Scully is on the floor of a tent with paper spread around her. They are rubbings of the craft. She translates what she can as her voice is heard in voice over.
Her light starts attracting a few locuses so she goes to turn it out. When she does, she sees a man in a reflection. She turns the light back on, and when she turns around he is gone. She asks who is there, but no one answers. She turns off the light as more bugs approach, and sees that they are still coming. Her tent walls and EVERYTHING are covered with the insects. Then the locuses swarm onto Scully.
ACT ONE
GEORGETOWN MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
WASHINGTON, DC
Skinner is in the hospital talking to the doctor about Mulder. The doctor says that they can't slow his brain down enough, and that eventually it will die.
Skinner goes into see Mulder, asking him if he knows who he is. Suddenly, Mulder lunges at Skinner and starts choking him.
The doctor, and some other men get Mulder off of Skinner and take him away.
Skinner walks out the door with a bloody nose. He looks in his pocket and finds a little piece of material, with the words "Help me" written on it.
IVORY COAST, WEST AFRICA
Two jeeps pull up filled with men, except for one woman, Dr. Ngebey, who gets out and enters Scully's tent.
Dead locuses are everywhere in the tent. Scully is there, with wet hair, unharmed.
Dr. Ngebey walks into the room asking what happened, and then introduces herself. She came to see Scully's discovery. Scully tells her that she had asked that it be kept secret, and that no one was to know where she was. She tells her that it still is a secret, but a well known one. She found out from 'the African Internet.' She knew Dr. Merkmillan. She is a professor of biology at the university as well. She says though that she isn't qualified to say what went on in Scully's tent the night before.
SCULLY: Well, I was working late last night by lamplight, and, uh, I saw a man...who vanished...and, then they just swarmed.
NGEBEY: You must not let the men know what happened to you last night...the vanishing man...none of it.
SCULLY: Why?
NGEBEY: They are animists, believing nature is vengeful. They'll take this as a sign to leave what you have found alone. A bad omen.
SCULLY: Caused by the ship out there?
NGEBEY: Hmmmm. Caused by God...who will be much less helpful than those men if we are to continue this work.
The men are out in the water when they start screaming that 'the water boils.' Scully and Ngebey run out to see what happened. The men are covered in burns. Scully tells them that they need to get to a hospital. Ngebey says to Scully, "You see, another warning." Scully runs off.
GEORGETOWN MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
11:32 PM
At the hospital, Mulder is strapped down to the bed. Skinner comes back and tells him that he wants to help him, but that he doesn't know what to do. Mulder moves his hand indicating that he can hear him, and that he can write. He writes "KR" onto Skinners hand.
Back in Africa, Scully is lying in bed giving another voice over. The camera pans to show some of the drawings, and a notebook, covered with some yellow kind of slime. Scully sees a light and sits up, and walks outside. It was the lights of a jeep. She's carrying a hatchet as she walks over to the jeep. One of the island inhabitants gets out and says something to Scully in his language. She doesn't understand. He turns on a light and gets her to follow.
Scully turns around to find Dr. Barnes (see Biogenesis) who had been in the jeep as well. (He looks kind of psychotic.) She's holding up the hatchet and he asks if she's going to chop him up in front of his driver. Scully tells him he's a murderer of Mirkmillan, which Ngebey hears. Barnes denies it and tells her that he's not leaving. He knows what's there, the craft with its extraterrestrial origins.
SCULLY: You don't even believe in that.
BARNES: Nor do you, but here we are.
. . .
SCULLY: I'm here only to help my partner.
BARNES: Then let me help you. To read it.
Barnes goes on to say that he's spent his whole life looking for it. It's the key to everything, to life itself. He's been threatened by men in Washington D.C. He asks how long her secret would hold if she sent him away.
The other man starts yelling again and the three follow him down to the waters edge. They look down into red water.
SCULLY: What is it?
NGEBEY: It is a sea of blood.
ACT TWO
G STREET
WASHINGTON, DC
5:05 AM
Skinner is walking looking at his hand, which now says "KRITSCHGAU." He goes to Michael Kritschgau's apartment. He tells him that Mulder is in serious condition and needs to talk to him. Kritschgau doesn't want to help him, he lost his job before because of everything that happened. Skinner tells him that he doesn't have much time. All Skinner knows is that Mulder asked for him.
Skinner and Kritschgau show up in Mulder's hospital room. Kritschgau asks if Mulder can even recognize him, but Skinner says that he doesn't know.
Every time Kritschgau goes to ask Mulder a question, his brain waves change. He realizes that he is anticipating what he is going to say. He is reading his mind. Skinner tells him that Mulder has activity in places in his brain that they've never seen before, and that he had claimed he had been hearing voices. Kritschgau says that he might know what's wrong, but it doesn't mean that he can help him.
Kritschgau and Skinner wheel Mulder into a different room. Kritschgau has seen this sort of thing before with remote viewing. Kritschgau has Skinner reluctantly inject Phenetoen?? into Mulder. It instantly makes a difference, enabling him to talk, because it slows down his brain functions.
MULDER: They're coming.
The scene changes to show Diana Fowley and a nurse looking for Mulder. Fowley is telling her that he just disappeared.
The two walk into Mulder's room to find Mulder there in bed, strapped down. Skinner is standing there. Skinner says that he just found him down the hall. He orders Fowley to leave with the nurse.
Once Fowley and the nurse are out of the room:
MULDER: She knows.
SKINNER: You can read her mind?
MULDER: Yeah. We gotta act fast.
SKINNER: The doctor's on his way.
MULDER: No doctors. Get me Scully.
SKINNER: I don't know where she is.
MULDER: Look, I know you've been compromised. I know Krycek is threatening your life. Blackmailing you. I don't think I can trust you, but it's not you that I need.
SKINNER: But who?
MULDER: Him.
Skinner turns towards Kritschgau. Mulder wants Kritschgau to prove what's causing [what's happening to him.] Mulder tells him that it's extraterrestrial, but Kritschgau says:
KRITSCHGAU: I don't believe in aliens Agent Mulder. I think you know that.
MULDER: I do. That's why I need you.
Back in Africa, Scully is on the floor again, trying to translate the writings, as she has a voice over. Dr. Barnes had translated some of the coding into letters, using and ancient Navajo alphabet. On the top surface of the craft, she has found words to describe human genetics. She can't explain what they have seen, and what is written. The craft tells all religions.
Ngebey comes in.
NGEBEY: I have something to show you. More pieces of the puzzle. I couldn't believe it. I thought I was making it up in my head...that it could not be true.
SCULLY: What?
NGEBEY: What this is...what the symbols spell out is a passage from the Q'ran. Q'yamah "The Day of Final Judgement". On a spacecraft? Teachings of the ancient prophet Mohammed?
SCULLY: I found more too.
There are twenty-four panels, one for each human chromosome. Scully thinks it's a complete human genome.
Dr. Barnes comes in talking about creation. They think he's insane, but he says that now he understands everything from the beginning to the end, but it's extraterrestrial. He tells Scully that she's not going to take the credit. He has the hatchet. Scully says, "I'm only here to help my friend." He tells her that she can't help him, but Scully never gives up.
ACT THREE
At the hospital, Kritschgau and Skinner run psychic tests on Mulder by setting up screens with flashing images and having him tap on the screen when the spaceship picture will appear, but he only gets a 5% in accuracy. Skinner tells him to speed it up. Mulder hits each screen in perfect timing. He is anticipating the pictures ahead of time.
Meanwhile, Dr. Barnes suddenly notices that a bag he brought into the tent is moving. There are fish in it moving around. They've come back to life.
Given the chance, Scully smashes Dr. Barnes over the head with a chair.
Scully and Ngebey take the jeep and leave.
In the jeep Scully and the doctor see the disappearing man Scully had seen before, standing in the middle of the road. However Scully sees him appear in the woman's seat.
Scully decides she is going back home.
Skinner and Kritschgau are ready to sneak Mulder out when they are caught by Fowley and a doctor. She finds Skinner injected Mulder.
The doctor is asking how much medicine Skinner gave him when Mulder goes into a seizure. Skinner tries telling them that the medicine was helping Mulder.
ACT FOUR
In Africa, the islander comes into the tent to see Dr. Barnes. The doctor raises a hatchet at him and says he's sorry, killing him with the hatchet.
At the hospital, Fowley tells Mulder that she knows that he knows she's isn't loyal only to him, but that she (yuck!) loves him and always has, and that there is no reason he has to die.
DULLES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
9:25 AM
Scully flies home and goes to the bureau to see Skinner.
Skinner tells her that he wants her to know what will be at the hospital when she gets there. She goes anyway, she has to see Mulder:) Skinner AND her are almost in tears.
At the beach, the man Barnes killed comes back to life, and kills Barnes in the same manner.
Mulder is back in bed drugged again when Scully comes. She seems to believe everything she has seen by this point! She can't explain it. She tells Mulder that if he knew what she found, he would know what to do with it, and that he has to hold on. She grabs his hand, almost crying, in a very shippy scene. She continues to talk to him. She doesn't want to lose him.
SCULLY (shedding tears): Mulder, please, hold on.
In Africa, they find Dr. Barnes's body. The ship is gone.
Overall Rating : 9
*Shippy Rating: 7.5
*Based on the Redux II scale (1-10, as Redux II being a 10 [now with Triangle being an 11, above the scale])*
(be sure to check out the images, quotes, reviews, ect. of older episodes, through the main pages.)
