IMAGES FROM "VIA NEGATIVA" COMING SOON!

TEASER
An agent is asleep in his car when his partner awakens him. He slept through part of the stakeout. His partner tells him that the door to the house is wide open.

The two venture in.

Inside they find bloody footprints. They follow them to another room. Over the doorframe there is a giant eye painted on the wall.

Inside the room there are two rows of beds. On each one lay dead bodies, their faces blown away, blood covering their pillows.

The agent calls his partner to see. They hear a noise and his partner goes to check it out.

As the man looks, the camera pans to show an axe. 

In the other room, the first agent hears two shots fired. He goes to check it out and finds his partner on the floor, dead, just like the others.

The agent turns and behind him is the man with the axe. He has a third eye in the middle of his forehead. The man brings the blade down fast into the agent’s head.

ACT ONE
FALL CHURCH, VIRGINIA
3:26 AM
Scully calls Doggett from a pay phone to tell him that Skinner has a situation to deal with. An agent that he sent to surveil a religious occult in Pittsburgh is dead, as are all the followers. Doggett asks what happened, but she tells him that Skinner is having a hard time determining that. Doggett looks at his watch and tells her that he will pick her up, but she says that she can’t go. She tells him that something unexpected has come up. He asks her if she is all right, and she tells him that she is fine. She will see him as soon as she can.

A nurse tells Scully that the doctor wants to see her right away.

Doggett and Skinner arrive at the crime scene. Skinner asks Doggett where Scully is, and he tells him that she is running late.

Doggett asks him what they have. Skinner says that they had one of their men doing a routine surveillance on a cult group, the Avagon Temple. They had a tip that they were trafficking narcotics. Nobody expected anything like this.

Skinner opens the driver’s side of the agent’s car for Doggett to see inside. The agent is sitting in his car, dead, as if he never left. Skinner tells Doggett that his name is James Leeds. A patrol cop found him in the car, with the doors locked from the inside. Doggett asks if anyone saw or heard anything. He says that no one did. Doggett says that it could not have happened there. Skinner says that the blood splatter on the seat says it did. Doggett tells him that it’s too narrow. There’s no room to swing a weapon. It also doesn’t make any sense. Leeds’s gun is still holstered and his keys are in the ignition. Doggett wonders if Leeds fell asleep.

DOGGETT: This is damn weird.
SKINNER: It gets weirder.

Skinner takes Doggett in to see the bodies. He tells him that all twenty cult members were killed the same way as Leeds -- from a single deep wound in the forehead. However, one of the beds are empty. It belongs to the leader of the cult Anthony Tipet. Skinner tells Doggett that Tipet was a convicted murderer who claimed to have found God. They didn’t think that they were dealing with an apocalyptic cult. They’ve seen this kind of thing before in Jonestown and Heaven’s Gate. Doggett tells him he doesn’t care how devoted they were they wouldn’t just lie there and let their leader bash their brains in. He figures at least one of them would have had a problem with that. Skinner tells him that that is something he considered and is having a tox screens run on all the bodies for drugs. Doggett asks if that includes their man in the car.

Another agent comes into the room and tells Skinner that they still haven’t been able to located Agent Stedman. Doggett asks if they mean Angus Stedman. Skinner says that he was Leeds’s partner, and asks if he knows him. Doggett just asks where they looked for him. The agent tells him that he’s not checked into the same motel as Leeds, and he is not answering his cell phone or pager. Doggett asks if he checked Stedman’s condo. Stedman is from Pittsburgh. He keeps a condo there (in D.C.) that belonged to his parents.

Doggett and Skinner go to the condo. Doggett knocks on the door, but no one answers. The landlord unlocks the door for them. The chain on the door is locked. Doggett looks to Skinner and he nods at him. Doggett bursts in the door, breaking the chain, Skinner behind him.

Inside they find Stedman’s body, killed the same way as the others.

OFFICE OF THE DEPUTY DIRECTOR
2:18 PM
Skinner, Doggett, and some other agents, watch a video of Tippet in Kersh’s office. Tipet is telling his followers there bodies are clay shells made by God to hold the twin aspects of the Holy Spirit -- light and dark. He says that if they have the courage to see into darkness, they see into God, free and clear of the clay that binds them.

Skinner stops the tape and addresses the group. He tells them that Tipet served twelve years after the bludgeoning death of his wife. After his release he became a minister preaching of hybrid of evangelical and eastern religions. He claimed a higher level of being could be reached by the via negativa, the path of darkness, a plane closer to God. Once reached it would let the spirit travel unhindered. Tipet believed that hallucinogens would lead him to that plane, specifically compounds of the bark of an African tree.

An agent asks if he’s saying that all the people were so stoned on the bark that they just let their leader kill them. Skinner tells him that they found no traces of drugs in the blood of any of the victims.

Kersh tells him that he doesn’t understand. He asks Skinner how Tipet managed to slaughter all of the people.

Doggett tells him that Tipet was paranoid, but nothing indicates that he was ready to take the lives of his own people or their men.

Kersh tells him that Tipet is their one and only suspect. He asks if he’s telling him that he didn’t do it. Doggett says that whoever did it left no trace how, and left no fingerprints or forensic evidence whatsoever. Agent Leeds’s Sedan, the cult house, and Agent Stedman’s condo were all locked from the inside.

KERSH: That’s impossible.
SKINNER: Unless Tipet took the drug and succeeded. Unless his consciousness was there but his body was somewhere else.
KERSH: The X-File explanation. I take it this theory comes from Agent Scully.
KERSH looks to DOGGETT
DOGGETT: Agent Scully has yet to reach any conclusion, Sir.

Kersh tells him that that is the problem. He’s not hearing conclusions from either one of them. He tells them that if the man has reached a higher plane, then explain to him why twenty-two people are dead, including two FBI agents. He says that he wants to hear what they’re going to do about it.

Once Doggett and Skinner leave Kersh’s office, Doggett tells Skinner that if he’s working the case, he’d appreciate a head’s up before he tells Kersh and more science fiction stories. Skinner tells him that he doesn’t have another explanation. Doggett says that the guys in Kersh’s office are right. The whole story doesn’t make any sense. Skinner says that he is supposed to give the guys in there answers, and he is supposed to help him do it. Doggett gets into the elevator and tells him that Tipet is on the run. If they find him, they just might.

HILL DISTRICT
PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA
Tipet walks down the street at night to a pay phone. A homeless man stops him and asks him for change. He tells him that he doesn’t have any. The man tells him that he knows he has something because he heard a jingle in his pocket. Tipet grabs him by the collar, spins him around, and pushes him against the phone. He says to the man, “You don’t wanna know me.”

Tipet lets him go and then dials a number.

Tipet leaves a message on a man’s answering machine, telling him to pick up. Andre stands and listens. He is in a lab, with cages of rats and many concoctions around him. He was making drugs. On the machine, Tippet says, “You did this. You did this. God help you Andre, I can’t.” 

Andre stops and picks up a blade. He puts it to his forehead and blood drips onto the table.

10:22 PM
Doggett is in the bullpen when Skinner gives him the coroner’s report. Doggett reads to Skinner that they were all killed by a single blow from an axe blade six to eight inches long. Skinner tells him that the photos of wound patterns do not match up to any known make or manufacturer. Doggett shows Skinner a picture of an axe and asks if it fits the description. It’s a ceremonial axe used over a thousand years ago to cleave the skulls of unbelievers. This was required reading for Tippet’s followers. Skinner asks him if it’s their weapon. He tells him it isn’t, because it’s on permanent display at a Calcutta museum.  Skinner says that it’s another dead end. Doggett adds, “Like everything else in this case.”

Doggett tells Skinner that he’s a good investigator, but he knows as well as he does that he’s not the one who should be investigating this case. Skinner tells him that Scully can’t be there. Doggett is surprised that he spoke to her. He says that he talked to her that night, and that she told him to tell him that she’s fine and is taking some personal time. Doggett tells him that twenty-two people are dead and questions that she’s taking some personal time. Doggett picks up the phone to call her, but Skinner grabs his hand and tells him that he’s not listening to what he’s telling him. He says to do his best without her, and then he hangs up the phone.

The homeless man is sitting on the ground when Tipet walks up. He has a third eye again. The pavement where the man is turns to quicksand, right before Tipet brings the axe down.

ACT TWO
4:07 AM
Doggett is looking at Tipet’s profile from the Department of Corrections when there is a knock at his door. It’s Skinner. He tells Doggett that he thinks that they have a break in the case. Skinner says that a homeless man was found dead in Pittsburgh two hours ago. He had them fax him some digital photos. A man fitting Tibet’s description was ID’d using a payphone earlier in the night. Doggett thinks that they got something, but Skinner tells him that there is no concrete evidence against him.  Doggett says that they got him at the scene, but Skinner replies that they have nothing to link him to the murder. Doggett asks if he’s supposed to believe that Tipet doped himself into another plane of reality, and that his spirit is going around killing people.

Skinner tells him just to suppose that the drug finally did what Tipet said it would, and that his spirit could be in one place and his body in another. Doggett asks then why he is doing it. If Tipet is looking for God, why is he killing people? He says that just because he’s assigned to the X-Files that Skinner wants him to think like Mulder and Scully would, and he’s got the wrong guy. He needs facts, not wild ideas. Skinner says all right and hands him a piece of paper from a file. Skinner says all right and hands him a piece of paper from a file. It’s a log from the payphone that he had the Pittsburgh PD get. At 10:12 a call was made to Andre Bormanis, a convicted drug dealer that served time with Tipet. The number is a D.C. area code.

SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON, D.C.
4:54 AM
When Doggett and Skinner find Andre, he is alive, but has an “X” that was from the blade carved in his forehead. He says it will protect him, at least he hopes so. Skinner and Doggett realize that he has been making hallucinogens for Tipet. Andre also believes that with them Tipet can reach a higher level of existence. Skinner and Doggett take him away, even though he protests. He tries to take some drugs on his way out, screaming that he needs them.

At the jail, Doggett looks at Andre in his cell with a very strange look on his face. He starts to walk down the hall. Suddenly he sees bloody footprints and follows them. Tipet is suspended Indian style in the air. Doggett looks down and realizes that the blood is on the bottom of his own shoes. He looks up at Tipet. When he looks down again, the camera pans to show Scully’s head dripping blood. He drops it quickly to the floor. Skinner comes up to him, calling his name, and taps him on the shoulder. Doggett wakes up.

Skinner hands Doggett his cell phone and tells him that it is Scully.

Scully tells him that Skinner told her about the case, and that he covered for her. She tells him that he didn’t have to do that, but that she appreciates his discretion. He tells her that it’s easy to be discrete when you don’t know what’s going on. She says that she is fine. Skinner told her that he’s working around the clock on the case. He needs to get some rest. He says that he just grabbed a few winks. She tells him that she asked Skinner to contact a few friends of Mulder’s because she thinks that they can help. He says that he appreciates all the help he can get. Scully tells him that he is a good agent and to trust his
instincts.

Skinner walks up and tells Doggett after he hangs up the phone and tells him that Bormanis was cooking up some kind of super amphetamine. Legal or not, no one has ever seen it before. Skinner asks if he thinks that it was intended for Tipet.

DOGGETT: He wants it for himself. He doesn’t want to go to sleep.

Doggett wants to talk to Bormanis right away.

Back in his cell, Bormanis wakes up. He sees Tipet standing outside his cell. Before Doggett or Skinner get there rats scurry on the floor around Bormanis’s feet. They all crawl up onto him and start attacking him.

When they get to his cell, Andre is on his side. Doggett seems to know something is wrong. They open the cell and go closer to find that he is dead, with the same wound on his forehead as the others.

ACT THREE 
FBI HEADQUARTERS
5:02 PM
Doggett comes into the office to find the Lone Gunmen. They don’t realize that he is there at first. Frohike is going through the X-Files and Byers is telling him not to. Frohike says that Mulder wouldn’t mind. They practically solved half of the cases.  Meanwhile Langly is spinning around in Mulder’s chair, aiming a rubber band at the ceiling.

LANGLY: Yeah, Byers. Quit your whining. Nobody likes a crybaby.

Byers says that Scully asked them to assist, not go through their files. He then notices Doggett.

Langly and Frohike stop when they realized that Byers has stopped talking.

Byers introduces himself and his friends. Doggett guesses that they produce The Lone Gunman newspaper. Frohike says that their reputation precedes them. He smiles, as does Langly. He tells them that he read Mulder’s files. Frohike says then that he knows how bad he’s going to need their help. Byers tells him that they reviewed the case as Scully asked.

LANGLY: Mondo bizarro. No offence, man, but you’re in way over your head.

Doggett asks them what help they can give him.

They show him some slides, and Doggett tells them that maybe that with the hallucinogens the man did get to a higher plane of existence, one closer to God, and opened a third eye -- what Frohike says we all have but don’t use. What Doggett doesn’t understand is that if he has gotten closer to God, why is he killing people, and how? 

Frohike tells him that they don’t know why, but they might be able to tell him how. Frohike asks him if he’s heard of MK Ultra. Byers says that it’s the CIA mind control project started in the ‘50’s. Langly says that they gave LSD to people to see what would happen, without telling them. Frohike adds that they understood the power of hallucinogens to harness the mind.  Doggett tells them that Tipet was the one on hallucinogens, not his victims. Byers tells him that the CIA spent millions trying to create psychic assassins, failing where evidently Tipet has succeeded. Frohike adds he’s succeeded in reaching a drug-induced higher consciousness, using his mind as a weapon against his victims. Langly says that the assassin makes his victims think that they are being hit by an axe, or any number of nightmares, according to Byers. Frohike says that they believe it; it happens.

Doggett asks what if Tipet could invade his victims’ consciousness in their sleep. And that’s why they’d be afraid to fall asleep, if they thought their nightmares might come true.

Byers asks if he believes that. He says that he doesn’t, but if Tipet does, he’ll need more drugs to keep killing.

After Doggett is gone, Frohike quips that he’s not bad for a beginner.

SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON, D.C.
5:39 PM
Skinner and Doggett find Tipet at Bormanis’s lab. He tells them that he doesn’t want it to happen, and he can’t stop it. He says that Doggett understands and knows what will happen unless he stops it. Tipet plunges his head into the spinning table saw before they can stop him. They grab him and pull him away.

WASHINGTON NATIONAL HOSPITAL
6:07 PM
The man is rushed to the hospital. Doggett is asked to sign him in. As he does, he sees Scully’s name on the sign-in sheet.  Her diagnosis is marked as acute abdominal pains.

Doggett walks by Scully’s room but does not let her know he is there.

Doggett enters Kersh’s office. Kersh tells him that Skinner said that he could shed light on the reason for Tipet’s suicide attempt. He tells him that he can. He says that it is via negativa, the path of darkness that Tipet believed he reached. Tipet believed that the drugs took him inside the subconscious minds of anyone he knew, making the most horrific, irrational dream imagery of their nightmares come true. That’s why he tried to kill himself -- to make it stop.

Kersh tells them that they did a good job and pats a very confused Doggett on the back. Doggett tells Kersh that the case isn’t over yet. Kersh says that Tipet is hospitalized in a coma. Doggett tells him that they have no murder weapon or forensic evidence, unless they accept Tipet’s beliefs, which Kersh himself characterizes as preposterous. Kersh just tells him that it’s over. He tells Doggett that he doesn’t need every “i” dotted or “t” crossed to know that they got the killer.

Doggett leaves a message on Scully’s answering machine. He tells her that he thinks they caught the man who did it, but it still doesn’t add up. He says that part of him says, “What if, what if this guy was right? What if I should have let him die?” He says that he’s not making a lot of sense, and maybe he just needs some sleep. He says that if she feels up to it to call him.

He hangs up the phone. When he looks in the mirror, he sees Tipet behind him. He turns around and no one is there. Thinking his mind is just playing tricks on him, he goes upstairs to go to bed.

The camera pans to show Tipet standing in shadow, holding the axe.

ACT FOUR
In the morning, Doggett wakes up. He looks in the mirror as he is tying his tie. Suddenly he sees a third eye in the middle of his forehead. When he blinks so does the third eye. When the camera shows his face in reality for the second time, the third eye is not there.

Doggett enters Skinner’s office and asks Skinner’s secretary if he is there. Skinner walks out with another agent, who tells Doggett that he did excellent work on the case. 

The agent leaves.

After Doggett and Skinner walk into his office, he tells Skinner that he isn’t sure he’s awake. Then he tells him that he dreamed that Tipet was in his house, and that he could still be asleep. He looks terrified. Skinner tells him that he is awake. He tells Skinner that the same thing must have happened to the other victims. Everything seems so real, but it is just a dream. A dream that ended in their deaths. Skinner tells him that Tipet is in a coma never to regain consciousness. Voice shaking, Doggett says that Tipet knows him now and can enter his dreams. Skinner tells him that he needs to get some rest.

Doggett walks down the hallway and enters the elevator. He gets off. It is the same hallway he was just in, however, no one is there this time. He is confused, his perception altered. He looks back to where he came from, but the same long hall is in front of him. He turns back around and the hall seems to get longer.

Tipet walks up to Doggett and says, “She’s going to die.” In a strange, echoed voice Doggett tells him that he is not going to let him do that. Tipet says that he’s sorry; he’s not going to kill her. Doggett is.

Doggett covers his face with his hands. When he pulls them away, he’s in the hallway of Scully’s apartment building.

He walks over to her door, which opens on it’s own. He looks down; there is blood on his hands. He goes into her apartment. Suddenly there is an axe in his hand. He goes into her bedroom where she is sleeping. He looks terrified. He raises the axe even though it is obvious he does not want to. He puts it down for a second and then picks it back up. He holds it above Scully. Suddenly he hears her calling his name. He wakes up.

Scully is standing over his bed in his apartment. He asks how she got there, and she tells him that his door was unlocked.  Doggett tells her that she just saved his life. She says that she just woke him up. He says that Tipet is in his dreams. She tells him that Tipet is dead. She got the call from Skinner on her way over to his apartment. Tipet never regained consciousness.  He asks her if she’s okay, and she tells him that she seems to be and that she is back at work now. She tells him that it must have been some nightmare he just had.

DOGGETT: Tipet thought he’d find God by looking in the darkness inside himself.
SCULLY: You don’t think he succeeded.
DOGGETT shakes his head
DOGGETT: In my dreams I saw…I saw terrible, violent images. Scared the livin’ daylights out of me. These things are a part of me, I can’t deny that, but, maybe…maybe they didn’t come from me.
SCULLY: Then where’d they come from?
DOGGETT doesn’t answer her.
SCULLY: It was a bad dream, Agent Doggett, but that’s all it was.

IMAGES FROM "VIA NEGATIVA" COMING SOON!


Overall Rating : 8
*Shippy Rating: 1.5 (because the pregnancy is sort of mentioned)
*Note: Shippiness will ALWAYS be based on MULDER and SCULLY. The scale is based on the Redux II scale (1-10, as Redux II being a 10 [now with Triangle being an 11, All Things being an 11.5, and Millennium being a 12, all above the scale])*


If you have any more information, spoilers, or questions for me, feel free to email me. If you give me a tip, I don't have to reveal my source, unless you want me too.