Dave says he can set it up at the Costa Village.
Yeah, well, Dave's a stand-up guy.
I mean, if he's putting it together,
you'd be a fool to pass it up.
Yeah, I hear you, I just...
Just what?
When you want to take a dip, you got to test the water.
You just don't want to get wet.
No, man.
Dippage is sacred.
Agent Mulder?
Yeah.
You're being relieved from your current assignment.
Agent Bozoff will take over.
You've got a flight to catch in 45 minutes.
Where am I going?
Murder case. Newark, New Jersey.
Treat yourself.
You're flying out of National.
Your contact in Newark is Detective Norman.
How did I draw the assignment?
Assistant Director Skinner made the request.
Skinner requested me?
Mulder, FBI.
My forensics team's just wrapping up.
We left the body where we found it.
Kenny!
This is one case I'm gonna be happy
to turn over to you guys.
Watch yourself.
Yeah. I wouldn't want to step in anything.
They say it cuts the smell
if you don't breathe through your mouth.
They lied.
Who found the body?
Sanitation worker.
Looks like it's been here a while.
Any ID?
No. Not much to go on either.
Front side of the body is pretty much eaten away.
Would you like us to turn him over for you?
No. I'll take your word on that.
Hey, Agent Mulder, what would you like us to do with the body?
Wrap it up and send it to the FBI,
care of Assistant Director Skinner.
Yes, sir.
Thank you.
I need to speak to him.
I'm sorry, Mr. Skinner's unavailable.
If you'd like to take a seat...
Will you tell him that I'm here
and I need to speak to him now?
Certainly.
Excuse me, Mr. Skinner.
I'm very sorry to interrupt,
but Agent Mulder is demanding to see you.
Is there a problem, Agent Mulder?
Yeah, there is.
Then make an appointment.
It's kind of hard to make an appointment
when you're up to your ass in raw sewage, being jerked
from one meaningless assignment to another.
Excuse me?
What's my next punishment--
scrubbing the bathroom floors with a toothbrush?
You're way out of line, Agent Mulder.
So I gathered.
Fine.
Come into my office, Agent Mulder, please.
Agent Mulder, will you please inform the room
as to why you regard your homicide case
in New Jersey as meaningless?
It seemed to me like a simple drugland body dump,
not the type of case
the FBI normally wastes its time or manpower on.
Certainly, Agent Mulder,
given your recent history here,
you're not one to judge what is or is not
a waste of the Bureau's time or manpower.
Sir, my work on the X Files...
The X Files have been closed, Agent Mulder.
You will carry out your new assignments
and investigate them to the best of your ability.
Is that not clear?
Yeah.
And I'll be anticipating your field reports
on your current homicide case.
Thank you.
Is this seat taken?
No, but I should warn you,
I'm experiencing violent impulses.
Well, I'm armed, so I'll take my chances.
I hear you really endeared yourself
to Assistant Director Skinner today.
You know, sometimes, it just gets hard
to smile through it when they ask you
to bend down and grab your ankles.
You know?
It's not exactly as if you've ever tried
to fit into the program.
No.
No, I've been thinking a lot about that lately.
I've been thinking about leaving.
The Bureau?
What would you do?
Pursue my work in the paranormal somehow.
You, you could request a transfer to Quantico.
Come back to the Behavioral Science Unit.
They don't want us working together, Scully,
and right now that's the only reason I can think of to stay.
What about this case you're working on?
It's a zero.
Where's the body?
They transferred it to our forensics lab.
Look, Scully, I know what you're trying to do.
Maybe I can request to do the autopsy.
It's an exercise.
Skinner is just rubbing my nose in this one.
There's nothing to it.
There's a dead body, isn't there?
Examination and autopsy of John Doe number 101356.
Case number DP112148.
Special Agent Fox Mulder, field investigator.
Body is an adult male
with advanced tissue decomposition,
weighing 165 pounds in extremis,
69 inches in length.
Intact skin is mottled and discolored
due to submergence in and exposure
to a highly bacterial environment.
Cause and time of death unknown.
Possible identifying mark on right forearm.
Body cavities appear normal.
Interior organs intact.
Consistent in rate of decomposition.
Removing the rib cage.
Condition of heart and lungs are good.
No sign of thrombi, natural or degenerate diseases
indicate victim was probably a young adult.
The liver shows some nodular hardening
consistent with incipient alcoholism.
Oh, God.
Put it away.
Got it.
I'm going to need a big piece of 30 gauge
and some bailing wire.
I got to go back up top for the screen.
Aah!
Hey! Help!
Craig! Craig!
Hey, hey, Craig!
Hold on!
Craig!
Hold on... hold on!
Hold on!
Oh, my God!
Hold on! Hold on!
Oh, my God.
I'm going to get help.
I'm going to give you a tetanus booster
just as a precaution.
I'd be happy if you'd just give me something
to get this taste out of my mouth.
Oh, yeah?
Let me take a look.
Ah.
Any trouble swallowing?
Uh-uh.
It'll go away.
Agent Mulder?
Yeah.
New York PD referred me to you.
I was surprised to hear the FBI was involved.
Is there something here I should know?
I don't know, maybe you can tell me.
The patient is a sanitation worker.
He claims he was attacked by something
down in the sewer this morning.
Attacked by what?
We've been unable to determine.
Initially I thought it was a bogus disability claim,
but he appears to be telling the truth.
What's his condition?
He's in satisfactory health.
I've given him a heavy course of antibiotics,
and we're checking for hepatitis.
He does have a strange wound on his back.
What kind of wound?
Oh, it could be some kind of bacterial infection.
Frankly, I can't say I've ever seen anything like it.
This is Agent Mulder of the FBI.
Any idea what attacked you?
Yeah. I've been thinking it might have been a python.
A python?
Yeah, or a boa constrictor.
Somebody probably flushed their pet snake
down the toilet.
I found an alligator in the sewer
a couple years ago.
It was stronger than hell, I'll tell you that.
Clamped onto me like a vise.
It almost looks like a bite.
Oh, excuse me.
Mulder.
- Mulder, it's me. - I need to see you.
I've got something here I think you should know about.
What is it?
Some kind of parasite in your John Doe.
I'm having it looked at,
but I should know more by the time you get down here.
Well, I'm up in Jersey.
I should be taking the shuttle down in about an hour.
When can I get out of here?
I'd just like to go home.
Oh, excuse me. Sorry.
Scully, this is a bad time for me to talk. Mr. Mulder.
Yeah.
I think you should know...
you have a friend at the FBI.
Who is this?
Agent Mulder?
Y-Yeah?
If you don't have any more questions,
I'm going to release this man.
Okay, go ahead.
Close the door.
It's called Turbellaria,
or it's commonly known as a fluke or flatworm.
This was living inside the body?
Apparently it had attached itself to the bile duct
and was feeding off the liver.
Lovely.
Believe it or not,
something like 40 million people are infected worldwide.
This isn't where you tell me
some terrible story about sushi, is it?
Well, maybe you'd rather hear
what you can catch from a nice, rare steak.
So, what, the murder weapon was a top sirloin?
Flukes are endemic in unsanitary conditions.
It's more likely that the victim contracted it
down inside the sewer.
Before or after he died?
I don't know.
According to my sources,
it's unlikely that a single parasite could have killed him.
He was a young man.
But the weird thing is,
there's no other discernible cause of death.
How do these parasites attach themselves?
They have what's called a scolex--
it's a sucker-like mouth with four hooking spikes.
Anything like this?
Where'd you get that? Something attacked a workman
in the New Jersey sewer this morning.
And you're asking me if this is from a fluke?
Could it be?
Mulder, the scolex is a tiny little organ.
This is a huge bite mark.
How big can these things get?
Mulder, I...
I'm sorry.
It felt like old times there for a second.
Flatworms are what are known as obligate endoparasites.
They live inside of the host,
entering the body through the ingestion of larvae or eggs.
They are not creatures that go around attacking people.
Well, that's good.
I didn't want to have to tell Skinner
that his murder suspect was a giant bloodsucking worm.
No.
Well, at the very least, this will be interesting
to the Newark Department of Sanitation.
Look, Scully, I don't know
who you shared our conversation with
the other night, but I'd prefer it if you didn't try to launch
a campaign for me.
Excuse me?
I don't know who you talked to...
I didn't talk to anybody.
Well, somebody called me and told me
I had a friend at the FBI.
Look, Mulder, I, I don't know what to say,
but I-I wouldn't betray a confidence.
City runs on several different systems--
some new, some built around the turn of the century.
Almost as old as Charlie here.
Isn't that right, Charlie?
Oh, yes, sir.
What part of the sewer was I in?
That'd be one of the older sections,
big eight-foot tunnels.
It looked more like a catacomb than a sewer line. Yep, all the new sections
are concrete pipe, not much of it bigger than 24 inches.
And all the sewage comes through this plant?
560,000 people a day
call my office on the porcelain telephone.
Have you ever seen one of these?
Looks like a big, old worm.
It's called a fluke.
It came from the body they pulled out of the sewer.
Wouldn't surprise me.
No telling what's been breeding down there
in the last hundred years.
Ray here.
Yeah. Charlie, slow down.
I'm backflushing the system.
It's in there.
What is it?
I don't know, it just swam right past me.
There it is.
The turbellarian flatworms
are free-living carnivorous scavengers
usually less than three centimeters in length,
found in fresh and sea water.
They are hermaphroditic
with complex reproductive systems
capable of internal fertilization.
Many species require more than one host
to complete a life cycle.
Although the shape of the wound on the sanitation worker
suggests scolex attachment,
the sheer size of the wound
precludes involvement of the common fluke worm.
Scully.
Scully, it's me.
You know that fluke you caught?
Yeah.
It must have been the runt of the litter.
I don't see it.
There it is,
tucked away in the far corner behind the pipes.
Oh, my God.
I don't know if you can see it from here,
but it has no sex organs.
It's genderless.
Platyhelminthes are often hermaphroditic.
Mulder, this is amazing.
Its vestigial features appear to be parasitic,
but it has primate physiology.
Where the hell did it come from?
I don't know, but it looks
like I'm gonna have to tell Skinner that his suspect
is a giant bloodsucking worm after all.
The only thing we're missing
is the identity of the body in the sewer.
He was a Russian.
An engineer on a cargo freighter.
He had a tattoo on his forearm.
I didn't make the connection until I detected that
that was the name Dmitri spelled in Cyrillic lettering.
How did you make the connection at all?
Somebody shoved this under my door.
I guess you really do have a friend in the FBI.
And, Mulder...
when you see Skinner to hand in your field report,
I know that it's your decision,
but I hope that you know that I'd consider it
more than a professional loss if you decided to leave.
Everything looks in order.
Is something wrong, Agent Mulder?
That's just an unexpected response,
considering the bizarre nature of the case
and of the suspect.
The strangeness of the criminal and the crime
are not lost on me.
I had my reaction to them this morning
in my conversation with the federal prosecutor's office
about how to process the suspect.
This meeting is to evaluate your work.
There's no way you'll prosecute this.
The Justice Department has asked
the suspect be transferred to an institution
for a full psychiatric evaluation.
This is not a man, it's a monster.
You can't put it in an institution.
What do you do with it, Agent Mulder, put it in a zoo?
It killed two people.
Two?
The sanitation worker who was attacked
was found dead in his home as a result of his injuries.
You know,
you had a pair of agents
that could have handled a case like this.
Agent Scully and I might have been able to save
that man's life, but you shut us down.
I know.
This should have been an X file.
We all take our orders from someone, Agent Mulder.
That will be all.
It's secure.
- Charlie 21, - Charlie 21, what's your ETA?
Unit 20... no further assist needed.
They've got the suspect in custody...
This is vehicle forty-niner 40
requesting immediate backup and assistance.
Roger, 4940. Roger, 4940.
What do you got?
Well, we got a dead marshal and an escaped prisoner.
Other than that, we got bubkes.
We got a police line in a two-mile radius.
Watch all the storm drains, any access to the sewer system.
It's gonna try to get back underground.
Mulder.
Mr. Mulder, I'll make this brief.
Success in your current assignment is imperative.
Who am I speaking to?
Are you hearing me, Mr. Mulder?
Yes. Why is it imperative?
Reinstatement of the X Files must be undeniable.
K9 unit 6-4, copy.
6-4, copy.
Yeah, we're at a campsite
approximately a quarter mile from your position.
Dogs tracked a scent to a chemical toilet here.
Thought he might be hiding inside, but it's empty.
The tanker.
Hold on, 6-4. What?
What if he's on the tanker truck?
The company that owns the truck you're looking for
doesn't keep detailed service records.
They had about five trucks out in that area this morning.
Three of them
have already deposited their loads.
So they could have already been here and gone?
If he hasn't, he will be.
But every tanker dumps its load here?
It's a state law.
And everything is processed through this plant?
Yep.
Then what happens to it?
Empties through an outlet pipe
about five miles out to sea.
Could this thing have escaped
through that outlet pipe?
Doubtful. The system's full of enough filters and screens
that nothing much bigger than your little finger's
going to get through.
If it's here, it's going to be trapped here.
Guess all we can do is wait.
Mulder.
It's me. Where are you?
I'm at the treatment plant.
I was playing a hunch it might have got back into the system.
How?
Forget it, it's stupid.
Well, you're not going to like what I have to tell you.
Why not?
It hadn't occurred to me, but I think that the fluke
in the corpse might have been an incubating larva.
This creature or whatever it is
is transmitting its eggs or larvae through its bite.
You mean it's trying to reproduce?
It's looking for hosts.
It attacks
because the victims' bodies provide generative nourishment.
Mulder.
Yeah.
If it finds a new host...
I know, Scully, it could multiply.
Agent Mulder!
Linesman spotting something down in a section of pipe.
Where?
Here.
That's near where we found the first body.
Right, except this is an old overflow system
that dumps into the harbor during heavy rainfall.
That must be where it got into the system.
It's working its way back out to sea.
That's the overflow pipe.
It leads to another vault like this one,
then about three-quarters of a mile to the sea.
Let's see if we can get that gate closed.
It's rusted in position.
See if I can get some leverage here.
Hey!
Oh, damn it!
You all right?
Yeah, yeah. I lost my...
Give me your hand!
Get me out of here!
Grab it!
We need some help down here!
Hey!
Hey. I'll get you out of here.
Hold on! Hold on!
You all right?
You all right?!
Is this seat taken?
No, but I should warn you,
I may reek a bit of the sewer.
I'll take my chances.
You talked to Skinner yesterday.
"Success in our work is imperative, Scully.
Reinstatement of the X Files must be undeniable."
That came from Skinner?
No.
We have a friend in the FBI.
I thought you might be interested
in the lab results on the biology
of the fluke larva.
Dissection and analysis indicates
reproductive and physiological cross-traiting
resulting in a sort of quasi-vertebrate human.
Human?
Yes, but still capable of spontaneous regeneration
like any fluke or flatworm.
How does that happen?
Radiation.
Abnormal cell fusion.
The suppression of natural genetic processes.
Mulder, nature didn't make this thing.
We did.
I know these.
These are from Chernobyl.
That creature came off
of a decommissioned Russian freighter
that was used in the disposal
of salvage material from the meltdown.
It was born in a...
in a primordial soup of radioactive sewage.
You know, they say three species disappear
off the planet every day.
You wonder how many new ones are being created.