And Then There Were None Extra: A parody based on a combination of the novel and the recent television adaptation of Agatha Christie’s "And Then There Were None"

(Scene: A mansion on Soldier Island.  The intended victims have been invited to this place by mysterious hosts, Mr. and Mrs. U.N. Owen, through a variety of seemingly legitimate means (promise of a job, invitation to a party, investigate the other guests, etc.).  The island is cut off from the rest of the world and a storm is perpetually brewing.  As the increasingly befuddled guests wander about the place, eat dinner, and sit around waiting for their hosts, a recording suddenly starts announcing their names and their crimes of MURDER)

Mr. Rogers: I have no idea why my name is mentioned on this thing, I’m just the untrustworthy butler who arranged his employer’s death for the money.

Mrs. Rogers: I have no idea why my name is mentioned on this thing, I’m just the untrustworthy housekeeper-cook whose husband intimated her into silence and accessory before, during, and after the fact.

Emily Brent: No need to worry, you two: my hypocritical piety does not notice social inferiors, unless I feel the need to drive them to suicide for their shameful behavior.

Vera Claythorne: Does that include me, a disgraced-and-possibly-homicidal-governess-turned-nondescript-secretary?

Philip Lombard: Not to my mercenary and mass murdering eyes, sweet cheeks.

General Macarthur: That is not how a gentleman soldier behaves, sir – one must be betrayed by one’s wife and comrade first, then go for the murdering.

Anthony Marston: Why fuss with all that, when you can simply get drunk and commit vehicular homicide through life?  My entitled status lets me get away with literally everything.

Dr. Armstrong: Ugh, speaking of drunk, I wish it was you I had drunkenly operated on – I wouldn’t have minded the death by malpractice so much.

Detective Inspector Blore: I second that: why couldn’t he have been the one who was killed in prison as a result of my criminal activity?

Judge Wargrave: Not like the one who I had sentenced to hang – that guy was totes guilts.

Extra: Soooo, I just realized that I got on the wrong boat: I was supposed to be on the one headed for Sodor Island, and I learned that this is actually Soldier Island.  Anyone know when the guy’s coming back to pick us up?

(Everyone else stares at her)

Mr. Rogers: (Ominously) Not until tomorrow morning at the earliest, miss.  And there is no telephone to call anyone for help.

Extra: That’s conveniently unhelpful.  Now I get to spend the night surrounded by a group of killers, that’s just splendid.

Lombard: Excuse me, I did not kill anyone, I only took all the food and left 21 guys to die, there’s a difference.

Miss Brent: (Knitting 10 death shrouds) Yes my girl, none of us directly killed anyone, so all you need to fear is indirect, negligent, and/or arranged death.

Marston: Actually, I did directly kill those two kids with my car, but they had no one to blame but themselves for wandering the road on the shoulder and getting in the way of my acid trip.  Or was it my drunken stupor?  Or was I actually stone-cold sober at the time?  I really can’t remember the details.

Armstrong: And I suppose I did actually create the incision that allowed the entire volume of my patient’s blood supply to leave her body, but you know, it’s not as if I did that on purpose.

Wargrave: I ordered other people to hang that prisoner – does that count?

Vera: Yes, but wasn’t he innocent?

Wargrave: Absolutely not!  The evidence was irrefutable, I saw to it myself!

Vera: Then why are you here with all of us allegedly guilty people?

Wargrave: … Would you look at that, the boy is being poisoned!

Marston: (Drinking out of a barrel) Am not, I can totally hold my liquor!  (Dies)

Extra: Whoa!  That sociopath was just straight-up murdered!

Armstrong: Indeed: I diagnose the cause as “Not entirely natural.”

Miss Brent: How odd.

Macarthur: Quite.

Extra: I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am not staying here another minute!  (She tries to paddle away from the island on driftwood and fails; she returns to the mansion to find that everyone has gone to bed) How can you all go to sleep when someone’s just been killed?!

Mr. Rogers: (Wearing his dressing gown and a nightcap) Miss, I must ask that you not disturb the other guests or my wife, who is terribly distraught by the recent turn of events and her guilty conscience.

Extra: Ask away!

Mr. Rogers: Ahem, um….

Extra: I’m barricading myself in my room.

(The next morning Mrs. Rogers is found dead, presumably also poisoned)

Mr. Rogers: Oh dear.  It seems breakfast will be delayed a bit this morning.

Miss Brent: The lower classes can’t handle anything.  No wonder they need me to tell them how to live their lives.

Vera: (Enters the parlor where everyone is gathered) Two of the 10 soldier boy figurines that were prominently displayed on the dining room table are gone!  And the two deaths match the first two verses of the “Ten Little Soldier Boys” poem that is eerily hanging in all the rooms!

Blore: Are you pointing out these facts to us because you’re the mastermind behind the murders and you don’t want anyone to miss all the symbolism?

Vera: Absolutely not!  I’m just proud of myself for figuring it out, that’s all.

Lombard: Love a girl with brains.  Want me to ratchet this flirting up a notch?

Vera: At least wait until the seventh or eighth victim, for appearance’s sake.  I am a lady, after all.

Armstrong: You’re a hysterical woman and a mere secretary, is what you are; now stop getting yourself and your betters all in a tizzy and CALM THE BLAZES DOWN!!!

Blore: And you all thought I was the annoying one here.

Wargrave: I must say, I didn’t expect that there would be such entertaining performances when all this started to go down.

Lombard: Come again, pillar of the community?

Wargrave: Don’t mind a weak old man, I’ll just go back to blending into the furniture and only speaking when I need assistance with my cancer-induced feebleness.  (He takes a pill labelled “Weak Old Man Medicine”)

Miss Brent: What I want to know is, who is going to cook breakfast now that Cook is dead?  Well, someone had to ask it.

Mr. Rogers: I’ll soldier on without her, madam.

Extra: (Sitting on top of the staircase banister, wearing the kitchen knives on a bandolier) Poor choice of words.  Anyone care for tinned beef and tap water?  `Cause I am not drinking anything that comes out of a bottle here ever again.

Vera: Why hasn’t the man with the boat come back to get us yet?  Are we actually stranded here, then?

Mr. Rogers: It appears so, miss.  Most unfortunate.

Vera: That’s it, I’m swimming for it!  I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again!  (Tries to swim for it)

Wargrave: (Wading into the waves) Wait!  Don’t leave now, you’ll ruin the grand scheme!

Vera: What?  I can’t hear you over the tides screaming out my guilt!

Wargrave: I said, you won’t get 10 feet in these currents, so come help a weak old man back to the mansion, would you, dear?

Vera: What you actually said sounded much shorter, but I’m too distraught by visions of that little boy ghost following me everywhere.

(On another part of the beach, Macarthur reflects on his naughty behavior)

Macarthur: Suppose I do deserve some sort of comeuppance for sending my wife’s lover to his death.  Wasn’t exactly cricket.

Lombard: (In the mansion) Yeah, I flunked cricket.  (He takes his gun out of his desk drawer and fondles it lovingly) You’re the only justice I know, but I fear you also will be the one to kill me.  Can justice and irony exist simultaneously?  (Pockets the gun and wanders the halls)

Blore: (Appears suddenly behind him in the main hall) My gut says the murderer is Armstrong!

Lombard: (Almost shoots him) Why would a doctor kill people?  Scratch that, I forgot we’re all murderers here: why would he kill random people?

Blore: For kicks and giggles?

Lombard: How did you ever make detective?

Blore: No one paid too much attention to my criminal machinations, so I got promoted.

Macarthur: (Enters the mansion still wearing his bathing suit) Well, gents, I’m ready to die now, how about you?

Lombard: Fat chance.

Macarthur: Suit yourself – I’ll change into more suitable attire, then go out on the rocks to peacefully wait for the end.  It’s so much better when you don’t struggle, don’t you think?

Vera: (Appears) Did somebody say “drowning”?

Lombard: I’ll catch your action later; must semi-investigate our murders first.

(Everyone clears out of the main hall; Extra enters from the servants’ quarters carrying tools)

Extra: Isn’t anyone going to help me build a raft?  No?  These are the least proactive would-be victims I have ever met.

(Hours later, Macarthur is found bludgeoned to death)

Vera: He’s been killed, just like the next soldier in the poem!  And another figurine is gone!

Wargrave: (Washing his bloody hands) What are you, the narrator?

Lombard: Blore, you’re police, why aren’t you dusting for fingerprints on the weapon that was so carelessly left behind?

Blore: Because the pretense to get me here was only to spy on you all so I didn’t bring that equipment, and as you yourself have observed, I’m a bad cop!

Miss Brent: We should at least give these bodies a decent Christian burial, because we’re all Christians here, you know, Christian, Christian, Christian, deliver me from evil, and all that.

Lombard: No burying just yet: we need the real police to investigate before that.  Boys, help me carry the retired general who let himself go later in life – we have to add him to what I’ve started calling “The Corpse Room.”

Miss Brent: Well then, I will carry on with my knitting and viewing you all judgmentally.

Extra: (Enters wearing work clothes and sweat) Another one?!  Where have all you people  been that you missed it when it happened?!  I’ve been signaling boats for help out there for hours, and they keep ignoring me!

Wargrave: All nearby residents have been instructed to disregard anything that happens here… so I assume.

(Tea time: coffee is served)

Vera: (To Miss Brent, who has moved on to making winding sheets) So, what’d you do to get corralled with this lot?

Miss Brent: Nothing whatsoever that would cause me to be lumped in with you degenerates!  The girl mentioned on the recording as the one I supposedly murdered was only an ungrateful hussy who got herself in a family way and then got herself thrown under a train when I cast her out to the wolves as she so rightfully deserved!  Could anyone blame me for that?

Vera: I think everyone would, yes.

Miss Brent: Hmpf.  What’s your story, then?

Vera: The boy I was governess to went out swimming when he was too weak for any physical activity; I valiantly tried to save him but he still drowned anyway.

Miss Brent: Bet you let him drown to get him out of the way so his uncle would inherit the family money instead and be rich enough so he could marry you for so-called love.

Vera: You’re supposed to believe I’m being wrongfully accused up until the very end!  (She storms off to stare into the distance)

Extra: (Also sitting in the parlor) Wow, you are all awful, awful people.  (Leaves to construct a hot air balloon as the power appropriately goes out)

Armstrong: (Wandering the halls) I’m afraid of the dark, but that’s overwhelmed by my feeling a bit peckish with all this stress – what’s on the menu for tonight?  (He finds Mr. Rogers had been hacked up with an axe while preparing a lovely meal, and freaks out.  He summons the others to the main hall) It happened again!  I can’t take any more distress!

Vera: (Punches him in the face) I can’t believe I’m saying this, but man up!

Blore: Yeah, else you’ll be absolutely useless carrying the stiff upstairs.

(Armstrong runs out screaming)

Lombard: (To Blore) Thanks, flatfoot, I’d just recovered from transporting the last one.

(He and Blore drag Mr. Rogers upstairs while planning their crime scene clean-up business for when they return to civilization.  Later, they all gather in a separate gathering room)

Wargrave: In order to speed up the deductions, I worked out that the names of our hosts are riddles to mean “Unknown.”  As in, the killer must be one of us, get it?  Get it?

Vera: Yes!  Way to be obvious about it.

Wargrave: I thought it was delightfully subtle, up until the moment it screams “Death!” in your face.  But that’s just my opinion.

Blore: By the way, I saw that Lombard’s got a gun, and I don’t, which makes me nervous.

(They all turn on Lombard)

Lombard: What, I’d’ve used it by now if I was the murderer and not just a murderer.  And if it bothers you so much, get your own!

(They scatter yet again)

Vera: (Re-enters the parlor and finds Miss Brent with one of her own knitting needles sticking out of her neck) Blast.  They’ll think I did this one.  (She shouts into the mansion) Everyone!  We’ve got another body!

Lombard: (Leans over the upstairs banister) Could you give me at least another five minutes before making those kinds of announcements?  I may deserve death, but I do not deserve all this manual labor beforehand!

Vera: You want me to recite the next verses of the poem and the figurine tally again?

Lombard: Never!  (Runs downstairs, scoops up Miss Brent, and deposits her in The Corpse Room, which is getting crowded)

Vera: Drat.  Now I’m the only female intended victim in this testosterone fest.

Extra: (Falls through the ceiling to the ground floor) That was a bust.  So, how many of you are left?

Vera: Five.  “Five little soldier boys – ”

Extra: No thank you!  Gotta get cracking on the next escape plan.  (She sets off to construct a telegraph system in the attic)

(Armstrong cozies up to Wargrave in the dining room)

Armstrong: Seeing as we’re the only gentlemen in this establishment now, I think it’s best we stick together.

Wargrave: We disagree on the definition of “gentlemen,” I see, but go on.

(They plot)

Lombard: (Returns to his room and sees that his gun drawer has been left open with no gun inside) Why did I never get a proper holster for this thing?  (Shouts out over the upstairs banister) You can relax now, folks, my gun’s missing!  (Everyone screams in panic) No one’s ever satisfied.

(They gather in the main hall, yet again)

Blore: Right, it’s cop time!  We are ripping this place apart, and we will find that gun and the hidden treasure if it kills what’s left of us, dagnabbit!

Vera: What hidden treasure?

Blore: Isn’t there’s always a hidden treasure in this things?

Lombard: Argggghhhh….

(They rip the house apart, ruining furniture and precious artwork alike.  They wind up also ripping wires from a generator when they burst open the attic door)

Extra: (Wearing headphones) Hey!  I almost had that working, you dolts!

(They then have a strip show as each of the bedrooms are searched, which includes all items of clothing.  Wargrave and Blore decently cover themselves up, but Armstrong and Lombard insist upon having a hairy chest-off)

Wargrave: I know you both have bathrobes, so no need to show off in front of the ladies.

(Carrying a broken makeshift telegraph, Extra wolf-whistles down the hallway and tosses bills at the men on her way downstairs.  Meanwhile, Vera decides to model her scene-of-the-crime swimsuit as her room is searched, and Lombard decides to neither help the others nor to get dressed.  The two stare at each other)

Lombard: So.

Vera: So.

Lombard: I’ve been thinking that I’d like us to be on a first-name basis, unless you feel that’d be moving too fast.

Vera: I’d like that.  Want a peek? (Opens her bathrobe to show her modest bathing suit)

Lombard: Mm, risqué.

Blore: (Enters the hallway) All right, break it up, you people make me sick!

Lombard: He’s just jealous because we’re so pretty.

(That night, they gather for dinner)

Blore: I think the smartest course of action would be that we all travel in a group or individually.  Don’t know why I didn’t figure that out until now.

Lombard: Question: for the group bit, does that include trips to the loo? (Leers at Vera)

Vera: Do you actually think your creepiness is attractive?

Lombard: I’m counting on it.

Wargrave: Your collective indecisiveness is tedious – I’m heading off to read, by myself, alone, individually, and isolated.

Blore: Fine by me; thought you’d’ve been gone long before now anyway.

Wargrave: And to think our professions make us somewhat colleagues.  (Exits to be a target)

Vera: I’m off, too, unless you all care to follow me.

Lombard: Sure – (Sees Armstrong and Blore glaring at him) Actually, you go on ahead and get all caught up on that beauty rest, `cause after the past few days you definitely need it.

Vera: What a paragon of manhood.  (She goes up to her room, sees the horror movie little boy ghost flitting around, and passes out when her memories attack her.  Lombard, Armstrong, and Blore rush to her aid)

Lombard: Thought she was stronger than this.  Miscalculation there, Philip.  Then again, she is the only eligible female around here, and I may never get another chance to hook up with someone in my doomed life –

Armstrong: Smelling salts!  (She wakes up)

Blore: Brandy!  See, I can be nice.

Vera: Poison!

Blore: As if!  I would never dispatch someone in front of witnesses!

Lombard: (Had left and returns with liquor) Here’s something less dangerous: a bottle we all drink out of.  (Does so and passes it to Vera)

Vera: Ew, cooties.

(They suddenly remember Wargrave downstairs and decide to check on his mortality status)

Armstrong: Ooh, he’s dead!  See, see, he’s all deceased, no need to get any closer to check, I am a doctor, accept my professional opinion!

Blore: Yes, it appears that his brains were forcibly evicted through the back of his skull by means of a bullet through his forehead.

Armstrong: Bullet – gun – Lombard!  You did this, I know it!

Lombard: Did not!  Weren’t you even trying to pay attention to the reason we were ripping up the house earlier?!

Blore: Unless you stole your own gun and then said that someone else stole it to divert attention away from yourself!  That’s what I would’ve done.

Lombard: Be that as it may: you know what this means.

Blore: Nooooooo!!! (He and Lombard drag the body up to The Corpse Room)

(Down to four targets, they decide to party like it’s 1939, which it is)

Armstrong: This time I’m going to drink and get high on purpose, just like that guy I hated earlier, Marston!

Blore: Who?

(They get drunk and high.  Vera and Lombard do the serious slow dance in the corner)

Lombard: Seeing as we may possibly both be dead by tomorrow afternoon, I’ll get right to the point: I’m hot, you’re hot, let’s do this.  Plus you’ll have the extra benefit of me wanting to protect you that much more.

Vera: Your coercion is almost tempting.

Extra: (Passing by with camping gear) Don’t listen to him, girl, the Devil is a liar.

Lombard: Shut up!

Extra: You shut up!

Vera: Where are you going?

Extra: I decided to take my chances with the great outdoors.  At this point, I’m just afraid that one of you will kill me simply by accident.

Vera: But it’s cold and dark out there!

Extra: Beats this downer of a weekend social.  (Exits through the front door and sets up camp at the edge of the cliff.  Armstrong and Blore watch the couple with suspicion)

Armstrong: That’s it!  They’re the Un-Owens!  They plotted this whole thing!  I knew I hated them for a reason!

Blore: That makes absolutely no sense, but I’ll bite.

(They eventually are all partied out and return to their bedrooms en masse)

Vera: Should I go to sleep, or wait and see if there’ll be hanky-panky?  (Lombard enters her room uninvited) Hanky-panky it is.

Lombard: You know, I’m really not a nice guy.

Vera: Neither am I, but no one cares right now.  (Hanky-panky ensues)

(Blore sees Armstrong leave the mansion in the middle of the night)

          Blore: I knew it was him all along!  Lombard!  You’re the only other male here now!  (Lombard exits from Vera’s room, and Blore sees that they are both severely underdressed) Hanky-panky?

            Lombard: What’d you expect, that we’d be playing cribbage?

            Blore: Just some English self-restraint, that’s all.  Listen, Armstrong just walked out of the house like a man on a mission, went right through that Extra’s campfire, and kept on going to the water!  What’re we going to do?

            Lombard: Why are you asking me?  You’re the detective here!

            Blore: Well I ain’t no Poirot, if that’s what you want.  Should we go kill Armstrong then?

            Lombard: No, let’s wait until morning and see if he kills anyone else first.

            Blore: There’s only us three!

            Lombard: Like I said.  (He goes back to his bedroom and finds his gun waiting for him on his bed) Aw, that’s nice, someone finally returned my gun!

            Vera: What on earth for?!

            Lombard: Sow the seeds of doubt, I suppose.  You don’t think the murderer would actually let me kill him or her with it, do you?

            (The three of them sit at the dining room table to watch the sun rise and ponder life)

            Blore: …and since I love to garden so much, I really should have just stuck with that instead of being a criminal cop, don’t you think?

            Lombard: (Leaning on his hand) Are you sure your name isn’t really “Bore”?

          (With the new day, they decide to go look for Armstrong outside, but Blore lingers in the mansion carrying a weak weapon)

            Blore: Come out, come out, wherever you are… (He is answered by an attacking bearskin rug)

            (Vera and Lombard run to the cliff and see Extra reflecting sunlight in flashes off a looking glass)

Extra: Top of the morning, and how many of you are left today?

            Vera: Four, but Armstrong’s the murderer.

            Extra: Cool, you figured it out!  Never would’ve thought he had it in him, though.  Wait, if you two are out here, where’s the other guy?

            Lombard: I thought he was right behind us.  (Looks back at the mansion a mile away) Guess not.

            Extra: Ooh, how could you leave behind the other guy?!  He’s totally toast!

            Lombard: (To Vera) Wait here!  (He runs back to the mansion)

            Extra: And now you’re splitting up even more!  At the finish line, no less!

            Vera: Wait, what are you doing with that? (Points to the looking glass)

            Extra: Oh, since apparently everyone was told to ignore our calls for help, I started signaling “We found hidden treasure, come and get it!”  And look, a boat is headed this way!  Human psychology is amazing!  (Vera runs back to the mansion) That’s fine, I’ll just wait here to be rescued while you all keep getting yourselves killed.

            (Vera sees Lombard standing over Blore’s stabbed body hugging the bearskin)

            Lombard: You’ll find this hard to believe, but I didn’t do it.

            Vera: No, it’s not your style: he hasn’t been shot or abandoned to death.

            (They return to the safety of the outdoors as Extra guides the boat into the harbor)

            Vera: (Sees something in a ravine) What’s that over there?

            Lombard: I’d say trouble, best left where it is.

            Vera: I didn’t get this far in life by ignoring things!

            (They climb treacherous rocks by the water and find Armstrong’s dead body)

            Lombard: Uh oh.

            Vera: For you.  (She had taken his gun while he was distracted)

            Lombard: Oh come on!  I could’ve killed you 50 ways to Sunday by now if I was the villain in this story!

            Vera: But it had to be in order like the poem, didn’t it?  “Two little soldier boys – ”

            Lombard: Enough with the poem!  Do I strike you as someone that methodical?  Or literate?

            Vera: All I know is, there’s no one else alive here to have done it.  I certainly didn’t.

            Lombard: If being a heartless mercenary has had one positive effect on me, it’s that I know that there’s someone still out there hunting us like the animals we are!  I know we’re missing somebody!

            Extra: (Waving at them from the top of the cliff) Yoo-hoo!  Sit tight, you two, the boat’s starting to dock!  I’ll let them know that we all prefer tea instead of coffee.  (Leaves)

            Lombard: OK, this looks bad, but please don’t kill me, it’d be so embarrassing!  And I thought we had a thing!

Vera: And now we have this.  (She shoots him a bunch of times)

Lombard: (Collapses in the waves) Done in – by my own weapon – how – stupid.  (Dies)

Vera: What is it with me, death, and water?  (She wanders back to the mansion as Extra takes photos with the boat’s crew on the beach.  Vera dazedly wanders past the scattered dead bodies) I should feel relieved and happy at my escape, but I only feel depressed.  (She relives how she had encouraged the little boy she was in charge of to go swimming, deliberately made sure he drowned, lied at the inquest about how she tried to save him, and then was called out by the boy’s uncle who could not prove what she had done) I suppose I really am an awful person.  I’m due for justice, I guess.  (The little boy ghost guides her to her bedroom where a noose on a hook is waiting for her) Now isn’t that thoughtful.  (She hangs herself, conclusively; the last figurine is left behind)

THE END….

Extra: (Enters the mansion) Hello?  Any survivors?  (No answer) Great, now they’re all dead, right as I got them rescue.  And everybody’ll think I did it.  (She runs back to the boat crew) My mistake, no one else is here, let’s go!

            (Forwarded to Scotland Yard: a written confession found attached to the leg of a carrier pigeon)

            I never got to tell any of them that I did it, and how I longed to tell somebody, anybody, so I will have to settle for telling a piece of paper.

            I realized that I was destined to be a serial killer when I was a wee lad, but my unexpected moral code prevented me from murdering innocent people, which sounds like a wonderful premise for a book-turned-cable-television-series.  Being a hanging judge just was not doing it for me anymore, until I hanged a kindred spirit (yes, that was my subtle reveal that my name is Judge Wargrave, elderly murderer extraordinaire).  Once I received my terminal diagnosis, I thought, “If not now, when?”  So I tracked down 10 wretches who literally got away with murder, lured them under false pretenses to an isolated mansion on an island, and played mind games with them while I offed them one-by-one.  And no, I did not count myself as one of the 10 – that was that lowlife who I hired to be my proxy in gathering the other victims.  He had to go as well, long-distance, because he was simply rot.  Now here’s how I pulled off the rest, including my own faked death: [goes into novella-length detail on how he executed his executions].  Judging (pun intended) by the results, I think the whole thing went off smashingly.  And now, time to end my suffering and add to the mystery of how this all was carried out.  I will stage my elaborate suicide and leave 10 bodies in a mansion on an island, with no murderer, living up to the And Then There Were None promise.  It’s almost lonely here now.  A shame about Extra being allowed to survive, but one must stick to the plan and not deviate from the proper course.  On that note: Farewell, not-cruel-enough world!

            With hugs and kisses,

            Judge Wargrave

            (Scotland Yard slaps its forehead for not figuring out the solution)

            Agatha Christie: If this does not go down in history as the greatest mystery of all time, then there’s no point to me doing this at all.

The X-Traordinary Philes: A parody of "The X-Files"

NEW YORK CITY

AT AN INDETERMINATE POINT IN THE SERIES

TEA TIME

(Members of the Old Men Syndicate are gathered in their secret lair/lounge.  Coughing and hacking are heard from the hallway: the door opens and the Cigarette-Smoking Man enters, wheeling an oxygen tank behind him)

Cigarette-Smoking Man: I can only go for five minutes at a time without this thing, so I’ll get right to the point.  (He pulls out a cigarette and lights it; the other men in the room rebel)

Well-Manicured Man: Enough with that!

Random Elder: Yes, I already have CHF and COPD!

Cigarette-Smoking Man: (Speaks through the cigarette) Silence!  This is my only defining characteristic!  Now, I need your advice on how to deal with our regular busybodies – (He tosses a photo onto a table) Agents Mulder and Scully.

(The men groan)

Random Elder: Them again?  Why haven’t we killed them?  Or, better yet, just have them fired?  (The others in the room murmur in agreement)

Cigarette-Smoking Man: You know perfectly well that the great and powerful Carter would never allow it.  The old “killing Mulder would turn his obsession into a crusade” shtick is the justification I consistently rely on.

Random Elder: I really don’t think there’s anyone else who would care enough about his life’s work to take it up if he was gone, and anyone who did would have even less power and influence than he does.  At any rate, haven’t those two retired by now?

Cigarette-Smoking Man: They can’t afford to.

Random Elder: Honestly, they can’t be that close to exposing us.

Cigarette-Smoking Man: No, I mean that they literally can’t afford to.  This recession has hit everybody – even I had to switch to a cheaper brand of cancer sticks.  So, what is to be done?

Random Elder: Does anything need to be done?  I mean, what can they actually do to stop us?  Find something?  Spread the word to a disbelieving public?  Stare in shock? 

Cigarette-Smoking Man: True, but they tend to pop up at inconvenient moments, and right now they’re upsetting one of our schemes.

Second Random Elder: Which one, the hormones-in-the-food scheme?

Cigarette-Smoking Man: No.

Third Random Elder: The smallpox-spread-by-bees one?

Cigarette-Smoking Man: No.

Fourth Random Elder: The assassination-of-important-figures one?

Fifth Random Elder: The murders-by-watching-television one?

Sixth Random Elder: The use-of-war-criminal-scientists-to-conduct-hideous-experiments one?

Seventh Random Elder: The Internet?

Cigarette-Smoking Man: That one’s ours?

Seventh Random Elder: You bet your sweet bum it is.

Cigarette-Smoking Man: Hm.  I would have thought we had more class than that.  No, it’s the one where our alien masters take over the world and we get a 10% cut of what’s left.

Random Elder: Oh, pssh, let those two interfere, then.  Three-quarters of the planet is made up of hybrids by now anyway.

Cigarette-Smoking Man: Yes, but we must foil those do-gooders at every turn, and gloat in our victory afterwards.  Otherwise, it’ll all have been too easy and pointless.  Ak-gak!  (Violently hacks up something)  Speaking of hideous experiments, does anyone have a lung they’re currently not using?

Random Elder: Better get one now before we’re all wiped out by the enemies of our enemies and/or our fake friends.  Question – why do we get the opening scene in this?

Cigarette-Smoking Man: To simultaneously set up the plot and make the audience want to see the main characters even more.  Have you never paid attention to one of these?

(Opening credits show spooky images and model headshots of the lead actors.  This installment’s tagline: KEEP `EM GUESSING)

RANDOM STATE, USA

AN UNGODLY HOUR THE NEXT MORNING

(Mulder is puttering around in front of a farmhouse, using an array of gadgets to examine the ground)

Mulder: (Voice-over) <For years, we have looked to the skies, desperately seeking that which we cannot hope to understand in a million millennia.  Dauntless, we strive onward, sacrificing our dreams, our happiness, and our social lives, if only discover: what is The Truth?  Where is The Truth?  Is it Out There?  Or is it Down Here?  Hence why I dig, ever searching, ever – > (He sees “Something”) Ho-ly Grail – Scully! (Scully is inside the farmhouse, dissecting a brain on the kitchen table) Scul-lay!  Scul-lay!  Scullay, Scullay, Scullay – !

Scully: (Rips off her goggles) If you keep interrupting my lancing, Mulder, the next head on this table will be yours!  What is it?!

Mulder: Uh – (An alien is standing across from him in the yard) It’s kind of important.

Scully: (Stomps outside) You know, you’re perfectly capable of bringing in the mail yourself – (Sees the alien) Heavens above!  (She runs into the house, then runs back out and points off into the distance) Look, behind you!  (As the alien and Mulder both look towards where she is pointing, she throws a switchblade into the back of the alien’s neck.  The alien writhes and partially dissolves into a pile of green goo – Scully passes Mulder a gas mask from her back pocket and puts one on herself)

Mulder: What have you done?!  (Runs to the body)

Scully: Is it dead?

Mulder: How should I know?!  And why didn’t you use the fancy stiletto?

Scully: Why?  Any old pointy object will do.

(They drag the extraterrestrial remains into the barn and toss the body onto a table, removing their masks)

Scully: Might as well do a necropsy on what’s left.

Mulder: Don’t you mean an autopsy?

Scully: Who’s the actual scientist here?  That’s what I thought.  (She pulls out the switchblade and starts slicing the alien’s chest open with it.  The alien makes a noise; she whacks it on the head with a mallet)

Mulder: (Grabs her arm) Doctor!  Didn’t you swear to “First, do no harm”?!  Or some version of that?!

Scully: (Slaps his face) I let my license expire.

Mulder: <Gasps>

Scully: Twenty years ago!

Mulder: <Screams>

Scully: Calm down.

Mulder: How did you even get away with it?

Scully: I had the skills and connections to take care of that.  Now be a dear and hold the recorder and scale while I dismember this thing.  (After the dismemberment) Nothing.  Why am I always surprised that I find nothing?

(In Mulder’s apartment that evening, he and Scully sit across from each other on the couch)

Mulder: There are things that can’t be explained, things beyond the realm of science, of logic, of reason, of sanity, even.  These things can’t hide from me forever: I will expose them, naked to the world, so I can point and laugh at them, and then the world will know – are you sleeping?

Scully: (Leaning on her hand) Mm-no.

Mulder: What did I just say?

Scully: Something about “naked.”

Mulder: How could you?

Scully: Your voice tends to lull everyone into a stupor, in case you haven’t noticed.

Mulder: I haven’t!  So what have you got that’s better?

Scully: Science, logic, reason, and sanity.  Although, I do need a Queen of Spades.

Mulder: (Looks at the cards in his hand) Go fish.

(The phone rings)

Scully: (Answers) Hello?

(There are clicking sounds on the line)

Mrs. Scully: (Voice) Hi Dana, it’s Mom.  How’s my only daughter doing?

Scully: Fine – listen, Mom, I’m going to have to call you back.

Mrs. Scully: (Voice) I understand – I called Mulder’s number because I knew you’d be there, but it’s nothing urgent, wink, wink.

Scully: You’re disgusting – bye!  (Disconnects) Dammit, Mulder, the phone’s bugged again!

Mulder: Argh, that’s the second time today!  (He picks up the phone and dials) I’m putting a stop to this, once and for all.

Scully: Who are you calling?

Mulder: Ssh.  (Sound of a dial tone, then someone picks up and clicks are heard)

Voice: Thank you for calling Tooms’s Tombs, this is Eugene, how may I help you?

Mulder: Why don’t you people leave us alone?!  Whyyyyy??!!!

Voice: (Pause) Diiiid you want to place an order?

Mulder: You’ll never stop us, do you hear me?!  Never!  (He throws the phone against the wall) There, that ought to do it.

FBI HEADQUARTERS

WASHINGTON. D.C.

TIME – IMMATERIAL

(In Skinner’s office)

Skinner: Agent Scully, as usual your report and spy journal entries were thorough and informative, so naturally no one read them.

Scully: Then why are they mandatory?  Do you know how much sleep I could have gotten if I didn’t have to do those?

Skinner: Agents must live their jobs, Agent.  On the other hand, Agent Mulder, your report was exactly two sentences long.

Mulder: I don’t like to waste words.

Skinner: (Reads from a piece of scrap paper) “I saw an alien today.  Agent Scully didn’t believe me.”

Mulder: I have a few templates and change the dates at the top.

Scully: I hate you so much.

Skinner: With that out of the way, I’ll get right to the point: the X-Files are being shut down yet again due to lack of outside interest, so I’m breaking you two up.  (Mulder and Scully scream and hug each other sideways while still sitting) You’ll each be assigned new partners to torment.  Now scram.

Scully: (Stands) This is unacceptable!  Sir!

Skinner: Do you like money, Agent Scully?  Health insurance?  Paid time off?

Scully: Your actions are most generous and merciful, sir.  (Leaves)

Mulder: (Stands) I’m not so easily bought – you can’t keep us apart from each other, nor from our mistress, The Truth!

Skinner: (Without looking up from his writing) You’re being transferred to Pittsburgh.

Mulder: (Falls to his knees) NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

(In Pittsburgh, Mulder reports to the field office there)

Special Agent in Charge: I heard you like basements, so we’re sticking you in the broom closet.

(Mulder sets up his posters there.  There is a knock on the door)

Mulder: Have you found me at last, my love?  (Opens the door) Who are you?  My new partner?

Student: (Speaking through a retainer) Actually, Mr. Mulder, I’m a graduate student with Penn State doing my thesis on whether extraterrestrial abductors really perform the same type of experiments on humans that humans perform on laboratory animals – part of my study involves shadowing a federal agent, and I requested you because you’re the alien guy.

Mulder: Oh good God.

(Meanwhile, Scully gets to stay in Washington, D.C. and has taken over Mulder’s office)

Scully: Too bad the windows are so high up – I have a sudden urge to hang curtains.  (There is a knock on the door; she leaps up from the chair behind his desk where she had been propping up her feet) Is that you, my love?  (Opens the door)

Nondescript: Not unless you want me to be.  I’m Agent Nondescript, your new partner.  I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing.

Scully: Welcome to the club.  Fortunately, there’s a murder waiting to happen any second now for us to investigate.  (The phone rings and she picks it up)  Hello?  Yesss.  (She hangs up) That was it – we’re heading to Hawai’i.

Nondescript: Woo-hoo!  I love the FBI!

(They spend half a day in the air while Mulder drives Student to a crime scene)

Student: So I was wondering, with all your experience, what tips could you give me on how to get abducted?

Mulder: (Distracted by his latest internal monologue) Tips?

Student: You know, the best location, the best time of day, the right scent, that sort of thing.  Or would your former partner be the better person to interview for that?

Mulder: Wait, you want to get abducted?  Why?

Student: Mr. Mulder, you were a grad student once, you know I can’t complete my thesis without firsthand observation.

Mulder: That is true.

(In Hawai’i, Scully and Nondescript stand over a body)

Scully: That body looks suspicious.

Nondescript: Yeah, suspiciously dead.

Scully: Suspiciously… non-human.

Nondescript: Looks pretty human to me.

Scully: Does it?  And what about the cause of death?

Nondescript: (Picks up the body by the shoulders to show an axe sticking out of the head) I think it’s clear!

Scully: (Meaningfully stares into the distance) Is it?  (Raises an eyebrow; music goes “duh-duh-duhhhh!”)

(Still in Pittsburgh, Mulder and Student stand over a body)

Student: Is that body an alien?

Mulder: No.

Student: Too bad.  That would’ve made this easier.  Do you know a good place where I could find alien corpses?

Mulder: No!  (Dials on his cell phone) Scully?

Scully: (Picks up her phone) Mulder?

Mulder and Scully: I can’t take it anymore!  You’re the only one who understands me!  You too?  Find me!  (They disconnect)

Mulder: (To Student) You’re fired.  (He walks to his car)

Student: Technically, Mr. Mulder, seeing as I am a grad student and not employed by your organization, I cannot actually be fired by you.  However, if you wish to terminate your preceptorship, I can give you my advisor’s contact information.  (There is the sound of screeching tires) Mr. Mulder?  You’re my only ride.

(In Hawai’i)

Scully: You’ve got this, right?

Nondescript: Uh, we haven’t looked at the evidence yet….

Scully: I can’t do all the work for you!  (She hops on the first plane back to D.C. and arrives at the terminal there as Mulder arrives at his office – realizing that the other is not already there waiting, they arrange to meet dramatically at a convenient graveyard.  They get out of their cars, stand, and stare at each other)

Scully: Hey.

Mulder: Hey.  Are we at awkward arm-pat phase, friendly hug phase, warm hug phase, forehead kiss phase, or hot make-out phase?

Scully: Gosh, we’re nowhere near hot make-out phase.  How about standing and yearning phase?

Mulder: Why not – it’s tried and true.  (They stand and yearn)  OK, back to work.

(Back at the office, Skinner bursts through the door)

Skinner: What is this I hear that you two left in the middle of your investigations and are back here when I deliberately separated you?!  Agent Nondescript had to collar a serial killer on his own, and your grad student has been reported missing, presumed abducted!

Mulder: Sounds like everyone got what they wanted.

Scully: Sir, I think you need a vacation for your mental health.  (Writes on a pad, tears off a page, and hands it to him) I prescribe two weeks off with the option for an extension.

Skinner: You –

Scully: That’s an order!

Skinner: Yes, ma’am.  (Leaves)

Scully: This fake prescription pad always comes in handy.

Mulder: Right, so we’ve been out of commission for a day and already the work’s piling up.  (He tosses her an X-File file) Here’s a new one that seems to involve that Old Men Syndicate that tries to control everything and ruin lives – one of my favorite types of cases.

Scully: Wait a minute, I thought this was a standalone Monster-of-the-Week, but now it’s Mythology Arc?

Mulder: For us it started out as standalone MOTW, then it morphed into Mytharc, so ha-ha to everybody who wasn’t paying attention in the beginning.  Although, this does seem more along the lines of the killer bugs we faced in Season 1 or the killer mold we faced in Season 2.

Scully: That was killer fungus – we’ve never faced killer mold.

Mulder: We should have faced killer mold – that would have been awesome.

Scully: (Looking through the file and smiling at the photos) That one’s cute.  So if this does have anything to do with that so-called alien who turned up on our doorstep way back at the beginning of this adventure, this case may again mean the end of everything that matters only to us, or that one or both us will be killed-then-resurrected or just almost-killed, and I don’t think I’m quite up to going through all that right now.  It’s funny, though – I never did get to present my irrefutable proof of the connection between humanity and extraterrestrials: the genetic link between the two species that no one, not even skeptical me, could deny as it stared us in the face.  I was rudely interrupted during that official presentation by my metastasized cancer almost finishing me off as I dripped blood all over the hard copy.

Mulder: How did I miss all that?!

Scully: It was when you faked your suicide and I opposed all of my principles by lying for you while I was dying.  There were a lot of upheavals at that time in my life.

Mulder: I’ll say.  So where’s the proof?  I want to see it.

Scully: Here.  (Holds up a piece of film)

Mulder: (Studies the film) It’s two dots.

Scully: But – this is the proof!  They’re identical, showing that there is a DNA link between humanity and extraterrestrial life!  This changes everything – you were actually right!

Mulder: It’s two dots.

Scully: A scientist can clearly see that all that work I did processing my DNA and that of the alien that was found in the Canadian ice resulted in an exact match!

Mulder: It’s two dots.

Scully: Of all the times not to accept evidence, and it’s the time that I produce something.  Have it your way: I’m regressing to my doubting everything you hypothesize.

Mulder: No!  Wait, I see it all now!

Scully: Too late – the doubt has returned.

Mulder: (Cries) Nooo, come baaack!

Scully: Maybe later, but I’ll still be forever annoyed at you and at “them.”  Not only was I abducted, experimented upon, implanted with a computer chip, and given cancer, but the whole thing also made me unable to have children even if I wanted spawn.

Mulder: Not necessarily.  (He pulls out a tube with her name written on it) I nicked this from that hybrid vault I broke into, on the off-chance that this very situation would arise.

Scully: Mulder, is that – have you – did you pocket my ova?!

Mulder: (Awkward pause) Well when you word it like that….

Scully: I can’t believe you’ve been carrying around my genetic material all this time like it’s spare change!

Mulder: Hey – I couldn’t bear the thought that there were possibly a billion baby Scullys running around with no Mulder strain in the mix.  Now, problem solved.  We can replace your tragic dead alien hybrid daughter, What’s-Her-Name.

Scully: What tragic dead alien hybrid daughter?

Mulder: Exactly.

Scully: (Looks at her watch) I’ve wasted enough time talking to you today – I’m going to look into this.  (Takes the file, grabs the ova tube from him, and starts to leave)

Mulder: I’ll go find people to interview so I can get to the bottom of this through their minds.  (Starts chewing sunflower seeds)

Scully: And clean those things up before I get back!  You always leave such a mess.

Mulder: You’d rather I’d spit tobacco instead?  (Scully leaves.  He opens a notebook and starts writing.  After a few moments, he stares in shock at what he has written, grabs a tape recorder, and hits “Record”)

Mulder: This is it – after all these years, I have had the breakthrough: if you take the word “alien”, remove the “i” and the “n” and add an “x”, it spells “Alex.”  Alex Double-Crossing Single-Armed Krycek – I KNEW IT!  (The phone rings; he presses “Stop” on the recorder and picks up the phone) Yel-lo?

Scully: (Voice) Mulder, it’s me.

Mulder: And “me” is….?

Scully: (Voice) Scully!  Who else calls you?!

Mulder: Oh, hey girl, what’s happening?

(In an abandoned warehouse, she is tied up and hanging upside down on a hook, with a phone propped against her ear)

Scully: Well, I’ve been abducted.  Again.

Mulder: That’s a damn shame.  How many times is this now?

Scully: I’ve stopped counting. 

Mulder: Was it terrestrial or extra-?

Scully: I’m thinking Earthly.  From what I could tell, it’s that bank-robbing deadbeat dad those folks on the second floor at headquarters have been looking for.  Why couldn’t he have stayed in their jurisdiction and kidnapped one of them?

Mulder: (Making paper flying saucers) He probably heard you were easier to get to.  The creeps always seem to go for you – they have memorable names, but I like the descriptions better: the alien abductee abductor, the immortal flexible liver eater twice, the homicidal psychic photographer, the pedantic heart-stealing author, the hair and nail fetishist twice, the –

Scully: I get it.  And I have two words for you: Diana Fowley.   Every time she showed up, she had you by the –

Mulder: I’ll be right there.  I have to ask: didn’t you ever attend any of those self-defense classes required by the Bureau?

Scully: I did after the second snatching, but the moves always fail me and my gun is always out of reach when I need it most.

Mulder: Tell me about it.  I almost always have to burst in at the last second to pluck you out of danger – you’re lucky my timing is perfect.

Scully: So….

Mulder: So….?

Scully: So, I’m hanging in a warehouse on Abandoned Street, and if you happen to find yourself in the neighborhood, could you swing by and pick me up?!

Mulder: (Starts painting his model UFO) You know, if I have to drop everything every time some fool gets it into his head to spirit you away, I’ll get nothing done.

Scully: Stop playing with your toys and save my life!

Mulder: You’re a woman of the new millennium, Scully: save yourself.

Scully: (Grinds teeth)

Mulder: How’d you get hold of a working phone, anyway?

Scully: I… don’t know….

Mulder: Sounds like an X-File to me.  Let me know how it turns out.  By the way, I came across a highly suspicious mummy that I want you to slice open when you have a second.

Scully: (Untying her hands and feet and jumping off the hook) Is that all I’m good for, being your on-call pathologist?

Mulder: It’s your most useful skill, you have to admit.  Just get your sweet cheeks over here ASAP!  (Disconnects)

Scully: Dork.  (Disconnects angrily, then realizes that she is free) Maybe I have superpowers – best to ignore them.  (She returns to the office) Well, that was a dead end.  Now where is this mummy that has you all hot and bothered?

Mulder: There is no mummy; I just wanted to bust your chops.  (The phone rings and he answers) Hello?  Just in time.  (Hangs up) The Lone Gunmen have some information for us, so we have to go to their super-secret hideout to get it.

Scully: Sure – those paranoid outcasts are always good for a laugh.

(They travel to The Lone Gunmen’s hideout)

Frohike: Scully, babe, you haven’t visited in ages!

Scully: “Not interested” means “Go away!”

Mulder: Byers, how’s the love of your life doing?

Byers: Still on the run from the law; I’ll probably never see her again.

Langly: You’re lucky – at least you have a backstory.

Byers/Frohike/Langly: Now we speak as one: the government is spying on you and plotting evil experiments to control your mind, actions, and shopping habits.

Mulder: That’s it?  I thought you had new information.

Byers/Frohike/Langly: No, but we do have a new stand-up routine we want to test out on you: “FBI, CIA, and NSA agents walk into a bar…”

Mulder: You nerds are dead to me.

(He and Scully return to the office)

Scully: That went nowhere.  They didn’t even analyze anything for us on illegal equipment.

Mulder: Next time they make us go there, I’m stealing something.  (The phone rings, this time ominously.  He picks it up) Hello?  (Listens for awhile) Who is this?  (Listens) OK, see you later.  Bye!  (Hangs up and puts on his jacket to show that he means business) This is great – that mysterious phone call told me that “they” are at it again with the smallpox alien infestation thing, and the only tool we have to counteract “them” is public exposure.  The voice sounded like a mix between Deep Throat and Mr. X, but since they’re both dead for reals, it might be the wiles of Marita Covarrubias again, unless she’s being used by the “them” for the fifteenth time.  I’m thinking “they” have moved on from bees as the virus delivery mechanism and are now using hand sanitizers, available at malls and cruise ships everywhere.  It’s ingenious.

Scully: But Mulder, that theory is absolutely ludicrous and overly convoluted! 

Mulder: Scully, when it comes to the ludicrous and convoluted, I am always right! 

Scully: Yes, yes, but how can you be so certain you are right?

Mulder: I’m certain because, with all the commercials, we’ve only got eight minutes now to wrap this thing up!  (He walks out the door, then sticks his head back in) Unless you want a Part Two, `cause that can be arranged.

Scully: Anything but that!  (They go to the parking garage and each heads to their own car) Oooh, can’t I ever drive?

Mulder: And what would that make me look like?  Less of a man, that’s what.  (They get into his car and he drives them to the meeting place for his contact)

NEFARIOUS DOCKS

DEAD OF NIGHT

(They walk towards a tanker, turn a corner, and see that a woman is standing in the middle of their path)

Mulder: Who are you?

“Samantha”: Hello Fox, I am your sister, Samantha.

Mulder: Not this again.  How many times do you have to break my heart?

Scully: Do you think she’s Hybrid Samantha or could she actually be Samantha Prime?

Mulder: One way to find out.  (He shoots “Samantha” – green ooze comes out of her)

“Samantha”: Fox!  (Falls down)

(Mulder and Scully take gas masks from their jacket pockets and don them)

Mulder: NO ONE CALLS ME “FOX!”  (He stabs “Samantha” in the back of the neck with the stiletto and she dissolves into all goo)

Scully: That’s the tenth one of her we’ve taken down – how are you going to know when the real one shows up?

Mulder: She’ll bleed red, I guess.  (After the danger seemingly passes, they take off their masks.  He tenderly touches “Samantha’s” goo where her cheek would have been) Who knows if that was even what she would have looked like when she grew up.  Poor kid never got to experience me beating up potential boyfriends for her.  (He stands and stares evilly at Scully)

Scully: What’s the matter with you?

Mulder: Nothing.  (Black oil swims across his eyes)

Scully: Not the black oil.  So you’re going to pull the whole “possessed by aliens” excuse again to make me do all your paperwork, aren’t you.

Mulder: Why not?  You milked “I’ve got health issues” for years!

Scully: You just spit that out right now, young man.  (She holds out a paper cup and he obligingly oozes out the alien oil – she dumps the contents into the ocean, then slaps her forehead for not thinking that through) Your contact’s a bust and you failed again.  Let’s clock out so I can get at least two hours of sleep.

Mulder: There is no clock – we’re always working.

Scully: Sometimes I actually wish I were in retail, if only to get paid overtime.

ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA (AKA MULDER’S APARTMENT)

LATER THAT EARLY MORNING

(Mulder is pacing in his living room, constantly glancing at his phone.  Unable to hold back any longer, he picks it up and dials)

GEORGETOWN, WASHINGTON, D.C. (AKA SCULLY’S APARTMENT)

THE SAME TIME

(Scully is in deep REM sleep when her phone rings, shattering her serenity.  She scrambles to pick it up)

Scully: Hello?  What happened?

Mulder: Scully, it’s me.  I need someone to talk to.

Scully: (Yawning) You have fish – that’s what they’re there for.

Mulder: This is important!  I need to know: do you ever feel like you’re a failure?

Scully: Every day.

Mulder: Well, you know that my whole life from adolescence on has been about finding out what happened to my sister –

Scully: Again with your sister!  I wish the aliens had taken you!

Mulder: – and I wanted to let you know that The Truth was finally revealed to me.  I know it was The Truth because the episode was titled “Closure,” which wraps this whole storyline up in a neat little bow at last.

Scully: OK, so is she still out in space or is she stowed away in some government lab?

Mulder: Neither: Cigarette-Smoking Man took her as his own daughter, then experiments were done on her so she ran away, then a serial killer was going to get her, so some beings took her with other potential victims into The Light.  It was quite beautiful – we had a very moving spirit reunion.

Scully: So she was murdered to keep her from being murdered?

Mulder: ….

Scully: The tragedy is that you could have saved me some trouble in my life by finding all this out back in the `80s.

Mulder: Don’t talk to me about tragedy; I’m surrounded by death.  My sister is, apparently, dead; a large number of my colleagues and informants have been murdered; my maybe-father was murdered; my mother murdered herself – my whole life is an opera libretto!

Scully: (Looks up suddenly) No in-laws.

Mulder: What?

Scully: What?  Yes, definitely, your life is awful, I wouldn’t want to be you.  I’m hanging up now.

Mulder: Sweet dreams.  I know I won’t have any that don’t involve premonitions or flashbacks.  (He spends the rest of the night sitting on his couch and staring at the wall)

FBI HEADQUARTERS

IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHERE THAT IS BY NOW, TURN IN YOUR FAN CARD

THE NEXT DAY

(Mulder is in his office finally entering his X-Files into a database.  The phone rings and he picks it up)

Mulder: (Typing with two fingers) Mulder speaking; I’m busy.

Scully: (On a stretcher) Mulder, it’s Scully – I’ve been admitted to the hospital.

Mulder: What?!  Are you dying again?!  It’s “them,” isn’t it, and it’s all my fault, isn’t it?!  Forgive meeee!!!

Scully: I’m just having a bilateral knee replacement; I should be back to running and jumping by tomorrow.  While I was checking in, I also was checking on our lone witness to our case and found out that he escaped from his hospital bed.

Mulder: That’s news?  We’ve never put someone in the hospital without them escaping at least once – I myself have upheld that time-honored tradition.

Scully: Regardless, I’m actually calling to tell you not to visit me.

Mulder: Why… not?

Scully: You know why not: (whispers) you tend to make a scene.

Mulder: I do not!  I am very loving and compassionate!

Scully: To me, maybe, but not to everybody else.  If you’re not beating up the doctors, you’re beating up the Shadowy G-Men.  Or our boss.

Mulder: They can’t keep us apart!

Scully: I’m glad you think so, but sometimes I need my own space!  And don’t call me for a day.  (She disconnects and is given anesthesia as the procedure begins)

Mulder: (Hangs up) I’ll show her – she said nothing about not sending her singing telegrams.

THE NEXT DAY

(Mulder enters his office and sees that Scully is already there working on her laptop with her knees taped up)

Mulder: Are you OK?  Do you need me to hold your hand or caress your face? 

Scully: No thank you, Smother.  While I was in the Recovery Room yesterday, I ran complete background checks on our suspects for the Monster-of-the-Week we’re squeezing in-between conspiracies, and all of them came up as registered perverts.

Mulder: Not one of them is suspiciously normal?  There must be some mistake.

Scully: (Peering at her screen) The download is going to take nine minutes?  What am I going to do for that long?  Excuse me.  (She takes the laptop, drives to the town in Oregon they visited in the Pilot, sees the red X that Mulder had spray-painted on the road all those years ago, checks the car clock, and loses nine minutes.  She looks at the laptop – download complete.  Looks up) I don’t believe in you guys, but you have your uses.  (She drives back to the office in D.C. and plops back into her chair; Mulder is in the exact same position as when she had left) So all the blood and hair have been analyzed and they’re completely human.  How much more evidence do you need that this is the work of an ordinary serial killer?

Mulder: You’re supposed to find me extraterrestrial evidence – barring that, I want evidence that’s just plain weird.  Let’s go out and find some.

Scully: But I’m getting all the work done here.

Mulder: Yeah, and I’m bored!

(They charge the American taxpayers two first-class round-trip non-stop tickets to Alaska)

Scully: (Disembarking) Ah, this brings back fond memories of Vancouver.

Mulder: No one misses Vancouver – we all love L.A.

(They interview the locals)

Local Sheriff: Something’s killing our reindeer!

Scully: Have any hunters around here?

Local Sheriff: Well, it’s hunting season, so –

Scully: Mystery solved.

Mulder: Don’t listen to her – she speaks out of reflex.  So do you have any hunters here?  (Winks exaggeratedly at him)

Local Sheriff: Yeah, I just said –

Mulder: I mean hunters, as in animalistic, quasi-human, sprung-from-legend, motivated-by-recent-trauma, driven-to-carnage hunters.  Of HUMAN BEINGS.

Local Sheriff: It’s just reindeer getting killed right now.

Mulder: Blast it, man, I don’t have time to be stonewalled by the local constabulary!  Out of my way!  (He runs past Local Sheriff and Scully and confronts the Monster-of-the-Week in its lair) You’re just a misunderstood freak, but I have to kill you anyway.  (He recites an ancient spell of blessing that casts the creature back to the realm from whence it came.  He emerges triumphant) OK folks, you can walk the streets again, your torments are at an end.  (Sees a reindeer on a hill) Be at peace, my friend.

Scully: (Arrives on a dog sled) I missed it again!  You didn’t wait for me to at least corroborate your shenanigans!  You’re never going to be believed!

Mulder: We always go through the same routine: our superiors never believe me, yet they keep on signing my paychecks.

(From behind a bush, the Cigarette-Smoking Man appears with a portable ventilator)

Cigarette-Smoking Man: At last, we confront each other for the hopefully final time.

Scully: Oh, what do you want now?  Don’t you start getting involved in dead reindeer cases – those ones are all ours, do you hear me?!

Cigarette-Smoking Man: It’s never just dead reindeer.  Besides, you were starting to forget about me.

Mulder: I never would, with an awkward name like Spender.

Cigarette-Smoking Man: Don’t say it!  Knowing my real name makes me appear weak!

Scully: It certainly takes away a bit of your mystique.

Cigarette-Smoking Man: This is very serious business!  You must stop investigating our current scheme or else all will be ruined!

Mulder: Oh please, how many times have I heard that?  You’ve already ruined pretty much everyone around me, torched my life’s work, and tried to have me killed, experimented on, slandered, and libeled, so bring it on!

Cigarette-Smoking Man: I could hide more evidence from you.

Mulder: No!  I won’t interfere ever again, I promise!

Scully: Speaking as a repeat victim of your arranged abductions and cancer-and-baby-implantations, I vow to hunt you down and slap you silly.  With a lawsuit.

Cigarette-Smoking Man: You wouldn’t dare.  Don’t forget, you’re speaking to someone who shot his own son.

Mulder: Yeah, about that – that’s twice you’ve messed up my office, what with the fire and the bloodstains and the weeks-long crime scene investigations.  Between the burning and the shooting, you owe me over $50,000 in damages!

Cigarette-Smoking Man: That’s incorrect: I owe the FBI over $50,000 in damages.

Mulder: (Through clenched teeth) The posters were mine.

Cigarette-Smoking Man: Fine!  Here’s everything you need to know about everything you ever wanted to know!  (Hands him a file)

Mulder: (Looking through it) It is everything about everything I ever wanted to know!  Thank you so much!

Cigarette-Smoking Man: (Shrugs) It’s nothing.  (They shake hands) So we’re cool?

Mulder: (Smiles) Yeah, we’re cool – go, on get out of here, you rascal.

Cigarette-Smoking Man: My worthy foe.  How I wish you had been the one who had sprung from my loins instead of that inadequate patsy Jeffrey.  Scratch that; it turns out you actually did spring from my loins after all.

Mulder: So my name really should be Fox Spender?

Cigarette-Smoking Man: I would have named you Chris.  (He drags on a cigarette around the vent and disappears in a haze of coughing)

Scully: (Gestures to the file) So that’s it?  The X-File to solve all X-Files?

Mulder: (In reverence) It is.  It’s over, Scully, we finally have The Answer.

Scully: So what is it?

Mulder: Ludicrous and convoluted.  But it boils down to Old Men wanting to control everyone’s lives.

Scully: So, same-old same-old?  What a let down.

THE END??????????

At least they’ll always have the Monster-of-the-Week

CODA 1: THE POST-MULDER-ABDUCTION YEARS

(when the series became an alternate universe version of itself)

(Opening credits vary depending on whether Mulder is on that week.  Each one during the season when he is alien-abducted has him falling through the air and out of the show, yelling: “Don’t forget about meeee….”)

Doggett: (To Scully) I’m Agent Doggett – your replacement as skeptic.

Scully: I’m Scully, temporarily filling in for Mulder as believer.  It doesn’t fit me that well.

Skinner: Does it help that I’m now spouting the same alien conspiracy tripe with you?

Scully: Somehow, that makes it worse.

(To make herself feel better, she flashes back to happier times; namely, The Big Event of how she mysteriously became knocked up, impossibly, again)

Mulder: You look sadder and more depressed than normal.

Scully: I just found out that I can’t have any kids because of my so-called “alien” kidnapping.

Mulder: Just found out?  Don’t you remember that I’d found your eggs in cold storage but you can’t hatch any of them?

Scully: Says you!  (She gets a fake second opinion from an alien baby-stealing Ob/Gyn and confronts Mulder in his office) In your face!  My eggs can hatch after all, and now that I’ve gone from “science, career, justice” to “baby, baby, baby” and my life will be meaningless until I’m a mother, I’d like you to be the one to contribute to the other half of this equation.  I really have no one else to ask.

Mulder: (Stares at her with his eyes bugging out and one eyebrow arched) Whaaaaat?

Scully: I think we’re at the point in our relationship where no request is off-limits.

Mulder: I’m playing with you – of course I’ll give you a baby, girlfriend!  Just don’t ask me to raise it.

Scully: I wouldn’t ask you to raise your own fish!

(Back to the present)

Doggett: I know you didn’t trust me right away, but why did you go for literally months without telling me that you were in a delicate condition?  With the way you were wandering around all sneakily and looking like you got hit in the head, I thought you were on drugs!

Scully: A woman has to have her secrets and cannot betray the father of her child, plus I didn’t want to let “them” win by getting myself kicked off the truth-seeking project going nowhere that is the X-Files.

Doggett: Your reputation led me to believe that you were logical and reasonable, but now I see that you’re actually a little insane.

Scully: This job does that to you.

(Mulder gets kicked out of his UFO, dead)

Scully: No fair!  When I got abducted, he only had to wait one episode and I was still alive afterward!  This time, I had to mope around for months and months and when he finally shows up, he’s kaput!

Skinner: No worries – Krycek gave me a fake offer to cure Mulder in exchange for me killing your Jesus baby, so I’ll kill Mulder instead and accidentally save him in the process.  See, it all works out.

Scully: I have a Jesus baby?

(Mulder wakes up in the hospital, resurrected)

Mulder (Speaking through his scars): Hi guys!  I just flew in from alien experimentations, and boy, are my internal organs tired.  That extraterrestrial torture session sure was the topper for my last few weeks on this planet, what with visiting my mother’s out-of-state grave while I was dying of my alien-inflicted brain condition and almost being cured by being eaten by a creature who I had to kill in order to save it from exploitation by the locals, not to mention our regular unending X-Files chores.  (Pause) I’m having a nervous breakdown right now. 

Doggett: Does this mean I’m fired?

Scully: Probably not; he’s pretty much a guest star on his own series at this point.  (To Mulder) Stay, leave – make up your mind and stop teasing the audience!

Mulder: Wow, Scully, you got really fat while I’ve been gone.  Did you miss me that much that you had to find comfort in binge eating?

Scully: How could you not know that this is your kid ready to pop out?!

Mulder: Do you even know whether that is my kid ready to pop out?  Our one televised in vitro attempt didn’t work and you still are egg-less, so how can you even be pregnant?

Scully: Apparently, the egg-lessness was undone later and we’re having a Jesus baby the old-fashioned way.  And you’re no longer dying, by the by: you now have a super-healing body that is thankfully not going to turn into the dreaded Super Soldier.

Mulder: Is that the way the Mythology’s heading now?  I take a half-season break and everything changes.

Reyes: I’ll say – they even brought me in to replace you as the local loony.

Mulder: Never!  I’ll destroy everything I love first!  (Manages to get himself fired from his own X-Files and from the FBI) So, now I’m unemployed and purposeless.  What am I still doing here?

Scully: The audience wanted you, but you managed to assassinate your character quite nicely to make them disgusted with what you’ve become.  Who would have thought we both would be destroyed from within rather than from without?

Mulder: The ultimate conspiracy: alter your personality enough to turn your loyal followers against you so they’ll accept anyone as your replacement.

Doggett: Good, so I can be the lead now!

Scully: Not so fast: I’m not yet permanently incapacitated by birth and redundancy.  (Gives birth)  Aw, now everyone wants to take and/or kill my baby.  Or not.  Or maybe – I can’t keep this straight, who’s the enemy now?

Mulder: I can’t handle all this drama of Fatherhood!  (Flees for his life)

Scully: And there he goes again.  So unreliable.  Now all I have with him are fan fiction love letters and our child who I will now give up for adoption because I can’t take the kid’s weird superpowers and attempts on his life.  (To Doggett) As partners, we didn’t quite have “it,” so you’re going to have to find yourself a new sidekick.

Doggett: I came prepared.  (Drags back Reyes) Remember how you were the believer to my skeptic at one time?

Reyes: Always.  I also smoke.

Doggett: Sweet, you’re completely flawed.  You’re my new buddy – this is our show, now and forever!

Skinner: You’re cancelled after this season.  There’ll be another movie, though.

Doggett: Can I be in it?

Skinner: Who are you?

(While investigating the latest Monster-of-the-Week)

Doggett: So, I think we’re doing all right as the new Skeptic and Believer tag team.  Best not to hook up for a long, long time, though – that’s been done to death.

Reyes: Fine by me, although I want better lines so I don’t sound like such a hippie.

Scully: (Pops in) Anyone got an autopsy I can do?

Doggett: You’re still here?!

Scully: Of course I’m still here, I have top billing!

Reyes: Honey, this is so sad.  As what happened with Mulder has happened to you: you’re pretty much a guest star on your own series at this point.

Scully: NOOOOO!!!!  Just because he left, why do I have to suffer?

Skinner: Because when he left he took the show with him.  Look at me: I finally made it to the opening credits and nobody cares.

Mulder: (Re-enters the show) Time to wrap up these shenanigans in a great big bow.  A trial where we recap the entire series should do nicely.  And since we’re officially out of the couple closet now – kiss me, you angel!

Scully: I don’t know, even after nine years it still seems kind of sudden.  When did we actually first hook up?

Mulder: No one knows for certain.  Around the time you became my groupie, I think.

(Special Guest Stars show up to testify)

Jeffrey Spender: So, my Cigarette-Smoking Dad shot me after I joined the Mulder religion, and now I’m unrecognizably burnt so everyone would think I was Mulder at first.  I was such a tease.

Mulder: This whole time I didn’t know you existed and then thought you were dead – we could have been buddies fighting crime, half-brothers versus the world!

Jeffrey: Yeah, I was one messed-over character.  I fixed your baby so he’s all normal now, though, so can I be his godfather?

Scully: It was because of what you did that I had to give him up!  I hate you!

Jeffrey: Time to disappear again.

(Mulder comes to terms with his meaningless life struggle by speaking with dead cameos)

Mulder: Whoa!  All three of The Lone Gunmen kicked it?!!!  How depressing.

Langly: Yeah dude, it was pretty tragically heroic.

Byers: You should have been there, I think you would have appreciated the self-sacrifice.

Frohike: You should at least have come to the funeral, you jerk.  After all we did for you!

Mulder: Gotta go!  Nerds.

(In the mountains)

Cigarette-Smoking Man: Yes, I’m still around to be confronted once and for all.

Mulder: You again.  You look like the wise man of the mountain, but you should have been long gone by now.  Are you sure you’re not a ghost cameo, too?

Cigarette-Smoking Man: Nope, I’m still hanging in there.  I may have helped you from time to time, but in the end you cannot defeat my evil!

Mulder: Maybe I can’t, but that missile can.

Cigarette-Smoking Man: What missile?  (Is finally destroyed by people just as bad as he is, and all is well.  Or is he?  And is it?)

Doggett and Reyes: We can contribute to the cause!  We just obliterated that one tenacious Super Soldier, and never mind the rest of them!

Scully: The weird mineral in the rocks did that, which you should have remembered from that time I experienced the same deus ex machina.

Doggett and Reyes: But we still helped out, right?

Scully: And you’re still cancelled.

(The series ends with Mulder and Scully on the run)

Scully: So, now what?

Mulder: Beats me.  We’re fugitives from the law and from the outlaws, so there’s really nowhere to go.

Scully: I think I should have stayed just a doctor and not joined the FBI.  Being left with nothing but you at the end of all this really doesn’t suffice.

Mulder: But it’s so romantic!

Scully: And what are we going to do for money?

Mulder: This is why we get along so well: I’m the dreamer, you’re the realist.  Now let’s go find us some aliens and take down the government bad guys once and for all, hooyah!

Scully: I think you may be legitimately insane.

CODA 2: THE SECOND MOVIE

Mulder: Monster-of-the-Week?  How trivial.

Scully: Get over your soul-searching and shave, hairy bear.

Mulder: You’re one to talk about hair, faux ginger.

Scully: What, I’ve always dyed it.  You’ll never learn The Truth of my real hair color.

Mulder: Don’t tell me that!

Scully: As if you haven’t been dying yours for years.

Mulder: At least I keep mine a consistent shade.

Scully: So, I’m kind of bored with this movie’s storyline.  Where do we go from here?

Mulder: Patiently wait eight years and have a revival miniseries!

Scully: Why not?  All the kids are doing it nowadays.

THE END… UNTIL THE BEGINNING