7x03 The Sixth Extinction



IVORY COAT, WEST AFRICA


Scully [voice-over]: I came in search of something I did not believe existed. I stayed on now, in spite of myself, in spite of everything I've ever held to be true. I will continue here as long as I can. As long ... Which I saw consume your beautiful mind. What is this discovery I've made? How can I reconcile what I see with what I know? I feel this was meant not for me to find, but for you to make sense of--make the connections which can't be ignored. Connections which, for me, deny all logic and reason. What is this source of power I hold in my hand--this rubbing--a simple impression taken from the surface of the craft? I watched this rubbing take its undeniable hold on you, saw you succumb to its spiraling effect. Now, I must work to uncover what your illness prevents you from finding. In the source of every illness lies its cure.

Scully: Who's there? Who's there?!

[opening credits]


GEORGETOWN MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
WASHINGTON, D.C.


Doctor: He's been quiet for the last 36 hours, but he doesn't sleep. There's activity in the temporal lobe we've just never seen. It won't allow his brain to rest, or shut down, manifesting in episodes of aggression, sometimes against himself.

Skinner: You can't sedate him?

Doctor: Yes. We slow him down for short periods, and put him in the neuro ward. It's the only way we're able to run tests. But over time...his brain is going to just die.

Skinner: Agent Mulder? Agent Mulder, can you hear me? Do you know who I am? It's Skinner, Walter Skinner. [to Doctor] Can we get him out of here, and get him some fresh air, at least?

Doctor: Let him go! He can't breathe!

Skinner: Let go, Mulder. I don't want to hurt you.

Man: Come on, let him go.

Doctor: Stay there, Mr. Skinner.

Skinner: No, it's all right. Just let me get up.

Doctor: Five milligrams of haloperidol IM! I want him in five-point restraints!

Man: Yes, sir.

Man: Let's keep him locked down all night.


IVORY COAST, WEST AFRICA


Amina: My god. What happened here? They said you speak English.

Scully: What do you want?

Amina: I am sorry. You must wonder who I am. I am Amina Ngebe. I've come to see your discovery.

Scully: I asked that no one be told about it...nor that I'm here.

Amina: Yes, Well, it is still a secret but a well-known one, I'm afraid. Dr. Merkmallen called it the African Internet, god rest him.

Scully: You knew Dr. Merkmallen?

Amina: I, too, am a professor of biology at the university but...hardly one qualified to say what must have gone on here.

Scully: Well...I was working late last night by lamp lights and...I saw a man who vanished...and then they just swarmed.

Amina: You must not let the men know what happened to you last night--the vanishing man, none of it.

Scully: Why?

Amina: They are Animists, believing nature's 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?

Amina: Mm. Caused by God...who will be much less helpful than those men if we are to continue this work.

[man screaming]

Scully: Let's get him in the truck! He's got to get to a hospital! Hospital! OK!

Amina: You see? Another warning.


GEORGETOWN MEMORIAL HOSPITAL

11:32 PM


Skinner: Agent Mulder. I want to help you. I don't know what to do. I don't have much time. Can you write?

Scully [voice-over]: I feel you slipping away from me with every minute I fail here. What are the elusive meanings I cannot see, that are hidden here? If I could understand it, know how it affected you, learn how to use its power to save you.

Scully: What is it?

[Man speaks]

Scully: Look, I'm sorry. I don't speak your language.

Barnes: Perhaps you need an interpreter.

Scully: Stay away from me!

Barnes: Are you going to hack me up in front of my driver? You're under suspicion already.

Scully: You're the murderer here.

Amina: Murderer of who?

Scully: Dr. Merkmallen!

Barnes: I murdered no one, but I won't be sent away from here. I know what we've got. This craft that's come ashore...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. I've spent my life looking for what's out there. The answer to what theologians have pondered for millennia. The key to everything...to life itself. I've already been threatened by men in Washington about what I know. How long would your secret keep if you were to send me away?

[Man screams]

Scully: What is it?

Amina: It is a sea of blood.

[commercial break]

G STREET
WASHINGTON, D.C.
5:05 AM


Skinner: Michael Kritschgau.

Kritschgau: It's 6 o'clock in the morning.

Skinner: I don't know if you remember me. My name's Skinner. I'm here to talk to you about Fox Mulder.

Kritschgau: Yeah, I'm listening.

Skinner: He's in serious condition, Mr. Kritschgau. He has to talk to you.

Kritschgau: I got nothing to say to the man. You know, I had a job...with a government pension coming, and two years ago Fox Mulder asked me to do him a favor--blow the whistle on uncle sam's UFO propaganda. And all it got me was this swanky address.

Skinner: Look, he doesn't have much time.

Kritschgau: Hey, I'm not a doctor. What is it you think I can do for him?

Skinner: All I know is that he asked for you.


Kritschgau: Can he even recognize me?

Skinner: To be honest, I don't know. Agent Mulder? His brain is on constant redline. They've got him on haloperidol just to keep him on the monitors.

Kritschgau: Haloperidol?

Skinner: He becomes violently agitated. He just won't speak or sleep even when he's medicated. There's activity in part of his brain they've never seen before.

Kritschgau: Was his...

Skinner: Was his what?

Kritschgau: I started to ask you a question about his prior mental state, but he anticipated it. Second time. Agent Mulder?

Skinner: He claimed to be hearing voices.

Kritschgau: I might know why agent Mulder asked for me. Doesn't mean I can do anything for him.

Skinner: What just happened?

Kritschgau: I think he responded to a question...I didn't ask.


Skinner: I don't know how long we can keep him out of that unit. We can be held responsible.

Kritschgau: You asked me to come down here. You better be prepared to accept the responsibility, Mr. Skinner.

Skinner: You're going to inject him?

Kritschgau: No. You are. With a thousand milligrams of phenytoin.

Skinner: I'm not injecting him with anything, not now, and not till after I've talked to his doctor.

Kritschgau: He's being given the wrong treatment.

Skinner: You're not a doctor.

Kritschgau: No, but I've seen his condition. Who do you wanna trust?

Skinner: Seen it where?

Kritschgau: In a study. There's something like ESP called remote viewing.

Skinner: Whose study?

Kritschgau: The company's--the CIA, Mr. Skinner. Extreme subjects would go into arrest, their minds working harder than their bodies could sustain. They became, in effect, all brain. Phenytoin was the only thing that could slow the electrical impulses to a normal rate.

Skinner: Agent Mulder knew about this. That's why he asked for you.

Mulder: They're coming.


Fowley: Who last saw him?

Nurse: I'm looking here.

Fowley: I come here and find a patient missing, and nobody knew?

Nurse: I just came on. Sorry. Fox Mulder, right? He's restrained, it says; and he's not in his bed?

Fowley: No. How many times can I say it?

Nurse: He's right here.

Fowley: He wasn't here when I came in.

Skinner: No, we just found him down the hall. I just got him back into bed.

Doctor: Who are you?

Skinner: I'm his boss, and hers.

Nurse: Well, I don't know how he could have gotten up by himself or pulled all this stuff out.

Skinner: Well, I hope someone's calling a doctor making a report on this.

Nurse: He's got to remain in this bed.

Skinner: I'll stay with him. Agent Fowley, why don't you see if you can help her? That's an order, agent Fowley.

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. You don't think I can trust you, but it's not you that I need.

Skinner: Then who?

Mulder: Him. Kritschgau. Ask him to prove it.

Kritschgau: Prove what?

Mulder: What's causing this.

Kritschgau: It's a brain abnormality. It's how you're able to read minds.

Mulder: What's causing this is alien. That's why my doctors can't help me.

Kritschgau: I don't believe in aliens, agent Mulder. I think you know that.

Mulder: I do. That's why I need you.

Scully [voice-over]: the work here is painstaking--a slow and tedious piecing together. It appears to be a craft, its skin covered in the intricate symbols you and I both saw, but which I now understand, are part of a complex communication. Dr. Barnes has broken some of the symbols into letters using an ancient Navajo alphabet and, though it has helped to uncover some of what's here, it has also made for greater confusion. On the top surface of the craft I'm finding words describing human genetics. Efforts to read the bottom of the craft have been harder. Our workers were scared away by phenomena I admit I can't explain--a sea of blood, a swarm of insects. But what little we have found has been staggering--passages from the Christian bible, from pagan religions, from ancient Sumeria...science and mysticism conjoined. But more than words, they are somehow imbued with power. I've ignored warnings to quit this work, remaining committed to finding answers, afraid only that our secret here won't last, and that I might be too late.

Amina: 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?

Amina: What this is. What the symbols spell out is a passage from the Koran. "The day of final judgment." On a spacecraft? Teachings of the ancient prophet Mohammed?

Scully: I found more, too. Twenty-four panels, one for each human chromosome. A map of their makeup--maybe a map of our entire genetic makeup. A complete human genome. I mean, it's like...it's the most beautiful, intricate work of art.

Amina: It is the word of God.

Barnes: You're wrong. There is no God. What's out there on the water is only what we call "God." What we call "creation"--the spark that ignited the fire that cooked the old primordial soup...made animate from inanimate...made us.

Amina: I believe he is mad from the sun.

Barnes: Mad? I'm perfectly sane. Because today I understand everything, beginning and end, alpha and omega, everything in between. It's all been written. But the word is "extraterrestrial."

Scully: You're sick, Dr. Barnes. You need to get off your feet, lie down.

Barnes: You think you're going to take the credit? This is my discovery.

Scully: I'm only here to help my friend.

Barnes: You can't help him. You're wasting your time reading it.

Scully: It has power.

Barnes: It is power...the ultimate power. Your friend just got too close. No one leaves here before me.

[commercial break]

Kritschgau: We developed this for the CIA to test remote-viewing capabilities. It works much like a card trick. You tap the monitor where the saucer image appears when it appears or when you think it does. Okay?

Mulder: Who ya gonna call? Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now.

Kritschgau: All right, agent Mulder, fine. You're at about five percent accuracy.

Skinner: I'm assuming that's low.

Kritschgau: At the CIA, a high degree of ability was 20%. Twenty-five percent was extraordinary.

Mulder: But I see them in my head.

Skinner: You saw his ability earlier. It was you who pointed it out.

Kritschgau: Well, our tests showed that some people have psychic abilities, sure. ESP, clairvoyance, remote viewing, but it was never attributed to aliens.

Mulder: You don't wanna believe. You're not looking hard enough.

Skinner: One more time, faster.

Kritschgau: He is ahead of the images. He's anticipating.


Barnes: They've come back. They were dead. They've come back to life! The ship-- it brought them back to life!

Scully: We have to get to the police.

Amina: That is where I'm going. This is the road to Abidjan.

Scully: Stop! That was him. That was the man I saw in the tent...in the road.

Man: Some truths are not for you.

Amina: Are you all right?

Scully: Oh, God. What are you doing?

Amina: You were cold. I was just feeling to see if you were still alive.

Scully: What happened to you?

Amina: To me?

Scully: You slammed on the brakes. There was a man.

Amina: That's right, in the road.

Scully: No, he was right there, sitting right where you are, in your seat.

Amina: The men were right. This is a bad sign. A sign to give up.

Scully: Turn us around.

Amina: Not back to the beach.

Scully: No. I'm going home.


Skinner: Agent Mulder. Agent Mulder, I don't know if you can hear me, but we're gonna try to get you out of here.

Kritschgau: A.M. nurse is on in five minutes. We got to move.

Skinner: I don't think he's in any shape.

Kritschgau: I'm going to hit him pretty hard. Maybe we can get him on his feet. What are you doing?

Skinner: I know what you're doing.

Kritschgau: I'm trying to help him.

Skinner: No, this isn't about him. It's about you. It's about revenge against the government for trying to destroy your life.

Kritschgau: I was destroyed to protect what Mulder knew all along. Now he's the proof. He's the x-file.

Skinner: We can't just keep shooting him full of drugs. It's gone too far.

Kritschgau: How far should it go? How far would Mulder go?

Doctor: Hey! What's going on here?

Fowley: Let me see your hands. Hands! Step away.

Skinner: Agent Fowley, what the hell do you think you're doing?

Fowley: What am I doing? What are you doing, sir, with this? [to Kritschgau] I want you to face the wall. Do you hear me? Face the wall.

Skinner: Let me explain.

Doctor: What was this man given? What was in this syringe?

Fowley: Phenytoin.

Skinner: Let me tell you what it does.

Doctor: How much did you give him? What dosage was this?

Skinner: Let me tell you why we did it.

Doctor: He's going into seizure. Watch his head. Mr. Mulder? Hold him. Hold him.

[commercial break]

Driver: Dr. Barnes...Dr. Barnes. Dr. Barnes?

Barnes: I'm so sorry.

Fowley: I know what's happened to you. I know what you're suffering from. I've been sitting back and watching. I know you know. I know you know about me...that my loyalties aren't just to you, but to a man you've grown to despise. You have your reasons but, as you look inside me now, you know that I have mine. Fox...Fox, I love you. I've loved you for so long. You know that, too. And I won't let you die to prove what you are, to prove what's inside you. There's no need to prove it. It's been known for so long. Now we can be together.


DULLES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
9:25 AM


Scully: Where is he? Is he still in the hospital?

Skinner: Where've you been?

Scully: Is he still at Georgetown Memorial?

Skinner: You can't get to him.

Scully: Do you know where he is, or don't you?

Skinner: He's in the neuro-psych ward, but it's no good, agent Scully. Agent Scully!

Scully: I have been on a plane for 22 hours. I have to see him.

Skinner: Then I think you should know what you're going to see, if you can even get on the ward. There's been some trouble.

Scully: What kind of trouble?

Skinner: I got this man, Kritschgau, involved.

Scully: Kritschgau?

Skinner: It's a long story, but it ended badly. They've got Mulder under security now, around the clock. I take full responsibility.

Scully: Responsibility for what?

Skinner: He can't even communicate, agent Scully. They won't treat him, because they don't know what's wrong with him. They said he was dying. I had to do something.

Scully: He's not dying.

Skinner: I'm afraid it's true.

Scully: He's not dying. He is more alive than he's ever been. He's more alive than his body can withstand, and what's causing it may be extraterrestrial in origin.

Skinner: I know. But there's nothing to be done about it. They're going to deny you access.

Scully: Maybe as his partner, but not as his doctor.


Barnes [to himself]: He's alive. He's come back to life. Holy mother of God. Hello?


Scully [in the distance]: I need to see him.

Scully: Mulder, it's me. I know that you can hear me. If you can just give me some sign. I want you to know where I've been...what I found. I think that, if you know, that you could find a way to hold on. I need you to hold on. I found a key...the key to every question that has ever been asked. It's a puzzle...but the pieces are there for us to put together, and I know that they can save you if you can just hold on. Mulder...please. Hold on.