The
episode begins with a narration by Mulder about the miracle of life
– or is it just nostalgia for something commandeered by science.
How did this child come to be? Is it a miracle or a product of
technology?
Scully's mother,
Maggie, is helping decorate Scully's apartment for a baby shower.
Lizzy Gill arrives, a baby nurse Maggie has asked to help Scully.
While the shower is going on, Lizzy replaces the pills in Scully's
prescription bottle. At Zeus Genetics, Dr. Lev is working late when
Billy Miles enters. He's there to verify that Dr. Lev's work has
been fruitful. It has, but his work is done. Billy kills Dr. Lev,
dousing the body with a chemical and setting it on fire. Doggett is
cleaning his gun on a Saturday morning when Mulder comes to his
door. The Zeus Genetics building has burned and Mulder wants to be
involved because it's the place where Scully thought they were
creating alien babies.
The two visit the
FBI evidence analysis facility which is sifting through the debris
from Zeus. Doggett's friend, Gene, resents that it was Mulder who
initiated the search. All of the Zeus staff is accounted for but Dr.
Lev. Lev's co-founder of Zeus Genetics was Dr. Parenti, who was
Scully's obstratician for the first two-thirds of her pregnancy.
Mulder and Doggett go to question Parenti. They gain access to the
office, believing that nobody is there. Parenti actually is there,
meeting with a patient. In Parenti's office Doggett finds many glass
containers with preserved fetuses. Parenti says they are babies with
birth defects. Scully takes her perscription pills as Lizzy is about
to leave. Outside, Lizzy is picked up to Duffy Haskel. She tells him
that Scully trusts her and Haskel replies, "Good, we're almost
at an end."
Dr. Parenti is
packing the things in his office when Billy enters. When Mulder and
Doggett arrive to further question Parenti, they find the doctor's
head in one of the glass canisters. Mulder finds Billy in the
office, who tosses Mulder through a glass panel. Doggett fires his
gun at Billy's chest, but Billy keeps coming. Doggett ducks into an
office, and when he looks out again, Billy has disappeared. Doggett
and Mulder go to Scully's apartment, where she cleans a cut over
Mulder's eyebrow. Mulder thinks Billy is an alien "human
replacement." Doggett counters that Billy bled red blood when
he was shot, and the X-Files show that aliens bleed green. Mulder
speculates that Billy is something new. Lizzy arrives while they are
talking and from another room calls Haskel to report that there is
trouble – that the agents are asking all the right questions.
While on the phone, Haskel is attacked by Billy.
Dogett arrives at
the crime scene where Haskel's head has been found, severed from his
body. Skinner and Mulder are there, too. Skinner says the building
has been determined to be an illegal medical facility for the
purpose of human cloning and that prenatal records indicate that Lev
and Parenti were monitoring Scully's pregnancy. Skinner asks Mulder
about the fatherhood of Scully's baby. Mulder has no idea and
Skinner stresses that he needs answers. Mulder phones Scully, who
has to leave the shower to answer. She catches Lizzy substituting
more prescription pills. Scully is checked out at the hospital, and
everything is fine. The replacement pills were just vitamin
supplements. Skinner, Mulder and Doggett gather at Skinner's office
to question Lizzy, who says that for ten years she has been a
scientist working on a secret human cloning project. They were
funded with government money from men who are all dead now. They
were successful with a clone combining human and alien DNA. The
babies only survived a couple of days, but they provided tissue and
stem cells for other work, which Lizzy claims to have no knowledge
of. Lizzy says Scully's child is very special – a perfect human
child with no human frailties. Mulder storms out. Doggett's friend,
Gene, tells Doggett that Billy has called in from Dr. Parenti's
office, offering to give himself up. Doggett takes a SWAT team to
Parenti's office, but Billy is not there.
Mulder arrives at
Scully's apartment and tells her to pack a bag quickly because she
is in danger. He is going to do everything he can to protect her
baby, but he can't do that at her apartment. Doggett phones to
report that Billy is not where he said he would be. The lights go
out in Scully's apartment and Mulder and Scully run. As they head
down the hall, Billy approaches from the other end of the hall.
Scully's car is blocked in by two other cars. As Billy approaches,
he is struck by another car, driven by Krycek. Although Krycek's car
completely passed over Billy's body, Billy is recovering rapidly.
Krycek calls out that they don't have much time and in a split
second, Mulder and Scully decide to go with Krycek. They all gather
again in Skinner's office. Krycek says that there are others just
like Billy and that they are virtually unstoppable. They are working
to end the resistance to the alien's return to the planet. Why do
they want Scully's baby? They are afraid of it, because they realize
that it could be greater than them. Krycek asked Skinner to kill
Scully's baby (a few episodes ago) because he wanted to destroy the
truth. Mulder leaps to the conclusion that this truth is that there
is a higher power, a God. Krycek says that there is no hospital that
is safe enough for Scully.
Doggett calls in
help, including agent Monica Reyes, who is on her way to the airport
in a taxi. She diverts to the FBI building. Doggett waits for her in
the parking garage and phones to Skinner and Mulder to bring Scully
down when he sees Reyes' taxi pull up. As Monica drives up, however,
Billy is seen in the parking garage and Doggett tells Skinner and
Mulder to take Scully back up in the elevator. Billy heads up the
stairs. Skinner and Mulder leave Scully with Krycek and head out to
intercept Billy. Krycek gets her to the garage and Reyes drives off
with Scully, slowly negotiating the curves of the parking garage.
Gene stops them at the parking garage exit to the street. On the
roof of the building, Skinner encounters Billy. Mulder runs up and
knocks Billy over the edge of the building. Billy falls into a
garbage truck, several stories below. Gene waives Reyes on and she
drives off with Scully. Viewers see that Gene has a bump on the back
of his neck.
To be continued.
