8ABX20 Essence

Mulder: [voiceover] We call it the miracle of life. Conception: A union of perfect opposites — essence transforming into existence — an act without which mankind would not exist and humanity cease to exist. Or is this just nostalgia now? An act of biology commandeered by modern science and technology? God-like, we extract, implant, inseminate... and we clone. But has our ingenuity rendered the miracle into a simple trick? In the artifice of replicating life can we become the creator? Then what of the soul? Can it, too, be replicated? Does it live in this matter we call DNA? Or is its placement the opposite of artifice, capable only by god. How did this child come to be? What set its heart beating? Is it the product of a union? Or the work of a divine hand? An answered prayer? A true miracle? Or is it a wonder of technology — the intervention of other hands? What do I tell this child about to be born? What do I tell Scully? And what do I tell myself?

---

Margaret Scully: You know, it would be a whole lot easier for everyone if you would just tell us the sex, Dana. Did you hear me?

Scully: Yes, I heard you, Mom — for about the thousandth time, you can wait. Didn't you have to wait with us?

Margaret Scully: Well, I know it's a boy. I can just tell by the way you're carrying. It's a boy.

Scully: Well, see, you obviously don't need me to tell you because you already know.

Margaret Scully: Then it's a boy? Oh, it's the least you could tell your mother considering everything else you're keeping a secret. [There is a knock at the door]

Scully: We told people noon, right?

Margaret Scully: Mm-hmm.

[Scully opens the door. Lizzy Gill enters, carrying two bouquets of flowers, one pink one blue]

Lizzy Gill: Hi. Your mom said to cover all the bases. I'm Lizzy Gill.

Margaret Scully: Hi, Lizzy. Let me give you a hand with that. I asked Lizzy to help out today.

Scully: Oh. Hi.

Lizzy Gill: These are going to need some water. Congratulations, by the way.

Scully: Mom... what do we need help with?

Margaret Scully: I don't know. It's just, well you shouldn't have to worry. You have to let people do for you. She's a very highly recommended baby nurse, by the way.

Scully: Oh, Mom.

---

[Scully opens a box containing two dolls, one in pink, the other in blue]

Scully: This has got to be a conspiracy.

First Woman Party-Goer: Aw... Maybe it'll be twins.

Scully: Thank you, but I would settle for one very healthy boy.

Women: Oh?

Scully: Or girl.

Women: Aww!

Second Woman Party-Goer: So many secrets, Margaret.

Margaret Scully: What do you expect? My daughter works for the FBI.

---

Dr Lev: Excuse me? Can I help you?

Billy Miles: Dr Lev, isn't it?

Dr Lev: I'm sorry. I don't know who you are or how you got in here but we don't allow visitors.

Billy Miles: I won't be visiting long. I've just come to verify it's true.

Dr Lev: Verify that what's true?

Billy Miles: That your work's been fruitful. I can see that it has by the abomination you're holding in your hands. [Dr Lev is holding an alien baby]

Dr Lev: You'll have to leave now.

Billy Miles: Your work here is done. [He strikes suddenly. Blood spatters on the jars around the room and Dr Lev's body falls to the ground. Billy Miles pours an accelerant onto the body and the floor, lights a match to ignite the fluid and leaves the room as it's engulfed in flames]

---

Doggett: The last person I'd expect to see knocking on my door on a Saturday morning — Agent Mulder.

Mulder: You can drop the Agent, Agent Doggett. It's just plain old Fox Mulder now.

Doggett: Right. You want to come in, Fox? I was just watching a race.

Mulder: That's what I was doing. Slightly different race though. [He picks up the remote and switches to a newscast reporting an arson at a medical research clinic in Germantown, Maryland] Zeus Genetics. That ring a bell?

Doggett: Yeah. That's where Scully believed they were doing tests on women — putting alien babies in them or something like that — against their will. Wasn't ever completely explained.

Mulder: Looks like somebody's attempt to make sure it never will be.

Doggett: I'd say that's more than attempt. Looks like there's going to be nothing left.

Mulder: I think that's the idea — to cover up the kind of research that was going on there. That's why I came to talk to you.

Doggett: What do you want from me?

Mulder: How about a ride?

---

Doggett: Hey, Gene.

Agent Crane: Not the way I want to be spending my Saturday afternoon, John. I had to leave my kid's ball game.

Doggett: Sorry about that. I didn't say you had to come do it yourself.

Agent Crane: Fire Marshall thought I was kidding when I told him I wanted to sift all this. Seeing it, I thought I was kidding, too. [He indicates Mulder, talking on a mobile across the room] He put you onto this, didn't he? What the hell are you doing, John? You don't have to answer to him. He's out of the Bureau.

Doggett: Well, he thinks there's something here.

Agent Crane: I'm certain there is. Just not anything the FBI needs to be looking for.

Mulder: Agent Doggett? [Doggett joins Mulder] Hey, I hope you don't mind me dropping your name with the local PD. They just told me that they contacted everyone at Zeus Genetics except for one man — a Dr Lev — a founder, and head of clinical research.

Doggett: And what? You think we're going to find his body here in the ashes?

Mulder: That would probably stand to reason.

Doggett: What is it exactly we're looking for, being I'm starting to piss a lot of people off, Mr Mulder?

Mulder: Pissing people off comes with the territory, Agent Doggett. It's part of working on the X-Files.

Doggett: Well, at the risk of pissing you off, I think I've wasted about enough of my weekend.

Mulder: Hey, I told you Dr Lev was a founder of the clinic. Would you like to know who his cofounder was? Dr Parenti. Agent Scully's obstetrician through the first two-thirds of her pregnancy.

Doggett: And you think he burned down this clinic?

Mulder: I don't know, but if I'm the Agent assigned to the X-Files, I sure as hell would want to ask him. Worst it could do is piss him off.

---

[Mulder picks the lock of the door to the Parenti Medical Group and enters the offices]

Mulder: Knock, knock.

Doggett: Right. We get caught in here, what are you going to say then?

Mulder: I'll just say I'm with you, Agent Doggett. [He hands the lock pick kit to Doggett] It's Saturday anyway, right? We're just having a look around.

[They split up to search the premises. Doggett enters a room lined with jars of foetuses]

Doggett: Hey, Mulder.

[Mulder goes to join Doggett, but is intercepted by Dr Parenti]

Dr Parenti: Who are you?

Mulder: Me?

Dr Parenti: Yes, you, sir. What do you think you're doing in this office?

Mulder: I'm with an FBI agent who would like to ask you the exact same question. Dr Parenti, isn't it?

Dr Parenti: I'm in the middle of a very delicate medical procedure. Whatever you want, you don't just come barging in here. I don't care who you are.

Doggett: This medical procedure... it have anything to do with this? [The foetus collection]

Dr Parenti: Please...

Doggett: Why don't you tell us what we're looking at here, Dr Parenti?

Dr Parenti: You people have no right to be here. I want you to leave.

Mulder: What is this? Some kind of showroom?

Dr Parenti: Do you know what I've been through in the past 24 hours? Close friend and colleague is missing. Much of my life's work has been destroyed.

Doggett: How about you explain what you are doing? What these things are.

Dr Parenti: They are what we are all working so hard to prevent — children with non-survivable birth defects.

Mulder: Does that work include experimentation with alien embryos? Work that you would destroy to cover up such allegations?

Dr Parenti: Where do you get these ideas?

Mulder: From a friend of mine — a former patient of yours — Dana Scully.

Dr Parenti: If I'm such a Dr Frankenstein how is it that Ms Scully is carrying a perfectly healthy child? In her own medical opinion.

Mulder: Is she?

Doggett: I'd say this man's suitably pissed off. Why don't we let him get back to work. Let's go, Mulder.

Dr Parenti: Thank you.

---

Duffy Haskell: How's it going? You look unsure.

Lizzy Gill: No. I think she trusts me.

Duffy Haskell: Good. We're almost at the end.

---

Mulder: You found something, didn't you?

Agent Crane: [to Doggett] You still answering to him?

Doggett: We found teeth and a porcelain bridge. We're waiting on Dr Lev's dental records to make positive ID.

Mulder: Anything else?

Doggett: Unidentifiable biological material fused with laboratory grade silica. I know what you're thinking. But there's lots here that's unidentifiable. Doesn't mean it's alien.

Mulder: Let's ask Dr Parenti... if it's okay with Agent Crane.

---

Dr Parenti: Hello? Hello?

Billy Miles: Packing, Dr Parenti?

Dr Parenti: I'm sorry. This office is closed.

Billy Miles: Yes, it is.

---

Mulder: The man loves his work. [The office door is open]

Doggett: Dr Parenti?

Mulder: Agent Doggett. Look at this. [The door handle is completely broken, it spins freely]

Doggett: Dr Parenti. Dr Parenti. What the hell is that? [Dr Parenti's head is displayed on a shelf inside a foetus jar] Hey, Mulder. Mulder, better come see this. Mulder? [Billy Miles throws Mulder through a plate glass wall] Right there! Don't move! Stop! Stop there! Stop there or I'll shoot! [Billy Miles advances and leans over Mulder body, Doggett sees the bumps on his neck and fires twice. Billy Miles reacts to the chest shots, but keeps coming]

---

Scully: Hold still, Mulder. This should just about do it. [She is treating a gash to Mulder's right temple]

Mulder: Ahh! Scully.

Scully: Sorry.

Mulder: I see why you gave up a career in medicine for the FBI, Scully. You've got manos de piedra.

Scully: Sorry.

Mulder: Imagine if he'd really connected.

Scully: Who?

Mulder: Billy Miles.

Scully: Billy Miles? He did this?

Mulder: Ask Agent Doggett. He saw him.

Doggett: If you ask me, the kid was whacked out on something. Whatever it was, he's feeling no pain.

Mulder: Ask me, the kid isn't a kid.

Doggett: Oh, don't tell me he's an alien.

Mulder: He is a type of alien. A human replacement. One who looks human. Look at his strength. The way he took those slugs.

Doggett: I've seen plenty of guys whacked out on chemicals, keep on coming.

Mulder: Well, then, you're ignoring who Billy Miles is. You, of all people, Agent Doggett who's supposedly running the X-Files.

Doggett: You're ignoring the fact that he bled red blood. Now, every single X-File I read — and I read them all, Mulder — what you call aliens bleed green, right?

Mulder: Well, Billy Miles is a whole new deal. He's an alien abductee who was returned after hideous procedures were performed on him. And who miraculously returns to so-called perfect health when his body completely sheds its skin.

Doggett: Same thing happened to you.

Mulder: Same thing would have happened to me if I'd been left alone. If Scully hadn't treated me.

Scully: What I want to know is what Billy Miles was doing at that medical office.

Mulder: Same as when he torched Zeus Genetics and destroyed their experiments with alien biology and the doctors performing them.

Scully: And what were you doing there... Mulder?

Mulder: Looking for answers.

Scully: To what?

Mulder: One of those doctors was your doctor.

Scully: Mulder...

Mulder: Listen, Scully, I'm sorry, but I just need to know that this baby of yours is going to be all right.

Scully: My baby is fine, Mulder. I've had it checked over and over again with my new doctor that I trust implicitly.

[The apartment door opens and Lizzy Gill enters carrying some dry cleaning]

Lizzy Gill: Oh, I'm sorry, Dana. I didn't...

Scully: Come on in, Lizzy. It's all right. We just need some space to talk.

Lizzy Gill: It's okay. I've got plenty to do. Excuse me. [She leaves the room]

Scully: It's okay. She's just helping me out here at my mother's insistence.

Mulder: That's... that's all I'm trying to do. Just make sure nothing happens to you; that this baby you're carrying is born without any surprises.

---

Lizzy Gill: [on phone] Hi. It's me. We've got trouble.

Duffy Haskell: Where are you?

Lizzy Gill: I'm at her apartment. She's with her two partners. They're asking all the right questions.

Duffy Haskell: Lizzy, listen to me. She trusts you. You've got to play to that. You have to keep a cool head. [He turns to see Billy Miles] Who are you? [Billy Miles removes Duffy Haskell's head in one strike, the head and phone drop to the ground]

---

Doggett: Assistant Director.

Skinner: Heads have been rolling, Agent Doggett, all in your direction. PD got the call. Passer-by saw the door of the building wide open. Name of the victim flagged a previous FBI investigation.

Doggett: Duffy Haskell.

Skinner: Yeah. Came to see you and Scully on a case involving pregnant women carrying alien babies. Coroner says that the way his neck is severed defies logic and use of any conventional-type weapon.

Doggett: What is this place?

Skinner: An illegal medical facility... for the purpose of human cloning. It goes on from here. In fact, it occupies the entire warehouse.

Doggett: You read about these things, but you don't imagine they exist.

Skinner: Yeah, just like aliens.

Doggett: Come on, what are you saying? That that's what was going on here? That they're making alien babies?

Skinner: No, nobody's saying that, Agent Doggett. At least not yet. But what I do have to tell you, is not going to put your mind any more at ease. We found prenatal records here. A Dr Lev and a Dr Parenti, working with this Duffy Haskell, monitoring Scully's pregnancy.

Doggett: This Dr Parenti, it's true he's one of Scully's doctors but from everything I know, Scully's checked out fine.

Skinner: You seem to be missing the point. [Mulder joins them]

Mulder: And what point would that be? What?

Skinner: Talk to you a minute? [Mulder follows Scully outside]

Mulder: You said there'd been a murder.

Skinner: Yeah, we'll get there. Some business we need to clear up. Personal business. About Scully's baby, about who the father is.

Mulder: Ahh... Yeah, I hear there's a pool running down at the FBI, placing bets.

Skinner: I've had my suspicions. That is, until I found out that you had questions. Questions about Scully's pregnancy itself.

Mulder: You want to know who the father is, that's Scully's business. But if you're asking me how a woman who was diagnosed as barren and unable to conceive is about to give birth in a couple days, that's an answer I can't honestly give.

Skinner: Well, I need answers. In light of what we found in there and in light of Scully's due date I need good, hard answers. Fast. [He pulls out his mobile]

Mulder: Sir, just... Let me. [He takes the mobile and dials]

---

Scully: Lizzy, are you going to get that? Lizzy? [She gets out of the shower and answers the phone herself] Hello?

Mulder: Hey, Scully, it's me. Are you all right?

Scully: Yeah. I just ran from the shower.

Mulder: I need to see you. I've got Skinner with me. It's not something that can really wait.

Scully: What?

Mulder: It's about your pregnancy. Skinner's got some questions based on some new information.

Scully: What...? Mulder, what are you talking about?

Mulder: Evidence of interference by someone.

[Scully puts the phone down, quickly walks back to the bathroom and opens the door. Lizzie Gill is in the process of switching Scully's prescription pills again]

Scully: What are you doing? What do you think you're doing with these? Who are you? Who are you?!

---

Dr Speake: I want you to know you can stop worrying, Dana. Your baby is fine. Everything is absolutely as it should be, 100%. The pills you were worried about, were just vitamin supplements. Nothing harmful. Nothing you'd be afraid to give any expectant mother. I know it doesn't make sense, but it's a relief, I'm sure. [She leaves as Margaret Scully enters]

Margaret Scully: I am so sorry, Dana. I brought Lizzie into your home. This is all my fault. You know I would never let anything happen to you. I'd never knowingly let anybody hurt you.

Scully: I know, Mom.

Margaret Scully: I'm so worried about you. You keep everything so bottled up. [Skinner arrives, joining Mulder at the door of the room]

Skinner: Mulder! How is she?

Mulder: She's fine, according to her doctor. Apparently, it was a false alarm. Whatever this woman was up to...

Skinner: Well, we won't be able to hold the woman based on those findings. But Agent Doggett's been talking to her. I think you ought to hear what she has to say.

---

Lizzy Gill: I knew people would kill for what I know but... not like this.

Doggett: Not going to let that happen. Just what you told me and Agent Crane.

Lizzy Gill: For the past ten years I've been working as a research scientist trying to produce human clones — long before the media circus with sheep and cows. The work was painstaking, largely unsuccessful, but there was a lot of interest and a lot of money.

Mulder: Money from who?

Lizzy Gill: Orders came from government men. But they're all dead now.

Mulder: But the work continued.

Lizzy Gill: We were surprisingly successful with a clone from a human egg and alien DNA. DNA that the government had since 1947.

Skinner: What do you mean by success?

Lizzy Gill: Alien babies. Birthed by human mothers desperate to conceive. They didn't live more than a couple of days, but tissue and stem cells is what we were after for other experiments.

Mulder: What other experiments?

Lizzy Gill: I don't know anything about that. But I know it was something good.

Mulder: What did you do to Scully?

Lizzy Gill: We were trying to protect her.

Mulder: What did you do to her?

Lizzy Gill: No, you don't understand.

Mulder: Tell me what's wrong with her! Tell me what's wrong with her baby!

Doggett: Listen to her. What she's saying.

Lizzy Gill: There's nothing wrong with her. That's what I'm trying to tell you. The child she is carrying is very special. One could only hope to create that in a lab. A perfect human child, but with no human frailties. [Mulder storms out of the room, Skinner indicates that Doggett should follow him]

Doggett: Mulder! [Mulder ignores Doggett. Agent Crane intercepts Doggett]

Agent Crane: Agent Doggett! I got something, John. This guy Billy Miles called in from a Dr Parenti's office. He wants to give himself up.

Doggett: All right, let's get over there.

---

Scully: Yes?

Mulder: It's me.

Scully: What's wrong?

Mulder: You here alone?

Scully: Yes. My mom just went to the...

Mulder: Whatever you can't get elsewhere, just throw it together.

Scully: Mulder, to go where? Mulder, just stop! Can you tell me what's wrong? Is it something to do with my baby?

Mulder: No, your, your baby is fine. It's you who's in danger now, Scully.

Scully: From who? Mulder, from what?

Mulder: I don't know, I'm not sure. I'm not sure about anything. I just know I got to get you out of here.

Scully: Look, Mulder, look, I can't take this! I can't live like this — as, as the object of some unending X-File.

Mulder: This isn't about the X-Files, Scully. It is only about you. Now, you are going to have this baby and I'm going to do everything I can to protect it. I just can't do that here.

---

Mulder: [answering mobile] Mulder.

Doggett: It's John Doggett. I'm at Dr Parenti's office. Billy Miles called us, looking to turn himself in, only he ain't here.

Mulder: Agent Doggett...

Doggett: Yeah, I know. Something's wrong. Something doesn't make any sense.

[The lights in the apartment go out]

Mulder: [to Scully] Leave the suitcase. [They leave the apartment. Just as they turn a corner, Billy Miles comes down the hall from the other direction and enters Scully's apartment]

---

[Mulder takes Scully's car keys]

Mulder: Get in, go around.

[The car is blocked in, Mulder bumps the cars in front and behind, but can't get enough room to pull out. Billy Miles comes out the front of the building and begins walking quickly toward them]

Scully: Mulder, lock your door.

Mulder: I don't think that matters much, Scully.

[Billy Miles heads directly for their car, striding purposefully across the road, when he is unexpectedly flattening by a speeding car. The car backs up to Mulder's door and the dark window slides down]

Krycek: We haven't got much time. Get in.

Scully: Mulder? [Billy Miles is slowly getting up]

Krycek: Let's go!

---

Krycek: You should all know exactly what it is you're up against... what Agent Scully's up against.

Doggett: You realise you're all listening to someone who tried to kill me. He left you for dead.

Mulder: Tell us about Billy Miles.

Krycek: There are others just like him. You can call them what you want. They're human replacements, alien replicants. They're virtually unstoppable.

Skinner: What do they want?

Krycek: They want to knock out any and all attempts by us to survive the final days — when they come back to retake the planet.

Doggett: So, what, they're wandering around among us... looking for trouble? Some kind of alien lawmen?

Krycek: You saw what they did to those doctors. They're fearless. And they answer to no one, except their own biological imperative... to survive.

Mulder: What about Scully? What do they want with her?

Scully: They want my baby. Why?

Krycek: They didn't even know about it. I don't know exactly how they could have found out just how... how important it is... how special.

Scully: My baby is normal.

Krycek: Your baby was a miracle. Born of a barren mother's barren womb.

Mulder: Are you saying that they're afraid of it?

Krycek: They're afraid of its implications. That it could somehow be greater than them. Something... more human than human.

Scully: I don't believe this.

Skinner: You wanted to destroy her child.

Krycek: I wanted to destroy the truth before they learn the truth.

Mulder: That there's a god... a higher power.

Doggett: I don't believe this crap; I don't believe you're all sitting around here listening to it even when you know this man's a liar. Worse than that.

Krycek: You can believe what you want, but I don't think you can take the chance that I'm wrong. There isn't hospital that's safe enough. She may never even make it out of this building.

Doggett: Why don't you just shut up?

Mulder: Agent Doggett. Get on the phone. If we're going to get Scully out of here we're going to need some help.

---

Agent Reyes: [on mobile] Agent Doggett? Agent Doggett, can you hear me? I'm in the cab on my way from the airport.

Doggett: I'll meet you down in the parking garage. I have a car there waiting for you.

Agent Reyes: Where are we going?

Doggett: I'll tell you when you get here. [He hangs up as he reaches the lift, where he is joined by Scully, who is flanked by Mulder and Skinner, Krycek is following]

Krycek: If I'm so full of crap, why all the precautions?

Skinner: Precisely because you are so full of crap, Krycek. Your ass stays here.

Agent Reyes: [on mobile] Agent Doggett, where are you?

Doggett: Coming around to you.

Agent Reyes: [to driver] Stop the car. [She gets out of the car, Doggett pulls up beside the taxi and pays the driver]

Doggett: [to driver] Go. Get out of here.

Agent Reyes: I'm guessing I don't have time to go to the little girls' room?

Doggett: [on mobile] Okay, bring her down. [The taxi slams on its brakes, nearly hitting Billy Miles. He ignores the taxi and heads for the lifts] Mulder, Skinner, he's in the garage! [The lift has reached the garage] Go back! Go back!

Skinner: Get back in the elevator! [Mulder and Scully quickly get back into the lift, the doors close just as Billy Miles reaches them]

Doggett: [on mobile] He's on the stairs coming up.

[Skinner, Mulder and Scully arrive back on the fifth floor where Krycek is waiting]

Krycek: Hey, look who's back.

Skinner: He's in the building. [Mulder holds the lift doors open]

Krycek: What do you want me to do?

Mulder: You're going to protect her.

---

[Agent Reyes and Scully head out of the garage. Agent Crane stops the car at the entrance as a garbage truck is blocking their path. On the roof, Billy Miles is about to attack Skinner, when Mulder pushes him from behind. Billy Miles falls into the back of the garbage truck, which is compacting its load. Job finished, the driver pulls away and Agent Crane waves Agent Reyes and Scully through]

Agent Crane: Go! Go! [As he watches the car drive away, bumps are clearly visible on the back of his neck]