Excuse me. Do you want that warmed up?
No, but I'll buy another one if you leave me alone.
We'll see about that.
Eightball.
- Yeah. - Hello, Jackson.
- How'd you get this number? - What do you care?
Your partner, Kenny Slater - he took your money, didn't he?
- I want to help you, Jackson. - Help me what?
Slater's in the Metro Diner. 14th & Arlington.
He's in Florida by now, man. Jamaica. Cuba.
No, he's here in the Metro Diner:
14th & Arlington.
It's Kenny. The fool's come back.
The men who took your product Friday night are in the Metro Diner.
14th & Arlington.
Spanish Jack is in the Metro Diner. 14th & Arlington.
I understand you wish to speak with him.
14th & Arlington.
- Boyce. - Pico Salazar is in the Metro Diner.
- Salazar? Who is this? - 14th & Arlington.
"How sharper than a serpent's tooth to have a thankless child."
Now you know what's comin', and there's nothing you can do.
You won't feel a thing.
US marshals! On the floor!
- No! - Down! Down!
No!
Charles Figus. Ten-year veteran of the US Marshals Service.
Multiple gunshot wounds, high-speed Teflon rounds.
His partner, Boyce, was DOA at Mercy General.
- Tried to catch a 9mm slug in his teeth. - Looks like they crashed the wrong party.
Figus and Boyce had radioed in that they were coming here
to apprehend Pico Salazar.
- Pico Salazar? - The Colombia cartel's banking liaison.
Salazar escaped from federal custody three months ago.
Boyce and Figus were on the transport squad that lost him.
They took his escape personally.
A phone tip told them that Salazar was gonna be here tonight.
A foreign national with his kind of connections?
What would he be doing here?
I don't think he is. Or was. But there were a lot of photogenic gentlemen who were.
Mulder, these are street-level coke dealers. Minor wholesalers at most.
Not the type to associate with a cartel boss.
- What would they be doing here? - Maybe it was for the pie.
It's 2.45 in the morning. You mind telling me what it is we're supposed to be looking for?
- Donald Gelman. - Who?
Donald Gelman. Silicon Valley software pioneer. He's been missing since 1979.
- And you recognise him? - He invented the Internet.
He didn't invent it, but he's a folk hero.
He ran Internet software before there was an Internet.
- Why have I never heard of him? - On the eve of making a huge deal,
he went hiking and said he'd think about it. He never came back.
I still don't see the connection.
Maybe that's the point.
Folks, I'm gonna have to ask you to stay back.
So, why was Gelman in there?
- I think somebody wanted him dead. - Do you think this was a hit on him?
Eight unconnected dealers all at the same place, all tipped off by phone.
Last call goes to the marshals. They arrive, the place explodes.
- Gelman dies in the crossfire. It's genius. - Did you look at him?
Why kill a man who's dying? His body is a bag of bones.
When you're talkin' about Donald Gelman, you want to kill the brain, not the body.
- Mulder, that's evidence. - Gee, I hope so.
Jobs and Wozniak at Apple, Gates and Allen writing BASIC,
the Homebrew Computer Club's first meetings - Gelman was there.
Now they're powerbrokers and billionaires Back then they were just inspired nerds.
- All except Gelman. - Gelman was not one of them.
At 28, he was "the old man". Some say the brightest of all.
- He wrote some of the earliest viruses. - And was under investigation by the NSA.
- Is that why he disappeared? - Gelman?
Gelman was a visionary, not a capitalist. A subversive.
This is a one-off. I've never seen anything like it.
- Gelman built this? - That may be what got him killed.
- Heavy casualty. - A brother goes down.
- I found this in his CD-ROM drive. - What is it?
"Twilight Time".
We're up against 64-bit encryption.
A password that's a random sequence of 12 symbols.
- Gelman's got this baby sealed tight. - This CD has enhanced background data.
Lots of code. Maybe a program he designed.
- What for? - Anyone think to check his email?
"David missing. Fear the worst. The hunted has become the hunter."
- "lnvisigoth"? - It could be an address.
Seven digits.
- An alphanumeric string of four. - That's standard ID.
A shipping container.
There must be a thousand containers here.
And in no particular order.
Frohike says this place is really proud of its accurate tracking.
If not in their computer security.
Yeah.
It should be straight ahead: three rows and to the right.
Sounds like somebody's home.
FBI.
- Oh! - Mulder?
I'm all right. Go. Get her.
Stop! FBI.
Argh!
FBI. Stop or I'll shoot!
Thank you.
Home sweet home.
- Are you Invisigoth? - How did you find me?
Donald Gelman's mailbox. You left your address.
- You know where he is? - Let us ask the questions.
- Why don't you bite me? - Hey.
Like what all this stuff is.
And why would I tell you?
You've assaulted a federal agent, followed by resisting arrest.
Arrest for what? Unless you got a warrant, you busted in here and violated my rights.
We had just cause to come in.
Now we've got just cause to get out.
- What is that? - It monitors computing processes.
- It's locking on. - What is?
A DOD satellite. Warbird-grade orbital weapons platform.
We've gotta get outta here.
- A weapons platform? - You don't understand.
That has optical systems that can read headlines on a newspaper. It's targeting us.
You want us to believe the DOD wants to kill you?
- No. It's controlling their satellite. - Scully, we gotta get outta here right now.
Mulder, this is absurd.
- Give me the keys. - Mulder!
- We're all gonna die! - Give me the keys!
Come on.
Get in the car, Scully.
No more screwin' around.
We need a name. Your real name.
Invisigoth. You want my address? It's t-o-a-s-t.
When you said it was targeting us back there, you meant an artificial intelligence.
Donald Gelman was tryin' to create a sentient AI,
a program with its own consciousness.
He succeeded, didn't he?
Donald wrote an interlocking sequence of viruses 15 years ago.
- It got loose on the Net. - What do you mean?
He let it loose, so it could evolve in its natural environment: Urschleim in silicon.
- Urschleim in silicon? - The primordial slime.
The ooze out of which all life evolved.
Except this time it's artificial slime, artificial life.
One man alone achieving the equivalent of Copernicus, Magellan and Darwin.
And what was your role in all this? Were you the bass player?
Automate Theory, MIT, '95. Post doc, the Santa Fe Institute.
Head-hunted to Kobayashi my junior year.
Then Donald showed up and made me a better offer.
- A better offer to do what? - You wouldn't understand.
You believe this load of crap?
You saw what happened back there. You saw the container blow.
She could've rigged an explosive charge. There are no weapons platforms.
- There is no such DOD satellite. - What about Star Wars? Brilliant Pebbles?
They were never built. We don't even have that kind of technology.
I mean, even if an AI was targeting us with an armed satellite,
why isn't it doing it now?
Because it doesn't know where we are.
If I so much as made a phone call right now, it would nuke us.
- How? - Recognises my voice.
Monitors all communication. I haven't used a phone in over a month.
How did it know to target the container?
I think some idiot got on Donald's computer
and tried to contact me over the Net. Only Donald knew where I was. And David.
- Who's David? - David Markham. He was hardware.
Donald and I were software. We'd been caring for the AI. Weaning it.
Then Donald warned us that the system started to display intention.
- But by then it was gone. - Where?
I don't know. One day, David was on the system
and it wouldn't come when we called.
We knew it was out there on the global Net, but it wouldn't answer.
- And Donald was getting sicker. - You can't find it?
Well, it's not a program any more. It's wildlife loose on the Net.
And either we kill it...
- Where's Donald? - Donald Gelman is dead.
He was killed in a cafe - what looks like a hit.
That's the AI protecting itself.
It'll find David and me.
It's only a matter of time.
Donald was writing a series of viruses to find and immobilise the rogue system.
The file name was Kill Switch. Without it, nobody can catch it.
- We have his computer. - He'd never leave it on there.
No, we have... this. It's "Twilight Time".
That's it. That's the Kill Switch.
It can't be. It is.
Esther Nairn. You programmed the autonomous bots in Ninjitsu Princess.
The gnarliest piece of software ever.
Are these the brain donors that nearly got us incinerated?
- Don't let their looks fool you. - Your name is Esther Nairn?
She is so hot.
Are you gonna take off these cuffs or do I have to do this with my tongue?
You don't wanna take a vote.
Gimme the Kill Switch.
Aren't you worried it's going to track you? Hunt you down with another particle beam?
Not unless somebody else makes another boneheaded Internet connection.
- What is this? - It's the sharp end of the stick.
Donald probably tried to feed this in, but it took too long,
- so the system took countermeasures. - Why didn't it just zap him too?
Its creator? It needed to impress him. A particle beam would've been overkill.
- Unlike a dozen crack dealers. - No, you see, that's its sense of humour.
Oh. But if you load the Kill Switch, what's to stop it from playing a funny joke on us?
Well, obviously we can't inject Kill Switch over the Net. There's only one way now.
We must find it and physically feed it the poisoned apple.
- Physically? - Right into its eager little CD drive.
It knew it couldn't hide over the Net for ever. Not until it learned to disguise itself.
It requires a physical nexus of hardware, so it's built itself a little safe house.
- David went looking for it. - Did he find it?
- There's no way to know. - Why don't you just call him?
Oh, right. Death from above.
- It would need bandwidth. - It's a pig for bandwidth.
- It'd need a T3 at least. - T3?
A hard line - 45 megs a second.
Major research labs and service providers use 'em.
But the government keeps those records secret for fear of sabotage.
Gee, you guys know anyone that works for the government?
Buenos dias, muchacha.
- Scully? - Yep.
Yeah, I found something down in Fairfax County.
A derelict chicken farm with a T3 connection,
paid for by Elof Industries, Palo Alto,
- of which there's no other record anywhere. - Dandy.
- Where are you? Sounds like you're driving. - You are correct, sir.
- You have Esther with you? - In a manner of speaking.
Left up here. Give me that.
- Where are you going? - To find David.
Where?
Scully?
Go ahead. Put me out of my misery.
Take it.
FBI. I'm a federal agent.
I lied to you. I wasn't working with Donald.
I mean, I was, and then he found out about us.
- About you and who? - David.
- About our plans. - What plans did he find out?
Uploading.
The transfer of memory, of consciousness
to the distributed system maintained by the AI.
Imagine being mingled so completely with another,
you no longer need your physical self.
- You're one. - So you were gonna...
Enter the AI.
Give up our inefficient bodies so that our consciousness could live together for ever.
- But Donald Gelman forbade it. - He was afraid of his creation.
He was afraid of what would happen if other people followed us.
I loved him so much.
Well, maybe he wasn't here when this happened.
Maybe he's somewhere else.
David Markham.
- The electric burns are real bad. - What's goin' on?
- We got ourselves a real crispy critter here. - Alert the burn unit.
- Unit 23, request burn unit. - He's comin' up on us.
- Surgical team, stat. - What's that smell?
- Easy. Come on, easy. - Jesus.
Just relax, relax.
..120. BP 130 over 80.
Frank charring at Contact site, along path of current, and at exit point.
The charge grounded through both arms.
- We got a lot of work to do to save him. - Is it bad?
- You're in good hands. - My arms hurt.
That's a good sign.
No, wait. Call my doctor.
You have to call my doctor. Call Dr Scully.
Please call Dr Scully.
Call her. No, no.
No. What are you doing?
Prep the patient.
No.
No. No, no, no, no.
I can't get through to Mulder.
It's the AI. It's had time to analyse my voice. It knows I was using your phone.
It can interfere with my phone?
Give it enough information, it'll sue you for palimony.
Wait a minute.
Mulder said that he found the system in an abandoned chicken farm in Fairfax County.
Then we can cut off the T3 and kill its communication capabilities.
- You can do that? - There's only one way to find out.
- I feel sick. - That's the anaesthetic, Agent Mulder.
You were injured and they had to operate.
I remember wires and, uh...
Yes, you were doing something dangerous. Something very, very foolish.
The good news is they were able to save the right one.
What do you mean?
Oh, my God.
What did you do with my arm? What did they do with my arm?
Shh. Or they'll come back.
- Will come back for what? - They're evil, Fox.
- But... - They want something from you.
- What do they want? - I don't know.
But if you don't tell them, they'll take your other arm.
This is crazy. You...
You have to help me. You have to get me out of here. Please.
Help me. Help me. Please help me.
Shh.
Or they'll hear you.
Something's wrong.
I didn't do anything. I didn't even get on the Net.
I think it found us.
It's zeroing in.
Esther.
Get away from the tanker truck!
Sir, you need to get out of the truck! Move it!
It's gonna explode!
Dump it, Esther!
- Get rid of it! - It's got the Kill Switch.
Esther! Dump it!
Esther!
Get rid of it!
Get rid of it, Esther!
Oh, I had this terrible dream.
- And then I had a good dream. - Those weren't dreams, Fox.
I believe that's enough for now.
You poor thing. But I warned you. Nurse Nancy warned you.
You have to tell them, Fox. You have to.
- Tell them what? - About the Kill Switch.
- Nobody asked me anything. - You've just forgotten, Fox.
- No. - I was there.
The doctor asked and he was very cross when you refused to answer.
But he'll be here in a few minutes and you can tell him then.
- But... - Otherwise... whoops, there go your legs.
N-o-ooo! Aaargh!
- Mulder, these women are spies! - Scully!
Mulder, they want the Kill Switch virus.
- What did you tell 'em? - Nothing.
- I need to know. - Look.
Do we have it?
Do we have the Kill Switch?
Of course we do.
Scully.
Scully?
Scully, help!
Help!
Scully!
Here, kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty.
- Scully. - Mulder?
Mulder, are you all right?
I'm in here.
Scully.
Mulder?
Mulder, can you hear me?
Mulder?
Help me out here, Esther.
What's its next move? What is it thinking?
I don't know.
- Who built this? - It did.
There.
Oh! David.
Oh, God.
Mulder?
Mulder, can you hear me?
Mulder, talk to me.
It wants the Kill Switch.
But we don't have it. You threw it in the water with the computer.
- But that's gonna kill it? - Not if it can vaccinate itself against it.
Give it what it wants, Esther.
Put it in, Esther.
It's targeting us.
Put it in.
You're gonna be OK. I'm gonna get you outta here.
OK.
it's OK.
Deepening shadows gather splendour
As day is done
- What are you doing, Esther? - Get outta here.
- What are you doing? - Go!
- Esther? - You don't listen, do you?
- Where are you? - Get out of here now.
Upload.
Well, if Esther wanted to leave her body, she got her wish.
At least that part of it.
I wonder.
Mulder, she's dead.
What if she managed to establish an uplink, Scully? A satellite transmission?
Mulder, are you telling me you believe that Esther may not be dead?
Artificial life - It could exist. It could be here among us, evolving.
Electrons chasing each other through a circuit? That isn't life, Mulder.
But what are we but impulses,
electrical and chemical, through a bag of meat and bones?
You're the scientist. You tell me.
You did it now, Harley!
- You get it. - Uh-uh.
They'll get ya if you go in there!
Momma says no one lives in there.