The X-Files Page #25

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WELL-MANICURED MAN

Mr. Mulder.

MULDER:

What happened to Kurtzweil?

WELL-MANICURED MAN

He's come and gone.

The W.M.M. moves to Mulder, who doesn't trust him for a

second. Mulder is still breathing hard, sizing up this

scene.

MULDER:

Where's Scully?

WELL-MANICURED MAN

I have answers for you.

MULDER:

Is she alive?

WELL-MANICURED MAN

Yes.

Mulder stares at the W.M.M. - measuring him.

WELL-MANICURED MAN

I'm quite prepared to tell you

everything, though there isn't much

you haven't guessed.

MULDER:

About the conspiracy?

WELL-MANICURED MAN

I think of it as an agreement. A word

your father liked to use.

MULDER:

I want to know where Scully is.

The Well-Manicured Man suddenly reaches into his jacket

pocket, without warning or explanation. Mulder tensing

slightly. He removes a thin felt envelope.

WELL-MANICURED MAN

The location of Agent Scully. And the

means to save her life.

(off Mulder's look)

Please...

He gestures toward the car where the Driver stands with

the back door open. Mulder hesitates, then steps from

the doorway. Moving past the W.M.M., sliding in. The

W.M.M. gets in after him, closes the door. The car pulls

away.

CUT TO:

INT. LIMOUSINE - NIGHT - CONTINUOUS

WE SEE MULDER in the back seat, reflected in the

rear-view mirror. Where we also see the eyes of the

DRIVER watching him. Mulder is handed the felt envelope

by the W.M.M.

MULDER:

What is it?

WELL-MANICURED MAN

A weak vaccine against the virus Agent

Scully has been infected with. It must

be administered with ninety six

hours.

MULDER:

(beat)

You're lying.

WELL-MANICURED MAN

No. Though I have no way to prove

otherwise. The virus is

extraterrestrial. We know very little

about it, except that it is the

original inhabitant of this planet.

MULDER:

(dubious, to say the least)

A virus?

WELL-MANICURED MAN

A simple, unstoppable lifeform. What

is a virus but a colonizing force that

cannot be defeated? Living in a cave,

underground, until it mutates. And

attacks.

MULDER:

This is what you've been conspiring to

conceal? A disease?

WELL-MANICURED MAN

No! For God sake you've got it all

backwards.

This outburst comes suddenly, unexpectedly.

WELL-MANICURED MAN

Aids, the ebola virus -- on the

evolutionary scale they are newborns.

This virus walked the planet long

before the dinosaurs.

MULDER:

What do you mean, walked?

WELL-MANICURED MAN

Your aliens, Agent Mulder, your little

green men, first landed here millions

of years ago. Those that didn't leave

have been laying dormant underground

since the last Ice Age. In the form of

an evolved pathogen. Waiting to be

reconstituted when the alien race from

which it came returns to colonize the

planet. Using us as hosts. Against

this we have no defense. Nothing but a

weak vaccine.

(beat)

Do you see why it was kept secret? Why

even the best men -- men like your

father -- could not let the truth be

known?

The force and conviction of his delivery leave Mulder

shaken.

WELL-MANICURED MAN

Until Dallas, we believed the virus

was simply a controlling organism.

That mass infection would make us a

slave race.

MULDER:

That's why you bombed the building.

The infected firemen, the boy --

WELL-MANICURED MAN

Imagine our surprise when they began

to gestate. My group has been working

cooperatively with the alien

colonists, facilitating their

programs. To give us access to the

virus. In false hope we might be able

to secretly find a cure. So that we

might save ourselves, as the last of

the species.

(beat)

Your father wisely refused to believe

this, choosing hope over selfishness.

Hope is the only future he had: his

children,

(beat, then self-revealing)

The only future any of us have.

This draws a look back in the mirror from the Driver.

MULDER:

But... he sacrificed his own daughter.

My sister, Samantha.

WELL-MANICURED MAN

The only true survivors of the viral

holocaust will be those immune to it:

those vaccinated against it and

human/alien hybrids. Your father

arranged for your sister's abduction.

He allowed her to be taken to an alien

hybrid program, so that she would

survive. As a clone.

(beat)

He had different hopes for you. That

you would uncover the truth about the

Project. That you would stop it. That

you would fight the future.

Mulder sits stunned by this. As if somehow his destiny

has been validated, if not pre-ordained. Or maybe just

justified.

MULDER:

Why are you telling me this?

WELL-MANICURED MAN

I thought it only fair you should

know, given how hard you've worked.

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