MONDO EXTRAS

Several fire engines come wailing onto the scene. They screech to a halt, and the fire chief runs like an uncoordinated little girl over to the hole, calling for a fourteen-foot ladder. He sends some firemen into the hole. And then some more. And then some more, despite the fact that he can't contact any of them on their two-way radios, and they're probably all getting eaten alive down there.

A big black helicopter choppers onto the scene, landing in a cloud of dust. Fire Chief and Two Random Guys (And a Pizza Place) watch as a bunch of other Random Guys in HazMat Suits unload what looks like a portable hyperbaric chamber and scamper over to the hole. Some guy in a suit climbs down out of the helicopter and watches. Townspeople mill in the distance. For all the people who just stumbled late into the movie theatre, Fire Chief recaps that he's sent four men down to check on the boy, and he's lost communication with all four of them. Also, something about someone's eyes turning black? Crazy talk, that. The Suit totally ignores him as RGIHMS scamper swiftly past him once more, Stevie all locked and loaded into the hyperbaric chamber. They lift the kid into the helicopter and take off in another swoosh of dust. A white eighteen-wheeler, with what looks like an oil tanker on the back, pulls up. "What the hell is this?" Fire Chief wonders. ("Where the hell are Mulder and Scully? Are we in the right theatre?" I whispered to my roommate in the movie theatre.) Mark Snow goes completely berserk with the Cymbals of Stretching Out the Plot and the Drums of Delaying Any Action. The Suit sneaks behind one of the tankers and pulls out his cell phone. "It's Bronschweig," he says into the phone. "Sir, the impossible scenario that we never planned for? Well, we better come up with a plan."