02x18 - Fearful Symmetry

[bunniefuu]

OK, OK.

OK.

Qué pasa aqui?

[Santa Maria!

What the hell is that? I don't know.

Hey, get out of the way!

Hey, move!

Ray's hurt bad, man.

Hurry up! Get an ambulance!

This is Wesley Brewer out on route seven.

Looks like about an eight o'clock ETA on that trailer pick-up.

This fog's gonna slow me down. 10-4, Wesley. See you when you get here.

Mother of God!

Mom, is it gonna die?

She was just lying there when we found her, Officer.

So you saw nothing when the window broke?

No. Nothing.

We heard a noise, like thunder.

Then glass everywhere.

OK. Thank you.

What'd the janitors say? They claim they didn't see anything.

The security monitors don't have a recording of anything either.

Just a giant implosion of glass like some kind of giant shock wave.

What they described sounds more like a sonic boom.

Well, no sonic boom did this.

The construction worker who was k*lled had his spine crushed like a string of shells.

A circular abrasion on his torso in roughly the shape of an elephant's foot.

Other workers said they felt the ground shake, then a faint whiff of animal odour.

If you still think the elephant did this, it defies logic.

Somebody would have seen it.

Well, if somebody would have seen it, Scully, we wouldn't be here.

Another vehicle would have left evidence - distress to the metal or paint. I can see signs of neither.

I'd admit the possibility of a tornado, but it's not really tornado season.

I'd even entertain the notion of a black hole passing over the area...

..or some cosmic anomaly, but it's not really black-hole season either.

If I was a betting man, I'd say that it was, um...

An invisible elephant?

I saw David Copperfield make the Statue of Liberty disappear.

Agent Mulder? Yeah.

Ed Meecham, Fairfield Zoo. Sorry for the hold-up.

We had trouble transporting Ganesha's body.

This is Agent Scully. Hi.

Have they determined what he died of? She. She was a 12-year-old Indian female.

I figure she ran herself into exhaustion.

How did she escape? Well, now, there's a puzzle.

When I got the call, I expected to find her cage open, but it was locked, just like I left it.

Any idea how she could have escaped? No, sir. No signs of tampering either.

I've read about something called "the elephant rebellion" in zoos.

Elephants turning on their keepers, destroying their pens.

Was Ganesha ever a problem like that? Elephants are very big, very willful animals.

So you're saying there were problems?

The person you wanna talk to about that is Willa Ambrose.

Ambrose? She's a naturalist.

She was hired by the board of supervisors last year to oversee things.

She’s supposed to be the reigning authority.

In your opinion, the damage here, could this have been caused by an escaped elephant?

My honest opinion? Sure.

Excuse me.

What you looking for, Mulder? A local paper.

I wanna see if David Copperfield's in town.

Excuse me. We're looking for Willa Ambrose.

There. Thank you.

Miss Ambrose? Yes.

I'm Agent Dana Scully. This is Agent Mulder. We're with the FBI.

How can I help you?

A federal employee has been fatally injured.

There is a case around the elephant that escaped from your zoo.

I understood that the eyewitnesses said they didn't know how the man was k*lled.

What we're trying to determine is how Ganesha escaped.

What did Ed tell you? He found the cage locked, as he'd left it.

What more can I say? A man was found trampled to death.

An animal from your zoo was found 43 miles away.

No one's looking to place any blame. We're just trying to understand the facts.

This is where Ganesha was held when she wasn't in her habitat.

Who has keys to this lock? Only myself and Mr Meecham.

Otherwise, this is a restricted area.

Elephants aren't good jumpers, if that's what you're thinking.

No. I was wondering why such a small pen for such a large animal.

The zoo was built in the 1940s. The pens and habitats are all too confining.

I was brought on to expand and create more humane environments.

Unfortunately, these things take time.

Those, uh... chains on the ground there? Those are tie-downs.

They restrict the animal's movement. I disallowed their use when I came here.

Disallowed their use by whom? It was Ed Meecham's practice.

It reflected an old, non-progressive zoo policy.

How's your relationship with Ed Meecham?

I'm his boss and a woman. Ed doesn't like it.

Would he be vindictive enough to let Ganesha go as sabotage?

If he did, that would be foolish.

The facility is running at a deficit and may lose its funding.

Have you discussed the incident with Ed? No.

I think Ed's got enough dealing with the WAC.

The WAO? It's the Wild Again Organisation.

They believe any c*ptive animal is a crime against nature.

They're gonna have a field day with this one.

Excuse me.

The WAO believes only tragedy results from keeping animals in captivity.

In the wild, an elephant would roam an area of 20 square miles minimum.

Ganesha weighed over 5,000 pounds and she was being held in a 50- by 50-foot cage.

You consider that inhumane? It's like you or I living in a pickle barrel.

FBI files state you've been arrested over a dozen times for the kidnapping...

..of circus and zoo animals. The WAO sees it as liberation.

Hm.

Were you involved in the "liberation" of Ganesha?

That would make me an accessory to m*rder, wouldn't it?

Endangering these animals is against everything we believe.

These are incredibly spiritual creatures.

Their rituals and behaviour are linked to a past no man ever witnessed.

Did you know they actually bury their dead?

They can visit an elephant graveyard centuries old...

..and know instinctively where their ancestors' bones lie.

What do you think Ganesha was running from?

You wanna see? I'll show you.

Get up! Halt. I got him.

This is how Ed Meecham treats these majestic animals.

This is still going on? Meecham's a barbarian.

He's been torturing animals at the Fairfield Zoo for years.

We figure he's still at it. Eventually we're gonna get some proof.

We're here to put pressure on the zoo. We're keeping track of what goes on.

Willa Ambrose claims she's put a stop to most of his old practices.

Whatever her intentions, she's too preoccupied to know how Meecham operates.

Preoccupied with what?

A lawsuit she's fighting against the Malawi government over a gorilla named Sophie.

Willa rescued her from an African customs house ten years ago. Raised her like a child.

The Malawi government wants her back. Will they win?

This is a perfect example of man's imperialism over the animal kingdom.

Some craven impulse to turn animals into objects for our own selfish pleasure.

I thought you said she rescued this gorilla? So she could spend her life behind bars!

Her obligation should have been to return the gorilla to the wild.

Animals should run free.

I'm sure he would have if he'd seen it coming.

Thanks for your time, sir, and we'll get back to you soon.

It's all happening at the zoo, Scully. Well, we found our suspects.

You think they busted out Ganesha? You heard him. "Animals should run free."

What about the eyewitness accounts, the security tapes,...

..the fact that no one saw an elephant until it was miles away from the zoo?

The lights at the construction site were mercury-vapour, 10,000 candlepower.

They can restrict a man's ability to adjust to the dark.

And their security cameras are poor quality.

A grey elephant may not have registered an image on tape in the dim light.

I'm not buying it. I think these guys are all talk.

These guys are dedicated to exactly this kind of activity, unabashedly.

Did you check out the night-vision camera? No.

It wouldn't surprise me if they tried to capitalise on their success.

By doing what? By liberating another animal.

Willa Ambrose said the zoo was in trouble financially.

The loss of another big exhibit could shut them down entirely.

All right. You keep an eye on the WAO.

And where are you going?

To talk to the animals.

Beam me up, Scotty!

Did anybody tell you the camera loves you, Frohike?

Yeah, the arresting officers at the Free James Brown rally.

What's this costing the taxpayers, Mulder? Uh... about a 150 bucks an hour.

Ouch! Almost as much as Bill Clinton 's haircuts.

Where's Langly? He has a philosophical issue...

.. with having his image transmitted.

What are you doing in Idaho?

I'm in Fairfield. What do you know about it?

They got a little 200 there. Lots of strange lore. Animals escaping, disappearing.

Any idea why? You're near the Mountain Home Air Base.

Major UFO hotspot.

Weird fact, Mulder: no animal at Fairfield Zoo has ever brought a pregnancy to term.

Not a cub or a chick.

The woman in charge has a gorilla that knows sign language, supposedly a thousand words.

If that's the lovely Agent Scully,...

..let her know I've been working out. I'm buff.

Mulder. Mulder, it's me.

I was right. I just followed the kid from the WAO to the zoo.

He's just about to make it over the fence.

All right. I'll be right there, Scully.

What the hell are you doing here?

There's a member of the WAO on the premises.

Come with me.

What's going on?

OK, Sophie. Calm down.

I don't know what you're talking about.

You have no idea what he was doing at the zoo?

If you're asking if I had any idea of his intentions,...

..the answer is simple: not the slightest.

I saw this camera sitting up there on the shelf yesterday.

Guess I never noticed it before.

A tiger is missing and a member of your organisation is dead.

For such a principled man, you show an amazing lack of emotion.

If the tiger k*lled this person, then it was a natural act.

If I find evidence that he was releasing those animals under your orders,...

..you'll spend the rest of your life behind bars.

Scully?

That guy really pisses me off.

Are you OK, Scully? Yeah.

Have you calmed down?

Have they found the tiger yet? No. But I took a look at the cassette.

He wasn't k*lled by the tiger. What?

Unless it's trick photography, it was some kind of phantom attacker.

You saw his body! He was mauled to death. He had claw marks on his chest and back.

I can't explain it, either. But I know someone who might be able to.

Excuse me? Miss Ambrose?

Can we have a word with you?

I don't know anything more than I've told the police. I have nothing to say.

Is this where you keep Sophie?

Sophie is ill. Do you think we could meet her?

We're not here to try to take her away from you.

Six weeks ago I had to take Sophie out of her public habitat.

She'd become so withdrawn and depressed.

She'd curl into a ball in the corner of her cage and just shiver.

Did you ask her why? All the time.

What did she say? Light afraid.

Literally, she's afraid of the light. She speaks to you?

Over 600 words using American Sign Language.

She understands over a thousand.

I'll show you her vocabulary list.

Is this who you wanted to speak to? It's basic investigative procedure.

Interview all the possible witnesses.

Gorillas are highly sensitive creatures and...

..Sophie's use of language skills makes her even more so.

Why would she be afraid of the light?

You've heard about the Malawi government.

Sophie could be taken away from me and I think that she knows that.

Are these Sophie's? Yes.

What do you think they mean?

Until recently, Sophie desperately wanted a baby.

The brown object in the centre is her expression of that.

Have you tried to mate her? We were looking for a partner,...

..but under these stressful conditions, I didn't wanna put her through it.

Do you have a veterinary facility here? Yeah.

This is a strange request, but it might help to explain what's been going on.

I'm gonna need your help on this, too, Scully.

I hope you know what you're getting us into.

I'm pretty sure of what we're gonna find.

This isn't exactly in my job description.

Next thing you know they'll be doing it on MTV Sports.

OK, the elephant's cavity is clear.

I'm ready for you.

The knife's right down there. OK.

I was told there's never been a successful pregnancy at the Fairfield Zoo.

You've been talking to Kyle Lang. Well, is it true?

Yes. But I don't think for the reasons Kyle claims.

Not because Ed Meecham has done anything to the animals.

Why then? Bringing a pregnancy to term...

..in captivity is always difficult. But a perfect failure rate?

I know. It's one of the things I was determined to change when I came here.

Was an attempt ever made to mate Ganesha?

No. Mating an elephant out of the wild is rarely successful.

There have only been six elephants born in captivity over the last ten years.

Here's the uterine tissue. But I'm still not clear on what you expect to find.

You're right, Mulder. The signs in the uterus and the ovaries are unmistakable.

So, what did you find?

This animal had been pregnant.

What are you talking about? There's hypoplasia...

..and the corpus luteum is ruptured.

That's not possible. Neither is an invisible elephant.

What is going on here? Whatever it is, it's been going on a while.

I think you'll find evidence of the same thing when your tiger returns.

I still can't believe you bet on the Chargers!

You hear that? Hear what?

Where's the tiger? Inside the site. Two men are trapped.

Put the g*n away, Ed!

Do you wanna be responsible for another death?

We can capture this cat without harming anyone.

This is no time for wishful thinking. I'm ordering you, Ed.

Yes, ma'am. Lead the way.

How'd the tiger get across town without being spotted?

I don't know, but we'd better find her before Meecham does.

Hey! Shh, shh.

It was just here.

It's all right, Willa.

They don't all talk and draw pictures.

This last incident has left the board with no choice but to withdraw all funding.

If that's your decision, there's nothing else I can say.

I'm sorry.

It really is a shame. It's too bad.

I'm out of a job.

They've cut off all funding.

The animals are being shipped out to other zoos, starting Monday.

I'm sorry.

It could not have happened at a worse time.

You mean for Sophie?

What I had going for me was my position here. Having a place for her.

Have the results come in on the tiger?

Agent Scully did the test. The tiger had been pregnant, too.

It's impossible. There's no chance those animals could get pregnant.

What if they were artificially inseminated?

That's a very fine and complex process. I would have known.

Unless it was done somewhere else.

Where? What do you know about alien abduction?

You're... You're kidding me?

You think that these animals were taken aboard some spaceship?

I don't know, but there's obviously some problem getting them back.

Due to what may be an astrological variation, a trouble with the time-space continuum.

These animals taken from cages are returned two miles west-southwest of this zoo.

Aliens impregnating zoo animals. Yes, and harvesting the embryos.

Why? Maybe their own Noah's Ark?

To preserve the DNA of these animals that we're depleting.

That's probably why you've never had a successful birth at this facility.

It's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

I understand that you might think it's ridiculous. Maybe you should ask Sophie.

You think... this is what she's so afraid of?

I believe she's pregnant. And she's afraid of them coming for her baby.

Sophie, come here.

I wanna ask you a question.

It's OK, Sophie.

Come here.

What's she saying? She says "man, woman hurt."

She thinks you or your partner are going to hurt her or me.

Sophie. Man woman are here to help you.

They want to know about Sophie's baby.

Can I ask her a question? Yeah.

Will you ask her if she wants to leave here?

Sophie.

Do you want to leave here?

She says "light afraid".

Sophie, what are you afraid of?

Tell me.

What did she say? She said "Baby go flying light".

I just finished off in the infirmary.

The sheriff's deputy came looking to serve you papers.

I think it's about Sophie.

What am I gonna do? You can't leave Sophie here...

..if you want to protect her. I've nowhere else to take her.

Excuse me.

Willa Ambrose? Yes.

I'm serving you with a court order to release Sophie into protective custody.

What are you doing here? I've come to ask for your help, Kyle.

Help with what? Sophie.

They've taken her into protective custody. Let her go, Willa.

They're putting her in an iron cage as we speak, without bars, without windows.

It'll k*ll her.

Sophie's been behind bars her entire life.

Let her go home, to the freedom she deserves.

Freedom to what? Be k*lled by poachers and have her hands out off as souvenirs?

They promised she'll be in a preserve. She's mine, Kyle. I won't let her go!

Please, come on. We can find a place for her here.

A private reserve. You know people. No. No.

That's against everything I stand for.

She's pregnant.

What? Sophie's pregnant.

I don't believe you, Willa.

It's true. What if she was?

Is the baby gonna live out its life behind bars, too?

Look, Willa, she doesn't belong to you. She's not your child.

She belongs with other gorillas, not selling tickets for a zoo.

You won't help me?

No.

Wanna see something interesting? Where d'you get this?

I was looking for a pen to finish my report in Willa's office and that was in her drawer.

It's a small world after all.

It's OK, Sophie. It's OK, honey.

Sophie. Sophie. Sophie, don't worry.

I'm with you.

I love you, too.

Willa?

Willa? Are you here?

Willa, where are you?

Willa?

I told you. It happened exactly the way it did with the tiger.

I heard the animals going crazy. I got up to check on Sophie and she was gone.

That's when I found Kyle.

Any idea what he was doing at the zoo? No.

A witness says that you visited Kyle's office yesterday. Is that true?

Yeah.

For what purpose? Basically, to tell him that he'd won,...

..the zoo was being shut down and Sophie was being taken into protective custody.

Did you ask him to help you take Sophie to prevent her from being taken from you?

No. That would be against everything Kyle believed in.

But he helped you to rescue her originally, isn't that correct?

He had a connection to you and to this animal that went back several years.

Whatever "connection" he and I had... was over long ago.

But you asked him anyway... to help you?

No.

Then what was he doing here last night and why did he give you this note?

I don't know. I told you.

Did he make a habit of visiting the zoo? If he did, it was probably late at night...

..after he'd jumped over the fence like a good WAO soldier.

Why don't you ask Agent Mulder what he thinks happened? He has a novel theory.

Maybe it was alien abduction.

Scully, can I talk to you for a second?

You think she's telling the truth. Why do you say that?

Kyle Lang's death and the disappearance of the animal match the previous incidents.

Yes.

And you've been pushing this alien abduction angle.

I still am, but Willa's reactions are wrong. To losing Sophie?

I think she knows where Sophie is and Lang died cos he knows what she's capable of.

You think she k*lled him? I think she'd do anything to protect Sophie.

Even wait atop a stack of crates for her former lover to walk underneath?

An examination of the body will give us a picture of what happened last night.

You do that and I'll check out the warehouse.

Looks like you're in a hurry. Well, there isn't much to hang around for.

I'm afraid there is.

I found evidence that Kyle died a wrongful death.

He was hit with a cattle prod.

There's gonna be an investigation, so I have to read you your rights.

It was an accident.

Kyle surprised Ed.

He wasn't supposed to be there. Ed Meecham took Sophie?

Yes.

There was no one else to turn to.

Where is she, Willa?

Ed has her.

She's in some building... on the road to Boise.

Put it down, Ed. There's been enough v*olence, don't you think?

I didn't k*ll Kyle Lang. Put down the g*n and we'll talk about it.

I was only doing what she paid me to do.

Where's the animal, Ed? Down the hall.

You show me where. We're gonna go there together. Come on.

What's she doing? Throwing herself against the door.

She's gone crazy.

She's scared. Yeah? Well, she's gonna k*ll herself.

OK, Ed. Well, you're gonna have to save her.

Take your tranquilliser g*n. I'll be right behind you.

I've only got one dart in this thing, so you gotta get her out in the light.

Can you see her? I think she's over in that corner over there.

Hey, Meecham!

I'm not gonna hurt you.

Mulder!

Mulder!

Ow! Sorry. Lie still.

Where's Sophie? Can we get a paramedic in here?

Meecham? He's been arrested.

We picked him up on the way to Boise. That's how we found you here.

They took Sophie. Who did?

Where's Willa?

She's making a statement about Kyle Lang.

I gotta talk to her.

Where is she? She's gone.

What did he do to her?

It wasn't Ed. She tried to tell me something.

What is that? That doesn't make any sense.

What does it mean? Man save man.

We've just received a report of a large animal spotted on the interstate...

That's her. She's heading back towards the zoo.

Where is she? Over there.

What happened? Animal got hit by a car.

Ran off into the field.

No! No, no, no, no!

Sophie?

Sophie?

No, no.

Ambrose and Meecham have been charged with manslaughter for Lang's death.

The courts will rule on this matter and justice will no doubt be served,...

..but the pall of a greater tragedy remains.

The motives of the silent visitors who set these events in motion remain unclear.

Is it a judgment on a global rate of extinction...

..that has risen to one thousand times its natural rate in this century?

An act of alien conservation of animals we are driving hard toward oblivion?

And if so, might it follow that our own fate and existence...

..could finally be dependent on the conservatorship of an extraterrestrial race?

Or, in the simple words of a creature whose own future is uncertain: will man save man?

I made this!