|
|
NEW YORK CITY
11:23 P.M.
A man lies asleep on his couch with the television on. He wakes up to
find smoke seeping under his apartment door. He opens the door to a wall
of flame. Dr. Saul Grissom calls 911 in a panic, then grabs a fire extinguisher
and attempts to put out the spreading flames, now engulfing the entire
front wall of his apartment. But when the fire fighters arrive only minutes
later, they find Dr. Grissom lying dead with the fire extinguisher clutched
in his hands, and no trace of fire in the apartment.
THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE
Mulder finds a cassette tape folded into his morning newspaper, on which
the article describing Dr. Grissom's death has been circled. The tape
is a recording of Grissom's 911 call. Mulder takes the tape to Assistant
Director Skinner, requesting to be assigned to investigate the case. Skinner
is skeptical, but says he'll look into it and let Mulder know.
Mulder is at his desk in Urban Fraud, transcribing wiretap recordings,
when he is greeted by a fresh-faced young agent with a rather geeky short-back-and-sides
haircut and an off-the-rack grey suit. It's Alex Krycek, come to deliver
Mulder's 302 - the authorization for him to pursue the Grissom case. But
there's a catch - Agent Krycek has also been assigned to the case. Mulder
is not pleased, and intends to go to Skinner to get the assignment changed,
but Krycek insists he had the case first and is not going to give it up.
Mulder tells Krycek to go down to the motor pool and requisition a car,
and he'll join him there in a few minutes. Surprised by the sudden change
of heart, Krycek agrees and leaves.
FBI ACADEMY
QUANTICO, VIRGINIA
Scully is in class teaching when she's informed she has a telephone call
from "George Hale" - the alias Mulder uses so that the Powers That Be
won't know he's calling Scully. He tells her he's at National Airport,
about to catch the shuttle to La Guardia, and he wants Scully to join
him to do the autopsy on Grissom. She says she can't leave her classes,
so Mulder says he'll have the body shipped to Quantico. Reluctantly, she
agrees.
GRISSOM SLEEP DISORDER CENTER
STAMFORD, CONNECTICUT
Mulder meets with one of Dr. Grissom's colleagues to discuss his work
with sleep disorders, and discovers that it is possible to induce hallucinations
by stimulating the occipital lobe of the brain with mild electrical impulses.
Outside the center, he is confronted by an angry and resentful Krycek,
who has finally caught up with Mulder. Mulder brushes off Krycek's complaints.
Krycek tells Mulder he followed his work while at the FBI Academy, and
believed in what Mulder was doing. Mulder gets a phone call from Scully,
who is in the middle of Grissom's autopsy, and thinks Mulder ought to
get back there right away. Since Krycek has the car, and the car keys,
Mulder goes with him.
FBI ACADEMY
QUANTICO, VIRGINIA
Mulder and Krycek join Scully, who is still working on Grissom's autopsy.
Scully brushes past Krycek when Mulder introduces him with a cold "Good
to meet you." She begins to tell Mulder about the results of the autopsy
while Krycek nearly gets sick at the sight of the partially dissected
corpse. The body, she says, has all the secondary, but none of the primary,
responses to having been in a fire. "It's almost as if his body believed
it was burning."
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
A man watches television on his couch, beer in hand. He appears red-eyed
and exhausted. Suddenly, he's shocked to find another man in the room
- but he recognizes him, calls him "Preacher," and seems glad to see him.
Preacher asks how he is, and the man, Willig, says he is trying to forget.
Willig asks Preacher if he killed Grissom. Preacher says they can never
forget what they've done, and now it's time to pay. The room now fills
with burned and bleeding Vietnamese children, armed with M-16s, who begin
to fire at Willig, who closes his eyes, finally at peace, and falls to
the floor.
Krycek tells Mulder about Henry Willig's death. There are no external
wounds on the body, but has small internal hemorhages and skeletal fragments
that appear to have been made by gunshots. In the autopsy photos, they
notice a two-inch scar on the back of Willig's neck. Krycek suggests it
might have happened in Viet Nam, where Willig did a tour as a Marine in
1970. They recall that on the East Coast, Marines receive basic training
at Parris Island, and that Grissom was stationed at Parris Island at the
same time Willig was there.
FBI LIBRARY
NEW YORK CITY
Mulder and Krycek look up Willig's service record in a database at the
FBI library. They discover that only one other member of the 13-man squad
he served with in Viet Nam is listed as still being alive - Augustus Cole.
VA MEDICAL CENTER
NORTH ORANGE, NEW JERSEY
Cole has been confined to the psychiatric ward of the VA hospital for
the past twelve years, but when Mulder and Krycek go to see him, they
discover his room empty. The nurse insists the doctor released Cole two
days ago; the doctor insists he did not - but his signature is on the
release form. While at the hospital, Mulder receives a telephone call
from his informant, the mysterious X, and goes to meet him.
X gives Mulder documents describing the Sleep Eradication project carried
out by Dr. Grissom at Parris Island in 1970. Surgically removing portions
of the subject Marines' brains eliminated their need for sleep, leaving
them with heightened awareness and less fear. X also tells Mulder of one
other Marine in Willig and Cole's squad, reported killed, but in fact
still alive.
After the meeting, Mulder picks up Krycek in front of a hotel in Queens,
where Cole is holed up after robbing a drug store. It turns out Cole only
stole the drug seratonin, no money. Seratonin is the substance produced
by the body during sleep - the one thing the Marines' sleepless bodies
could no longer provide. Mulder and Krycek go in with the police to capture
Cole, but before they reach his floor they hear shots fired, and rush
up the stairs to find two officers down and Cole nowhere to be found.
It appears the two officers shot each other.
Scully is in her office at Quantico, writing a report about the Sleep
Eradication project from the papers Mulder faxed to her. Mulder calls
from the hospital where the surviving police officer is in a coma. He
tells her his theory about Cole: he believes that Cole, from his years
without sleep, has built a bridge between the waking world and the unconscious,
and developed the ability to project his unconscious mind into the real
world, to externalize his dreams. Krycek comes to call Mulder back to
work. Scully says it sounds like Mulder's new partner is working out.
"He's all right. He could use a little more seasoning and some wardrobe
advice, but he's a lot more open to extreme possibilities..."
Mulder and Krycek go to the 2-Jays Cafe in New Jersey to meet Salvatore
Matola, the other survivor of Cole's squad, that X told Mulder about.
They see that Matola has the same long scar on the back of his neck that
Willig had. Matola is nervous and jumpy, and has the same look of red-eyed
exhaustion as Willig. He tells the agents about Viet Nam: twenty-four
hour patrols, never sleeping, until they finally stopped taking orders
from company command and went out on their own, making up their own missions,
killing anybody they came across. He tells of attacking a mission school
outside of Fu Bai, massacring children. The agents ask about Augustus
Cole - Matola says they called him Preacher, because he was always reading
from his Bible, telling them that one day they would have to pay for what
they'd done. He also tells them about Dr. Girardi - the other doctor on
the project, the one who'd performed the surgeries.
LONG ISLAND EXPRESSWAY
Mulder and Krycek are driving back to New York. Mulder says that the
twenty-fourth anniversary of the Fu Bai massacre was two days ago. Scully
calls with information about Dr. Francis Girardi - he is arriving in New
York tonight for Dr. Grissom's funeral, arriving on the 7:30 train at
the Bronx Station. She agrees to fax a photo of Girardi to the station's
security desk, while Mulder and Krycek attempt to get to the station in
time to intercept and protect Girardi from Cole's retribution.
At Bronx Station, Mulder spots Girardi on the platform - but Cole is
behind him, with a gun. Mulder draws his weapon, orders Cole to drop his
- but Cole fires, first two shots at Girardi, who goes down, then two
more at Mulder, who also falls unconscious to the platform.
Krycek rushes up to Mulder, who suddenly wakes up, calling out for Girardi.
Krycek helps him up, telling him that Girardi never showed. He'd seen
Mulder shouting and waving his gun around, but had not seen Girardi or
Cole.
METROPOLITAN TRANSIT AUTHORITY
BRONX STATION
With the help of MTA security, the agents begin to study the station
security videos, looking for signs of Girardi or Cole, or anything else
unusual. Krycek takes Mulder aside and demands to know what's going on.
Mulder is reluctant to tell Krycek his theory, but Krycek insists that
he wants to believe, so Mulder tells him. Krycek accepts it without derision,
to Mulder's surprise. The security guards spot a car on one of the videos
in a restricted part of the yard, at Track 17. Mulder and Krycek head
there.
In the trainyard, Cole has Girardi tied to an I-beam. Cole's Bible is
spread open on a table, with many scalpels laid out on it. He tells Girardi
it's time for him to pay for his crimes. Girardi protests that he was
only following orders. Cole is implacable. Vietnamese villagers begin
to file in, each picking up a scalpel from the Bible, and then they converge
on Girardi.
Mulder and Krycek drive up to the yard, and as they approach, they hear
Girardi scream. They find him bleeding from a wound on the back of his
neck, but alive. Mulder tells Krycek to put pressure on the wound and
call for help, which a rather scattered Krycek excitedly does, while Mulder
goes in search of Cole.
Mulder finds Cole standing on the edge of a loading dock, holding his
Bible. Mulder puts his gun down, tries to get Cole to come away from the
edge, to talk to him. He wants Cole to testify about what was done to
him. But Cole, having accomplished the deaths of all the remaining men
involved in the project, wants only now to end it.
Krycek now comes up behind Mulder, holding his gun on Cole. Mulder shouts
at him to put down his gun and back off, but, while Mulder sees Cole holding
out his Bible, Krycek sees Cole pointing a gun at Mulder, his finger beginning
to squeeze the trigger. Krycek shoots Cole.
Mulder and Krycek rush to Cole, finally at peace and ready to die. Krycek
searches frantically for the gun he saw Cole holding, but sees only Cole's
Bible. "He had a gun. He was going to shoot you." Mulder tells Krycek
he did the right thing.
When Mulder returns to his car, he discovers that the report X had given
him, which he'd hidden under his car seat, is gone. Back at Quantico,
Scully tells him that her office has been broken into, and her copies
of the report and all her computer files about the Sleep Eradication project
have also been stolen. They realize that they are still in danger.
In a darkened room, at one end of a long conference table, three men
sit. The man at the end of the table is chainsmoking cigarettes. He looks
at the report before him - it's the one X had given Mulder. At the other
end of the table, Krycek stands, giving his report on the Mulder situation.
Mulder's found another source, he says, and Scully's still a problem.
The cigarette-smoking man replies, "Every problem has a solution."
|
