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Mulder and Scully pull up at Gil Bates's crazy technomillionaire pad, across the street from a golf course. There's a motorcycle and what I believe is a classic Corvette parked in the driveway. "So this is what a 220 IQ and a $400 million severance settlement buys you," Mulder notes as they walk under a…glass canopy, of some sort, to the door. Ehh. I don't know what this location is, that they're trying to pass off as a millionaire's domicile, but it doesn't convince me. It's low and cold and concrete-y, mostly, like a sleek modern museum. This reminds me that when Bill Gates was building his lakefront mansion/compound/bunker here in the Seattle area, these e-mails kept making the rounds about all the insane technological features being included. I really didn't give a crap about any of them except one: supposedly, he has a computer-controlled bathtub that he can operate remotely from the office or even his car. He can specify the temperature, depth, and proportionate dosage of bubbles, like, over the Internet, and when he gets home the perfect bath has been drawn to his exact specifications. Now that is how to be a bajillionaire. Oh, and I hear that Melinda has a revolving dry-cleaners' clothes rack in her closet, like Cher in Clueless. I could also get behind that, I think.

Where was I? Okay, Gil Bates's mansion. TSCRO. Gil schlubs to the door and seems unsurprised to see the FBI. "What took you guys so long?" he mopes, letting them in. "Oh, you mind taking off your shoes?" he asks. I guess he is a slovenly neat freak? Or a foot fetishist. Ew. "You can divide the computer science industry into two types of people: neat, and scruffy," Gil blathers, defying my first theory by characterizing himself as the scruffy type. I repeat: ew. Mulder and Scully pad along in their stocking feet past Gil's nouveau-riche Eames chairs and reflecting pool and whatnot. They can't give Gillian her apple crate to stand on in these long shots, so she's comically tiny. Hee. Gil drones on about how he started Eurisko in his parents' garage (of course) after following the Dead for a year (double of course). "You know what Eurisko means?" he asks. Mulder's big brain perks up: "It's from the Greek, isn't it? Um… 'I learn things.'" Close: "'I discover things,'" Gil tells him. He derides Dead Exec as not being interested in discovery, only power and opportunism. "Lemme show you something," he continues, and turns on a massive monitor/TV screen to display a very cheesy computer diagram of what he calls "Smart Home." "From this prototype I have access to every square foot of my house," he says. "This place is as safe as Fort Knox and as energy-efficient as your average igloo." Ohh…kay? "We were two years ahead of Microsoft (ha! ha!) and Cebus (?) when [Dead Exec], in his infinite wisdom, killed the program," Gil rants. Whatever you say, buddy. Mulder grills him on whether the system is the same as the corporate COS, and whether someone could hack into the COS. "Well, not your average phone freak," Gil says. "But there's plenty of kooks out there—data travelers, electro-wizards, techno-anarchists…" Uh…electro-wizards? Probably also the sportos, motorheads, sluts, waistoids, dweebies…anyway. Scu lly cuts to the chase: "Could you have done it?" she asks, point-blank. I love her. Gil grins proudly in spite of himself. "Of course! I designed the system," he beams, before realizing maybe he shouldn't be that delighted about this little visit. Scully notes that he doesn't seem all that worried about being their prime suspect. "It's a puzzle, Miss Scully," Gil snaps. That's Doctor Scully to you, geek. Gil natters on about scruffy minds and blah blah puzzles blee murder god this episode is boring.

Scully's at home, typing up her field journal, still in her work skirt and pumps. Girl, put on some flannel sock-monkey jammies, seriously. It's October 24, 1993, for you obsessives. Scully switches off the monitor—not the computer, that we can see, but whatever—and toddles off to bed. The camera pans back through her dark apartment and suddenly the monitor turns back on! Not that the monitor has anything to do with computer data, but never mind! Moving on! The dial-up modem makes its eeee-EEEE—eeeee noise—aw, and hee—and we see the text of Scully's report scrolling across her screen…which dissolves into the COS screen. COS SCANNING: SCULLY, DANA…DATA INTERCEPT, it says across the bottom. Blinky blink. "FILE OPENED," says Evil Computer Voice. To no one.

At the FBI, Scully and Mulder listen to about a billion tapes of Gil supposedly lecturing at the Smithsonian. Pudge shambles in and stands around saying nothing. "Gimme a second?" Mulder asks Scully…but he's the one to get up and confer with Pudge in the hall. Pudge is "sorry" for being an ass, and of course he's begging for more help. "All you had to do was ask; I would've helped you with the profile," Mulder complains. Oh, Pudge is so tormented by his bungled past, and so jealous of Brilliant!Profiler!Mulder, and blah blah THANK YOU Scully for interrupting and calling them both back into the LBO. Scully's used some technological software doodad to analyze the vocal patterns and frequencies of the "time and tone" call that Dead Exec received and compare them to Gil's droning lectures. Whaddya know, they're the same guy! Which is entirely obvious to the naked ear. Scully declares that this proves Gil's the killer…as opposed to just proving that Gil recorded the elevator voice and the timestamp messages and, like, the telephone directory for his own company. Duh. Then Scully leans over and draws on the computer screen with a pen, circling the matching patterns in the voice frequency whatever analysis. Oh my God. Will she put white-out on that later? Anyway, she's all het up to go arrest Gil, but Pudge begs for the chance to bring him in alone. "I need this one, Mulder," he wheedles. Mulder lets him go. Behind him, Scully calls the help desk to ask if someone can come down and fix her cup-holder drive.

Back at the mansion, Gil—who has failed to buy any lamps with his millions, apparently—tries unsuccessfully to log into the COS himself. Frustrated, he runs out and roars off in his Corvette. I wonder if the actor got to drive that baby more than 50 yards…heh. Pudge, who's been staking out the joint, follows. At the Eurisko building, Gil sprints in and tears past the security desk. TSCRO. Blinky-blink. Here comes Pudge. TSCRO. Y'all, these constant shots of the security cameras? Not exciting. Upstairs, Gil rushes into some sort of command-center room with a desk and computer facing a glass panel into another room, behind which is a gigantic computer screen flashing all kinds of nonsense. It's very dark here too. Did 1013 blow their entire lighting budget in the first half? Gil logs on. "WELCOME BACK, [GIL]," moans Evil Computer Voice. Gil goggles at it, all bewildered, and then types, and says aloud for our benefit, "You're not equipped with a voice synthesizer!" Okay, seriously, THIS MAKES ABSOLUTELY ZERO SENSE. I'm kind of cracking up. Gil kind of shrugs off his observation that THE COMPUTER CAN TALK FOR SOME REASON, and asks "What is my user level?" "THAT IS NOW AT THE DISCRETION OF THE OPERATING SYSTEM," COS drones. Downstairs, Pudge strides purposefully into the elevator. TSCRO. Uh oh, Pudge—better hold onto the handrail, buddy. The elevator rises, counting off floors. TSCRO, again, uh, we get it, thanks! Upstairs, Gil's monitor suddenly displays a live feed of Pudge in the elevator. Gil begins flipping out. None of his commands have any effect. "TRY AGAIN," COS taunts him blandly. Hee. "What are you doing?" Gil howls. The computer THAT CAN TALK repeats this back at him, distorted and mocking. Gil runs into the other room, opens a panel and starts manually flipping switches, to no avail. Are those servo switches? The elevator stalls between floors 29 and 30; Pudge is perplexed, more so when the doors open on the cement wall of the elevator shaft. "Aw, man," he mutters. Gil backs away from the uber-monitor in horror. "Going down," snots the elevator voice, and then the elevator plummets, flinging Pudge all around like a marble in a jar, AAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaahhhh…crunch. Black screen. "PROGRAM EXECUTED," COS blinky-blinks. Har, har.