8ABX10 Salvage

Doggett: Car's registered to a Curtis Delario, local address. So far, he's been unreachable.

Scully: Well, it's highly unlikely that wherever he is he feels like picking up the phone this morning.

Doggett: Muncie PD ran some calculations. Based on the distance travelled, the length of the skid marks, they estimate the car was going at least 40 when it impacted the object, which, according to their math would require something 4300 times the density of steel to cause the damage we're looking at.

Scully: Hmm. It's interesting, isn't it? I mean... in light of the evidence.

Tow Truck Driver: Hey, watch yourself. [The Tow Truck Driver pulls the car up onto his truck. Scully looks down and sees the imprint of two large shoes on the road — right where the split front end of the vehicle had been]

Scully: From their size and shape, these look like men's shoes.

Doggett: I hope you're not suggesting that what this car hit was a man, Agent Scully, because there's no way.

Scully: Well, these impressions in the asphalt look pretty fresh to me.

Doggett: I admit to the coincidence but you know as well as I that if a man were here he'd be splattered from here to tomorrow and there's just no evidence of that.

Scully: You're right, which is suspicious in and of itself. I mean, this car definitely hit something and the only evidence that we have are these two prints.

Doggett: You know I hate to ruin your beautiful theory with ugly facts but stop to examine the incident. If a man were standing here, the driver would have stopped.

Scully: Well, it looks like he tried to.

Doggett: Well, even so, if a man were in the middle of the road with a car coming wouldn't he try to move?

Scully: Unless he wanted to stop the car.

Doggett: Yes, but if nothing less than a block of steel could stop this car then, ipso facto, it could not have been a man standing in the street last night.

Scully: Or certainly no ordinary man.

[Nora Pearce runs out of her house in hysterics]

Nora Pearce: Just tell me what happened — where is he? Where... [The local officers restrain her]

Doggett: Excuse me, ma'am? John Doggett with the FBI. Do you know about this?

Nora Pearce: What happened? Where is he?

Doggett: Curtis Delario, you know him?

Nora Pearce: He was a friend of my husband's. They worked together at the salvage yard.

Doggett: Now, I want you to calm down, Mrs...

Nora Pearce: Pearce. How am I supposed to calm down? Finding this now, it...

Doggett: Well, we're not even sure he was driving the car last night.

Nora Pearce: He was. He came over after my husband's funeral and then he left and...

[Scully is looking in a dumpster a few yards away]

Scully: Agent Doggett! [Doggett joins her] Meet Curtis Delario. [Curtis Delario's forehead and temples have deep puncture wounds] I guess he won't be much help clearing any of this up.

---

Doggett: I think I got some answers.

Scully: So do I. It wasn't the crash that killed Curtis Delario. He was badly injured, but he was clearly still alive when his body was pulled... through the car's windshield.

Doggett: Pulled?

Scully: Yeah, these five deep puncture marks match five fingers of one hand.

Doggett: You mean, someone just reached right in and...

Scully: Like a bowling ball.

Doggett: That seems humanly impossible.

Scully: Certainly for any ordinary man.

Doggett: Well, from the evidence I've gathered the man that did this is actually less than ordinary. I was able to reconstruct a section of the windshield and lift a print from the glass.

Scully: Whose?

Doggett: Raymond Aloysius Pearce. Husband of Nora Pearce, woman I spoke with at the accident site.

Scully: Hmm. [Looking at the Indiana State Police file with Raymond Pearce's fingerprints]

Doggett: Her recently deceased husband.

Scully: Well, if he was recently deceased then it must have been an old print.

Doggett: Well, what you would think except along with the print there was evidence of fresh blood and it belongs to Ray Pearce, too.

---

Doggett: Mrs Pearce... Agent Doggett again. Sorry to bother you but there are some things I need to go over.

Harry Odell: Everything all right, Nora?

Nora Pearce: He's with the FBI. Uh, this is Harry Odell. He runs the salvage yard where... Ray and Curt worked.

Doggett: May I come in?

---

Nora Pearce: Agent Doggett, I don't understand. Before, you were talking about Curt. Now you want to talk about Ray?

Doggett: What was their relationship, Mrs Pearce — your husband and Curtis Delario — outside of work?

Nora Pearce: I know what their relationship is now. They're both dead.

Doggett: Going back through your husband's medical records it says that he died after a long, debilitating illness?

Nora Pearce: Gulf War Syndrome. No one will cop to that, but I aim to prove it — put the blame where it belongs.

Doggett: I'm having trouble proving something myself, Mrs Pearce. You signed a form to have your husband's body cremated but it appears it never happened.

Nora Pearce: What do you mean? They gave me the ashes. They were at the funeral.

Doggett: Well, I can't find a record of Ray's body ever even being at the crematorium.

Harry Odell: Oh, for crying out loud. Hasn't this woman grieved enough?

Doggett: Let me get to the point, Mrs Pearce. Is it possible your husband is still alive?

Nora Pearce: Still alive? Is this a joke?

Doggett: Because we have evidence to suggest that maybe your husband was involved in the death of Curtis Delario.

Harry Odell: Are you saying Ray faked his death?

Doggett: We found Ray's blood and fingerprints on Curt's car.

Nora Pearce: I watched him die. I nursed him when he was sick, when he couldn't eat. What you're saying is impossible. He couldn't even walk or... lift his head at the end.

Harry Odell: Ray Pearce worked for me nine years. He was a good man. He never raised a hand to anyone.

---

[Harry Odell is shredding paperwork in his office when Raymond Pearce appears in the doorway]

Harry Odell: God almighty! Ray. It's true. Oh, you got everybody wondering, man. And they're looking for you. They blame you for killing Curt. [He opens a desk drawer that contains a shotgun] Now, me and Curt, we're your friends. You can't blame this on us. You got to believe me, it wasn't us. Well, I can show you. It's right here, Ray. [He reaches into the drawer for the shotgun] It wasn't me. [He pulls out the weapon and aims at Raymond Pearce] This time, you stay dead. [He fires the gun, the impact sends Raymond Pearce through the window of the office. When Harry Odell goes to investigate, he finds Raymond Pearce's dismembered right forearm and hand are bleeding mercury]

---

Scully: [answering phone] Scully.

Doggett: Did you find anything to go along with those holes in Curt Delario's head? Paint on his hands and nails?

Scully: Paint?

Doggett: Blue paint, specifically.

Scully: Hang on. Uh... no. Is it significant?

Doggett: I don't know. But Harry was a busy boy last night. He must've left Nora Pearce's right after I saw him, right after he learned that Ray Pearce might still be alive.

Scully: To do what?

Doggett: Well, it's pretty clear that he was in his office shredding papers when he was surprised by someone.

Scully: And you think it was Ray?

Doggett: Well, somebody took a blast. There's blood all over the doors, trailing down the stairs here to there — massive blood loss.

Scully: But the man with the gun is dead.

Doggett: I saw guys take hits in the war that kept right on fighting, holding their insides in their hands. I know it's not impossible. But to do this to a man's head after taking two barrels of buckshot...

Scully: Or being hit by a car.

Doggett: I don't see how a man could possibly do this.

Scully: Well, maybe the question's not how, but why? I mean, if Ray Pearce did indeed kill this man what would be his reason?

Doggett: I'm not sure, but I know where to start looking. [He hangs up, then goes into Harry Odell's office removes a section of paper not yet shredded. It is an invoice marked Chamber Technologies]

---

Dr Pugovel: They're called smart metals. The idea is to one day build things that are indestructible. Cars, equipment, built of alloys with molecular memory. If damaged, they'd rebuild into their original forms.

Doggett: All by themselves? That's amazing!

Dr Pugovel: And right now, all a metallurgist's pipe dream. But beside the point of your visit, I would imagine.

Doggett: Well, you tell me. I found a document at a crime scene listing Chamber Technologies. An employee number on the document was assigned to a Dr David Clifton.

Dr Pugovel: Dr Clifton's no longer here.

Doggett: What happened to him?

Dr Pugovel: He left the company. I'm actually his successor in this department.

Doggett: Do you have any reason to deal with a man named Harry Odell or a business called Southside Salvage?

Dr Pugovel: No, I don't deal with materials. Nor did Dr Clifton for that matter. Our work here is all theoretical. We have an environmental manager who's in charge of waste management but disposal is done at TSD Facilities, definitely not city salvage yards.

Doggett: Thanks for your time, Doctor...

Dr Pugovel: Pugovel. German, no H. You need me to spell it for you?

Doggett: No, no. That's quite all right. Thanks. [He walks away and calls Scully]

Scully: [answering phone] Scully.

Doggett: Hey, it's Agent Doggett. I'm at Chamber Technologies.

Scully: Did you find Dr Clifton?

Doggett: He's no longer with the company. But his successor says his work here was entirely conceptual. Everything's done on computers.

Scully: What kind of conceptual work?

Doggett: Thing called smart metals. It's pretty incredible — metal alloys designed to rebuild themselves.

Scully: I wonder. As it happens Ray Pearce's illness is pretty incredible, too. I've reviewed Ray's medical records from the VA. What his wife was calling Gulf War Syndrome is nothing of the kind. His entire cellular makeup was affected by exposure to some non-identifiable contaminant — a metal.

Doggett: What are you saying? Ray Pearce has become some kind of metal man? Because that only happens in the movies, Agent Scully.

Scully: Does it, Agent Doggett?

Doggett: Tell you what. I'll press this guy here a little more on the issue.

Scully: Well, maybe there's a reason why he's not being perfectly forthcoming.

---

Doggett: Sorry I'm late.

Scully: It's all right. I just got the blood test back on Ray Pearce, and it was indeed the same Ray Pearce who was pronounced dead three days ago. But that's not all. By all medical standards he should still be dead. His blood has enough metal alloy in it to... poison an elephant.

Doggett: Except that he's still a man, Agent Scully and he's going to act and think like one even if he is more powerful than a speeding locomotive.

Scully: But then the question is, why kill his friends? I mean, if he was wronged somehow wouldn't he go to them for solace? I mean, to his wife, at least? [Doggett hands her a file]

Doggett: That's why I was late. I asked myself that same question. Ray was an outpatient at the VA. He had a history of substance abuse. Did some time for a couple of DUIs.

Scully: This was ten years ago.

Doggett: Cleaned up his act. He met Nora and married her in 91, checked himself into a rehab and got straight. This was a guy to root for, Agent Scully. This was a guy that overcame adversity and made a life for himself.

Scully: Until three days ago.

Doggett: I've busted a lot of killers, Agent Scully, and dollars for doughnuts, they fit a profile. But the Ray Pearce in this file is no murderer, let alone a guy that would hunt down his friends and crush their skulls.

Scully: Agent Doggett, the man that we're speaking about withstood impact from a speeding car, and two shotgun blasts at short range. Even if we can find him, who's to say we can stop him?

---

Doggett: Make sure that door is secure! [Ray Pearce has been trapped inside a metal chamber]

Scully: Dr Pugovel, are you sure he can't open that door from the inside?

Dr Pugovel: I've got a manual override on the door. [There is a loud hollow thudding sound and the imprint of a fist appears on the surface of the door] What the hell was that?

Scully: Ray Pearce. [He is pounding at the door]

Dr Pugovel: The door is four inches thick. [More pounding] I don't think it's going to hold!

Doggett: You'd better hope it does, 'cause if it doesn't, he's coming after you and I don't know if we can stop him. [More pounding, then silence] Open it up.

Scully: Get it open!

Dr Pugovel: There's a rupture in the chamber. I don't believe this. [The door is opened, Raymond Pearce is gone and there is a huge hole torn out of the back of the chamber]

Scully: Agent Doggett. Look at this. You see this?

Doggett: What is that? Is that blood?

Scully: Turning itself into metal.

[Doggett leaves the chamber and helps the SWAT team hustle Dr Pugovel out of the room]

Doggett: Get him out of here! Get him out of the building!

Dr Pugovel: I didn't do anything to the man! I didn't do anything.

Doggett: You want to argue about it or let us get you some place safe?!

Dr Pugovel: Where's that? Where's safe?!

Doggett: It's not in here. [He notices several blue 55 gallon drums with the yellow Chamber Technologies logo on them]

---

Nora Pearce: My god. It's true.

Raymond Pearce: You shouldn't have come, Nora.

Nora Pearce: I shouldn't have come? That's what you say to me? I'm your wife. I came here because you didn't come to me. I had to have some stranger tell me. Why didn't you come, Ray?

Raymond Pearce: Because I'm not me.

Nora Pearce: I don't care what's happened. Whatever it is, it's a miracle. Don't go. [She reaches for his hand, but cries out, cradling her bloody palm, cut from where she touched the metal part of his hand]

Raymond Pearce: There's your miracle.

Nora Pearce: Ray, let me help you. Please, let me help.

Raymond Pearce: They've got to pay for this. They've all got to pay.

---

Dr Pugovel: You mind telling me what's going on here. It's not enough that my life's been threatened. I'm being treated like a criminal.

Scully: Not without cause.

Dr Pugovel: Oh, my god. [He stares in shock at the metallised man that Doggett found hidden in a drum at the salvage yard]

Scully: Do you recognise this man?

Doggett: We're assuming you don't know too many guys in this particular condition.

Dr Pugovel: It's not what it looks like.

Doggett: Is this Dr Clifton — Dr David Clifton — your predecessor?

Dr Pugovel: Yes.

Doggett: You care to explain how he ended up in a Chamber Technology hazardous waste barrel?

Dr Pugovel: It was his idea. I was against it.

Doggett: If you knew, you might've told me about this when I first came to see you.

Dr Pugovel: He was dying... and he was afraid.

Scully: Of what?

Dr Pugovel: That it would hinder progress or halt it. That it would finish us.

Doggett: Oh, you're finished. One way or another your work here is done.

Dr Pugovel: We didn't know this was going to happen! We were just trying to push the envelope, do the right thing for the company. Then he got sick. He was... he was working with an alloy with a genetic algorithm built into it. It converted electrical energy into mechanical. Gave it memory.

Scully: And it poisoned him.

Dr Pugovel: We immediately shut down the project. But it was too late. He didn't have any family. His work was his life. He wanted to leave us to continue working on the science.

Doggett: And leave you to ship this barrel and his body to Southside Salvage where it infected somebody else.

Dr Pugovel: I don't know how that happened, I swear to god. That barrel was supposed to go to a designated site.

Scully: [to Doggett] Let me talk to you for a second. [They step away] I think he's telling the truth.

Doggett: What the hell is she doing here? [He spots Nora Pearce]

Scully: Who is it?

Doggett: Nora Pearce, Ray's wife.

---

Doggett: Mrs Pearce? What are you doing here? How do you know about this place?

Scully: She was looking for something.

Doggett: Who'd you call, Mrs Pearce?

---

Officer: Want us to take the woman in?

Doggett: No, I want to talk to her first. [to Nora Pearce] You might be interested to know that your husband just broke through a second storey wall and eluded a dozen cops at St Clare house. That please you, Mrs Pearce? Does it please you to know that he killed a young woman there, a volunteer named Larina Jackson?

Scully: That makes three people. Three people that he's killed and for what?

Nora Pearce: Because they made him what he is.

Doggett: They say this young woman he killed tonight had been concerned for him — concerned for Ray's welfare.

Scully: Whatever Ray is, whatever he's become, it was an accident. It was not those people's fault, Mrs Pearce.

Nora Pearce: Harry and Curt knew about it.

Scully: No, they were innocent, just like Ray was. They didn't know that this was going to happen.

Nora Pearce: These people here knew about it. They got documents on it.

Scully: Oh, so that's what this is about? This is about looking for somebody to blame?

Doggett: Ray sent you here, didn't he, to find that person; to get a name?

Nora Pearce: The Ray I know... died. And the man responsible should pay for that.

Scully: So who is it? It's the CEO here? The owner? Give us a name, Mrs Pearce, before someone else has to die.

Nora Pearce: I... I never gave him a name.

Doggett: Get her out of here. Put her on 24-hour watch.

---

Raymond Pearce: Nora?

Nora Pearce: They're right outside, Ray.

Raymond Pearce: Did you get me the name?

Nora Pearce: You killed her. The woman who called me. For god's sake, Ray, why? Why her? She cared about you.

Raymond Pearce: I need the name.

Nora Pearce: No one else needs to die, Ray. [He grabs her wrist and she gasps in pain] You won't do it, not to me.

Raymond Pearce: I need the man's name.

---

Nora Pearce: He's in the house! Tell the FBI agents it's Harris. Ray made me give him the name. Owen Harris! Ray's going to kill him.

---

Raymond Pearce: Owen Harris... don't look away. Look at me.

Owen Harris: Why are you doing this?

Raymond Pearce: Because you made me.

Owen Harris: I don't know what you're talking about.

Raymond Pearce: Southside Salvage.

Owen Harris: I'm just an accountant.

---

Scully: Ray Pearce.

Doggett: He came here to kill this man but something stopped him, didn't it?

Scully: This man, Owen Harris? He begged for his life. It might just have saved him. His attacker got up and ran away.

Doggett: Makes no sense. Ray Pearce was a determined killer looking for someone to blame. Why stop here?

Scully: Wherever Ray Pearce went, the answer to that question went with him but I can tell you why he came after Owen Harris. It was his name Nora found in the file. He was the accountant who authorised the shipment of hazardous materials to Southside Salvage.

Doggett: But if Owen Harris is the guy Ray holds responsible, why'd Ray let him live?

Scully: Well, I think that Nora Pearce may have been right. Her husband died, or at least his body did. Whatever killed those people, was an abomination of a man. It was a machine.

Doggett: A machine? Come on, a machine doesn't know blame, Agent Scully.

Scully: Nor mercy. Unless what drove Ray to kill is also what saved those people. Some flicker of humanity.