So… this episode takes place in and around DC. And because of that, it’s not a super extravagant case. BUT, that doesn’t mean Mulder and Scully didn’t waste taxpayer money.
The annoying thing with this case is that Mulder and Scully drive lot of short distance trips. I put quite a bit of effort to figure out the mileage and spending on these trips, which sadly only amounted to $36.01 total (assuming they requisitioned FBI vehicles and were billed for the mileage).
I also looked further into the exact fictional locations of Mulder and Scully’s apartments. I found some interviews with Chris Carter that narrowed down their locations to specific areas. I did some interpretation and came up with my own addresses based on his interviews. I’ll probably use these for future posts.
We know from Fight the Future Scully lives near Georgetown and Chris Carter has said she lives “southwest of Kalorama”
Mulder on the other hand lives in Alexandria.
Anyway. This is just the beginning of the stupidity in this episode.
The episode takes place between 10/23/93 and 10/27/93. The first scene shows Eurisko World Headquarters in Crystal City Virginia, a city just minutes outside Washington DC. This is presumably a computer software company. We’re led to believe that the man who started the company, Brad Wilczek, is no longer the CEO. This new guy Ben Drake is.
They have a disagreement and Brad leaves. Ben goes to the restroom in the building. Now I have a huge problem with the arrangement of this room.
So this bathroom, which appears to have multiple stalls; you can lock the door from the inside. And I don’t mean like a privacy lock like at a gas station. I mean like… nuclear code lock this thing from the inside and get stuck.
The other problem I have is someone thought it was a brilliant idea to have a corded phone on the countertop next to the public sinks.
So long story short there’s a phone call, Ben (the bad CEO guy) picks up the phone and says “hello”. There’s a weird voice on the other end. The door to the bathroom seals shut. Ben puts his key into the security device to unlock this door (it’s not a regular lock, this lock is a… turn both keys simultaneously so we can set this nuclear bomb to go off kind of lock).
For whatever reason an electrical current is running through this lock and when he sticks his key into the lock he is electrocuted. And I mean… ELECTROCUTED. He is flung across the entire room and slams against the mirror shattering it. And he’s dead
The next day (a Saturday… FYI), a man named Jerry meets up with Mulder and Scully and presents the case of dead Ben to Mulder and Scully. Ben was a good friend of the Attorney general and Jerry was tasked with finding out who killed Ben and he wants Mulder and Scully’s help. We never hear about the Attorney General I this episode again.
That same day they drive to Eurisko (4 miles in 1 car $2.03) to investigate.
While Mulder and Scully investigate the police on scene explain to Scully how Ben was electrocuted. Throwing caution to the wind Scully literally REACHES FORWARD and touches Ben’s key that is still in the locking mechanism, the same key that the day earlier delivered a lethal electrical shock to Ben. Thank God she wasn’t electrocuted as well.
Here we’re introduced to Claud Peterson, the “Building System’s Engineer” who explains the whole building is equipped like Disney’s Smart house and that a computer called COS controls everything. We learn that Ben wanted to shut this system down before he was killed. We also learn that Brad Wilczek created this program. Motive! or red herring.
Mulder and Scully presumably drive back to DC ($2.03) and then go home for the day.
The next day Mulder and Scully are called to a meeting and… that asshat Jerry has stolen Mulder’s notes! Jerry’s presenting Mulder’s notes at the meeting as if they’re his own! Stupid idiot. Everyone’s impressed with Jerry!
At this point Mulder and Scully realize the only person who would know how to get the Smart House computer system to electrocute Ben is Brad, the guy who created it.
They travel to his house in Virginia (by car, 7 miles drive, $3.55).
I mean, yawn. They are making Brad Wilczek out to be like Bill Gates and blah blah blah but I’m not buying it. I mean we’re not even in Silicon Valley.
They go back to DC ($3.55) and Scully goes home to take notes. And for the second time already in this episode, more notes are stolen. Her computer is hacked through the internet and her “Field Notes” are stolen. Presumably by the janitorial Smart House at Eurisko. If we freeze frame her notes it’s quite clear they are not nearly as impressive as Mulder’s notes earlier.
The next day we have… what I would like to think as… the single stupidest thing Scully does in the entire series.
A bit of background. Mulder and Scully isolated the call Ben received just before he died and it had a voice on it. They want to compare this synthetic voice to Brad Wilczek since he’s the most obvious suspect in this case. So Scully borrowed computer equipment from the Voice Biometrics Lab at Georgetown. I didn’t charge for her driving there and back to the office since it’s not stated if she picked up this equipment or if they dropped it off.
This “software” shows sound waves of both the phone call Ben received and Brad Wilczek’s voice similtaneously. Scully claims they are a match and to demonstrate this to Mulder and Jerry… she picks up a MARKER and DRAWS CIRCLES ON THE COMPUTER MONITOR. Again, Scully picks up a MARKER and DRAWS CIRCLES on the COMPUTER MONITOR. You can’t just do that Scully!!!!
So I am billing her $1.79 for a dry erase marker, which is generous to assume she’s using a washable marker, and $13.97 for Miracle Wipes, someone has to clean it off the screen.
I have a question. If Scully wants to use this as evidence for a search warrant, I guess she’d have to bring this whole computer with circles on it to the judge? If so; then we can assume she does just that because she travels to Washington Heights (2 miles, $1.01) to talk to a judge for a search warrant of Brad Wilczek.
Next scene is Brad Wilczek’s home and he’s trying to hack into COS (even though his workplace is just 2 miles away, he can’t drive there?). He can’t hack the system so he does indeed go to Eurisko.
Once he’s at Eurisko, he goes upstairs. Then Jerry arrives at Eurisko and tries to follow Brad Wilczek upstairs. He gets into an elevator which then is hacked by the COS and crashes down 29 floors and Jerry dies.
Here’s another instance where a bunch of research went nowhere. I am blaming Jerry’s death on Mulder and Scully. They should have been with him when he went to Eurisko. What happened with the search warrant?
If an FBI agent dies, under the Federal Employees’ Retirement System, a spouse is entitled to $32,423.56, plus 50% of the employee’s average salary.
Luckily for Mulder and Scully, it looks as though Jerry is not married; so that was a waste of time on my part.
And here… Scully is supposed to feel bad for Mulder because Jerry was Mulder’s friend. Mulder I guess is upset but… it’s not believable. The writers didn’t give Jerry ANY redeeming qualities so his death isn’t meaningful in any sort of way.
The next day Brad Wilczek confesses to killing Jerry and Ben. Mulder doesn’t believe him. Mulder believes the janitorial Smart House program at Eurisko has become sentient and therefore the COS Program is responsible for killing two people. I would argue Wilczek created the program, therefore Wilczek is responsible.
Mulder goes to Wilczek’s house (7 miles $3.55) then to Eurisko (2 miles, $1.01). Here he talks to Deep Throat about Artificial Intelligence and chess.
Mulder then goes to the Federal Detention Center in DC (6 Miles, $3.04) to talk to Wilczek. Wilczek tells Mulder he will write a virus software to destroy the COS. Scully meets Mulder here so that means she drove there in a separate car from the office (4 miles, $2.03). She tells Mulder he needs professional help so he storms off. He goes back to FBI headquarters, and Scully must do that as well so that’s $4.06 (2 cars each 4 miles).
Mulder then goes back to the Federal Detention Center ($2.03) and brings Wilczek a computer so he can write the computer virus software. Seems dangerous to give someone who probably killed their coworker using computers a… computer to write software.
The next day (10/27/93) while at home Scully receives a phone call (it’s garbled internet sounds) and finds her home computer has been hacked. She asks the FBI to have the call traced. Now there’s no historical data on how much it would cost to trace a phone call. Dialing *57 today to find out who called your phone last costs $10 so I charged that for this phone trace.
Scully discovers the call came from Eurisko and drives to Eurisko. The car she drives looks like the requisitioned cars from the FBI, so I can only assume Scully went from her apartment to work to get a car and then went to Eurisko.
Mulder meets her at Eurisko in a requisitioned car also.
They break into headquarters by taking Mulder’s requisitioned car into the parking garage. This car is a 1994 Ford Taurus. Upon entering the garage a gate crashes onto the car destroying the windshield ($255).
Once they get into the building they need to get into the room that houses the COS. Mulder has brought some supplies including 2 flashlights ($38.95 a piece). Mag lights seem to be the brand used by the FBI so I priced those online.
They also have electric shock resistant gloves. There are MANY different kinds of these gloves, I could have gone crazy with this because the voltage Ben sustained at the beginning of the episode must’ve been unfathomable.
The gloves Mulder brought along don’t appear to be super intense so I priced out 2 pairs of Class 0 high voltage insulated gloves at $48.99. Trust me these gloves are a bargain compared to what some of them can cost.
Mulder also has a large flathead screwdriver which I found a similar one on Amazon for $10.79.
So their plan is this: Mulder is going to install the virus software Wilczek made into the COS. Mulder goes one way, Scully a different way. Scully decides to climb through air vents. What’s interesting is when Scully is in the air vent we can see that she left her shoes behind. So I charged her for those, $84.99, which is the average price of women’s shoes currently according to google.
While in the vent this crazy air conditioning fan goes haywire and almost kills Scully. She discharges 3 bullets to destroy the fan. She would need a new clip of ammunition for her gun ($29.99) and Eurisko will need to be reimbursed for the fan she destroyed.
Now this fan… I found a 60 inch Dayton Exhaust fan with drive package that is similar to the fan Scully shoots. This fan costs $5,634.98! In addition, shipping is $409.43 plus installation at $499.99. So her decision to crawl through the air vent cost almost $6700!
Mulder and Scully arrive into the room with the COS. Claude Peterson, the side character that was the systems engineer, is actually from the Department of Defense and wants the AI from the Smart house… or something.
Mulder decides to install the virus software into the COS that Wilczek gave him.
Now in 1993 there wasn’t much in the way of portable storage. We had CD’s, floppy disks, and if you were lucky digital cassette tapes. The device Wilczek gave Mulder containing the software… it’s some crazy contraption… I have no idea what it is. I thought maybe it was some sort of digital tape but it isn’t. Then I realized it’s actually probably some cheap plastic box with Christmas lights that the prop department of the X-Files designed. I just wanted to figure out how much something like this would cost. So in the end I’m just going to assume Wilczek gave Mulder this device and that the FBI did not pay for it. Whatever the heck it is.
Oh and Mulder and Scully would have to get their damaged car towed which would be around $79. (Towing in DC at the time of this post cost $49.00 Initial fee + $3/mile x 10 miles)
In the end, Mulder and Scully spent about $7,241.82. I will concede that they did destroy the COS so their investigation was… successful even though they got one of their colleagues killed.
Claude Peterson did say that if Mulder and Scully destroyed the COS that they would be responsible for the cost, which is hysterical because he also claims the COS is top secret. So how would the Department of Defense bill the FBI for the COS if it’s also top secret. They wouldn’t. So I didn’t.
If only we could have more idiotic scenes like Scully physically drawing onto a computer screen…
Episode Total: $7,241.82
- ($3,997.69 in 1993)
Total So far: $94,336.93
- ($51,976.27 in 1993)
Mulder and Scully's Travel Expenses 