8ABX17 Empedocles

Detective Potter: Agent Reyes?

Agent Reyes: Yeah, hi. Uh... Monica Reyes.

Detective Potter: Frank Potter, New Orleans PD.

Agent Reyes: Trying to quit the habit. [She pops a piece of nicotine gum into her mouth]

Detective Potter: Yeah, I tried to quit smoking myself once. I hated that damn gum. Well, anyway you, want to see the victims?

Agent Reyes: Well, on the phone you said you had reason to believe the killings might be satanic ritual murders.

Detective Potter: Right. Let me show you. This is Jeb Dukes' work area. I found this among his personal effects. [He hands her an unfolded CD insert]

Agent Reyes: What can you tell me about the killer, detective? Anything?

Detective Potter: Thirty-one years old. College grad, lived alone. There's some who felt he had a dark side which could explain that there.

Agent Reyes: Can I look in there? [Jeb Dukes' desk]

Detective Potter: Sure. You're the expert. Does it tell you anything about why he might've killed those people?

Agent Reyes: The fact is, a killer like this is usually pushed over the edge by what we call a stressor, a catalysing event — an emotional breakdown, the break-up of a relationship or sometimes when someone's been fired.

Detective Potter: This guy was fired... by the two victims.

Agent Reyes: Well, that's most likely what drove him to murder.

Detective Potter: Yeah, but what about all these images... these devil pictures?

Agent Reyes: It's Marilyn Manson.

Detective Potter: Marilyn Manson?

Agent Reyes: Your kids listen to him. They probably buy his CDs at K-Mart. I don't think there's anything satanic going on here, Detective.

Detective Potter: Agent Reyes? Okay, okay... It's some rock group, but you don't think this has anything to do with Satan or evil or...?

Agent Reyes: Personally? I'd look into his gum. [She pops another piece of gum into her mouth and starts for the elevator. She stops beside the covered body of Roberta Toews and stares at the woman's exposed hands. As she watches, a glowing red flame quickly reduces the flesh to ashes. Agent Reyes kneels down, raises the sheet and looks at the rest of the body, which is also burned]

Detective Potter: Agent Reyes? Did you find something?

[Agent Reyes looks up at Detective Potter, then back down at the corpse. The flesh is intact and unburned]

---

Scully: Mulder?

Mulder: What?

Scully: I was just about to jump in the shower, but I was waiting for the pizza man.

Mulder: You got something going on with the pizza man I should know about?

Scully: The pizza man?

Mulder: Well, correct me if I'm wrong but you just said you were waiting for the pizza man to jump in the shower.

Scully: No, what I mean was the pizza man's usually late, and so... You want to come in?

Mulder: Thank you.

Scully: I feel like I'm stuck in an episode of Mad About You.

Mulder: Well, yeah, but small technicality. Mad About You was about a married couple and we just work together.

Scully: Yeah, well, you know what I'm talking about.

Mulder: I do, I do. What I'm trying to say is that, uh... we have no good reliable information on this man. I mean, what I am saying is the pizza man... [He indicates her swollen belly] ...is not above suspicion.

Scully: Ah, I see. [She spots the almost hidden present on the couch] Is that for me?

Mulder: Yeah.

Scully: Nice package.

Mulder: Thank you.

Scully: What's the occasion?

Mulder: Oh, I was going through some stuff after my mother died and, um, it's just an old family keepsake and I wanted you to have it.

Scully: Well, I'm touched.

Mulder: Little Caesar, I presume? [He answers the door and scrutinises the Pizza Delivery Man]

Scully: [to Pizza Delivery Man] Hi... just... give it to the man with the funny look on his face.

Pizza Delivery Man: Yeah, it's $29.08.

Mulder: $29.08? What'd you get on it, a tank of gas? [Scully grips her stomach in pain] Scully? Scully! [to Pizza Delivery Man] Call 911.

---

ER Nurse: That Scully? Dana? She's got what? Abdominal pains?

Mulder: Her doctor is Dr Speake.

ER Nurse: Oh, he's been called.

Mulder: She.

ER Nurse: Who are you? The husband?

Mulder: No.

ER Nurse: Then you wait outside.

[The gurney and the team of medical personnel all enter a set of double doors leaving Mulder alone in the hall, when Doggett arrives]

Doggett: Agent Mulder, what happened?

Mulder: How'd you find out?

Doggett: I was dropping something off. The landlord told me.

ER Nurse: Are you the husband?

Doggett: Me? No.

Mulder: Excuse me. [answering mobile] Mulder.

Agent Reyes: Special Agent Fox Mulder?

Mulder: Speaking.

Agent Reyes: Agent Mulder, my name is Monica Reyes. We never met. Not since you've been alive, I should say.

Mulder: Who?

Agent Reyes: Special Agent Reyes. I know this is out of the blue, but I have a case I need your help on. It involves a certain phenomenon.

Mulder: I can't help you, Agent Reyes, for so many reasons. I think you should contact Agent Doggett at the X-Files.

Agent Reyes: I can't call Agent Doggett because it involves him. I'm in New Orleans, but I can be in DC in a few hours. It's important, Agent Mulder. Very.

Mulder: Call me when you get here. [He hangs up and rejoins Doggett]

Doggett: They're telling us not to worry. They're running some tests.

---

Agent Reyes: Agent Mulder.

Mulder: Agent Reyes?

Agent Reyes: You're taller than I thought.

Mulder: You keep on alluding to a time that we've met and I don't remember.

Agent Reyes: I was there when they found you in the woods. You were... Yeah. I'm not surprised you don't remember.

Mulder: Yeah. I have somewhere I have to be... if we could cut to the chase.

Agent Reyes: As I said before, it involves Agent Doggett... the death his son. I don't know if you're familiar at all with that case.

Mulder: No, I'm not at all familiar with Agent Doggett.

[Agent Reyes hands Mulder a file]

Luke John Doggett
Age at Disappearance: 7
Date of Birth: 7/9/90
Date of Last Contact: 8/12/97
Race: White
Gender: Male
Height: 48"
Weight: 52
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Blond
AKA: Unknown
Missing From: Long Island, NY
Child is suspected to have been...

Mulder: I wasn't aware of this. You were the lead investigator?

Agent Reyes: Once it fell to the FBI. Agent Doggett was with the NYPD at the time. We worked it together. We never caught the killer. It was the hardest case I've ever had. As in stealing-into-the-bathroom-to-cry-my-eyes-out kind of hard. I can't begin to imagine what it was like for John. I couldn't bear to put him through this again, but if it means we could catch his son's killer... I just can't go to him until I know if what I saw means anything.

Mulder: You said this case involves some kind of phenomenon?

Agent Reyes: I don't know if it was a psychic experience or what, but when we found his son, I had a vision. It was as if for just a moment... The body was changed.

Mulder: Changed? Into what?

Agent Reyes: Ashes. It looked like ashes. The thing of it is Agent Doggett told me he saw it, too... although he spent the last few years convincing himself he didn't, that even if he did, it didn't mean anything.

Mulder: What do you think it means?

Agent Reyes: I can't shake the feeling that it's a clue, that it could somehow point to who's responsible, if only I let it. And now I've seen it again. A thousand miles from here, a seemingly unrelated case and I've had the same vision. There has to be a reason for it, a reason it's happening now.

---

Mulder: Hey! Hey!

Doggett: You stay out of my life!

Mulder: Take it easy!

Doggett: You stay out of my business!

Mulder: Take it easy, Agent Doggett.

Doggett: You want to get something on me, you ask for it! I don't want to get calls about you going behind my back! You got that straight?

Mulder: I don't want anything on you. I was asked to look into this file.

Doggett: Who asked you?

Agent Reyes: Agent Doggett. What are you doing?

Doggett: Is this you? Is this you looking into this?

Agent Reyes: Yes. I asked Agent Mulder.

Doggett: You asked him what? There's nothing in there for him to bother with.

Mulder: Why don't you just calm down, Agent Doggett and let her explain the connection to you.

Doggett: The connection? To what?

Agent Reyes: I was going to tell you, John. I was in New Orleans on a case — a shooting. Something that I saw connected back to Luke. A vision.

Doggett: Not this again. You're not going to make something out of nothing.

Mulder: Bob Harvey. Does that name mean something or nothing to you?

Doggett: Bob Harvey was a suspect in the death of my son. We questioned him but then we realised he wasn't our man.

Agent Reyes: Agent Mulder pointed it out. Bob Harvey was killed last night in a car crash fleeing the police near a shooting in New Orleans. He died in front of the building where the shooting occurred.

Doggett: What's the connection?

Mulder: That's it.

Doggett: That's it?

Agent Reyes: And then there was the vision.

Doggett: No, there's no connection. I don't care what you saw, you leave it alone... and you leave it the hell alone. [He takes his son's file and leaves]

Agent Reyes: I know there is something here.

Mulder: Good.

---

Katha Dukes: I believe that we're all born good, uncorrupted and life itself does the corrupting. But, you know, someone like Jeb... He just isn't capable of this.

Agent Reyes: Are you close... to your brother?

Katha Dukes: Very. Jeb lived here in the house with us 'til he went down South. He loves his niece.

Agent Reyes: Does the name Bob Harvey mean anything to you? Did Jeb ever have any dealings with him?

Katha Dukes: No. I think I'd know. Why?

Agent Reyes: No reason. It's the answer I was kind of expecting, actually.

---

Scully: What are you doing, Agent Doggett?

Doggett: I was... I just came by to see how you're doing.

Scully: I'm... I feel all druggy. Do you mind? [Doggett pours her a glass of water] Thank you.

Doggett: They say you're stabilised, but we've been worried about you.

Scully: Who's we?

Doggett: You know... me and Agent Mulder...

Scully: What's wrong, Agent Doggett? You don't seem too good yourself.

Doggett: You worked with Agent Mulder for how long? A long time.

Scully: Mm-hmm.

Doggett: You never believed in any of this stuff. This paranormal or whatever you call it. So, what changed your mind?

Scully: I realised it was me, that I was afraid. Afraid to believe. Why do you ask? Agent Doggett, why do you ask?

Doggett: Some other time.

---

Agent Reyes: Agent Mulder? I was looking for Agent Doggett.

Mulder: Well, that'd make sense. It's not my office any more, but old habits die hard

Agent Reyes: What are those?

Mulder: Cases involving images like you described. People close to crimes who experience visions of death disassociated from reality.

Agent Reyes: And what did you find?

Mulder: Absolutely nothing. These visions are so random as to have absolutely no significance to the cases they're supposed to pertain to.

Agent Reyes: You're wrong.

Mulder: I think I know these files.

Agent Reyes: And I know what I saw. There's a reason these things are happening. There is something at work here, and it all began with the man killed in the car crash — Bob Harvey.

Mulder: I think that's a coincidence. I think that life is full of them.

Agent Reyes: And full of patterns things we see, but can't comprehend. You believe that. Why can't you believe this?

Mulder: I think there's an opening coming up in this office soon. You might want to apply.

Agent Reyes: Is that why you won't help him?

Mulder: I have a... sick friend in the hospital and... I think I should go see her.

Agent Reyes: I hope she gets well. This office down here needs at least one person with an open mind.

Mulder: You'll say anything, won't you?

Agent Reyes: Only when I think I'm right.

---

Doggett: What am I doing here?

Mulder: Been asking myself that same question, Agent Doggett. But it seems the tenacious Agent Reyes does not want to let go of this one.

Doggett: Of what?

Mulder: She's got a murder victim out here, a woman found shot. She thinks it's probably the same man who killed those two people down in New Orleans — this Jeb Dukes.

Doggett: What does she want from me?

Mulder: She wants to know if you see it, too. What she's been seeing.

Doggett: I told you, there's no connection. [They join Agent Reyes]

Agent Reyes: Agent Doggett.

Doggett: I'm sorry, Agent Reyes. I don't see it.

Agent Reyes: I think you do. You're just afraid to go there.

Mulder: Woo. You just keep shooting 'til you hit something, don't you?

Agent Reyes: You'd rather blind yourself to the connections, but I can't.

Doggett: You keep talking about these connections. Connections to what? To who?

Agent Reyes: What if this is a thread of evil... connecting through time, through men, through opportunity, connecting back to you. In India, in Africa, in Iran, in the Middle East, in the Far East, most of the world, they take it as a given. They see evil in death the way other people see god in a rose.

Mulder: I saw Elvis in a potato chip once.

Agent Reyes: You know what I'm talking about.

Mulder: Yes, I do. I do. But if this man doesn't see it, he doesn't see it, right?

---

Mulder: You awake?

Scully: Yeah.

Mulder: What did the doctor say?

Scully: That I had a partial abruption. Which means that my placenta started to tear away from the uterine wall. They're going to need to monitor me for a while.

Mulder: But you're going to be fine?

Scully: Yeah. Where have you been?

Mulder: I've actually been out in the field with Agent Doggett and this female Agent from New Orleans.

Scully: Agent Reyes.

Mulder: Yeah.

Scully: I like her.

Mulder: You're nothing at all alike.

Scully: Well, then neither are you and I. So this is a case you're working on?

Mulder: Yeah. Actually, one that involves Agent Doggett's son, the son who died.

Scully: Yeah, he's never talked to me about him, but I know something. Are you able to help him at all?

Mulder: You can't help a man who can't help himself.

Scully: He's worth the effort, Mulder.

---

Doggett: [on phone] Jeb Dukes, middle name, Larold. No Larold. Okay, thanks, anyway. [He hangs up]

Agent Reyes: What are you doing, John?

Doggett: I'm looking into this case.

Agent Reyes: You're looking in the wrong way. There are a hundred agents in this building who can phone canvass.

Doggett: Ah, but there's only two who can solve crimes with mental telepathy — you and me. So we'll just read the tea leaves on this one and there it is, right? Case closed?

Agent Reyes: John...

Doggett: Damn it, Monica, you want to find this guy. I'm trying to find him. What do you want from me?

Agent Reyes: I want you to be honest with yourself, about what you saw that day. Honest about what your feelings tell you.

Doggett: Feelings don't solve crimes. What the hell does it matter what my feelings are? How the hell's that going to get the job done?

Agent Reyes: I'm not talking about the job, John. What are you scared of? Why does it scare you?

Doggett: I got to believe that I did everything I could to find my son.

Agent Reyes: You did do everything to find your son.

Doggett: I got to believe that I did everything I could to save him, to get him back safe, to not let him down. I got to believe that I did everything humanly possible, 'cause if I can't believe that, then these other possibilities that you talk about, that Mulder talks about, that Agent Scully talks about... if they're real... if they're real, then... that's something else I could have done to save my son.

Agent Reyes: [answering mobile] Monica Reyes. Katha? Katha, wait. [She is disconnected] Jeb Dukes' sister. He's there at the house with her.

Doggett: This guy somehow has some link to my son and I'm damn sure going to find out what it is.

---

Jeb Dukes: [reading] As it happened, Hansel and Gretel had overheard everything that their parents had said. "Shh," said the boy. "I'll find a way out, I promise you, and when at last..."

Katha Dukes: Mia, honey? Can you come here a minute, please?

Mia Dukes: But uncle Jeb's reading to me.

Katha Dukes: That's okay, I just need you a minute. Can you, can you just come here?

Jeb Dukes: Who's here?

Katha Dukes: She just wants to talk, Jeb. I just want you to tell her what you told me. She can help you.

Jeb Dukes: Who? I said who, damn it!

Katha Dukes: Come on, baby.

[Jeb Dukes grabs Mia Dukes, holds her up to his chest, pulls out his pistol and points it at Katha Dukes]

Mia Dukes: Uncle Jeb!

Jeb Dukes: You lied to me!

Katha Dukes: Come on, Jeb.

Jeb Dukes: Just get back.

Mia Dukes: Mommy!

Jeb Dukes: Go! [He drags Mia Dukes through the hall and starts down the stairs]

Mia Dukes: Mommy! Mommy! Let me go, Uncle Jeb! Mommy, help! Let me go, let me go, help!

[Doggett is at the foot of the stairs, his gun trained on Jeb Dukes]

Doggett: Right there, right there! Hands in the air! Federal Agent, I'm armed, I'll shoot!

Jeb Dukes: You drop the gun, you drop the gun!

Doggett: Let her go!

Mia Dukes: Mommy!

Jeb Dukes: I'll shoot her, I swear!

Doggett: I just need to talk to you. [He sets his gun down on the bottom step, as Jeb Dukes slowly pulls Mia Dukes back up the stairs]

Mia Dukes: Mommy... Mommy, Mommy!

Doggett: I won't hurt you.

Jeb Dukes: You stay back.

Mia Dukes: Mommy! Mommy!

Jeb Dukes: I said stay back!

[A gunshot sounds and Jeb Dukes falls to the stair. Agent Reyes comes around the corner of the upstairs hallway]

Mia Dukes: Mommy! Mommy!

Katha Dukes: Mia, Mia! [to Doggett and Agent Reyes] What have you done?

Doggett: This man needs help! [He yells for backup]

---

Doggett: You're not going to die on me now. [He is walking beside the gurney that's carrying Jeb Dukes in the emergency room]

Agent Reyes: Agent Doggett...

Doggett: You hear me? You're going to make it. You're going to make it. You hear me?

Agent Reyes: John!

ER Nurse: No, no, the parade stops here. Now, if you want to save him, let the doctors do their work, okay? Now who's the immediate family member here?

Katha Dukes: I am.

ER Nurse: Okay, come with me. I'm going to need you to fill out some information for me, all right? [She follows the gurney into the operating room, Katha Dukes on her heels]

Agent Reyes: There is nothing more you can do.

Doggett: You can't tell me that now.

Agent Reyes: Maybe saving this girl was the reason. Maybe that's what this was all about. Maybe that's what I saw and why I saw it. For that kid. Go home, John. There's nothing here for you to do.

---

Mulder: Agent Doggett... She just fell back to sleep.

Doggett: I just wanted to check to see how she's doing. Anyways, I'm here with this other thing. We... we caught this killer, Jeb Dukes. He's in the ICU. He may not make it.

Mulder: And now you're wondering if there really was a connection. You know, when I... I first came to work at the FBI, I worked at Violent Crimes, and I saw, I saw the worst of humanity. I saw monsters, and I wondered, how they became that way, how these men became so evil. I know there were... psychological explanations — victims of their environment, victims of their parents — but the scientific explanations were never truly satisfying. And I began to think about evil like, like a disease. You know, that it goes from man to man, or age to age. Most of us walk around thinking we're incapable of any acts of evil and we are. You know, we can stifle that momentary urge to kill or to hurt. We have some kind of immunity to it. But I think it's possible that there's... an occurrence in somebody's life, a tragedy or a loss that leaves them vulnerable, hurts their immunity to evil, and all of a sudden at that point in their lives when they're weakened, they're open to evil and they can become evil.

Doggett: If that were true, then what you're saying is... is that this man we wheeled in here tonight is infected with evil, the same evil that killed my son. You really believe that, Agent Mulder?

Mulder: Uh, I'm not really a good test for questions like that. I'll believe almost anything, you know, but the... the pisser is you may never know. It may be like Agent Reyes says. It could be random and meaningless — who it affects, who it goes to.

Doggett: What if it isn't?

Mulder: Well, then you'd be seeing something that I don't, Agent Doggett.

---

Scully: Mulder, you never fail to surprise me. I just wish I felt like eating it right now. [He's brought pizza]

Mulder: That's cool. We can just wait for the cheese to congeal and eat it later. You miss your regular pizza man, don't you?

Scully: Yes. That's okay. He's coming by later.

Mulder: I bet you forgot about that, didn't you? [He produces the gift he brought earlier]

Scully: No, I didn't, actually. I thought about it a lot, while I was lying in my hospital bed, wondering what on earth you could have given me.

Mulder: And?

Scully: Oh, my god. Oh, Mulder. [It is an old-fashioned home-made rag doll]

Mulder: Is it what you imagined?

Scully: Not even close.

Mulder: Oh, my, that's the wrong doll, actually.

Scully: But then that's the other gift that you gave me, Mulder. Courage... to believe. And I hope that's a gift I can pass on.