, Scully examines Hammond's body as Stan Buxton, the county coroner, and Johnston County Sheriff John Teller watch. This latest in a pattern of odd electrocution deaths shows, curiously, no contact point; the coroner doesn't remember if the previous bodies had them, and defensively insists it's just lightning - though admitting the five recent Connerville strikes (four fatal) are statistically "improbable". Teller asserts there's nothing unusual: The nearby Astadourian Lightning Observatory on Route 4 has 100 ionized rods designed specifically to stimulate lightning. Later, Mulder wonders why the lightning only strikes 17-to-21-year-old males.


Video game records displays Darren Peter Oswald was present during Jack Hammond's death.

Checking the only shop open after Jack quit work, the video game arcade, Scully questions Zero and asks if he had seen Hammond the night before while Mulder is walking around the video game arcade. After Zero told Scully that he has seen the person the night before, he told her that he was mostly playing the "Virtua Fighter 2" video game. An onscreen display alerts Mulder that the 10-game record-holder on the "Virtua Fighter 2" game is initialed D.P.O. - as in Darren Peter Oswald, the only survivor of the lightning strikes. The notations place D.P.O. here at the time of the incident.

Meanwhile, Darren is working at the Kiveat Auto Shop and he nervously greets Sharon Kiveat, the beautiful wife of garage owner Frank Kiveat. He has a crush on her, which makes her uneasy as she is aware of his affections towards her. Frank returns from a towing job, soon followed by Mulder and Scully. As the agents fruitlessly question Darren, Mulder's cell-phone mysteriously heats and starts melting and Darren leaves after Mulder and Scully notices.


Darren Peter Oswald showing his lighting powers.

At the dilapidated Oswald house later that night, Darren's couch-potato mother belittles him for changing the TV channel from across the room with the remote -- but then she finds the remote in her chair. When Zero comes by, Darren goes to a pasture next door to "barbecue" some cows. Zero begs him not to - but Darren calls lightning down to hit him to achieve a sensation of power and might. After the lightning strikes Oswald, he and Zero calls it a night a goes back home.

The next morning, Teller is at the field where Oswald had his lightning act and the three dead cows are towed away. He shows the agents a fulgarite - a place where lightning strikes sandy soil to form glass - and declares their investigation over. Yet after he leaves, Mulder finds a partial footprint incongruously in the fulgarite and tells Scully to continue the case with him. At the Johnston County Sheriff's Office, Scully finds the footprint to be made from a size 8 1/2 standard military boot; she also finds traces of antifreeze. They go to find auto mechanic Darren.

Meanwhile, at the County Road A-7, Darren manipulates traffic lights, hoping to cause an accident. Zero suggests he stop all this, and use his power to make a killing in Vegas. But Darren won't go anywhere without Mrs. Kiveat. While Oswald is still at the crossroad, the agents arrive at Oswald's house and find an 8 1/2 shoe and a clipped picture that fits the cut-out yearbook space for Mrs. Kiveat.


Oswald using his powers to resuscitate Frank Kiveat.

Back at the crossroad, Darren causes tow-trucker Frank to have an apparent heart attack; when the two EMS workers find their portable defibrillator not charged and unusable, Darren "heroically" rescues Frank by defibrillating him by hand while EMS is preoccupied with the spare unit amazed and shocked with what Oswald had done.

While at the Community Hospital, Frank recuperates, the agents learn Darren was admitted here five months ago in cardiac arrest after his lightning-strike - and that he has acute hypokalemia, an electrolyte imbalance of high sodium and low potassium, which, Mulder theorizes, somehow explains his ability to generate electricity. They question Darren at the Johnston County Jail, but he admits nothing and thinks Zero squealed on him.


Bart Liquori killed by Darren Peter Oswald.

With 72 hours to hold him, they try to get Mrs. Kiveat to press harassment charges. She had been afraid to, but the agents say they can hold him 72 hours on suspicion of murder, so she and Frank will be safe. At the jail, Teller has decided the feds have a weak case, and lets Darren go. The agents rush to the hospital, but Darren has stopped at the arcade first to kill Zero because of how he managed to lead Mulder and Scully to him.


Mulder and Scully aiming their firearms at the incoming elevator door.

At the hospital, Mulder and Scully tries to convince Sharon to go with them as Oswald is on his way to retrieve her. Before Sharon could make a decision, the electricity goes off inn the hospital alerting Mulder and Scully that Oswald is in the building. Mulder and Scully draws out their sidearms and wait for Darren at the elevator only to find Zero's dead body within the elevator as the doors open. Mulder sets off to find Oswald alone while Scully stays with Sharon.


Oswald summons lighting uncontrollably due to his frustration and anger.

Eventually, Oswald arrives on the same floor as Sharon and finds her only to also find Scully pointing her sidearm at Darren ordering him to stand down and leave Sharon alone. Sharon, wanting no danger near Frank and the others, agrees to walk out with Darren. Outside, she runs away when Teller pulls up. Darren, over the edge, kills Teller before Mulder can fire. Then Darren falls in a lightning-crumpled heap himself.


Oswald watching television while using his leftover powers to change television channels.

Oklahoma State Psychiatric Hospital: Scully tells Mulder the coroner has ruled Teller's death accidental, by lightning, and the D.A. can't fathom how to prosecute for murder. And Darren, inside his cell, stares blankly at a TV screen that may or may not be channel-changing according to his whim.

Synopsis
After several murders occur within a Haitian refugee camp, Mulder and Scully are caught in the middle of a secret battle involving a Voodoo priest and the camp commander.

Summary
In Folkstone, North Carolina, Jack McAlpin, an agitated Marine Corps private, drives his car into a tree after several hallucinatory episodes and is apparently killed. On the tree is a veve, a drawn voodoo religious symbol.

McAlpin is the second purported suicide among troops stationed at an INS compound processing refugees from Haiti. Fox Mulder and Dana Scully visit the compound to investigate McAlpin's death. There, a young boy named Chester Bonaparte sells a good luck charm to Mulder. After meeting with Colonel Wharton, head of the compound, Mulder meets with an imprisoned refugee, Pierre Bauvais, and an associate of McAlpin's, Harry Dunham. When Scully attempts to perform an autopsy on McAlpin's body, she finds a dog carcass in its place at the morgue.

While driving down the road, Mulder and Scully discover a still-living McAlpin, who doesn't remember what has happened to him. Tetrodotoxin, a chemical Mulder believes is part of Haitian zombification rituals, is found in McAlpin's blood. The agents go to the local graveyard to investigate the corpse of the other dead soldier, but find the grave robbed. They also find Chester, who collects frogs at the cemetery and sells them to Bauvais. Dunham approaches Mulder, telling him that Wharton has begun abusing the refugees as a means of retaliation against Bauvais; Wharton denies the accusations, but later has Bauvais beaten to death.

Scully cuts her hand on the thorn of a twig left in her car. When she drives off, a veve is seen on the ground under her car. Mulder has a meeting with X, who tells him that he and Scully will soon be called back to Washington and that the camp will be restricted to military personnel only. Mulder believes Wharton is persecuting the refugees after the suicide of some of his men during a previous trip to Haiti. Scully finds Dunham dead in a bathtub, and Mulder catches McAlpin with a knife nearby. Although he has no recollection of the event, McAlpin confesses to the murder under the influence of Wharton, who tells the agents that Bauvais committed suicide and that their investigation is over.

McAlpin's wife provides the agents with a photo of Wharton with Bauvais in Haiti, causing the agents to go through his office. They find that both Dunham and McAlpin had filed complaints against Wharton over his treatment of the detainees. The agents head to the cemetery, where Wharton is performing a voodoo rite over Bauvais' coffin. When Mulder confronts him, Wharton harms him through sympathetic magic. Meanwhile, in a hallucinatory episode, a man emerges from the small cut in Scully's hand and strangles her, but the illusion disappears when she grabs the charm Chester sold them. Bauvais appears and stops Wharton by blowing zombie powder in his face. Scully arrives to assist Mulder and pronounces Wharton dead.

The next day the agents say goodbye to McAlpin, who reveals that Chester was a boy who had died in the riot six weeks earlier. The episode ends with Wharton being unwittingly buried alive by the graveyard watchman.

Synopsis
Gender Bender
Mulder and Scully investigate a closed community called the Kindred, who appear to have the ability to switch gender.

Summary
In a dance club, a young man is picked up by a young woman for an anonymous sexual encounter. The young man retches and dies in a post-coital fit. The young woman disrobes and dresses in the man's clothes, transforming into a man in the process.

FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are called to the scene by Detective Horton, and Mulder later explains that this is one in a series of similar murders, with cause of death attributed to an overdose of incredibly powerful pheromones. There is also ambiguity in the other murders as to the sex of the killer. Evidence from the crime scene leads the duo to an Amish-type community in Massachusetts which Mulder calls The Kindred.

Mulder approaches some of the Kindred as they shop near a local store, only to be rebuffed. Scully has better luck befriending Brother Andrew, a shy member who is left tending to the group's horse, Alice. He tells her they are not meant to talk outside. Whilst shaking hands, she experiences an intense feeling of what seems like pleasure.


The Kindred invite FBI Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully to share their meal.

The pair of FBI agents head up to the remote community and, whilst lost in the woods, are surrounded by a group of the Kindred who demand they give up their weapons before they will be allowed to enter the village. Mulder and Scully are invited to a community dinner. Scully is distracted during dinner by Brother Andrew, seated beside her. A sick man at the table is denied medical attention from Scully, as it is suggested that the Kindred "take care of our own."

In another club, a man convinces a reluctant young girl to dance with him by touching her hand in a similar experience to that of Scully earlier, and a young woman does the same thing to a man named Michel.


The Kindred gather at the barn for a mysterious ceremony.

Mulder notices the lack of children in the community and states that he recognizes some of the same faces from photographs taken in the 1930s. Curious, he and Scully return to the village under the cover of night. A droning chant can be heard across the village as a lamp-lit procession of the Kindred moves to a barn. They seem to be in a trance-like state. The sick man from earlier is being carried, naked, with a mark on his forehead. Mulder sneaks into the barn to see what is in the cellar, whilst Scully is met by Brother Andrew, who claims to be able to give her information about the murderer, apparently named "Brother Martin." Scully learns that Martin found some magazines and was entranced by the trappings of the outside world, eventually fleeing the Kindred community.

In the cellar, the group can be seen bathing the body in a fat-like substance which also coats the wall of the tunnels. Mulder is nearly caught but hides in a crevice, where he discovers the sick man has been buried alive. Meanwhile, Andrew uses his power to seduce Scully, who is eventually rescued by Mulder. While attempting to leave, they are confronted by the Kindred, who rebuke them for their prying but do not stop them.


Mulder finds a glowing substance in the Kindred's tunnel.

Michel is fooling around with the girl in a parked car when a patrol office breaks them up. Michel begins to wretch and watches in shock as the woman attacks and beats up the officer. When she turns around, Michel sees a man instead. This is what he tells Mulder and Scully later, when they interview him.

A credit card belonging to one of the earlier victims is used at a hotel downtown, and Mulder and Scully move in. Marty (in female form) is shown in a hotel room talking to a dead body, claiming that "the day is coming and they won't leave without me." Mulder and Scully burst in, and Marty/Martin fights off both of them before trying to escape.

In a dark alley, Scully corners Martin, but a large group of the Kindred appear and capture him. Scully is confronted by Brother Andrew, who knocks her out as the Kindred take Martin away.


A crop circle left by the Kindred.

The local police raid the Kindred village and find it completely abandoned, the underground tunnels blocked off entirely. Horton calls Mulder's attention to something found out in the fields. There, Mulder and Scully discover what appears to be a large crop circle, suggesting that the Kindred are aliens.

Teaser
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
At dusk, a business man, George Usher, walks onto a street in Baltimore, Maryland and strolls to his car, unknowingly watched by a pair of menacing yellow eyes from within a storm drain.

After Usher exits an elevator in an office building, the doors to the elevator open again, but the cabin is gone. The cables in the open shaft tremble, as if they are being used for climbing. Usher makes a call to his wife and then leaves his office for a cup of coffee. As he leaves, a vent in his office is quietly unscrewed and starts to open. Usher returns to his office where, after his door is suddenly closed from inside, sounds of a struggle can be heard and the door handle repeatedly rattles. The noises abruptly end as a large dent is smashed in the door. As Usher's coffee drips on the floor and he lies dead, the vent is screwed back in place.

Act One
WASHINGTON, D.C.

FBI Agents Tom Colton and Dana Scully speak in a Washington, D.C. restaurant.

FBI Agents Dana Scully and Tom Colton are having lunch together in a Washington, D.C. restaurant. They are old FBI Academy classmates and make small talk about their careers. Colton is a highly ambitious agent who speaks teasingly to Scully about her partner, Fox Mulder, whom Scully admits is a little "out there". Colton then starts to tell Scully about a case he has been assigned that involves a series of three victims, the latest being George Usher, who were each killed in a location where there were no obvious entry points and found with their livers missing, with signs indicating they were ripped out by bare hands. Scully admits the case may be an X-File. Colton is determined to solve the case himself but asks for Scully's help, reluctantly agreeing that she can include Mulder in the investigation.

CRIME SCENE
GEORGE USHER'S OFFICE
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

In Usher's office, Mulder queries Scully as to why he wasn't personally asked to help with the case, seemingly surprised when Scully mentions he has an unflattering reputation, and asks if she also thinks he is "spooky". Colton arrives, apologizing for being late, and is formally introduced to Mulder by Scully; he asks Mulder, in a jesting and off-handed manner, whether be believes aliens are responsible for the murder. Mulder plays up to Colton's expectation of him as a kook, expounding on his own otherworldly ideas, before leaving Scully and Colton to converse. Mulder discovers a bizarrely elongated fingerprint on the vent that opened during Usher's murder but Colton dismisses the possibility that anyone could have crawled through it.


Mulder shows Scully the fingerprints of the proposed suspect.

In the X-Files office, Mulder shows Scully fingerprints that tie the recent murders to a series of ten related murders in the Baltimore area reported in an X-File. Scully protests that Colton never mentioned these earlier murders, and Mulder suspects Colton is probably not aware of them as five of them occurred in Powhatan Mill in 1963, and the previous five occurred in 1933. And although there is no fingerprint evidence, there was an unsolved murder involving a victim whose liver was ripped out in 1903 (when fingerprinting was still in its infancy).

Mulder concludes from the pattern of the earlier murders that two more are due to be committed this year. Scully's first thought is that Mulder believes the recent murders are copycats of the earlier ones. Mulder says that is not possible, the fingerprints point to a single killer. Scully finds this impossible to believe - a killer over a hundred years old, still killing in 1993 and strong enough to overpower George Usher with his bare hands. The two argue about who the case belongs to, with Mulder insisting that the murders were in the X-Files long before the recent series and Scully saying that Mulder's theories are unwanted by the FBI in general. Mulder eventually suggests that they conduct their own investigation, separate from that of the Violent Crimes Section.

Scully types up a psychological profile of the killer and presents it to the VCS agents. On her recommendation Agent Fuller, Colton's superior, organizes stakeouts of the crime scenes, as Scully believes the killer will return to one of them. Fuller suggests that Scully work overtime with his team, making a reference to her usual work in jest that draws laughter from the other agents present but discomfort from Scully.

CRIME SCENE, 7:15 P.M.

Alone in a car, Scully is on stakeout in the parking garage of Usher's building when she is alerted by a faint banging noise. She searches the area and is startled when Mulder jumps out at her, with a joke about the situation. Scully is frustrated that he is jeopardizing her stakeout, but he insists that the killer will not return to the building, having already beaten the challenge it presented to him. Mulder starts to head home, but notices that something is moving inside an air shaft. He runs back to Scully, who calls for backup and follows him to the chute. Complying with orders from Scully, a man crawls out of the chute. He is then arrested by Colton and other agents. As Mulder walks away, he admits to Scully that she was right.

Act Two
FBI BUREAU
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND


A polygraph test is conducted on Eugene Victor Tooms.

A polygraph test is conducted on the Eugene Victor Tooms, an employee of the Baltimore Municipal Animal Control. Colton and Fuller, watching from an adjacent observation room with Scully and Mulder, react with irritation when Tooms is asked two questions that concern the Powhatan Mill murders, which Mulder instructed the examiner to include. When asked if he is afraid of failing the test, Tooms shifts in his seat and admits that he is afraid and professes his innocence.

Later, the examiner declares that, in her own opinion, Tooms passed the test. Fuller arrives with news that supports Tooms' story of having been called in to find a dead cat in the ventilation system but Scully maintains, in opposition to Colton and Fuller, that the alibi remains questionable. Mulder notices that Tooms clearly lied on the two Powhatan Mill questions; when the examiner begins to explain the readings, Fuller shouts over her that Tooms was obviously not alive in 1933. Fuller chooses to let Tooms go and hurries out of the room, followed by the examiner. After Colton asks Scully if she is coming with him, she politely declines, nevertheless thanking him for allowing her to temporarily work with the Violent Crimes Section. Recalling their earlier conversation, Colton tells Scully that Mulder is not merely "out there" but "insane" before rushing out of the room.

As they walk through the station's bullpen, Scully wonders why Mulder pushed his theory even though it was obvious the others would never believe it. He suggests that he did so not only because he shared her belief that Tooms is guilty, but also due to his opinion that his own (admittedly) frequent encounters with cynics increases the need for him to play up to their skeptical expectations. Scully remarks that he was acting extremely territorial, but then regrets this comment. Mulder tells her he values the fact that, even if she does not always agree with him, she respects "the journey" their investigations take. Mulder pledges to accept her continued cooperation with the Violent Crimes Section if she wishes to rejoin them, but she admits to being curious as to what other evidence has convinced Mulder that Tooms committed the murders from years ago.

Using a computer, Mulder digitally elongates Tooms' fingerprint until it matches those found at the crime scenes, definitive proof that Tooms was responsible for Usher's murder as well as the previous murders.


Tooms squeezes into a chimney.

Meanwhile, another businessman named Thomas Werner arrives home while Tooms watches from the darkness. Once Werner enters his house, Tooms climbs up the side of the building onto the roof, where he reaches down the chimney, his fingers extending as he does so, before squeezing his entire body inside. Werner tries to light a fire in his fireplace, but is puzzled when the newspaper barely catches. Tooms attacks Werner from behind as the last remaining embers go out.

Act Three
While Detective Johnson takes measurements of where Werner's body is in relation to objects in the room, Colton suggests that the latest removed liver might have been placed on the black market. Johnson scoffs at this, since the liver has clearly been ripped out in crude fashion. Colton, at his wits end, is willing to entertain any theory, but corrects himself and says "any sane theory" upon seeing Mulder arrive with Scully. Colton initially tries to stop Mulder from entering the crime scene, but acquiesces when Scully suggests that obstructing Mulder's investigation could be marked down in Colton's personnel file. When Colton coldly asks whose side she is on, Scully replies "the victim's," and an annoyed Colton walks out. Scully begins to read a profile of Mr. Werner but Mulder cuts her off, having already found another of Tooms' elongated fingerprints on the fireplace. Mulder also notes that something has been removed from the mantelpiece.

Mulder is searching through old records with a microfiche projector, coming across a 1903 census record concerning Tooms, as Scully enters. She notifies him that not only has Tooms' listed address turned out to be fake, he has not returned to work since his arrest. When Mulder shows her that the address for Tooms from the census record is the apartment below that of the 1903 murder victim, Scully starts to formulate a theory that the previous murders were committed by Eugene Tooms' ancestors. Worrying that Tooms will kill one more victim before emerging again in 2023 if he is not stopped now, Mulder suggests that he himself and Scully search through the available records for any more information on Eugene Tooms. The agents are largely unsuccessful in their search but, after they have plowed through the records, Scully informs Mulder that she has found the current address of the investigator of one of the murders in 1933.

LYNNE ACRES RETIREMENT HOME
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND


Retired Detective Frank Briggs tells Mulder and Scully about Tooms.

The agents visit the now-retired Frank Briggs at the Lynne Acres Retirement Home. He recounts how he, an experienced detective at the time, was appalled by the 1933 murders and experienced a sense of evil in the room at Powhattan Mill where they were committed. After Mulder helps the ex-detective get a box, Briggs recollects that he continued to investigate Tooms, unofficially, in 1963, by which time he had been assigned a desk job. The box includes all the evidence Briggs amassed, including a jar containing a piece of another removed liver. Briggs explains that Tooms would also take personal belongings of his victims as trophies, and shows the agents photographs that he himself took in 1933, including a picture of Tooms - in which he looks virtually identical to his current appearance - and the building where he lived, the same address where Tooms was living in 1903 and where the first victim was killed in the same year.

Mulder remarks, as he and Scully enter the bare apartment where the census record stated Tooms was living, that Briggs was right about there being a strong sensation. Mulder discovers a hole in the wall behind a propped-up mattress and the agents climb down into an old coal cellar. There they come across the trophies that Tooms has collected over the years, including the one taken from Mr. Werner's mantelpiece, and find a nest made from rags and newspapers. Mulder touches the construct, accidentally covering his hands in a substance that Scully identifies as bile. Mulder then reveals that he thinks Tooms is a genetic mutant who hibernates in the nest for thirty years and needs the livers for sustenance during his hibernation cycle. Scully reminds Mulder that Tooms will have to return so they decide that, while Mulder keeps watch on the building, Scully will organize a surveillance team. On their way out of the cellar, she becomes momentarily caught on something in the darkness and a hand, holding her necklace, reaches down from the rafters, where Tooms watches.

Act Four
66 EXETER ST., 11:30 A.M.

Mulder is waiting outside Tooms' building at 66 Exeter Street when Agents Kennedy and Kramer arrive. Mulder reminds them of their objective, adding that he and Scully will relieve them in eight hours if Tooms does not make an appearance. Kennedy jokingly refers to Mulder by his his nickname "Spooky" as he exits the car.


Colton vents his frustration with Scully.

At the FBI Bureau, Scully is preparing to meet Mulder when Colton bursts in. He voices his frustration with the fact that Scully is using two of his men to sit outside a building that has been condemned for ten years, to which she defensively says that his investigation is not being impeded in any way. He tells her that when they had lunch he was looking forward to working with her because he believed she was a good agent, but now he is desperate to remove her from the case, due to her close association with Mulder. Scully is furious when Colton tells her that his regional ASAC called off the stakeout and tries to call Mulder with the news, but Colton insists that he get the opportunity to gloat. Fuming, Scully tells Colton his career can only end with him "landing on your ass" and storms out as he calls Mulder, ultimately getting Mulder's answering machine.

Scully drives home and goes inside, not knowing that Tooms is watching her from the bushes across the street.

66 EXETER ST., 7:25 P.M.

Mulder drives up to Tooms' building and is surprised to find no-one no one waiting for him. He runs inside.

In the bathroom of her apartment, Scully gets Mulder's answering machine and relates her aggravation with Colton, telling Mulder to call her back when he returns home. She then starts to run a bath and walks out of her bathroom as Tooms appears in the window, apparently climbing up the side of her building.

In the cellar, Mulder discovers Scully's necklace amongst the collection of trophies and rushes out.

Scully finishes running her bath and starts to open a bottle of bath salts when bile drops onto her hand from a grille in the ceiling. She flees into the living room and grabs her gun.

Mulder rushes to Scully's apartment, frustrated when she doesn't answer the phone - which she can't, because the phone wires servicing her apartment have been cut.

Scully is making her way through the apartment when Tooms punches through a floorboard vent and grabs her leg, tripping her up and causing her to lose her gun. Although she manages to struggle free of his grasp, Tooms bursts out of the vent and is about to rip out Scully's liver when Mulder kicks the front door in. Tooms smashes the pane above the bars on Scully's bathroom window but is jumped by Scully. Mulder manages to handcuff one of Tooms' hands but is knocked across the room, which gives Scully time to attach the other cuff to the bathtub's faucet. Mulder victoriously comments, as Tooms gives up, that the killer will not be able to fill his quota this time.

Detective Briggs is relieved to the point of tears when he sees a report about Tooms' capture in the Section Two newspaper.


Tooms in confinement.

Another copy of the same article is ripped up and licked by Tooms, who uses it towards building a new nest in the psych ward cell where he is now confined. Mulder is observing the killer through a window in the cell's door when Scully arrives. She says official findings confirm that Tooms is genetically a human anomaly. Mulder ignores her, instead lamenting the inadequacy of the public's high security measures. The agents wander away as a food tray is brought to the cell and passed through a small, rectangular slot in the door. Alone in his cell, Tooms stares at the slot and smiles, sinisterly.

Synopsis
Eugene Victor Tooms, the limb-stretching serial killer who Mulder previously captured, is released from prison and set free against Mulder's advice.

Summary
Druid Hill Sanitarium, Baltimore, MD: Dr. Aaron Monte checks on his patient, Eugene Victor Tooms, on the eve of his commitment review. He informs him that he's had a look at the statements of the doctors who will be testifying the following day, and the likelihood of his release is very good. Unbeknownst to him, Monte had interrupted Tooms as he was contorting his body to reach through the food slot, about to unlock his cell door.

At FBI headquarters, Special Agent Dana Scully meets her rarely-seen superior, Assistant Director Walter Skinner. As the Smoking Man inexplicably lurks in the background, Skinner demands more conclusive reports from Scully and by-the-book procedures; their high conviction/case-solving rate of 75% is, according to him, the only thing keeping the X-Files division open.

At the hearing, Dr. Pamela Karetzky testifies that Tooms has shown no signs of physiological dysfunction. Another expert attributes Tooms' attack on Scully to misplaced frustration over losing his job and being falsely arrested by the FBI. Special Agent Fox Mulder grows agitated as Judge Kann dismisses his mutation theory, despite Mulder's evidence showing that Tooms' fingerprints were at seven of 19 crime scenes dating back to 1903. Kann simply says that Tooms doesn't look a hundred years old. Mulder than alienates the judgement panel by arguing that Tooms is a freak of nature and will undoubtedly kill again if released, because he did not procure the last of his usual five livers, which he needs before going into hibernation for 30 years. Tooms is deemed fit to be released, providing he remains under Monte's care, returns to his animal control job, and resides with halfway-house couple Susan and Arlan Green. Mulder vows to keep watch on Tooms night and day, while assigning Scully to go back through the old murders for a lead. When she argues that this would involve unorthodox methods, he nearly accuses her of being cowed by Skinner's warning. As he leaves the courthouse, Tooms smirks at Mulder.

Lynne Acres Retirement Home: Scully seeks help from former detective Frank Briggs, who investigated Tooms' previous two killing sprees and is dismayed at the news of his release. He shows her a jar containing a human liver he'd found at Powhattan Mill's Ruxton Chemical Plant when it was under construction in 1933; the accompanying dead body was never found, something that was not the case with all the other murders Tooms allegedly committed. Briggs suspects that the body was dumped into the cement foundation of the chemical plant when it was still wet, possibly because something on it could implicate Tooms. When conventional methods of searching the foundation prove to be too slow, Briggs acts on "an old-fashioned hunch" and leads the excavation crew to a particular spot, where they dig up skeletal remains.

Tooms, back on the job in his Baltimore Animal Regulation van, is getting hungry, snacking on roadkill as he picks them off the ground before bagging them.He starts to approach a woman on the street in broad daylight when he is stopped by Mulder, who sarcastically asks for help finding his dog, Heinrich. Tooms drives off in a rage. That night, he follows a businessman home, but stays in his vehicle, being closely watched by Mulder. After several hours, Mulder accidentally falls asleep; upon awakening, he finds Tooms' van empty and starts searching the neighborhood - not realizing Tooms has entered the sewers through the manhole grate beneath his vent. After trying to enter through the toilet pipe and being stopped by the businessman's wife (who thinks it's a blockage and uses a pipe snake to force him out), he squeezes through a barred window; Mulder, nosing around the neighborhood, notices sewage from the drains on a windowsill, and tells the owner he suspects an intruder inside. While this forces Tooms to retreat, Mulder loses track of him.

At the Smithsonian Institute's Forensic Anthropology Lab a professor, examining the bones Briggs and Scully found, discovers that the skull matches the photo of a missing person suspected of being a 1933 victim. There are also strange gnaw marks near the victim's ribs. But it's not enough to convict Tooms. Scully worries about Mulder, who has carried on his stakeout alone for three days. She volunteers to take over surveillance in her own car. Mulder agrees and drives off, with Tooms hiding in his trunk.

On his couch, Mulder sleeps through the Vincent Price movie The Fly. Tooms enters through a baseboard vent, but rather than kill Mulder, simply scratches his own face until he bleeds. At a hospital the next day, a detective tells a doctor that police found Tooms unconscious in the street, beaten and kicked in the jaw. Tooms says Mulder did it. While police speak to Mulder at his apartment, they find an athletic shoe matching the imprint on Tooms' jaw. As they prepare to haul Mulder in for questioning, he notices a screw underfoot - from the vent.

At Skinner's office, as Smoking Man watches, Mulder notes forensic evidence shows no foot was inside the shoe when it connected with Tooms' face, and insists Tooms is trying to frame him. Scully lies that Mulder was with her on surveillance when Tooms was admitted to the hospital. After sending Scully out, Skinner expresses admiration for Mulder's talents, but tells him that if stress is making him or other agents behave inappropriately, he should take a vacation, something Mulder halfheartedly agrees with. With a glance toward Smoking Man, Skinner orders Mulder to stay away from Tooms, noting that this was a close call and if it happens again, all of Mulder's Congressional contacts together won't be enough to save his job.

Using dental records, Scully and the Smithsonian have positively concluded that the gnaw marks on the skeletal remains belong to Tooms, which is the proof they need. At Tooms' halfway house, the Greens are just leaving as Monte arrives to check up on Tooms. While Monte makes small talk, Tooms' hunger gets the better of him and he attacks. Mulder and Scully arrive shortly afterward and find the doctor's corpse. Mulder realizes that Tooms will go into hibernation now that he has claimed his fifth victim.

The agents go to 66 Exeter Street, the address of Tooms' old apartment, but the building has been torn down; a shopping mall, City Square, now occupies the site. Mulder enters a narrow utility passageway beneath the foot of an escalator. He pushes through a vent into a cave-like area, finding evidence of Tooms' nesting tendencies - a wall of newspapers held together with bile. Suddenly, the naked and animalistic Tooms bursts through the wall and attacks. With Scully's help, Mulder escapes and turns on the escalator, which drags Tooms to a gruesome, crushing death inside the escalator mechanisms.

Skinner, reading Scully's unorthodox report, asks if the Smoking Man believes it. He knowingly replies: "Of course I do." Outside, Mulder observes a cocoon in a tree and tells Scully he thinks a change is coming for the X Files.

The Germantown Mystery By Tom Schmidt
October 31, 1974

Piotr and Janek Tarkowski, American born sons of Polish immigrants, ran through the woods just west of Germantown, Pennsylvania. The elementary school age boys enjoyed the thick treed wooded area not far from their modest suburban Philadelphia home. They knew the area like the back of their hands from playing in the woods daily before dinner.

“Race you to the waterfall,” cried out the 9 year old Piotr as his 7 year old younger brother tried hard to keep up.

“No fair Piotr,” replied young Janek. “You got a head start.” Nevertheless, Janek followed his older brother as fast as he could.

The boys sneakers could be heard slipping and sliding on the wet leaves as they ran down the path toward an 18 foot modest waterfall which led to the small local creek that ran through the woods. Both were huffing and puffing as they reached the waterfall but neither would slow down. Pride ran deep in the Tarkowski family and each dreaded the thought of being the loser in any competition that was held.

The older Piotr reached the edge of the waterfall first and raised his arms in triumph as he went to stop just feet from the edge of the cliff. But wet leaves on the ground took away his footing and the 9 year stumbled to the ground. Grabbing a small tree just 3 feet from the edge allowed Piotr to stop his forward momentum. Janek was not as lucky. Trying to stop, Janek slipped and slid toward the edge of the cliff. Piotr scream out and extended his arm in an effort to catch his younger brother. But it was all in vain. Janek slid off the edge and headed downward to the rocky creek below.

“Janek!!” Piotr scrambled to his knees to get to the edge of the small fall. On the ground below, he could see the body of his brother lying in a contorted position with his left leg twisted 90 degrees from its natural orientation. Janek’s head was lying against a large boulder near the base of the falls and the boy was completely motionless.

“Janek!!” Piotr called out several times, hoping that his brother would move or somehow acknowledge the yells. But the boy continued to just lie on the ground.

Fearing the worst, Piotr descended the cliff and headed toward the creek, all along being careful about the wet conditions in the wood. Soon he reached the bottom and moved briskly toward the body of his brother. From a distance, he could see a light gray mist now covering the area where the body was laying. The mist seemed an oddity given the relative warmth of the fall afternoon. But Piotr didn’t have time to consider it. He had to reach his brother.

After following the twisted creek path, Piotr finally each the bottom of the falls and Janek’s motionless body. He moved toward the body but stopped in a lurch. Standing next to Janek was a large white dog, appearing to almost be guarding the body. As Piotr continued to move toward Janek, the dog raised his head. Piotr gasped as he realized that the animal was not a dog but rather a white wolf. The animal seemed almost inquisitive as it looked at Piotr. Then in an instant, the wolf took to flight, heading down the creak and into the woods. Piotr stared at the animal as it ran away and then immediately went to the side of his brother. Janek was unresponsive and his body was already cold to the touch. Piotr screamed for help, not giving up until adults from the area finally came to his help. But paramedics could do nothing for the young boy as his grieving parents and brother looked on.



October 31, 1994

29 year old Piotr Tarkowski looked up from the Germantown Gazette and wondered. The article in the paper was just like previous ones from 1979, 1984, and 1989. Every 5 years on the exact same date, a young boy had been found alongside the Cresheim Creek not far from a modest waterfall that partially fed the Wissahickon Valley waterways. Always occurring on October 31st, local authorities had been questioning whether the unexplained deaths might have been from a serial killer living around the Germantown area. Authorities were cautioning people to stay away from the Wissahickon Valley area with Halloween once again coming. The police promised to patrol the area in hopes of stopping the deaths.

Piotr rubbed his eyes and contemplated the article. He wondered about the first strange death when it had occurred on October 31, 1979. The young boy was just slightly older than Janek was at the time of his death. But 15 year old Piotr wrote off the death as being a coincidence. But then another came in October 31, 1984. The second death was similar to the first one. And then there was the death in October 1989. The pattern was too specific to ignore. But while the authorities searched in vain for a serial killer, Piotr pondered the unthinkable.

As October 31, 1994 came, Piotr decided that he had to address his nagging suspicions. He drove to his old neighborhood and parked next to his family home. With the death of his parents in 1990, the family home was now owned by a young family very much like the Tarkowskis. Piotr paused as he looked at his old home, knowing that the young children now living there could be at risk. Tears came down his cheeks as he thought about how much he had lost. His brother and his parents.

After a few moments, Piotr headed for the woods. The path leading into the heavily wooded area looked the same as when Janek and he had played there 20 years in the past.

Inside the woods, he could hear police patrolling Cresheim Creek. He stopped at the top of the waterfall while police moved downstream further into the woods. He checked his watch. It was 4:15 PM, close to the time when Janek had passed away just 20 years earlier.

Piotr slowly descended from the top of the waterfall to the creek below. He headed left and in a short time he reached it. The location where Janek’s body had laid back in October 1974. Tears came down Piotr’s cheeks as he looked at the large rock that had crushed Janek’s small head. The guilt of that day came back and Piotr felt embarrassed. Couldn’t he have done more?

Rustling came from the woods adjacent to the creek bed as a white wolf appeared. The wolf looked at Piotr and growled. Sharp teeth were visible in the mouth of the animal. But Piotr didn’t run. Instead, he stood his ground and spoke to the animal.

“Janek, it’s me Piotr. I have come to talk to you.”

The animal stopped growling but continued to look menacingly at Piotr. The animal’s eyes looked intently at the young man.

“I know that you have been killing the young boys along this creek. I know you are doing it out of frustration and revenge over your life being taken so young. But this has to stop. They are innocent and don’t deserve this. Just as you never deserved to die.”

The wolf growled again but much less intensively. The animal looked away from Piotr as if it were unwilling to look into his eyes. Piotr eyes were fixated on the wolf as he continued his one sided dialogue.

“If you don’t let go of this anger, you will never have peace. You are better than this. Mom and dad mourned you for years before they died. I have too.”

The wolf hung its head and whined. Piotr was convinced that the animal had to be Janek. But was he getting through to him?

“Let go of this anger. Mom and dad are calling for you. Go to them and find peace.”

As the wolf looked at the large rock in the creek, the one that had caused Janek’s death in 1974, it’s color started to change. The white fur on the animal turned darker and darker as it eventually reached grey. And above the animal, a light gray mist formed, just like the mist seen by Piotr in 1974. The animal looked up, shook it’s head and then took off into the woods.

Piotr shivered as he watched the animal run off. Had he convinced Janek to search for the peace that he had never allowed himself to have? Piotr wasn’t sure.

As Piotr climbed back up the cliff back to the edge of the waterfall, he looked back, searching for a glimpse of the wolf. But to his surprise, he saw instead a rainbow over the creek bed below.



Epilogue

The Cresheim Creek killings stopped in 1994 and no additional occurrences every took place. The Germantown police keep the case file open as part of standard practice but as time passed, they would eventually close it. In 2012, the case was finally closed as an unsolved mystery.

Piotr Tarkowski eventually moved from the Philadelphia area, taking up residence in Colorado as a freelance writer. He enjoyed the Rocky Mountains and hiked the area often. And whenever he would see a gray wolf, he would pause to wonder whether Janek was finally at peace. On several occasions, he saw a rainbow over top of the animal and he suspected that he knew the answer to that question.

How The Tables Have Turned By Nolwazi Nkosi

It is, when time is of essence, that fear proliferates to invade the unheeded courage in a person. One will react in haste to have a gasp of, what we all unnoticeably take for granted; oxygen to live for the sprout of a new and courageous soul. But is this always a foregone conclusion? Can the inevitable be argued against?

As it remains fearfully unknown, to this day, the last name of the man who had restored the monarchy back to it’s ‘golden age of imperial splendor.’ Nathaniel, an ostentatiously sophisticated gentleman. Tall, pointed nose, golden-brown hair, and an undeniable beauty. Quite an immaculate gentleman, it was without any doubt that he was Italian. He never lacked in vitality; on the contrary, he never had high levels of expressiveness. Although not a man of many words, he would surely be the one to give away and expose anything (be it a spider) to be imperil in the monarchy. He was the king’s most trusted sleuth. With that being said, he too had learnt from none other than the renowned: Jack Hidrat, actually known as Rav Eagle. A name given to him by His Royal Majesty, for poignantly portraying; an excellent use for vision, unapologetic confidence, and concentration of high instinctiveness. These being the characteristics of both a raven and an eagle, to be blunt; this man was a force to be reckoned with. His ‘death’ was rather unexpectedly peculiar.

“Imitation involves a sophisticated cognitive process; however, sleuthing can never be imitated.” These words he expressed so clamorously, he never really said much either, but his aura denoted it. Hidrat, being His Majesty’s only and trusted spy, was assuredly put in command over, not only what made way into and took flight from the kingdom, but the Royal mansion too. This tall, well-built, handsome, and recklessly smart gentleman could solve mysteries arising from an insultingly high degree of unnoticeable residing. Mysteries as small the size of a needle’s hole, a perceived odour of something, a glimmer, a flick, or a taste could lead to an unwrapping of a possible conspiracy, before it was to be conspired by an adversary of any shape, or form.

10th Oct, the pale crescent moon had shone like a silvery claw in the night sky. An exquisite night for a ball. The Royal ball occasionally proved to be the mother of all balls. This was a time given for the prestigious to rub shoulders with one another. It was a huge baronial lot of a mansion set looming behind an embellishing garden. It was furtive, yet so openly inviting. What seemingly looked like a marble staircase illustrated a separation for the outrageous receiving suites. Fancy ball gowns, accompanied with the finest jewellery and silver-shining tiaras, accentuated the mansion’s esteemed beauty. He looked towards her direction, but her ornamental sight was confused by the shining of many red and green wine glasses. She was exquisite! Even Her Royal Majesty, Emeraldia; being the society’s annual finest, and her usual stunning entourage were there, yet none could compare with Chandelier. She was regarded as one of the country’s most astounding beauties. Suntanned skin, dark narrow eyebrows, and blushed high cheeks. Almost every gentleman flashed a coup d’oeil in her direction, but none dared to approach. The chandeliers, in awe, seemed to curtsy in perplexing acknowledgement. The chandeliers were effortlessly covered with differently colored crystals and had the most inviting ballroom appeal; her dress was no different, the sparkling tiers made it look like she was intentionally living up to her name.

Rav Eagle, the guest of honor, was mesmerized. Alongside the precious pearl was one of His Royal Majesty’s faithful squire, who to Rav… had abruptly appeared, disturbing his enchanted ever after scenery. They were heading towards his direction. His heart pounded as though being hammered by a power hammer. His blushed and, fairly, strong cheekbones were, suddenly, becoming too bright (taking into consideration that he was needed undistracted. As a huge matter of fact, it was highly unprofessional for a Royal sleuth.) “Pull yourself together, now, would you!” The squire surreptitiously called out, saving both the Royal society and Jack from an awful embarrassment. As expected from a squire; he had brought (or should I say, had accompanied) him a message, from his Majesty, who had not yet made an appearance. It was Jack who introduced being fashionably ‘late’ to His Majesty. “Are you certain about this, young man?”, He had asked a decade ago. But Jack knew that annual balls meant one thing for the king; assassination opportunity. Every annual arriving hour, minute and second was different. Jack was very outstanding in services, but in the utmost discretion. He never attended any award ceremonies; “I do not want to be acknowledged in materialistic accolades, to be quite blunt with you, your Royal Majesty! I do not want to place your life in jeopardy.”

This time around, the king put his ‘lateness’ into good use. He brought to him an early Christmas gift: The message. It would, certainly and most completely, turn his world upside down. But, the king, much knowingly went ahead with it, he was the king, after all. Jack was stealthy and much like a raven; loved his own space. The squire delivered the message, with the corners of his mouth widely turned up. “Well, I’ll be bloody damned!” Jack exclaimed and pulled his hand out, in salutation. For once, Jack sought to give the king a well-deserved standing ovation. The old man, as he had secretly addressed him, had played his cards very smartly. Knowing him, the squire thought he would have revolted. But he never really comprehended the king’s relationship with Jack, nobody ever did, not even the queen. He was like a son to him and for him the father he never had. He was not the type to speak about his up-bringing, but one could see the chill he got to the spine, whenever the Royals’ questioned him about his family. But the most to raise a red flag, was a question about his father. A confrere was brought in, to be of ‘assistance’ to him. The Chandelier was to be the one to do him the honor. Her radiant rays of beauty warmed the entire room, how could (only he) be immune to them?

“Nate!” Jack called out to Nathaniel. His Royal Majesty had just grandly arrived. Whatever Jack wanted to discuss with Nathaniel needed to be done at tremendous speed. Jack was expected to be present for a discussion regarding the sudden partnership, between himself and the beautiful Chandelier. The squire had confirmed it. It was not everyday that anyone had had the privilege of being the Rave eagles squire, let alone his aide-de-camp. Not being anyone, Nathanial was the best man for the job. This time around Jack personally presented to him the honor. There was a special aura about him. The chap was a rare jewel.

They met in a coffee shop, down street. Jack had never heard somebody stand up for their free coffee like he had done. Wednesday was free coffee day, although he never drank coffee, he always found himself ready to study the lives of coffee drinking chumps. And, because it was a place he had liked as a younger boy. The show that Nathanial put on that day, gave him a flash back to his childhood. The authority with which he demanded his coffee was admirable. As he approached, in response to the call, instant revulsion arose at a darted glance towards the Chandelier. “I would like for you to meet my newly assigned confrere.” Jack said. “Madam, meet my trusted friend Nathanial.” He never did call him Nate, he preferred Chap, it was all an act to keep their professional relationship most secret.

“I beg your pardon?” Nathaniel exclaimed, with an expression Jack had never come to see before. At first, he thought it was anxiety, it was his aide-de-camp’s first ball after all, but his sleuth gut confirmed otherwise. Quite frequently it was never wrong. The trance he had been in, Jack could see right through. He could see well enough to know that someone could have had a hand in the evoked emotion. Due to the respect he has for His Majesty’s time, he opted to inquire about it later. “Ah, where was I?... yes, this is Miss Cha…” interrupted by Nathanial, “… ndelier Mondre.” He took her hand to kiss it. “I am glad to have your acquaintance.” It was no secret that she was prominent for her beauty, but he knew more than just that. In fact, both knew two sides to it. Jack’s suspicions had been correct; her presence had turned him sour. The chap excused himself. The Raven/Eagle, not being in his desire to be of misdemeanor sought to attend to him later.

The next day, before dawn break, Jack had hurried to the chap’s room. Knocking was foreign to him. Besides, which sleuth has ever needed a key to unlock a door, more especially before the break of dawn? “For a spy, you sure are one sick bloody fool!” Nathanial shouted and made his way to the bathroom. “Watch your tone, chap.” He understood why he was blazing with wrath. “You think you know everything, chap? Well you know bloody nothing.” Nathanial knew that Chandelier was Lenovo’s most trusted spy. He was irritated by Jack’s agreement to the charade. He stood there, expecting Jack to explain further, but he did not. Lenovo was a monarchy, west of their monarchy. Not much information needs to be known about this society of people other than; they have been powerful. Why? Nobody knows. One of the reasons why Jack was hired. Chandelier was a demon from hell. From a single letter feel, she would deduce the currency of the place, who has sent it, even before she opened it. The speed of horses would give her a clear indication of urgency and if whether, or not, they were of war. She was not only a chandelier of beauty but gave light to every hidden secrecy. She fell at her knees when she went against the Boulevard monarchy, Jack’s territory. She was outsmarted by this undeniably handsome Italian gentleman. What the chap had not known was that the two shared a remarkable history. Nobody was bound to find out; a lot was at stake.

“It was bound to happen.” Nathanial said in console to Jack. A few months after Chandelier had been assigned to a reunion with her love, her ornamental body was found murdered in her cottage. That is what Jack told everybody. Nobody had seen her corpse. Nathanial, as shocked as he was, cared less. Shortly after, Jack committed suicide. A note was left for the chap. For some peculiar reason he knew that there was no such, he could read between the encryptions of the suicidal note. He was in great dismay.

Jack had left behind skills of stealth, agility, and sapience for his friend (as written in the note) but one significant of them all: a citation. The one thing Jack sang off. The chap never understood it. Lenovo, exulting over the ‘fall’ of the mighty Rav Eagle, made way to the monarchy. Nathanial needed something to defuse the threat permanently. His world was cold, and heart left heavy. He was vulnerable. Death had come faster than a flash of lightning. Seeing that the ‘golden age of imperial splendor’ was about to fall, he contemplated Jack's citation. In Jack’s honor, he turned the cited into action.

Sleuths barely believe in miracles, but in that moment, the chad did. In doing what Jack loved to say, an intricate breakthrough for the monarchy was found. There it was in an old yellow colored enormous paper, hidden under the only two conjoined tables in the kingdom. In a very mendacious grin, he repeated Jack’s famous, finally understood, words: “How the tables have turned.”


Bio:

Nolwazi Nkosi is a young lady, pursuing a career in the faculty of health sciences. Always misunderstood she turned to writing; or what she now calls 'Kudeta ' to express her 'weirdly' unique personalities. It has unapologetically become her new best friend. Over the years, she has been focused on portraying a part of her life through her characters. In being a motivational speaker, she has discovered that people learn and relate better through testimony. She continues to use the power of a pen and paper to prove that anything is possible.

THERES SOMETHING WRONG WITH MY HUSBAND By InvisibleHumanBeing

I've been married to my husband Bruce for four years and we are Best friends, we have always gotten along with each other and rarely ever fought. We have two kids, one girl named Lauren who is 14 and another girl named Valerie who is 10 years old. We've been in the same house for 3 1/2 years and never thought about moving. I got home one day with great news, I've had the same job for 10 years and just got a promotion. My husband was still at work so I waited for Lauren and Valerie to come home since school just ended. I told Lauren first because it would be easier for her to understand than Valerie. "That's great news mom!" Lauren cheered.
"I know, took them long enough to see my full potential." I laughed and walked into the kitchen until my last step almost went through the door. "What the?" The floorboard was breaking. "Lauren, can you please come over here?"
"Yeah what's up?"
"Can you get the hammer please?"
"Sure."
Lauren handed the hammer to me and watched me pry open the floorboard. It was opening up until this waft of terrible odor came up. It was so gross and Lauren was coughing. "Mom! eww, gross what is that?!"
"I don't know! Go get the flashlight, there's probably a couple dead animals down here."
I grabbed the flashlight from her and looked through a small hole in the floor. I couldn't see anything except bags so I called an exterminator to come, luckily for us, he came over right away. He opened up the floor a lot more and I saw the most disturbing thing ever. Those bags were actually body bags. The exterminator was horrified and that's when he asked what my husband's name was.
"Are you serious? My husband is not capable of this!" But I told him his name anyway and he took this information to the police for me. My husband came home after the exterminator and I took out the bodies and hid the smell with a lot of Febreze. The police contacted me two days later and told me that my husband was a serial killer back 4 years ago and is still occasionally doing so, they also said they're coming over right now to arrest him. I thanked the police and hung up. Scared, I turned around to see my husband in the doorway standing there, not saying a word. We stood there staring at each other until he darted at me. I picked up the mini lamp on the desk, hit him and ran to Lauren and Valerie. I locked all of us into Laurens room away from Bruce. We called the cops to see if they left, then waited. The police will be here in 2 minutes. With Valerie asking all these questions and Lauren crying I got even more scared and started to cry too. I heard a banging sound in the house and Valerie screamed. Then I heard the police sirens go out. My anxiety was kicking in and I started to get a panic attack. There were banging on the door with someone yelling. "It's okay we got him!" I slowly walked to the door and opened it. The police breathing hard and had a scared expression on his face. "You didn't get him.. did you?" I loved him with all my heart but I knew I was going to leave him anyway after everything he did. "No ma'am I'm sorry he took off. We went into the police car to talk to some people so they could get a better understanding. I still wonder till this day Is how did I not figure out sooner that he's a serial killer.

Bathory was living in Castle Csejthe, just outside of Bratislava when rumours of mass killings started to circulate in the mid 1590’s.

By mid 1596, Erzsébet Báthory, still living in the Castle, had three living children: daughters Anna, Orsolya (Orsika), and Katalin (Kata), and was pregnant with son András.

Records show it was from this year that the reports started of the Countess, along with her daughter Anna, and other accomplices, killing dozens of children, exclusively servant girls between the ages of 10 to 14.

Later, all of the accomplices would agree that Anna Darvolya taught them how to torture and kill these children, and all agreed that Countess Báthory took a whip, cudgel, dagger, fire iron, needle, or cutting sheers to them, as well.

It is also reported that the Countess bit out pieces of flesh from the girls, and she also attacked them with knives and tortured them in various other ways.
This shocking killing spree continued for years, until orders from the king delivered on December 27th, 1610 sent Thurzó, from Bratislava on a two-day ride to Castle Csejthe.

He and his men arrived on the night of December 29, 1610, prepared to apprehend Countess Erzsébet Báthory and her .

When his men entered Castle Csejthe that night, as György Thurzó’s letters detail, they found the bodies of dead or dying girls strewn about, all having suffered from torture: beaten, flogged, burned, and stabbed.

Within a few hours, over 100 additional bodies and victims would be found within the castle itself.
Thurzó arrested the countess, and all her children and accomplices and took them to Bratislava for trial.

Due to her position, and showing mercy the King finally stated that Countess Báthory would not be brought to public trial.

Thurzó immediately brokered a clever deal: in light of the evidence, he recommended his original sentence of perpetuis carceribus (life imprisonment) rather than the death penalty. By order of Parliament, the name of Erzsébet Báthory would never again be spoken in polite society.

Stonemasons arrived shortly thereafter to carry out her final sentence: she was never to be let out of confinement.
On during the night of Sunday, August 21, 1614, Countess Erzsébet Báthory, passed away, and was found the next day.

According to a servant of her son, Pál Nádasdy, Erzsébet was buried at the church in Csejthe on November 25, 1614. Her remains were supposedly taken back to the Báthory family estate in 1617.

Reports from November 1619 claim that her grave was found, dug up, and her body missing – later that month, the bodies of a number of young girls are reported as being discoverd, near Csejthe Caetle, drained of blood.

Did the countess rise from the dead?

Returning to their posts after a mellow and relaxing school holiday, teachers at Riverwood Primary School in Sydney’s southwest were expecting to have a lazy first day back. Nothing could have prepared them for what they stumbled upon when they entered the school’s cubby house that day, however. On the floor was a pool of blood, later established to be human and being more than a liters’ worth. Police noted that whoever’s blood it was would have needed extensive medical treatment because of the extreme blood loss. Despite an extensive search of the surrounding and extending areas, no victim was found. There was also no blood splatter or trail leading to or from the cubby. The lack of a victim was extremely strange considering the school was enclosed with a 2-metre high barbed wired fence and it would have been impossible for the injured person to scale it. Tests later showed that the victim was male. The case remains unsolved.

Eileen Isabella Ronnie Gibson, better known as Gay Gibson, was an English actress who was rumored to have had a heart condition and would often ‘go blue’ at the lips and faint during play rehearsals. Gibson appeared in a production of Golden Boy by Clifford Odets in South Africa in 1947. When the play wrapped, she boarded the Durban Castle which was headed from SA back to England. It didn’t take long for one of the cruise ships’ stewards to notice the beautiful 21-year-old actress. According to James Camb’s later claims, he and Gibson were intimate in her first-class cabin before both the steward and stewardess buttons sounded, and a night watchman arrived. Camb was found inside the cabin, but Gibson had vanished. Camb’s story about Gibson’s fate changed several times, but he insisted that Gibson had had a fit during (consensual) sex and died. He later admitted that he had panicked when he realized she was dead and pushed her body through the ship’s porthole. He vehemently denied murdering her saying that he only got rid of the body because he was afraid of losing his job and his family. Despite all his changing stories and denials, Camb was convicted of Gay Gibson’s murder and handed the death sentence. Soon after, however, the death penalty was suspended for all crimes in Britain and Camb served only 11 years for the crime. Up until his death in 1979, he denied murdering Gibson. Gay Gibson’s body was never found.

The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs:
1979’s When a Stranger Calls begins with the classic twist of a panicked babysitter realizing that the killer’s call was coming inside the house. The tragic crime that inspired it was even more of a macabre irony. The phone cord she thought could save her, killed her. On March 18, 1950, 13-years-old Janett Christman babysat Ed and Anne Romack’s 3-year-old son, Gregory. Worried about her safety, Ed lent Janett a shotgun if anyone suspicious stopped by. It was never used. Around 10:35 p.m., the local Sheriff’s Department received a frantic phone call. In between disjointed breathes, the dispatcher barely made out a plea for help. The phone was cut dead. Within three hours, Christman was too. She had been bludgeoned, raped, and strangled with the wires from an electric iron and the telephone. Thankfully, Gregory was unharmed. Jurisdictional squabbles hampered the investigation. The Romacks lived 100-yards over the city limits. Competing agencies feuded over withheld evidence. This divide allowed the prime suspect Robert Mueller to evade justice. Mueller had a lecherous reputation in the community for young virgins. His occasional babysitter, Mueller lusted after Janett in particular. The stationary shotgun suggests Christman knew the culprit. The night of the murder, Mueller excused himself for two hours to allegedly meet his doctor. Mueller’s doctor says he never showed up. Most damning, Mueller phoned the Romacks the morning after the murder. Obviously out of compassion, he asked if they needed any assistance cleaning the blood. This call came before the press reported the murder. Taken to barn outside city limits, police interrogated Mueller. Denied a proper setting, the questions were inadmissible. Mueller died in 2006 never charged with any crime. Officially, the case remains unsolved.

On December 11, 2002, two motorists called police to report seeing a car veering off the A3 trunk road with headlights blazing at Burpham in Surrey. A thorough search uncovered a car concealed in dense undergrowth and the long-dead driver nearby. It turned out that the crash had actually happened five months earlier when the driver, Christopher Chandler, had been reported missing by his brother.