Episodes Season 7

Season Seven 1999-2000
THE SIXTH EXTINCTION	11/07/99
THE SIXTH EXTINCTION II: AMOR FATI	11/14/99
HUNGRY	11/21/99
MILLENNIUM	11/28/99
RUSH	12/05/99
THE GOLDBERG VARIATION
ORISON
THE AMAZING MALEENI
SIGNS & WONDERS
SEIN UND ZEIT 1	02/06/008.
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"THE SIXTH EXTINCTION" #7ABX03 Original Air Date: 11/7/99
On the beach of Africa's Ivory Coast, Scully tries to piece together the cryptic symbols on the surface of the beached spaceship, hoping to find some answers to save the life of her ailing partner. Mulder contracted his illness after coming in contact with a carbon rubbing from the craft. While working late one night she does not notice a primitive African warrior who appears and then disappears. Thousands of bugs instantly swarm inside the tent. The next morning, an African biology professor named Amina Ngebe arrives at the camp to help Scully with the research. Amina warns Scully not to tell the African men hired to unearth the spaceship about the bugs because they would consider it an omen. After that, one of the workers in the ocean screams in pain as if he had been boiled in the water. At the sight of his blistered skin, Amina tells Scully that this is another warning.

Skinner goes to visit Mulder in the padded cell of a Washington hospital. He tries to speak to him, but Mulder attacks and is placed in restraints. Outside the cell, Skinner realizes he has a note in his pocket: a ripped cloth with the words "help me" written in dried blood. He sees Mulder again and manages to discern a name. Although reluctant at first, Michael Kritschgau (last seen in "Redux" and "Redux II") is persuaded by Skinner to see Mulder. Kritschgau explains that he has witnessed this condition before in a CIA study of ESP. The electrical impulses in Mulder's brain are working harder than his body can sustain. Kritschgau has Skinner inject Phenytoin, causing an immediate effect in awakening Mulder. Diana Fowley attempts to intervene but Skinner, in an attempt to keep his dealings with Kritschgau secretive, dismisses her. Kritschgau puts a more responsive Mulder through a battery of tests with video monitors to determine his brain's over-activity and psychic ability.

Dr. Barnes (from "Biogenesis") arrives at Scully's tent to help her read the symbols but she is wary of him. The water around the spaceship turns into blood--another omen--and again Scully sees the manifestation of the primitive African man. Scully and Amina figure out that the symbols describe human genetics and ancient religious passages. In a delirious frenzy, Barnes claims that the spaceship is the ultimate source of power--the source of life itself--and traps the two women in the tent to ensure that he gets all the credit. Barnes' sack rumbles underneath a table. The fish he caught have magically come back to life, but only in Barnes' mind. This proves to him his theory that the spaceship is an animating force. Scully takes advantage of the opportunity to hit Barnes so that she and Amina can escape. The women frantically drive for help, but on the desolate road Scully sees the primitive African man in their path. She yells for Amina to stop the car, but the man has disappeared. Suddenly the man is in Amina's place and tells Scully, "Some truths are not for you." In the next instant he turns back into Amina. Scully tells her that she needs to get home.

Skinner and Kritschgau inject Mulder with an even greater dose in order to free him from the hospital. But when Diana rushes in with the doctor to confront Skinner, Mulder lapses into violent convulsions. Early the next morning, Diana pledges her love to the sedate Mulder. She vows to help him and not let him die. As she leaves, Mulder's eyes follow her--he cannot speak, but he has heard every word she said. At the beach, Barnes' driver comes into the seemingly empty tent and Barnes slashes him in the neck with a machete. Barnes places the man's body in the spot where the fish came to life. Later, Barnes discovers the driver's body gone and he goes out to the shoreline to look for him. The driver has returned to life, and strikes Barnes with the same machete.

Scully goes to Skinner in Washington and demands to see Mulder. Skinner tries to convey Mulder's impending death. Scully responds that Mulder is more alive than ever, acknowledging that the cause may be extraterrestrial. Skinner warns her that the security in the hospital will deny her access. An emotional Scully pleads with Mulder to hold on. He is unresponsive.

Amina returns to the beach with the police. They find Barnes' body in the ocean, but the spacecraft has disappeared. To Be Continued...

"THE SIXTH EXTINCTION II: AMOR FATI" #7ABX04 Original Air Date: 11/14/99
Mulder dreams about a young couple teaching their son to walk on a beach. In reality, Mulder is still in the hospital, lying in a coma. His mother tries to speak to him and receives no response. Mrs. Mulder doesn't hear her fully-alert son calling out to her in his head. But the Cigarette-Smoking Man (CSM) knows Mulder can read his thoughts. He injects Mulder's head with a serum that allows Mulder to move and speak. CSM offers his hand. Mulder again envisions the toddler on the beach as the words of CSM lull him: "Take my hand because I am your father."

Scully is working round-the-clock to find the cause of Mulder's illness, when Kritschgau sneaks into the office. He explains that exposure to the spacecraft's energy has activated the alien virus injected into Mulder two years ago. Kritschgau demands Scully's research, but they are interrupted by a phone call from Skinner: Mulder has disappeared from the hospital. She hurries to the hospital and learns that it was Mulder's mother who has checked him out. Skinner tells Scully that he must remove himself from the case and from knowledge of the agents' whereabouts. Skinner's position has been compromised. Mulder again sees the boy on the beach, and awakens to find himself in CSM's car. CSM tells him that doctors have worked on him, and the only way he can be saved from death is to disappear into a kind of witness protection program. CSM pulls up to a suburban street and points out Mulder's new life. CSM offers him the chance to return to his previous existence with the X-Files, but Mulder is curious about this new home. He is pleased to find a refrigerator stocked with his favorite sunflower seeds. As he pops one into his mouth, he is startled by the presence of an old ally -- Deep Throat (killed the first season in "The Erlenmeyer Flask"). Deep Throat boasts about his peaceful life in this neighborhood and encourages Mulder to join him. But Mulder is overwhelmed with guilt for his causing this man's supposed death. Deep Throat tells him not to feel responsible for his death or the deaths of Mulder's father, Scully's sister and Duane Barry. Deep Throat explains that they the two of them are merely puppets in a master plan. He coaxes Mulder to relax and enjoy his new life.

Scully finds the Navajo elder Albert Hosteen (last seen dying in "Biogenesis") in her apartment. Hosteen warns her that she must save Mulder for the sake of mankind. Scully returns to the hospital. She reviews a surveillance tape of Mulder's room where she can see through the mostly covered monitors that Mulder's mother is talking to someone with a cigarette. This convinces Scully that CSM is behind Mulder's disappearance. At the FBI, Scully receives an inter-office envelope containing a book on Native American practices. The symbols on the book's cover match the ones she had been studying on the spaceship in Africa. She reads a myth foretelling a mass extinction with a man who can save the world from this tragedy. She calls Skinner to question him as the source for this clue. Scully deduces that they took Mulder because they think his illness is protection against a coming plague. An apprehensive Skinner hangs up on her. Scully runs up to his office and sees Skinner doubled over in pain, while a bearded man escapes. Scully goes to Kritschgau and admonishes him for revealing the secrets about Mulder's illness. Kritschgau has hacked into her computer files and explains that her research will prove that Mulder has biologically transformed into an alien.

Mulder has another vision of the beach. The boy is sad that his sand sculpture has been washed away by the tide. Mulder comforts him and encourages the boy to build it again. Mulder is awakened by Diana Fowley who comes to his bed, convincing him of the joys of marriage. They make love. The next morning, Diana tries to persuade Mulder that he should become a father. She brings him to CSM's house nearby and points out CSM's daughter, Samantha Mulder. Suddenly we are in an operating theater. CSM tells Diana that men like Mulder have dreams of a simpler life. He says this about the real Mulder, who lies on a table with his head strapped in a surgical device. This is where Mulder really is. The illusion of domestic, suburban bliss is only in his mind.

At the FBI, Scully tries to appeal to Diana for help, causing Diana to question CSM's motivation for using Mulder in the experiments. Albert Hosteen reappears in Scully's apartment. He tells her to look inside her heart for Mulder. The two pray together.

Still in his dream, Mulder's life progresses with Diana. He physically ages as he goes through their wedding, her pregnancy and children, and then her death. Mulder slips back into his subconscious where the sand sculpture has become a spaceship. The boy starts to smash the sculpture, telling him that it is really Mulder's spaceship and he is the one destroying it. A now aged Mulder wakes up to CSM at his bedside. CSM tells him that he should let go. As Mulder closes his eyes, the world outside is in full apocalypse. Yet in real life, Mulder and CSM are side-by-side on a medical table for some kind of procedure transplanting Mulder's alien genetic material into CSM.

The bearded man from Skinner's office kills Kritschgau and torches all his research. Only now is his identity revealed: it's Alex Krycek. An envelope is slid under Scully's door with a key card that leads Scully to the surgical facility where Mulder is being held. In Mulder's dream he is ready to give up, but Scully forces him to persist with their mission. In reality, Scully does come to the surgery room to save Mulder. She wakes him up and he draws strength from her presence. She helps him escape.

Scully checks up on the still weakened Mulder is in his apartment. He wears bandages on his head from the operation. He informs her that Albert Hosteen has died in New Mexico. This upsets Scully. She doesn't believe that her experience was imagined. Then Scully breaks her bad news to Mulder: Diana was murdered because she helped save him. Mulder is emotional, and reveals his dreams about another life without the X-Files. He admits to Scully that she was the only one who told him the truth in his dreams and that "even when my world was falling apart, you were my constant, my touchstone." She tells her partner that she feels the same way, then leaves. One more time, Mulder dreams of the boy on the beach. This time they are rebuilding a huge sandcastle spaceship together.

"HUNGRY" #7ABX01 Original Air Date: 11/21/99
It is after midnight when an LTD pulls into the drive-through of Lucky Boy Burgers in Costa Mesa, California. The young guy at the wheel waits impatiently and receives only silence from the speaker. He calls out for service and the neon "open" sign instantly flickers out. Angered, the guy honks his horn. The microphone clicks on and a man says the restaurant is closed. The driver doesn't give up easily and yells threats to the speaker. The voice at the other end sheepishly tells him to drive through. The guy pulls up, but no one is there. So he leans out of his car to get a better look. In one quick instant, a monster appears in the window and ferociously yanks the guy from his car. The driverless car, still in gear, creeps toward a curb.

Three days later, Lucky Boy employee Rob Roberts pulls up to the restaurant and gives himself a pep talk before heading in. He works at the front register as Mulder and Scully approach, flashing their badges. They ask Rob's manager to round up the employees for questioning. They inform the group that a Lucky Boy Burger promotional button was found on a body in the trunk of a car. The employees, including Rob, all pull out their buttons. A thuggish-looking Derwood Spinks hides in the back, claiming he left his button at home. His co-workers eye Derwood suspiciously. Mulder and Scully clear out the restaurant and search the kitchen. They don't see Rob outside as he switches on the drive-through microphone and listens to their conversation at the menu board. Mulder theorizes that the victim's brain was sucked out by a tongue or some kind of proboscis. Scully is not convinced. Mulder spots dried blood under a counter. He is squeamish that it is brain matter. Scully notes that it is merely ground beef. Rob isn't settled by this news.

Rob comes home and rushes into the bathroom where he pulls from the bathtub a Lucky Boy uniform soaking in pink water. He cannot scrub out the blood stains and decides to dump the shirt. He is about to remove the trash bag when there is a knock at the door. Mulder wants to ask Rob a few more questions about his closing up the restaurant on the night of the murder. Rob complies, telling him that he dumped thirty-five pounds of spoiled beef that night. Out of the corner of his eye he catches the bloody water seeping out from the trash bag but Mulder doesn't see it. After Mulder leaves, Rob tosses the wet bag into a garbage truck outside. He realizes his hands are covered with dried blood and sucks his fingers, enjoying the taste. While doing so he notices a man parked across from the apartment building watching him. Rob nervously approaches, thinking the man is Mulder. The unidentified man tells Rob to get lost.

Back in the apartment, Rob's answering machine tapes a message from Dr. Mindy Rinehart, a psychiatrist assigned by Lucky Boy to aid its employees. He ignores the message, intently watching the man staked outside the building. Rob goes in the bathroom and pops out his triangle-shaped, shark teeth. As they clink in the sink, his stomach loudly growls. Later that night, Rob tries to overcome his hunger. He chomps on appetite suppressant gum and memorizes the words of a videotaped motivational speaker. But he is still starving. He goes outside to the man in the parked car and opens his toothless mouth. Needle-sharp teeth spring into place as he lunges at the man.

Rob hallucinates that the burgers he is frying are brains. Derwood shows up at Lucky Boy to threaten Rob again. Scared of getting caught, Rob rummages through Derwood's house for the prescription bottle. When Derwood comes home, Rob hides in the closet. As Derwood approaches the closet armed with a baseball bat, Rob starts to dismember his fake human parts to reveal the monster underneath. Derwood opens the door and the monster's tongue lashes out, poking a hole through Derwood's forehead.

Rob goes to see Dr. Rinehart again and admits that he has an eating disorder. She writes down the location of an Overeaters Anonymous meeting. Rob's stomach growls and he rushes out, saying "I really am trying to do right." Dr. Rinehart ponders his statement. Rob returns home to find Mulder and Scully waiting to ask him about Derwood Spinks's disappearance. Mulder tells Rob that he believes the killer is some sort of genetic freak who feeds on humans, but Rob plays dumb.

With no other hope, Rob attends the Overeaters Anonymous meeting and runs into his neighbor, Sylvia. She encourages him to introduce himself. He describes in salacious detail his cravings for meat. The group members salivate. Rob stops when he spots a bald man in the front row. The man's brain seems to be throbbing through the skull, causing Rob to lick his lips in hunger. Rob makes a friend in Sylvia as he walks her to her apartment after the meeting. She says goodnight and closes her door. He turns to leave but his stomach begins to growl. He turns back to her door, knocks, and removes his teeth, ready for his next meal.

Rob makes a plan the next day. He demolishes his apartment with Derwood's baseball bat and screams in terror. He beckons his neighbors to call the police. Mulder and Scully arrive and listen to Rob's questionable story that Derwood threatened him to keep quiet. The agents ask Rob about a missing private eye hired by Sylvia's husband who was staked out in front of the building. Rob has no answers and quickly tells them that Sylvia is not at home.

Rob frantically packs his belongings when Dr. Rinehart shows up. She senses that Rob is at fault for the murders and tries to soothe him. Enraged, Rob begins to pull off his human body parts to show her his secret. Dr. Rinehart is horrified but still sympathetic. She touches his face. Suddenly, the door crashes in and Mulder and Scully enter with guns drawn. They yell for the doctor to move away, but she defends Rob and tells him to be the good person he means to be. Rob is hesitant, then lunges at the agents, knowing they will open fire. A dying Rob falls to the floor as Dr. Rinehart's eyes tear up. She asks him why he caused his own death. He whispers, "I can't be something I'm not."

"MILLENNIUM" #7ABX05 Original Air Date: 11/28/99
At a memorial service in Tallahassee, Florida, a widow complains that her husband, Raymond Crouch, left no suicide note. She is greeted by Mark Johnson who tells her that he worked with the deceased. As the mourners file out of the funeral parlor, Johnson sneaks out from the shadows. He begins to undress the corpse and recites a passage from the Bible over and over like a mantra. Johnson switches on a cell phone and places it in the hand of the deceased, positioning the man's thumb over the "talk" button. Eight days later, on December 29, 1999. Johnson waits outside a cemetery. The rain splashes on his truck as he stares out at a freshly-laid gravesite. A cell phone on his dashboard chirps and, without answering it, Johnson pulls out a shovel and heads toward the tombstone.

The next day, Mulder and Scully are at the crime scene, examining the now dug up grave. The body of Raymond Crouch is gone. Scully notes the shredded lining inside the empty casket and comments that it looks like someone was trying to get out. Mulder confirms this by pointing out that the fingerprints around the grave are from the deceased Crouch. Scully concludes that the evidence is faked and that this is a grave robbery, but both are intrigued by an arc of dried blood on the nearby grass. Mulder and Scully join a briefing on the case led by A.D. Skinner. Other agents report that there are no motives for Crouch' suicide or the grave robbery. Mulder chimes in that this is a case of necromancy -- the summoning of the dead. He describes the arc of blood as part of a magic circle drawn to protect the necromancer from the conjured spirits: Mulder also believes that the necromancer may have donned the dead man's clothes as a means of creating a bond with the deceased. Oddly, Skinner is content with Mulder's theory and dismisses the other agents. He shows Mulder and Scully the files of three other men, all former FBI agents like Crouch, who were also recently exhumed after committing suicide. Skinner thinks these men were all members of the Millennium Group, a consulting organization of former FBI agents with a prophesy centered around the coming millennium. He tells the pair to keep a low profile as they investigate this Millennium Group.

Mulder and Scully's first stop is a psychiatric hospital to meet Frank Black, the criminal profiler who was once a consultant for the Millennium Group. Frank had apparently checked himself into the hospital for observation. The agents ask him about the Millennium Group, but Frank gives no assistance and quietly focuses on a television football game. He refers to the TV, claiming the game is at first and eighteen. Mulder corrects him and says it is actually third and ten. But Frank does not answer. Frustrated, Mulder and Scully leave him.

The next morning Scully and Mulder investigate the crime scene. Local police found the body of the deputy carefully buried. Stuffed in his mouth is salt and a message with a Biblical passage from the Book of Revelation -- Chapter one, verse eighteen. Mulder makes the connection. He returns to the psychiatric hospital with Scully and asks Frank Black why, after not wanting to be involved, did he drop the hint about first and eighteen. Frank admits that he is trying to regain custody of his daughter and wants to separate himself from his past work. He reluctantly agrees to help them, explaining that a schism of the Millennium Group believed they could bring about the end of the world by killing themselves before the dawn of the new millennium. Frank profiles the necromancer as a solitary man comfortable with death. He theorizes that the note and the salt were placed in the deputy's mouth to prevent the deputy from rising up from the dead. Frank believes that the necromancer will return to the body when he hears that the deputy has been found. Scully heads for the morgue to intercept the necromancer. Using Frank's profile, Mulder goes on his own search for Johnson.

The coroner is busy removing the salt and does not hear Scully's repeated calls. When Scully arrives, the coroner is nearly dead. She sees Mark Johnson and raises her gun, but she is stunned to see the dead deputy lurching toward her. Although she fires three rounds to his chest, he keeps moving and attacks her. Scully's gun is knocked aside. Skinner arrives later, and is relieved to see Scully with only scratches on her neck. She is unsure how to explain what has happened, but says that the necromancer saved her by using her gun to shoot the deputy in the head.

Meanwhile, Mulder pulls up before a house in Maryland. He is going down a list fitting Frank's description, and Mark Johnson is the last name on the list. Mulder notices an empty bag of kosher salt in the garbage can. He pockets a handful of salt and climbs the fence, searching the house. A basement door is latched with huge wood beams. He opens it and heads down the steps into the darkness. At first he doesn't see the bodies climbing out of the ground, but when four undead creatures surround him, he makes a break up the stairs. As he reaches the door, Johnson appears and slams it shut. Mulder is trapped in the necromancer's basement surrounded by zombies.

Back at the hospital, Scully pleads with Frank for help finding the missing Mulder. She recounts her earlier attack by the resurrected deputy at the morgue and asks Frank if he believes that the Group is capable of bringing about Armageddon. Again, Frank is silent. But after she leaves, Frank checks himself out of the hospital and goes to Johnson's house. Johnson is happy to see Frank because Mulder has killed one of the zombies and Johnson needs a fourth member. Frank says that he did not believe Johnson could resurrect the dead, but came when he heard the necromancy had succeeded. The clock strikes 10:13 when Johnson loads a five-shot revolver and begins reciting the familiar burial rite. Frank completes the passage and takes the gun. But instead of pointing it at his own head for the suicide pact, Frank turns the weapon on Johnson. Meanwhile, Scully receives a call from Skinner in her car. They have traced calls from Frank and the other Group members to an address in Maryland. Meanwhile, Frank ties up Johnson and opens up the basement door. He calls out to Mulder, who is standing in a small circle of salt. Although his arm is bleeding, Mulder is protected by the circle. He tells Frank to aim for their heads because it's the only way to stop the zombies. Frank lights a flare and searches the basement. One of the zombies charges and Frank kills it with a head shot. Another zombie rises, grabs Frank and takes him down. They struggle until Mulder grabs the revolver and shoots the creature in the temple. Mulder reaches to help Frank when the last surviving zombie starts to lunge toward them. Mulder raises the gun, but it just clicks empty. The creature falls, shot from behind by Scully who has appeared at the top of the stairs.

With only minutes before midnight, Frank sits alone in a waiting room watching Dick Clark on television as he celebrates the new millennium in Times Square. Scully enters to tell him that Mark Johnson has been taken for psychiatric evaluation. But she smiles and informs him that he has a visitor: his daughter Jordan, who leaps into her father's arms. Mulder comes in with one arm in a sling, but Frank and his daughter leave with only moments before midnight. The agents stay to see the ball drop on television and blankly stare at the revelers kissing in Times Square. Mulder looks over at Scully and she catches his glance. He leans in to kiss her, and it lasts a bit longer than a kiss between two friends. Their lips part and they both smile. "The world didn't end," Mulder mumbles. "No, it didn't," she replies. And the two partners head down the hall to begin the new year.

"RUSH" #7ABX06 Original Air Date: 11/21/99
High-school student Tony Reed drives into a wooded area of Pittsfield, Virginia passing "No Trespassing" signs along the way. It is late at night and he is spooked by the eerie quietness of the woods. He meets up with two other teenagers, Max Harden and girlfriend, Chastity Raines. Chastity is hesitant about letting Tony in on their secret, but Max makes Tony swear never to reveal anything about what he sees in the forest. Lights glaring from a police car interrupt the conversation, but when Max turns around, both Max and Chastity have vanished. Deputy Foster questions Tony about being on private property and goes to his car radio. Suddenly, Tony hears a sickening thud. The officer's flashlight falls to the ground and Tony picks it up. It is covered with blood. Tony looks in the police car: Foster has been brutally murdered.

The next morning Scully meets Mulder in the hospital where he shows her the body of the deputy. One blow of the flashlight was enough to drive the deputy's eyeglasses through the back of his skull. They meet with Sheriff Harden, who is convinced that the fingerprints on the flashlight link Tony to the crime. Mulder and Scully try to get answers from Tony, but he denies any knowledge of the murder. The partners suspect that Tony is innocent, but while Mulder thinks that a spiritual force caused the violent act, Scully is more inclined to believe that Tony is covering for some friends.

Back at the high school, Max strolls into science class with one minute left to take an exam. The teacher, Mr. Babbitt, is surprised when Max instantly finishes the exam with all correct answers. Mulder and Scully approach Chastity after class and ask her what she knows about Tony. They remind her that Tony could spend the rest of his life in jail. Before she can speak, Max intercedes -- Mulder notes that Max is Sheriff Harden's son. Scully's cell phone rings with news that the murder weapon has disappeared. The agents review the security tape at the sheriff's office and Mulder notices a blurred image over the evidence room's locker in one video frame. They consult with paranormal expert Chuck Burks and determine that the image is a solid object and that the color of the blur matches the high school colors: purple and gold.

Tony is released from jail and his mother scolds him for hanging out with the wrong crowd. He sneaks out of his house with Max for a joyride in a stolen car. Max commends him for keeping his mouth shut, then crashes the car into a tree. Tony is shocked to discover not only is unharmed, but has somehow been plucked from the car before the wreck. Max stands next to him on the road, also untouched. Max tells Tony that he too will become "one of us."

The next day, Mr. Babbitt flunks Max for "cheating" on his science exam. Max storms out of the classroom. Tony tells Chastity that he wants out, but she reluctantly says that it's too late. At lunch, Mr. Babbitt gets pinned to the school cafeteria wall by a table that has apparently moved on its own. Tony, horrified, suspects something when he notices Max quickly disappear from the room. Then a chair flies into Babbitt, crushing him. Although eyewitnesses saw no one near Babbitt, Mulder's theory is that Max used some paranormal ability to exert force without touching the victim. Max, however, was brought to the hospital when he collapsed from exhaustion. They question Max, whose defiant attitude sparks doubt in Sheriff Harden's mind about his son's innocence. Mulder thinks that Max feels a rush from causing these murders. Scully reviews Max's medical charts and sees that he is suffering from some kind of withdrawal, but also exhibits signs of physical damage that might be found in a football player or race car driver.

Tony secretly follows Chastity into the woods, watching as she sneaks through a seam in a boulder. As he steps inside, he sees a cave, but no Chastity. Suddenly his body starts to spasm and he discovers the "rush" that allows Max and Chastity to move faster than the eye can see. Meanwhile, Chastity uses her speed to help Max escape from the hospital unseen. She takes him back to the cave to get another dose of the "rush" and is surprised to find Tony there. He too has become addicted to the rush, but wants to warn the police about Max's crime spree. Chastity warily tells him that Max is out of the hospital.

Sheriff Harden searches his son's room, finding the missing flashlight taken from the sheriff's evidence room. Max instantly appears and admits to killing Deputy Foster. Moving inhumanly fast, he begins to pummel his father and is about to kill him with the same flashlight, when Tony, using the "rush" himself, suddenly arrives to intervene. The sheriff is brought to the hospital, and Mulder and Scully deduce that someone else prevented Max from murdering again. Chastity and Tony, fearing Max will kill them, try to beat him back to the cave. But he is already there when they arrive. Tony and Max struggle, and Chastity kills Max by shooting him in the back. As the bullet exits Max's body, Chastity tells Tony that she can't go on living without the rush and walks around Max to stand in front of him -- allowing the bullet to hit her in the chest. Mulder and Scully arrive at the cave to find Tony holding Chastity's body and Max lying nearby.

Back at the hospital, Mulder reports that nothing was found in the cave to produce a physiological effect, and that the cave was sealed with concrete. He suggests to Scully that perhaps the cave only affected teenagers because of their physical and chemical difference from adults. The agents look in at a recovering Tony. He stares at the clock advancing slowly, knowing he will forever be trapped in a world at normal, slow speed.

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