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In the not-quite-right-yet Lush Basement Office, Pudge presents the Case of the Electrocuted Executive. It looks like a booby trap, he thinks. Scully wants to know who else is on the case; when Pudge mentions a Nancy Spiller, she exclaims "The forensics instructor at the academy?" and kind of snickers. "We used to call her the Iron Maiden," she grins to Mulder, over her shoulder. She's hilariously cute, in spite of her electric-blue pantsuit with rounded, nearly scalloped lapels. At any rate, we get no further mention of Ms. Maiden, so this little moment o' bonding, though adorable, does not seem to serve the plot. Such as it is. Whatever. Carry on. Mulder hedges, clearly reluctant to take on this boring-ass pedestrian case. Smart Mulder. Pudge begs smarmily for his help. Dead Executive Dude, it seems, was a good friend of the Attorney General. Looks like somebody really wants an invite to Janet Reno's Dance Party! Solving this case would be a sorely needed feather in Pudge's cap, he claims. Scully observes this unseemly ambition wordlessly.

"How come you two went your separate ways?" she asks, as she and Mulder cross the plaza in front of Eurisko. "I'm a pain in the ass to work with," Mulder explains glibly. "Seriously, Mulder," Scully persists. "I'm not a pain in the ass?" he replies. Well, she hasn't been working with you all that long, Mulder; she's going to need a bigger sample. Mulder goes on to explain that Pudge had ladder-climbing aspirations, while he was "gunning for a basement office with no heat or windows." No heat? Winters in DC, that's gotta be a bitch. Where did we get "lush" from, anyway? A security camera "ominously" eyes the dynamic duo as they enter the building. Mulder goes on to describe how Pudge botched an important case in Atlanta, resulting in the maiming of a federal judge. Stellar! The elevator pings open, and Mulder and Scully get in; we watch them in fish-eyed Security Cam view.

Okay, if you've seen a particular blooper-reel outtake of this scene, you know that young Gillian Anderson was a bit of a hellion, with a filthy sense of humor. Attagirl. Well, what would you do, if you got hot young Duchov alone in an elevator? Aside from turning brick red and stammering like a ninny and possibly bursting into tears of lustful anxiety, which is what I would do. Anyway. In boring actuality, the elevator simply announces "Going up" in what is clearly NerdBoy's voice. "Must be for the visually impaired," Scully notes. "How do you like that—a politically correct elevator," Mulder says. Which…what? That's idiotic. So, Braille keypads and curb cuts are what, shameless pandering to handicapped special-interest groups? Guhh. Irritating. "Third floor…fourth floor…" drones the elevator. Suddenly it jerks to a halt, throwing Scully right onto the floor. Should've been Mulder, for that dumbass remark. To his credit, he helps her up, and then starts pushing buttons randomly, as you do in a busted elevator. Scully more sensibly goes for the emergency phone, but as she's identifying herself to the security guy on the other end, the elevator smoothly starts back up. Now it KNOWS YOU, Scully! The security camera refocuses "ominously." I'm gonna need a macro for that, aren't I? We see our heroes on the COS security monitor, across which text appears: DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PHONE SEARCH: SCULLY, DANA 202-555-6431. Okay, the computer knows to look her up in DC? And this text is appearing on…some monitor, somewhere…why? No! No! Don't ask! Move along! Also, what it should be saying across this picture is DAMN LADY THOSE ARE SOME CRUELLY TAPERED PANTS.

In the Dead Executive Washroom, Pudge mushmouths about the switched grounding in the electrical panel; I swear he says someone has tampered with "the servo." Tom Servo would improve this episode about a hundredfold. Anyway, so Executive Dude shocked the shit out of himself. "It takes a lot of juice to melt a steel key," Pudge says. Then Mulder wonders whether the "servo" switch could have been moved manually. Is that some electrical term I've never heard? Whatever. A random gent in the office strolls up to explain that yeah, sure, it could've been done manually, "but whoever did it would have had to override the COS." COS regulates everything in the building, including the volume of water in each toilet flush. I could have gone to my grave without knowing about the PooSensor2000, I think. Pudge introduces the random gent as Claude? Clyde?–mushmouth, I tell you!—Peterson, the building systems engineer who discovered the body. To override the system, someone would first need to "break the access codes," Peterson says, implying that this would be difficult. The security camera refocuses "ominously" (TSCRO, from now on!) and we get a security-cam shot of the whole gang in the bathroom. Mulder badgers Peterson about who might have access, and whether COS controls the phones too; he's noticed that the PottyPhone is off the hook, he points out to Pudge, and speculates that Dead Exec was talking to someone "before he did his Ben Franklin impersonation." Pudge takes a moment for self-congratulation: "Taught him everything he knows," he smarms to Scully, walking out. Mulder makes a hilarious "Yep, it's totally true" face at Scully. Hee.

Back in the LBO, Scully enters and tells Mulder "It's past three." Where are you off to, Happy Hour? Mulder is rummaging around his pigsty of a desk, looking for his profile notes; he's sure they were right there, despite Scully's ripping on him about the mess. "Come on, we're late," she tells him. Sadly, they're late not for the local pub but for a case meeting, in which Pudge eloquently rattles off Mulder's profile as his own work. Mulder gives him the stink-eye but says nothing; Scully whispers "Is that your profile?" but he waves her off: "Forget it. No." Pudge plays the tape of Dead Exec's last call, pointing out that the call came from inside the building, ensuring that the trap would work. A supervisor lady—is this the Iron Maiden? No one says, so no one cares—praises Pudge for his lazy, conniving misappropriation of someone else's work. Cut to Mulder stomping through the bullpen to quietly confront Pudge. Pudge dickishly makes excuses and smarms off past the arriving Scully. "He apologized, in his own way," Mulder mutters darkly, when Scully asks. Anyway, Scully's got news from Peterson: the list of people with COS access. "One name?" Mulder says disbelievingly, looking at the note she hands him. It's NerdBoy, I'll just say now; he has a name, but I'm just going to call him…lessee…Gil Bates. Hey, it sounds way better than Jeeve Stobs! Anyway, it's known that there was no love lost between him and Dead Exec. Mulder thinks that this makes Gil Bates too obvious as a murder suspect. "And fully consistent with [Pudge's] excellent behavioral profile," Scully twits him as they walk away. "Fully," Mulder snorts back. As they leave, they pass a file clerk (?) riding one of those mobility scooters, oddly enough. I hope that's not too politically correct for Mulder!