MULDER: How do you feel about joining me in the 'Big Apple' for an autopsy.

SCULLY: What's going on?

MULDER: I was hoping you could tell me.

SCULLY: I can't do it today. My last class isn't until 4:30.

MULDER: That's fine. I can have the ME wrap the body to go.

SCULLY: Mulder...

MULDER: You'll get it by five.

NURSE: This patient's night terrors prevent him from cycling out REM sleep into the more restful slow wave sleep. It's still experimental, but what we're trying to do is modify his brain wave patterns externally.

MULDER: How do you do that?

NURSE: Electrical stimulation of the occipital lobe creates simply visual and auditory hallucinations.

MULDER: So it's actually possibly to alter somebody's dreams?

NURSE: In theory, yes.

KRYCEK: Hey, I don't appreciate being ditched like someone's bad date

MULDER: I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings.

KRYCEK: Where do you get off copping this attitude? You don't even know the first thing about me.

MULDER: Exactly.

KRYCEK: You know, back at the academy, some of the guys used to make fun of you.

MULDER: Oh stop it, or you'll hurt my feelings.

SCULLY: Notice the pugilistic attitude of the corpse. This condition generally occurs several hours after death. It's caused by a coagulation of muscle proteins when the body is exposed to extremely high temperatures.

MULDER: Like fire?

SCULLY: This degree of limb flexion is observed exclusively in burn-related victims.

KRYCEK: But there was no fire.

SCULLY: And no epidermal burns to indicate as much but when I opened up the skull, I found external hemorrhages, which can only be caused by intense heat. Somehow, this man suffered all of the secondary, but none of the primary physiological signs of being in a fire.

MULDER: Any theories?

SCULLY: I couldn't even begin to explain what could have caused this. It's almost as if. . .

MULDER: What?

SCULLY: It's almost as if his body believed that it was burning.

MULDER: What's this scar right here?

KRYCEK: According to his medical history, the only surgery he ever had was an appendectomy.

MULDER: Well, unless they got to his appendix through his neck.

MULDER: What is this?

X: Data from a top secret military project. Borne of the idea that sleep was the soldiers' greatest enemy.

MULDER: Of course. Someone was conducting sleep deprivation experiments on Parris Island.

X: Not deprivation, eradication.

MULDER: Why?

X: Why else? To build a better soldier. Sustained wakefulness dulls fear, heightens aggression. Science had just put a man on the moon. So they looked to science to win a losing war.

MULDER: And Willig and Cole were the lab rats.

X: Lab rats with the highest kill ratio in the marine corps. 4,000 plus confirmed kills for a thirteen man squad.

MULDER: So how do I contact you?

X: You can't

MULDER: I may still need more.

X: You still don't get it, do you? Closing the X-Files, separating you and Scully was only the beginning. The truth is still out there, but it's more dangerous. The man we both knew paid for that information with his life, a sacrifice I'm not willing to make.

SCULLY: Also in the described in the report, is a highly experimental neurosurgical procedure meant to induce a permanent waking state. The procedure involved cutting out part of the brain stem in the mid-frontal region... Post-op treatment also included a regiment of synthetic supplements to replenish the organic deficits caused by prolong lack of sleep. These drugs maintain serotonin levels in the blood. Serotonin being the primary substance produced during sleep. While it is theoretically possible that this procedure greatly diminished the subjects need for sleep, I can neither quantify nor substantiate it's success without further clinical evidence.

MULDER: Well, I learned something at Dr. Grissom's clinic. About what happens to a persons cortex when you stimulate it with electricity.

SCULLY: They experience mild visual and auditory hallucinations, any first year med. student could tell you that.

MULDER: Well, what if that stimulus were to come from a remote source? What if Cole had somehow developed the ability to project his unconscious?

SCULLY: Are you suggesting that Cole killed these people with telepathic images?

MULDER: Think about it, Scully. In all those years without REM sleep, maybe Cole built a bridge between the waking world and the dream world. A collective unconscious. And what if, by existing consciously in the unconscious world, he developed the ability to externalize his dreams and effectively alter reality.

SCULLY: Sounds like your new partner's working out.

MULDER: He's all right. He could use a little more seasoning and some wardrobe advice. But he's a lot more open to extreme possibilities then. . .

SCULLY: Then I was?

MULDER: . . .then I assumed he would be.

SCULLY: Must be nice not having someone question your every move, poking holes in all your theories.

MULDER: Oh yeah, it's---it's great. I'm surprised I put up with you so long.

MULDER: All right, what do you want to know?

KRYCEK: What's the truth? There are things you're not telling me that I need to know.

MULDER: It's just that my ideas usually aren't very popular.

KRYCEK: I told you, I want to believe. But I need a place to start.

MULDER: I think that Cole possesses the psychic ability to manipulate sounds and images to generate illusions that are so convincing they can kill. How's that for a theory?

KRYCEK: Puts a whole new spin on virtual reality but at least it begins to explain some things.

CIGARETTE-SMOKING MAN: Do you know where he got this?

KRYCEK: Not yet. But he got it. Which means he's either found another source, or another source has found him. Sir, if I can recommend something. You'll see that I have outlined several countermeasures.

CIGARETTE-SMOKING MAN: What about Scully?

KRYCEK: Reassigning them to other areas seems to have only strengthened their determination. Scully's a problem. A much larger problem than you described.

CIGARETTE-SMOKING MAN: Every problem has a solution.