“Kill Switch” is episode eleven of season five of The X-Files.
A man is working on a laptop in a diner. Elsewhere, what looks like a drug dealer gets a call from someone telling him that his partner who stole his money is at the Metro Diner in DC. He heads there with another. Another man gets a similar call, claiming that someone he is after is at the Metro Diner. He heads there with a friend. So do another two and another two.
In the Metro Diner, the man is still working on his laptop when two of those summoned come in, followed by another two. He finally gets access to something, as two more come in, and inserts a CD-ROM. He’s about to activate it when the final two come in – and they are U.S. Marshals. The place devolves into gunfire.
Mulder is on scene, telling Scully that both marshals are dead. They were coming in to apprehend someone who escaped federal custody three months ago. The dead marshals were involved in the transportation and took it personally. They got a tip saying the fugitive was here. Scully doesn’t see why the escaped person would be there. Mulder doesn’t think he is or was. He hands her the rap sheets of the others; street level coke dealers, minor wholesalers.
And one other. Donald Gelman, Silicon Valley software pioneer who went missing in 1975. He invented the internet. Well, was writing internet software before the internet. Scully asks why she hasn’t heard of him. Because, on the eve of a deal that would have made him the next Bill Gates, Gelman went hiking in the Sierras to think about it and never came back. Scully asks what the connection is. Mulder thinks there isn’t one; maybe that’s the point.
Mulder thinks someone wanted Gelman dead, tipped off all the drug dealer4s and finally made a call to the U.S. Marshals. They arrive; the place explodes. Gelman dies in the crossfire. Mulder has Gelman’s laptop. He removes the CD and puts it in their car’s player. Music plays. Probably not what he was expecting.
They take the laptop and CD to the Lone Gunmen. They know who Gelman was and have never seen anything like the laptop. Perhaps Gelman built it himself. Mulder says maybe that’s what got him killed. They also have the CD. It has “Twilight Time” on it. They aren’t getting into the laptop but Byers says the CD has background data, perhaps a program. Scully asks if any of them have checked Gelman’s email. They have not. There’s a single message and a number that Mulder says is a shipping container ID.
There’s music coming from inside the container when they find it. The inhabitant gets Mulder with a stun gun and flees. Scully chases after her and, when stunned herself, threatens to shoot the woman. Inside the container is living quarters and an extensive computer setup. The woman wants to know how they found them. Through Gelman’s email. She then hears a noise from her system and says a surveillance module is locking on. A particle beam from a DoD orbital weapons platform. Scully doesn’t believe that. Mulder is rather more willing. He gets Scully out as well, even though she thinks it’s absurd, and they drive off as an energy beam lances out of the sky and destroys the container.
Now in the car, the woman says her name is Invisigoth. Mulder asks if she meant an AI targeted them. Yes; Gelman wrote an interlocking sequence of viruses 15 years ago and let it loose on the net to evolve. Invisigoth is not just some random hacker either.
Scully still doesn’t believe in such things as OWPs. Invisigoth could have rigged the container. Star Wars and Brilliant Pebbles were never built. Scully asks why the AI doesn’t target them now. Because it doesn’t know where Invisigoth is. She hasn’t made a phone call in some time. The only way it would have found the container was if some idiot with Donald’s computer sent an email. There were three of them; the third was David Markham. The AI stopped coming when they called it. It isn’t a program any more. If they don’t kill it, it will go after David, then her. Donald was writing a kill switch. The program on the CD.
The Lone Gunmen know exactly who Invisigoth is and practically start drooling. She is less impressed, given they led the AI to her. Why didn’t it zap Gelman? Because he was its creator; it needed to impress him. Now, they need to find the AI’s home node and feed the kill switch directly. It currently needs a physical nexus. The Lone Gunmen know what it would need, and says the government keeps data like that secret. Invisigoth asks if they know anyone who works for the government. She also at one point asks Mulder to take the cuffs off, unless he wants her to work on the computer with her tongue. Looking at the Lone Gunmen, Mulder suggests they don’t put that to a vote. Now, all they need to do is track down a hiding rogue AI that can eavesdrop on phone calls and call in orbital strikes.