1AEB06 Madam I'm Adam

[Byers and Jimmy enter an all night café to meet a contact]

Jimmy: That must be him.

Byers: Hmm. Okay, Jimmy, I just want to remind you...

Jimmy: That I'm only here to observe. Absolutely. But my name goes on the story, right?

Byers: You took the call, so your name goes on the story if we publish it. That's a big if.

Jimmy: A big if. Man, my first story. [They join Adam Burgess]

Byers: Adam Burgess?

Adam Burgess: Yes. Yes, Adam Burgess, that's me.

Byers: John Byers. This is my associate, Jimmy, whom you spoke with on the phone.

Adam Burgess: Thank you. Thank you so much for coming. I was worried that you weren't going to show up. And I am just...

Byers: Now, Mr Burgess, if Jimmy understood you correctly, you're the victim of some form of identity theft. Is that right?

Adam Burgess: My whole life is gone.

Byers: I'm sure it can feel that way. There's certainly a growing problem on the internet. What was accessed? Your bank accounts, your credit cards?

Adam Burgess: No, no, no. My whole life is gone. There's strangers living in my house. Lois, my wife, I don't know where she is now. Neighbours, they don't know who I am any more. Police cars chasing me. I tell you, I thought I was losing my mind, but then last night when I was spending the night in the dumpster behind the pet store, I saw this. [He produces a crumpled copy of The Lone Gunman]

Byers: Whew. Thus explaining the smell of cat urine.

Adam Burgess: Yeah. Well when I saw this paper, I knew that you would be the people who would believe me, who would understand.

Byers: Understand what?

Adam Burgess: That I'm from a parallel reality and that aliens brought me here. It's the only explanation that makes any sense at all. Everything in my life exists as it always has — home, neighbourhood, everything — but I am a stranger in this reality. And I have proof, I think, proof of alien contact. Take a look at this. [He passes Byers a plastic container of transparent blue liquid] I found this in every crevice of my body, all over, everywhere. Everywhere. I believe this is alien goo... and my body was submerged in this to keep me alive in space.

Byers: I'm sorry, we can't help you.

Jimmy: What?

Byers: I'm sure there are professionals who can.

Adam Burgess: No, wait, wait, please... I'm not crazy.

Byers: I'm sorry. Best of luck to you.

Adam Burgess: Listen. My name is Adam Burgess. I live at 43 Deck Street. I have a wife that loves me. All I want to do is go home. Please, please, I just want my life back.

Byers: I'm sorry. [He and Jimmy walk away]

Jimmy: What about the alien goo?

Byers: Jimmy, I don't think real alien goo smells like lavender hand lotion. There's no story here.

Jimmy: Byers. Well, what about that? [There is an electrical port in the back of Adam Burgess' neck]

---

Adam Burgess: Is it the aliens? Did the aliens do this? Or the government? Or aliens working for the government?

Frohike: I think we need to have a little meeting before we come up with a definitive answer. Gentlemen. [He beckons Byers and Jimmy aside] Byers, where did you find this guy?

Byers: He found us or, rather, Jimmy.

Frohike: Yeah, figures. Anyway I'm not ready to call Mulder just yet.

Jimmy: How do you explain his neck?

Frohike: Maybe self mutilation. We should check to see if his nipples are pierced.

Langly: There's nothing alien about this space goo. It's basically udder cream. Use it for lubricating a cow when you're jerking it for milk.

Jimmy: Why was it all over his body?

Frohike: Yeah. We don't need to go there.

Langly: The guy's obviously a nut job. I say we introduce his lubricated butt to the door.

Byers: I was ready to dismiss him too, but that thing on the back of his neck looks to me like an electrical contact, and he didn't even know he had it. Somebody surgically implanted it. Why? What is it?

---

Adam Burgess: What is all of this?

Frohike: This?

Adam Burgess: Yeah.

Frohike: Well this is Bessie. She's sort of a home-made MRI machine. Big magnets are going to take a picture of your head.

Jimmy: Is it safe?

Frohike: Well just so long as I don't get it near your testicles.

Adam Burgess: Do I know you from some place? Your look familiar to me.

Frohike: I have one of those faces. Right. Let's assume the position. [He immobilises Adam Burgess' head, the MRI is turned on and Adam Burgess' watch clamps onto the unit] Oh. Sorry.

---

[The Lone Gunmen examine Adam Burgess' MRI scan]

Langly: We have brain. That answers one question.

Byers: Look at this. It is a contact... connected to some sort of wiring.

Langly: Laced all through his cerebral cortex. What the hell is this?

---

Adam Burgess: Yeah, yeah, that's it. That's 43 Deck Street. That's my house.

Frohike: Yeah, prove it.

Adam Burgess: Prove it. Okay. Okay. Every morning about this time, Frank Langdon goes to work with his newspaper and his cup of coffee. And his wife Susie usually chases him out with a goodbye kiss. Oh, Jimmy Gaganza. He just took up jogging but he can't seem to beat the butts. And, yeah, over here, old nosy Rosy, she's always watching everybody's business. Now, if you want, we can wait here for 15 minutes for Karen, the college student, no underwear. I rearrange my work schedule for that one. You see what I'm talking about. I mean, this is my home, my neighbourhood.

Frohike: Yeah, only the Maryland real estate records say it's not.

Langly: Furthermore, we can't find any record on you whatsoever; no drivers licence, no social security number.

Frohike: Not even a Blockbuster card. It's like you don't exist.

Adam Burgess: But I do. Just in a reality parallel to yours. It's got to be the aliens, I'm telling you.

Byers: Adam, can we leave aside the aliens and look for a more earthbound explanation?

Jimmy: Which is?

Adam Burgess: [to Frohike] I swear I know you.

Frohike: Byers, can we switch seats?

Byers: How does a man get to know a place so completely, in such vivid detail, when every indication is that he's never lived there? Jimmy, how many huts are there on Gilligan's Island?

Jimmy: Four. Not including the treehouse Gilligan built the time he thought no one liked him.

Byers: Exactly.

---

Jimmy: Byers, I'm sorry, I still don't follow. You're thinking that Adam never actually lived here, but instead he watched the house on TV.

Byers: Through hidden cameras. Maybe somehow the images were fed through the input wiring in the back of his neck.

Adam Burgess: But that's crazy. I lived my life, I didn't watch it on TV.

Jimmy: So why cut the power to the house?

Langly: Because, if Byers is right, we have to kill the live feed or we get video taped ourselves. Less talking, more stalking. Let's get this over with.

Jimmy: What about me? What do I do?

Langly: I wouldn't.

Jimmy: Look, come on guys. I took the call. Technically it is my story. [Byers hands him a piece of equipment]

Langly: Journalism kindergarten. I'll check the bedroom.

---

Little Boy: Who are you?

Frohike: I'm with the city. We're checking the ground water for high levels of magnesium. Known to cause uncontrollable drooling in prepubescent children.

Little Boy: What's behind your back?

Frohike: Nothing.

---

[Frohike has the little boy pinned to the ground when the Police show up]

Frohike: I guess this looks bad.

[A large section of house wall falls into the front garden, Byers, Langly, Jimmy and a jigsaw wielding Adam Burgess are standing in the new opening]

Frohike: I guess this looks worse.

---

Frohike: Oh dear god. [Jimmy had his arms around Frohike in his sleep] I told you to face the wall. What the hell's the matter with you? My nipples hurt. [to Adam Burgess] What are you looking at?

Langly: Oh man, we're screwed.

Adam Burgess: There is no law against a man vandalising his own house.

Langly: It's not your house. Get it through that slot in your head. You carved up some stranger's living room and now we're on the hook for it.

Byers: Langly.

Langly: Why? Why would someone want pump his head full of images of a happy suburban life, make him think he's got a home, and a wife, and all that?

Adam Burgess: I do have a home and a wife.

Langly: Says you. Byers is right, you can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality.

Adam Burgess: I have a home and a wife. Lois.

Langly: If Byers is right, you could be somebody completely different and not even know it.

Adam Burgess: Judas H Priest. You go on and on and on and on and on; yammering like some little nancy. If you don't shut that hole of yours, I'm going to stick my thumbs in your eyes and ride you like a pogo stick. I'm just going to, I'm... Did I just say that? I am sorry. Wow. I don't... You see that screw? You see the screw? [He leaves off his assault of Langly and yells through the bars] Hey! Hey, flatfoot! Shouldn't we be having our morning slop by now? Hey! Hey!

Frohike: Somebody else entirely.

[A guard opens the gates and Yves arrives]

Yves: Well, this is cosy. So, who's going to tell me what I'm paying for?

---

Jimmy: Basically, what you're looking at here is a cross-section of Mr Burgess' brain. This is the top and this is the bottom.

Yves: This is the front, that's the back.

Byers: What do you make of these?

Yves: Conduits for electrical stimuli, possibly behaviour modification.

Frohike: Well if so, who was he before they modified him?

---

Adam Burgess: I honestly don't know what came over me, guys. I mean, I have never even heard of this guy, Maniac Marvin, I can't imagine why the mere sight of him would cause me to react like that.

Byers: That's what we hope to find out. This man may know you. Right now, he's the only link we have.

Adam Burgess: Well, let's do it.

Langly: Uh uh. Maniac Adam says here with me. We can't afford the damage bill if he loses it again.

---

Dr Niveko: I'm looking for Adam Burgess. He was arrested last night, along with some people at this address. Is he here? Can you tell me where I can find him? He needs me.

Yves: I'm sorry, you are...

Dr Niveko: I'm Lois, his wife.

---

Marvin Koffman: You the gentlemen who had the question?

Jimmy: Oh man, you are a maniac. That's funny. [He makes a parrot squawk] You should, like, wear a pirate's hat.

Marvin Koffman: The eye patch is for real. I wear a glass eye during the commercial shoots. So, let me guess, you gentlemen bought the Yokahiro widescreen TV and now you want a refund 'cause the picture looks like a funhouse mirror. Tell you something, the Yokahiro needs a break-in period. That way it gives the ions a chance to bond with the vertical hold and then you get something that looks like a picture.

Byers: No. Sir. Sir, do you recognise this man?

Marvin Koffman: I can't say I do. Is that it?

---

Adam Burgess: I am so sorry. Really I'm just very, very sorry.

Langly: Blow it out your neck hole, weirdo.

Jimmy: Langly.

Langly: The guy spazs at the sight of stereo salesmen and midgets. Who knows what else is going to set him off next.

Yves: Let's find out. We pulled this video grab from the outside security camera. Do you know this woman?

Adam Burgess: That's Lois. My god, you've found her. This is my wife, this is my beautiful... Where is she?

Yves: She's not your wife. She only claims to be.

Adam Burgess: What are you talking about?

Frohike: We think she's your keeper. And you're her lab rat.

Yves: She wouldn't tell us much, only that you were undergoing some sort of therapy.

Frohike: She says that she was transporting you some place and that there was a car accident. Apparently you just wandered away from the scene.

Yves: And found your way home — what you thought was home.

Frohike: She wouldn't tell us about those wires in your brain. But we think they allow you to see things and hear things and feel things that aren't really there. Things she wants you to see.

Adam Burgess: You two are crazier than I am. Now, where is Lois?

Frohike: We told her we didn't know where you were. We figured you could use a little time. You owe it to yourself to find out who you really are.

Adam Burgess: I know who I am. I'm Adam Burgess.

Yves: No. There's no record of an Adam Burgess. Because Adam Burgess doesn't exist. You're someone else, you need to remember who.

[Adam Burgess hallucinates Frohike is a midget wrestler, he screams and flattens Frohike]

Frohike: Get off me. Get off me.

Adam Burgess: I am not you, I will never be you. Never. Never. Never.

---

Byers: This man. The Dwarf Santini. This is who you thought you saw?

Adam Burgess: Yeah.

Jimmy: You said, you'll never be like him. Who is he to you?

[Adam Burgess removes the tape from the machine, drops it on the floor and destroys it]

Frohike: Your true identity better turn out to be rich.

Byers: Can you tell us why that man makes you so angry?

Adam Burgess: What man?

Langly: The Dwarf Santini, you re... So where do we find this guy?

Yves: We don't. He's been dead for years. He has a daughter, however.

---

Adam Burgess: Who would live here, huh? Muckle. Muckle, what does that sound like, a last name or a sex act?

Yves: It's the married name of one Sadie Santini. Who is, apparently, very much her father's daughter. She spent some time on the midget wrestling circuit.

Langly: This is got to see.

[Adam Burgess spots Marvin Caveman's car, grabs a gardening implement and charges inside the house]

Jimmy: Adam? Adam?

[Adam Burgess bursts into the bedroom and finds Marvin Koffman in bed with Sadie Muckle]

Adam Burgess: You!

Marvin Koffman: Oh no!

Sadie Muckle: Oh!

Adam Burgess: I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to take your other eye out this time, pal. [The Lone Gunmen drag Adam Burgess from the room] Okay. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine.

Sadie Muckle: Charlie, where the hell have you been?

Frohike: Charlie?

Byers: Is that your name?

Adam Burgess: Charlie. Muckle. Muckle. Charlie Muckle. Oh god, oh god, oh god, now I'm remembering everything. [Dr Niveko arrives] Lois?

Dr Niveko: I was afraid I'd find you here. Charlie, we need to talk.

---

Adam Burgess: My name is Charlie Muckle and I am an alcoholic. And I have anger issues. And I shoplift. And I fill my tank with gas and drive off without paying. And sometimes I cruise the old folks home, acting like a visitor and then I go through their mail looking for social security cheques. And I expose myself in public — sometimes — but only to women who think they're hot stuff.

Sadie Muckle: Don't forget, you got my best friend pregnant.

Adam Burgess: Oh yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, did that too.

Dr Niveko: And you despise Charlie, don't you?

Adam Burgess: Yes.

Dr Niveko: Which is why you were willing to let me help you become Adam Burgess.

Adam Burgess: Burgess.

Sadie Muckle: Charlie, you let this woman brainwash you?

Adam Burgess: Well it was either that or doing 24 months, for putting out Margin's eye the last time I caught you two in bed together. Talk to Marvin, he knew all about it.

Sadie Muckle: Hey, you told me that you dropped the charges and that he just disappeared.

Marvin Koffman: Baby, I was just looking out for Charlie's best interests. He needed time to heal.

Byers: Is that what you're doing for this man, healing him?

Dr Niveko: I have his signed consent on file. Everything we do is legal and above board.

Yves: What about making him believe you're his wife? Is that above board as well?

Sadie Muckle: You're already married to me.

Dr Niveko: Perhaps he shouldn't be. It may not be healthy for him. Or for you.

Marvin Koffman: Yeah Sadie, and she's a doctor.

Sadie Muckle: Is that right, Charlie? Is that what you really think?

Adam Burgess: You're always telling me how I can never compare to your father. It's always the great man this, the great man that, I can never measure up. You were always telling me you wanted me to change. Well I changed... and... for the better.

Dr Niveko: Yes you did, Adam. And our work can continue, it's not too late.

Sadie Muckle: Well, don't let me stop you.

Adam Burgess: Oh, what the hell. Plug me in.

[Everyone starts to leave, Sadie Muckle is in tears]

Marvin Koffman: Baby, this really is the best thing, for everybody.

---

[Byers is writing up the story as Therapy or Thought Control?]

Jimmy: I'm not so sure I want my name on the story after all.

Langly: What are you talking about?

Byers: Jimmy, as first stories go, this one's a doozy. You've got an unproven virtual reality therapy that threatens to strip its patients of their very identities. It's exactly what the American people need to be warned about.

Jimmy: Yeah, I know. It's just... I don't like how the story ends.

Frohike: Well, so what? You're a journalist. You report the news, good or bad. You don't change the news, you don't effect its outcome.

Jimmy: Oh yeah. Like you guys just kick back with your pad and your pencil. Like you don't take interest in the people that you write about and always help them out. I feel like I dropped the ball.

Yves: How would you end the story?

Jimmy: I'd have Charlie wind up with Sadie. It is so obvious, how much they really love each other, even if they won't admit it. And there's something not right, when science gets in the way of love.

Frohike: Ugh. [to Byers] I've got diabetes now.

Jimmy: So, what are we going to do about it?

---

Frohike: Looks like you were right about the hidden cameras, Byers.

Byers: I was just wrong about where to look for them.

Frohike: Well, it looks like every utility pole in the neighbourhood is wired with them. The interior of the house was probably scanned into the program separately. Okay, Yves, you're tapped in.

Langly: Where's Adam in the program?

Yves: The master bedroom. There.

Langly: What's he doing?

Yves: I'll tell you when you're older.

Frohike: Let's make this quick. Ten to one, nosy Rosy across the street is calling the cops again.

---

Jimmy: Is this really going to work?

Byers: In theory it should. You see the little boxes on the phone poles? Those are the hidden cameras we were looking for last time. They're feeding audio and video into a computer somewhere, which is transforming it into the virtual reality that Adam is experiencing. So, if we're on camera...

Jimmy: Then he should be able to see and hear us.

Frohike: However, we won't be able to see him. So, who's going to start?

Jimmy: Charlie. Charlie Muckle.

---

Byers: Charlie. Where is he, Yves?

Yves: [on radio] Ten feet in front of you. He's stepping out on the porch.

Adam Burgess: [in virtual reality] Hey. Hey.

Yves: [on radio] He's trying to talk to you. I'm patching him through now.

Adam Burgess: [in virtual reality] What are you guys doing here? I'm a little busy. You're like the four blind mice. Why aren't you even looking at me?

Byers: Because you're not really here, Charlie.

Jimmy: Because this whole thing is like a big video game, and you're really somewhere else, with a wire in the back of your neck and blue goo in every crevice of your body.

Adam Burgess: [in virtual reality] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. So what?

Jimmy: So what?

Frohike: So what...

Adam Burgess: [in virtual reality] Listen seriously, there's no pressure here. I'm happy, life is good. I don't have to make any big decisions. It's a perfect life, it's designed to be.

Langly: Yeah, but...

Adam Burgess: [in virtual reality] Pretty soon I'll forget who I even am... just like before. Maybe I'll forget this isn't real, that'll be even better.

Byers: You'll forget Sadie too.

Adam Burgess: [in virtual reality] Looking forward to it.

Jimmy: No you're not. Nobody wants to forget the people that they love.

Adam Burgess: [in virtual reality] She's better off with Marvin.

Langly: Except she seems to want you.

Adam Burgess: [in virtual reality] I'm no good for her.

Frohike: Well, you're no good for anybody, Charlie. You belong on Jerry Springer or in a zoo, but you can change.

Byers: The old fashioned way. Provided you want to badly enough.

Adam Burgess: [in virtual reality] You guys... You guys make it sound so easy.

Langly: It's not, but I got to believe, virtual reality, with all its perfect weather and great sex and... oh god...

Jimmy: It's not as good as real life. Not even close.

Frohike: Oh crap. [Police sirens are getting nearer]

Yves: Let's go. Let's go. Come on.

Jimmy: Come on, Charlie. Now or never.