The Conversation on The Rock

SCENE 8

(Back at the motel, Scully looks distressed.)

MULDER: 

I'm sorry about Queequeg. 

You know, I think I've learned something from these photos.

SCULLY: 

Mulder...

MULDER: 

(Goes over to her, and points out sighting locations on a map.) 

They're not pictures of the lake monster, 

they're pictures of the lake. 

Locations where the fish has been sighted over the past several years. 

Look, five years ago, 

all the sightings occured 

in the centre of the lake. 

But progressively 

the sightings have moved 

closer and closer to shore, 

until this year, they're practically on the shore.

SCULLY: 

Could you repeat the last part again? 

I kind of faded out.

MULDER: 

Which part?

SCULLY: 

After you said 

“I'm sorry”?

MULDER: 

Can you drive a boat?

SCENE 9

SCULLY: 

(On the boat.) 

It's too bad 

we're not out here fishing. 

(Looking at a fish radar, showing many fish near the boat.)

MULDER:

We are fishing.

SCULLY: 

You really expect to find 

this thing, don't you Mulder?

MULDER: 

You want to head right...here. 

(Points at the map.)

SCULLY: 

I'll take that as a ‘yes’.

MULDER: 

I know the difference between 

expectation and hope. 

Seek and ye shall find, Scully.

SCULLY: 

You know, on the old mariner's maps, 

the cartographers would designate uncharted territories 

by writing 

'Here Be Monsters'.

MULDER: 

I got a map of New York City just like that.

SCULLY: What was that? (A huge blob appears on the radar screen.)

MULDER: 

It ain't low gas.

SCULLY: 

What is that? 

What is that, Mulder?

MULDER: 

Here be monsters, Scully.

SCULLY: 

It looks like it's coming straight at us.

MULDER: 

Yep, that's what it looks like. 

(A huge crash is heard, then water pours in through a hole in the boat's stern.)

SCULLY: 

(Talking on the radio.) 

Mayday! Mayday! 

Can anybody hear me? 

This is the Patricia Rae. 

CA78327. 

Mayday! Mayday!

(They pull on life jackets, then swim out from the boat. As the boat sinks, they stand on a nearby rock, watching.)

SCULLY: 

There goes our five hundred dollar deposit.

MULDER: 

I say we swim to shore.

SCULLY: 

Swim?

MULDER: 

Yeah, the shore can't be too far from here.

SCULLY: 

In which direction? 

(Swings her lantern around)

MULDER: 

When you're living in The City 

you forget that night 

is actually so...dark.

SCULLY: 

Living in the city you forget a lot of things. 

You know what I was just thinking about, 

being mugged or hit by a car, 

It's not until you get back to nature that you realize that 

everything is out to get you. 

So my father always told me to respect nature, 

because it has no respect for you. 

(A ripple moves through the water.)

MULDER: 

That was him Scully, 

that was Big Blue.

SCULLY: 

So what if it was. 

Mulder, what are we doing here?

MULDER: 

What do you mean, 

“What are we doing here?”?

SCULLY: 

What are you hoping to accomplish?

MULDER: 

Scully, some of the things that we investigate are so intangible 

but this creature, 

it exists within the specific earthly confines of this lake, 

and 

I want to find it.

SCULLY: 

What for?

MULDER: 

You're a scientist, 

why do you ask that question? 

I mean, it would be a marvelous discovery, 

it could revolutionize our evolutionary biological thinking.

SCULLY: 

Is that really the reason why? 

You know when you showed me those pictures the photographer took, 

you want to know what I really saw in them?

MULDER: 

A tooth?

SCULLY: 

No, you. That man is your future. 

Listening only to himself, 

hoping to catch a glimpse of the truth, 

for who knows what reason.

MULDER: 

I heard him joke that he was hoping to live off the copyrights fees 

of a genuine Big Blue photo.

SCULLY: 

Well, as dumb as it sounds, 

at least it's a legitimate reason.

MULDER: 

You don't think my reasons are legitimate?

SCULLY: 

Mulder, sometimes I just can't figure them out.

(A noise is heard, they jump up, their guns aimed, but it is only a duck. Scully lets out a sob.)

MULDER: 

I'm still tempted to fire. 

Hey Scully, you think you could ever cannibalize someone? 

I mean if you really had to.

SCULLY: 

Well as much as the very idea is abhorrent to me, 

I suppose under certain conditions a living entity is practically conditioned to perform whatever extreme measures are necessary to ensure its survival. 

I suppose I'm no different.

MULDER: 

You've lost some weight recently 

haven't you?

SCULLY: 

Well, actually I have, thanks for...

(she glares at him.)

MULDER: 

Though it is amazing what some animals will do to guarantee the continuation of a species isn't it? 

A creature of this size must have adapted its behavior over the years to minimize its chances of being seen by its only predator, us. 

It's coming closer to shore must have been an act of desperation on its part.

SCULLY: 

Poor Queequeg.

MULDER: 

Why did you name your dog Queequeg?

SCULLY: 

It was the name of the harpoonist in Moby Dick. 

My father used to read to me from Moby Dick 

when I was a little girl, 

I called him Ahab 

and he called me Starbuck.

So I named my dog Queequeg. 

It's funny, I just realized something.

MULDER: 

It's a bizarre name for a dog, huh?

SCULLY: 

No, how much you're like Ahab. 

You're so consumed by your personal vengeance against life, whether it be its inherent cruelties or mysteries, 

everything takes on a warped significance to fit your megalomaniacal cosmology.

MULDER: 

Scully, are you coming on to me?

SCULLY: 

It's The Truth or a White Whale. 

What difference does it make?

 I mean, both obsessions are impossible to capture, 

and trying to do so will only leave you dead 

along with everyone else you bring with you. 

You know Mulder, 

you are Ahab.

MULDER: 

You know, its interesting you should say that, 

because I've always wanted a peg leg.

 

It's a boyhood thing I never grew out of. 

I'm not being flippant, 

I've given this a lot of thought. 

I mean, if you have a peg leg or hooks for hands 

then maybe its enough to simply keep on living. 

You know, braving facing life with your disability.

 

But without these things 

you're actually meant to make something of your life, 

achieve something earn a raise, 

wear a necktie. 

So if anything I'm actually the antithesis of Ahab, 

because if I did have a peg-leg 

I'd quite possibly be more happy 

and more content not to be chasing after 

these creatures of the unknown.

SCULLY: 

And that's not flippant?

MULDER: 

No, flippant is my favourite line from Moby Dick. 

'Hell is an idea first born 

on an undigested apple dumpling', huh?

SCULLY: 

What was that? 

(A ripple in the water is heard)

MULDER: 

I don't know, but it ain't no duck. (The lamp goes out.)

FARRADAY: 

I thought I heard voices. what are you two doing out here?

SCULLY: 

Dr Farraday?

FARRADAY: 

Hope I'm not interrupting anything.

SCULLY: 

No, no. we had a little trouble with our boat.

MULDER: 

Actually it sank.

FARRADAY: 

How'd that happen?

SCULLY: 

It was my fault. 

We would have been out here all night if you hadn't answered our distress call.

FARRADAY: 

Oh, I didn't. 

I was walking by, 

I heard you talking.

SCULLY: 

Walking by?

FARRADAY: 

Yeah, the shore is just a stone's throw from here. 

Come on, I'll take you back. 

It's just out of fuel. 

The sherrif will be around in a couple of minutes. 

I'd do it myself, but I've got work to do.

SCULLY: 

What exactly is it that you're doing out here Dr Farraday? 

It's well after midnight.

FARRADAY: 

Night is the ranas panasephalas's most active period, 

and this is its primary breeding ground. 

Or at least it used to be. 

Thousands of eggs used to cling to these reeds, beautiful jelly clusters. 

Now one must turn over many a leaf 

in order to find potential offspring.

MULDER: 

What's in the sack?

FARRADAY: 

Adult frogs, I've been breeding them in captivity, 

and releasing them into the wild.

SCULLY: 

This is Striker's Cove?

MULDER: 

The Frogs.

FARRADAY: 

I beg your pardon?

MULDER: 

The unexplained depletion of frogs originates from this cove. It's the food chain.

FARRADAY: 

What about it?

MULDER: 

Food chain. If you alter one life form in an ecosystem, the rest is necessarily affected, either by an increase or decrease. 

So if an aquatic dinosaur's diet consisted primarily of frogs, 

then if those frogs suddenly became scarce, 

it would have to search for an alternative food source.

SCULLY: 

A human?

FARRADAY: 

Agent Mulder, you are taking my legitimate research 

and basic biological principle, 

and stretching them both way out of proportion, 

in an effort to give some kind of validity to an entirely ludicrous theory. 

There is no prehistoric lake monster.

MULDER: 

This creature lives here in this cove. 

That explains the disappearance of these frogs, 

for which you have no explanation, 

ludicrous or not. 

As well as the recent human attacks.

FARRADAY: 

That's crazy. If something was living in these waters, 

you don't think I would have seen it? 

I've been conducting research here for three years.

MULDER: 

I'm talking about a prehistoric creature that's gone unnoticed for virtually thousands of years. 

If it knows how do anything, 

it knows how to hide. 

They say that the Loch Ness monster doesn't even live in the water, that it lives in the surrounding cliffs. 

Maybe Big Blue has an inland habitat, somewhere in the rocks, or in this dense forest here.

FARRADAY: 

I have no time for these absurdities. 

If you'll excuse me, I have some amphibians to release.

SCULLY: 

Well captain, what now?

SHERIFF: 

Agent Scully! Agent Mulder! 

There's been another death, 

and this time it does appear to be some kind of animal. 

Bit a fisherman's arm clear off.

MULDER: 

Where'd this happen?

SHERIFF: 

On the other side of the lake, a couple of hours ago. 

My department has the cooperation of the state police, 

plus the full use of all the Wildlife, Fish and Game's department vessels, 

and I've got a full scale search already under way.

MULDER: 

No, we need those men here, 

searching this cove and these woods.

SHERIFF: 

But I got thirty boats on the water already, 

now if we're going to capture this thing...

MULDER: 

Sweep this cove. 

It's here in Striker's cove.

SHERIFF: 

The boats are searching the area of the latest attack, 

and I'm not going to move them. 

Now if you're going to waste your time, conducting a search of these woods, you go right ahead. 

I got me a lake monster to catch.

SCULLY: 

Sheriff, Agent Mulder and I would appreciate it 

if you could spare two or three of your men to assist us here.

SHERIFF: 

....Alright, I'll send them on down. 

(He wanders off through the woods.)

MULDER: 

(Turns to Scully.) 

Thanks.

SCULLY: 

What was that?