IMAGES FROM "BRAND X"
TEASER
Skinner is at the Scobey residence to protect Dr. James Scobey and his family. Dr. Scobey works at the Morley tobacco company, and wants to testify against it.
Dr. Scobey coughs and drinks some water. When he puts the glass down it is filled with blood and an insect (tobacco beetle).
All is clear and the couple go to bed while Skinner and the other agents keep watch.
Mrs. Scobey wakes up, hearing her husband coughing in the bathroom. She tries to go in, but she can’t get the door open. She calls for Skinner.
Skinner goes in and finds Dr. Scobey on the floor, blood surrounding his head. When he rolls him over, he can see that the man’s face has been corroded away, especially around the mouth area.
ACT ONE
Mulder and Scully arrive at the Scobey’s to investigate the death. Skinner briefs the agents and shows them a crime photo of Scobey’s body.
MULDER: Can’t blow a whistle with a mouth like that.
Scully tells them that it’s almost if his skin has been stripped away. An assailant could have thrown acid on him. Skinner asks Scully to perform an autopsy.
While walking out of the room:
MULDER: Hugh.SKINNER: What?
MULDER: There’s no ashtrays. Dr. Scobey and his wife don’t smoke?
SKINNER: Not that I’ve witnessed.
MULDER: Hugh. Tobacco employee that doesn’t smoke. Isn’t that kinda like a GM executive who drives a Ford?
Mulder said that if it was a hit, it seems unnecessarily high profile and draws attention to itself. Skinner says that he has a point, and that it could leave a lot of potential witnesses. He says that Scobey had a supervisor at Morley Tobacco, a Dr. Peter Voss. Mulder tells Skinner that he’s going to go with him.
Before leaving, Mulder finds Scobey’s glass with the bug in it.
MORLEY TOBACCO HEADQUARTERS
Mulder and Skinner go to Morley to investigate. Skinner asks Voss to tell them what Scobey was testifying against, and that he knows it has something to do with the research.
The lawyer interrupts him telling him not to speak.
Skinner then asks if Scobey was his friend why he demoted him from working on a certain project.
LAWYER: As before, Dr. Voss would be in violation of his confidentiality clause in answering questions regarding the nature of his work here at Morley. I’m sure you understand our cooperation cannot extend itself to revealing corporate secrets.
SKINNER: Yeah, I’m not sensing any cooperation whatsoever. In fact, I’m one more non-answer away from getting a federal warrant and searching this entire building.
LAWYER: Then this meeting is over. Dr. Voss?
The LAWYER and the employees start to stand up.
MULDER: Dr. Voss? Can you tell me what that is?
MULDER tosses a bag with the bug in it over to DR. VOSS
VOSS: It’s a tobacco beetle. Why?
MULDER: Found it at Jim Scobey’s house.
VOSS: Well, you find a lot of these around here. They’re, they’re everywhere. There’s probably a dozen in the grill of your car right now.
LAWYER: May I ask where you’re going with this, Agent?
MULDER: I’m sorry. I can’t. Answering that question would violate FBI confidentiality due to the sensitive nature of our investigation.
DR. VOSS RESIDENCE
7:38 PM
Voss gets a visitor. A man, Weaver, always got free cigarettes off of Dr. Scobey, so now he thinks that he should get them from him (we later find out he is a test subject). Voss gives them to him and tells him to leave.
PORSYTH COUNTY MORGUE
8:02 PM
Mulder and Skinner enter the morgue. (Notice here the nitpick. The clock reads approx. 8:40.)
MULDER: Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.
Scully tells them that her autopsy revealed that Scobey died from lack of an airway – strictly speaking, he had hypoxemia, the inability to transfer oxygen from the lungs to the blood stream. He basically choked to death.
Skinner still thinks that someone had to have done it to him. Mulder tells him that may they didn’t, and no one ever came into the room.
Mulder asks Scully if she found any tobacco beetles inside his body. She didn’t, and asks him if he was expecting her to.
SKINNER: Killer bugs? This is what I’m supposed to tell the director?
Mulder tells him that he doesn’t know, but judging from Dr. Voss’s reaction to it, he thinks that it is what they should be investigating.
DOWNTOWN WINSTON-SALEM
11:24 PM
In an apartment building, Weaver is sitting and smoking while watching television. The camera pans to show an open vent high on his wall. (Note: On the TV is some kind of war going on. It reminds me of Friday’s “Harsh Realm.” It probably isn’t, but who knows?:)
A man yells through the wall at Weaver in the other room to quit smoking so much. Weaver yells back to him:
WEAVER: E Pluribus…uh…
The man starts coughing badly.
Weaver is still watching television when he hears a loud thump. He does nothing.
Next door the man is lying on the floor, dead, covered in beetles. His face has been eaten.
ACT TWO
6:16 AM
In the man’s apartment, Skinner is looking at the body. He flicks away a bug that’s on top of him.
MULDER (entering with Scully): Guests check in, but they don’t check out.
Scully bends down to get a look. She guesses that he died in the same way as Dr. Scobey. Skinner says, however, that he wasn’t a corporate whistle blower and had nothing to do with Morley Tobacco.
Scully asks what they could want with the man. Mulder says probably nothing. While picking one of the bugs off of the floor,he tells them that he doesn’t think either of the men were murdered. Mulder tells them that the bugs killed them. Skinner says that they didn’t find any of the insects in Scobey’s bathroom. Mulder tells him that there was an open window that they could have crawled through to escape. Scully tells him that it’s a long shot, but there could be some form of a contagious agent, like an insect-born bacterium, which means that there might be other victims in the building.
Mulder knocks on the door of room 24. Mulder talks to Weaver. He tells him that the man yelled a lot and told him he smoked a lot, but asks what he was going to do, it’s a free country. “E Pluribus…uh…” He smokes while he talks to Mulder. He won’t tell him much because he wants a reward for any information he gives. Mulder gives him his card and leaves his apartment.
Mulder meets back with Scully and Skinner and asks if they found out anything. They haven’t. Scully says that the only thing she has to go on medically right now are the bugs. She says that she knows an entomologist that she can call.
Mulder tells her to call her and then starts to leave. Skinner asks him where he’s going.
MULDER: To see about something else that’s been buggin’ me.
Mulder visits Voss at his home, trying to get him to talk. He tells him that he found more tobacco bugs, but Voss tells him nothing.
When Mulder leaves, a man, Brimley calls Voss asking him what Mulder wanted. He’s making sure that Voss isn’t telling anyone what he knows. He asks him where Weaver is, and that it’s his mess and he’ll clean it up. He tells him that he doesn’t know where he is.
The entomologist studies the beetle under a microscope. She tells Mulder, Scully, and Skinner that the bug is physically different than normal, but only in small ways. It has deviations on its mandibles, antennae, and body segmentation. Scully asks if the deviations could have arisen from genetic engineering. She asks if she means engineering the bugs themselves. Scully tells her that she was thinking of another possibility – transgenomics. She explains that it’s a form of DNA manipulation – alterations made on the genetic level. The entomologist tells them that it is widely known that tobacco companies have been using money for that kind of research, for things such as using less nicotine or more nicotine in cigarettes, or for making them naturally menthol flavored. Skinner asks if they mean like a form of super tobacco. Scully says yes and that it could have created some super bugs which are harmful to humans.
Voss goes to warn Weaver, gives him $4000, and tells him to leave town. He doesn’t care. Brimley is following Voss again.
Scully autopsies the body and finds that the man died in the same way Scobey did, except his lugs are filled with beetle larvae. Skinner asks why Scobey’s lungs didn’t have any. Scully theorizes that the larvae must pupate inside the lungs and once they mature into beetles, they lay eggs. Skinner says that that explains the condition of the face and the throat, but doesn’t explain how they got into his lungs to begin with.
From across the room, Mulder coughs. They look up at Mulder but think nothing of it until he keeps coughing. He coughs up blood into his hand and shows it to them.
ACT THREE
ASHEFORD MEDICAL CENTER
4:20 PM
Mulder is in the hospital. There is a tube down his throat and the doctors have a camera in his lungs. They’re riddled with larvae. The doctors suction the larvae out of Mulder’s lungs.
Scully is upset. She talks to Skinner. She tells him that they are having some luck clearing Mulder’s lungs, but for every one of
“the things” there may be a dozen eggs that have yet to hatch. They are going to hatch; they are just buying time. Skinner asks
how they got into his lungs. Scully says that she thinks he inhaled them. She explains that the tobacco beetle lives out its life
cycle on a tobacco plant where it lays its eggs. If the genetically altered beetles that they saw did that, then maybe the eggs
survived the processing into cigarettes. They were carried into Mulder lungs through smoke, by spores or pollen. Skinner says
that Mulder, nor Scobey, were smokers. She tells him that maybe they were around someone who was.MORLEY TOBACCO
AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH DIVISION
Scully and Skinner go back to Morley headquarters with a search warrant. Against advisement by the lawyer, Voss tells them what they need to know, as the other agents look around.
Voss explains that people will keep smoking no matter how bad it is for them, so he had genetically altered the tobacco plants to make the cigarettes healthier. Only in doing so, he also altered the beetles. They had tested out the cigarettes and everything was fine until three of the four test subjects suddenly died. That is what Scobey was trying to testify that happened. Everyone was told to keep quiet. Skinner asks about the test subject who didn’t die.
Skinner, Voss, and the agents go to Weaver’s apartment, but he is gone.
Skinner finds Brimley. He is tied up with a gag in his mouth. Voss tells Skinner that Brimley told him that he meant to get Weaver, but Skinner tells him that it looks like Weaver got to him first. Skinner takes the gag out, and he chokes as a whole lot of beetles come out of his mouth.
Weaver pulls up at a gas station. There is a Morley sticker on the back of his car. He ignores the signs that tell him no
smoking. He goes in and ignores the attendant when he tells him to quit smoking – he just gives him some money instead. He buys a pack of beer. The attendant asks if he wants some cigarettes, but Weaver tells him that he doesn’t have his brand.
Weaver and the attendant see a sheriff’s car and some agents outside. When the attendant turn back to Weaver, he is gone.
At the hospital Mulder is awake. Scully holds his hand and talks to him.
MULDER (speaking low with a sore throat): Hmm…Must be bad. SCULLY smiles. Mulder coughs a little bit throughout the conversation.
SCULLY: How do you feel?
MULDER: Like a dust buster attacked me.
SCULLY: We're looking for someone who may be able to help you. A Morley test subject by the name of Daryl Weaver.
MULDER: Mr. E Pluribus...yeah.
SCULLY: Well, Mr. Weaver seems to have some kind of tolerance or immunity, and we’re hoping that once we find him we’ll be able to figure out how to treat you.
MULDER starts wheezing and can’t breath
SCULLY: Mulder?
The alarms on Mulder’s monitors go off. Scully yells for the doctor to come. When he gets there, she tells him to get oxygen for him and call a code. The doctor calls “Code Blue.” The nurses come and try to help.
Scully looks at Mulder’s face and sees a beetle inside of his oxygen mask.
ACT FOUR
Scully looks at Mulder through the window in the room. Scully talks to the doctor. Mulder is getting way worse because there are larvae filling his lungs again and are beginning to block the flow of blood. The only choice they have is to suction them out again, but this time they will have to crack his chest. Scully tells him that Mulder is too weak and would die on the operating table. She won’t let them move forward with the operation, so the doctor tells Scully that with out it Mulder will still die sooner or later.
Skinner goes to Voss’s house, but he isn’t there. He had told Skinner that he was heading home. He tells Mrs. Voss that the agents with him are going to stay to protect her and her family. Skinner leaves.
Skinner arrives at Morley and finds Voss. His head is bloody. Weaver is there as well. Voss tells Skinner that Weaver took the test cigarettes. Skinner tells Weaver to stop or he will shoot him. He tells Skinner that he knows he won’t shoot him because he needs him to help. He lights up a cigarette even though Skinner tells him he will shoot. (For some reason Skinner never gets sick, or Voss for that matter…) When Weaver goes to leave, Skinner shoots the window behind him and he falls. Skinner stomps out the cigarette that has fallen out of Weaver’s mouth.
Skinner brings Weaver to the hospital. The doctors start testing him.
Scully notices that the man’s fingertips are yellow from nicotine, and she knows what to do. She tells the doctors to inject Mulder with nicotine.
FBI HEADQUARTERS
TWO WEEKS LATER
Mulder is at work again, but he still has a scratchy throat. It seems that Weaver was not affected like the other test subjects because he was so much more of a heavy smoker than they were, that he had a very large amount of nicotine in his body. Nicotine is one of the oldest known insecticides.
Scully tells Mulder that the nicotine saved him as well, except it almost stopped his breathing at the same time. He tells her that
that is not all that the nicotine did. He takes out a pack of Morley’s and is going to leave to go smoke them. He tells Scully
that they say the addiction is worse than heroine. She doesn’t want him to smoke them, so he throws them in the trash. Scully
says, “Good,” and tells him that Skinner is waiting for them in his office. Mulder tells her that he’ll be there in a minute.Scully leaves as Mulder looks at the box of Morley’s in the trash. The camera pans to his face and the screen fades out.
