MONDO EXTRAS

Bronchsweig and CSM put on their own little HazMat suits and climb down into the hole. "We've brought the atmosphere down to freezing to control the development, which is like nothing we've ever seen," Bronschweig says. They've got some kind of greenhouse-looking igloo-y thing set up down there in the hole, which they enter. Dude, this set is damn expensive. The last fireman -- the one whose body wasn't found in the FEMA offices -- is lying on a gurney inside the igloo. He's alive, but he's not living. He's basically made of moosh. Seriously. He's like jelly. Moreover, there is an alien gestating inside of him, living off his innards and bone. CSM is blandly surprised by this latest development. Bronschweig tells him that they've managed to slow the gestation process by cooling down the atmosphere. "Do you want us to destroy this one, too, before it gestates?" he asks. CSM shakes his head. He wants to try their new vaccine on it. And if that's unsuccessful? "Burn it. Like the others." Okay, so the aliens are gestating inside of the people? But these are the aliens that come from the black oil, right? And they didn't always do that, did they? And, now, long after the movie has come out, they're not doing that anymore, are they? Because they weren't doing that in the episode on the oil rig, where all the oil-rig workers were all infected. My head hurts.

Extremely expensive and basically unnecessary overhead shot of the freeway in Montgomery County, Maryland. Mulder and Scully walk through the deserted halls of the Bethesda Naval Hospital. It's 4:04 AM. They approach a desk manned by a young soldier and flash their badges. "I'm going down to the morgue," Mulder announces. The Young Soldier tells them that the morgue is off-limits to anyone but previously authorized personnel. Mulder eventually fast-talks his way into the morgue by acting cool and out-talking the poor dumb kid and using the phrase "dick around."

Mulder and Scully speed-walk down the hall. "Why is the morgue suddenly off-limits on the order of the general?" Mulder asks under his breath. Scully looks impassive. She's still wondering why she's involved with the only man in the world who comes to take her to a morgue when he gets drunk, instead of trying to stick his tongue in her ear.

The morgue is full of plastic-wrapped bodies, the toe tags of which identify them as the fire fighters recovered from the rubble of the building in Dallas. Mulder wants to know what killed them. Scully says that she can tell him that without even looking at them: the bomb, stupid. Mulder quietly unwraps one of the bodies. Under the plastic, it's almost totally liquefied. Scully is scientifically grossed out. She puts on gloves and pokes the body. There has been no autopsy performed, she tells Mulder. "You're telling me that the cause of death on that report is false?" Mulder asks. "That this man didn't die from an explosion or flying debris?" They look at each other. Scully says that she can't tell him what killed the fire fighter, and, looking at the state of his body, she doubts anyone else could, either. Mulder opens his eyes really big.