Species............ Genetically amplified Struthio camelus (ostrich)
Height............. 2.3 m
Avg. speed......... 70 km/h sustained
Cranial implant.... Carbon-mesh neuromod, BCI-type, wireless
Enhancements....... • Neocortex expansion (+40 % mass)
• Fine-motor beak control (lock-picking)
• Cooperative hunting heuristics
Fatal flaw......... Basal metabolic rate ↑300 %
→ Rapid glycogen exhaustion → Acute hypoglycemia
Status............. All field subjects deceased; implants recovered
Project facility abandoned
TEASER
EXT. CITY ZOO – PRE-DAWN
A cold front has iced every railing. KEEPERS ARAKI (30s) and KOBAYASHI (40s)
push a feed cart through the dim corridor.
ARAKI
Ostriches are weirdly quiet today.
KOBAYASHI
Cold snap, huh? Minus ten out there—
even dinosaurs hate wind-chill.
Both men stop beside the enclosure’s SERVICE GATE.
A clamp-on TV blares late-night comedy. They laugh, backs turned.
BEHIND THEM an ostrich-sized SHADOW studies the padlock.
A talon toes the latch—*CLICK … SNAP!* The steel bar slides free.
Araki turns—and the two-meter BIRD explodes out of the pen, beak and talons
slashing. Feed pellets scatter in slow motion.
Cue a SHARP BRASS STING of the **X-Files theme**.
SMASH TO MAIN TITLES.
ACT ONE
INT. X-FILES OFFICE – MORNING
MULDER queues footage on his monitor: security-cam of a frantic zoo
evacuation, cages torn open.
MULDER
Five ostriches gone. Keepers in ICU.
And the birds left the locks… picked.
SCULLY
Picked—by what? Their beaks?
Mulder grins; Scully is not amused.
MULDER
Maybe by *whom*.
Skinner orders them to Jacksonville, the nearest city hit by frost.
EXT. SUBURBAN STREET – SAME DAY
Police cruisers cordon off a front yard. A MAILMAN lies unconscious,
uniform shredded. Footprints: three-toed, forty-centimeter stride,
headed down the block—then vanish.
ACT TWO
INT. MAKESHIFT LAB – COUNTY FAIRGROUNDS
Scully performs necropsy on an ostrich killed by collision with a squad car.
Gizzard and crop are EMPTY—no stones, no feed.
SCULLY (recorder)
Severe hypoglycemia… brain mass
40 % larger than baseline Struthio camelus.
(to Mulder)
They were starving—but their brains
were in overdrive.
Mulder stares at the swollen optic lobes.
MULDER
Somebody upgraded the hardware
and forgot to fuel it.
They notice a SUBDERMAL IMPLANT near the brain stem—carbon lattice,
non-metallic.
ACT THREE
MULDER’S HOTEL WALL – CRIME PHOTOS
Photos from other states: identical implants, traced to an abandoned USDA
climate-adaptation lab. Notes reference **“Project O-Megiddo”**.
INT. ABANDONED RESEARCH FARM – NIGHT
Rows of shattered pens. On a whiteboard: *“Avian Cognitive Lift + Predation
Inhibition OFF.”* Blood streaks lead to an open bay door.
Outside, the flock races past—silent shadows at 70 km/h.
Helicopter floodlights ignite the grove—SOLDIERS unload. Bullets fail to
track the birds’ weaving pattern.
Colonel BARNES calls a retreat.
BARNES (radio)
All units fall back. Target behavior
is unpredictable—repeat, fall back.
ACT FOUR
EXT. EVACUATION PERIMETER – DAWN
Helicopters lift as one; below, ostriches stumble in aimless circles.
Their legs buckle—collapse. One by one they die.
INT. TEMPORARY FIELD LAB – LATER
Scully’s scalpel exposes an empty gizzard, liver almost consumed its own
glycogen.
SCULLY
Total glycogen depletion. They
burned calories faster than they
could eat.
Mulder studies the implant—LEDs blinking their last.
MULDER
They out-ran bullets… but they
couldn’t outrun hunger.
Scully closes the bird’s lids.
SCULLY
“Low battery.” Nature pulled the plug
before we could.
Wind rattles the tent canvas—like feathers brushing past.
FADE OUT.
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