As a unit of armed Military Police prepare to storm a house, one of the building's owners, a Mrs. Anita Budahas, arrives at the scene and is told by the commanding officer that her husband has violated security protocol and stolen an armed military vehicle. After the unit break into the house, Mrs. Budahas demands that she be allowed to speak to her husband, who is found curled up in a corner of the bathroom almost naked, shivering, and covered with a skin irritation. Four months later, Mulder and Scully meet in a downtown Washington, D.C. bar at lunchtime. Scully declines his offer of a drink, due to the early time of day. As the FBI agents start to search for a seat, they are observed by one of several men seated at the bar. At a table, Mulder briefs Scully on the disappearance of Colonel Robert Budahas, the man found by the military police earlier; he is, since 1963, the sixth pilot to have gone missing from Ellens Air Base, where he had been stationed. In the bar's washroom, Mulder encounters the man who was watching him and Scully earlier. The man reluctantly introduces himself as a potential government informer and warns Mulder to stay away from the case, stating that the military will not tolerate an FBI investigation. Mulder tries to follow the man out of the washroom but loses track of him. When Scully then approaches Mulder and asks if he is alright, he hesitantly replies that he is fine, puzzled by his strange encounter. Scully researches Ellens Air Base in a library within FBI Headquarters, finding that the base is known for attracting UFO buffs. In his apartment, Mulder answers a call from Scully, in which she complains about her discoveries, but he notices that his telephone is apparently bugged and that someone is watching his apartment from a van parked outside. He refuses to discuss Scully's concerns with her until their flight and quickly hangs up. The agents' airplane lands on a runway in Marriette Field. As they wait for Mrs. Budahas to answer the door, the duo remark on the sound of a speeding aircraft flying overhead. The agents question Mrs. Budahas, who is severely shaken by the loss of her husband and mentions that he started acting bizarrely prior to his disappearance. She also tells Mulder that neighbor Verla McLennen's husband similarly went kind of crazy. At Mrs. McLennan's home, the agents see that her husband is picking hairs from his own head and using them as fish bait. Mrs. McLennan tells the agents that he began behaving strangely almost two years ago and guesses that his condition was caused by stress. She is highly respectful to and thankful for the Air Force but makes a snide comment to Mrs. Budahas, apparently appalled that she has brought the FBI agents there. Outside her own home, Mrs. Budahas provides a list of phone numbers she has repeatedly tried to call. Scully suggests that Mrs. McLennan's husband is suffering from stereotypy and that the pilots may be washouts from the Aurora Project, though these ideas are refuted by Mulder, based on the caliber of the pilots, particularly Colonel Budahas. In their motel, the agents confer about their attempts to speak with a member of the Air Force. Scully mentions that she has managed to arrange an appointment with a Colonel Kissel and, even though Mulder is initially doubtful of this arrangement, he starts to search for more information about the colonel. The agents confront Kissel outside his house, but he refuses to cooperate with them and demands that they leave. After he hurries inside, the agents are met by local journalist Paul Mossinger. He remarks on the abundance of UFO nuts in the area, seemingly skeptical of the UFO phenomenon, and acknowledges the noise of another aircraft passing overhead at high speed. Mulder refuses to divulge how his and Scully's investigation is proceeding, but asks Mossinger to suggest someplace where Mulder might talk to one of the aforementioned UFO nuts. At The Flying Saucer diner, Mulder and Scully meet a woman who identifies the noise of yet another speedy aircraft as an F-15 Eagle and remarks on the arrogance of the pilots. With prompting from Mulder, she shows the agents a series of UFO photographs arranged behind the diner's bar, claiming that she took one herself and recalling her experience of witnessing the pictured craft. Mulder agrees to buy a print of the picture from the woman - prompting Scully to teasingly call him a sucker - and asks about his chances of seeing a UFO himself, at which point Scully leaves in exasperation. Outside, she is studying a map of the area, worrying that it does not include Ellens Air Base. Mulder alleges to have already known the base would not be on the map, calling her a sucker in return, and hands her a hand-written map he has been able to obtain that does show the base's location. The agents drive off the main road to the base and head up a hill, passing a military warning sign on the way. Mulder brings the car to a stop next to a chain link perimeter fence and then wanders up a grassy embankment while Scully, seriously annoyed and choosing to remain with the car, mocks his attempt to search for UFOs. At night, Scully is asleep in the car as a low rumble begins to sound but she wakens with a start upon hearing the vehicle's rear window shatter. Mulder hurriedly returns to the car, eager to show her something. The FBI agents watch two strange lights dance above the base, theorizing about what they are. After the lights seemingly rise out of sight and collide, the agents notice an approaching helicopter and two teenagers, a girl and boy, who are fleeing the base. The agents chase down the two teens; all four hide under a tree until the helicopter flies away. In a roadside diner, the teenagers, Emil and Zoe, eat while being questioned about the base. They recount their experiences at the base and Emil mentions an area called the Yellow Base that is supposedly a massive hangar surrounded by land-mines. Unbeknownst to the four, a car pulls up outside and the driver reports their presence to his superior, using obscure lingo. Emil continues demonstrating the way in which the aircraft he has seen at the base flies and jokingly reveals his thoughts about the nature of the craft. When Mulder shows him the picture he bought earlier, Emil claims it looks exactly like the craft he has seen. After Mulder drops Emil and Zoe at a residential property, humorously emulating the teens' slang, Scully expresses doubt about their claims. Mulder tries to convince her that there is a connection between the crafts at Ellens Air Base and the UFO that reportedly crashed in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. Ellens Air Base is supposedly one of six sites where parts from the wreckage were shipped, and Mulder believes the military is flying planes built with UFO technology. Scully attempts to poke holes in Mulder's theory and argues that it does not adequately explain the disappearance of Colonel Budahas, which Mulder ultimately agrees with. Back at their motel, Scully races to Mulder's room and relays news that Colonel Budahas was returned to his home the previous night. The agents drive back to the Budahas residence, where they find Mrs. Budahas upset and in shock. She insists that a man sitting inside, who looks identical to her husband, is not actually him. After Mulder manages to slightly calm Mrs. Budahas, he questions the man who she claims looks identical to Colonel Budahas but is not him. Mrs. Budahas confirms that almost each and every answer that the man gives is correct but, just as the man starts to get frustrated with the interrogation, Mulder asks him a question regarding a flight maneuver that he struggles with, claiming he cannot remember the answer. He steps towards Mrs. Budahas but she backs away, sobbing. After Mulder hurriedly leaves, Scully rushes out after him, demanding his input. Mulder admits that he thinks Colonel Budahas' brain has been rewired, using some kind of selective memory drain. Scully argues that the means to do that do not exist and suggests amnesia as a reasonable explanation. Mulder sarcastically says the technology powering the aircraft that the agents apparently saw the previous night doesn't exist either. Mulder and Scully continue to argue while driving along a highway, but are cut off and boxed in by two cars, out of which step several Men in Black. The men proceed to search the agents' car and confiscate all their evidence. When Mulder questions their motives, he is assaulted by one of the men. The agents are warned to leave or risk the consequences of breaching national security. In her motel room, Scully ends a phone conversation with a contact named Gail, finding that her attempt to track down one of the cars has been fruitless. Mulder suggests that the helicopter that chased Emil and Zoe out of the base was really after himself and Scully, and that the military not only knew the agents were coming but also returned Colonel Budahas as a decoy. Mulder then divulges to Scully that he was approached by the cautioning, secretive man in Washington, D.C. and that his own phone was being tapped, which he takes as proof of a huge conspiracy to cover up the presence of a UFO in the area. He and Scully passionately debate the consequences of such a secret. Scully voices her eagerness to leave, especially now that Colonel Budahas has been returned, which technically ends their investigation. Mulder makes a futile attempt to appeal to Scully's curiosity, before acquiescing to her wishes. Scully is soon alerted by the noise of their car, however, and hurries outside to see Mulder driving away. Emil and Zoe lead Mulder to a hole in the fence that surrounds Ellens Air Base. He is surprised when the teens decline to follow him, explaining that they've only ever gone in at night. They describe the area inside the perimeter to him and Mulder wanders off as Zoe shouts a warning not to pass the edge of some tall weeds that she knows about. Suddenly realizing they have forgotten to remind Mulder about the land mines, Emil calls out, but Mulder is too far away. Mulder later nears the edge of the tall weeds, where he waits until nightfall. After he walks onto a runway, a triangular craft speeds towards him, instantly slowing to hover above him, and then shines a dazzlingly bright, white light down on him before darting away. Mulder then notices two military vehicles pulling onto the runway and speeding toward him; after a short chase, he is captured by army personnel, who strap him to a gurney and then load him into one of their transports before driving away. Still struggling inside one of the military vehicles, Mulder is injected with something and held down until he apparently loses consciousness. Scully, meanwhile, struggles to make a phone call to Washington, D.C. Leaving her gun in her room, she goes to the motel manager and asks to use his phone, which also doesn't work. The Manager tells her that one of the many things people commonly blame on the nearby military interference is the fact that phones are pretty undependable in the area. The military vehicle carrying Mulder enters a hangar where Mulder's gurney is offloaded from the vehicle. As it is wheeled through the building he, in his drugged state, sees men working on a large, spaceship-shaped object that is obscured behind a large sheet of plastic. Scully is surprised to see Paul Mossinger stepping out of her room. He claims to have been looking for her and saw that her door was open. After Scully hears a burst of static from a walkie-talkie in his car, she locks herself inside it. In the glove compartment, she finds a gun and an ID badge indicating that he works at Ellens Air Base. Although Mossinger breaks into the car and tries to grab Scully, she manages to pull his own gun on him. Emil and Zoe arrive and Emil tells Scully that they took Mulder to the base; Zoe adds that they waited all night for him. Scully demands that Mossinger find out where Mulder is, threatening to go to the national newspapers otherwise. In a medical facility, a light is shone into Mulder's eye, into which is then dropped a driblet of a silver solution. Scully and Mossinger arrive at the base's entrance, where Scully exchanges Mossinger for Mulder. Mossinger walks towards the base as Mulder staggers away from it. As Mossinger passes Mulder, he tells the agents that everything they have seen in the area is equal to the protection that the military gives it and that the agents are the ones who have acted inappropriately. As they drive away, Scully asks Mulder if he's okay, but he can only respond with confusion as to how he got there. The agents visit the Budahas residence but Mrs. Budahas, noticeably discomforted, claims her husband is fine and quickly thanks the agents for their concern before shutting the door in their faces. Mulder is convinced the military have visited Mrs. Budahas and threatened her into keeping silent. Scully, eager to be done with the place, irritably tells him they know nothing more than when they arrived, planning to write that in her field report. In an office at FBI Headquarters, Scully types up her field report, in which she recounts that Colonel Budahas was returned home - albeit in a highly bewildered state - and refuses to confirm Mulder's theory that the colonel may have suffered stress-related trauma as a result of flying aircraft using recovered UFO technology. She does, however, corroborate his account of having seen two UFOs in the sky over Ellens Air Base. She officially closes the case, before picking up the UFO photograph Mulder obtained at The Flying Saucer and staring at it. While jogging at a local race track, Mulder meets Deep Throat - the secretive man who approached him in the bar. The man warns that the agents' lives may be in danger, because they have seen things that were not meant to be seen. As Mulder starts to talk about what he saw, Deep Throat interrupts with a reminder that he can provide information to Mulder, but only so long as doing so is in his own best interest - namely, in pursuit of the truth. Mulder says he did see something, but it has been taken away from him, erased. Although he neither confirms nor denies whether Mulder saw a military UFO, the man reminds Mulder, through a rhetorical question, that the reason those who believe in the existence of alien life on Earth are not dissuaded by all the evidence to the contrary - like Mulder himself - is that the evidence to the contrary is not entirely dissuasive. Deep Throat starts to walk away but momentarily turns back when Mulder asks if aliens are indeed already on Earth. Deep Throat responds they have been on the planet for an extremely long time.
<EOS>
At dusk, a business man, George Usher, walks onto a street in Baltimore, Maryland and strolls to his car, unknowingly watched by a pair of menacing yellow eyes from within a storm drain. After Usher exits an elevator in an office building, the doors to the elevator open again, but the cabin is gone. The cables in the open shaft tremble, as if they are being used for climbing. Usher makes a call to his wife and then leaves his office for a cup of coffee. As he leaves, a vent in his office is quietly unscrewed and starts to open. Usher returns to his office where, after his door is suddenly closed from inside, sounds of a struggle can be heard and the door handle repeatedly rattles. The noises abruptly end as a large dent is smashed in the door. As Usher's coffee drips on the floor and he lies dead, the vent is screwed back in place. FBI Agents Dana Scully and Tom Colton are having lunch together in a Washington, D.C. restaurant. They are old Academy classmates and make small talk about their careers. Colton is a highly ambitious agent who speaks teasingly to Scully about her partner, Fox Mulder, whom Scully admits is a little out there. Colton then starts to tell Scully about a case he has been assigned that involves a series of three victims, the latest being George Usher, who were each killed in a location where there were no obvious entry points and found with their livers missing, with signs indicating they were ripped out by bare hands. Scully admits the case may be an X-file. Colton is determined to solve the case himself but asks for Scully's help, reluctantly agreeing that she can include Mulder in the investigation. In Usher's office, Mulder queries Scully as to why he wasn't personally asked to help with the case, seemingly surprised when Scully mentions he has an unflattering reputation, and asks if she also thinks he is spooky. Colton arrives, apologizing for being late, and is formally introduced to Mulder by Scully; he asks Mulder, in a jesting and off-handed manner, whether be believes aliens are responsible for the murder. Mulder plays up to Colton's expectation of him as a kook, expounding on his own otherworldly ideas, before leaving Scully and Colton to converse. Mulder discovers a bizarrely elongated fingerprint on the vent that opened during Usher's murder but Colton dismisses the possibility that anyone could have crawled through it. In the X-files office, Mulder shows Scully fingerprints that tie the recent murders to a series of related murders reported in the X-file, the others having occurred in Powhatan Mill 1963 and 1933, as well as one taken in 1903 when fingerprinting was still in its infancy. Although Scully protests that Colton never mentioned these earlier murders, Mulder suspects Colton is probably not aware of them. Mulder also concludes, from the pattern of the earlier murders, that two more are due to be committed this year. When Scully questions his theories, Mulder clarifies that he does not think the murders are copycats, citing the identical nature of the fingerprints, and does not believe aliens are involved in the case. The two argue about who the case belongs to, with Mulder insisting that the murders were in the X-files long before the recent series and Scully saying that Mulder's theories are unwanted by the FBI in general. Mulder eventually suggests that they conduct their own investigation, separate from that of the Violent Crimes Section. Scully types up a psychological profile of the killer and presents it to the VCS agents. On her recommendation Agent Fuller, Colton's superior, organizes stakeouts of the crime scenes, as Scully believes the killer will return to one of them. Fuller suggests that Scully work overtime with his team, making a reference to her usual work in jest that draws laughter from the other agents present but discomfort from Scully. Alone in a car, Scully is on stakeout in the parking garage of Usher's building when she is alerted by a faint banging noise. She searches the area and is startled when Mulder jumps out at her, with a joke about the situation. Scully is frustrated that he is jeopardizing her stakeout, but he insists that the killer will not return to the building, having already beaten the challenge it presented to him. Mulder starts to head home, but notices that something is moving inside an air shaft. He runs back to Scully, who calls for backup and follows him to the chute. Complying with orders from Scully, a man crawls out of the chute. He is then arrested by Colton and other agents. As Mulder walks away, he admits to Scully that she was right. A polygraph test is conducted on the Eugene Victor Tooms, an employee of the Baltimore Municipal Animal Control. Colton and Fuller, watching from an adjacent observation room with Scully and Mulder, react with irritation when Tooms is asked two questions that concern the Powhatan Mill murders, which Mulder instructed the examiner to include. When asked if he is afraid of failing the test, Tooms shifts in his seat and admits that he is afraid and professes his innocence. Later, the examiner declares that, in her own opinion, Tooms passed the test. Fuller arrives with news that supports Tooms' story of having been called in to find a dead cat in the ventilation system but Scully maintains, in opposition to Colton and Fuller, that the alibi remains questionable. Mulder notices that Tooms clearly lied on the two Powhatan Mill questions; when the examiner begins to explain the readings, Fuller shouts over her that Tooms was obviously not alive in 1933. Fuller chooses to let Tooms go and hurries out of the room, followed by the examiner. After Colton asks Scully if she is coming with him, she politely declines, nevertheless thanking him for allowing her to temporarily work with the Violent Crimes Section. Recalling their earlier conversation, Colton tells Scully that Mulder is not merely out there but insane before rushing out of the room. As they walk through the station's bullpen, Scully wonders why Mulder pushed his theory even though it was obvious the others would never believe it. He suggests that he did so not only because he shared her belief that Tooms is guilty, but also due to his opinion that his own admittedly frequent encounters with cynics increases the need for him to play up to their skeptical expectations. Scully remarks that he was acting extremely territorial, but then regrets this comment. Mulder tells her he values the fact that, even if she does not always agree with him, she respects the journey their investigations take. Mulder pledges to accept her continued cooperation with the Violent Crimes Section if she wishes to rejoin them, but she admits to being curious as to what other evidence has convinced Mulder that Tooms committed the murders from years ago. Using a computer, Mulder digitally elongates Tooms' fingerprint until it matches those found at the crime scenes, definitive proof that Tooms was responsible for Usher's murder as well as the previous murders. Meanwhile, another businessman named Thomas Werner arrives home while Tooms watches from the darkness. Once Werner enters his house, Tooms climbs up the side of the building onto the roof, where he reaches down the chimney, his fingers extending as he does so, before squeezing his entire body inside. Werner tries to light a fire in his fireplace, but is puzzled when the newspaper barely catches. Tooms attacks Werner from behind as the last remaining embers go out. While Detective Johnson takes measurements of where Werner's body is in relation to objects in the room, Colton suggests that the latest removed liver might have been placed on the black market. Johnson scoffs at this, since the liver has clearly been ripped out in crude fashion. Colton, at his wits end, is willing to entertain any theory, but corrects himself and says any sane theory upon seeing Mulder arrive with Scully. Colton initially tries to stop Mulder from entering the crime scene, but acquiesces when Scully suggests that obstructing Mulder's investigation could be marked down in Colton's personnel file. When Colton coldly asks whose side she is on, Scully replies the victim's, and an annoyed Colton walks out. Scully begins to read a profile of Mr. Werner but Mulder cuts her off, having already found another of Tooms' elongated fingerprints on the fireplace. Mulder also notes that something has been removed from the mantelpiece. Mulder is searching through old records with a microfiche projector, coming across a 1903 census record concerning Tooms, as Scully enters. She notifies him that not only has Tooms' listed address turned out to be fake, he has not returned to work since his arrest. When Mulder shows her that the address for Tooms from the census record is the apartment below that of the 1903 murder victim, Scully starts to formulate a theory that the previous murders were committed by Eugene Tooms' ancestors. Worrying that Tooms will kill one more victim before emerging again in 2023 if he is not stopped now, Mulder suggests that he himself and Scully search through the available records for any more information on Eugene Tooms. The agents are largely unsuccessful in their search but, after they have plowed through the records, Scully informs Mulder that she has found the current address of the investigator of one of the murders in 1933. The agents visit the now-retired Frank Briggs at the Lynne Acres Retirement Home. He recounts how he, an experienced detective at the time, was appalled by the 1933 murders and experienced a sense of evil in the room at Powhattan Mill where they were committed. After Mulder helps the ex-detective get a box, Briggs recollects that he continued to investigate Tooms, unofficially, in 1963, by which time he had been assigned a desk job. The box includes all the evidence Briggs amassed, including a jar containing a piece of another removed liver. Briggs explains that Tooms would also take personal belongings of his victims as trophies, and shows the agents photographs that he himself took in 1933, including a picture of Tooms - in which he looks virtually identical to his current appearance - and the building where he lived, the same address where Tooms was living in 1903 and where the first victim was killed in the same year. Mulder remarks, as he and Scully enter the bare apartment where the census record stated Tooms was living, that Briggs was right about there being a strong sensation. Mulder discovers a hole in the wall behind a propped-up mattress and the agents climb down into an old coal cellar. There they come across the trophies that Tooms has collected over the years, including the one taken from Mr. Werner's mantelpiece, and find a nest made from rags and newspapers. Mulder touches the construct, accidentally covering his hands in a substance that Scully identifies as bile. Mulder then reveals that he thinks Tooms is a genetic mutant who hibernates in the nest for thirty years and needs the livers for sustenance during his hibernation cycle. Scully reminds Mulder that Tooms will have to return so they decide that, while Mulder keeps watch on the building, Scully will organize a surveillance team. On their way out of the cellar, she becomes momentarily caught on something in the darkness and a hand, holding her necklace, reaches down from the rafters, where Tooms watches. Mulder is waiting outside Tooms' building at 66 Exeter Street when Agents Kennedy and Kramer arrive. Mulder reminds them of their objective, adding that he and Scully will relieve them in eight hours if Tooms does not make an appearance. Kennedy jokingly refers to Mulder by his his nickname Spooky as he exits the car. At the FBI Bureau, Scully is preparing to meet Mulder when Colton bursts in. He voices his frustration with the fact that Scully is using two of his men to sit outside a building that has been condemned for ten years, to which she defensively says that his investigation is not being impeded in any way. He tells her that when they had lunch he was looking forward to working with her because he believed she was a good agent, but now he is desperate to remove her from the case, due to her close association with Mulder. Scully is furious when Colton tells her that his regional ASAC called off the stakeout and tries to call Mulder with the news, but Colton insists that he get the opportunity to gloat. Fuming, Scully tells Colton his career can only end with him landing on your ass and storms out as he calls Mulder, ultimately getting Mulder's answering machine. Scully drives home and goes inside, not knowing that Tooms is watching her from the bushes across the street. Mulder drives up to Tooms' building and is surprised to find no-one no one waiting for him. He runs inside. In the bathroom of her apartment, Scully gets Mulder's answering machine and relates her aggravation with Colton, telling Mulder to call her back when he returns home. She then starts to run a bath and walks out of her bathroom as Tooms appears in the window, apparently climbing up the side of her building. In the cellar, Mulder discovers Scully's necklace amongst the collection of trophies and rushes out. Scully finishes running her bath and starts to open a bottle of bath salts when bile drops onto her hand from a grille in the ceiling. She flees into the living room and grabs her gun. Mulder rushes to Scully's apartment, frustrated when she doesn't answer the phone - which she can't, because the phone wires servicing her apartment have been cut. Scully is making her way through the apartment when Tooms punches through a floorboard vent and grabs her leg, tripping her up and causing her to lose her gun. Although she manages to struggle free of his grasp, Tooms bursts out of the vent and is about to rip out Scully's liver when Mulder kicks the front door in. Tooms smashes the pane above the bars on Scully's bathroom window but is jumped by Scully. Mulder manages to handcuff one of Tooms' hands but is knocked across the room, which gives Scully time to attach the other cuff to the bathtub's faucet. Mulder victoriously comments, as Tooms gives up, that the killer will not be able to fill his quota this time. Detective Briggs is relieved to the point of tears when he sees a report about Tooms' capture in the Section Two newspaper. Another copy of the same article is ripped up and licked by Tooms, who uses it towards building a new nest in the psych ward cell where he is now confined. Mulder is observing the killer through a window in the cell's door when Scully arrives. She says official findings confirm that Tooms is genetically a human anomaly. Mulder ignores her, instead lamenting the inadequacy of the public's high security measures. The agents wander away as a food tray is brought to the cell and passed through a small, rectangular slot in the door. Alone in his cell, Tooms stares at the slot and smiles, sinisterly. 
<EOS>
At night - in Campsite 53, beside Lake Okobogee - a family consisting of a teenage girl, a younger boy and their mother are sleeping, with the two youngsters outside in sleeping bags and their mother in the top bunk of a nearby RV. A violent shaking sends the mother falling to the floor while a bright light begins to shine into the RV from outside. Moments later, the light suddenly dissipates, the shaking quickly subsides and all is quiet once again. As the woman hears her young son, Kevin, screaming for his mother outside, she hauls herself to the door of the vehicle but painfully finds it is searing hot and eventually manages to open it with an oven glove. Outside, a frowning Kevin immediately tells his mother that Ruby, his teenage sister, has disappeared. Their mother takes hold of Kevin and begins scouting for her missing teenage daughter, to no avail. Chief Blevins informs Special Agent Dana Scully of a 302 that Blevins has indirectly received from Scully's FBI partner, Agent Fox Mulder. In frustration with Mulder, Blevins tells Scully that the otherwise unexplained 302 is effectively petitioning the FBI to assign a case number to a tabloid headline - specifically, "Teen Taken From Tent By Aliens." Blevins shows Scully case X-40253 - which concerns the disappearance of Mulder's sister, Samantha, an incident that happened years ago - and considers that Mulder's personal quest to discover his sister's fate is clouding his judgment. Scully disagrees with this suggestion and asks to not only talk to Mulder but to also make a recommendation to Blevins on the subject, before he disallows the 302. In the basement office of the X-Files Unit, Scully challenges Mulder on the validity of his request. Mulder replies the disappearance occurred at Lake Okobogee, a known UFO Hotspot. He also lets Scully know that one of four well-documented UFO sightings from 1967 involved a young girl scout, now the missing girl's mother, Darlene Morris. The next day, Mulder and Scully arrive at the Morris residence in Sioux City, Iowa and are welcomed inside by Darlene, who tries to introduce them to Kevin but he ignores them, all the while scribbling something on paper. Mulder studies a row of family portrait photographs on a mantelpiece and affectionately touches one of Ruby Morris, Scully noticing he feels personally connected to the case. Darlene gives a statement to the agents, claiming she and Kevin have been traumatized by the loss of Ruby, such as Kevin having been acting strangely since the disappearance. Questioning Darlene, Scully implies a suspicion Ruby may have been taken by Charles, Darlene's former husband, though Darlene herself denies this, insistent a UFO was once again involved. She realizes Mulder has the same opinion but that Scully is more skeptical. Mulder tries to talk with Kevin but finds him busily watching static on the TV set and copying a binary string onto a pad of paper. Kevin insists the transmission is coming from the TV, even though Mulder observes only static. At the Sioux City Police station Mulder faxes Kevin's transmission fragment to Danny Bernstein at the FBI Cryptography Section. In a simultaneous telephone call Fox promises Danny tickets to a Redskins game as compensation for attempting to decipher the binary string. Sheriff Jack Withers explains that Darlene has been telling stories of her UFO sighting since the first grade; most people in the area dismiss as having an active imagination. This combined with Ruby's well-known wild-child attitude, a lack of evidence at the scene and no ransom note led to the case being dismissed as a simple runaway. Mulder and Scully find a note stuck to their car and covertly meet a friend of Ruby's in a public library who claims that Ruby's boyfriend, Greg Randall, got her pregnant and that the two had been planning to leave town. Later that night, Mulder and Scully venture to the Pennsylvania Pub in search of Greg Randall who was apparently employed as a barman there. The establishment has a distinct Heavy Metal/Biker feel to it, they quickly discover that Greg has not shown up for work in over three weeks and has been dismissed. Spotting a flying saucer tattoo on Kip the bartender's arm, Mulder poses as a UFO skeptic, cleverly encouraging the man to volunteer information to the contrary. This pays off as the man shows the pair his right ear which is badly burnt and disfigured due to what he calls a killer sunburn at night at Lake Okobogee. At 5:30 a.m. the next morning, agents from the NSA burst into Scully's hotel room demanding to know where Mulder is. Mulder is then quizzed by Agent Holtzman as to where he obtained the binary string he faxed the previous day which is revealed to be a defense satellite transmission. The Morris residence is ransacked by NSA Agents later that day, and Kevin's possessions are boxed up to be taken away for investigation, while many other items in the house are broken or damaged in casual disregard for the family's rights and freedoms. As the operation draws to a close, Mulder and Scully arrive. Mulder collects samples of a substance blistered on the roof of the RV present at the lake on the night of the abduction. At the FBI regional office in Sioux City Agent Leza Atsumi explains that 77 pages of binary code recovered from the Morris residence were deciphered, the data included an image of DaVinci's Universal Man, a short animation of a DNA double helix and a short segment of music from the Brandenberg Concerto, some lines from the Koran and a Shakespearean sonnet. Mulder notes that the fragmented nature of the data and its varying origins implies time-division-multiplexing - this is a means of sending multiple messages to multiple destinations/clients at once in a single transmission. Darlene and Kevin Morris are roughly ejected from the NSA building, while Darlene explains that she wants nothing more to do with the FBI, Kevin stares blankly at some CCTV monitors, perhaps seeing embedded transmissions in these too. Mulder explains to Scully that he believes Kevin has been touched by whatever abducted Ruby, allowing him to perceive these transmissions, the two return to Campsite 53 in the hopes of discovering the truth in the absence of any other evidence. They notice that a line of trees beside the lake have been singed by extreme heat, Mulder then discovers chunks of glass in the sand on the shore also formed by extreme heat. Mulder sights a wolf that leads him to the discovery of a shallow grave just inside the forest. Mulder discovers that the grave contains Greg Randall's body with a note inside his wallet that reads: They match the hand-writing from this note to the one pinned to their car; both are written by the girl they met at the library whose name they discover to be Tessa. The Sheriff had discovered from Dr. Fowler that the appointment was for Tessa and that she had lied to them, in fact she was pregnant, not Ruby. Greg Randall was the father and he and Tessa had planned to run away. Mulder presses her into slipping up and revealing that she killed Greg and would've killed Ruby had she had the opportunity. Scully argues that they should now hand the case over to local law enforcement and close the X-file, Mulder refuses and presses on to try to find Ruby. They return to the Morris house, which is empty, with the front door unlocked and many sheets of paper laid out on the lounge floor. The papers are covered in neatly written binary strings, Scully looks at the arrangement from the mezzanine level above the lounge and from this new perspective sees the chilling image of Ruby Morris' face made up from 1's and 0's. In the dark, the pair return to Campsite 53 and find the Morris' RV abandoned by the shore. They follow a trail into the forest and find Darlene trying to catch her breath. Kevin had escaped her and has run deeper into the forest. Mulder finds Kevin walking towards a bright light which turns out to be the headlights from dozens of bikers off-roading through the forest. Mulder and Kevin run back when they hear Scully's screams to find an unconscious Ruby lying on the forest floor. At the Sioux City hospital Scully and Mulder discuss the health of Ruby who has been awake for a few hours. She has several unusual symptoms that Mulder claims can be caused by prolonged weightlessness. Ruby tells the pair that the persons who took her told her not to disclose any details of the abduction. Kevin presses her tell Mulder who he says already knows, but before Ruby can answer, she is interrupted by Darlene who because of the troubles the truth has brought her, tells the agents to leave and never contact Ruby again. When Mulder's desperate pleas to Darlene to let Ruby speak about her experiences are met with stark defiance, he appears crushed that the truth has eluded him once again. Back in Washington, Scully reviews Mulder's hypnotic regression tape concerning his sister's disappearance. Mulder describes the room, his paralysis and his sister's cries for help as she was being abducted, at the same time the real Mulder sits in a church crying, looking at his sister's photo. On the tape Mulder describes a voice he can hear in his head, telling him not to be scared and that one day his sister will return unharmed. Asked whether he believes the voice he replies: 
<EOS>
In New Jersey in 1947, a man, his wife and their children are out for a drive one night when they experience a flat tire. When the man gets out to fix it, he is dragged away by an unseen creature while his family watches and screams in terror. That morning, the local police search for the man who was taken and find his body deep in the woods with his leg eaten off. One of the officers calls the rest of the team to follow him up a hill and to the entrance of a cave, which the officer supposedly saw the creature run into. As the team waits at the entrance to the cave, one of the officers says the creature is running towards them; the team then open fire on the creature with their firearms. In the present day, Scully tells Mulder of a similar case involving a homeless man, Roger Crockett, that occurred in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Mulder believes it to be the work of the infamous Jersey Devil, but Scully dismisses it as a tale. The two travel to the Atlantic City Morgue and examine the body of Roger Crockett. During their examination, Detective Thomas Tomson expresses his dislike of having the FBI involved with this case and asks Mulder and Scully to leave as the local police department has jurisdiction over the situation. Mulder is undaunted while Scully realizes there is not a very big case here. She tells Mulder she would like to go to her godson's birthday party. Mulder gives her the keys to their car, while Mulder stays to search for the Jersey Devil. While searching in the woods, Mulder speaks with Park Ranger Peter Brullet who tells him stories of why he believes in the Jersey Devil. After the small search in the woods, Mulder travels to a certain part of town that is populated by homeless people, to ask if anyone knew Roger Crockett. A man who was one of the homeless people living in the area leads Mulder to the place where he sleeps. The homeless man shows Mulder a sketched picture of the creature that was inside Crockett's jacket pocket before his death. To have a better chance of finding the Jersey Devil, Mulder gives the keys of his motel to the homeless man in exchange for his sleeping place. During the night, Mulder witnesses an ape-like creature descend on the dumpsters in the alley he is in. Mulder chases the creature until it gets to high building where Mulder cannot follow. Before he can get a good glimpse at the creature, the police show up and cart Mulder away. In jail, Mulder and Detective Tomson get into an argument on why the detective was keeping the existence of the creature secret, which was because of the fear of losing tourists. Meanwhile, Scully is on a date with Rob, the father of one of the kids from her godson's party. Mulder calls from a jail cell, asking her to prove to the authorities that he is, in fact, a federal agent. As the two agents leave the jailhouse, Scully asks Mulder if he managed to panhandle some change. The pair consult an anthropologist, Dr. Diamond, to whom Mulder describes what he saw. Dr. Diamond believes it is man's missing link, a creature that is the go-between of apes and humans. When asked where the creature would be on the food chain, the doctor ominously replies that the being would be near humans. After this, the duo visit the park ranger who was on duty on the night of the disappearance. He says he has seen many strange things, but not an ape-man. However, when they investigate into the woods, they find rudimentary tools made from glass bottles and rocks. Then, later that week, police corner the creature in an abandoned warehouse, near the site of the homeless abductions. While searching, Mulder and Scully notice an open window and realize the creature was here and is now on the run. Mulder pursues the creature first and chases it to a smaller warehouse, where the creature pounces on Mulder and knocks him to the ground. While Mulder is on the floor, the creature has a chance to kill him, but Mulder notices that the creature is no longer fighting against him and is instead backing away from Mulder. As Mulder stands up to get a better look at the creature, it strikes him on the head before Scully arrives and the creature escapes. The anthropologist and ranger in tow, the FBI agents realize it is a female, possibly looking to feed her offspring. However, the woman flees to the woods, wounded after an encounter with the Atlantic City SWAT team. With the primitive woman now injured and scared, the police, Mulder and Scully track her to her den, where she puts up a last stand before she is killed. After her death, the anthropologist remarks she may have had children. Mulder examines the dead female body and asks Tomson his reason for killing her. Tomson replies by comparing his act to killing a rabid animal. One week later, Mulder is still disappointed that the woman has died. He realizes she was only trying to protect her offspring and only killed those who were a threat to her and her children. Mulder decides to go to the Smithsonian for free time to relax after the incident with the Jersey Devil and Scully decides to go with him, after denying another date with Rob. While a boy and his father are hiking in the woods, the boy asks his father about a small object he thought he saw and the father replies that he doesn't know what they saw, but starts telling the son a story about the Jersey Devil as they walk on. As they are walking away, a female child of the Jersey Devil appears, listening to pair and watches them walk away in the woods. 
<EOS>
Two terrorists are found dead in a back alley of Philadelphia after robbing a woman, Lauren Kyte, at an ATM. Mulder and Scully investigate the case when called in by a pair of agents from an unknown agency. The bodies of the terrorists are found to have an electrical charge and their throats have been crushed from the inside. Lauren sees her boss, Robert Dorland, to resign due to her grief over the death of Dorland's partner, Howard Graves, who committed suicide weeks before. Mulder and Scully determine that one of the bodies is an individual who belongs to a terrorist group, the Isfahan, and using the ATM video are able to track down Lauren. A screenshot of the video reveals a blurry figure who appears to be Howard Graves. The agents meet with Lauren at her home and after initially denying it, she admits to the incident but knows nothing about the murders. Upon leaving, the agents find their car going out of control on its own, sending them careening down the street in reverse, only stopping after smashing into another vehicle. The car is found to have no evidence of tampering, but an electrical charge is detected within it. Visiting Grave's grave, Mulder and Scully learn of his suicide and the death of his daughter at a young age, a daughter that would be Lauren's age should she be alive. Scully suspects that Graves faked his death, but through a conversation with the medical examiner who examined his body and testing the organs he donated to others it is proved that he was in fact dead. Lauren meanwhile witnesses a vision at night including blood appearing in the bathtub, causing her to believe that Graves was murdered. At her going away party, Lauren is threatened by Dorland, who believes she has knowledge of confidential information that could implicate him. Lauren calls Mulder and Scully to her home, but before the agents arrive two assassins hired by Dorland arrive to kill her. An invisible force kills both of them. Lauren is interrogated by Mulder and Scully, and the two unknown agents that called them in, who say they're involved because they believe Graves and Dorland's company sold technology to the Isfahan. Lauren admits to Mulder and Scully that the sales did indeed take place and that she believes Dorland had Graves killed. The FBI executes a search of the company's offices, but are unable to find any evidence. When Dorland attacks Lauren with a letter opener, Graves's spirit takes it and cuts open the wallpaper, revealing a computer floppy disc with evidence. Weeks later Lauren starts her new job, but it appears that Graves's spirit may have followed her there. 
<EOS>
In the Virginia headquarters of the software company Eurisko Corporation, an argument between company founder Brad Wilczek and CEO Benjamin Drake ensues. Wilczek tells Drake that his recent decisions are "killing my company" and angrily leaves. Later on, Drake writes a memo in which he proposes to end the C.O.S. project, citing a disastrous performance and projected quarterly losses. Seeing this through a security camera, the C.O.S. (Central Operating System), a computer that runs the entire building, sets up an elaborate booby trap, luring Drake into a bathroom with an overflowing faucet. While distracting Drake with an automated time-message phone call, the door to the bathroom shuts. Seeing that the door can't be opened either by hand or with a key card, Drake resorts to using an electronic key. However, when he puts the key into the keyhole, a massive electric current sends him flying across the room, killing him. The C.O.S. machine's lights are still running after the horrific event and eventually shut down, verbally stating FILE DELETED. Mulder's former partner in the Violent Crimes Section, Jerry Lamana, recruits both him and Scully to investigate. Lamana hopes to boost his stalled career with a closed case, due to Drake's connections with the Attorney General. On their way to the Eurisko building, Mulder explains to Scully that Lamana's need for recognition stems from a case he bungled in Atlanta, which resulted in the near-death of a federal judge. Mulder and Scully enter the Eurisko building under the studious eyes of the security cameras, controlled by the C.O.S. As they ride the elevator up to Drake's office, the elevator suddenly stalls, causing Scully to call the front desk for help. As she does so, the elevator starts again. It turns out that the C.O.S. made the machine stall, and then downloaded Scully's contact information when she identified herself. The agents meet Claude Peterson, head of building security, who discovered Drake's body. Lamana steals Mulder's notes on the profile of the killer and presents them under his own name. An outraged Mulder confronts him about this. The agents later meet and question Wilczek. Scully initially doubts Wilczek's involvement in Drake's death, but when his voice is matched to that of the automated time-message caller, Lamana heads out to arrest him. At his home, Wilczek tries to access the C.O.S. from his personal computer, but all of his attempts are denied. Worried and frustrated, Wilczek gets in his car and begins driving to the Eurisko building, tailed by Lamana. Wilczek makes his way to the C.O.S.'s control room, where his efforts to gain access are still denied. To his surprise, the C.O.S. talks to him, despite never being given a voice synthesizer. Lamana makes it to the building and gets on the elevator to arrest Wilczek. The C.O.S. stalls the elevator, then causes it to crash, killing Lamana. Mulder meets with Deep Throat, who tells him that Wilczek developed a full-fledged artificial intelligence capable of adaptive learning and that the Defense Department is conducting its own investigation. Mulder meets with the jailed Wilczek, who has confessed to murdering Lamana and Drake. Wilczek believes it would be better to allow his creation to run rampant than to hand over the technology to the government, who he is convinced will use it for ill intentions. He draws a parallel to the scientific research that ultimately lead to the atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and believes his creation could be abused to a similar magnitude. Mulder convinces Wilczek to develop a virus that can destroy the C.O.S., which Mulder will take to Eurisko to infect the system. When Scully discovers her home computer being remotely accessed, she traces the intrusion to the Eurisko building, where she joins Mulder. While walking up the stairs, the C.O.S. turns the lights off. Scully is about to attempt to open the door, but is stopped by Mulder. He explains that he doesn't want what happened to Drake to happen to them. To prove his point, Mulder puts a screwdriver against the door lock, causing a massive surge of electricity similar to what killed Drake. Afterwards, the two agents discover that the door has sealed itself shut. With the power out and access to the C.O.S. prohibited, Mulder comes up with a plan to have Scully crawl through the ventilation shafts in order to open the door from the other side. He then boosts Scully into the air vent and she manages to climb in. She begins to crawl on her hands and knees through the tunnel, until she comes to the main tunnel and looks both ways with her flashlight before going left, down the main tunnel. Scully shines a flashlight down the side-tunnels to try and find a way out, but has no luck. Soon, the C.O.S. discovers her presence in the air vent and turns on the fan in the ventilation shaft. While it does this, Scully continues searching down the tunnels.  After looking down a tunnel, Scully hears a faint roaring noise and looks forward. She is then hit by a soft breeze that gently ruffles Scully's hair. Scully is briefly stunned, but then continues to try and move forward despite the increasing wind. However, the fan's suction becomes more and more powerful until the winds become gale force. Scully is buffeted by the wind and blowing debris, and struggles to maintain her grip and keep moving. She begins to cough violently and, as a result, she nearly loses her grip, but manages to grab onto an opening and keep from being blown back. She then begins to move forward again, but moans as she realizes what is about to happen to her. Scully moves forward one last time, her fingers lose their grip and her legs are blown back, and she begins to be blown backwards. Scully screams in terror, as she is rapidly sucked backwards down the shaft. She is helplessly dragged down the shaft, screaming at the top of her lungs, as she desperately flails in an attempt to stop herself. Despite that, she is unable to get a grip, and is violently tossed and rolled down the duct. Eventually, Scully manages to grip a side tunnel with just the tips of her fingers. Scully tries to pull herself in, while screaming desperately in an attempt to get attention, but her efforts are muffled by the winds. Soon, her fingers are ripped from the tunnel by the wind, and Scully screams in horror as she is once again pushed by the winds at an increasing pace. Scully continues her efforts to stop herself, but quickly sees what she is being blown towards. At the end of the tunnel is a powerful fan that is sucking in debris. Realizing she is about to be sucked in and killed, Scully's screams become increasingly wild as she desperately thrashes in an attempt to save herself, but she finds herself drawn closer and closer to the deadly fan. At the last moment, Scully manages to grip another tunnel entrance, and holds on to it. Scully attempts to drag herself in, but is unable to, and she quickly has one hand torn from the tunnel and loses her flashlight to the fan. Scully moans in horror as the light is torn apart, realizing she is about to suffer the same fate. Before long, Scully's grip begins to slip, and she stares at the fan in terror. Desperate, Scully removes her gun, and aims at the fan. She begins to fire at the fan in an attempt to save herself, flinching at each shot. Eventually, she manages to disable the fan. While waiting, the door opens from the opposite side, but rather than Scully, it's Peterson. Mulder is permitted access to the C.O.S. by Peterson. However, once Mulder successfully bypasses the C.O.S. lockouts using a device provided by Wilczek, Peterson pulls a gun on Mulder and stops him from inserting Wilczek's virus into the C.O.S. He reveals himself to be working for the Defense Department, just as Deep Throat warned. With free access finally available thanks to Mulder's efforts, Peterson intends to seize the technology for whichever government branch he works for. A wind-battered, bruised, and disheveled Scully, who is badly shaken by her ordeal, arrives and holds Peterson at gunpoint, forcing him to drop his weapon. Both Peterson and Mulder make pleas to Scully. She ultimately sides with Mulder, leaving Peterson no choice but to allow Mulder to use the virus which destroys the C.O.S. During a second meeting with Deep Throat, Mulder recounts that Wilczek is being detained by the government, with no information available as to where they are holding him. When Mulder asks Deep Throat if there is any chance the C.O.S. survived, Deep Throat assures him that Wilczek's virus was thorough and that no trace of the C.O.S.'s artificial intelligence was left. Deep Throat also tells Mulder that scientists with the Defense Department have been examining the machine for any signs of life for the last five days, with no success. He believes the machine to be dead. At the Eurisko building, Peterson directs a team trying to recover the C.O.S. technology, having been told over the phone by his superiors that the machine will be reduced to the scrap heap if results are not found in six hours. Unbeknownst to Peterson and his staff, the C.O.S. powers back on, shortly after Peterson announces their six-hour time limit. From the point-of-view of the C.O.S., Peterson mutters to himself about wanting to figure the technology out, "even if it kills me." 
<EOS>
An isolated research station, with a dimly lit window, endures a harsh snowstorm. The compound's interior is in a state of mess, with tell-tale signs that some form of mayhem has taken place here. A thermometer shows the temperature to be below -30°C and a digital clock reads 8:29 a.m. A dog searches through a plastic bucket and then, whimpering, walks past a dead body. There is another body, although only an arm hanging off a desk can be seen. A man who is wearing only pants and whose his torso is bloody looks around, while carrying a gun. He turns to a communications device and camera, in front of which he takes a seat. Continuing to look into the camera, he twice repeats the words, "We're not who we are," and then says, "It goes no further than this. It stops right here, right now." He is suddenly attacked from behind by another man, Campbell, and a struggle commences, ending with both men pointing a gun at each other. Instead of the men shooting one another, however, each man turns his own gun on himself. From outside the facility, two gunshots can be heard. Mulder and Scully are watching older footage of the Arctic Ice Core Project crew celebrating recent success with drilling down into an ice sheet. The team's leader, John Richter, is the bloodied man who ended up shooting himself. Mulder explains the research team was basically studying the structure of the Earth's climate back to the dawn of man. According to Mulder, no problems of any kind were reported until a week after the previous transmission, when the next one was received: the transmission recorded by Richter, earlier. The footage remains unexplained. Mulder jokes their FBI superiors think they are either brilliant or expendable, because he and Scully are the ones who drew the assignment. Scully asks about the possibility of events being a result of cabin fever but Mulder dismisses this, stating the scientists were top geophysicists, thoroughly trained and examined. The agents are scheduled to leave for Nome, Alaska today, where they will meet with three scientists familiar with the Ice Core program, and then head north to the Icy Cape. Mulder says the National Weather Service predicts a three-day window before the next Arctic storm. In a small hangar at the airport, a man is listening to a football game on headphones. Apparently, his team just scored. Scully and Mulder arrive, puzzled by the football game; the man explains it's just one of his all-time favorite games he has taped. The man introduces himself as Denny Murphy, professor of geology, UC San Diego, one of the crew. Soon, they are joined by the rest of the team, Doctors DaSilva and Hodge. The latter asks all the crew to show some sort of identification because he wants to make sure we are who we say we are. After each member shows his or her own ID, Hodge challenges any of them to guess why are heading to the base. Murphy speculates that their job descriptions should give some explanation, whilst Dr. DaSilva makes a remark about Mulder and Scully, being FBI, probably knowing more than the rest of the group. A jeep drives into the hangar and the driver steps out, introducing himself. He is the last member of the team: the pilot, Bear. He refuses to give Hodge his credentials. Later, a light airplane flies over snow-covered hills. The team arrives at the compound. The electricity is off and the place appears deserted. The newcomers see dead bodies lying on the floor. Mulder asks Bear if he can get the power on and says that, before they remove the bodies, the crime scene must be documented. Scully proceeds with photographing. Mulder opens a refrigerator containing drilling samples which Murphy immediately retrieves to preserve. The team continues to investigate the compound, and the generator is restarted. While with Dr. DaSilva, Mulder is suddenly attacked by the same dog which was in the base when two men shot themselves. The rest of the team hurry toward the animal and Bear rescues an unbitten Mulder from the dog but, during the struggle, is bitten, himself. The group finally manages to sedate the dog, which the team then studies. Dr. Hodge immediately dismisses the possibility of rabies, since none of the classic symptoms are present. Yet, black nodules -- swollen lymph nodes -- are found, which Dr. DaSilva identifies as possible symptoms of bubonic plague. Scully observes the dog also has a skin irritation around its neck, as if the animal was scratching off its own hair. While looking at the trauma, there's a sudden movement of what is apparently a foreign object under the dog's skin, startling the group. In the bathroom, Bear is bandaging his wound when suddenly he is struck by a sharp pain under his right armpit. Looking at a mirror inside the room, he discovers he now has the same black nodules as the dog had; ergo, he is infected. Having finished the autopsies, Scully tells Mulder and Bear that it's obvious members of the science crew killed each other. Bear inquiries whether black nodules were found on the autopsied bodies, to which Scully responds in the negative. Bear, knowing he has the nodules, queries further whether this means that nodules had nothing to do with the condition which caused the crew to kill each other. Dr. Hodge enters the room, saying he wouldn't rule it out; he says he re-examined the dog and found the nodules have disappeared, which could mean the spots are symptoms of some disease at an early stage. Bear appears more and more anxious after hearing this. Mulder finds a piece of paper repeatedly scribbled with the sentence, "We are not who we are." He consults Denny, the geologist, regarding some satellite remote sensing photographs. Denny identifies one of the photographs as showing the depth of the Icy Cape area's ice sheet to be about 3,000 meters in thickness. Mulder shows him another piece of data he has found, which demonstrates the research team discovered the depth of the ice sheet was twice that. Denny adds that the numbers appear to indicate the team was digging inside a meteor crater. In the other lab, Dr. Hodge and Scully are arguing about something when Mulder and Dr. DaSilva enter. Scully has apparently discovered ammonium dioxide in Richter's blood. Hodge claims this impossible, since ammonia would vaporize at human body temperatures. Although no evidence of any such toxins has been found in the ventilation machinery, Murphy has discovered it in the ice samples, and even more evidence therein. He explains he has found a remarkably high ratio of ammonia to water in the ice core. Meanwhile, Bear quietly enters the room, still becoming increasingly agitated. Mulder postulates a foreign object introduced into Earth's environment might be responsible for the otherwise impossible amount of ammonia on the planet. Advised by Murphy to do so, the agents take turns to look in a microscope which magnifies a micro-organism of some sort. Scully concludes the same thing is present in Richter's diseased blood. She hypothesises that it's a larval stage of a larger organism but Hodge criticizes this theory. DaSilva likewise doubts the notion that the organism could have survived in the ice for a quarter of a million years, though Mulder posits the creature might live like that. Bear confronts the others, criticizing their discussion over some bug as futile, because Scully's autopsy clearly showed the men killed themselves, and seems desperate to leave. Though Hodge agrees with this plan, Mulder refuses, insisting proper quarantine procedures should be followed in case the organism is infectious. Bear points out that, even if the deceased crew succumbed to some kind of infection, they themselves haven't and he refuses to wait around until they do. He proceeds to pick up his gear. After Dr. Hodge further approves of the observation that the team seem safe to leave, Dr. DaSilva notes the dog did bite Bear. Appealing against this, Bear shouts about Mulder having also been attacked. Scully suggests the only resolution is to conduct a medical test to determine whether anyone in the crew is infected, and then proceed. Bear strongly refuses the test and proceeds to pack his belongings in order to fly back to Nome. In his absence, the team takes a vote: Bear must be forced to take his test. After his return, Mulder, now holding a gun, explains to him the crew's decision. He appears to comply, but instead uses his stool sample flask to hit Mulder and attempts to escape. He is subdued and restrained by the others. As Bear starts having convulsions while the others grapple with him, the team sees the same movement under the skin previously seen in the dog. Dr. Hodge decides to cut the parasite out, because now, it, being exposed, is attempting to kill the host. The parasite is removed, a worm which simultaneously squirts a black substance out of its body, and put into storage. Mulder contacts the airport and requests evacuation due to the serious biological hazard. Yet, the station is currently impossible to reach because of an unexpected snowstorm. He returns and asks if Bear is in any condition to fly, because they have a very short time frame to evacuate the base, but Scully informs him that Bear is dead, a situation Mulder sees for himself, though the worm is still alive. Dr. Hodge remarks the organism is similar to a tapeworm but otherwise extremely unlike any organism he knows. He is also unsure of the precise means of infection. Scully returns after re-examining the bodies, reporting she found the worm in every single one of them but that only one of these worms is still alive. The difference is that the worms were not attached to the spinal column, as seen previously, but were in the hypothalamus, deep in the human brain. Hodge speculates that, since the hypothalamus produces the neurotransmitter acetylcholine - which can produce violent, irrational behavior - there might be a connection with the aggression exhibited by the worm's hosts. Hodge suggests the parasite doesn't kill its hosts until it's removed, at which point it secretes a toxin. Mulder postulates the parasite may have caused the members of the previous team to kill one another and that, by killing themselves, Richter and Campbell could have been trying to save other humans from the infective organism. Scully is re-examining the bodies, in case she missed anything. Mulder enters the morgue and suggests they and the other team members get some sleep, since they are all wired and hypersensitive. Scully, on the other hand, says she doesn't want to waste a minute until she finds out how to kill the parasite. To her surprise, Mulder disagrees with killing it, since it could be living proof of a theory that alternative life can evolve in an ammonia environment at extremely low temperatures, for instance on other planets. Conversely, Scully is concerned with the possibility of the parasite reaching densely settled areas or that it might cause herself and Mulder to end up with the same fate as Richter and Campbell, with guns to our heads. The agents loudly continue to debate whether to destroy the organism. Back in the lab, Murphy puts on his headphones again whereas DaSilva and Hodge wonder what the argument is about. Hodge is sure that Mulder and Scully, being government agents, knew more about the situation than they revealed to the rest of the team. He also mentions that Bear's infected blood did get on Scully, yet, as Dr. DaSilva notes, it also got on him. They, accompanied by Murphy, leave the lab with the intent of confronting the agents. The group meets in a storage room. Hodge notes that Scully seems a bit on edge, implying that she might be another host. She irritatedly reacts but Mulder prevents the argument from going further. Fear and tension is already running high in the group, and Mulder recommends they all get some sleep. Hodge is skeptical that any of the group could manage that and persuades the team that each member be checked for spots. All appear okay and proceed to their quarters, yet tension is still present. As Mulder says good night to Scully, he reminds her the spots on the dog disappeared. Scully enters her room and blocks the door with a heavy desk, Murphy attempts to calm himself with one of his taped football games, Hodge is making a list routes of exposure for each of the team, finding that all had some exposure. DaSilva is lying in bed yet also showing signs of anxiety and Mulder is sitting on his bed, putting his gun on a desk. Mulder suddenly awakens, apparently after having a nightmare. He hears a door open and footsteps that follow. He dresses and picks up his gun in order to investigate. All of the doors are closed except for Murphy's, whose room is empty, only his Walkman laying on the bed. Mulder continues investigating, is startled by the infected dog and notices blood dripping from a closed freezing unit in the main science room. When Mulder opens the compartment, Murphy's body falls out of the unit, his throat having been cut. The rest of the team appear and Hodge immediately assumes Mulder killed him. Mulder concludes one of the other members killed Murphy and that at least one of them is infected with the parasite. The conflict of suspicion escalates until he and Scully are pointing guns at one another. Mulder backs down and allows the team to contain him in a locked room. Before Scully locks him in, he warns her he'll be safer in here than she will be outside. Scully enters the main lab, finding both DaSilva and Hodge asleep at their desks. She attempts to check DaSilva's neck but Hodge stops her, waking DaSilva. Hodge points out to Scully that, since she's the only one with a gun, the rest of them don't stand a chance if she does become infected. She removes the clips from both her gun and Mulder's, then throws them outside. Hodge and the women argue about what should happen with Mulder. Hodge is trying to exclude him from the team out of fear that he is infected, but Scully argues for them to help Mulder if he is, with which DaSilva concurs. Scully attempts to contact the airfield, but is unsuccessful due to the storm outside. DaSilva and Hodge continue to work on the parasites. By accident, DaSilva puts an infected blood sample on another infected sample, instead of on an uninfected sample as Hodge requested. They furiously yell at each other, but Scully takes a look at the combined samples and watches each parasitic larva kill each other. She places two living, mature worms, held in jars filled with ammoniac solution, next to one another. The three survivors then observe aggressive behavior between these two worms. Hence, Scully comes to the conclusion that none of the parasites will tolerate another of its kind occupying the same host. She and Hodge agree that, by introducing a parasite in an already infected host, they can kill both worms and thereby cure the infected. Conducting the test on the infected dog proves them right, after which they release the dog from its cage. Scully, Hodge and DaSilva take their last remaining worm to Mulder, intending to cure him with it. When Scully privately examines him, though, she finds no sign of parasite on his neck. Mulder examines Scully and also finds her uninfected, so now it's either Hodge or DaSilva who murdered Murphy. They both disbelieve the agents stating they have found one another to be uninfected and, after a brief struggle, Scully is locked inside the holding area whilst Hodge and DaSilva continue with the procedure on Mulder. It is at the last instant, just before DaSilva introduces the worm, that Hodge sees movement on her neck, thus exposing her as Murphy's murderer and the person who was infected all along. She flees, screaming and pushing Mulder out of her way. He then rushes to free Scully and they hurry after DaSilva. Frantic, she grabs one of the guns of the previous team from an evidence bag, but is overpowered by Mulder. He and Scully wrestle with DaSilva on the ground, while Hodge introduces the parasite into her body. After experiencing convulsions, her muscles finally relax, Scully assuring her the infection is ended. On the strip of Doolittle Airfield, DaSilva is taken into an ambulance in a biohazard suit, watched by Mulder, Scully and Hodge, who stand nearby. After the vehicle drives away, Hodge announces DaSilva and the dog will be quarantined. He also explains that himself, Mulder and Scully have been determined as clear of infection. Mulder plans to return to the Icy Cape area, now fully prepared and with proper equipment, so the parasites can be further studied. Hodge notifies them that, the moment everyone was evacuated from the Ice Cape station, the entire place was torched, either by military or the CDC, so there's nothing left for Mulder to find there. After Hodge departs, Mulder comments the worms are still buried deep in the ice, which is where Scully believes he should leave them. 
<EOS>
News footage from 1977 shows the discovery of Mars, as well as what appears to be a face sculpted into the landscape. Lieutenant Colonel Marcus Aurelius Belt, the commander of the mission, is today a supervisor of the shuttle program, plagued by flashbacks of something that took place during the mission, and experiences nightmares of the face. FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are approached by Michelle Generoo, a communications commander for NASA's mission control center, who believes that someone within the space agency is sabotaging launch attempts. A recent space shuttle liftoff was aborted seconds before commencement, and Generoo fears the next launch will be similarly compromised. She also has a personal interest, as her fiance will be aboard the next mission. Mulder and Scully travel to NASA and meet Belt, who is a childhood hero of Mulder's. Belt dismisses the agents' concerns, stating that nothing can possibly go wrong with the mission. He allows the agents to watch the launch from Mission Control. However, contact is lost with the shuttle, once in orbit. While driving with Mulder and Scully through heavy rain in order to reach Mission Control, Generoo sees a ghostly face come at her through the windshield, causing her to crash. Mulder and Scully tend to Generoo, and the three continue to Mission Control. In orbit, the shuttle has moved into direct sunlight and mission control are unable to rotate it into a safe position, a situation which will cause the astronauts to burn up in short order if it cannot be rectified. Generoo believes the uplink is being sabotaged by someone within mission control. Belt orders the uplink to be cut, allowing the astronauts to rotate the craft manually, a bold move which pays off. Although the mission is now very risky for the astronauts, Belt orders them to proceed, angering Generoo and the FBI agents. Belt then goes on to lie to the press about the status of the mission, saying that there were no problems. Mulder confronts him about this, and Belt states the shuttle program will likely be cancelled if the mission is not completed successfully. Belt returns home and has another flashback, screaming as some sort of astral presence leaves his body and flies out a window, heading into the sky. The astronauts aboard the shuttle then report hearing a thump outside the shuttle and begin to experience an oxygen leak. One of them reports seeing some sort of ghostlike entity outside the ship. Through scouring the files, the agents find records which show that Belt knew about the equipment flaw and possibly the O-ring defect on the Challenger prior to its failure. In the control room, Belt collapses, saying the astral force lived in him, controlling him. At his urging, they alert the shuttle to change its trajectory and they are able to land it successfully. In hospital, Belt continues to wrestle with the presence possessing him, and eventually leaps from the window to his death, experiencing a lengthy flashback to his last space mission as he falls. Mulder theorizes that, while Belt was compelled to sabotage the launches by the entity possessing him, he was also the one who sent Generoo the evidence of what was taking place. He lauds Belt's final sacrifice, stating that, in the end, he gave his life for the mission, as befits a true astronaut. 
<EOS>
A UFO crashes in the woods outside Townsend, Wisconsin. A Sheriff's Deputy investigates but is killed in a flash of light. Meanwhile, in a military control room, a technician tracks the UFO but is told by Colonel Calvin Henderson to write it up as a meteor. Henderson telephones his superiors and launches Operation Falcon. Mulder heads up to Wisconsin, based on advice from Deep Throat. Mulder sneaks into the woods where the military is performing some sort of clean-up operation on the UFO. Mulder takes photos of the site but he gets caught and thrown into a fenced cage, next to a UFO fanatic, Max Fenig. The next morning, Scully shows up to yell at Mulder and tell him that the X-files are in danger of being shut down by Section Chief Joseph McGrath because of his behavior. Scully believes the crash site is not a toxic spill, the public story, but rather a Libyan plane with a nuclear warhead, the inside government story. This is an explanation Mulder doesn't believe. Meanwhile in the woods, the invisible pilot of the UFO passes through a perimeter laser fence around the crash site. Mulder and Scully return to Mulder's ransacked hotel room, where they find Max Fenig trying to escape out the bathroom window. Fenig is familiar with Mulder's work on the X-files, based on research of his travel expense reports through the Freedom of Information Act. Fenig brings Mulder and Scully to the trailer he lives in, where he shows them audio of the Sheriff's Deputy who was killed in the woods. Mulder and Scully visit the widow of the Sheriff's Deputy. She says the government won't release her husband's body for burial, and she was threatened with the withholding of his pension if she said anything to anyone. Meanwhile, soldiers under Henderson's command search for the UFO occupant, only to be severely injured by a bright flash of light emitted from it. They are brought into a doctor who was similarly threatened when he examined the Deputy's body. Scully stays through the night to help, but the vast majority die due to radiation burns. Mulder returns to his hotel, where Max Fenig's trailer is parked in the lot, and finds Fenig inside, having a seizure. When the convulsions stop, Fenig reveals to Mulder that he has epilepsy. As Mulder helps Fenig lie down, he discovers a red scar in the shape of a triangle behind Fenig's ear. Looking at other X-files, Mulder finds similar scars on two alien abductees. Scully is skeptical of Mulder's claims about Fenig being an abductee. The military once again tracks a craft over Townsend, Wisconsin, this time one much larger. Something invisible enters Fenig's trailer, causing his ear to bleed. Mulder and Scully find Fenig missing from his trailer, but his radio scanner leads them to find him at a waterfront dock, where the military is also pursuing the UFO occupant. Mulder enters a building where he finds Fenig. The alien is also in the area, however, and knocks Mulder away. Mulder sees Fenig floating in the air, encased in blue light, but vanishes seconds later. Back in Washington, D.C., Scully and Mulder report to McGrath, who is unsympathetic to their statements, claiming that Fenig's body was found in a cargo container hours after they left. McGrath's committee decides to shut down the X-files and fire Mulder from the FBI. However, that decision is secretively vetoed by Deep Throat. 
<EOS>
A jogging couple finds eight-year-old Teena Simmons sitting dazedly in her front yard - and her father Joel dead. FBI headquarters, the next day: The report says death by hypovolemia - Joel Simmons had lost over 75% of his blood. Teena claims to have no memory of what's occurred; physical evidence was washed away by rain. The Medical Examiner found traces of digitalis, a heart stimulant made from the plant of the same name (a.k.a foxglove), which can be used as a paralytic drug. Mulder notes the wounds and blood-removal resemble those of alien cattle mutilations. Fairfield County Social Services Hostel, Greenwich. Teena tells the agents of red lightning yesterday, and of men from the clouds. The agents learn of an identical murder outside San Francisco, in Marin County: Doug Reardon died of hypovolemia at 2:30 p.m. PST - the same time as Simmons. Daughter Cindy, returning tomorrow from Sacramento with her mother, has said she remembers nothing. Teena is abducted. Later that day, Marin County: Mulder and Scully discover eight-year-old Cindy looks exactly like Teena. When the agents show her mom a photo of Teena, she states Cindy is her only child - indeed, she and her husband tried for six years to get pregnant, finally choosing in vitro fertilization at the Luther Stapes Center for Reproductive Medicine in San Francisco. Working on the idea that Cindy will also be kidnapped like Teena, Mulder and the San Francisco bureau stake out Cindy. Scully meets with a Dr. Katz at the Stapes Center, who says Mrs. Simmons was treated by Dr. Sally Kendrick, a resident who earned a Yale medical degree after completing her doctorate in biogenetics. However, the center believed Kendrick was conducting eugenics experiments, fired her, and asked for a federal investigation - yet the Dept. of Health wouldn't investigate. At their hotel, Scully gives Mulder the information, but he rushes her out after a phone call of only clicks - a signal to meet Deep Throat. He tells Mulder about the classified Litchfield experiments. In the 1950s, the Soviets were performing eugenics experiments trying to create a super soldier. The U.S. followed suit at a compound in Litchfield, Connecticut. Boys were codenamed Adam, girls Eve. Deep Throat arranges for the agents to see the adult Eve 6. The straitjacketed woman looks exactly like Kendrick. She says that the Eves are prone to suicide and the only remaining Eves are her, Eve 7 who escaped as a child and Eve 8 who escaped ten years later. Each Eve has 56, rather than the normal 46, chromosomes, having extra pairs of chromosomes number 4,5,12,16 and 22 - which, she says, produced additional genes, heightening strength, intelligence and psychosis. Mulder believes Kendrick cloned herself to produce Cindy and Teena, and that Eves 7 and 8 killed the parents to raise the girls themselves. During their stakeout, Scully and Mulder can't prevent Cindy from being kidnapped by an adult Eve, who escapes in a light blue 1993 Corolla - switching to a dark blue car by the time she reaches Port Reyes National Seashore. Identifying herself as Kendrick, she introduces the girls to each other. She'd always kept watch on them, she says, while also searching for the remaining Eve; the girls' recent murders forced her hand. She'd hoped to correct the Litchfield flaws, saying the Eves developed homicidal tendencies at age 20. Yet she herself was raised by a Litchfield genetic engineer in a good environment with medication. Then she begins shaking: The girls have slipped four ounces of home-grown digitalis extract into her soda. Police and FBI burst in, the motel manager having alerted them about a woman fitting Kendrick's description. Kendrick is dead, and the girls are cowering together in a corner, saying that this lady and another wanted them to take poison. Scully and Mulder, driving the girls to social services, pull into a truck-stop diner - where Cindy spikes the agents' diet sodas. Unfortunately, Mulder forgets his keys and when he returns to the counter to fetch them, he notices a green liquid there: poison. He warns Scully, and the girls escape amid the tractor-trailers. When Mulder corners them, their screams bring help from a trucker. As Mulder searches for the girls, the diner waitress tells him that a school bus full of kids just left. After the agents' car speeds away, following it, the girls come out of hiding only to be caught by the clever Mulder. The girls, labelled Eves 9 and 10, are eventually sent to Whiting. When Eve 8 visits dressed as Kendrick, they exchange a chilling look of mutual knowledge. 
<EOS>
Bosham, England, 70 miles southwest of London.  A distinguished older man leaves his house for the day, saying goodbye to his wife and his many groundskeepers.  As he gets into his chauffeured car, the man spontaneously bursts into flame in front of everyone, as the gardener glares evilly. At the Hoover Building garage, Mulder and Scully get into their car to find a mysterious audiotape on the dashboard.  When Mulder plays it, a female British voice tells them Parliament member Reggie Ellicott was killed six months ago when a similar cassette triggered a car explosion. The agents are apparently sitting on a bomb - but then Mulder's door opens to reveal Scotland Yard Inspector Phoebe Green, an acquaintance from Mulder's Oxford days more than 10 years ago. And though having broken his heart then, she kisses him heartily now, as Scully looks away in annoyance. Phoebe explains someone is burning up Parliament members, then sending love letters to their wives. One MP, Sir Malcolm Marsden, had barely escaped a garage fire and has subsequently moved his family to Cape Cod, Massachusetts on vacation.  Mulder, recalling Phoebe's penchant for haranguing, runs the information by the arson guys as a professional courtesy, despite Scully's suspicions.  Arson Agent Beatty suggests the cause is rocket fuel, which burns at very high temperatures, almost completely destroying any traces of itself. Mulder suggests pyrokinesis. At Sir Malcolm's vacation cottage, a caretaker, Bob, dressed in painting garb, is applying argotypoline rocket-propulsion class-3 liquid to a window frame.  When Sir Malcolm and his wife enter, he endears himself to them.  Bob, who is really the gardener from England, makes a cigarette light by itself without touching the tip. Outside, a dog scratches at the shallow grave of the real caretaker before Bob chases him off. In his office, Mulder tells Scully that Phoebe is playing mind-games with him, since she knows he has a long-standing phobia about fire.  While in town for cough medicine for the MP's ill chauffeur, Bob stops in at a bar, where he uses his finger to light a cigarette for a Miss Kotchik. She thinks it's just a charming magic trick - until he sets his arm and the whole bar afire. At Boston Mercy Hospital, Kotchik describes the events to Phoebe and Mulder who have pulled a news-wire report of this suspicious fire. At Cape Cod, Bob poisons the chauffeur in order to take his place driving the family to a Boston party in Sir Malcolm's honor. He also shows a magic fire trick to the MP's children, Michael and Jimmie, and briefly tries to tempt them into smoking cigarettes before they are called away by their mother. Phoebe agrees with Mulder that the arsonist may be telekinetic and asks him to assist with a potential trap at the party that evening; she also mentions with a sly smile she's taken a hotel room in Boston. At 5:15 p.m., Mulder arrives at the Venable Plaza Hotel, suitcase in hand. When Scully calls to say she wants to fly up with some data on a possible suspect, he is hesitant, which Scully catches on to.  At 6:47 p.m., the MP and his family arrive. Phoebe works undercover in a stunning black gown; Mulder is in a tux. When the arsonist doesn't show, she begins to dance with Mulder in the hallway outside the party. Scully appears, but hangs back when she sees them kissing. She turns away to see Bob lurking in the hallway, but interrupts the dance a moment later when a fire alarm panel shows smoke and fire alarms on the 14th floor, where the MP's children are. Mulder races upstairs, but the fire causes him to panic and collapse, necessitating rescue by firefighters. Bob himself saves the kids. Phoebe tells Scully that she checked out the chauffeur before the family came to America and cleared him, not knowing Bob is not the real chauffeur.  She also tells Mulder she'll be leaving with the family in a few days.  Scully tells Mulder she ran an Interpol check on the victims' domestic help. The only duplicated name: Cecil L'Ively, a gardener for two of the victims. Searching further, she found him listed as having died in a London tenement fire in 1971 - and having died with a group of kids in a British Satanic-cult sacrifice in 1963. His name also turned up at a Boston immigration office list of recent visas. Scully gets a fax of the composite sketch of the bar arsonist, whom she recognizes as the hero, Bob. Mulder races to the Cape Cod house, where he barges-in on the married MP nuzzling on the stairs with Phoebe. When Scully arrives a visibly upset Mulder shows her the rocket fuel he found, suspecting the entire house has been coated with it.  Sir Malcolm looks at the composite and realizes the arsonist is not the trusted chauffeur but the caretaker, who is upstairs with the kids.  The real chauffeur is found in the bathroom, burnt to a crisp. Suddenly, the house catches fire. The agents hustle everyone out while Mulder goes back upstairs to find the children; he confronts L'Ively, but is stymied when L'Ively sets the hallway on fire.  Going back downstairs, he is confronted by Scully, whom he dares to shoot him and risk an explosion by the combustion of the gunshot. Phoebe splashes him with an accelerant, and he catches fire himself as he stumbles out of the house.  Mulder manages to overcome his fear and break into the room where the children are held, carrying them outside to the others.  Everyone watches as L'Ively burns on the lawn, laughing maniacally and declaring that you can't fight fire with fire! Back at the office, Mulder is startled by Scully's rather accurate imitation of Phoebe's voice.  Phoebe, who has apparently left for England without saying goodbye, left another tape for Mulder, but he chooses not to listen to it, having seen her with the MP, an indiscretion similar to ones that led to their breakup years ago, and deciding it is not worth dwelling on. At Boston Mercy Hospital, Cecil is in a hyperbaric chamber with fifth-and-sixth-degree burns a temperature of 109ºF, and a loss of all his hair.  Specialists have found phenomenally rapid regeneration of his fundamental, basal cell tissue. He'll recover in as little as a month, at which point he'll be tried for the murder of the caretaker. When a nurse stops by to check on him she asks if there is anything he would like, he replies, "I'm just dying for a cigarette," and grins cheekily. 
<EOS>
Shortly after Christmas, Dana Scully's parents, Margaret and William Scully, are visiting her, having come to her apartment for dinner. After making smalltalk with his wife and daughter, William Scully asks Dana, acting on secretive prompting from Margaret, how her work is going; she happily agrees it is going well. Her parents then leave, with Dana wishing them a safe journey home. At 1:47 the next morning, Dana - having fallen asleep with her television on - awakens and is surprised to see her father sitting in a chair near her, silently mouthing words. She is momentarily distracted when her telephone begins to ring and, when she turns back to the chair, she sees there is no-one there, startling her even more. She races to the phone and answers the call to hear quiet grieving from her mother, who gradually explains Dana's father died of a massive coronary an hour ago. Still holding the phone to her ear, Dana looks back to the chair where she saw her father sitting; she is now completely shocked. At night, two smitten teens - Elizabeth Hawley and James Summers - are making out in a car parked on the grounds of Jackson University in Raleigh, North Carolina. A darkened figure holding a flashlight knocks on the car door. The man behaves like a police officer, instructing Jim to exit the vehicle and show his identification. Jim steps out of the car but becomes suspicious as the man shines his light in Jim's face and is dressed far too casually to be a cop. Just as Jim demands to see some identification, the man strikes him in the face with the flashlight, causing Liz to scream in horror. Two days after the teens' abduction, Agent Mulder is in his basement office at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C., avidly reading a criminal profile he wrote about Luther Lee Boggs, when Scully enters, joking that the last time she saw Mulder so engrossed was when he was reading the Adult Video News. Despite being concerned about how her father's death is affecting her, Mulder lets Scully know about the recent abduction as well as evidence that there is likely only five days before the two kidnapped teens are killed. Mulder also tells Scully about Boggs, a killer on death row who has recently claimed to have psychically obtained information regarding the abduction. Scully realizes Mulder is unusually skeptical about Boggs' claims, believing they are an attempt to escape his imminent fate, and Mulder explains that Boggs alleges to have become psychic as a result of a temporary visit to the gas chamber, partly due to Mulder's profile. Additionally, he details Boggs' inherently violent past, subsequently notifying Scully that Boggs has requested to speak with him personally. Scully is eager to go with Mulder but her father's funeral is soon and she takes Mulder's advice to take some time off, Mulder cupping the side of her face in one hand as he apologizes for her loss before leaving the office. She looks up X-file X-167512, concerning visionary encounters with the dead, but quickly returns it to its filing cabinet. At the funeral, a man standing on a little boat casts her father's ashes into the sea while the song Beyond the Sea plays and a small group watches, the observers including Dana and her mother, the latter of whom is very tearful. Both women refer to the Navy background of Dana's father - her mother implying that only family are currently present - and, although Dana acknowledges that her parents were both disappointed that she chose a different career path than medicine, she is curious to know if her father was at all proud of her. Her saddened mother simply reminds Dana that "he was your father." While witnessed by Mulder and Scully in a holding cell of Raleigh's Central Prison, Boggs - who bears the word kill on the knuckles of one hand and kiss on his other - starts to behave as if he is assuming the identities of other people. Mulder decides to test him and hands the prisoner a blue scrap of clothing. Holding this material, Boggs appears to experience a painful vision of James Summers and his torture by the kidnapper. Mulder takes the fabric back and reveals the surprising news that the scrap is from Mulder's own New York Knicks t-shirt, being entirely unrelated to the kidnapping. He leaves the room but, as Scully is about to follow him out, Boggs apparently assumes the identity of her father, first softly singing Beyond the Sea to himself, then physically appearing to her as her father and next asking her - in the voice of her father - if she received his message. Clearly disturbed by this, Scully hurries out of the cell, where she meets up with Mulder. He is ignorant of the factor that has caused Scully to become emotionally distressed and is led by her to assume that she is merely being affected by her father's passing. Mulder recommends she drive to their motel while he intends to continue interrogating the prisoner, still suspecting that Boggs' claims of psychic ability are a scam but hopeful that he knows where the teens are. The sight of Boggs still quietly singing Beyond the Sea and being led through a nearby corridor spurs Scully on her way. She is later driving, in the darkness of night, when she comes across several landmarks that match descriptions which Boggs gave during his seemingly psychic vision of the teens' location. These clues lead her to a condemned warehouse where, on the ground, she finds a small charm as well as telltale signs that the kidnapper has been in the building. Alone in the agents' motel, Scully sees a flash of her father's face, recalling her earlier vision of him. Mulder arrives with news that Liz's family has confirmed the charm belonged to her and that police are searching the warehouse but have not yet uncovered any further evidence. He notifies Scully he has been interrogating Boggs for the past five hours and jokes that - after three of those hours - the prisoner complied with his request to summon up the spirit of Jimi Hendrix. The atmosphere of the agents' conversation becomes much more downbeat when Scully admits to having lied to the police about how she found the warehouse, now revealing the truth to Mulder. He is angered that Scully has apparently believed the prisoner and advises her to back away from her work if the death of her father is compromising her. Mulder is adamant Boggs knows where the teens are and advises Scully that their only advantage in the convicted killer's stratagem is time, showing her a newspaper article which demonstrates their time is running out. Mulder shows Scully another newspaper, this one reporting the teens have been found. Even though Scully is amazed at this news, Mulder explains the article is bogus and an attempt to fool Boggs. Mulder also mentions that, later in the day, the prisoner will be granted his weekly phone privileges, which Mulder hopes the killer will use to contact his accomplice. The faked newspaper is later passed to Boggs through a slot in his cell door. On a video monitor, Boggs can be seen returning to his bunk with the publication. Mulder and Scully are watching this monitor and Mulder notes that Boggs' phone privileges will be in two hours. After these hours have elapsed, the agents are watching the monitor with a few prison wardens as Boggs is taken to a booth with a telephone. A phone in the observation room rings and, despite Mulder asking for the phone to be switched off, Scully realizes it is Mulder's own cell phone that is ringing. He answers his phone to discover the caller is Boggs himself, who - on the monitor - looks up at the camera and asks Mulder why he does not believe the killer's claims, even though Scully does. Claiming Scully believes that Boggs has the teens, Mulder demands to know where they have been taken. Boggs simply goes limp, however, and Scully cautions Mulder that - due to their lack of time - they have no choice but to deal with Boggs. Having been returned to his cell, Boggs describes the kidnapper to the FBI agents, starting by saying he is tempted by the prospect of becoming a killer. As the kidnapper assaults Liz, Boggs once again dramatically details the scene. He makes mention of a small boathouse on Lake Jordan and warns Mulder to avoid a particular white cross, cryptically adding that he sees Mulder down, with his blood spilling on the white cross. Now equipped with more information about the kidnapper, the agents walk out of Boggs' cell. In the small boathouse which Boggs described, the kidnapper is about to attack Liz when he senses motion outside; Mulder and Scully have come with FBI backup. The agents, each wearing an FBI uniform jacket, raid the boathouse, soon finding Liz, gagged and bound. Mulder is shot by the kidnapper, hiding inside a small powerboat that then accelerates away from the docks, as Scully comes rushing to Mulder from Liz's position. She begins to tend to Mulder but notices the large wooden beams of the boathouse are white and crossed over one another, with wide metal straps that have rusted to the extent they seem like streaks of blood. Scully watches as Mulder is wheeled into a hospital by the ambulance technicians who brought him there. As the medical staff rush to save him, their voices echo in Scully's ears and she closes her eyes. In another room of the hospital, Agent Thomas later shows Liz Hawley a series of black-and-white Polaroid photographs while she lies in bed. Each of these photographs show a possible suspect and, when shown one in particular, Liz looks away from the sight, indicating the subject of the image is her former kidnapper. Agent Thomas hands the photograph to Scully, who stands nearby and immediately looks at the image. In a corridor outside this ward, Agent Thomas tells Scully about the kidnapper, who has been identified as Lucas Henry. After Thomas mentions that Henry once witnessed an auto accident which resulted in the deaths of his mother and high school girlfriend and that the seven-year anniversary of the accident is in three days, Scully voices her belief that these facts explain the deadline regarding the still-missing James Summers. Agent Thomas also tells her Boggs is suspected of having committed his last five murders with a partner, who police firmly believe was Lucas Henry. Scully rushes into Boggs' cell, convinced he has set up the kidnapping with Henry, and furiously insists that, if Mulder dies due to his injury, she will execute the prisoner herself. In an attempt to make her believe him, Boggs first appears to her as Mulder and then seemingly conjures up one of her childhood memories while behaving as if he is channeling her soul from when she was a young girl, but Scully responds to both with firm disbelief. After she - on the verge of tears and speaking in a quivering voice - vows to believe Boggs if he lets her talk with a particular male whom she does not name, Boggs apparently takes on her father's identity but not his appearance, this time. Vehemently, Boggs fights back his change of identity, refusing to let anyone talk to any of the souls he can seemingly summon until after he has received a deal to save him from the gas chamber, and characterizes his dread of the chamber. He then lengthily recalls the experience of being sent there, including his alleged encounter with many souls who witnessed him being led to the chamber and rushed into his body while he was strapped to the chair. Boggs describes the source of these souls as a cold, dark place and claims Mulder is now looking in on that place. Scully replies the place may be cold and dark for Boggs but is not so for both Mulder and her father. Boggs and Scully both repeat their opposing viewpoints, with Scully denying that she believes him and the prisoner quietly but firmly insisting on a deal. As she makes her way out of the cell, Boggs tells her that, if he dies, the kidnapped boy will also go to the cold and dark place. Visibly shaken by their conversation, Scully exits the cell while watched by Boggs. In his prison office, Warden Joseph Cash informs Scully no deal will be made with Boggs, mentioning he himself is certain in his belief that Boggs is orchestrating the kidnapping. The Warden also declares the prisoner will be sent to death when his time comes, which the Warden believes is overdue. With no sign of Lucas Henry or Jim Summers, Scully later worries that time is running out. The agents discuss whether Boggs can be believed but Scully ultimately takes note when Mulder strongly advises her not to deal with Boggs, suspecting the prisoner is seeking to gain the next best thing to revenge for Mulder having placed him on death row by claiming Scully as his last victim. Boggs is later led to a holding cell of the prison, where Scully lies to him that she has been able to arrange his deal. The prisoner profusely thanks her and dramatically notifies her of Jim's location, revealing he is being held in an old Blue Devil Brewery and that Lucas Henry is preparing to kill him. Scully is about to admit to Boggs that she lied to him regarding his deal but he finishes her sentence for her, admitting he already knew she had; he also adds that he knows she tried to acquire such a deal for him. Before Scully exits the cell, Boggs cautions her to avoid the devil and to leave him to follow Henry to the devil, rather than doing so herself. Seething with anger and wielding an ax, Lucas Henry is getting ready to use the ax on Jim Summers when he is interrupted from doing so by the arrival of an armed detachment of FBI agents, led by Scully. She tries to persuade Henry to drop his weapon and he initially seems compliant but he then raises the ax above him, preparing to throw it, so Scully shoots him. Her shot merely wounds Henry in his chest, however, and a chase ensues, culminating in her alone following him into a room where he is standing on a catwalk. Scully lowers her gun when she sees a giant blue painted devil behind Henry and a section of wooden boarding gives way under him, causing him to fall to his death. Scully once more pays a visit to Boggs' cell, where he asks if she has come to wish him goodbye. In response, she lengthily acknowledges the help he has been, crediting him for having saved the lives of both Jim Summers and herself. Boggs steps close to her face, the two individuals separated by the bars of the prisoner's cell, and admits to having realized that the reason Scully has returned is to hear her father's message. Although Boggs does not give her that message yet, he tells her she will be granted the message if she comes as a witness to his execution that night. Later, Boggs' last meal is taken to him and he sees a family of souls clustered nearby. Secured in handcuffs and chains, he is forcibly led through a corridor where he sees souls lining the walls; he begins to turn away from this sight but is guided onward against his will. He is then finally strapped to the chair inside of the gas chamber. Warden Cash asks if he wishes to make a statement, while a priest reads the Lord's Prayer to him. Boggs denies the offer and, following a gesture from Warden Cash, a lethal chemical reaction is deliberately begun. Whilst breathing in resultant deadly fumes, Boggs wears an expression of total terror. In Mulder's hospital ward, Scully starts to realize the entire case could have been arranged by Boggs. She is interrupted by Mulder, who is curious to know why - even after all the sights and evidence she has encountered - she still has such difficulty with believing. Although Scully admits the reason is that she is afraid to do so, Mulder asks her in disbelief if she couldn't overcome the fear, even if it meant learning what her father had been trying to tell her. She finally accepts she already knows this information, however, and tells Mulder that the reason she knows is that the man they are both talking about was her father.
<EOS>
In a dance club, a young man is picked up by a young woman for an anonymous sexual encounter. The young man retches and dies in a post-coital fit. The young woman disrobes and dresses in the man's clothes, transforming into a man in the process. FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are called to the scene by Detective Horton, and Mulder later explains that this is one in a series of similar murders, with cause of death attributed to an overdose of incredibly powerful pheromones. There is also ambiguity in the other murders as to the sex of the killer. Evidence from the crime scene leads the duo to an Amish-type community in Massachusetts which Mulder calls The Kindred. Mulder approaches some of the Kindred as they shop near a local store, only to be rebuffed. Scully has better luck befriending Brother Andrew, a shy member who is left tending to the group's horse, Alice. He tells her they are not meant to talk outside. Whilst shaking hands, she experiences an intense feeling of what seems like pleasure. The pair of FBI agents head up to the remote community and, whilst lost in the woods, are surrounded by a group of the Kindred who demand they give up their weapons before they will be allowed to enter the village. Mulder and Scully are invited to a community dinner. Scully is distracted during dinner by Brother Andrew, seated beside her. A sick man at the table is denied medical attention from Scully, as it is suggested that the Kindred "take care of our own." In another club, a man convinces a reluctant young girl to dance with him by touching her hand in a similar experience to that of Scully earlier, and a young woman does the same thing to a man named Michel. Mulder notices the lack of children in the community and states that he recognizes some of the same faces from photographs taken in the 1930s. Curious, he and Scully return to the village under the cover of night. A droning chant can be heard across the village as a lamp-lit procession of the Kindred moves to a barn. They seem to be in a trance-like state. The sick man from earlier is being carried, naked, with a mark on his forehead. Mulder sneaks into the barn to see what is in the cellar, whilst Scully is met by Brother Andrew, who claims to be able to give her information about the murderer, apparently named Brother Martin. Scully learns that Martin found some magazines and was entranced by the trappings of the outside world, eventually fleeing the Kindred community. In the cellar, the group can be seen bathing the body in a fat-like substance which also coats the wall of the tunnels. Mulder is nearly caught but hides in a crevice, where he discovers the sick man has been buried alive. Meanwhile, Andrew uses his power to seduce Scully, who is eventually rescued by Mulder. While attempting to leave, they are confronted by the Kindred, who rebuke them for their prying but do not stop them. Michel is fooling around with the girl in a parked car when a patrol office breaks them up. Michel begins to wretch and watches in shock as the woman attacks and beats up the officer. When she turns around, Michel sees a man instead. This is what he tells Mulder and Scully later, when they interview him. A credit card belonging to one of the earlier victims is used at a hotel downtown, and Mulder and Scully move in. Marty in female form is shown in a hotel room talking to a dead body, claiming that "the day is coming and they won't leave without me." Mulder and Scully burst in, and Marty/Martin fights off both of them before trying to escape. In a dark alley, Scully corners Martin, but a large group of the Kindred appear and capture him. Scully is confronted by Brother Andrew, who knocks her out as the Kindred take Martin away. The local police raid the Kindred village and find it completely abandoned, the underground tunnels blocked off entirely. Horton calls Mulder's attention to something found out in the fields. There, Mulder and Scully discover what appears to be a large crop circle, suggesting that the Kindred are aliens. 
<EOS>
FBI Special Agent Dana Scully assists a former colleague, Jack Willis, in apprehending a pair of bank robbers, Warren James Dupre and Lula Phillips. Due to an anonymous tip, the two agents wait for Dupre at a bank he's about to rob. Dupre shoots Willis with a shotgun, but is shot and killed by Scully immediately afterwards. Medics work on Willis, continuing with Scully's insistence. Willis eventually is brought back, but Dupre's corpse on the adjacent gurney reacts to the final jolts with the defibrillators. Willis wakes up in the hospital a few days later, but with Dupre's consciousness. He cuts Dupre's fingers off to acquire his wedding ring then flees the hospital. Scully explains to FBI partner, Special Agent Fox Mulder, that Willis has been obsessed with the case for the past year and admits her relationship with him, that they dated while he was her instructor in the FBI Academy. It is found that left-handed shears were used to cut off Dupre's fingers, despite the fact that Willis is right-handed. Mulder and Scully visit Dr. Varnes, at the University of Maryland, who explains that, during near-death experiences, an energy release can occur that could radically change someone's personality. Willis, who finds Dupre's tattoo appearing on his forearm, confronts Lula's brother Thomas Phillips and kills him, blaming him for selling them out to the FBI. When Mulder and Scully investigate the next day, Willis arrives. Willis passes a series of tests that Scully recommends he undertake. Knowing that Scully and Willis share the same birthday, when Mulder gives him a fake birthday card for Scully, months before her birthday, Mullis gladly signs it with his left hand. Scully is skeptical of Mulder's claims that Dupre is in Willis' body, instead thinking Willis is actually just stressed due to having been shot. When a landlord calls the FBI regarding Lula Phillips, Scully and Willis head there. When Scully captures Lula, Willis holds her at gunpoint and forces her to handcuff herself. He then successfully convinces Lula that he is Dupre. Willis calls Mulder, telling him they are holding Scully hostage. After Lula and Dupre drink some soda, Scully reveals that Willis is a diabetic, so the pair rob a drug store for some insulin. Lula refuses to let Willis use the insulin and admits to being the one who sold them out to the FBI. She calls the organization, demanding a $1,000,000 ransom for Scully. Using advanced audio filtering techniques, from the background noises, the technician is able to isolate the sound of an airplane takeoff nearby. The FBI are able to focus their search and a cop going door-to-door spots the house. Willis plays dead, and when Lula drops her wedding ring on him, he grabs her gun and kills her. He dies seconds later due to the lack of insulin. Later, Scully retrieves his things from the morgue, including a watch she gave him for his thirty-fifth birthday. The watch stopped at 6:47, the moment he died. 
<EOS>
In 1989 in Tashmoo Federal Correctional Facility , a prisoner, Joe Crandall, hears screaming from the doctor's office. Inside, he finds prison doctor Joe Ridley operating on fellow prisoner John Barnett. While Ridley tells Crandall that Barnett is dead and threatens to kill him if he talks about it, Barnett blinks at him. In the present, agent Fox Mulder is notified by his former supervisor Reggie Purdue about a note from a jewel store robbery stating that Fox can't guard the chicken coop. Mulder recognizes the message as being from John Barnett, the man whom he helped catch on his first case. While Barnett supposedly died in prison four years earlier, the note appears to definitely be from him. Purdue shows Dana Scully a video of Barnett's capture years earlier. Mulder had a clean shot on Barnett but couldn't fire on him due to him having a hostage, a violation of FBI regulations. Mulder's hesitation resulted in Barnett killing both the hostage and a fellow agent. Mulder flashes back to testifying at Barnett's trial. Scully looks into his cause of death and finds that despite it being listed as heart attack, he went to the doctor due to an infection of his hand and had no history of heart problems. Later Barnett leaves Mulder another note in his car along with photos of him and Scully. Mulder and Scully visit the prison where Barnett died and meet with Crandall, who tells them that Ridley cut off Barnett's hand, but he wasn't actually dead. Mulder receives a call from someone who appears to be Barnett. Later, Barnett strangles Purdue with his deformed hand. Scully looks into Ridley and finds that his medical license was revoked in 1979 due to malpractice and performing medical experiments on patients without permission. Ridley was experimenting on children with progeria, a disease that causes premature aging. Mulder believes that Ridley found a way to reverse the aging process. That night Scully suspects someone is in her house; however, Barnett retreats when Scully finds Ridley waiting at her door. Once Mulder arrives Ridley explains that he found a way to reverse the aging process with Barnett. To test his theory, he cut off Barnett's hand and grew him a new one from salamander cells. While sponsors within the government appeared, Barnett ended up stealing all of his research. Mulder meets with Deep Throat, who admits to this, and says that the government is negotiating with Barnett to purchase the research. Scully hears someone dialing into her answering machine and has the FBI fingerprint lab check it, only to find Barnett's fingerprint on it. After Barnett calls again, Mulder decides to set up a sting at Scully's friend's cello recital which Barnett learned of from his access to her answering machine. That night agents wait at the cello recital for Barnett's arrival. Barnett, who goes completely unnoticed due to his young age, is posing as a piano tuner. Barnett shoots Scully in the chest then flees, taking the cellist hostage. This time Mulder doesn't hesitate and shoots, killing him. Scully is revealed to be wearing a bullet-proof vest, and was unharmed. In a hospital, doctors unsuccessfully attempt to keep Barnett alive while a mysterious CIA agent, which turns out to be the Cigarette Smoking Man, grills him for information. Barnett takes the location of the research to the grave. A closing shot reveals it to be in a storage locker in a transit station, waiting to be found. 
<EOS>
Above Iraq, a jet pilot notices a small disc of light that does not appear on his radar but moves erratically out of his line of sight. The Iraqi pilot contacts his base and requests identification of the object twenty-five miles away from him. However, the base personnel do not detect the object on their radar system and ask the pilot to confirm the object's bearings. When he looks for the object, the pilot cannot see it anywhere but mumbles that he did, a second ago. Suddenly, a bright light illuminates his cockpit, as the noise of an engine whizzes past him. The base personnel report he is under attack, moments before the object passes him again. The pilot attains a target lock on the object and fires a missile at it, causing it to erupt in a massive fireball. He reports he has hit the object. In a NATO surveillance station on the Turkey/Iraq border in Hakkari, Turkey, soldiers sleeping in bunks hear a noise like an airplane falling as the light in the room momentarily darkens. When the soldiers hear a loud explosion outside, they rush to their feet. They hurry to look out a window to see a fiery explosion in a nearby wooded area. One soldier uses a radio to contact Red Crescent and reports a downed plane near the camp perimeter but a man's voice answers that Red Crescent is not currently detecting anything in the sky near the surveillance station. The soldier confirms the sighting and suggests Red Crescent have a medivac unit standing by, before he announces the soldiers are about to investigate the explosion. They leave the surveillance station as Red Crescent contacts Medivac One and reports the incident. Meanwhile, another small disc of light flies over the area and hovers above the crash site. 12:20 AM, Route 100, Reagan, Tennessee, USA An exhausted truck driver, Ranheim, enters an area of heightened UFO activity in Tennessee, only to experience a power outage on his vehicle. He gets out to investigate. With shotgun and flashlight in hand, he heads towards the back of the truck. As he looks up and sees something in the sky, the back doors of the truck swing open and he fires repeatedly. FBI Special Agents Mulder and Scully rush to the incident scene. Scully suggests that, because of the long hours worked by the driver and the presence of a marsh nearby, the entire incident could merely have been a mix of tiredness, delirium and Swamp Gas, with the case therefore not being worthy of investigation. Mulder, however, detects radiation levels five times higher than background and crudely measures a slight temporal lag. The multiple sightings on the earlier night lead him to seek an interview with Ranheim. At Lexington Police Station, Ranheim <span>is being detained on the charge of firing a weapon on a county road. </span>Mulder and Scully interview an exhausted Ranheim, who now reports having seen orange and green lights in the sky and a saucer-shaped craft, contrary to his previous report of seeing a cigar-shaped and black craft. He currently seems disinterested in telling his story and wants simply to leave. Since the incident the previous night, he has developed a cough, a fever and a rash. He admits to being an army veteran but claims never to have been in the Gulf when Scully suggests Gulf War Syndrome as a possible cause for his sudden illness. Police Chief Rivers releases Ranheim and sends Mulder and Scully on their way, wanting nothing to do with the case. At the car rental office, Mulder suggests to Scully that someone had rattled Chief Rivers and that Ranheim was hiding something; at that same moment, a woman in the office asks to borrow Scully's pen for a moment. Mulder speculates that heightened UFO activity may be linked to Gulf War Syndrome, as soldiers report many UFOs during wartime and seeks expert advice. Mulder takes Scully to meet the Lone Gunmen for the first time. After the agents listen dubiously to conversations regarding the Kennedy assassination, the true nature of the CIA and the real reasons for the magnetic stripes inside dollar bills, they discuss Gulf War Syndrome with the Lone Gunmen, who brand some of Mulder's ideas on the subject to be even wilder than their own. Back at FBI Headquarters, Scully discovers the pen she lent out earlier at the car rental office is now bugged. Mulder meets with Deep Throat, who passes him an envelope containing intercepted transmissions from Iraqi fighter jets who shot down a UFO, four days ago. As he leaves, Deep Throat tells Mulder he is on a dangerous path. Scully discovers that the weight in the truck's manifest is about 2,000-pounds heavier than the records from three weigh-stations along the truck's route. She also finds that Ranheim's real name is Frank Druce, a member of Army Special Operations who did serve in Mosul, Iraq. Mulder hypothesizes that Druce was hired to escort the wreckage of a UFO and possibly an occupant to a laboratory in the United States, using the unmarked truck. Mulder and Scully decide to intercept the truck as it heads towards Colorado. When Mulder returns home to collect some clothes for the trip, he discovers Deep Throat waiting for him in his house, with the apartment's main power switched off. Deep Throat gives Mulder a document which contains a photo taken at Fort Benning, Georgia, where seventeen UFOs were reported in a single hour, perhaps searching for the wreckage and occupant. As usual, Deep Throat dodges a direct question from Mulder and leaves him with more questions than answers. Mulder falls for the photographic bait offered by Deep Throat and declares they should go immediately to Fort Benning. Scully examines the photo objectively and spots some minor lighting inconsistencies that reveal it to be a fake. After additional analysis by experts at the FBI, Mulder realizes they have been deceived by Deep Throat, a source Mulder had trusted completely. When Mulder confronts Deep Throat about his deception, Deep Throat explains that there are some things Mulder shouldn't know, that he needed to throw him off the trail and that a lie is most convincingly hidden between two truths. He denies responsibility for surveillance of Scully but infers that Mulder is being bugged too, a fact later confirmed when Mulder discovers a listening bug hidden within an electrical wall outlet in his apartment. Upon arriving at McCarran Airport, Las Vegas, Nevada, Mulder and Scully make further inquiries, using public telephones to avoid their calls being traced and eavesdropped. They discover that the truck is heading west and hop on a flight to Seattle. They follow the truck for hours, then suddenly witness a bright light. The truck has stopped and Ranheim is missing. They open the truck and find, behind several boxes of auto-parts, a makeshift medical ward with a restraining stretcher and monitoring equipment. It is now empty, leading Mulder to believe they just witnessed a rescue mission. The lack of empirical evidence, the normal levels of radiation and zero temporal lag lead Mulder to conclude it was a trick to further throw them off the scent. Mulder liaises with friends at various UFO hotlines and discovers that the frequent sightings which followed the route of the truck have continued in the vicinity of Mattawa, Washington - around 100 miles from where the truck stopped. The two venture to Mattawa, where UFO party-goers tell them UFOs have been known to hover over the Hanford Power Plant. Mulder and Scully observe Ranheim exiting the power plant and use Lone Gunman Langly's expertise at hacking security systems, to provide forged IDs in order to access the facility. Mulder and Scully are apprehended inside the facility. Mulder escapes custody and heads for the only area Langly could not get them access to: Level 6. Level 6 appears to be an area for high-voltage research and a plethora of industrial electrical equipment is arranged around a quarantine cell. Mulder is quickly apprehended by armed guards, who are then dismissed by Deep Throat. Deep Throat informs Mulder the creature is dead, exterminated moments before by the government. He adds that this is standard international procedure and that he once carried out such an extermination himself, during the Vietnam War. Deep Throat reveals that the innocent and blank expression on the creature's face as he killed it haunts him to this day; this is why he comes to Mulder, so that one day, the truth might be known. As Mulder and Deep Throat separate, Scully rejoins her partner and the two are left wondering which lie to believe. 
<EOS>
Crowds gather at an apartment fire as an EMT carries out a burnt dead man on a stretcher. A firefighter tells the EMT to go help a women who needs oxygen. As the firefighter turns to leave, a man and his young son unzip the body bag and say a prayer to raise him from the dead. Seeing this, the fireman begins to tell them to go away as the man is dead when the boy's father tells him, "then the boy can do no harm, now can he?" Meanwhile, the boy continues saying the prayer, causing the burnt man to return to life as the fireman leaves. Ten years later, Scully shows Mulder a videotape which shows the man and the boy, now a teenager, have opened up a church called Miracle Ministry and are about to heal a woman with a malignant tumor on her spine. Scully pauses the tape to give Mulder some information and is surprised when he has already heard of Reverend Calvin Hartley and his adopted healer son Samuel Hartley. Local authorities are beginning to think the reverend and his son are a scam and have been trying to shut the ministry down. Mulder finds this curious and asks Scully why. She responds with "Murder. Watch the tape." The tape continues showing the Reverend explaining what is about to happen to his amazed audience. Scully stops the VHS again to explain to Mulder that twenty minutes after Lucy was healed, she was rushed to the hospital only to die mysteriously. Despite knowing this is not an official X-File, Mulder and Scully hop a flight to Kenwood, Tennessee. Once there, they visit the tent Miracle Ministry to witness for themselves the faith healing powers of Samuel Hartley. However, he does not make an appearance. They meet the Reverend outside after the sermon where they learn that Samuel is missing. Calvin Hartley tells them he can not help and drives them off in his Cadillac. As this is happening, Sheriff Maurice Daniels walks up to them and gives them the autopsy report for Lucy Kelly. Sheriff Daniels goes on to tell them that more people related to the ministry have died but no autopsies were performed due to Miracle Ministry interference. They arrange for the bodies to be exhumed; however, in the process of digging the bodies up, a group of the ministry's followers, who caught word of what was going to be done at the cemetery, show up and demand that the graves not be disturbed. Mulder and Scully begin to explain the importance of the autopsies when the Sheriff interrupts with news that Samuel's car was spotted downtown. Sheriff Daniels, Mulder and Scully enter a seedy bar to find Samuel Hartley smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer while sporting various cuts and bruises all over his face. The sheriff lets Samuel know he is going to be arrested for suspicion of murder, but Mulder asks for a few minutes with him first. Samuel admits guilt of murder and explains that he muddied the water of his faith because of pride and weakness, and now his gift has been corrupted. Scully doubts the young man, saying there's something missing in his story. Samuel, in retaliation, tells Mulder of a great pain Mulder has related to a sister. Intrigued, Mulder asks him to continue, but an unnerved Scully calls the Sheriff over to their table to officially arrest Samuel. During Samuel's trial, a swarm of locusts come in the court room and forces everyone to leave. Mulder and Scully are summoned to see the Reverend who is adamant that his son is innocent. While in counsel with Reverend Hartley, Mulder sees a little girl through the window and excuses himself. He exits the building to try to find the little girl, but she's gone. He then looks up and sees Samuel staring down at him through the window. Later that night, Scully and Mulder attend as Samuel returns to his ministry and attempts to heal a woman in a wheelchair. However, she suffers a seizure and dies, which leads to Samuel's second arrest. During the service Mulder sees the little girl again and tries to follow her, but loses her in the crowd. The ministry tries to deter the family from getting an autopsy, yet Scully changes their minds. Scully questions Mulder about who he was chasing, knowing that Samuel's words have influenced him. Mulder reveals that he thinks he has seen his sister, Samantha, twice. Scully performs an autopsy which reveals the woman died of cyanide poisoning. Mulder visits Samuel in jail and asks him if he poisoned the woman. He asks for more information about Samantha, but Samuel taunts him. Mulder asks the sheriff to release Samuel, but the sheriff refuses. After Mulder leaves, the sheriff has two men fatally beat Samuel in his cell. Later the sheriff tells Mulder and Scully that Samuel instigated a fight. They go back to the court room and find evidence that the swarm of locusts, which were actually common grasshoppers, was guided by someone to the courtroom through the building's ventilation system. At his home, Vance, who has been the faithful assistant to the Reverend, is confronted by a ghostly vision of Samuel, who accuses him of betraying the church and perpetrating the murders. Vance confesses and blames his bitterness at having been resurrected with such a scarred and deformed visage. Mulder and Scully, who have been able to trace a large purchase of grasshoppers to Vance, arrive with the sheriff to find the man dying of cyanide poisoning from his own glass of water. The sheriff tells Vance to get his clothes on because he was under arrest. He tells them of Samuel's visitation and confesses before falling dead. As the agents prepare to finish work on the case, they receive a phone call to say that Samuel's body has gone missing from the morgue, and witnesses have seen him walking around, badly bruised. Later, Sheriff Daniels is picked up from his home, by one of his deputies, to be questioned by the district attorney over Samuel's death. As Mulder and Scully leave Tennessee, Samuel's ministry closes down, and Mulder sees one last vision of his missing sister before he gets into their car. 
<EOS>
FBI agents Dana Scully and Fox Mulder travel to a remote town in Montana to investigate the killing of a Native American man, Joseph Goodensnake, by local ranch owner Jim Parker. The killing initially appears to be motivated by a dispute over the ownership of a tract of land, although Parker claims that he had fired upon a monstrous animal rather than a human. Parker's son Lyle bears scars that appears to lend credence to his father's story. At the scene of the shooting, Scully reasons that at the short range from which Goodensnake was shot, it would have been impossible to mistake him for an animal. However, Mulder finds tracks leading to the area that appear to change from human to something more animal in nature. He also finds a large section of human skin nearby. Scully dismisses his theory. She believes that the Parkers knowingly killed Goodensnake, but neither agent believe the pair would have skinned him--and the body was not reported to have been skinned. The matter is complicated by the difficulties Mulder and Scully have with dealing with the Native American population, stemming from the experience of the locals with the FBI at the Wounded Knee incident in 1973. Goodensnake's sister Gwen is also bitter that her neighbors are too frightened of native legends to confront his death. Despite these misgivings, the agents find a seeming ally in Sheriff Charles Tskany, who permits Scully to make a cursory examination of Goodensnake's body, but forbids a full autopsy. Upon investigating the body, they discover that he has elongated canine teeth, similar to those of an animal, and bears long-healed scars similar to those borne by Lyle. Mulder shares with Scully his belief that the case is connected to the first X-File officially opened, in 1946, concerning a series of savage maulings which Mulder believes are the work of werewolves. Scully dismisses this theory and instead credits the belief to clinical lycanthropy. Goodensnake's body is cremated in a traditional ceremony, while the agents watch from a distance. Lyle Parker rides to near the funeral pyre site to try to pay his respects, but is chased away by Gwen. Later that night, the elder Parker is attacked on his front porch and ripped apart by an unseen animal. During the investigation the next morning, Scully finds Lyle lying naked and unconscious in the nearby forest. Ish, one of the elder men of the reservation, explains to Mulder the legend of the manitou, a creature which can possess and transform a man, and which can pass to a new host upon the death of the original. Ish believes he had seen the creature in his youth, but was too frightened to confront it. An examination of Lyle Parker reveals his father's blood in his stomach, making it clear that he has in fact become the manitou's new host, though not before he is released from hospital. Scully drives him home to the Parker Ranch and he becomes ill, locking himself in the bathroom. That night Mulder and Tskany hurry to the Parker ranch, quickly finding themselves in violent confrontation with the monster. Mulder shoots it dead, only to see it transform back into Lyle. As they agents leave, they learn that Gwen has disappeared, whilst Ish cryptically warns that he will see the agents in about eight years. 
<EOS>
FBI Special Agents Scully and Mulder are called in to investigate the disappearance of a logging crew. They travel to the remote logging area in Washington with a U.S. Forest Ranger and a representative of the logging company. On the journey they fall foul of an eco-terrorist's caltrops and have to abandon the car and travel on foot to the cabin. On arrival none of the loggers are in sight; an investigation of the camp finds all the vehicles sabotaged. Scully, Mulder, and the ranger travel to the woods and find a large cocoon of some sort; on further investigation, they find a fully desiccated human body inside. On returning to the camp, they find the logging company representative has caught one of the eco-terrorists, who tells them all that some strange bugs have taken the other loggers. These green bugs only come out at night so the group decides to stay inside with the lights on. The bioluminescent bugs cover the house but for some reason do not attack in the light. The next day the group finds a centuries old tree with a strange green ring scarred deep in its core. The eco-terrorist says that the disappearances and deaths began after the loggers felled that tree. The obnoxious and disbelieving logging representative decides to escape by returning to the Ranger's truck, but he doesn't make it in time before nightfall; the bugs swarm and cocoon him inside the truck. Mulder attempts to fix the smashed communication radio, but is only able to transmit messages, not knowing if they are being received by anyone. The next morning, the eco-terrorist convinces Mulder to let him take a car battery and gas to rescue his friends camped a valley over and promises to return for Mulder, Scully, and the Ranger the following day. He claims that his friends had only 15-20 hours of fuel left when he left them to find supplies at the loggers' camp. When the ranger discovers what Mulder has done, he points out that the eco-terrorist took the last can of fuel, so the three huddle in the cabin that night hoping the fuel will last until day break. Fortunately the generator splutters to a stop just as the sun rises. The three make a break for the Ranger's car where they are met by the returning eco-terrorist in his Jeep; he says his friends didn't make it. They make it most of the way down the mountain but in their hurry fall victim to the caltrops again. When the eco-terrorist leaves the car to investigate, he is swarmed by the bugs, as it is now already dark. Entering the car, the insects overwhelm Mulder, Scully and the Ranger and they too are cocooned. However, luckily a bio-hazard rescue team arrives while they're still alive, apparently having received Mulder's transmissions. At the end, the three are confined to a secure quarantine facility in Washington to recuperate. When Mulder asks the head doctor what will happen if they fail to eradicate the insects with the planned controlled burns and pesticides, the doctor replies, "That is not an option, Mr. Mulder." 
<EOS>
Druid Hill Sanitarium, Baltimore, MD: Dr. Aaron Monte checks on his patient, Eugene Victor Tooms, on the eve of his commitment review.  He informs him that he's had a look at the statements of the doctors who will be testifying the following day, and the likelihood of his release is very good.  Unbeknownst to him, Monte had interrupted Tooms as he was contorting his body to reach through the food slot, about to unlock his cell door. At FBI headquarters, Special Agent Dana Scully meets her rarely-seen superior, Assistant Director Walter Skinner. As the Smoking Man inexplicably lurks in the background, Skinner demands more conclusive reports from Scully and by-the-book procedures; their high conviction/case-solving rate of 75% is, according to him, the only thing keeping the X-Files division open. At the hearing, Dr. Pamela Karetzky testifies that Tooms has shown no signs of physiological dysfunction. Another expert attributes Tooms' attack on Scully to misplaced frustration over losing his job and being falsely arrested by the FBI. Special Agent Fox Mulder grows agitated as Judge Kann dismisses his mutation theory, despite Mulder's evidence showing that Tooms' fingerprints were at seven of 19 crime scenes dating back to 1903. Kann simply says that Tooms doesn't look a hundred years old.  Mulder than alienates the judgement panel by arguing that Tooms is a freak of nature and will undoubtedly kill again if released, because he did not procure the last of his usual five livers, which he needs before going into hibernation for 30 years.  Tooms is deemed fit to be released, providing he remains under Monte's care, returns to his animal control job, and resides with halfway-house couple Susan and Arlan Green.  Mulder vows to keep watch on Tooms night and day, while assigning Scully to go back through the old murders for a lead.  When she argues that this would involve unorthodox methods, he nearly accuses her of being cowed by Skinner's warning.  As he leaves the courthouse, Tooms smirks at Mulder. Lynne Acres Retirement Home: Scully seeks help from former detective Frank Briggs, who investigated Tooms' previous two killing sprees and is dismayed at the news of his release.  He shows her a jar containing a human liver he'd found at Powhattan Mill's Ruxton Chemical Plant when it was under construction in 1933; the accompanying dead body was never found, something that was not the case with all the other murders Tooms allegedly committed.  Briggs suspects that the body was dumped into the cement foundation of the chemical plant when it was still wet, possibly because something on it could implicate Tooms.  When conventional methods of searching the foundation prove to be too slow, Briggs acts on an old-fashioned hunch and leads the excavation crew to a particular spot, where they dig up skeletal remains. Tooms, back on the job in his Baltimore Animal Regulation van, is getting hungry, snacking on roadkill as he picks them off the ground before bagging them.  He starts to approach a woman on the street in broad daylight when he is stopped by Mulder, who sarcastically asks for help finding his dog, Heinrich. Tooms drives off in a rage.  That night, he follows a businessman home, but stays in his vehicle, being closely watched by Mulder.  After several hours, Mulder accidentally falls asleep; upon awakening, he finds Tooms' van empty and starts searching the neighborhood - not realizing Tooms has entered the sewers through the manhole grate beneath his vent.  After trying to enter through the toilet pipe and being stopped by the businessman's wife, he squeezes through a barred window; Mulder, nosing around the neighborhood, notices sewage from the drains on a windowsill, and tells the owner he suspects an intruder inside. While this forces Tooms to retreat, Mulder loses track of him. At the Smithsonian Institute's Forensic Anthropology Lab a professor, examining the bones Briggs and Scully found, discovers that the skull matches the photo of a missing person suspected of being a 1933 victim.  There are also strange gnaw marks near the victim's ribs.  But it's not enough to convict Tooms. Scully worries about Mulder, who has carried on his stakeout alone for three days. She volunteers to take over surveillance in her own car. Mulder agrees and drives off, with Tooms hiding in his trunk. On his couch, Mulder sleeps through the Vincent Price movie The Fly. Tooms enters through a baseboard vent, but rather than kill Mulder, simply scratches his own face until he bleeds. At a hospital the next day, a detective tells a doctor that police found Tooms unconscious in the street, beaten and kicked in the jaw. Tooms says Mulder did it. While police speak to Mulder at his apartment, they find an athletic shoe matching the imprint on Tooms' jaw. As they prepare to haul Mulder in for questioning, he notices a screw underfoot - from the vent. At Skinner's office, as Smoking Man watches, Mulder notes forensic evidence shows no foot was inside the shoe when it connected with Tooms' face, and insists Tooms is trying to frame him. Scully lies that Mulder was with her on surveillance when Tooms was admitted to the hospital.  After sending Scully out, Skinner expresses admiration for Mulder's talents, but tells him that if stress is making him or other agents behave inappropriately, he should take a vacation, something Mulder halfheartedly agrees with. With a glance toward Smoking Man, Skinner orders Mulder to stay away from Tooms, noting that this was a close call and if it happens again, all of Mulder's Congressional contacts together won't be enough to save his job. Using dental records, Scully and the Smithsonian have positively concluded that the gnaw marks on the skeletal remains belong to Tooms, which is the proof they need. At Tooms' halfway house, the Greens are just leaving as Monte arrives to check up on Tooms.  While Monte makes small talk, Tooms' hunger gets the better of him and he attacks.  Mulder and Scully arrive shortly afterward and find the doctor's corpse.  Mulder realizes that Tooms will go into hibernation now that he has claimed his fifth victim. The agents go to 66 Exeter Street, the address of Tooms' old apartment, but the building has been torn down; a shopping mall, City Square, now occupies the site. Mulder enters a narrow utility passageway beneath the foot of an escalator. He pushes through a vent into a cave-like area, finding evidence of Tooms' nesting tendencies - a wall of newspapers held together with bile.  Suddenly, the naked and animalistic Tooms bursts through the wall and attacks.  With Scully's help, Mulder escapes and turns on the escalator, which drags Tooms to a gruesome, crushing death inside the escalator mechanisms. Skinner, reading Scully's unorthodox report, asks if the Smoking Man believes it. He knowingly replies, "Of course I do."  Outside, Mulder observes a cocoon in a tree and tells Scully he thinks a change is coming for the X Files. 
<EOS>
When New York Detective Rudy Barbala is thrown through a second story window to his death, the only person in the room is an eight year old girl, Michelle Bishop, whom he was interviewing alone in an interview room. She claims to have seen another man in the room; the description she gives matches Charlie Morris, a policeman who was murdered by Triad gang members nine years earlier. Mulder and Scully head to the girl's home, interviewing her mother Judy Bishop. Michelle's mother tells them that Michelle is disturbed and under psychiatric care. She also relates a story that when her father previously tried to teach her to swim, she would scream upon approaching the water. Michelle's only hobby seems to be the origami figures she makes. Mulder visits Michelle's psychiatrist, where she reveals that during the sessions, the girl would repeatedly mutilate baby dolls in the exact same method: by removing the left arm. Later, from the police report on Morris' death, Scully finds that his left arm was brutally severed by a chainsaw. Mulder and Scully question Tony Fiore, Charlie Morris' former partner, he is not very helpful and acts nervous. He tells them he wants to speak outside, not letting them in to the house, because his wife is sleeping inside. He does't go into detail about the murder, saying merely "They just wanted a cop. Any cop." leaving it at that. Hearing them outside, his wife comes out. There is baking flour on her hands, indicating that he lied about her being asleep. With his wife outside Fiore rushes them to leave, raising suspicion with both. When Mulder and Scully leave, Fiore goes to insurance salesman and former policeman Leon Felder and tells him about the FBI agents' visit. Fiore is anxious that the FBI are connecting the dots; he wants to go to the bank to collect a safety box. Fiore wants to dump it, but Felder is not willing; he wants to keep the money, but Fiore is reluctant. Felder threatens Fiore, pushing that Charlie Morris' death was an accident and that they had merely been trying to scare sense into him. Fiore is clearly uneasy. Later that night as Leon Felder gets off a bus, an invisible force lifts the back of his scarf trapping it in the bus doors. He yells for the bus driver to stop, but finds the controls unresponsive. The bus continues to drive against his will, with the driver watching Felder get dragged to his death. He exits the bus in horror, hurrying to the body. As the camera pans in, sitting on the bus directly behind the door is Michelle. Scully and Mulder talk to Michelle's mother in the police station, who is crying, insisting that Michelle is merely a child and cannot possibly be involved. Mulder, while at the police station, is informed of Felder's past as Barbala's partner when still an officer. Connecting all four police officers to the drug bust, Mulder and Scully dig into their history. Scully realizes a page is missing from Morris' case file; it was checked out by Fiore that afternoon. They head to his home, where his wife reveals he never came home, before letting the agents in. They ask his wife if she knows Felder or Barbala, but she doesn't recognize the names. Mulder asks about the origami figures he noticed upon entering her home. She reveals that her first husband, Charlie Morris, is the one who made them. The only animal he hadn't finished in his collection was a giraffe. As they leave, Mulder muses that Michelle was conceived around the time of Morris' death, Scully interrupting him to sarcastically suggest reincarnation. She is not convinced, even with the origami figures, nor the deaths she was witness to. Mulder believes Morris came back to avenge his death, suggesting that she is able to use telekinesis. Michelle is put into hypnosis, revealing that she is twenty four, before having an attack. She can only get out, "we can't do this, it's wrong" and "they're killing me" before her therapist insists they stop, convincing Michelle's mother that she's in danger of full withdrawl. Mulder wants to push forward, but Scully is still unconvinced. She reminds him that even if they get a full recounting from Michelle, nothing she says would be admissible in court. Reviewing the video tapes of the hypnosis session- that night, Mulder sees an anomaly on the tapes, rewinding it and studying it closer. Upon replay, he can hear a distortion over Michelle's voice, as well as something unusual on the tape itself. Meanwhile Fiore's wife is at home, waiting for news of him when she hears a knock on the door. After rushing to answer it, she finds that an origami giraffe is waiting for her on the porch. Mulder takes the tape to an FBI analyst to be studied closer. The analist studying the tapes say whatever image is over Michelle's was with her in the room. Scully receives the autopsy report on Morris' body, revealing that he was actually drowned first and mutilated post-mortem. The lack of evidence of drowning around his body, except the head and shoulders suggests perhaps he was drowned in a toilet or tub. Scully, looking over his toxicology, deduces that he was actually killed in sea water. Fiore goes home, calling for his wife frantically. He tells her to pack her bags so they can leave, believing that someone is trying to kill him. Outside of their home, looking into a window is Michelle. Meanwhile the analyst has cleaned up the image on the tape, eventually revealing the image to be small figurine of a hard-hat diver, which puzzles Scully and the analyst. However Mulder recognizes it from the fish tank in Fiore's house, suggesting that Charlie was murdered at home. Fiore's wife shows him the origami figure, begging to know where it came from when the power suddenly goes off. He tells her to stay in the bedroom while he searches; when he leaves, the door locks, trapping her inside. As he's searching through the house, a lamp wire wraps around his legs, knocking him down. He reaches for his gun, but a force drags it away--Michelle appears from the darkness. Mulder and Scully arrive hearing shattering glass and screaming as they come up to the house. Michelle is using telekenesis to shatter objects around the house, all while remaining expressionless. The agents break into the house through the back door. Fiore tries to speak to Morris, explaining that Felder and Barbala just wanted to talk to him. Fiore wants to know why Morris didn't just take the money. Michelle attacks, but is stopped by Mulder, who tries to reason with Morris. Morris' wife comes downstairs, hurrying to the fallen Fiore--the man confesses that he knew all along what had been done to Morris, but that he couldn't reveal it. He tells the woman that he just wanted to take care of her; Michelle begins to glow, the fish tank lighting up and shaking as the house starts to break apart. Morris' wife begs him not to hurt Fiore. The fish tank explodes and the lights come back on. Mulder narrates as the camera pans to Michelle playing in the pool with her friends. Fiore has gone to jail, charged with Morris' death and extortion. Barbala and Felder's deaths are unsolved, but closed--Michelle is not charged with any crimes, and no longer has any memory of her past life. 
<EOS>
At the Mahan Washington Institute of Technology, in Colson, Washington, mentally handicapped janitor Roland Fuller is being scolded by research scientist Dr. Keats for forgetting how to use the facility's keycard locks. Keats then walks in on his colleagues, Frank Nollette and Ronald Surnow, as they are engaged in a heated discussion. The latter two men are arguing over their latest project, a prototype jet engine. Nollette wants to push testing of the engine to break mach 15, but Surnow is unwilling to risk damaging the prototype. Keats and Nollette leave, angry, whilst Surnow continues his mathematical work on a whiteboard. He then enters the facility's wind tunnel to make some adjustments. However, Roland is still in the control room and proceeds to close the wind tunnel's door and activate the turbine, which draws Surnow to his death. Roland erases the last line of calculations written on the whiteboard and writes out a new line. FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are brought in to investigate the death. Scully notes that another member of the research team died several months earlier in a car accident. She believes Surnow's death to be a case of industrial sabotage. Mulder examines the handwriting on the whiteboard and concludes that it has been written by at least four different people, leading him to suspect that a fourth individual was present. Keats and Fuller both inform the agents that Roland Fuller was the only one left in the facility at the time of Surnow's death, but do not believe him to be capable of murder. Nevertheless, Mulder and Scully visit the care home where Roland lives, finding him applying star-shaped stickers to a sheet of paper with numbers written on it in several arrangements. They gently ask him about the night of the murder, and he tells them he had not seen anything out of the ordinary. He also inadvertently reveals his mathematical prowess by rapidly counting the stars visible on Scully's blouse; however, his handwriting does not match the fourth sample at the facility. The discussion ends when Roland experiences a violent vision and has what seems to be a fit; his caregiver asks the agents to leave while she attends to him. Later that night, Roland has another vision, a first-person perspective of someone killing Dr. Keats. Back at the facility, Keats is working late. He does not notice Roland entering the room, and is bludgeoned unconscious with a coffee cup before Roland submerges his head in a tank of liquid nitrogen, killing him. Keats' frozen body is dropped, causing his frozen head to shatter. Roland begins typing at one of the computers. The next day, the agents are investigating the latest murder when they notice that the computer had been used for five hours after Keats' death. Attempting to open the file that was being worked on, Mulder realizes that the number Roland had written on his page the previous day is the computer file's password. The file turns out to be the work of Arthur Grable, the scientist who had died several months earlier, and it had been worked on constantly since his death. Looking into Grable's death, the agents find that it was him who had hired Roland. They begin to think that Grable faked his own death and is killing his former colleagues, using Roland as a patsy. Grable's body was never brought to the morgue, nor was a funeral ever held. However, Dr. Nollette brings the agents to a cryopreservation facility where Grable's disembodied head is being stored in a cryogenic chamber, proving that Grable is most definitely dead. A photograph of Grable is found, and after some digital facial manipulation, he appears identical to Roland, leading the agents to discover the two were actually twins. Speaking to Roland again, Mulder becomes convinced the janitor is being controlled by the mind of Grable. Meanwhile, Nollette sneaks into the cryogenic facility and tampers with Grable's storage unit, thawing his remains. He returns to the Mahon Institute, and enters as Roland is in the process of pushing the prototype engine to mach 15. Nollette admits to stealing Grable's work, and is about to shoot Roland, intending to claim self-defense, when Roland strikes him with a computer keyboard and drags him into the wind tunnel and activates the turbine. As Nollette's grasp slips, the agents arrive in time to convince Roland not to kill Nollette. The cryogenic tank's temperature stabilization fails, and Arthur finally dies. Roland is removed from the care home and taken to a psychiatric institute for testing, apparently now free of Grable's control. 
<EOS>
In Ardis, Maryland, a high-speed police chase unfolds at a waterfront. The driver of the car is Dr. William Secare. Although he is shot, Secare escapes into the water, and the police find green blood on the spot where he was shot. Soon afterwards, Deep Throat approaches Fox Mulder with Secare's case, saying he is of major importance to reveal the truth. When investigating the case, Mulder and Agent Scully visit Dr. Terrance Berube, a scientist working in Gaithersburg, Maryland whose car was involved in the Secare incident. That night, Deep Throat meets a second time with Mulder, and insists he continue on the case, despite Mulder's uncertainty on what he's supposed to be looking for. That night, Dr. Berube is met by the Crew Cut Man, who kills him and makes the death look like a suicide. While investigating the crime scene, Mulder finds a liquid-filled erlenmeyer flask with a typed label Purity Control on the underside, which he gives to Scully. Scully takes the flask to Georgetown University, where she meets Dr. Anne Carpenter, who examines the contents. Meanwhile, Mulder heads to Berube's house and finds keys for a storage facility. Dr. Secare calls Dr. Berube's office, but Mulder answers the phone feigning to be Berube. Secare tells him about the secret government project which Mulder wants to reveal to the public. In the meantime, the Crew Cut Man eavesdrops on the conversation from a van in the street. Secare collapses during the phone call. A bystander calls an ambulance. A poisonous gas emits from Secare's body when the paramedics perform a needle decompression. Secare gets up and flees from the ambulance. Mulder arrives at Zeus Storage and finds five men suspended in horizontal, rectangular liquid-filled tanks, as well as a sixth empty tank. Dr. Carpenter reveals that the Purity Control flask contains a sample of bacteria that doesn't exist anywhere in nature and can only be described as extraterrestrial. Meanwhile, Mulder is pursued when he leaves the storage facility but escapes. He returns the next day with Scully. By then, however, the room is completely empty. Deep Throat arrives, revealing that Berube was experimenting on humans with extraterrestrial viruses. Six terminally ill volunteers were experimented on, and all had begun recovering. When it was ordered that they be destroyed, Berube helped Secare escape. Several weeks later, a despondent Mulder calls Scully to inform her that the X-Files have been shut down. Meanwhile, in a scene mirroring the conclusion to the pilot, the Smoking Man stores the alien fetus in the massive evidence room within the Pentagon. 
<EOS>
Fox Mulder narrates the mission of the NASA Voyager satellite and the High-Resolution Microwave Survey, now discontinued. In Arecibo, Puerto Rico, recording equipment at one of the abandoned satellite stations reactivates and begins printing a strand of data. Mulder has been assigned to a mundane dead-end wiretap job, while former partner Dana Scully has returned to teaching at Quantico. After being blatantly ignored in the halls of the FBI headquarters, Scully signals to Mulder that she wants to meet, and they do so in the parking lot of the Watergate hotel. Mulder tells Scully he watched Deep Throat's funeral using binoculars from 1000 feet away. Obviously depressed, he is now even wondering if the little green men he's seen are all in his mind. Later, asleep at home, Mulder flashes back to the night in 1973 when Samantha was abducted. The two are playing Stratego when the house shakes and a light appears from outside. Mulder grabs the family gun, but by then it is too late; Samantha slowly floats away through a window and a shadowy figure stands in the doorway. Mulder is summoned to meet with Senator Richard Matheson, a patron of his work. After discussing Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 - which is at a loud volume to throw off possible listening devices - Matheson clues Mulder in to the recent activity at Arecibo and tells him to investigate; in the meantime, Matheson will try and hold off the Blue Beret UFO Retrieval team, who will be sent there within twenty-four hours regardless. Mulder heads to Puerto Rico and arrives at the satellite receiving station. In the bathroom, he finds a frightened Hispanic man, Jorge Concepción, drawing for Mulder an alien he claims to have seen. Scully, meanwhile trying to determine Mulder's whereabouts, heads to his apartment and prints out a sheet of computer-generated numbers from his computer. When some other agents arrive, looking for him, she leaves, taking with the paper she printed. Scully visits a scientist at the U.S. Naval Observatory, who tells her they represent signals from space. Reviewing a list of flights from Washington, Scully finds Mulder using an alias, George Hale. Upon his return to Washington, D.C., Mulder is berated by Assistant Director Skinner and the Cigarette Smoking Man. Mulder claims he still had enough evidence, even with the days he has missed, to prosecute their wiretap suspect and that his own phone was being tapped. Skinner demands that the Cigarette Smoking Man leaves and decides to not discipline Mulder. Investigating the magnetic tape reel, he finds it totally blank. Scully suggests that it may have been degaussed due to a power surge during the storm. Mulder returns to his work, monitoring surveillance recordings. 
<EOS>
Aboard a Russian ship in the Atlantic Ocean, a sailor walks along the lower decks and finds an overflowing toilet. He reports it to the ship's engineer who assigns a sailor named Dmitri to fix the problem. Later on the ship's lower decks, Dmitri works on removing a blockage that the engineer says must be dealt with before the sewage tanks can be purged. Frustrated by the assignment, Dmitri removes an access panel and is looking inside for the blockage when something grabs him and drags him into the sewage tank, even overwhelming several members of the ship's crew as they struggle to grab hold of Dmitri's legs. The ship's engineer urgently shouts orders to the other crew members to flush the tanks out to sea. The water inside the tank then begins to bubble but reveals no sign of Dmitri. FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder is disinterestedly conducting wiretap surveillance in a small, darkened room within Washington, D.C.'s Longstreet Motel when he is relieved from the assignment by an Agent Bozoff, who is accompanied to the room by an Agent Brisentine. Leaving the room, Brisentine tells Mulder about his new assignment; a murder case in Newark, New Jersey, where his contact will be a Detective Norman. Mulder is surprised his reassignment was requested by Assistant Director Walter Skinner. At a downtown crime scene, Mulder meets up with Detective Norman. Heading to the victim's corpse, the detective leads Mulder into a sewer where he and Mulder make smalltalk about their disgust at their surroundings. Norman then shows Mulder to the body, revealing there is not much evidence. Wandering away, Mulder accepts Norman saying that the front side of the body has largely been eaten away and advises the detective to send the body to the FBI, care of AD Skinner. At FBI Headquarters, Mulder demands to speak with Skinner, despite Skinner's secretary, Kimberly, claiming Skinner is unavailable. Seeing Skinner from Kimberly's office, a frustrated Mulder criticizes the assignments Skinner has placed him on. Once Skinner welcomes the agent into his own office, Mulder sees that a group of FBI officials are gathered around Skinner's conference table. Mulder immediately adopts a more polite air, explaining his current investigation seemed to concern merely a drugland body dumping, but he also mentions the X-files, at which Skinner strongly reminds him that unit has been closed. Reluctantly, Mulder agrees to continue carrying out the assignments Skinner gives him, including his current investigation. While Mulder is sitting alone on a bench at night, Agent Scully approaches him. Mulder jokes he may be experiencing violent impulses but Scully jokingly answers that she is armed. Once Scully sits down next to him, Mulder vents his frustrations at the seeming triviality of his assignment, admitting that he has even recently been considering leaving the FBI. Scully insists she could help Mulder out with his current case, reminding him there is a dead body to be examined. Scully later begins the examination, though the smell of the corpse at first clearly disgusts her. All the while commentating on the examination, she notices a strange tattoo on the victim's right forearm and is shocked to discover - while inspecting the man's internal organs - a form of gray flatworm that she then begins to remove. In Newark, two sanitation workers begin work in a sewer when one, Craig, is suddenly dragged underwater, repeatedly, and screams in pain. The other man, standing on an overhead catwalk, desperately tries to save Craig, tossing a rope into the water near him. Their efforts eventually succeed and the pained man is pulled out of the water. However, he has a large wound on his back so his co-worker, horrified, speeds away to seek assistance. A Doctor Zenzola examines Craig, who refers to a strong taste in his mouth - while Mulder enters - so the doctor duly inspects her patient's throat and gives him a piece of gum. The doctor then privately talks with Mulder, informing him the sanitation worker is claiming to have been attacked by something undetermined. Zenzola also mentions the wound on the man's back, referring to it as highly unusual. Mulder then briefly questions the victim, who suspects his attacker was a pet snake, and Zenzola shows Mulder the man's wound. Mulder receives a call from Scully, who tells him of the worm she found. Receiving another call, Mulder at first assumes that his caller is again Scully but it is actually a mysterious man who first notifies Mulder that he has a friend at the FBI and then abruptly ends the call. Mulder agrees to Zenzola releasing her patient but is privately perplexed by the strange call. After Mulder arrives in Scully's office, she shows him the flukeworm she found, wordily telling him about its parasitic nature. The pair of agents enlighten their conversation with some jokey banter. Scully then explains that she is left to conclude that the unlikely possibility that the single parasite killed the young victim. Mulder theorizes the wound on the sanitation worker's back could be from the scolex of a gigantic flukeworm. Scully starts to laugh at his theory but stops herself, realizing she had become too caught up in their discussion feeling like old times. Scully seriously refutes Mulder's theory and he acts pleased that he doesn't have to tell Skinner the murder suspect is a giant, blood-sucking worm. Having assumed the mysterious call he received earlier was due to Scully having launched a campaign for him, Mulder confronts her about it. She is puzzled about the matter but assures him she would never betray a confidence. Meanwhile, Craig is in the bathroom of his own home. He tries to get rid of the taste in his mouth using an excessive amount of toothpaste. When he spits the toothpaste out, he is shocked to see blood mixed with it. He later showers but experiences an extreme choking sensation, regurgitating more blood and a flukeworm that slithers down the drain. Mulder interviews Ray, a foreman at the county sewage processing facility, who briefly introduces Mulder to a worker named Charlie. Ray tells Mulder about the plant's workings and Mulder shows him the flukeworm from the body pulled out of the sewer. Ray seems unsurprised at its discovery, remarking virtually anything could have been breeding down in the antiquated sewage system. Outside the plant, Charlie notices something moving inside one of many filtration pools. Panicking, he telephones Ray. In a large darkened area inside the plant, Charlie is joined by Ray and Mulder. Charlie explains he is back-flushing the system and tells of his experience of having seen something. What he saw in the water is revealed to the group once it is caught in a large, transparent pipe. It appears to be a slimy, nearly featureless humanoid creature with a giant scolex mouth - the monstrous Flukeman. Scully is doing research on her computer, in her office at the FBI Academy, when she notices a tabloid newspaper being slid under her door. She briefly exits her office to see the paper's anonymous deliverer is now gone. Scully later comes across an article that suggests officials now suspect the incident aboard the Russian ship was due to some kind of monster. Learning of this incident for the first time, she returns to her computer and brings up a magnified view of the tattoo she discovered earlier. Scully then answers a call from Mulder, who implies he has found a much larger fluke than the one she previously caught. The agents peer into a room of the psychiatric facility where the Flukeman is being held. After Mulder points it out to Scully, she reacts in amazement. Using technical lingo, they remark that the Flukeman shares the flatworms' characteristic of being genderless and that it has aspects of both parasitic and primate physiology. Mulder comments he will apparently have to tell Skinner the murder suspect is indeed a giant, blood-sucking worm. Scully tells Mulder of her conclusion that the body from the sewer was a Russian engineer, a determination she made after having detected its tattoo spells Dmitri in Cyrillic lettering. Mulder is puzzled how she managed to determine that, so she shows him the newspaper article, also implying she believes the paper was left by the same mysterious caller who told Mulder that, within the FBI, he has an ally. She tells him of her hope that he won't decide to quit the FBI. Later in Skinner's office, Skinner looks through Mulder's field report regarding the Flukeman. Skinner deems the report as being acceptable, which Mulder thinks is a humorously odd reaction to the bizarreness of both the case and the suspect. Skinner clarifies he had his reactions to those in the morning and that the current meeting is to evaluate Mulder's work. Both men argue about how the Flukeman should best be handled, Mulder disputing Skinner's plan of transferring the being to a psychiatric institution. Skinner mentions the Flukeman is now responsible for the deaths of two people, as Craig was found dead - in his own home - due to his injuries. Mulder angrily asserts that, if he and Scully had still been assigned to the X-files, they could have saved the second victim's life. Skinner agrees the case should have been an X-file, implies that he took orders to shut down that unit from someone else and dismisses Mulder. U.S. Marshals transport the Flukeman, bound to a gurney, into an ambulance which then drives away. The vehicle's driver finds, while driving, that the Flukeman has escaped his bonds, leaving clear slime on the gurney's straps. Moments after investigating with a rifle, the driver screams and his firearm is shot once, noises that can be heard from outside the vehicle, which is parked near a sign for Lake Betty Park. The Flukeman then crawls into one of a pair of public port-a-john lavatories nearby and hides inside the tank. The public toilets are emptied into a tanker truck, via a suction tube that momentarily becomes blocked. The park is now a crime scene due to the discovery of the abandoned ambulance. When Mulder arrives, he notices the septage hauler truck as it leaves. Again meeting up with Detective Norman, Mulder is told the only evidence is a dead driver and an escaped prisoner. Mulder advises the being will attempt to head back underground. He answers another call from his mysterious contact, who instructs him success in his current assignment is imperative and that reinstatement of the X-files must be undeniable. After the mystery caller abruptly ends the call, Mulder overhears Norman being contacted by an investigator who reports the discovery of the now-empty toilet. With this information, Mulder realizes the suspect may be on the truck he himself passed. Mulder hurriedly arrives back at the processing plant. He again talks with the foreman, Ray, who assures Mulder that the Flukeman will definitely become trapped in the sewage system. After a period of intense waiting near the plant's filtration pools, Mulder receives a call from Scully. She tells Mulder the fluke she caught earlier was one of many the Flukeman has been transmitting through its bite, as its method of reproduction, and that the Flukeman is looking for hosts. Ray relays news to Mulder that something has been spotted in a section of pipe. Using a map of the sewers, Ray shows Mulder the exact location of the sighting, the same place where the first body was found - an overflow system connected to the harbor. Mulder suspects both that the Flukeman entered the sewer system there and that the being is working its way back out to sea. Mulder and the foreman hurry to the sewer. On Mulder's suggestion, Ray tries to close a metal gate over the overflow pipe, but slips and falls into the water. He is suddenly dragged underwater twice but desperate attempts by Mulder to pull him to safety are eventually successful. Mulder spots the Flukeman climbing into the overflow pipe so he races to close the gate, which agonizingly splits the being in half. Back in Washington, D.C., Scully again meets with Mulder at their bench. Like before, they share humorous banter before Scully sits down; Mulder warns her he may slightly reek of the sewer but Scully chances sitting next to him anyway. Mulder notifies her about his mysterious contact alleging the importance of his work, although Scully at first mistakes those words as having come from Skinner. Scully lengthily informs Mulder she has determined the Flukeman, capable of spontaneous regeneration like any fluke or flatworm, is actually a human mutated by radiation from the nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl, having come off a decommissioned Russian freighter involved in the disposal of salvage material from that incident. Deep underground, the Flukeman rejuvenates, opening its eyes and breathing long, rasping breaths.
<EOS>
At a postal center in Franklin, Pennsylvania, Edward Funsch sits at a conveyor belt entering the zip codes of envelopes as they run by him into a mail sorting machine. The machine jams and he cuts his finger on an envelope he tries to dislodge. He seems mesmerized by the small drop of blood. His boss calls him in to inform him that he losing his job due to downsizing. He explains that it's a decision the boss wishes he didn't have to make, since everyone gets on well with Ed, a somewhat simple man who is new to this area. His boss recommends he stay on for the rest of the week. When Ed gets back to the machine, he sees the word KILL on the machine's digital display, that progresses to KILL 'EM ALL. At the Franklin Civic Center, a middle-aged man in a crowded elevator sees NO AIR displayed on the elevator's LCD display. He seems to be the only one to notice the message. Sweating and obviously nervous, he glances at the LCD screen again. It flashes the words CAN'T BREATHE and then KILL 'EM ALL. FBI Agent Mulder arrives at the civic center, after what looks like a massacre. Bodies lie on the sidewalk and in the foyer, where Sheriff Spencer explains that the suspect murdered four people from the elevator with his bare hands before a member of security took him down. Spencer is mystified because Franklin is a quiet farming town, but in the last six months, seven individuals have murdered twenty-two people. Mulder inspects the elevator and notices the electronic display has been damaged. He examines the suspect's body, noting a green residue on the man's fingertips. Scully reads Mulder's initial report back at Quantico. Mulder believes the Franklin incidents are spree killings, but the suspects all seem to be healthy people, outwardly normal and unlikely to fit a criminal profile. The only connection he can see is that an electronic device was found destroyed at each crime scene. That night, Bonnie McRoberts drops by an auto-repair garage to pick up her car. She is visibly unnerved by the mechanic, whose behavior she interprets as hostile. A message on an engine diagnostic display warns her that the mechanic is going to rape and murder her. She becomes hysterical and attacks, stabbing him to death with an oil funnel. When Mulder and the Sheriff question McRoberts the next morning, her kitchen microwave instructs her to kill them. She grabs a knife and slashes Mulder's arm, prompting Spencer to shoot and kill her. At Quantico, Scully performs an autopsy on McRoberts' body. She discovers high levels of adrenaline, signs of psychological trauma, and the same green substance found on the elevator killer. She speculates that the substance, when combined with other neurochemicals, produces an LSD-like reaction. While Mulder and Scully build a case, Ed Funsch becomes more and more unhinged. He continues to see violent messages on electronic gadgets, and blood is associated with each incident. First, an ATM displays KILL THEM ALL after Ed notices a child with a nose bleed. After making attempts to find a new job and failing, a volunteer at a department store asks Ed to donate for the Franklin Community Blood Drive. Distressed, he walks away and ends up in Domestic Appliances, where he sees violent images flash across a sales display of televisions, followed by a message to buy a gun from the Sporting Goods department. While jogging, Mulder sees a city worker dump dead flies along the roadside. He takes a sample to the Lone Gunmen, who suggest that the flies have been sprayed with LSDM, a pesticide that invokes a fear response in insects. Mulder returns to Franklin that night to investigate an orchard, where he gets sprayed by a crop-dusting helicopter and has to be taken to the hospital. After an awkward debate with city spokesman Larry Winter, Mulder sees the message DO IT NOW in a fitness commercial. He proposes that when people exposed to the pesticide see subliminal messages relating to their phobias, their paranoia is heightened enough to make them kill. Mulder believes this to be evidence of a controlled experiment in the Franklin area. Under pressure from Spencer, a reluctant Winter agrees to stop the spraying and perform blood tests on the community, which will be done under the guise of a cholesterol study. Neighborhoods are canvassed and several names show up on a list of untested people; Ed Funsch is one of them. Mulder and Scully arrive at Ed's house to find it strewn with smashed electronic devices. A nurse collecting blood samples visited Ed's house earlier in the day, but left when nobody answered the doorbell. Mulder realizes that blood is Ed's phobia and that he's been seeing the subliminal messages. An empty rifle case indicates that Ed is going to act on his delusions. Funsch gets on a bus that stops at the local hospital, but is curiously warned by the fare meter that the police are waiting for him and screams at the driver to be let off. When the bus arrives, the driver tells Mulder he let Funsch off at the college, where the community blood drive is being held. Scully stays at the hospital while Mulder, Spencer and other officers rush to the college. Funsch, clearly conflicted and distressed, begins firing randomly from inside a nearby clock tower. As Mulder races up the tower's stairs, he trips and lands on his arm wound. He reaches the top and confronts Funsch, who tells Mulder they won't let him put the gun down, but maybe Mulder can make him. When Mulder reaches for the gun, Funsch notices blood from his arm wound seeping into his shirt and freaks out, allowing Mulder to knock the rifle away and overpower him. Funsch is taken away on a stretcher, to be examined by Scully at the hospital. When Mulder tells Spencer he wants access to Funsch for questioning, Spencer replies that Mulder probably knows more about Funsch's episode than he does. Mulder calls Scully, but the reception becomes fuzzy; when he looks at the phone, the display shows him a message: "ALL DONE. BYE BYE" The call goes through and Scully calls to Mulder repeatedly as he stares at the message in shock. 
<EOS>
Dr. Saul Grissom awakes to find smoke seeping through his front door. He opens the door to find a blaze has rendered his hallway impassable. Panicked, he calls 911. The operator tells him that fire units are being dispatched. Grissom grabs a fire extinguisher and tries to fight the fire, but the extinguisher is too weak. As firemen ascend the building's stairwell, Augustus Preacher Cole descends. The firemen breach Grissom's apartment and find no evidence of fire, but Grissom is dead. A cassette and article are delivered to Fox Mulder's apartment indicating Grissom's bizarre death, and Mulder asks Walter Skinner to be assigned to the case. Skinner assigns Mulder and Alex Krycek to investigate. Mulder discovers that Grissom's work involved manipulating sleep patterns. He also surreptitiously arranges for Dana Scully to perform Grissom's autopsy; she relates that the body exhibits only secondary characteristics of being burned alive - that it is as if only his body believed that it was burning. Cole and Henry Willig, members of the same squad in the Vietnam War, meet in Willig's apartment. Cole projects the image of charred Vietnamese civilians, armed with M-16s; they raise their weapons and kill Willig. Willig's postmortem reveals characteristics similar to Grissom's - both bodies reacted to circumstances that weren't occurring. Mulder discovers that both Grissom and Willig were stationed at Parris Island, and that Willig was assigned to Special Recon Force J-7, along with Cole. Mulder and Krycek investigate Cole at a psychiatric ward, only to discover he has escaped; they learn, however, that Cole could disrupt other patients' sleep cycles. Alone, Mulder meets with X, who provides him with top-secret documents detailing a military program designed to eliminate a soldier's need to sleep - a project with which Grissom was involved. He reveals that Cole hasn't slept in twenty-four years, and refers Mulder to an undisclosed survivor of SRF J-7: Salvatore Matola. Mulder hides the documents in his car. Krycek reports to Mulder that the police have Cole cornered; when they arrive on the scene, however, two officers have shot one another, and Cole has escaped. Mulder faxes X's documents to Scully, and hypothesizes to her that Cole has found a way to project his unconscious - to externalize his dreams. Mulder and Krycek meet with Salvatore Matola. He recalls SRF J-7's time as an AWOL unit in Vietnam, recounting the murder of civilians by his platoon. Matola also tells them that Dr. Grissom and Dr. Francis Girardi are responsible for performing the experiment on SRF J-7 that allows them, like Cole, to never need sleep. Mulder determines that Girardi is Cole's next target; they arrive at the train station where Girardi is expected. Mulder finds Girardi, but Cole shoots both Girardi and Mulder. Krycek finds Mulder unconscious, and not wounded - Krycek regards Mulder suspiciously, as he has no evidence of either Girardi or Cole's presence. Unperturbed, Mulder insists on reviewing the station's security cameras, where they discover an anomaly on track 17. Girardi is badly wounded by Cole's projection of SRF J-7; they attack him with scalpels. Mulder and Krycek discover Girardi's body, moments after the attack; Krycek stays with Girardi and Mulder pursues Cole. Mulder finds Cole, and tries to persuade him to testify against the military, but moments into their conversation, Krycek appears. Against Mulder's pleas, Krycek, believing Cole is armed, shoots him, killing him. When he gets back to the car, Mulder discovers X's top-secret document is gone; Scully's copy of the document has also been stolen. It is revealed that Krycek has stolen Mulder's copy, and that Krycek reports directly to the Cigarette Smoking Man. Krycek remarks that separating Mulder and Scully was a mistake, as it's served only to strengthen their resolve, and that Scully is a significant problem, much more so than ever given credit for. 
<EOS>
A psychiatric patient named Duane Barry seizes a guard's gun and kidnaps his psychiatrist, Doctor Del Hakkie. He soon holes up in a travel agency with three other hostages. Special Agent Fox Mulder is called in on the case and attempts to negotiate with Barry, as part of his psychiatric history involves alien abduction. During the negotiation there's suddenly an unexplained bright light from above and various electrical blackouts which spook Barry enough that he starts randomly shooting about, causing one of the hostages to be shot. Mulder, under the guise of a paramedic, is sent in with another to help save hostage's life. Eventually, gaining his trust, he exchanges himself as a hostage for the shot man. Mulder further gains Barry's trust with stories of his sister's own abduction, while Dana Scully combs through the FBI records for information on Barry. Barry tells Mulder that he has been abducted by aliens and the subject of various tests. We see him on an alien ship having his teeth drilled into with some kind of laser. He claims there are implants in his teeth, sinus cavities and his abdomen. After Mulder convinces him to free the two female hostages, an FBI sniper shoots Barry in the chest, seriously wounding him. Barry is taken to the hospital in an ambulance. Later, at the grocery store, as the cashier is away from the post, on a whim Scully scans the piece of metal on the laser grocery scanner and the cash register goes haywire, displaying a strange, scrambled readout on the display. Perplexed, she rushes home to tell Mulder what happened. Barry awakens in the hospital and is startled by a vision of aliens at his bedside. In a panic, he clubs a guard with a fire extinguisher and escapes. Scully calls Mulder and is leaving a message on his answering machine when she hears a noise; on investigating she's startled by Barry who's standing outside her window, peering in. At Mulder's empty apartment, the recorder picks up the sound of breaking glass and her cries for help as she's attacked. 
<EOS>
Continued from Duane Barry. While Agent Scully leaves a message on Mulder's answering machine about what happened when she scanned the metallic implant found in Duane Barry, he mysteriously appears outside her home. He breaks in through her window, attacks and kidnaps her, taking car and her gun as well. Soon after, Mulder arrives home and checks his messages. He hears Scully's message cut short by a window breaking and her screaming for help. He arrives at Scully's home and discovers that police have already established a crime scene. Scully's mother arrives, demanding to see her daughter's apartment and meets Mulder. She tells him that she had come because of a recurring dream in which Scully is taken away from her.  Mulder looks down to find blood on his hand. The next morning at F.B.I. Headquarters, A.D. Skinner briefs everyone on the search for Duane Barry and Agent Scully. Shortly after, Skinner takes Mulder off the case and orders Krycek to take Mulder home. With Scully's car, Barry is in Virginia on Route 229 until he gets pulled over by the Highway Patrol for speeding. The officer notices blood on Barry's hands and the hospital bracelet on his wrist, and orders Barry out of the car. Barry refuses, and when the highwayman gets distracted by sounds he hears Scully making from inside the trunk of the car, Barry shoots and kill him. At headquarters, Mulder listens to the recording of himself conversing with Duane Barry in the travel agency. With Krycek's help, he rewinds to the part where Barry said, "Ascend to the stars." Using a phone book, he realizes Barry is heading to Skyland Mountain, which has an ad featuring this exact phrase. Without Mulder's knowledge, while requisitioning a car, Krycek makes a call to the Smoking Man, who presumably orders him to keep Mulder from catching up to Duane and Scully. During the drive, Krycek makes comments regarding Mulder's fatigued state of mind, particularly after they drift into oncoming traffic and nearly hit a tractor-trailer. Mulder insists on continuing. At Skyland, the tram operator informs them that Duane came and went about forty-five minutes previously, and the driving journey to the summit takes about an hour. Mulder forcibly commandeers the tram, which has only just had its cables replaced and has not been tested for safety. Leaving Krycek behind, Mulder pushes the tram far above the recommended speed, only slowing down when passing the cable support towers. Just as he nears the summit, Krycek pulls his gun and beats the tram operator unconscious, before turning the tram motor off.  Confused by the lack of response over the radio, Mulder climbs onto the tram's roof and attempts to climb up to the cable. Seeing this, Krycek decides to turn the tram back on, though Mulder nearly falls from the tram in the process. At the summit, Mulder discovers Scully's car, which is empty but has blood all over the steering wheel.  Searching the trunk, he finds her cross necklace, which also has blood on it. A blinding light appears through the trees and Mulder runs toward it into a clearing, where he finds a jubilant Duane. When Mulder demands to know where Scully is, Duane only responds, "They took her!" As Mulder handcuffs Duane, the blinding light appears again, causing Duane to panic until Mulder realizes it's the spotlight of an approaching helicopter. As Duane and Mulder are patched up in a Skyland Mountain building, Mulder aggressively questions Duane, not wanting to believe that they have actually abducted Scully, and repeatedly asks Duane if he killed her. Duane insists that he made a deal: give them Scully and they would spare him from being abducted again. He then sees Krycek through the window with two other men and freaks out. Mulder, in restraining him, does not see the men.  He does see blood and some of Scully's hairs on Duane's hospital wristband, which sends him into a rage; he gets Duane by the throat and chokes him before coming to his senses. As he leaves, Duane apologizes and hopes they aren't hurting her too much with the tests. Outside the room, Mulder talks with Krycek, who he is suspicious of and orders not to let anyone in to see Duane. Approaching the window and seeing a bright light reflected in it, Mulder imagines some of the possible tests they might be performing on Scully. When he returns to the room, he is surprised to see Krycek talking to Duane and pulls him out of there. Krycek insists that Duane was gagging and he went in to help him. Their argument is cut off by the arrival of Skinner, who wants to question Duane. This is interrupted by Duane suddenly going into convulsions and dying for no apparent reason. Back at FBI headquarters, Mulder attempts to question the doctor who performed Barry's autopsy. She refuses to provide details since it was performed by the military instead of the FBI, claiming no other doctors were available. Skinner notes that since there are no obvious causes of death, the only logical one is asphyxiation related to Mulder's choking him only minutes before. Mulder suggests that Barry was poisoned and that the toxicological tests made during the autopsy were covered up. Mulder and Krycek are both ordered to take polygraph tests. Krycek meets with the Smoking Man, and suggests that they kill Mulder. However, the Smoking Man orders that Mulder be left alive, unless they want to risk turning one man's religion into a crusade. A desperate Mulder tries to visit Senator Matheson, a patron of his work, only to be discouraged from doing so by his secretive informant, X . In his car, Mulder finds spent cigarettes from the Smoking Man's meeting with Krycek. Realizing Krycek's role in Scully's abduction, Mulder submits a report to Skinner accusing Krycek of impeding his investigation and killing Barry. Skinner summons Krycek to his office, only to learn that he has disappeared. Skinner then announces to Mulder that he is officially re-opening the X-Files. Mulder meets with Margaret Scully in a park, and tries to give her Scully's necklace. Margaret returns the necklace to Mulder, asking that he give it to Scully when he finds her. Margaret also says that she had the dream again about losing her daughter; Mulder takes this as a hopeful sign that Scully may still be alive. A mournful Mulder later returns to Skyland Mountain, to the field where Scully was abducted. Seemingly alone without her, he looks up into the stars. 
<EOS>
A man, Garrett Lorre, is drinking wine outside his house and surveying a fire in Malibu Canyon, directly below him. He heads inside and remarks there is ash from the fire in his wine. He says this to a woman leaning against an interior door frame. She lights a candle as he tells her he doesn't normally send his family away to leave him free for extramarital affairs, which he implies he is having with the woman. She softly cuts him off, however. They are later in a jacuzzi. They begin to kiss, though she bites into his arm. He throws her back but she climbs back onto him as two other men jump into the tub. Somebody raises a syringe, and the victim's ashy wine-glass breaks. At FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C., Mulder enters his old office, which has been left plastic-covered and abandoned since the X-files were shut down. He goes about removing the wrap and flipping his calender to the proper month before heading to a file cabinet, where he files an X-file opened on Scully's abduction, along with her glasses and badge. He removes her necklace and stares at it briefly, before his phone rings. The Los Angeles house of the man attacked earlier is now filled with uniformed investigators. One policeman heads outside to tell Mulder, who has been tracking the case, to leave, but Mulder goes through the crime scene tape anyway, saying he doesn't care about who gets the credit for the case. He continues on to say that, in the past year, there have been six similar murders in two states, and predicts that by the end of the week, there will be two more deaths and the killers will have left the area. He goes on to state case details: smashed mirrors, each victim having been drained of blood and the presence of writing on a wall in the victim's blood. Mulder then gives a profile, saying the killers view themselves as the Unholy Trinity. The cop, apparently moved by Mulder's knowledge, apologizes and starts to introduce him to a detective standing nearby. Mulder interrupts and insists he work alone. The cop admits he's working on limited resources and Mulder says he just requires one thing. Mulder later calls a local blood blank under the guise of Marty Mulder from their payroll service, asking about a W4 form for a new employee. The woman on the line asks if he's talking about Frank, the night watchman. At the Hollywood Blood Bank, Mulder searches that facility with a flashlight and gun. He heads downstairs, where he interrupts a man who is sucking blood from a collection bag. The man tries to escape; Mulder brings him down and cuffs him. Later, the blood-sucking man is screaming about the lights in the interrogation room causing him agony. Curled up in a ball on the floor, two annoyed-looking cops ask him questions which he doesn't answer. Mulder walks in and casually sets a red light on the table which the cops are leaning on, plugs it in, and flips off the overhead lights. Now in red, and apparently able to function again, the man cuts open his hand with a fingernail and sucks the blood. Both cops wince. The man tells them he'll only talk to Mulder, so the cops leave. The man tells Mulder, "He is the father, I am the son, she is the unholy spirit." He says he didn't murder the most recent victim, comparing it to a snake eating a fly. He further claims he will never die. Mulder looks skeptical, slightly more so when the man states he can't be seen in a mirror, as Mulder is looking at the man's reflection in a mirror. Mulder, not commenting on this or the man's continued rambling, mentions the gas chamber and offers to take that off the table in exchange for the names of his two cohorts. The prisoner refuses because he believes they are the only people who can kill him. Mulder says he knows what can. At daybreak, Mulder is holding a roll of tin foil. He says he'll cover the windows in exchange for the information. The prisoner refuses this deal, so Mulder leaves. In the interrogation room, time passes quickly and the sun strikes the man. He starts to smoke and burn. The captive is dead. A man in a white coat suggests to Mulder the detainee had porphyria. Disagreeing with this hypothesis, Mulder now seems to believe the recently deceased person was a vampire. The white-coated man admits Mulder is upsetting him on several levels. Mulder ignores this and leans down to look at the dead man's arm, where he sees what the consultant in the white coat guesses is an ink stamp. He peels away some skin to reveal some lettering. In Club Tepes, where many people have a lot of piercings and unusual hairstyles, Mulder spots a woman who is looking in a makeup compact without a mirror. They make eye contact and she speaks to him. He sits and they converse. She probes into his psyche and guesses he's lost someone. Mulder looks somewhat shaken, and he notes she has a syringe in her purse. He quotes the Biblical verse the killers been writing in their victim's homes and she completes it. She then continues her evaluation of him and all but admits that she's involved with the murders. Despite this, Mulder follows her to a more private section of the club. A man at the bar, who was previously in Garret Lorey's house, eyes them as they go and bites his own hand. The woman introduces herself to Mulder as Kristen while she pricks her finger with one of the syringes in her purse. Though she offers the finger to Mulder, he refuses it. She gets up and walks to a man nearby, who takes her proffered finger, then she leads him away. Mulder follows and the man at the bar watches. Having followed Kristen to a shuttered restaurant, Mulder looks in a back window to see her sucking her companion's neck. A car drives by and the lights shine on the building, attracting both Mulder and Kristen's attention. They make eye contact and she breaks into a run. He attempts to chase her but finds the restaurant's back door locked, so he runs to the front of the building. There, he is knocked down a flight of stairs by the man who Kristen picked up at the bar. Apparently, he consented to the neck-sucking. Mulder groans from his landing on the pavement. The consenting man is later back in the restaurant and calling for Kristen. He gets punched to the ground by the observer from the bar. Both Kristen and the newcomer fall on the sufferer and consume him. Mulder is back at the restaurant, this time standing and accompanied by many cops. A forensic dentist has shown up, at his request. The dentist examines the area while Mulder searches around. He discovers Kristen's powder case and a tin of raspberry sauce with some red prints on it. Mulder instructs one of the cops to obtain fingerprints from these before heading back to the dentist, who tells him the bites are human and were made by three people. In Marty Mulder's temporary office space, Mulder is looking at a DMV record of Kristen and an X-file labeled Trinity Killers. He notes Kristen's two previous addresses were in Portland, Oregon, and Memphis, Tennessee, which is where the two previous Trinity murders were located. "The Unholy Spirit," he mutters. At Kristen's home, Mulder and more cops execute a search warrant. They find a box of veterinary needles and Mulder finds what appears to be blood-filled bread in an oven, quickly shutting the oven door. He concludes aloud that Kristen is gone and won't be coming back. At 2:15 a.m., Kristen re-enters her house and turns to find Mulder there. He identifies himself and warns her the cops are looking for her. Kristen questions why he's there alone. He doesn't give an answer. She notes that a change in the wind will bring the Malibu Canyon fire their way. They then talk about her involvement in the case. She says her father beat her and then proceeds to recount an incident where her father knocked two of her teeth out, causing her to taste blood running down her throat, a sensation she remarks was the only thing that told her she was alive. She recalls having met John in Chicago and that he beat her too. According to her, at one point, he split her lip, she retaliated by biting his lip and they then got involved with what she calls blood sports. She goes on to say that, one day, John came home with two other men and the situation became unnatural. She ran to Memphis but they followed each of her subsequent moves. She is now tired of running. She pulls Dana Scully's cross necklace from Mulder's neck. Kristen expresses that she hopes he finds the person he's lost. Mulder reveals to her that the individual she lost, John, is dead. He advises her to come back to the station with him but she disagrees, intending to clean herself up, a plan he concurs with. Later that evening, Mulder is shaving, sans mirror. Because he complains, Kristen takes his razor and says she will do it. While attempting to do so, she knicks him. He stops her from licking the blood, saying it's not who you are. They proceed to passionately kiss. Watching through the bathroom window is none other than John. At 5:47 a.m., Kristen is walking through her house when John grabs her. He tells her she can live forever and that we come back. She seems mildly disturbed but says nothing as he grabs two large knives. He continues rambling to her, expressing his love and telling her she needs to kill him, meaning Mulder. Meanwhile, Mulder is sleeping in a large chair. He awakens as Kristen approaches with one of the large knives. She tells him he has to go, blaming it on the fire. As he stands up, she starts stabbing at something. Startled, Mulder dives behind the chair, watching as the man from the bar falls. Kristen tells him that John isn't dead. Mulder takes her and they both try to escape on foot. As they head for the door, John jumps him, slamming Kristen into the wall as he does. They scuffle, Mulder wins, and he ties John up with a lamp cord. Then, Mulder grabs Kristen and heads for the garage and the car in it. As he starts the vehicle, a woman jumps onto the hood, breaks through the glass and drags him out. Meanwhile, Kristen has moved to the driver's seat and backs up, sending both Mulder and the woman to the floor. Mulder kicks the female attacker back and Kristen slams the car into her, killing her. Mulder asks Kristen if she's okay and she says she won't leave without John. Mulder moves to get him. As he does, Kristen drives away, and Mulder makes chase, eventually finding the car abandoned on the side of the road. Back in the house, Kristen is pouring gasoline inside her garage and around her house. John tells her she can't kill him because she isn't one of them. Kristen says she is and lights a match. John shrieks as the flame hits the ground. An explosion rocks the area and Mulder sees it. Later, Mulder is sitting on a patch of grass while a detachment of firefighters comb through the area that was once Kristen's house. One of them approaches Mulder and says that they found four bodies, just ashes and bones. He walks away when Mulder says nothing. Mulder stares into the distance before pulling Scully's cross from around his neck. Gripping it tightly, he turns his eyes back to the smoke. 
<EOS>
Margaret Scully is telling Fox Mulder a story about how Dana Scully exhibited guilt, after she killed a snake with a new BB gun her brothers gave her for her birthday. As the snake dies, young Dana Scully shows remorse and picks up the snake, repelling her fear of serpents. Mulder advises it is too soon to give up on her. Margaret Scully says she now knows how her daughter felt, that day in the woods. Then, an object is placed on a table near the pair; it is a tombstone, with Dana Scully's name on it. Mulder returns to his apartment, re-reading the file on Duane Barry and Scully's kidnapping on the table. He is later lying in the darkness, watching pornography, with a look of despair written across his face. The phone rings and an unknown caller informs Mulder that Scully is in Northeast Georgetown Medical Center, Washington, D.C.. Mulder speeds over to the hospital, barges down the hallways and, despite a nurse trying to stop him, bursts through the ward doors, where he finds Scully in a coma, in critical condition and on life support, as Margaret is watching Dana. Mulder snaps, demanding to know how she got into the hospital and who brought her there. He approaches a Dr. Daly and angrily asks to see the admission forms. Mulder is dragged out of the ward, threateningly screaming at Daly, worried the doctor is involved with them and swearing he will find out what they did to Scully. In a private room later, Mulder, Margaret and Dr. Daly are speaking about Scully's condition. Daly comments she is listed in critical condition, with total unawareness of self, and does not respond to external stimuli. The doctor states no-one at the hospital knows anything about Scully's arrival and admits that, because there is no recent medical history about her, he is totally at a loss regarding how to treat Scully. He can't determine why and how long she's been in this state. Mulder wants her tested for trace evidence but Daly says she's already been bathed and cleaned. Daly then mentions that Scully has very specific living terms in her will and is very clear on life support. Mulder, who signed the will as her witness, says Scully does not want to live in this condition. At Scully's bedside, a woman remarks to Mulder that she was told not to call him Fox by Scully. The woman claims Scully's soul is present. Just then, Margaret arrives and they greet each other. The woman is Scully's older sister, Melissa Scully. She says Dana is deciding whether to remain in this world, or move on. Meanwhile, inside a metaphor representing Scully's mind, Dana sits alone in a small rowboat, tied to a pier by a rope. Mulder, Melissa Scully and an unknown woman are standing on the pier. Mulder says she isn't here and Melissa tells him to stop being angry, as his negative energy is blocking her. Mulder says he needs to do more and leaves. Back at his apartment, Mulder places tape in an X shape on his window to try to call for X. However, day after day, he checks, but doesn't receive anything in is daily newspaper delivery. In the hospital, Melvin Frohike, dressed in a smart suit and with flowers, arrives. He and Mulder look at Scully's chart and Frohike spots something odd. Frohike steals the chart and all three of the Lone Gunmen then discuss it, observing how the data shows odd protein chains in the blood. The Lone Gunmen send her medical records to the so-called latest member of the group, The Thinker. He reports the protein chains are a by-product of branched DNA, the apparent cutting edge of genetic engineering, supposedly fifty years down the line. The Lone Gunmen speculate it may be an identity tracker, or even the product of grafting human to non-human DNA. Mulder asks if she'll live, to which the Lone Gunmen exchange worried glances. They reply that Scully's immune system has been decimated and that even a healthy human may not be able to fight her illness. They tell Mulder he can do nothing. Inside her mind, Scully sees the woman who spoke to her in the hospital. After introducing herself as Nurse Owens, she says she is going to look out for her and help her find her way home. Owens tells her she must leave only when it is time and that Owens will be there for her. Mulder arrives and Owens leaves, without saying a word. Another nurse arrives and says she must take some blood. She does so and Mulder looks behind, only to see a suspicious-looking man, staring. The nurse places the test-tube of blood the bedside table. Suddenly, elsewhere in the room, a male patient flatlines, so nurses and doctors rush to his aid. During the chaos, Mulder looks back at the table and notices the blood vial is gone. Mulder dashes out the door and chases the suspicious man, who manages to escape into an elevator at the last second. Mulder runs down the stairs, determined not to lose him. The chase continues into the underground parking garage, where X suddenly appears and grabs Mulder. Mulder tells X a man took Scully's blood but X instructs Mulder to forget about the escapee. Mulder retorts that X ignored his calls for help, yet now expects him to do what he says. X says he comes to Mulder when he needs him and that Mulder is his tool, not the other way round. X divulges that Mulder is leading them right to the hospital and that Mulder is not meant to know the truth. Mulder breaks loose and runs after the man once again. He closes in but the man opens fire and escapes the car park. Mulder flanks the man and demands that the man tell him who wants Scully's blood. The man doesn't say a word and instead manages to flee from Mulder, but X intercepts him, breaks his arm and tells Mulder to stay where he is. He then asks Mulder if he wants to see what it takes to find the truth and eliminates the man, execution style. Sometime thereafter, Mulder, Melissa, Dr. Daly and Margaret are again in a private room. Daly tells them that some people have lived for nine years on mechanical ventilation. He reports this is not likely to be the case with Scully, however, and that she will not improve. Margaret observes to Mulder that he and Scully had a relationship built on respect and concedes that, even though she lost her husband in the last year and is desperate not to lose Dana too, she has always respected Dana. She says it's a moment for the family but that Mulder is welcome to join them. He solemnly shakes his head, however. In Scully's dream state, the rope holding her boat snaps and Scully drifts away, into parts unknown. A pack of Morley cigarettes lies on Assistant Director Skinner's desk in his office. The Cigarette Smoking Man places a file on the desk, saying it's all there. The CSM advises Skinner that, if he is having trouble sitting on Mulder, the CSM can deal with it, with no trouble. As the CSM leaves, Mulder enters via a side door and sees the burning stub of an abandoned cigarette. Skinner tells him to sit down and asks him about rumours that he was involved in an incident in the hospital. Mulder turns the tables on Skinner by denying all knowledge, so Skinner demands to know what's going on. Mulder tells him it's simple, accusing the CSM of all wrongdoing. Even though Skinner wants to know how Mulder is so sure about this accusation, Mulder instead asks who and where the CSM is. Skinner reminds him that they work for the Department of Justice and Mulder specifies that that is exactly what he wants. Skinner says Scully was a fine agent and, more than that, he liked and respected her. In a white-lit void, Scully is lying on a wooden table, wearing a white dress. Her father, William Scully, emerges and tells Starbuck about how people repeatedly talked to him concerning the shortness of life and how children grow up fast. He never listened, however, until he realized he would never again see her, his little girl. He also declares their time to be reunited has not yet come. As he disappears, Nurse Owens returns. Echoing William Scully's sentiments, Owens says that, despite death being close to Dana tonight, her time is not over. Melissa and Mulder are speaking in the hospital cafeteria about how Mulder could spend his life hunting down who did this to Scully and it still won't bring her back. She tells him that whoever did it has an equal horror coming to them. A woman then approaches and asks Mulder if he has change for the cigarette machine, to which he replies that he doesn't. As Melissa is about to further question Mulder regarding what he thinks about Dana, the woman points out that there's a pack of Morley cigarettes already in the machine, not her brand. Realizing what is going on, Mulder examines the cellophane-sealed packet and finds a slip of paper with an address inside. While reaching for a cigarette inside his home, the Cigarette Smoking Man is startled by a noise. He reaches for his firearm but Mulder grabs him and hurls him back into his seat. Holding the CSM at gunpoint, Mulder demands an answer to Scully's abduction. The CSM simply says he likes Mulder and also likes Scully, which is why she was returned to him. The CSM purports his involvement is only because he believes that what he is doing is right. He admits a growing respect for Mulder but observes that Mulder cannot kill the CSM because if he does, he will never learn the truth. The CSM notes that, due to this predicament, he himself will consequently win. Mulder then slowly takes his finger off the trigger and leaves. Back in his office, Mulder prints off a resignation letter for Walter Skinner and is packing away his own belongings. Skinner enters and has a brief conversation with Mulder about his early years in the FBI. Skinner then takes the resignation letter out of his pocket and tears it in half, deeming the request for resignation as unacceptable because it seems to be motivated merely by self-punishment and defeat. Mulder realizes it was Skinner who gave him the Cigarette Smoking Man's location, and put himself at great risk by doing so. Mulder, now walking down a flight of steps, is approached by X. He gives Mulder a plane ticket and says he doesn't know why Scully was taken but can give Mulder the man who took her. He reveals that the conspirators believe Mulder will be out of town, that he has information in his apartment, and that they will break into the apartment at 8.17 p.m. X insists Mulder will be waiting, armed and ready to defend himself with terminal intensity. Later inside his apartment, Mulder sits in the darkness, ready to deliver his vengeance. Melissa knocks on his door. She relays to Mulder that Scully is weakening and encourages him to visit her. Though initially reluctant, Mulder accepts her invitation. At Scully's bedside, Mulder arrives. He takes her hand and says he feels that Scully isn't ready to leave. He doesn't know that being there will help but that he is there anyway. The next morning, Mulder arrives home and sees his apartment has been trashed, he having missed his chance to exact revenge. Struck by the seeming futility of the whole situation, he sinks to his knees and weeps. Scully, in her hospital gown, is lying in bed. Her surroundings are at first forestland but the scene fades back to her hospital ward. A nurse passes the bed and calls for Dr. Daly, as Scully has awoken. Mulder, sitting on his sofa with an expression of despair on his face, ignores his phone as it rings. He eventually picks it up as the voice machine kicks in. He broadly smiles. Out of intensive care, Scully lays in bed with her mother and sister by her side. After Mulder enters, Scully says she remembers nothing after Duane Barry kidnapped her. Mulder tells Scully to get some rest, and she says that she had the strength of his beliefs. He gives her back her crucifix necklace before he leaves. A nurse comes in and Scully asks to see Nurse Owens, as she wants to thank her for looking after her. The newly arrived nurse tells Scully that she's worked there for ten years and that there has never been a Nurse Owens at that hospital. Scully holds her cross necklace as she lies back down and stares at the ceiling. 
<EOS>
Agents Mulder and Scully are recruited by Dr. Adam Pierce to accompany him into Mount Avalon, to investigate the death of a colleague of his - a seismologist named Phil Erickson. Pierce left the project a number of weeks ago, after arguing with project leader Daniel Trepkos. Mulder is concerned about Scully, considering her recent return from her abduction, but she is insistent that she is ready to return to work. The three of them travel to the remote Mt. Avalon research base by helicopter. While Pierce investigates the condition of the project's sabotaged equipment on the surface, the agents descend to the subterranean facility where the lights are out and all three members are hiding. In the dark, Mulder is attacked by engineer Jason Ludwig. After a brief, unbelievable claim that he mistook Mulder for Trepkos. Ludwing tells the other project members, systems analyst Peter Tanaka and graduate student Jessie O'Neil, that it's safe to emerge. The three of them tell the agents that Trepkos has gone mad and disappeared. Soon afterwards, Pierce is murdered by Trepkos outside. Mulder looks at Trepkos' work, finding references to a new silicon-based lifeform existing inside the volcano. Tanaka shows signs of being seriously ill but refuses any help from Scully. When he starts convulsing, the agents try to take him out on a stretcher but he runs off into the woods, dying when a tentacle bursts out of his upper chest. Performing an autopsy, Scully believes that spores grew inside Tanaka's body but eventually outgrew his body, resulting in his death. Mulder contacts the CDC, to have them evacuate and quarantine the site. Mulder and Ludwig head into the volcano in search of Trepkos, who kills Ludwig with a flare gun and then burns his corpse. Based on her research, Scully believes that the spore dies soon after exposure to the air and that one would have to be right next to it when it leaves its host for someone to be infected. Trepkos tells Mulder that Erickson pulverized a rock found in the volcano, resulting in them all being infected with the spore. Realizing that Scully may be at risk, Mulder convinces Trepkos to let him go and help her. O'Neil, with the spore about to burst from her throat, handcuffs herself to Scully. Scully manages to save herself by pushing O'Neil into another room and closing a door between them, just before the spores explode from her body in a dusty cloud. Mulder and Trepkos arrive soon thereafter. Mulder and Scully enter a month-long quarantine. Mulder tells the CDC that he and Scully were the only survivors while Trepkos heads into the volcano with O'Neil's body. 
<EOS>
The episode begins at J.A.S.D Beef in Wisconsin, where several cows are being loaded into cages and butchered. A worker named Beth Kane leaves for home, where she prepares to take a shower. Unbeknownst to her, she is being spied on by someone through a peep hole in her bathroom mirror. At the same time, her older son Gary receives a call and leaves the house, telling his younger brother that he'll be back in five minutes. Four hours later, he has not returned, and Beth calls the police. Twelve hours later, Gary Kane running around the woods in his boxers, where he is sighted by the Sheriff. He is confused and frightened, and turns around to reveal that the phrase 'HE IS ONE' has been written on his back with black ink. Mulder reviews the photos of Gary Kane. The police report states only that Gary was contacted over the phone twelve hours prior. Scully initially asks if it is just a school prank, but Mulder informs her of other victims that have had to be hospitalized due to fear and hysteria. He confirms that there have been two other victims, both in Wisconsin, with the same details. He also mentions that the local Sheriff believes the children to be possessed. The agents go to Delta Glen, Wisconsin, where Sheriff Mazeroski informs them of the Church of the Red Museum, which is a cult of vegetarians. He tells them of how they stole over 100 cattle and kept them as pets, calling it a monument to arborism. The agents go to see Gary Kane, who admits to only remembering fragments of what happened. He remembers being in the woods and falling, and claims that a spirit entered him. Mulder presses further, and Gary describes it as an animal spirit. Scully meets Gary's younger brother, Stevie. She asks if he can identify who his brother talked to. Stevie can't, but the same person who spied on Beth is shown to be spying on Scully. The agents leave the house, where the sheriff tells them that Gary was a good kid, and that he recently gave up football. Mulder asks where he can find a good hotel. Scully and Mulder discuss the Church while eating ribs. Mulder explains that it's an old philosophy. The philosophy states that one can become open to enlightened spirits. They see one of the cult members walking past the restaurant, where he is promptly harassed by townsfolk. Mulder chases them off, and one of the bullies reveals himself to the Sheriff's son, Rick. Rick drives his girlfriend home in his truck. While she is walking down the street to her house, she hears a strange noise coming from the alley. When she goes to investigate, she finds a whimpering dog. The young woman, while she is distracted, is gagged and abducted. The next day, the same young woman is found wandering the woods in her bra and panties, scared and terrified of the flora and fauna around her, seeing massive black crows and thousands of crawling insects in the ground. Scully finds that she has trace amounts of what she thinks is an opiate, and dangerously high levels of something known as scopolamine. In small doses, it is used for motion sickness, but large doses make it a powerful anesthetic and hallucinogen, used by Columbian gangs. It is also a controlled substance, only purchasable by doctors. Scully has done a background check on Odin, revealing that he used to be Doctor Herman, who left his hospital after being investigated for what Scully describes as performing without a license. The agents arrive at Odin's residence looking to speak with him. He denies them entrance, stating that they are meat-eaters and that their presence would desecrate the kitchen. Mulder asks Odin to step outside, which he refuses until he is arrested and taken to the Sheriff's office. Odin claims that he has never worked with scopolamine, after which Mulder asks if his religion allows for revenge. Odin merely states that the meat-eaters will be cleansed. That night, a young pilot and Dr. Gerald Larson are in a small plane, Dr. Larson clutching a metal briefcase. The young man, tells the doctor that they are low on oil pressure. Dr. Larson asks the pilot how far they are from the airport, and the young man indicates that they won't make it, and will have to make an emergency landing. At this point, the pilot seems to lose control of the plane, as it stalls, crashes, and bursts into flames upon hitting the ground. Firefighters arrive the next morning along with Scully, Mulder and Sheriff Mazeroski. Dr. Larson was the doctor who delivered Mazeroski's boy when he was born. He shows them the briefcase, which is loaded with money, and a bag containing a vial of an unknown chemical. Scully's research finds that all of the children who were abducted were delivered by Dr. Larson, even those in different locations. Forms in the briefcase were found to be credit card numbers belonging to the victims' families. Mulder suggests that this might have been used to track the families. The members of the cult are seen walking into the forest while one of the two men who were injecting the hormones into the cattle lets out several cows to graze. His partner leaves as someone in a blue car pulls up. Without any sort of warning, the driver, revealed to be the Crew Cut Man, shoots the first man in the head at point-blank range and leaves. Meanwhile, Rick and a friend are sitting in his truck at night, drinking beer when his friend leaves the car to urinate. Rick is attacked by an unknown assailant and is gone by the time his friend returns. The next day, the police discover Rick, lying face-down on the ground with the same words on his back. His father rolls him over, revealing that his son is dead of a gunshot wound to the forehead. The Crew Cut Man, is shown putting a pistol into the trunk of his car. Presumably, he uses a different pistol for each of his assassinations since there are two pistols in the car's trunk. Scully tells Mulder information she found on a man named Gerd Thomas, the owner of the houst and the video tapes. While Mulder is driving, Scully locks eyes on the Crew Cut Man driving the opposite direction. She says that she knows the man's face, but can't remember from where. Gerd Thomas is taken in for questioning. He confesses that he is 'a sick man', and eventually reveals that he is the one who kidnapped the kids, but claims to have never murdered anyone. He tells the agents that he loved the kids, and wrote on their backs because they had become 'monsters', due to Dr. Larson's tests. Scully seems to remember the man from earlier and leaves the room. Thomas tells Mulder that Larson was using the children to inoculate cattle with some unknown substance. Scully returns and tells Mulder that she believes that Thomas is telling the truth. Rick's toxicology test couldn't be analyzed because it contained compounds derived from the Purity Control sample - alien DNA, the same substance found in the Erlenmeyer Flask. Scully tells Mulder that the man she saw is the same man who murdered Deep Throat. Mulder states that he wants to take the Crew Cut Man alive. Mulder arranges with Odin for the remaining children to be taken by Scully and the Sheriff to the Red Museum for protection. Mulder goes alone to the J.A.S.D. Beef slaughterhouse to find the Crew Cut Man preparing the building for an arson fire. After a scuffle where Mulder loses his gun, the Crew Cut Man locks Mulder in a beef locker and prepares to ignite the blaze. Scully, the Sheriff and Deputies arrive, causing a short standoff that ends with the Sheriff emptying his pistol into the Crew Cut Man and sobbing. 
<EOS>
At nighttime, a Victorian mansion housing the Excelsis Dei convalescent home stands alone. A female employee walks up the entrance stairs and enters the building. Inside, two staff members are watching a boxing match on television. As the female employee enters, the two staff members begin mock boxing, apparently to show off. Unimpressed, the woman attempts to discuss their work responsibilities. She is informed that a patient died that afternoon. After asking if anyone bothered to change her room, the female worker receives a sarcastic comment that the other workers left it for her. She picks fresh bed clothing and leaves for a room with two elderly men in it, who are also watching the boxing match. She flips off the television and secures one of them to the bed with velcro restraint straps because he gropes her. After she is done, she leaves for the deceased woman's room and begins cleaning it up. Without warning, the door slams shuts and locks. The bed rolls across the room, further barricading the door. The nurse is unable to move it. The wrist restraints open themselves and she is then thrown onto the bed and secured to it by some unseen force. The scene closes with her screaming for help with no response. Scully is watching something on Mulder's television set in his office when he enters. After a brief exchange on the previous contents of his VCR, they talk about the video she is watching. It is the nurse shown from the opening of the show, Michelle Charters. Scully says that Charters claims she was raped by a spirit. Mulder immediately replies that he has X-files on similar unsubstantiated incidents and heads to his file cabinet, but Scully says she has been there since six o'clock looking through them. Mulder says none of the cases have been substantiated. Scully says she knows that but this case is different because Charters is suing the federal government, claiming that she knows the identity of the spirit who assaulted her. {The basis for a lawsuit against the federal government is never explained.} Cut to Charters, in person. She says that the spirit is Hal Arden, and she knows this because she has been bathing him for five years and recognized his scent. She protests against Scully and Mulder's need for evidence, saying she did not fabricate the rape story. Scully and Mulder visit the convalescent home to talk to Hal Arden, the man Charters had secured to his bed prior to her attack. Despite his slight deafness and his audible opinions on Scully's looks, they manage to ask him about the lawsuit. Arden says that he may have one foot in the grave, but he certainly can't fly down hallways spreading amore. Now we cut to the exterior of the home, and Scully and Mulder are conversing with Mrs. Dawson, a worker with managerial capacities. It is revealed over the course of their conversation that Arden has Alzheimer's, which seems to contradict his behavior. Upstairs, the two elderly men, Arden and Stan Philips, are talking. Stan wants to know what Arden said to the two agents, and it appears they are both covering something up. Stan removes a pill from his nightstand and Arden asks where he got it. Stan replies that he knows where he keeps them. He swallows the pill. Arden says he wants one and threatens to rat him out if Stan does not comply. Stan stares at Arden. Scully and Mulder are still talking with Dawson, this time in her office. She tells them that Charters has filed three different insurance claims while working at the home. As Mulder questions her, one of the male nurses from the teaser bursts in and interrupts, saying that Arden is choking to death. They all run to the room. Scully barks medical orders at the orderly and begins CPR on Arden. The scene cuts out as Scully says she is losing Arden. Arden is being wheeled away in a gurney; he is dead. Scully is conversing with his doctor, Grago, while Mulder looks on. Grago says he has been attempting to treat Arden's Alzheimer's with an experimental drug called Deprenyl. While Scully says that she has read the benefits are only marginal at best, he maintains that the patients in the home have been proving otherwise. He informs her that before Arden started taking the drug, he could barely finish a sentence. Scully asks if she can see his other patients, and the doctor consents. Meanwhile, Stan is conversing with a male nurse, Gung, who seems to be the supplier of Stan's pills. Gung says Stan been taking too many and he is not going to give him any more. Stan waves him off. Back to the agents. They are conversing with more patients on the Deprenyl trial, like Leo Kroitzer, once a famed artist, and an old babbling woman named Dorothy. Leo hints that it is not the Deprenyl that is making him better, but he is interrupted by the dinner call before he can elaborate. Once the patients are ushered out, Mulder makes to leave and we cut to their hotel, where they are checking out. Scully thinks there is something to this case, while Mulder believes it to be a giant goose egg. Scully persists, naming raised acetylcholine levels and fungal disease as possible causes for the rape to have occurred. Though Mulder looks skeptical, he agrees to stay for another day. Back at Excelsis Dei, Leo is angling for more pills from Gung, but Gung refuses. Down the hall, Stan is arguing with his daughter, Mrs. Kelly, saying he wants to stay in the home. Scully and Mulder appear and ask to speak with Stan, but they settle for Kelly. She tells them that Stan's improvement has been pronounced since he was first admitted three years ago. Upstairs, her father makes a break to get away from the abusive orderly who is packing for him, by running upstairs to the fourth floor and through a window onto the roof. The orderly follows him and steps onto the roof, only to be knocked off of it by an unseen force. He grabs the ledge and hangs on, calling out for help. Mulder runs to save him but despite his efforts, the orderly falls to his death. Mulder is in Stan's room when Grago enters. Mulder believes that Stan was involved in both Arden and the orderly's death. Mulder asks if Arden's autopsy report is ready yet, and they leave to see if it is. Meanwhile, Scully is conversing with Laura Kelly when she hears Charters arguing with Dawson. Apparently Charters is the only one who signed in today. Charters leaves as Scully walks over to them, and before Scully has a chance to talk to Dawson, she hears Dorothy talking to someone in the next room. Both of them walk over to Dorothy, and Dawson tells her to go back to her room. Dorothy says they're all in there, but a glance in the room shows it to be empty. Dawson begins to wheel her back inside, but Dorothy grabs the wall, stopping herself from being wheeled in. She starts to tell someone not to touch her, and Scully is shown surrounded by three ghostly figures she does not see. Looking uncomfortable, the agent excuses herself, and as she walks down the hall, the ghosts are seen following her. Back with Mulder, the autopsy reports are in. Grago notes that there is ibotenic acid present in Hal Arden's blood, which is some sort of poison. Scully enters and they give her the post-mortem. She says there are only trace amounts, so he may not have necessarily been poisoned. However, that small amount in his system could cause hallucinations. Charters walks in and tells them all to come quickly, and she leads them to a room that has had a wall entirely repainted with a large portrait. Leo is up on a ladder working on the corner. Mulder, seeing something in the painting, inquires where Gung is, and he heads downstairs to find him. After looking around, he finds a door with a padlock, which he breaks open with a metal object he finds on the floor. Inside, Mulder finds a massive amount of mushrooms and an orderly, now deceased, who had failed to show up for work that morning, buried in the dirt on the floor. Scully, Mulder, Dawson, and Grego are talking to Gung in an empty room. Gung admits that the mushrooms are his, and he has been giving them to the patients. Nevertheless, he claims that angry spirits are responsible for the deaths, not him. Mulder says they have to make sure no one takes anymore of the mushroom pills, so Scully, Mulder, and Gung leave for the basement where the pills are kept. When they get there, Gung finds the jar empty. Mulder pulls Scully aside and tells her he thinks that she has been right about the medication, only that it is the mushrooms that have been causing all of the incidents, not the Deprenyl. Scully disagrees, saying that mushrooms only cause hallucinations, they do not raise the dead. Mulder maintains that whatever has been happening has something to do with the pills, and that something has been released in the home. Scully has no response for his theory. In Stan's room, Stan shakily takes three of the mushroom pills as his daughter enters. In the hall, Dorothy is continually telling someone to go away, and she tells Laura to run while she can. Ghosts are seen walking toward her. Leo calls for Dorothy and the old lady wheels herself to him as he collapses. When she sees him, there are ghosts bent over him. As Laura walks over to look, Leo is dragged back and the door is slammed shut. Behind them, someone screams. Down below, Scully and Mulder hear it and begin to run toward the sound. Mulder, getting there first, finds a bloodied Charters in a bathroom and witnesses her thrown across the room and against a wall by an unseen force. As Scully arrives, the door slams shut, separating them and locking Mulder and the nurse inside. Water begins bursting from all the faucets. Mulder yells for Scully to turn off the water main as she watches water start flowing under the door. Grego and Dawson arrive as she starts yanking on the door. She asks if they know where the water main is, but they do not, so she runs to find Gung. Inside the bathroom, the water has reached Mulder's knees. Scully and Gung reach the main water valve, but it appears to be stuck. Scully leaves to find something to force it. Back in the bathroom, Mulder and Charters are hanging off the ceiling pipes, trying to stay above the ever-rising water. Meanwhile, Scully is running down the hall, but Laura stops her, saying her father needs help. She looks in to see Stan choking, and runs from the room to get help. Finding Grego, she tells him to go take care of Stan before going back to yanking on the door. Suddenly, the doors bust open, sending with it all the water that has collected in the room, and drenching Scully and Dawson. Grego and Laura are standing over a dying Stan when Dorothy wheels up, gleefully expressing that they're all gone. A voiceover ensues, showing that the patients at the facility are still alive, while Scully says that Gung has been remanded to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Grego's Deprenyl studies have been suspended. All progress in the Alzheimer's patients is revealed to have been caused by Gung's mushroom pills, not the Dephrenyl, and their improved mental health is is now deteriorating. Ultimately, the other, seemingly spiritual events at Excelsis Dei remain unexplained. 
<EOS>
A pregnant police detective in Aubrey, Missouri, has frightening visions. She managed, using them, to locate and find a body. Mulder and Scully identify the remains as a missing FBI agent who disappeared with his partner 50 years ago. They are puzzled by the revelations of the detective.  A lady enters a room, and tells a guy named Ryan that she is pregnant. During the conversation, Ryan receives a call. After he puts down the phone, he tells the pregnant lady to meet him at a motel where they can talk. Cut to the motel, the pregnant lady starts to hallucinate while entering the motel room, and she sees a man taking a dead body out of a truck and carrying it to bury somewhere. Through this vision, she manages to locate the dead body and dig it out from where it was buried. With dead body, she also finds a badge that says FBI on it.  Cut to the FBI headquarters, where Scully and Mulder are discussing the teeth X-ray to determine the match. Scully asks Mulder who they belong to. Mulder replies, Special Agent Sam Chenny and also adds that he was an FBI agent 40 years ago and was a legend investigating serial murders. His partner and Sam Chenny disappeared while investigating serial murders in 1942 until his body was found the pregnant woman, which is known to be a local detective.   Cut to the crime scene, the pregnant woman (BJ) has conversation with Mulder and Scully about how she found the body. She lies to them that she was having problems with the car and she saw a dog digging far away at night.  Cut to the Coroner's office, Scully is conducting an autopsy on the corpse. They discuss the case in 1942 which was being investigated by Agent Sam Chenny when he disappeared. BJ enters the room while Scully and Mulder are talking and ask them if they have made any progress on the case. Looking at the agent same Chenny's Sculton , BJ sees another vision where Agent Sammy is being tortured by the killer.  Cut to the washroom, where Agent Scully has a brief conversion with Detective BJ in which BJ talks about the nightmares. She says that it's always that the same in the house and feels almost familiar; she recognizes the man but doesn't know him. They return to the office where Mulder is trying to find the letter on Sculton which he can't identify. BJ seems to identify the letter and says the letters are brother. Detective Telmore enters the room and looks at the files, and says these are crime scene photos and they are sealed, and that no one has access to them. Mulder replied that he is mistaken and they are from 1942 serial murders. Telmore looks at the files again and sees the date; he is stunned because the same kind of incident took place 3 days ago where a young woman was murdered and the word sister was carved onto her chest and painted on the wall. Meanwhile, another detective enters the room and says that there has been another one.  Cut to the crime scene of another murder, where a woman named Johnson was murdered in the same way. BJ looks at the dead body and identifies her and says that it's the woman in my dreams.  Cut to the Lincoln Park, Mulder, Scully and BJ talk about the BJ's dream.  BJ describes the suspect she sees in her dream. BJ looks through the old album of criminals and she identifies the guy she sees in her dreams. Scully and Mulder try to link BJ's connection to all these; Scully determines that BJ's father was a cop and she might have had seen the suspect when she was a kid and is starting to remember it all now. Scully and Mulder head to Cokely's house to interrogate the prime suspect. Cut to BJ's house, BJ has a dream and she shockingly wakes up. She has blood all over her body and heads to the mirror to check; she finds the word sister written on her chest. She has another vision and finds yet another body buried in her house. At the hospital, she identifies the guy who did to her and she says he was Cokely. Cokely was brought to the police station for questioning. Back at the motel, the blood test was identified as Cokely's blood.  Scully and Mulder goes to Mrs. Thibedeaux, a woman who was attacked by Cokely 40 years ago. While questioning, Mulder somehow finds out that Mrs. Thibedeaux was pregnant with Cokely's child. Then she admits it and tells them that she gave the child up for adoption. Adding more, she says that the child was a spawn of evil. She hands over the adoption agency's address. Cut to the motel, Scully and Mulder are discussing the murder, and Mulder comes to the conclusion that Cokely is not responsible for the murder but Cokely's grandson or daughter are genetically connected and somehow Cokely's memory was inherited killings people's from Cokely.  Meanwhile, they find out that Thibedeaux and Cokely's son is BJ's father. The conclusion is that BJ is responsible for the murders.  BJ goes to Thibedeaux's house to kill her but finds out that she is her granddaughter. Instead, she goes to Cokely's house to him and Mulder follows. She eventually kills Cokely and attacks Mulder. The episode ends with BJ in prison. A voice-over from Scully reports that BJ has been placed on suicide watch, after she tried, unsuccessfully, to self-abort her child. In her cell, BJ rests her hands fearfully on her stomach, terrified at the thought of what her child's legacy will be. 
<EOS>
In Minneapolis, Minnesota, a funeral is held for a young woman, Jennifer. During the eulogy, a strange man watches the speech from the entrance door and later approaches the open casket of Jennifer, touching her hair almost lovingly. Later that night the funeral director is startled by a noise, and for a split second, he sees a demon. After a little shock he realizes that the man at the doorway is actually his assistant, Donald Pfaster. When questioned as to why he is working so late, Pfaster is evasive. The funeral director notices a pair of scissors in Pfaster's hand and chunks of hair lying about. He opens Jennifer's casket to find that a good portion of her hair has been crudely cut off. Sickened and outraged, the funeral director fires Pfaster, who wordlessly turns and leaves. FBI Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are called to Minneapolis by Agent Moe Bocks, who discovered an opened grave and a desecrated body at the local cemetery. Mulder uncharacteristically discounts Bock's theory that aliens are involved and suggests they search the area for footprints. Meanwhile, Pfaster interviews for a new job performing deliveries for Ficicello Frozen Foods. Two more bodies turn up with their hair and fingernails removed. Mulder believes this is the work of an escalating fetishist who may result to murder to keep up his desires for bodies. Scully attempts to keep her growing unease to herself and writes up a field report on necrophilia. Her corpse later turns up in an abandoned lot with her hair cut off and entire fingers removed. Scully becomes increasingly disturbed by the case, but insists to Mulder that she is fine. Having gotten himself the job, Pfaster makes his first delivery to a home in an upscale neighbourhood, and is entranced by the hair of one of the family's daughters; he asks to wash his hands in the bathroom and picks some of her hair from the wastebasket, smelling it reverently. One of the prostitute's friends fails to identify the suspect from a line of men, which leads Mulder to suspect the killer has no criminal record, making him much more difficult to find; he decides to go back to the profile, specifically in regards to the killer's intense hatred for women. Pfaster attends night class and is attracted to a classmate's hair. He follows her to her car and tries to ingratiate himself with a question about their homework. His suspicious behaviour makes the woman uneasy, and when he tries to attack her, she kicks him in the testicles and flees, leading to his arrest. Scully performs an autopsy on the prostitute, but has an unexplained vision of herself on the autopsy table, with some sort of monster looking down on her. Bocks call the agents to the jail, where they have what they think is their suspect; although this man is not the killer, he happens to be in a cell across the way from Pfaster. As the agents question the suspect, Pfaster becomes entranced by Scully's hair; as the agents leave, Scully notices Pfaster's staring and is unnerved by it. She volunteers to take the body back to Washington for fingerprint and evidence analysis, again telling Mulder she can handle herself when he shows concern. After they leave, Pfaster learns Scully's name from the man they had questioned, and is released soon after when his classmate declines to press charges. Scully returns to Washington and meets with social worker Karen Kosseff. During the meeting she tells the social worker that she doesn't want Mulder to feel like he has to protect her. At the fingerprint analysis lab, the technician tells Scully he found a fingerprint on one of the prostitute's remaining fingernails, possibly left during the struggle. Afterwards, Scully, about to return to Minneapolis is told that she was called by someone, although Mulder nor Bocks had done so. Tracing the fingerprint to Pfaster from his recent arrest, Bocks has Pfaster's home raided, finding some human hair and one of the prostitute's fingers in the refrigerator. Pfaster follows Scully as she leaves the airport and forces her car off the road. Scully's empty car is found and Mulder and Bocks send the paint stains found on the back in for analysis. Pfaster brings Scully to an abandoned house where she is bound and gagged, then locked in a closet while he prepares a bath for her. As Pfaster opens the closet door to check on her, Scully momentarily sees him change forms, until the demon appears again. After the tub has been filled, Pfaster tells Scully he is going to bathe her. Knowing she will be killed, Scully shoves Pfaster into the tub and flees, but finds all the doors locked. Pfaster retrieves her gun and begins stalking her through the house, which he is apparently familiar with. Using the paint on the car, the agents trace it back to Pfaster's mother, who died a year ago, and search for any local residences she may have had before she died. When Pfaster reaches the closet that Scully is hiding in, he smiles and slowly opens the door. Scully sprays him in the face with bug repellent and flees, but Pfaster chases her down. A struggle leads to them falling down the stairs, whereupon agents led by Mulder and Bocks break down the front door and arrest Pfaster. Scully insists she is okay, but as Pfaster is taken away she breaks down and cries in Mulder's arms. 
<EOS>
In fictional Milford Haven, New Hampshire, a 4-person high school parent teacher committee meet to discuss various social events. The adults initially appear to be socially conservative, debating whether students should perform the musical Grease or Jesus Christ Superstar because that former uses the F word and the latter is not appropriate for this high school. However, when the group ends the meeting in a prayer, they light a candle and recite a black magic chant to the lords of darkness. Later, a group of students go out into the woods at night to play with black magic at a witches altar, an attempt of the two boys to score with the two girls in the group. Their reading from a black magic book causes unexplainable things to happen, causing all but one of the teenagers to flee. The remaining teen, Jerry Stevens, is choked to death by an unseen force. His mutilated body is discovered the next day, leading Fox Mulder and Dana Scully to investigate. Locals, including the PTC faculty members, claim that the children have unleashed a demonic force with their rituals; a theory which is given validity by strange occurrences, such as frogs falling from the sky and water in the drinking fountain draining counter-clockwise, contrary to the Coriolis effect. The agents find a scrap of the black magic book in the woods, which they're able to trace to a book from the school library. The check-out card for Witch Hunt: A History of the Occult in America was last checked-out by Dave Duran, the surviving boy from the woods. When they enter the science class to speak to him, a clearly nervous and scared Duran tries to flee through the window, but is restrained by Mulder. He retells the fateful night's events to the agents. One of the faculty members, Jim Ausbury suspects one of his colleagues killed the boy, but the others believe it was an outside force. Unknown to the agents, substitute teacher Mrs. Paddock is behind the murder, keeping the eyes and heart of the victim in her desk. Ausbury's stepdaughter, Shannon, one of the girls in the woods, suffers a breakdown during science class while dissecting a pig fetus, where the dead animal appears to begin to reanimate. Meeting with Mulder and Scully, Shannon tearfully tells them that Ausbury and the other PTC faculty repeatedly raped and impregnated her as part of their rituals, sacrificing her babies and burying them under the dirt basement floor. She also tells them of her younger sister who was killed in a ritual at 8 years old. When the agents confront Ausbury with the accusations, he is shocked and denies them. Shannon's mother, who was not implicated, denies the pregnancy stories, but does admit to the sister's death. However, it was a natural crib death at 8-weeks, not ritualistic as described by Shannon. Shannon stays after school to make up her assignment of dissecting the pig. Mrs. Paddock takes her bracelet and uses it as part of a spell that causes Shannon to slit her wrists with the dissection scalpel. When Ausbury learns that the other faculty members plan to use Shannon as a scapegoat for Stevens' death, he admits the sect's existence to Mulder. He confirms that rituals did happen while Shannon was present, but said that exposure to sensational media coverage led her to falsely remember the sexual abuse. Meanwhile, Scully researches Mrs. Paddock and finds that no one knows anything about her or her background or even how she was hired. During a sudden power outage, Mrs. Paddock steals Scully's pen and uses it to impersonate her in a call to Mulder, pretending to be in trouble. Mulder handcuffs Ausbury in the basement to prevent his possible escape, then leaves to help Scully. Soon after, a giant constrictor snake appears and devours Ausbury. Mulder arrives at the school, where Scully claims that she never called him. They find Mrs. Paddock seemingly attacked by the remaining faculty members, and go to search for them. The faculty members capture the two agents, convinced that they need to perform a sacrifice to regain favor with the Devil and make up for their diluted faith before it is too late. As they are about to kill Mulder and Scully, Mrs. Paddock's remote control causes them to instead kill each other, confirming that their attempt was indeed too late. The agents escape their bonds and find Mrs. Paddock missing, with only a parting message on the chalkboard stating, "Goodbye. It's been nice working with you." 
<EOS>
In Folkstone, North Carolina, Jack McAlpin, an agitated Marine Corps private, drives his car into a tree after several hallucinatory episodes and is apparently killed. On the tree is a veve, a drawn voodoo religious symbol. McAlpin is the second purported suicide among troops stationed at an INS compound processing refugees from Haiti. Fox Mulder and Dana Scully visit the compound to investigate McAlpin's death. There, a young boy named Chester Bonaparte sells a good luck charm to Mulder. After meeting with Colonel Wharton, head of the compound, Mulder meets with an imprisoned refugee, Pierre Bauvais, and an associate of McAlpin's, Harry Dunham. When Scully attempts to perform an autopsy on McAlpin's body, she finds a dog carcass in its place at the morgue. While driving down the road, Mulder and Scully discover a still-living McAlpin, who doesn't remember what has happened to him. Tetrodotoxin, a chemical Mulder believes is part of Haitian zombification rituals, is found in McAlpin's blood. The agents go to the local graveyard to investigate the corpse of the other dead soldier, but find the grave robbed. They also find Chester, who collects frogs at the cemetery and sells them to Bauvais. Dunham approaches Mulder, telling him that Wharton has begun abusing the refugees as a means of retaliation against Bauvais; Wharton denies the accusations, but later has Bauvais beaten to death. Scully cuts her hand on the thorn of a twig left in her car. When she drives off, a veve is seen on the ground under her car. Mulder has a meeting with X, who tells him that he and Scully will soon be called back to Washington and that the camp will be restricted to military personnel only. Mulder believes Wharton is persecuting the refugees after the suicide of some of his men during a previous trip to Haiti. Scully finds Dunham dead in a bathtub, and Mulder catches McAlpin with a knife nearby. Although he has no recollection of the event, McAlpin confesses to the murder under the influence of Wharton, who tells the agents that Bauvais committed suicide and that their investigation is over. McAlpin's wife provides the agents with a photo of Wharton with Bauvais in Haiti, causing the agents to go through his office. They find that both Dunham and McAlpin had filed complaints against Wharton over his treatment of the detainees. The agents head to the cemetery, where Wharton is performing a voodoo rite over Bauvais' coffin. When Mulder confronts him, Wharton harms him through sympathetic magic. Meanwhile, in a hallucinatory episode, a man emerges from the small cut in Scully's hand and strangles her, but the illusion disappears when she grabs the charm Chester sold them. Bauvais appears and stops Wharton by blowing zombie powder in his face. Scully arrives to assist Mulder and pronounces Wharton dead. The next day the agents say goodbye to McAlpin, who reveals that Chester was a boy who had died in the riot six weeks earlier. The episode ends with Wharton being unwittingly buried alive by the graveyard watchman. 
<EOS>
Mulder is being frantically wheeled into a hospital in a state of severe hypothermia and panicking doctors. They place him into a tub of warm water to raise his temperature. Scully bursts through the door and desperately tries to tell the doctors that the cold is the only thing keeping him alive and that warming Mulder up will kill him. Two weeks prior, in the Arctic, a boat sees a UFO hovering for long periods, then accelerating suddenly and crashing in the water a short distance away. They embark toward the crash site. At an abortion clinic in Scranton, Pennsylvania, what appears to be a regular doctor who sees a TV news report on the boat hauling a rescued fighter pilot from the sea. When he sees the man, he becomes hysterical and runs out of the room. He bursts through a set of double doors, and runs right into the same man. A tall, menacing figure, who grabs the doctor and asks where he is. The doctor says he doesn't know, and the man shoves him to the floor, takes a spike weapon from his pocket and plants it into the base of the doctor's neck. The doctor's neck oozes green blood, and the man starts a fire and walks out of the building. In the X-Files office, and Mulder alerts Scully to an email he received this morning: three obituaries for three separate doctors, Dr. Landon Prince, Dr. Harvey William Buchanon and Dr. Dale Gayhart, all working in abortion clinics. They all look totally identical. Scully wonders if they're triplets, and Mulder says there is no blood connection, and he can't even find any records on them at all. Mulder then questions an officer in Scranton, who says Dr. Prince performed legal clinical abortions and went about his work quietly and that none of his family have come forward. The officer informs Mulder and Scully that they have arrested a Reverend Calvin Sistrunk, who has apparently threatened the doctors beforehand. The officer shows them a clipping an advertisement inquiring about the whereabouts of Dr.Prince that Sistrunk was carrying. It is determined that in all three cases no body has been found. Sistrunk is then brought in and shows no sympathy for Dr. Prince. Sistrunk knows nothing about the other murders and claims he found the clipping in the local newspaper. Mulder and Scully then arrive at the newspaper office, and they ask about the ad and apparently the man who placed it left no details. Scully asks Mulder why they are pursuing a case that is going nowhere and says that it makes no sense. Mulder says it sounds just like an X-File and says if they were being set up, they would have more information. Mulder suspects that there are more of these identical men and finds a pattern in the location of the murders. Mulder then asks about the phone number in the ad, and the attendant courtly tells him that the bill needs to be paid. Mulder does so and dials the number. Scully says 24 people have responded and the man has been seen in Syracuse. Mulder observes that location is consistent with the northward progression of the killings. FBI Special Agent Barrett Weiss answers a phone call from Mulder who asks him to find and protect a Dr. Aaron Baker. Weiss says he'll help and contact him with an address as soon as he can. Weiss arrives at the house of Baker, but before he knocks on the door, he hears voices inside, so he peeks through the window. He sees Dr. Baker seemingly having an argument with someone. Weiss decides instead to go around toward the back of the house. Inside the house, it is the killer that is arguing with Dr. Baker and he insists their plans will not succeed. He then kills Dr. Baker with the spike, in the same way he did Dr. Prince. Weiss then bursts through the back door and the demands that the man drop his weapon. The killer simply stares back. Weiss looks down and sees the body of Dr. Baker as a bubbling puddle . The killer advances on Weiss who shoots him 3 times in the chest. The man is unfazed and starts bleeding bubbling green blood. Weiss cries out in anguish, grabbing his eyes. Mulder and Scully now arrive at the house and are greeted in the street by Agent Weiss. He informs them that the house is empty and there's 2-weeks of mail in the mailbox. Mulder says he's going to look around. Weiss goes to his car, opens the trunk, revealing the disrobed body of Agent Weiss. The killer's face reverts to his former image and he calmly strolls down the street. In A.D. Skinner's office, he demands to know what Mulder was doing in Syracuse, why it was not authorized and why there is no paperwork. Mulder says to Skinner he thought they had an understanding about the X-Files as regards to the unusual cases he works on. Skinner furiously tells him that his higher-ups aren't so understanding especially when one of their agents is found dead, to Mulder's surprise. He tells Mulder in no uncertain terms that his investigation is terminated and wants a full report in the morning. In his office, Mulder receives a phone call from Scully where he tells her the latest information and wishes he knew what was happening. Scully is shocked to hear of Agent Weiss's death and tells Mulder to check his email because she's been sent an image of another identical doctor, Dr. James Dickins, who's right there in Washington. Arriving at Scully's apartment, Mulder is approached by an Agent Ambrose Chapel, working for the CIA. He says he needs to speak about the case Mulder is working on and says he has a story to tell. Ambrose tells Mulder and Scully that they've known about the identical men for a decade. The Soviets have been working on the genetics of identical twins and isolated the specific DNA material in order to reproduce it. Scully asks if the men are clones and Ambrose says "By all outward appearances." The program code-name was Gregor, the name given to every clone, and that the first one came in the 1970s. Since then, they've managed to bring a cadre of clones into the country and have infiltrated the medical industry for the purpose of sabotage of the medical system and contamination of the blood supply in the event of war. Ambrose continues, saying that in a secret agreement, someone has authorized the systematic termination of the clones, by a supposed Russian spy killer, in exchange for the science that created it. Ambrose believes that it is the Gregors that have been contacting Mulder based on his reputation and that he may protect them and bring the truth to light. Mulder wants to know how Ambrose knows they've been contacted, and Ambrose shows them the newspaper ad that he placed. Ambrose says that they are dealing with government-authorized murder, and if they get to the Gregors, maybe the truth can be heard at last. In Germantown, Maryland at night, a Gregor clone is inside a rundown warehouse. He is in a laboratory with glass tanks filled with a green fluid and monitoring equipment. He takes one last look at the tanks and leaves, getting into a waiting SUV being driven by a young woman. They pull up outside an apartment block and enter. Moments later, Mulder and Scully park in the street and then knock on the door. The woman leaves the room before Dr. Dickins answers the door. Mulder says he believes he's been trying to contact them, but before he can respond, Chapel appears behind them and the doctor with a look of terror runs away and dives right through his 4th floor apartment window to the ground. Mulder looks out the window as Scully says she'll call the Paramedics, but the man gets up and runs away. The woman says hidden. Mulder and Chapel give chase through the streets. Mulder closes in just as Dickins reaches a busy street where Mulder gets hit by a car and is winded. Scully checks on him, but Mulder tells her to stay with Dickins and don't lose him. Dickins runs into an alley, cornered. Dickins desperately looks for an escape, trying to climb a fire escape ladder, but Chapel grabs him by the ankle. Chapel's face is now the spy killer. Scully arrives, gun drawn and once again we see Chapel who claims that Dickins blindsided him and went up the fire escape. He tells Scully he's going to try and get on the roof and runs off. Scully's incredulous because the fire escape ladder is still up, out of reach. She checks the scene, finding nothing, but steps in some green goo next to a trash dumpster. She quickly dismisses it and runs off to rejoin Mulder. After she leaves, the green fluid bubbles away. The next day, Scully enters Mulder's office to check on his condition. He darkly asserts that he should have used the crosswalk. He tells Scully that if Chapel's story is true, a massive conspiracy can be brought to public eye. Scully says that this whole case is unbelievable, as is Chapel's story. Mulder says he did a check on Chapel and he is a 17-year veteran with an exemplary record. Scully simply asks why such an experienced agent would need their help and how could he let the doctor escape so easily. She then says that Dickins wasn't running from them; he was running from Chapel. Scully then suggests Chapel killed Agent Weiss and Mulder angrily asks Scully if that's what he should tell Skinner. Scully then says Mulder will chase a case until insanity and the line must be drawn. Mulder simply says that she should step away and that everyone draws their own lines. After a short, tense silence, Scully shows Mulder a pair of shoes she has only had one week, yet she stepped in a pool of green liquid last night that ate right through the sole. "Maybe I'm being paranoid, but it was in the exact same spot where Chapel said the Doctor escaped," she says coldly. Mulder suggests she send it to the lab and also review the autopsy on the Agent Weiss as no clear cause of death was able to be established. In the morgue, Scully and Mulder are examining the body and all the tests are clean, apart from the bloodwork, which showed polycythemia, an excessive production of red blood cells. According the doctors who conducted the autopsy, the blood curdled like jelly as if something caused the blood to thicken or clot prior to death. Scully speculates the use of a coagulating agent but this would have shown up in the toxicological tests. Mulder then says that Chapel mentioned that the Gregor clones were intending to contaminate the blood supply and one of those could have been used to kill the field agent. Scully has no idea, and all she can do is inspect Dr. Dickins' bag, which was recovered from his apartment. Then, Mulder is summoned by A.D. Skinner. Scully tells him Skinner will want to know why he hasn't filed his report. Mulder says he'll tell him the truth, that he was hit by a car. Mulder arrives in Skinner's office, apologizing for his late report. Skinner says that's not why he asked for Mulder. He tells Mulder that his family has been trying to reach him urgently. Mulder leaves and calls his father. However, his mother answers. Mulder is surprised and she tells him she will put him on to his dad. His dad picks up and tells Mulder that he received a very strange phone call and that he should come home as soon as possible. Mulder promises he will. After Scully tells him she has found an address from Dr. Dickins' bag, he abruptly leaves, saying he has to go home. Scully drives to the address. It is the same warehouse where Dr. Dickins was in the lab. She enters, gun drawn. She again steps into the green liquid. She peeks around a corner into the heart of the warehouse, seeing Chapel, smashing the canisters full of fluid and squashing on the strange biological contents, which ooze green liquid. Chapel raises his head, alerted to Scully's presence and pursues her. By the time he exits the warehouse, Scully is already pulling away in her car. Back at Scully's apartment, she calls Mulder, leaving a message on his answering machine telling him that she is worried that she is in danger and that she has been followed. She also informs him that she has some very important information about the case. Mulder pulls up at his family home in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. He runs up the steps towards the house and finds his father at the door. He tells Mulder that his mother needs some time and after a tight handshake, he tells Mulder that she asked him to come. Mulder's dad said it's a hard time for them all and that certainty becomes a comfort and it allows us to move on. Mulder glances through the window and sees his tearful mother and a young lady. Mulder's dad says they've buried their memories so deep after everything they've lost. Mulder asks who his mother is talking to. His dad simply says, "Your sister." A shocked Mulder runs into the sitting room and sees the young lady for himself. She simply greets him with Fox, and a shell-shocked Mulder can simply stare. Although not recognized as such by Mulder, it is the woman from Dr. Dickins' apartment. It is early morning and Mulder is tucking his worn out mother into bed. She says after so many sleepless nights now she can barely stay awake. Mulder tells her to get some sleep and closes the curtains. His mother asks if it is really Samantha. Mulder says he doesn't see who else it can be. Mulder steps out onto the porch and joins his sister. She asks him is it too late for a game of Stratego, which is the board game they were playing at the moment of her abduction. Mulder replies that it's 22 years too late. He asks her to start from the beginning. She says she was 9 or 10 when she was returned and she had no memory, but was placed with a family who raised her. She knew they weren't his parents but couldn't remember her parents, or Mulder. She then says she started having problems a few years ago, a problem which diagnosed as free-floating anxiety. Nothing worked for her until she had regression hypnotherapy. Suddenly, she remembered everything: the abductions, the tests. She seems genuine. She then tells Mulder that she is in danger. She and her father, Dr. Dickins are being hunted by a man. She then says they are visitors here - aliens. A bounty hunter has been sent to kill them all and she tells Mulder that he's met him and that his lies have hurt many. He won't stop until they're all dead and he will come for her soon. The next morning, Scully leaves her apartment in a tracksuit and the phone rings just as she leaves. It's Mulder. He tells her that Agent Chapel cannot be trusted and to call her soon. Samantha tells him that Scully won't recognize the bounty hunter as he can disguise himself as anyone. She says a normal person cannot recognize him, but she can. Scully is jogging through town and gets on a bus. She calls Mulder and again reaches his answering machine. She leaves a message saying she doesn't think she's been followed and that she'll be staying at the Vacation Village in Germantown. Unbeknownst to her, the bounty hunter is just a few seats away and heard her conversation. Mulder calls Vacation Village, and asks for Scully. The clerk says nobody has checked-in under that name. Mulder tells the man that when she does check in, that she must call Mulder. The clerk says he will, and goes to write the name down but his pencil snaps and forgets the name almost right away. Scully then enters and asks for a room. At the maximum security compound, we see each doctor safely held in cells. The Police Chief enters, relieves the guards and locks the door behind him. He walks towards the first cell and straight away the doctor realizes what is going on. The familiar sound of the spike is heard. 11:21pm: Mulder knocks on Scully's door and she lets him in while her phone rings. When she answers it, Mulder is on the other end of the line. Shock and terror is etched across Scully's face. 
<EOS>
The USS Allegiance, an American nuclear submarine, is on a cartography mission in the Beaufort Sea off the coast of Alaska when it comes across a craft below the ice that is emitting a bizarre radio signal. The Allegiance is ordered to fire upon the craft by Pacific Command. However, the craft manages to disable the sub using a high-pitched frequency, stranding it 1,000-feet below the 32-foot thick ice. Continuing from the cliffhanger ending of Colony, Scully is beaten and kidnapped by Mulder, who is really the Bounty Hunter in disguise. When the real Mulder finds the wrecked hotel room, his sister Samantha explains that the Bounty Hunter will set up a hostage exchange to swap Scully for her. She further explains that the Bounty Hunter can only be killed by piercing the base of his neck, and that his toxic alien blood is deadly to humans. Finally, Samantha reveals that the Gregors are the progeny of two original aliens, and worked at abortion clinics to gain access to fetal tissue. Their objective was to set up a colony of extraterrestrial beings on Earth, an effort that has gone as far back as the 1940s. However, because the Gregors' experiments were considered to have tainted their alien race, the Bounty Hunter was sent to kill them. Walter Skinner meets Mulder and Samantha at Mulder's apartment, telling them that the remaining Gregors are missing. Mulder receives a call from a captive Scully, who tells him that the Bounty Hunter seeks an exchange for 'another woman, whom Mulder knows'. Mulder asks Skinner to trust and help him with the exchange. Mulder and Samantha are sent to a bridge near Bethesda, while Skinner hides nearby with a sharpshooter. After the exchange takes place, Samantha attacks the Bounty Hunter. During the struggle, the sharpshooter fires upon the Bounty Hunter, and both he and Samantha fall into a river. Later, an anguished Mulder tearfully apologizes to his father, Bill, for losing her again. His father leaves him a note from Samantha, which provides Mulder with the address of a Rockville, Maryland clinic where they can meet if separated as well as an access card. Mulder hopes that she is alive, but soon gets a call from Scully reporting that Samantha's body has been found. After Scully ends the call, she discovers Samantha's body dissolving into a green liquid. Meanwhile, upon entering the clinic, Mulder finds multiple clones of Samantha working on fetuses in labs similar to that of the Gregors. They reveal that they manipulated Mulder by sending one of their own to pose as Samantha in an effort to have him protect her original clone. They also claim to know the real Samantha's location. Mulder, realizing he has been duped, initially refuses to help and attempts to leave, but is knocked unconscious by the arriving Bounty Hunter, who proceeds to kill the Samantha clones and burn down the clinic. When no trace of the clones are found, Mulder meets with X at the Kennedy Center, demanding to know the Bounty Hunter's location. X says that the Bounty Hunter's craft below the Beaufort Sea has been found, and that a naval fleet has been sent to destroy it. Mulder heads there, and e-mails Scully to tell her not to follow him. Scully goes to Skinner for help, but he refuses. Scully also summons X to Mulder's apartment with the window X. When he arrives at the door to find Scully instead of Mulder, he claims mistaken identity and leaves without helping her. On his way out, X is confronted by Skinner in an elevator. After the two men get into a vicious physical altercation, X divulges Mulder's whereabouts in the form of GPS coordinates for a location in Alaska, which Skinner provides to Scully. Mulder finds the stranded Allegiance, with its sail broken through a patch of shallow ice. Inside, he finds that the sub's crew all dead. He comes across the apparent sole survivor, whom Mulder correctly guesses is the disguised Bounty Hunter. Mulder handcuffs himself to the man and the two get into a struggle.  Mulder manages to grab his gun and fire it, but fails to hit the base of the neck and is exposed to the toxic green blood.  The Bounty Hunter claims that Samantha is still alive before dumping Mulder off the sail and submerging the Allegiance; Mulder is nearly cut in half with the sub's diving plane in the process. Mulder is discovered and rushed to the field hospital seen at the beginning of Colony, where Scully, having learned that the alien blood contains a retrovirus that dies in cold temperatures, convinces the doctors to keep him in an ice tub, saving his life. As Mulder's condition improves, Scully writes a field report crediting science with detecting the retrovirus and saving Mulder's life. She contends that the retrovirus is of a mysterious origin, and reports that neither the Bounty Hunter nor the Allegiance have been found. When Mulder regains consciousness, he tells Scully that his experiences did not give him the answers he had been searching for, but that they have given him renewed faith to keep looking. 
<EOS>
Two janitors are working on a building at night when the ground shakes violently. The two are terrified when the windows suddenly shatter due to some invisible force. Forty-five miles away, an Indian elephant is found dying on the road. The elephant is suspected to have killed a construction worker by stepping on the man in his car. Scully interviews the janitors, who tell her they were attacked by something invisible. Mulder notes that the construction worker had his spine crushed by what appeared to be an elephant's foot. Ed Meecham talks with them about the escaped Indian elephant, Ganesha, who apparently ran herself into exhaustion. He also mentions that Ganesha's cage was closed and locked. Mulder talks about 'Elephant Rebellion', asking if Ganesha had ever had any troubles. Ed insinuates that there were, but tells them to speak to Willa Ambrose. At the Fairfield Zoo, Scully and Mulder discover Ambrose leading a tour group. She shows them the cage in which Ganesha was held. The cage itself is very small, with shackles, and Ambrose informs the two that she intended to change those. The prime suspect in the release of the elephant was the Wild Again Organization, or the WAO. They believe that animals cannot live in captivity. Kyle Lang, the leader, shows Mulder and Scully video footage of the Fairfield Zoo from years ago. The footage shows an elephant being abused by zookeepers, which Kyle says is still going on. He also reveals that Willa Ambrose has been busy with a lawsuit by the Malawian government. Ambrose rescued an infant gorilla and raised her like a child, but now the government wants the gorilla back. Scully suspects the WAO, but Mulder reminds her that none of the witnesses saw an elephant. Scully suggests that if the zoo had another disaster, it would lose funding and have to close, which is what the WAO wants. Mulder leaves, saying he wishes to 'talk to the animals.' Mulder talks with Frohike and Byers over a satellite connection. Langly is not present, as he does not like the idea of his image being bounced off a satellite. Frohike tells Mulder that the Fairfield Zoo is near an air base, which is a major UFO hotspot. Byers adds that none of the animals at the Fairfield Zoo have ever taken a pregnancy to term. Scully follows a WAO member to the zoo, where he jumps the fence. She is discovered by Ed Meecham, who instructs her to follow him. The animals begin to grow violent and agitated as the WAO member tapes the tiger. A white light flashes over the area, and when the member looks again, the tiger is no longer in its cage. The member hears growling around him and is attacked by the tiger while his camera records the entire scene. Kyle Lang claims to have no knowledge of the member, and tells Scully that if the tiger killed him, it was a natural act. Scully threatens him with jail if he is lying. Mulder shows Scully the camera footage, describing the attacker as a phantom. The two agents go to see Ambrose so they may speak with her gorilla, Sophie. Ambrose is defensive, but she allows them to speak with the gorilla in sign language. She tells them that for eight months, Sophie has been moody and depressed, prompting her to remove the gorilla from its public exhibit. Across town, a pair of construction workers are on site at night when they discover the tiger. Ed is prepared to shoot and kill the tiger, but Ambrose insists that they can capture it. Ed reluctantly complies as the group tries to find the tiger. One of the construction workers tells Ambrose that the tiger was 'just here'. The tiger attacks Ambrose, but it shot by Ed. The board has withdrawn funding from the zoo, which has been closed until further notice. All of the animals are going to be shipped out to other zoos. The tiger was revealed to have also been pregnant. Mulder suggests that the animals were artificially inseminated, and that the embryos were being taken for DNA. He also thinks that Sophie is also pregnant, and afraid of losing her baby. Sophie tells Mulder and Ambrose that she is afraid of the light, and that 'baby go flying light'. At that moment, Ambrose is ordered to release Sophie into protective custody. She goes to Kyle Lang for help, pleading with him to find the gorilla a special reserve, but he initially refuses. While Sophie is being moved, Scully shows Mulder a newspaper clipping showing Kyle and Willa together, stating that the two had once worked together. At night, Kyle Lang enters the zoo, seeking Ambrose. The animals grow agitated once more as Kyle is thrown up against the wall and attacked. The next morning, Scully confronts Ambrose with a witness report of her talking to Kyle. As they leave, Mulder suggests that Ambrose may have killed Kyle, but believes that they should perform an examination on Kyle's body. As Ambrose packs her things, Scully reveals to her that Kyle died wrongfully. Ambrose tells her that Ed killed Kyle, and that the former is keeping Sophie. Mulder discovers Ed downstairs, who claims that Ambrose paid him to kill Kyle. Sophie is throwing herself up against the door of her pen out of terror. Worried that she might kill herself, Ed readies a tranquilizer and Mulder opens the door. Sophie attacks Mulder, but calms down to sign something to him. Afterwards, another bright flash of light fills the room and Sophie is gone. Scully finds Mulder on the ground and informs him that Ed had been captured trying to flee. The two leave the zoo to find Ambrose, who demands to know what happened to Sophie. Mulder shows her what Sophie signed to him, and Ambrose translates it as 'man save man'. Sophie is found dead, miles away, having been hit by a car. Ambrose and Meecham were both charged with manslaughter for the killing of Kyle. Mulder muses over the motives of the 'visitors', wondering if perhaps, 'man saves man'. 
<EOS>
The show begins with a naval ship evacuation taking place in the Norwegian Sea. Captain Barclay tells the men, who are preparing to leave, that they are committing mutiny. Lt. Harper says he will not wait for help, and that it may already be too late. Cpt. Barclay levels a gun on him, but then lets everyone go. They leave Barclay behind on the ship. Eighteen hours later, a fishing vessel, with a crew paying cards, detects a drifting boat. They radio out a call to the drifting craft but get no response. From the deck, they spy a boat full of huddled men. They throw out a rope to reel them in. We see some weak hands holding tight to it. The fisherman call out only to find upon closer inspection the entire boat is filled with the naval crew, only much weaker and decrepit. At Bethesda Naval Hospital, Mulder and Scully meet and speak about a missing Navy ship, that has been gone forty-two hours. According to Mulder, a Canadian troller picked up the only eighteen survivors, and now only one is left alive in the Intensive Care Unit. Mulder asks Scully to inspect the survivor and report back. Upon seeing the older Harper, Scully asks if there has been a mistake. A doctor questions Scully's credentials and clearance, and then asks her to leave before Scully can learn anything. Scully and Mulder discuss what she saw and then go over the route which the Navy ship took. Mulder says nine ships have disappeared in roughly the same place along the 65th parallel. Scully wonders if it is like a Bermuda Triangle of sorts. Mulder calls it a wrinkle in time. They discuss a 'Philadelphia Experiment', which was discontinued in light of the Manhattan Project. Mulder tells her about a ship which disappeared without explanation from the Philadelphia ship yard and reappeared in Norfolk, Virginia. It may have done so with the help of alien technology and the manipulation of wormholes of earth. The two then take off without telling Skinner they are investigating this space-time phenomena. In the port of Tildeskan, Norway, at a shipyard bar, Mulder and Scully look over a map with a Norwegian man. It becomes apparent that no one so far is willing to take them out to where the ship disappeared. Many of the sailors in the bar give them wry looks. Scully thinks they look afraid of their undertaking. A man comes out of the shadows and explains why the men will not take them on: ships must get a certain classification before they can go out into those kinds of waters. Enter Henry Trondheim; he recommends his ship to take them out. Trondheim says the trip will be ten hours each way. Scully wonders why everyone is so afraid and Henry tells them it is because of various mythologies. When Henry asks about the nature of their visit, Mulder gives a vague answer. Henry says he will take them for a price. Aboard the ship, Mulder looks to be sea sick. When asked why the journey is taking longer than expected, Trondheim says he has never seen the fog this thick and it is making travel difficult. Besides, Trondheim notes, they are right where they want to be. The naval ship just appeared on his radar mysteriously. As a matter of face, all of his instruments are behaving oddly. The ship appears so fast in their sight that they cannot slow down in time, causing their boat to strike it at full speed, and bounce off. Mulder and Scully climb aboard the naval ship, which Trondheim calls a ghost ship. Everything is rotted and rusted over, including the plaque saying it was built in 1991. The entire vessel appears to be abandoned and old. They go to inspect the crew quarters and the plaque mysteriously develops another layer of sediment. In the quarters, they find several decaying bodies, which appear as though they have been dead for a long period of time. Scully tries to take a sample of some residue on a dead man's hand, but the hand snaps off. Scully and Mulder hear a noise, which turns out to be Trondheim's ship starting and leaving without them. It disappears into the fog. Mulder and Scully work to get the ship running again, but it is covered in the same residue. Any work on it is impossible; and the radio is inoperable, as are the engine parts. Trondheim demands straight answers. Mulder tells him it might be the result of a government experiment, in which time might be manipulated. Suddenly, Halverson can be heard yelling from the depths of the ship. Upon discovering his head has been smashed in and is now dead, the trio hear someone moving through the ship. They go to investigate. In the galley freezer, they find Cpt. Barclay hiding with a bottle of Jack Daniels. He is aged horribly and frail. Scully interrogates him and asks about a light the crew saw. Barclay says they had power loss after that; even the sea and the wind stopped. Trondheim thinks Barclay a drunkard. Barclay differs, saying time got lost for him and all his men. In a private conversation, Mulder and Scully do not think Barclay could have killed Halverson, because Barclay is so weak. In the meantime, Trondheim commits Halverson's body to the sea, and is then attacked by Olafsson. Mulder stops the fight with Olafsson, whom he believes to be important because he has not aged. Trondheim despises him because he is a pirate and a deceiver, whose friends might have taken his boat just now. Barclay dies suddenly. Scully says he is turning into a pillar of salt. Mulder tells them to tie up Olafsson so they can get some rest. After a quick nap, Mulder and Scully begin to show signs of rapid aging. They all have--except Olafsson. They argue about what the phenomena is and who is to blame. Scully claims oxidation of cells and tissues may be caused by the very water around them, and a large metallic object could be imposing on them free radicals. The ship begins to ooze rust. Trondheim is left with Olafsson while Mulder and Scully poke around the ship. Olafsson tries to bargain with Trondheim to let him go. Mulder identifies the one pipe which has not rusted over and finds it leads to sewage processing. They find a spot where they believe Olafsson and his friends were hiding and determine the only worthy drinking water comes from there. We return to Trondheim to see he has killed Olafsson and is now drinking water from a toilet. Mulder is not happy that Olafsson is missing. He and Trondheim argue. Scully asks for blood and urine samples. After testing, Scully finds awesome amounts of salt, which is causing rapid cellular damage. Mulder does not look to be doing so well as compared to Scully and Trondheim. Trondheim wants to stop giving him rations of water. Trondheim takes to roaming the ship one night. Scully finds he is hoarding all the clean water to himself. A standoff takes place and Trondheim locks her out of the sewage hold. Scully rummages through all the crew lockers and finds a snowglobe. Next, she tears apart the kitchen and finds a can of sardines. She combines all the moisture in the entire ship and gives it to Mulder. He tells her to have it instead because as a woman she can retain water better. He will wait for rescue. The ship begins to rock violently and the concoction is lost. Mulder thinks the ship is taking on water, as the hull has finally corroded through. We then see Trondheim taking on a lot of water in the hold. He cannot get the door open and drowns. Fourteen hours later, Mulder jokes he always wanted to take a cruise when he got older. The service is terrible on this ship, he says. Scully speaks about her coma experience. She say they have nothing to fear when they die. She writes in her journal that Mulder has lost consciousness and the ship must sinking for sure. Among Halverson's belongings, she found a children's book of Norse mythology depicting the end of the world, and begins to concede that she may die. A rescue crew is seen boarding the ship and finding Scully and Mulder together. Scully awakens under the care of the same doctor who threw her out at the beginning of the episode. The doctor tells her they were only able to save Mulder because of her notes about the conditions, and that the ship sunk an hour after they were rescued, so it may no longer be examined. 
<EOS>
In the town of Gibsonton, Florida, two brothers are playing in their home outdoor swimming pool one night. However, a mysterious figure approach them from the woods surrounding their home and jumps into the pool without them noticing. As the brothers are playing, they notice something was wrong and before they left the pool, the figure emerged from the water. It was revealed to be a man with a severe skin disease all over his entire body. The man was actually the children's father and scared his children for a bit fun. After some laughs in the pool, the father told his children to go back into the house as it was late and time for them to go to bed. As the kids agreed, they left the pool but the father stayed behind to swim. However, an unknown mysterious figure was approaching the pool from the woods. The man heard the noise and was looking around to see what it was but it was too late as the unseen figure killed the father from the pool. Mulder and Scully were sent in to investigate the murder of the man known as the Alligator Man as he was an entertainer for a circus with a band of strange and talented individuals. Mulder's supernatural focus for the episode is the Fiji Mermaid, a hoax used as a sideshow attraction that first appeared in the mid-1800s. During their investigation, Mulder and Scully shift their suspicion around three of the inhabitants of the city: The Conundrum, a heavily tattooed man who never talks and will eat anything; Dr. Blockhead, a body manipulator and Jim-Jim the Dogface Boy, a former performer who later became the local sheriff. During their investigation, Scully points out to Mulder that the both of them have been wrongly suspicious of many of the circus freaks in town simply because of their abnormalities, which could be considered racial profiling of a sort. The supposed Fiji Mermaid ends up being Leonard, the underdeveloped in fetu twin of Lanny, an assistant at the hotel, who carries guests luggage to and from their vehicles. Leonard is capable of exiting and then returning into Lanny's body. Lanny mournfully suggests that the motivation behind his brother's attacks is that he is seeking a new brother, as a replacement for the alcoholic Lanny, by attempting to burrow into their side. Lanny later dies from his drinking problem, which severely damaged his liver. Scully says that his autopsy revealed many abnormalities in the arrangement of his blood system, esophagus, and other internal organs, which were almost umbilical in nature. After Leonard disconnects from Lanny for the final time, he is chased by Mulder and Scully into a circus funhouse, where their attempts to catch him prove fruitless. Outside, Leonard attacks the Conundrum as he puts out his garbage. Mulder and Scully exit the funhouse but are unable to find Leonard. They discover the Conundrum lying on the ground with a hugely distended stomach and a contented smile, suggesting that he killed and devoured Leonard. The episode ends with Dr. Blockhead philosophically commenting to Scully about how what the future really has to worry about is not abnormal circus freaks like the inhabitants of Gibsonton, but instead everyone turning into people that look like Mulder: buttoned-down suit-and-tie wearing office drones with no individuality. Meanwhile, Mulder observes the Conundrum in a state of discomfort, leading Mulder to question him about it. The Conundrum replies that the cause of his discomfort is "probably something I ate," uttering his first line in the show. As Dr. Blockhead and the Conundrum drive away, Mulder and Scully turn to each other with confused and somewhat horrified looks on their faces. 
<EOS>
The Holveys are spending their day at Lincoln Park. Teddy, their toddler, drops his ice cream and cries; the parents comfort him by giving him the elder son’s, Charlie’s, balloon. Charlie becomes upset, and insists on getting his balloon back. His father is dismissive. Meanwhile Maggie, the mother, takes Teddy to the restroom. She straps Teddy to a table and uses a stall. While she’s occupied, the strap loosens. Teddy, enamored of the balloon, follows it as it floats unnaturally from the bathroom. Maggie, realizing Teddy’s disappearance, frantically begins looking for him. The balloon leads Teddy to the park’s train tracks; a man alerts the parents, but too late - Teddy is killed. Charlie watches his weeping parents and his dead brother as the balloon slowly returns to him. Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully review a photo from the scene of the Lincoln Park accident. Mulder believes the balloon luring Teddy was pulled by someone; his hypothesis is supported, when Charles Chuck Burks, the King of Digital Imaging, reveals a translucent figure unseen in the original photo. The figure is composed of electromagnetic energy, an energy commonly associated with phantoms. Mulder presents the childproof halter Teddy escaped from as further evidence of poltergeist activity. In his office, Mulder and Scully discuss the swastika on the back of Charlie’s hand; Mulder explains that some cultures consider a backwards-facing swastika to have protective powers. Scully believes the Holvey children are victims of Munchausen syndrome by proxy - a form of abuse characterized by a parent or caretaker inducing illness in a child in order to gain attention or status. Teddy’s medical records corroborate Scully’s hypothesis, as does Golda’s accusation that Charlie is evil. The agents interview Steve Holvey to discuss Golda. Steve relates Golda’s aberrant behavior, which focuses on protection from evil spirits. Steve suspects Golda’s involvement in Teddy’s death. Scully refers Steve to a social worker, and asks that Charlie be brought to see her. In the Holvey household, Scully observes Golda sprinkling a substance into Charlie’s food. Before he can eat, Steve takes him to see the social worker; something Maggie is adamantly opposed to. While in the garage, Steve is killed trying to reset the malfunctioning garage door. A police investigation into Steve’s death ensues. A police officer indicates to Scully Golda’s room, which is filled with candles and dead roosters. Meanwhile, Mulder discovers a grey powder in the garage. When analyzed by the FBI chem lab, the substance contains nothing organic or inorganic, and, according to the technicians, it inixplicably doesn’t exist. Mulder shows the substance to Chuck, who identifies it as an apport - something which can appear from thin air. It occurs in the presence of spirit beings or during bilocation, a phenomenon where a person’s energy is transported to a different location. As ever, Scully remains skeptical. At the Holvey household, Charlie listens as Golda and three Căluşari perform a ritual. Charlie’s image appears in the smoke, yelling in Romanian. Meanwhile, the social worker Karen Kosseff arrives. She and Maggie discover Charlie laying in the hallway outside of Golda’s door. Furious, Maggie enters the room and demands everyone leave. Golda grabs Charlie, locks the door, and prepares a ritual blade. Meanwhile, the social worker calls 911 and informs Mulder and Scully, who have just arrived. Golda prepares to cut Charlie’s hand, but flying objects knocks her down. As she turns to face Charlie, he thrusts the dead roosters at her, who return to life and attack her. The agents breach the door; Golda is dead, as are the reanimated roosters. Michael, masquerading as Charlie, demands Maggie take him home. Mulder and Scully notice he is not himself; Scully leaves for the Holvey household. Meanwhile Maggie, equally suspicious, prepares the ritual initiated by Golda. Mulder, still at the hospital, contacts the Căluşari, who soon after arrive and begin performing an exorcism ritual on Charlie. As Mulder struggles to hold Charlie's legs down, they warn Mulder not to look into Charlie's eyes, else the evil will recognize him. Scully arrives at the Holvey household and finds Golda’s room in shambles, with Golda being held up to the ceiling as she continues reciting her prayers; Michael disables Scully by tossing her right across the room. Then lunges at her with an athame, nearly killing her; but the Căluşari complete their ritual and Scully is saved. Charlie returns to normal, however, before Mulder leaves, he receives the ominous warning from the head Căluşari that he should be most careful, as the evil that once dwelled in Charlie will recognize him as he now knows him. 
<EOS>
In the rain forest of Costa Rica, entomologist Robert Torrance stumbles upon a decomposing boar carcass covered with dark purple pustules. As he extracts an insect from one of the pustules, it erupts, spraying him with fluid. By nightfall, the scientist himself has developed the boils and tries to radio for help. When a group of soldiers arrive to rescue Torrance the next morning, he is found dead. At a prison in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, an inmate -- also named Robert Torrance -- gets a package containing a boil-covered piece of meat. He develops the boils and dies thirty-six hours later. Two other inmates, Paul and Steve, escape in a laundry cart after being sent to clean Torrance's cell. FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are sent to help the U.S. Marshals find them. They note that the FBI doesn't normally investigate prison escapes, and become suspicious as the prison is quarantined by the CDC and the National Guard. Mulder leaves with the Marshals to hunt the fugitives, while Scully remains behind to investigate the situation in the prison. She learns that the lock-down population is infected with an exceedingly deadly contagion. She also finds a pile of dead inmates in body bags, stored for incineration in the prison's boiler room. Scully cuts open Torrance's body bag and examines his corpse, but Dr. Osbourne, a member of the CDC hazmat team, tries to stop her. A pustule on Torrance's body erupts in Osbourne's face, causing him to flee the room. The fugitives kill a man at a rest stop and steal his RV. They stop at a gas station where Paul calls his girlfriend, Elizabeth, looking for shelter. The station's clerk finds Steve, who has become infected with the contagion, in the restroom; he is knocked unconscious by Paul. Scully calls Mulder after the Marshals raid the gas station, and tells him that if the fugitives aren't captured, the contagion could spread into the population. Mulder sees a CDC biohazard team arrive at the scene, forcibly taking away the clerk in a helicopter. Paul arrives at Elizabeth's house, where she tends to Steve, who is in the late stages of his infection. One of Steve's pustules erupts in her face, killing him. At that moment, Mulder and the Marshals raid the house. They arrest an infected Elizabeth, but find Paul missing. Meanwhile, Scully traces Torrance's package to Pinck Pharmaceuticals, a major drug developer. She also finds an insect in the body of another prisoner. Dr. Osbourne comes forward and reveals that he really works for Pinck Pharmaceuticals rather than the CDC. Osbourne, who has become infected, identifies Scully's insect as Faciphaga emasculata, which produces a dilating enzyme that Pinck is researching. But it also carries a parasite that attacks the human immune system; its reproductive cycle develops boils that contain the insects' larvae, which burrow into any hosts exposed to the boils when they erupt. Osbourne claims that F. Emasculata and its contagion were deliberately introduced into the prison by Pinck as an experiment. Dr. Osbourne tells Scully that since she was next to him when he became infected, she may have contracted the contagion too. Mulder confronts Walter Skinner and The Smoking Man, believing that he and Scully were deceived into taking this case without knowing about the contagion. Mulder is adamant that the public should know the truth about this potential health crisis. The Smoking Man tells Mulder that public knowledge of the truth will create mass panic, and will do more harm than good. "You control the disease by controlling information", he says. Mulder tries to take his case to Scully, but she too says that exposing Pinck's activities may result in a deadly hysteria. For Mulder, Paul is the only remaining proof of the company's crimes. Mulder and the Marshals finally catch up and surround the infected fugitive at a bus station. A sniper bullet ends the man's life before Mulder can get him to surrender. 
<EOS>
The episode beings at the George Mason Hotel in Richmond, Virginia. Patrick Newarth sits on his bed, sipping scotch and reading some papers, Dr. Chester Ray Banton exits the elevator. Banton seems nervous, and keeps looking over his shoulder. He continues down the hallway before knocking on a door and attempts to talk to the man inside. The man initially ignores him, but finally walks over to the door. As he does this, Banton's shadow slides under the door and the elderly man is yanked downward into a strange, vortex-like blue puddle. Banton panics as the blue puddle begins to burn and char. He unscrews the lightbulb on the opposite side of the hall from Newarth's door and flees the scene. Scully asks if Mulder is blaming spontaneous human combustion for Mr. Newarth's death. They discuss this briefly before they board the elevator and go to the residence of Margret Wysnecki, the previous 'missing person'. Mulder notes that the coach lamp is out at her house, finding that when he screws it back in, it illuminates. They enter the house and find a similar patch on the floor. Scully notes that Margeret was employed by Laramie, another tobacco company, but dismiss any connection since it is such a common employer in North Carolina. They discuss that the first victim, Gail Ann Lamburgh, was an engineer for Polarity Magnetics. Mulder digs through Wysnecki's trash and finds a train ticket, with an arrival date for the same day that she disappeared. Mulder suggests that the victims are being hunted. A tired-looking Banton is seen at the train station, seated at a bench. He walks slowly while smoking a cigarette, still looking behind him every few steps. He enters the alleyway and the lights flicker as he walks by. A police car rolls up and the lights dim. When the officer gets out, Banton flees, but is cut off by a second car. He warns them to stay away, but Officer Barney moves too close and is reduced to ashes. When the second officer comes close, he too is burned to a blue puddle of energy. Banton flees the alley in terror. When Mulder, Scully and Ryan investigate the scene, Ryan suggests that it's a cop-killing case and that she is indirectly responsible. She tells Mulder that the fingerprints had no match for hotel employees or in the criminal database. Mulder is unwilling to share any of his theories on the case. Mulder suggests looking at the train station security camera videotapes. After initially finding nothing, Mulder points out a man who always seems to sit at the same spot on the train station, staring at the floor. Mulder recognizes the Polarity Magnetics logo on his jacket. Scully and Mulder investigate Polarity, which appears to have been closed up. They meet Chester Banton's business partner, Christopher Davey. Davey tells them that Banton has been missing for five weeks. He assumed that he had died, since it was shortly after he was involved in a terrible lab accident. Polarity Magnetics invented things related to magnetics, but Banton used that to fund his theoretical studies into dark matter and subatomic particles. Davey tells them of the accident. Banton had been working with a particle accelerator, bombarding an Alpha-particle target with Beta-particles, in essence, negative and positive particles. The countdown had begun when he realized that he had miscalculated something, but the countdown couldn't be stopped. There was time to make the change, but Davey had left the room when Banton went into the test chamber to make the change. While Davey was out of the room, the door locked behind Banton, trapping him inside. Inside the test chamber, Scully and Mulder observe a gray, man-shaped mark on the wall. Davey theorizes that the particle accelerator burned Banton's shadow into the wall. He theorizes that Banton survived because the particles had no mass and therefore passed through his body, like an extremely powerful X-ray. Scully notes that the burnt wall is a similar substance to what was found at the crime scenes. Mulder admits that he is less convinced of human combustion. Scully and Mulder return to the train station, but Banton is nowhere to be found. Mulder is seated in Banton's spot from the video, trying to figure out what he was staring at. Scully suggests that the accident may have affected his mind and caused him to do repetitive behavior. Mulder interrupts Scully to tell her that the spot in the train station effectively has no shadows due to the soft, diffused light. Meanwhile, Banton enters the station, fleeing upon spotting the agents. He runs until they trap him by the train cars. When Mulder is about to step into Banton's shadow, Banton tells him "It doesn't care who you are. It will kill you.", Mulder shoots out two light bulbs in the area, getting rid of his shadow. Banton is taken to Yaloff Psychiatric Hospital in Piedmont, where the psychiatrist tells Mulder that Banton insisted on being in a room with soft light, which would not make many shadows. Banton tells the agents that they wouldn't understand what was going on. He tells them that his shadow is like a black hole, splitting molecules, splitting atoms and pulling out electrons, reducing matter into pure energy. He explains that he went to see Gail, and as he stood in the doorway, she suddenly disappeared. He wants to discover the secrets behind his shadow before they (the government) do. He pleads with the agents to let him out. Detective Ryan, apparently being pressured by a Detective Barron, instructs them to stop interrogating the subject. When Barron asks the agents why they are investigating the case, Scully tells them that they are there in an unoffical capacity. Barron believes that the case is solved, but Mulder accuses Barron of not knowing anything about the case. Mulder manages to secretly tell Detective Ryan that Banton needs soft light. Mulder has a secret meeting in the train station with X, asking him about Dr. Banton. X asks where he is being held, and then tells Mulder that he cannot interfere with the case, stating that he has nothing to gain from the case. That night at Yaloff Hospital, the lights flicker and then black out. X appears from the dark to tell the on-duty nurse that Dr. Banton is being transferred early because of the power outage. Under the protests of the nurse, X and two attendants go to Dr. Banton's room. Banton pleads with them to leave him alone as they duct tape his mouth and zip-tie his hands and ankles. The emergency backup lights activate, causing shadows that kill the two attendants instantly. Although he draws his gun, X stays away from Dr. Banton's shadow, and allows him to flee the hospital. Mulder calls for X again, and accuses him of lying. Mulder breaks contact with X, who finally tells Mulder that he didn't kill Banton. A funeral is held for Kelly Ryan. Mulder notes that Christopher Davey has been missing since Banton's apparent death. He suggests that Banton wasn't the one who was killed in the particle accelerator. The episode ends as X enters a facility where Dr. Banton is restrained to a chair and subjected to experiments. 
<EOS>
The man, George Kearns, was a poultry inspector for the Department of Agriculture, assigned to the famous Chaco Chicken Plant in Dudley. Scully feels the case is yet another wild goose chase, but Mulder shows her documentary footage of a deranged man, Creighton Jones, in a mental hospital, talking about fire spirits, wanting their pound of flesh and how he would not let them get him. Jones was found wandering in the woods three days after pulling off Highway 10 to take a nap on the side ot the road, just outside Dudley when this occurred. Mulder theorizes a connection to foxfires. In Dudley, Mulder and Scully investigate the place of the sighting, and finds a huge clearing made by a bonfire, and a witches peg, which seems to confirm Mulder's theory. The local Sheriff, Tom Arens, drives up and tells them the fire may have been just the work of some locals burning trash illegally. He said that they made no note of the witches peg since they are commonly found in these fields. When asked about Kearns, the Sheriff says he was an outsider, who made himself unpopular around the town and never managed to fit in. Married to a local woman, Doris, George was a notorious philanderer. Mulder and Scully interview Doris, who does not seem particularly upset that her husband has disappeared, though uneasy about something else. When Mulder asks if she knew that George was about to file a report about health violations at the chicken processing plant, Doris says her husband never discussed his work. Harold adds that Kearns had a bone to pick with everyone, including the federal government he worked for, against whom Kearns filed a huge worker's compensation lawsuit, claiming that working at the plant was giving him terrible headaches. However, in the middle of their conversation, a commotion breaks out: Paula has begun to hallucinate, and sees George's severed head on a stake on the conveyor belt rather than a chicken carcass. She begins screaming, and as Harold tries to calm her, grabs a knife and puts it to his neck. Scully tries to calm her, and it seems to be working, but then Sheriff Arens shoots Paula dead, knocking her away from Harold and into a feed grinder. While treating Jess's neck wound, the plant's doctor, Vance Randolph, tells Mulder and Scully that he treated both George Kearns and Paula Gray for headaches and insomnia, but was unqualified to diagnose their psychological problems as anything other than stress. Gray had a brain scan at the county hospital, which came back negative. When Scully mentions wanting to perform an autopsy on Paula's remains, Randolph says that permission will have to come from Walter Chaco, the town patriarch, company founder and Paula's grandfather and legal guardian. After an uncomfortable discussion, Chaco agrees to the autopsy. Scully examines what is left of Paula and discovers that she was suffering from Creutzfeld-Jakob disease, also known as Mad Cow disease, a hereditary brain disease that would have killed her within a few months. Mulder shocks Scully by telling her that, according to the company's personnel records, Paula was born in 1948, making her forty-seven years old. Scully insists that there must be a mistake since Paula appears no older than her mid-twenties and that they need to check Paula's birth certificate. As they are driving down a country road, Mulder remarks that Paula Gray and George Kearns exhibited the same symptoms, and wonders if they could both have suffered from the same disease. Scully says that is virtually impossible: Creutzfeld-Jakob is hereditary, not communicable, and incredibly rare - the odds that two unrelated persons in the same small town would have it are astronomical. Just as she finishes saying this, a truck in the oncoming lane begins swerving wildly. Mulder jerks the car off the road to avoid a collision and the truck crashes into a small body of water. The driver, Scully learns, was exhibiting the same symptoms as Kearns and Gray. Scully theorizes that Kearns discovered health violations at the chicken plant, the major source of employment for the whole town, and was killed to keep him silent. Creutzfeld-Jakob is ordinarily not communicable, but it can be transmitted by eating parts of a contaminated animal's nervous system, such as the spine - for that very reason, afflicted cattle in Great Britain are incinerated to prevent their bodies being used as carrion for other animals. If the townspeople disposed of George Kearns's body by dropping it into the plant's feed grinder, that would have contaminated the chickens, and the people who ate them. Mulder says that doesn't make sense - Chaco Chicken ships all over the country, and contaminated chickens would have caused a nationwide epidemic, instead of a few local cases. Discussing their theory with the Sheriff, Mulder speculates about places where Kearns's body could have been hidden, and asks the Sheriff to drag the local river. When that is done, the net comes up with a huge pile of human bones. At the chicken plant, Harold is pulled aside by Dr. Randolph, who warns him that the townspeople are growing uneasy. Harold says he already knows about the FBI finding the bones, but is shaken when Randolph tells him a second person has come down with Paula's disease. Randolph says something has to be done, and Harold promises that he will speak to Chaco, who will listen to him. Mulder expands on the theory, saying that cannibalism could also explain Paula's youthful appearance, as it is a belief shared across several different mythologies and religions that eating human flesh enhances the eater's powers and lengthens their lifespan. Scully has more trouble believing this, and says they still need to confirm Paula's actual age from her birth certificate. In conference with Chaco, Harold says that many of the townspeople are growing uneasy. Chaco assures him that the F.B.I. are the only real problem; the rest he can handle. Then, Doris enters and says she cannot bear the guilt any longer, as she contributed to her husband's death. Chaco reassures her in a fatherly way, telling her to go home and rest. At the courthouse, Mulder and Scully find that every townsperson's birth records have been burned. They get a call from Doris, who says she needs to speak to them right away. Scully agrees to go meet her, while Mulder goes to Chaco's house to confront him. Before Scully can arrive, the axe man in the mask appears in Doris's home, and she screams. Mulder knocks on the door of Chaco's house and is told by his maid that he is not there, but Mulder is invited to wait in the foyer. Looking at a display case, he sees a photo of Chaco in the cockpit of a World War II era fighter plane - oddly, looking not much younger than he is today. On another shelf below the photograph, he sees a number of tribal artifacts, including a human skull. Noticing a large, locked cabinet, Mulder breaks it open and finds four preserved human heads inside, including George Kearns. Scully calls him from Doris' house, saying no one is there and that the power has gone out. Unknown to her, Chaco is lurking in the hallway and hefts a heavy stick. Suddenly, there are sounds of a scuffle, and Scully's voice disappears from the phone. At a hideous town meeting, a bonfire is burning in the clearing, while the townspeople queue up to receive portions of a stew ladled out from a cauldron. Chaco arrives with Scully as his captive, wide-eyed, handcuffed and tape-gagged. Chaco berates the townspeople for killing Doris, insisting that once they start turning on their own, their community is no longer worth saving. Harold, smirking, disarms Chaco of his gun and says that his day as the town's leader has passed. The townspeople seize Chaco and force his head into a metal harness, and the masked executioner cuts off his head. Mulder drives along the county road at a breakneck speed, and pulls off the road when he sees the light of the bonfire. Mulder frees Scully of her handcuffs and the tape, where they crawl over to the dead axe-man and remove his mask to reveal the Sheriff. Looking at the receding flashlights of the fleeing crowd, and the bonfire, Mulder and Scully grimly make the connection with the prior legends of foxfires, and Creighton Jones' deranged ramblings. Scully’s closing narration is heard over scenes of the chicken plant being closed by Arkansas State Troopers: Before the chicken plant is emptied, one worker scoops a bucket of feed from the trough and carries it outside to a coop of chickens. Reaching into the bucket, the worker pauses when he finds a clump of gray hair in the feed, then shrugs and scoops the feed to the chickens, which peck hungrily. 
<EOS>
At a Navajo reservation in New Mexico, a teenage boy comes across a small patch of a silver structure buried in the ground. He retrieves the corpse of an alien-like figure from within it and brings it home to show his father and grandfather. An older man, Albert Hosteen, has a prophetic moment in which he believes people will come in response to this discovery. In Dover, Delaware, Kenneth Soona, an associate of the Lone Gunmen, hacks into Department of Defense files and downloads government secrets about aliens onto a digital cassette tape. Immediately, word of the breach echoes throughout the world, particularly amongst the members of the Syndicate. The Cigarette Smoking Man tells those concerned that he has already resolved the matter. The Lone Gunmen meet with Mulder and tell him that Soona, also known as the Thinker, requests to meet with him. Down the hall, one of Mulder's elderly neighbors shoots her husband, apparently for no reason. Mulder meets with Soona in a park, who gives him the digital cassette. An excited Mulder returns to FBI headquarters with it, only to find it contains pages of apparent gibberish, which sends him into an irrational rage, calling it someone's idea of a bad joke. Scully looks closer and thinks she thinks the files are encrypted in Navajo - she remembers her father telling her that it was used as a code during World War II because it was completely indecipherable except to a small group of linguists - even modern Navajos would have trouble with it. While she takes the tape to investigate, Skinner calls Mulder to his office to question him on the tape. Unexpectedly, Mulder attacks him and has to be restrained. Later, Scully is brought before Skinner and other senior FBI officials and is questioned about Mulder's actions. Scully is told that Mulder faces dismissal from the FBI, and she faces a similar sentence if she has lied to them. On Martha's Vineyard, the Cigarette Smoking Man comes to see Mulder's father and informs him of the theft of the tape, suspecting that Mulder is in possession of it. Scully meets with a Navajo translator, who can only understand some of the more contemporary words. She refers Scully to a World War II-era code talker. Mulder is called away to see his father; when Scully arrives at his apartment, she is nearly killed by a bullet fired through his window, ironically the same window pane with a tape X. Mulder meets with his father, who says he has something important to tell him, but is shot by Krycek when he goes to the bathroom. Mulder's father asks for forgiveness as he passes away in his arms. When Mulder calls Scully to tell him about the murder, she tells him to flee the scene since he will be the prime suspect. After he arrives at her apartment, he falls asleep. Scully takes his gun while he sleeps and brings it to the FBI for comparison against the bullet that killed his father. When Mulder awakens, he is upset and suspicious of Scully. That night, returning to his building, Scully finds that the building's water supply is being intentionally tainted. When Mulder arrives home, he finds Krycek there and is about to kill him when Scully shoots Mulder in the shoulder to prevent him from doing so. Krycek escapes. Scully brings an unconscious Mulder to New Mexico, and when he awakens, she reveals to him that his behavior was caused by a drug, possibly LSD, placed into his water supply. She introduces him to Albert Hosteen, a Navajo code-talker who has been translating the files on the digital tape. Scully reveals that the tape refers to both her and Duane Barry, as well as some sort of test and merchandise. Albert introduces Mulder to his grandson, who drives him on a motorcycle to where he found the alien-like corpse. As Mulder investigates the buried object, he uncovers an identification panel, revealing that it's actually a buried railroad boxcar. Just before he heads in, he is called by the Cigarette Smoking Man, who is able to trace Mulder's location through the call. Mulder heads inside the boxcar, finding a pile of the dead creatures that he initially identifies as aliens. Further investigation reveals that they have smallpox vaccination scars on their arms, indicating that they may be mutated humans instead. The Cigarette Smoking Man arrives with armed soldiers and, not finding Mulder inside, orders the boxcar to be burned. A soldier tosses an explosive bundle into the hatch, resulting in a fireball. 
<EOS>
Continuation of Anasazi. Albert Hosteen and his family are beat up by the Cigarette Smoking Man's subordinates, who are searching for the whereabouts of Mulder. While driving on an empty road at night, Scully is overtaken by a helicopter from which soldiers emerge, taking all her paper copies of Albert's translations of the digital tape. Scully denies having a copy of the tape, saying it is in Mulder's possession. Upon return to Washington, Scully is put on mandatory leave and is forced to turn in her badge and gun. Scully complains privately to Skinner. Upon returning to Mulder's basement office, she searches a hidden location in his desk and finds the digital tape missing from its case. In New York City, the Cigarette-Smoking Man meets with a group of older men (known as the Syndicate), including the First Elder and the Well-Manicured Man, who question him to ensure that their work hasn't been compromised. Out west, circling buzzards lead the Navajo to find Mulder buried under some rocks near the boxcar, alive but severely wounded, . Albert begins the Blessing Way chant in order to heal Mulder. Frohike arrives at Scully's apartment and shows her a newspaper article reporting the death of Kenneth Soona. She observes that his death was dated after Mulder's disappearance. During the healing ceremony, Mulder has visions of both Deep Throat and his own father. When Scully returns to FBI Headquarters, the metal detector alarms as she enters, even though she has nothing metal. She shows Skinner the newspaper article, thinking that the ballistic data from Soona's death can clear Mulder from suspicion in his father's murder, but Skinner refuses to pursue it. When leaving the building, Scully asks the security guard to use his hand-held metal detector to pinpoint the location of the offending metal, which is at the top of her back. Scully receives an X-ray scan from a doctor, who then removes a small metal implant from the back of her neck. When Scully confides in her sister Melissa about the implant, her sister urges her to see a regression hypnotherapist, to recover her lost memories. Scully participates in a session, but becomes scared and suddenly leaves. Upon returning home, but still in her car, she finds Skinner furtively leaving her apartment and driving away. Mulder, recovered from the Blessing Way chant, is told by Albert Hosteen that he can't bathe or change clothes for four days. Scully calls Skinner, who denies having visited her apartment, but the Smoking Man is present for the phone call. Scully heads to Boston for the funeral of Mulder's father and introduces herself to Mulder's mother. Afterwards, the Well-Manicured Man introduces himself to Scully and warns her that she is about to be killed, either by someone she knows or by two men who will kill her at her home and dump the gun there. Mulder returns to his mother's home in Connecticut and questions her about a photograph of his father and a group of men from 1973. She denies knowing anything. Melissa calls Scully and tells her she is coming over. Moments late, Scully receives another call, but the line is silent, then disconnected. Scully immediately leaves her apartment and calls Melissa to say that she'll head to her home instead. As she leaves, Skinner pulls up in his car, telling her that they need to speak in private. They drive to Mulder's apartment. Melissa shows up soon afterwards and is shot in the head by Luis Cardinal, who is hiding there with Alex Krycek. Realizing that they have shot the wrong person, the assassins flee. At Mulder's apartment, Scully holds Skinner at gunpoint, suspecting that he was about to make an attempt on her life. He tells her that he is in possession of the digital tape. Just then, movement outside the door distracts Scully enough for Skinner draw his gun. Continued in Paper Clip. 
<EOS>
Continued from The Blessing Way Dana Scully and Walter Skinner hold each other at gunpoint. The door to the apartment bursts open, revealing to them both for the first that Fox Mulder is alive. After a short Mexican standoff, Skinner puts his gun down. Mulder also demands that Skinner surrender a digital tape containing secret government files. Skinner insists on keeping the tape, saying it is their only leverage in exposing the conspiracy and getting the agents reinstated in the FBI. Meanwhile, the Syndicate meets. Furious that an innocent person was murdered, the Syndicate demands that Smoking Man produce the digital tape. The Smoking Man promises to do so the following day. Meanwhile, Mulder and Scully visit Klemper in his extensive orchid greenhouse, who says that the photo was taken at the Strughold Mining Company in West Virginia. He also provides them with a cryptic clue about Napier's Constant. After the agents leave, Klemper calls the Well-Manicured Man and informs him that Mulder is alive. The news causes the Syndicate to further mistrust the Smoking Man. At the hospital, Albert Hosteen visits Melissa while a suited man loiters nearby. Skinner meets with the Cigarette Smoking Man, telling him that he may have found the digital tape. The Cigarette Smoking Man is extremely agitated at this, insisting that he will not make a deal with Skinner, tacitly threatening Skinner's life. Mulder and Scully find a large complex of filing cabinets containing smallpox vaccination records and tissue samples. After realizing that the're filed chronologically by birth date, Mulder finds Scully's file and also that of his sister. Peeling back the label reveals that it was originally marked with his name. Hearing noises, Mulder heads outside where he witnesses a huge UFO rise up and fly overhead. Small space alien-like beings run past Scully. Mulder sees a line of vehicles approaching. Armed soldiers storm the building and begin shooting at Mulder. He is able to find Scully and they escape through an alternate route. Mulder and Scully meet with Skinner at a diner in rural Maryland. Skinner wants to turn over the digital tape in exchange for their reinstatement to the FBI and safety. After initially objecting, Mulder agrees to let Skinner turn the digital tape over. Skinner heads to see Melissa in the hospital and is told by Albert of the mysterious blue-suited man outside. Skinner chases the man to a stairwell where he is attacked by Alex Krycek and Luis Cardinal, who steal the digital tape and flee. While stopped at a liquor store, the other two men leave the car and Krycek narrowly escapes with his life when the car explodes. The men see him scurry away. Mulder and Scully return to Klemper's greenhouse, finding the Well-Manicured Man there. He admits to knowing Mulder's father and states that during the Cold War Mulder's father helped gather genetic data for post-apocalyptic identification - data Klemper used to work on alien-human hybrids. When Mulder's father learned of this, he threatened to expose them, so Samantha was taken to ensure his silence. Mulder confronts his mother, who eventually reveals that his father chose that Samantha be taken. At FBI headquarters, Skinner once again meets with the Cigarette Smoking Man about the tape. The Smoking Man calls Skinner's bluff, knowing he no longer has the tape, but Skinner reveals that Albert and twenty other Navajo have memorized the content of the tape and are ready to reveal it if Mulder or Scully are harmed. Mulder meets with Scully at the hospital, who reveals that her sister died a few hours before. Mulder tells Scully that he believes that the truth is still in the X-Files. Scully tells him that she's heard the truth, and now what she wants are the answers. 
<EOS>
At a strip-mall video arcade, off-duty pizza deliverer Jack Hammond declines to let Darren Peter Oswald have back the Virtua Fighter 2 game which Darren had left for a minute. A fight brews, as Darren's arcade-clerk friend Zero watches. But then Jack, seemingly not in control of his body, leaves and gets into his car - where he's killed by a strange electrical surge. The next morning at Lloyd P. Wharton County Building, Scully examines Hammond's body as Stan Buxton, the county coroner, and Johnston County Sheriff John Teller watch. This latest in a pattern of odd electrocution deaths shows, curiously, no contact point; the coroner doesn't remember if the previous bodies had them, and defensively insists it's just lightning - though admitting the five recent Connerville strikes are statistically improbable. Teller asserts there's nothing unusual: The nearby Astadourian Lightning Observatory on Route 4 has 100 ionized rods designed specifically to stimulate lightning. Later, Mulder wonders why the lightning only strikes 17-to-21-year-old males. Checking the only shop open after Jack quit work, the video game arcade, Scully questions Zero and asks if he had seen Hammond the night before while Mulder is walking around the video game arcade. After Zero told Scully that he has seen the person the night before, he told her that he was mostly playing the Virtua Fighter 2 video game. An onscreen display alerts Mulder that the 10-game record-holder on the Virtua Fighter 2 game is initialed D.P.O. - as in Darren Peter Oswald, the only survivor of the lightning strikes. The notations place D.P.O. here at the time of the incident. Meanwhile, Darren is working at the Kiveat Auto Shop and he nervously greets Sharon Kiveat, the beautiful wife of garage owner Frank Kiveat. He has a crush on her, which makes her uneasy as she is aware of his affections towards her. Frank returns from a towing job, soon followed by Mulder and Scully. As the agents fruitlessly question Darren, Mulder's cell-phone mysteriously heats and starts melting and Darren leaves after Mulder and Scully notices. At the dilapidated Oswald house later that night, Darren's couch-potato mother belittles him, and doesn't bat an eye when he changes channels from across the room without the remote. When Zero comes by, Darren goes to a pasture next door to barbecue some cows. Zero begs him not to - but Darren calls lightning down to hit him to achieve a sensation of power and might. After the lightning strikes Oswald, he and Zero calls it a night a goes back home. The next morning, Teller is at the field where Oswald had his lightning act and the three dead cows are towed away. He shows the agents a fulgarite - a place where lightning strikes sandy soil to form glass - and declares their investigation over. Yet after he leaves, Mulder finds a partial footprint incongruously in the fulgarite and tells Scully to continue the case with him. At the Johnston County Sheriff's Office, Scully finds the footprint to be made from a size 8 1/2 standard military boot; she also finds traces of antifreeze. They go to find auto mechanic Darren. Meanwhile, at the County Road A-7, Darren manipulates traffic lights, hoping to cause an accident. Zero suggests he stop all this, and use his power to make a killing in Vegas. But Darren won't go anywhere without Mrs. Kiveat. While Oswald is still at the crossroad, the agents arrive at Oswald's house and find an 8 1/2 shoe and a clipped picture that fits the cut-out yearbook space for Mrs. Kiveat. Back at the crossroad, Darren causes tow-trucker Frank to have an apparent heart attack; when the two EMS workers find their portable defibrillator not charged and unusable, Darren heroically rescues Frank by defibrillating him by hand while EMS is preoccupied with the spare unit amazed and shocked with what Oswald had done. While at the Community Hospital, Frank recuperates, the agents learn Darren was admitted here five months ago in cardiac arrest after his lightning-strike - and that he has acute hypokalemia, an electrolyte imbalance of high sodium and low potassium, which, Mulder theorizes, somehow explains his ability to generate electricity. They question Darren at the Johnston County Jail, but he admits nothing and thinks Zero squealed on him. With 72 hours to hold him, they try to get Mrs. Kiveat to press harassment charges. She had been afraid to, but the agents say they can hold him 72 hours on suspicion of murder, so she and Frank will be safe. At the jail, Teller has decided the feds have a weak case, and lets Darren go. The agents rush to the hospital, but Darren has stopped at the arcade first to kill Zero because of how he managed to lead Mulder and Scully to him. At the hospital, Mulder and Scully tries to convince Sharon to go with them as Oswald is on his way to retrieve her. Before Sharon could make a decision, the electricity goes off inn the hospital alerting Mulder and Scully that Oswald is in the building. Mulder and Scully draws out their sidearms and wait for Darren at the elevator only to find Zero's dead body within the elevator as the doors open. Mulder sets off to find Oswald alone while Scully stays with Sharon. Eventually, Oswald arrives on the same floor as Sharon and finds her only to also find Scully pointing her sidearm at Darren ordering him to stand down and leave Sharon alone. Sharon, wanting no danger near Frank and the others, agrees to walk out with Darren. Outside, she runs away when Teller pulls up. Darren, over the edge, kills Teller before Mulder can fire then Darren falls in a lightning-crumpled heap himself. Oklahoma State Psychiatric Hospital: Scully tells Mulder the coroner has ruled Teller's death accidental, by lightning, and the D.A. can't fathom how to prosecute for murder. And Darren, inside his cell, stares blankly at a TV screen that may or may not be channel-changing according to his whim. 
<EOS>
In a liquor store, an elderly man, Clyde Bruckman, is reading predictions made by the Stupendous Yappi in a newspaper article, skeptically criticizing each one. Confused by the unusual-sounding name of an event that according to Yappi, Buddy Holly will play at, Bruckman asks the store's proprietor what the word means, but the shopkeeper does not even know who Buddy Holly is. Bruckman orders several items from the shopkeeper, including the newspaper containing Yappi's predictions. Bruckman exits the store, softly singing That'll Be the Day to himself. He nearly collides with another man and they try to dodge each other but take a while to separate, after which the other man remarks that Bruckman is a better dancer than his last date. The other man walks to the office of palm reader Madame Zelma where upon believing Zelma should have foreseen his immediate actions, he promptly murders her. Entrails and a pair of eyeballs sit amid a crime scene inside the home of another murder victim. A trio of investigators argue over the fact that one of them - a Detective Cline - has invited a source who is thought to be somewhat spooky. Mulder then enters, but Cline is at first unsure who he is. Scully follows Mulder inside and despite Detective Havez saying that the detectives suspect a Satanist is responsible, the agents have their own profile of the killer. Mulder spots evidence that the victim read tea leaves and knew she was about to die. Bringing a mob of fans with him, Yappi arrives. He quietens the hubbub and begins to theatrically detail several visions he apparently experiences involving the murder, but stops, claiming he is detecting negative energy that he eventually alleges is coming from Mulder. Mulder is then asked to leave, despite insisting that he is a believer in the psychic phenomenon. He is later waiting outside the apartment. As Yappi passes on the way out, the two have another confrontation. Mulder re-enters the apartment and doubts Yappi's vague predictions, although Cline seems convinced of their authenticity. In the meantime, Clyde Bruckman, an insurance salesman by trade, tries to sell insurance to a young couple. Although the young husband had intended to buy a boat, Bruckman attempts to persuade the man not to, even predicting the man's death, which only serves to spook the latter. Sighing, Bruckman returns home to his own apartment. As he later bins a vegetable, he is disgusted to see it become a vision of a man's severed head. Collecting garbage from his elderly neighbor, Bruckman sees a vision of her dog nibbling at entrails, so he tries to ask its owner whether she has enough dog food. Being slow on the uptake, his elderly neighbor merely closes the door on him. Bruckman later disposes of the garbage, but in shock, he slowly turns back to the dumpster into which he dropped it. The dumpster contains the body of Madame Zelma, as Cline and the agents later find. The agents question Bruckman, asking how he knew certain details. Despite trying to explain away his information, Bruckman is forcefully asked by Mulder to accompany the agents. He is later taken by the agents into the apartment they visited earlier, Mulder considering that the murder that took place there may have been committed by the same person who killed Madame Zelma. Mulder implies that he suspects Bruckman of having a psychic ability but Bruckman reacts by asking to see both their badges. He doubts that Mulder's name is a real one and is initially reluctant to participate in the investigation. Overcome by a vision near a blood stain, he rushes past Scully into the washroom and vomits. Despite Mulder seeming convinced that Bruckman is genuinely psychic, Scully complains that Bruckman is performing a similar routine to Yappi. Bruckman returns and continues to describe his visions of the murder, at one point reacting in puzzlement to the phrase negative energy. While lengthily wondering why the victim chose to become a doll collector, he is disturbed to see one of the dolls appear disfigured. He predicts to the agents that they will find the victim's body floating in Glenview Lake, near a fat, little, white Nazi storm trooper. Bruckman then excuses himself from the room, disturbed by his own visions of death. Watched by a crowd, a woman's body is pulled from Glenview Lake. Scully, after much deliberation, admits to Mulder that she, like him, sees a resemblance between a nearby propane tank and a fat, little, white Nazi storm trooper. With Mulder doubting that Bruckman is the killer but Scully doubting that he is psychic, Scully suggests another alternative: that he may simply be lucky. At his home, Bruckman is frustrated to find that a lottery ticket he owns is not a winning one. Mulder knocks at his apartment door before entering, while the annoyed Bruckman holds his head in his hands. Although Bruckman seems to know who the visitor is, he looks up at Mulder and is surprised that the visitor is him. Bruckman refuses to help Mulder catch the murderer. Nevertheless, they subsequently discuss Bruckman's ability, with Mulder remarking that he finds it enviable, although Bruckman complains about having it. Bruckman also lengthily explains his refusal to assist with the investigation, but ultimately implies that he will help. In a police questioning room, Mulder tests whether Bruckman can receive any impressions from several objects, but Bruckman struggles to do so. At one point, he mistakes a blue piece of fabric as being from Mulder's New York Knicks t-shirt. Scully arrives and Mulder privately tells her that he is now convinced Bruckman has only one psychic ability: to divine how people will die. Scully hands Bruckman one of three identical keychains that were each found on the victims, emblazoned with an insignia that Scully reveals she tracked to a company known as Uranus Unlimited. Bruckman seems to divine many details about the owner of the company, Claude Dukenfield, but explains that his means of determining the information is due to a coincidence--he sold Dukenfield insurance a couple of months previously. Scully mentions that the investigators are trying to find Dukenfield, but Bruckman reveals that the company owner is now dead. In a car, Bruckman works on leading the agents to the body's location, insisting to a curious Mulder that he does not know how he is receiving the whereabouts. Bruckman also mentions to Mulder that there are not many more undignified ways to end up dying than autoerotic asphyxiation, although Bruckman then tries to cover up the reference, saying it is none of his business. They arrive at a wooded area that Bruckman deems as being the right place. While the trio search the forest, Bruckman recounts that he first gradually developed his ability in 1959, after obsessing over the chances involved in the death of the Big Bopper, who sang Bruckman's favorite song of the period, Chantilly Lace. The Big Bopper won a coin toss for a seat on a plane with Buddy Holly that subsequently crashed. Both Scully and Mulder question where the body is, but Bruckman says his difficulty is seeing the forest from the trees. The group later try to maneuver their car out of mud, with Scully driving as Mulder and Bruckman attempt to push the vehicle from behind it. Mud splats Mulder's leg and he sees that Bruckman has adopted an expression that Mulder initially mistakes for a smile but is actually a wince at a hand sticking out of the mud, under one of the car's tires. Mulder hands Bruckman a fiber, the only evidence from Claude Dukenfield's body, as an FBI crime lab will take much more time. Although Bruckman is preoccupied with thoughts of his own work, he reluctantly examines the evidence. He describes visions that the killer sees, featuring Mulder trying to catch the killer in a kitchen where the murderer is armed with a bloodied knife and the killer approaching as Mulder steps on a pie that distracts Bruckman's account. He dismisses the visions as the hallucinations of a madman and reveals that they are not deduced from the tiny fabric but from a letter he shows the agents. It is a complex death threat from the killer and mentions them, despite being postmarked on the day before Bruckman joined the investigation. Mulder hopes to protect Bruckman, who replies that no matter what, he himself will be dead before the killer is caught. The killer has a reading done by a tarot dealer who finds that his customer is searching for someone, a person, the killer clarifies, whom he is going to kill. Now nervous, the tarot dealer says the person is a special man with special wisdom. In a hotel room, Bruckman enjoys cake as Scully studies paperwork on potential suspects. He asks if she is jealous of his ability. The tarot dealer continues to draw the cards, predicting that the killer's extreme confusion will abruptly end with a woman who will possibly be a redhead, but the killer warns the dealer that the final card is meant for him; it turns out to be the death card. Meanwhile, Bruckman foretells of a special moment in which he and Scully will end up in bed together, but she profusely doubts the prediction. Scully, preparing to leave Mulder to watch over Bruckman, privately asks the psychic how she dies, but Bruckman claims she does not. Mulder tells her the fabric was from actual Chantilly lace, but Scully is insistent that this is merely a coincidence. Later that night, Mulder and Bruckman talk while lying in separate beds. Mulder wonders if Bruckman ever has prophetic dreams, but Bruckman describes the only dream he ever has, of his own naked, dead body disintegrating, before wishing Mulder goodnight. In the morning, Mulder answers the door to Scully and Detective Havez, explaining that he did not sleep well. He leaves with Scully, heading to the scene of the tarot dealer's murder, but they unknowingly pass the killer, dressed as a bellhop, as they head away. In Bruckman's room, Havez finishes telling the psychic a joke Bruckman already knew without ever having heard it before. Havez is relieved when Bruckman lets him know that he will not die from cancer and heads to have a smoke in the restroom that Bruckman lights for him before Havez instructs Bruckman not to answer the door to anybody. Nevertheless, Bruckman knowingly answers it to the killer, and even allows him inside. Having clearly recognized each other, Bruckman and the killer calmly chat about the extraordinary odds of them meeting one another. Bruckman seems amazed that the killer is still unsure why he is motivated to commit such atrocities, but Bruckman clarifies for him that the reason is that he is a homicidal maniac, which makes a lot of sense to the killer. When the murderer is about to kill him, Bruckman prevents his own death, saying that the killer does not murder him at this point, even though Bruckman is admittedly unsure of why not. A reason arrives in the form of Havez, who the killer charges and attacks. As the FBI agents and Detective Cline examine the site of the tarot dealer's murder, both Mulder and Cline remark on the killer's apparent sloppiness. As they work on employing traditional police methods to solve the murder, Scully is distracted first by a crowd standing outside, and then her finding another strand of Chantilly lace. Having seen the killer in crowds since she began work on the case with the exception of the one now gathered outside, Scully realizes that the bellhop at the hotel is the killer. She races away without further ado, leaving Mulder to tell Cline that her deduction was based on female intuition. The killer hurries out of Bruckman's room and downstairs while Scully returns to the hotel. She enters Bruckman's room, finding that he is no longer there but that Havez's cigarette is lying on the floor, still lit. Meanwhile, Mulder and the killer catch sight of each other in the basement of the hotel. Mulder chases the murderer into the hotel's kitchen, where Mulder steps in a pie on the floor. Mulder, suddenly realizing that exactly what Bruckman predicted would happen is happening, spins around, just as the killer attacks him from behind, knocking him to the ground. The murderer is poised ready to stab Mulder when Scully exits a nearby service elevator, armed with her gun. She orders the killer to drop his weapon, but he persists so she shoots him, much to his confusion, and he bloodily collapses. Scully lets Mulder know that her arrival there was purely by chance; she entered the service elevator by mistake. She also tells him that the killer murdered Havez but that she was unable to find Bruckman, so Mulder wonders where he is. The agents proceed to Mrs. Lowe's apartment, where they find her dog whimpering, as well as a letter from Bruckman addressed to Scully. The letter states that Mrs. Lowe passed away on the previous night, asks if Scully would like a dog and implies that the dog ate some of the remains of Mrs. Lowe's body. The agents enter the apartment, and in a moment of emotional significance, Scully finds that Bruckman's deceased body lies on a bed, a bottle of pills in his hand and a plastic bag over his head. Late at night, Scully is watching television when she sees a commercial for the Stupendous Yappi's hotline. She picks up her telephone, as Yappi suggests his viewers do, but then throws it at the television.
<EOS>
Napoleon Neech Manley, a death row inmate at a Leon County, Florida prison, is brought to the electric chair. Before he is executed, Neech proclaims that he will be reincarnated and avenge himself against five men who tormented him in prison. Shortly after the execution, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are brought in to investigate when a prison guard is mysteriously found dead in Neech's cell. The agents meet the prison's warden, Leo Brodeur, who believes that Neech planned the guard's murder with someone on the outside before the execution. John Speranza, another inmate, believes that Neech has returned. When Scully explores the prison's showers, she meets another guard named Vincent Parmelly. He claims that another prisoner, Roque, is keeping a list of the remaining four victims. Later, the head of another guard, Fornier, is found inside a paint can. An examination of the head shows the premature appearance of larvae. The prison coroner tells Scully that the first guard's lungs were completely infested with the larvae, belonging to the green bottle fly. Meanwhile, Mulder talks to Roque, who wants a transfer out of the prison in exchange for revealing the remaining three people on the list. Brodeur later finds Fornier's headless body in his office. While searching Neech's cell, Mulder discovers evidence of his obsession with reincarnation. Scully, of course, is skeptical. They later talk to Neech's fearful widow, Danielle Manley, who is secretly seeing Parmelly. Roque is brought to the showers, where he is beaten to death by Brodeur after revealing he is the fifth person on the list. Brodeur puts the prison under lockdown and tells Mulder that Neech had a violent history with all three victims. Mulder believes that Neech came back for revenge against the guards, but doubts that Roque was on the list. He requests that he be provided with the name of Neech's executioner, who turns out to be a volunteer named Perry Simon. The agents arrive at Simon's home to discover his decomposing body in the attic. Mulder confronts Speranza about the list, but Speranza only tells him that Roque was not on it. He claims to have seen Neech big as life outside of his cell. Based on phone records, Scully theorizes that Neech's lawyer, Danny Charez, may have engineered the murders with Speranza. The agents interview Charez, who tells them about Danielle's relationship with Parmelly; after they leave, Charez is suffocated by a resurrected Neech. Brodeur visits Speranza in his cell, and offers to have his death sentence commuted in exchange for stopping the murders. Speranza takes the offer. That night, Parmelly visits Danielle, who has become agitated since Mulder and Scully have begun staking out her house. The agents now suspect Parmelly to be behind the murders and leave to notify Brodeur, who asks that Parmelly be arrested. Soon afterward, Danielle wakes up to see Neech by her bed. She grabs her gun and confronts Parmelly, thinking he is Neech's resurrected form. The agents and a police task force arrive to see her shoot and kill Parmelly. Meanwhile, Brodeur--assuming that Charez and Parmelly were on the list--thinks Speranza has reneged on their deal and has him taken to the showers. Before Brodeur kills him, Speranza claims that one person remains on the list. Parmelly is blamed for the murders. The agents start to leave Florida, but Mulder soon pulls over. He remains frustrated, since Parmelly was on-duty during only one murder, and was not one of the three men who knew Perry Simon's confidential identity. He also points out inconsistencies in the actions of Parmelly and Roque, who was also assumed to be part of the plot. Mulder believes that Parmelly was not responsible for the deaths, and that Neech had indeed been reincarnated to enact his revenge. However, Scully convinces Mulder that the case is over, and that they should return home. Just then, Brodeur passes them in his car. A fly lands upon his face, near his nose. Looking in his rear view mirror, he sees Neech, who attacks Brodeur and causes his car to crash into a tree, claiming his last victim. 
<EOS>
A man and woman talk in a car, against a romantic skyline. Lauren MacKalvey is a plain-looking, somewhat overweight woman; her date is an attractive, charming man she met online three months earlier. When he kisses her, she gags up a gelatinous substance. A cop finds a grotesque, goo-covered skeleton in the car. Detective Alan Cross contacts Mulder and Scully, recommended as FBI experts in the unusual. A few months earlier in Aberdeen, Mississippi, four women who'd answered personal ads had disappeared in less than a month. The sole body found was too decomposed for an autopsy. The killer, going by the alias Virgil Incanto, chats online with overweight Ellen Kaminsky, whose computer handle is Huggs. His is Timid, and he wants to meet. Incanto is interrupted by his landlady, who, thinking him a novelist or editor, asks him to critique her poems sometime. Scully discovers Lauren's remains have decayed into a skeleton and a pool of red glop. Mulder, in the meantime, learns the man Lauren had dated last night had been communicating with her online, handled 2Shy; Lauren's roommate gives Mulder copies of the romantic letters 2Shy had sent Lauren. Mulder calls Scully to say 2Shy's their serial killer - he'd opened his online account with one of the Aberdeen victims' credit cards. Scully tells Mulder the crime-scene goo is mostly hydrochloric acid, similar to stomach acid; it also contains traces of the digestive enzyme pepsin. The red glop is composed of normal body chemicals, except for extremely low amounts of adipose - fatty tissue. Ellen is nervous about meeting Timid - all the more so when her friend Joanne reminds her about the general warning the FBI has just issued. Ellen rationalizes that she's been chatting with Timid every day for a month - but ultimately doesn't show up at a French restaurant where he waits. Incanto find a chunky streetwalker, Holly McClain - who scratches him savagely before he kills her in an alley. Incanto runs when another hooker and her john come by. Scully finds all air passages in McClain's body blocked with viscous hydrochloric goo. Mulder tells Cross that 2Shy's e-mail to Lauren quoted from obscure 16th-century Italian poems found only in controlled circulation academic libraries; he asks Cross to compile a list of literary professors and such. Incanto - a translator of Italian literature - signs for a package at his apartment house, running across the landlady and her blind pre-teen daughter, Jesse. Mulder arrives with an FBI analysis of the killer's skin, found under McClain's nails. There's no match in the DNA database of known offenders - but the report does note the samples contained no oils or essential fatty acids. Mulder thinks the killer is a fat-sucking vampire. Cross arrives with a list of 38 names . Ellen e-mails Incanto asking for another chance. Cross, canvassing, questions Incanto. Ellen gives Incanto a lift home after dinner. The landlady, with her poems, has let herself into Incanto's apartment - where she finds Cross' body. Incanto, seeing the light on, leaves Ellen to investigate. Later, Jesse comes by, looking for her mom; Incanto lies, saying he hasn't seen her. But Jesse, who's smelled her mother's perfume, calls 911. When the agents and police burst in they find Incanto gone, and Cross and the landlady dead. An agent restores the erased files on Incanto's hard drive, annd breaks the password and encryption to retrieve a list of Incanto's online chat-room women. Incanto, in the meantime, talks his way into Ellen's apartment. The agents e-mail a warning and a sketch to everyone on Incanto's list, then go to check on two women unreachable by phone - including Ellen, who's excused herself to excitedly e-mail Joanne. Doing so, she finds the FBI sketch in her bin; Incanto sees it too and attacks. The agents break in and when Ellen doesn't answer, the neighbor Joanne confirms she's home. Ellen's injured but alive; Mulder chases a man he sees fleeing down the street - who turns out to be just a graffiti-tagger. Incanto, hidden, attacks Scully in the bathroom - but Ellen shoots him with the gun Scully left behind in the bedroom. Incanto, his skin mottled and curdling, confesses to 47 murders in five states. He insists he's no monster, that he gave them what they wanted and they gave him what he needed. In Italian he adds, "The dead are no longer lonely". 
<EOS>
At a VA hospital in Fort Evanston, Maryland, Lieutenant Colonel Victor Stans makes his third suicide attempt; he claims that a mysterious figure will not let him die. Stans attempts to drown in a tub of scalding water, but an unseen hand unlocks the door and trips the alarm, and he is rescued by the hospital staff, though nearly skinned from head to toe by burns. When Fox Mulder and Dana Scully question Stans, they learn that his wife and children died in a house fire he claims was started by the mysterious soldier he says will not allow him to die himself. Captain Janet Draper stops the questioning, as Mulder and Scully were not granted permission to see Stans by his superior officer, General Thomas Callahan. After meeting with the agents, Callahan glimpses the phantom soldier Stans described. He also finds his answering machine replaying an unintelligible message. Later, while using the base's swimming pool, Draper is killed by an invisible force. Callahan tells the agents about the soldier and the voicemail, which was received twice before at his home. When they visit his house, his young son, Trevor Callahan, believes he saw someone go inside; Scully herself glimpses someone in the backyard. Fingerprints are found on the property which belong to the hospital mailman, Quinton Freely. As Mulder and Scully take Roach into custody, Trevor is attacked and killed by the invisible force in his sandbox. Under the agent's questioning, Roach admits to his role in the deaths and states he is Rappo's mailman. Rappo turns out to be Leonard Trimble, a quadraple amputee Gulf War veteran. Scully doesn't believe Roach, even though he insists that Rappo will kill him next. Scully later finds Roach dead in his cell with a bedsheet shoved down his throat. Scully assumes that he committed suicide, but Mulder shows her X-ray dental plates he had carried in the rehab room, the pool, Callahan's office, and Callahan's house; all show signs of radiation. Mulder thinks that Rappo is leaving his body through astral projection, doing so with a psychic connection forged through Roach's letters. He also plays the voicemail backwards; it is actually a warning from the phantom soldier. Under questioning, an embittered Rappo states his belief that the Gulf War took his life away. Meanwhile, Callahan finds his wife's dead body. He goes to the hospital to talk to Stans, who reveals that Rappo -- whom he doesn't know -- is responsible for the deaths. When Callahan confronts Rappo, he openly admits his crimes. Rappo tries to goad Callahan into killing him, but Callahan instead empties his gun into the wall over Rappo's head. He says Rappo will live, and continue to suffer as his victims do. Callahan exits the room, Rappo shouting after him that he will not let things stand like that. The agents arrive and find Rappo in a trance; Mulder realizes what is happening and tries to find Callahan. Rappo's apparition attacks Callahan with steam from the pipes in the hospital's basement. Stans enters Rappo's room, locks the door, and smothers Rappo with a pillow. With Rappo dead, his apparition disappears before it attacks Mulder. Callahan remains unharmed. Mulder's narration states that, since there is no physical evidence linking Rappo with the deaths of Callahan's wife and son, the case remains open. However, the Army refuses Rappo's family's request that he be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, and he is instead buried in a civilian cemetery in Pennsylvania. Callahan sits at his desk, doing his best to carry on despite the loss of his family. Stans - wearing a plastic shell over his head to protect his raw skin from exposure to the air - trundles in with the mail cart, having taken over the late Freely's duties. He drops a letter on Callahan's desk, and the two men exchange a melancholy look, before Stans wheels his cart down the hallway. 
<EOS>
Carl Wade takes a photograph of 15 year-old Amy Jacobs during school picture day. He becomes obsessed with her following the event, eventually kidnapping her. Her younger sister is the only witness to the incident, which takes place in their bedroom in the middle of the night. At exactly the same time, fast food worker Lucy Householder collapses with a nosebleed. Agent Fox Mulder investigates Amy's disappearance, drawn to the case because his younger sister was kidnapped in a similar situation. The investigation leads Mulder to Lucy, who was taken from her bedroom at age eight and held in a dark basement for five years before she escaped. Dana Scully suspects that Lucy may be connected to Amy's disappearance, based on her long criminal record and the fact that her nosebleed contained not only her blood type, but Amy's as well. In her room at a halfway house, scratches appear on Lucy's face and she experiences temporary blindness--injuries identical to Amy's, who is being tortured in the basement of Wade's cabin. The two develop an unexplainable psychic connection; everything that happens to Amy physically also happens to Lucy. Mulder tries to convince Lucy that she can help them find Amy, but she is too afraid to assist. Scully informs Mulder of their new lead in the case, the school photography assistant Wade, who was recently fired.  Lucy admits to Mulder that Wade was the one who kidnapped her, although she never knew his name.  Mulder is adamant that Lucy is not working with Wade and snaps at Scully when she suggests that Samantha's disappearance is causing him to become too involved with the case. The investigation team receives a tip concerning Wade's location, which corresponds to the area where Lucy was found years ago. They find Wade's cabin in the woods, discovering Lucy in the basement with no clear indication of why she came there. Lucy begins to feel cold and wet; Mulder deduces that because of Lucy's connection to Amy, she must be at the local river. Mulder and Scully arrive there to find Wade attempting to drown Amy. Back with the police, Lucy begins to drown despite not even being near water. Mulder shoots Wade while Scully attempts to perform CPR on Amy, but because of the connection it resuscitates Lucy instead. Suddenly, the process is reversed; Amy recovers and Lucy dies before Mulder returns. Overwhelmed by Lucy's sacrifice and his inability to save her, Mulder breaks down sobbing over her body. He later speculates that she died not only to save Amy, but to forget what Wade did to her years ago. 
<EOS>
A train reaches a station and a man gets off the train. He disconnects the train's last carriage and signals for the vehicle to be restarted. After nightfall, cars pull up outside the train and passengers exit them. They greet a Japanese man who has just disembarked from the carriage. The man leaves in one of the cars but the other men enter the carriage, put on bio-protection suits and begin operating on a body, extracting a green liquid from it. Suddenly, military-looking men storm the train and kill all the doctors, putting the body in a bag before leaving. The body is actually an alien and a small camera, in the side of the carriage, has been recording the entire event. Scully walks into the basement X-files office, and finds Mulder watching a video of the earlier autopsy. She asks how much it cost him, and he replies $29.95, plus shipping. Scully is shocked by how much it cost, and complains that it seems more faked than the Alien Autopsy aired on FOX, because you can't even see the body. Mulder explains that what intrigues him about it is the striking lack of detail, but what he is really interested in is when the train carriage is stormed. Neither agent currently knows that this took place in a train. The video cuts off, just after the squad of men start firing. When Scully asks who is selling the tapes, Mulder replies, "Some guy in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Claims he pulled it off the satellite this morning." Mulder and Scully arrive outside the house of the man who is selling the tapes. The front door is boarded up but the back door has been broken open. By the side of the door is a mailbox, with Rat Tail Productions written at the top of it. Inside the house, Scully finds a man with his hands tied together with rope, and it appears that he was suffocated by a pillowcase on his head, which is bloody. His body is still warm, indicating that his murder was a recent event. Mulder spots a man running in a hallway downstairs and chases the man past several apartment blocks. The man is Japanese and is carrying a briefcase, which he does not seem reluctant to drop. The man attempts to climb a fence but Mulder pulls him down. The man turns to attack Mulder and seems to be skilled in martial arts. He kicks Mulder's gun out of his hand and then tries to run. Mulder pulls up his trouser leg, revealing an ankle-holster. He takes the gun out and fires several warning shots at the man, who turns in shock and looks at Mulder. "Got tired of losing my gun", Mulder explains. Mulder takes the man's bag and realizes he doesn't speak English, before arresting him. The Japanese Man is in custody but Scully has been unable to locate a Japanese-English interpreter. Towards the end of the hallway, Mulder spots Assistant Director Skinner walking towards them. Mulder mutters a joke to Scully, and says "Look at this, a beacon in the night." Skinner greets the agents and tells them that the situation, from his perspective, is actually somewhat of an international crisis. He tells Mulder that the man he arrested earlier was Kazuo Sakurai, a high-ranking Japanese diplomat, and that Mulder will have to let him go free. Skinner says that the murder victim and the paperwork all have to be handled by another agency. Before he leaves, Skinner tells Mulder to keep his nose clean in everything until he gets back to Washington. Outside, Scully asks Mulder if he just wants to drop the case but he reminds her that he paid $29.95 for the tape and says he thinks he's entitled to a few more answers. Mulder opens the trunk of his car and gets out the briefcase that Kazou was carrying. Inside the bag are satellite photos of a ship at sea. Scully also finds a sheet of paper with a list of UFO club members, with the name Betsy Hagopian circled. Mulder tells Scully to get a motel room and find Betsy, while he returns to Washington, D.C., like a good boy as Skinner told him to do, and show the photo to some of his friends. Kazuo Sakurai walks out of the embassy, where a black car is waiting for him. A chauffeur opens the door for him, and he gets in. The chauffeur closes the door, and locks Sakurai in the car. A face comes out of the shadows behind the seats, and smiles a sadistic smile towards him. The driver adjusts his rear view mirror, and reflects the man in the back of the car, strangling Sakurai to death. Scully goes to try and find Betsy Hagopian. She arrives at her house, and notices a MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) sticker on the window. Scully knocks the door, and a woman with dark hair answers. Scully asks if she is Betsy, and the woman says that Besty is not there right now. When she asks for any way she could contact Betsy, the woman looks a Scully with awe on her face. Scully apologises and reaches for her badge, and the woman says "I know you". Scully tells her she must be mistaken, but the woman is sure that she has seen Scully before. She calls for her friend Penny, and when Penny gets there, she straight away says "Oh My God! She's one.". Scully asks "One what?", and the first woman answers "One of us." Scully tells them they must be mistaken, but Penny calls someone and says to bring the group to Betsy's place. Scully tells them about the man who was murdered by Kazo, and they say that he was one of their group. Scully tells them again that they must be wrong. When people starts to arrive, Scully assures them that she has never seen any of them in her life. They say she cannot remember because she has only been taken once. Scully asks what they meen by Taken. They tell her To the Bright White Place. Scully suddenly sees a flashback of herself lying on a table, bathed in a bright light. A woman asks "You remember, don't you? There were men there, performing tests" Scully asks which men they are talking about, and Lottie tells her that they do not reveal themselves, that they take her memory away, but somehow it keeps seeping back. That some may have come back to her but didn't make sense. Scully doesn't understand why she can't remember the MUFON members. They tell her that the first time, all you remember is the light, then sometimes the faces of the men who perform the tests. Scully stares at her until her memory returns briefly and she sees some kind of tube attached to her belly button during the tests, exactly like Mulder had imagined when Scully was abducted. Her stomach is inflated, being filled with air. It grows very large as two figures, presumably aliens, watch in the background. They ask if she has the mark, and one woman shows hers to Scully. She has a brown mark on the back of her neck, exactly like Scully has. Lottie says that that is where they put the implant. Scully tries to leave, but Penny convinces her to come and see Betsy.
<EOS>
At the Hansen's Disease Research Facility soldiers arrive and round up a group of deformed patients. As one of the patients hides in the woods and watches, the patients are all gunned down by the troops and pushed into a mass grave. Scully loses contact with Mulder, who loses his cell phone as he jumps aboard a moving train. Scully questions X on how to help him; he tells her to look into the chip that was removed in her neck, which will help her learn more about the train and who killed her sister. Mulder enters the train and talks to the Conductor, trying to get access to Dr. Shiro Zama. Inside Zama's compartment they find journals hand written in Japanese.  Mulder leaves the Conductor with his empty backup pistol in case Zama returns.  Scully sees Agent Pendrell ,who tells her that the chip replicates the brain's memory function and can enable someone to know a person's every thought. By poking and prodding it, Pendrell has effectively destroyed the chip. They find the manufacturer of the chip to be a Dr. Shiro Zama from a disease research facility in West Virginia.  As Mulder searches the train for Dr. Zama, the Red-Haired Man corners Zama in a bathroom and strangles him.  Mulder soon finds the body when he doubles back through the train. Scully meets the First Elder, who tells her that the people at the HDR facility were part of an inhuman experiment by Zama. The First Elder permits Scully to contact Mulder by calling the Red Haired Man's cell phone. Scully tells Mulder that alien abductions, including her own, had nothing to do with aliens but rather were experiments conducted by people like Zama, with the alien abduction theory simply being a smoke screen. Scully believes that the quarantined patient in the car has hemorrhagic fever and thousands will die of it if the car explodes. Mulder finds the bomb inside a ceiling vent, with approximately 100 minutes remaining. Mulder tells the Conductor to disconnect the car from the rest of the train in an unpopulated area. The Red Haired Man tells Mulder that the quarantined patient is a weapon, having an immunity to biological warfare. Zama tried to sneak it out of the country, but the government would rather see it destroyed than let the Japanese steal the technology. Mulder believes that the patient is an alien human hybrid. Scully tries to contact Senator Matheson and X but has no luck. By watching Mulder's alien autopsy video she figures out the car's exit code, which she repeats back to Mulder. As Mulder opens the door out of the train he is jumped and beaten unconscious by the Red Haired Man. As the Red Haired Man is about to leave, he is shot to death by X, who enters the car and, after glancing at the human-alien hybrid, carries Mulder to safety just as the car explodes.
<EOS>
In Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, a priest is giving a sermon about the importance of faith in an increasingly cynical world. As his sermon nears its end, he begins bleeding from his hands. After mass, a parishioner comes in to see the priest in his dressing room. He says that the sermon really touched him, and praises the priest before killing him. Mulder and Scully investigate the case. Mulder says that the priest was the eleventh fake stigmatic who has been killed over the past 3 years in a series of international murders. Meanwhile at an elementary school in Ohio a boy, Kevin Kryder starts bleeding from the palms of his hands. The agents arrive and meet with a social worker, who claims that Kevin has suffered injuries before and that his father was institutionalized, claiming that Kevin was in danger from evil forces. The agents visit Kevin's father, who claims that his son is the chosen one and that evil forces will come to kill him as part of a great war between good and evil. Kevin is abducted by a strange-looking bald man. Kevin's mother recognizes the man's description as Owen Jarvis, who had done yard work for the family in the past. Owen claims to be Kevin's guardian angel. By the time the agents arrive Kevin is gone. Owen claims he was asked by God to protect Kevin and criticizes Scully for her faith not being as strong as his. Owen jumps out the window and escapes. Kevin arrives at his home and is pursued by the man who killed the priest, who kills Owen when he arrives to protect him. Scully performs an autopsy and finds that Owen's corpse is not decaying, reminding her of incorruptibles that she learned about in Catechism. Mulder tells Scully to not let her faith cloud her judgement. Scully finds that handprints on Owen's neck belong to Simon Gates, a rich and powerful executive. Kevin travels with his mother in a car which breaks down. Gates arrives offering to help fix the car, and Kevin, who appears in two places at once is able to distract him and help them escape. Kevin's mother runs their damaged car into a ditch however, dying as a result. Scully tells Kevin she'll protect him. They bring him to a hotel where Scully finds an additional wound on Kevin's side. Scully becomes upset at Mulder for his unwillingness to accept the possibility of a miracle. As they talk, Gates breaks into the bathroom, kidnapping Kevin by prying an opening in the barred window. Scully returns to see Kevin's father but finds him heavily drugged. Scully theorizes that Gates has brought Kevin to a recycling plant he owns in Jerusalem, Ohio. Mulder thinks that he has headed to the airport, as a man matching Gates' description was reported headed there. Mulder thinks Scully believes that she's been chosen to protect Kevin. Scully arrives at the recycling plant where Gates tells Kevin that he must die for the New Age to come. Gates attempts to jump into a shredding machine with Kevin, but Kevin grabs onto the side as Gates jumps in and Scully is able to pull him to safety. Two days later Scully and Kevin say goodbye. Kevin tells Scully he'll see her again. Scully goes to the confessional for the first time in years, wondering if God is speaking, but no one is listening. 
<EOS>
An exterminator in a basement lectures about the cockroach. He tells the home owner, an alternative fuel researcher named Dr. Eckerle, that he has a new method of extermination, a fungus that not only kills the infected roach, but is passed on to other roaches it comes into contact with. After the home owner leaves exterminator to finish the job, a particularly arrogant bug resists the fungus, so the exterminator flicks it to the floor and stamps on it. Immediately he feels something happening to his body, and he stumbles to the wall where more cockroaches appear covering his body as he falls to the ground. The home owner returns to find the exterminator on the floor covered in roaches. Meanwhile Agent Mulder is in his car looking out for reported lights in the sky. He has a phone conversation with Scully with regard to his whereabouts when he is interrupted by a local sheriff. That too is cut short when the sheriff is called to the roach incident, the third such incident in a week. There is another attack, this time on a young man, who was taking some 'home-brewed' drugs with friends; the insects crawl into his arms and he dies from mostly self-inflicted wounds attempting to get at the burrowing bugs. Again Mulder calls Scully from the scene, this time she puts it down to a drug-induced vision, but Mulder discovers a roach carcass that he thinks is actually made of a metallic substance. After more roaches attack the medical examiner, the sheriff tells Mulder of a secret government experiment taking place locally. Again Mulder calls Scully, and this time she puts the death down to an aneurysm due to straining too hard while on the toilet. The doctor's blood shot eyes and dilated pupils confirm her suspicions. Mulder visits the government site, a two story house with moving walls due to the number of roaches crawling about. A government agent, Dr. Bambi Berenbaum of the US agricultural research service says they are studying cockroaches to find better ways to eradicate them. Dr. Berenbaum tells Mulder about a robotics expert who may know something about the roaches. Mulder visits Dr. Alexander Ivanov, a wheelchair-bound robotics specialist, who explains about his experiments based on insects. Mulder asks Dr. Ivanov if aliens might use robotic bugs to search Earth, he says it's possible, but when he shows the doctor the metallic roach legs he can't believe it, stating they're advanced way beyond his understanding, much to his dismay. Scully arrives but the town is in mass panic; everyone is trying to leave as quickly as possible and fighting over quickly dwindling supplies at the supermarket. Scully calls Mulder with a new theory: that the roaches have been imported with manure used in methane experiments. When Mulder visits the methane plant, the now bug-crazed researcher shoots at Mulder believing he too might very well be a cockroach himself. Scully arrives at the plant and is less than impressed with Dr. Bambi, who is waiting for Mulder outside, and begins searching for her partner. However, when she calls Mulder and his phone sounds like a roach, Dr. Eckerle shoots at Mulder again, quickly igniting one of the methane pipes, and, as the two agents flee, the building explodes. The two agents are unharmed, but humorously covered in manure. The roach incidents stop, although the sheriff lists the other incidents that came as a result of the town's panic. Meanwhile, when Dr.Ivanov comes by in the hopes of re-examining the robotic-roach specimens, he's disappointed they've disintegrated; but more than pleased to catch Dr.Berenbaum's immediate interest instead. As Mulder looks on pie-eyed at Dr.Bambi's exit, Scully quips on how smart is obviously sexy, and jokes on the possibility of the two doctor's future offspring could have the solution to the robotic-roaches next earthly reconnaissance. Mulder responds with his own quip, that he never thought he'd ever be telling Scully that she stinks. Later, home alone, Mulder's report focuses on man's development; and how humanity might react if insect-like robots visited earth; or how the next advancement may be a species that does not have the emotion that holds back man and is simply reactive to the environment, like insects. 
<EOS>
In Comity, New Hampshire, a group of high school students hold a eulogy for their dead friend, the purported victim of a local Satanic cult. Two girls, Terri Roberts and Margi Kleinjan, get a ride home from a jock, Jay Boom DeBoom. During the drive, the girls tell Boom that the cult seeks a blonde virgin as a next victim, convincing him to turn off the road. The next day, the police find Boom hanging from a cliff. Out of sight of the police, Terri and Margi sit at the top, laughing. Fox Mulder and Dana Scully arrive in Comity after arguing over directions along the way. They meet a local detective, Angela White, and go to Boom's funeral. Scully, in a bad mood, is skeptical of these claims. The high school principal, Bob Spitz, interrupts the funeral by ranting Inquisitorial-style about Satanic cults murdering their children when suddenly the coffin starts smoking and catches on fire. Mulder and Scully go into separate rooms to interview Margi and Terri, both of whom offer an identical story about a satanic ceremony where a baby was sacrificed. Scully thinks their stories are cliche and points out the fact that the belief in a satanic conspiracy is illogical and paranoid. Looking at the latest victim's body, Mulder and Detective White find a burn mark in the shape of a horned beast; Scully says she doesn't see anything. Mulder goes to see White to apologize for Scully's behavior and the two visit the local astrologist Madame Zirinka who claims the town's crazy behavior is due to the rare planetary alignment of the planets Mars, Uranus, and Mercury. Terri and Margi watch basketball practice, lusting over one of the players, Scott, whose girlfriend is fellow cheerleader Brenda, much to Terri and Margi's displeasure. One of the other players accidentally spills a table of drinks on them, so they cause the basketball to bounce underneath the bleachers and it closes when he goes to get it, killing him. Scully is angry at Mulder for ditching her to be with Detective White. A town mob searches for a mass grave in the woods and finds a bag belonging to the town pediatrician filled with bones, which Spitz mistakenly assumes belonged to a child. The angry mob goes to see the doctor, who claims the bag was sold. The bones end up belonging to Mr. Tippy, a dog that belonged to Terri. Scully gets upset over a joke Mulder makes and tells him she's returning to Washington. Margi and Terri celebrate their birthday and Brenda uses a Ouija board to know who she will marry; everyone thinks it's Scott before the planchette veers away from the C and spells out Satan. Upset, Brenda rushes to the bathroom where Margi and Terri are chanting Bloody Mary and is locked in, killed by glass from a shattered mirror. Detective White heads to Mulder's hotel room because she found a box which inside had her cat's collar, and then she makes a romantic gesture towards Mulder but they are interrupted by Scully who informs them about Brenda's death. Terri and Margi try to console Scott, who tells them off. Turned down, Terri is mad at him but Margi still likes him and leaves. Mulder goes to visit Madame Zirinka again, who tells him that the planets come into alignment like this only once every 84 years, and additional alignments will cause anyone born on January 12, 1979 (Margi and Terri's birthdate) to have all the energy in the cosmos focused on them. Margi goes to see Scott alone but an angry Terri arrives. The two argue with each other and end up accidentally killing Scott as they cause objects and implements to fly about. Confronted with his accidental death, they both blame each other murderers. Margi immediately goes to Mulder, telling him that Terri is responsible for all the murders, while Terri goes to see Scully and tells her the opposite. The agents call each other and bring both girls to the police station, where the place starts shaking and all the guns go off on their own endangering everyone in the office who barely escape being shot dead. Mulder first separates the girls, then locks them in a room together and their power ceases completely once the clock ticks midnight; leaving the girls a docile, sobbing heap, clutching tightly to each other in the far corner of the room. When the town mob and Detective White finally see the now seemingly-innocent Terri and Margi as the culprits, Spitz, at a loss for any logical explanation, immediately claims it was indeed the work of Satan, oblivious to the cosmic alignment's energy. Mulder and Scully drive home, arguing again over directions or any tiny thing; when Scully defiantly runs a stop sign, Mulder notifies her but she tells him to shut up, which he does. 
<EOS>
The episode opens in an art class, where a nude male model is being sketched. One student, visibly disturbed, scrawls what appears to be a goblin instead. He cuts his finger sharpening his pencil and gets blood on the drawing. The artist is very agitated as the class ends and he leaves. The model also leaves, and finds a pencil jammed into the lock of his car door.  Suddenly, someone attacks him with a utility knife. The next morning, an FBI task force bursts into the artist's apartment and arrests him; in the process he bites one of the agents, Nemhauser, on the hand. The art on his walls reveals a man obsessed with demonic creatures.  Task force leader Bill Patterson searches the man's toolbox and discovers a utility knife with blood on the blade. Searching Mostow's apartment, Mulder and Scully discover a concealed passageway leading into a hidden room. It is filled with life-size clay gargoyles, but upon closer inspection, Mulder finds they are clay shells over human bodies.  Five are found in all; young men whose faces were mutilated like the previous victims. A glass blower is attacked and badly wounded.  At the hospital, Nemhauser tells Scully that, despite his outward enmity, Patterson respects and possibly even admires Mulder's profiling abilities.  He also implies that Patterson requested Mulder and Scully be assigned to the case.  When Patterson himself shows up, Scully informs him that Mulder is looking into the gargoyle aspect.  Patterson is annoyed, continuing to believe in the accomplice theory. Scully is peeved to learn that Mulder was in Mostow's apartment at 3:30 A.M., and she defaults to her usual rational explanation of the murders. Mulder ignores her and leaves. Scully challenges Patterson, who claims that he brought Mulder on the case not because he is trying to humiliate him, but because he thinks only Mulder can solve it.  He also warns her not to try and hold Mulder back, because you won't be able to.  As Scully leaves the scene she finds a disassembled utility knife beneath a police car. Mulder consults Mostow in prison to find out why he wasn't killed.  When Mostow refuses to talk Mulder strikes him, but still learns nothing.  Mostow says that anyone could be possessed by the gargoyle, even Mulder; maybe, based on his reaction, he already is.  At the crime lab, Scully learns that the fingerprints on the knife blade are Mulder's.  Scully visits the evidence warehouse; as she is called to meet with Skinner, she discovers that the utility knife Mostow used is missing. Both she and Skinner express concern about Mulder's bizarre behavior. Patterson appears. Mulder accuses him of being the murderer, having seen that his hands are covered in clay. Patterson's technique of identifying with the murderer has gone too far, presumably allowing him to be possessed by the demonic entity that plagued Mostow and leading him to continue the murders; he killed Nemhauser when things started to point to him.  Mulder holds Patterson at gunpoint, but Scully arrives and draws the wrong conclusion. Patterson flees; after a chase and struggle he is shot by Mulder and arrested. Patterson is jailed for the murders, and is last seen pressing against the bars of his cell, desperately claiming to be innocent. Behind him is another gargoyle face that he has etched with soot and his own blood. In voiceover, Mulder laments the fact that when men like Patterson, whose job it is to enter the minds of killers, look into the abyss for too long, sometimes the abyss looks back, and brings out their own demons. 
<EOS>
A French diving expedition is underway. A diver, Gauthier, heads down in an Atmospheric Diving Suit to investigate a target his crew thinks is the remains of a plane from a lost squadron from World War II. He spots the plane and reads the call numbers and the name Drop Dead Red, verifying this is the plane they are looking for. He then hears pounding and investigates the canopy. He finds a man still alive, in an air pocket, pounding the glass from inside the canopy; Gauthier stares in shock as the man's eyes glaze over with a black, inky haze. After losing radio contact, the crew manages to haul up Gauthier, who is disoriented. He blinks his eyes and they go black, like the man from the plane. AD Skinner informs Scully that her sister's murder case has been declared inactive. She is furious, but Skinner promises to appeal the decision. When she meets with Mulder, he tells her about a case he came across last night: the French salvage ship Piper Maru, which limped into port in San Diego after returning from the same location where the Talapus possibly discovered a UFO. Scully complains about Mulder's complete willingness to make crazy connections in search of the truth, but Mulder, smiling, just hands her a plane ticket. Gauthier is the only member of the Piper Maru's crew to be unaffected by radiation poisoning. He pilots the ship into port, and releases himself from the hospital's care after one day. When Mulder and Scully arrive at the naval hospital, they have no one to question since all the other sailors are comatose. Scully gets no response when she calls Gauthier's home phone. Aided by an investigator from the Naval Investigative Service, the agents search the Piper Maru. They find a dive chart on the wall with the name Zeus Faber scrawled on it, the recorded video feed from Gauthier's dive, including shots of a P51 Mustang. Gauthier is frantically searching through papers in his office when his wife shows up. She is surprised to find him there and disturbed when he doesn't respond to her questions. Suddenly the inky haze crosses his eyes and she tries to flee. He catches her at the door and soon she is seen to have oily eyes. Mulder arrives at Gauthier's and finds him collapsed on the floor and oily. Gauthier seems to be back to normal, having no memory of anything beyond the dive and refusing to answer Mulder's questions. Among the papers in his office, Mulder finds an invoice for a salvage broker in San Francisco, Kallenchuck. Scully goes to visit Commander Johansen, an old neighbor from her childhood on a military base, to utilize his acumen. He plays dumb about the P51 Mustang aircraft. Mulder shows up at the office of the salvage broker and queries the secretary, Jeraldine. She yields no information, but cocks a shotgun under her desk as Mulder talks to her. Mulder leaves but hides outside in his car, and witnesses a team of French hit men arrive, armed with submachine guns. Jeraldine is already fleeing the office in her car and Mulder follows. Scully is detained at the checkpoint gate as she leaves the local military base. Johansen joins her in her car. He tells her he was the on the team tasked with finding the plane the Piper Maru discovered. The plane had been the escort of an unused third plane that carried an atomic bomb meant for Japan. Meanwhile Mulder is off to Hong Kong in pursuit of Jeraldine. Joan Gauthier discreetly follows them. While Skinner has coffee he is pestered by three suits, identifying themselves as members of the intelligence community, who ominously suggest that he drop his appeal of the decision to make inactive the case involving the murder of Melissa Scully. Johansen shows a picture of the flight crew and a flashback begins. When a Japanese destroyer seemed likely to find the sub, the captain went rogue and wouldn't return to base. The crew gradually received radiation burns in the Pacific in the final days of World War II. Johansen sealed the crew and the captain in the sick bay and piloted the sub back to Pearl Harbor. At that point all the men in the sickbay were dead or dying. Only seven men, including Johansen, survived. Mulder corners Jeraldine in Hong Kong. She acknowledges that she sells government secrets. Mulder tells her that what she's selling is killing people, but she doesn't seem to care--she says she's just a middleman, and, as long as she gets her cut, she's happy. Mulder handcuffs her and leads her to the company office. Inside, Alex Krycek is waiting for them, and brandishes a gun. He closes the door on the handcuff chain, trapping Jeraldine in the hallway and Mulder inside with the armed and clearly agitated Krycek. From within the office, Geraldine is heard crying out as shots are fired. Krycek flees through a window.  The French hit men burst into the office but Mulder has gotten away in pursuit of Krycek. Mrs Gauthier arrives and gives off a blinding flash of light, which causes the hit men to suffer severe radiation burns. At Skinner's coffee house, a Hispanic man is whining to the cashier about the broken phone. The man shoots Skinner as he tries to defuse the situation, then flees. Scully gets a call from Skinner's secretary, Kim, who tells her about the incident. Scully leaves to visit Skinner in the hospital. Krycek is at the airport waiting for a plane to Washington. When he walks past the payphones he is blindsided and beaten up by Mulder, who takes his gun. Krycek promises to lead Mulder to the digital tape with the government UFO files in exchange for his life. Mulder recommends a trip to the bathroom to clean off his bloody face. Mrs. Gauthier follows Krycek inside, and infects him with the black oil. 
<EOS>
A radiated and dying sailor from the Zeus Faber is debriefed in 1953. He recounts a series of incidents aboard the submarine, where a contingent of the crew are dying from radiation burns and the rest contemplate mutiny against the apparently insane Captain. After a struggle, the Captain is locked in the vessel's sickbay. As he gives up trying to force the door and turns around, the men look in horror as his eyes glaze over with black oil. One of the sailors strikes the Captain with a spanner, knocking him unconscious. The oil abandons its host, escaping through a drain in the floor. The sailor insists to the government interrogators - who are revealed to be a young Bill Mulder and Cigarette Smoking Man - that they make the truth known. When the sailor asks whether he can trust Mulder, CSM steps forward and says "you can trust all of us." Scully visits Skinner at the hospital and he tells her he recognized the man who shot him. Having arrived in the United States, Krycek and Mulder get into a rental car, with the possessed Krycek remaining quiet and emotionless.  Mulder takes away the key to a storage locker, which presumably has the digital tape in it.  As they take to the road, Mulder realizes they are being followed. The trailing car pulls alongside and forces them down an embankment, the crash leaving Mulder dazed. One of the other car's occupants pulls an unharmed Krycek from his car and starts to take him away. The other occupant of the car suddenly sees a blinding light from where they had gone as he moves in on Mulder.  He goes to investigate.  Mulder sees another bright flash of light and hears screams before he passes out. The Cigarette Smoking Man receives the prognosis of the two men in the vehicle who drove Mulder and Krycek off the road, and orders the medical staff to destroy the bodies, despite the fact that the men are still alive. Mulder wakes up in a hospital and explains to Scully that he ran into Krycek in Hong Kong and that they returned to Washington to get the tape. The man who shot Skinner has the identical genetic signature as the man who shot Scully's sister Melissa. Skinner is not surprised. The Syndicate meet to deliberate on the situation with the tape, which they believed had been destroyed in a car bombing. The Well-Manicured Man makes clear his disdain for the haphazard work done by the CSM's assassins and scorns his dependence on violence and murder to achieve his goals. Mulder has had the diving suit shipped to his office. The oil on it matches that found on Mrs. Gauthier, who was found unconscious in the men's room in Hong Kong after infecting Krycek. The Lone Gunmen go ice-skating as a ruse to pick up an envelope that reportedly contains the tape and has been left in a locker inside the ice rink. The Gunmen give the envelope to Mulder, who has been waiting in a car outside the rink, but they find that the envelope contains only an empty tape case. At an apartment used by the CSM, Krycek enters, flanked by Luis Cardinal. The CSM, in exchange for the tape, tells Krycek that he has something that the newcomer wants but does not go into further detail. The CSM is completely unsurprised when Krycek's eyes glaze over with the black oil. The CSM collectively meets with the other members of the Syndicate, who are highly unhappy with his actions regarding the digital tape, the salvaged submarine and the attempted murder of Skinner. Although a calm CSM assures them that the tape has now been destroyed and that he will take care of Skinner for good, this neither convinces nor appeases the Well-Manicured Man, who once again voices his disapproval. Mulder and the Lone Gunmen attempt to obtain clues from the envelope. When an indentation from someone writing using the tape case is found, Byers and Langly discuss various super-high-tech ways the feds have of recovering such information. Mulder uses a pencil to shade in the indentations and reveal a New York City phone number. He calls it, managing to contact the headquarters of the Syndicate. Mulder speaks to the Well-Manicured Man, who agrees to a meeting in Central Park. Scully learns from background checks that the man they are looking for is Luis Cardinal, a Nicaraguan mercenary and assassin who worked with the CIA in Central America.  Other than that, the FBI can't find anything on him. The Well-Manicured Man and Mulder meet that night. The Syndicate elder answers Mulder's inquiries as to the nature of the submarine, which had been deployed to locate and recover a crashed UFO. After a long conversation, Mulder goes to leave and is surprised when the Well-Manicured Man asks where the tape is. Mulder tells him that Krycek has it but realizes that, like himself, the Well-Manicured Man is not aware of Krycek's location.  The Well-Manicured Man warns that anyone can be gotten to, which prompts Mulder to call Scully and tell her to check on Skinner. Scully finds out that Skinner is being transferred to another hospital and the police guard she ordered has been called off. She catches up with the ambulance as it begins to depart and joins Skinner in the back of the vehicle. At a traffic light, Scully hears suspicious noises and abruptly opens the door on Cardinal, who fires wildly before fleeing. After a brief chase, Scully catches up with him and holds him at gunpoint. She repeatedly demands to know whether he killed her sister although he ultimately begs her to believe that Krycek is to blame. Cardinal also claims that he will tell her everything she wants to know. Scully chooses not to shoot him and, upon the arrival of the police, Scully shows them her badge before handing Cardinal over to them. After learning that the UFO is being stored at an abandoned missile silo in North Dakota, Scully and Mulder travel there and break into the complex. They enter one of many bunkers in the area and journey underground to a series of tunnels, where they find irradiated soldiers.  Suddenly the lights come on and they are pursued and detained by more soldiers. As the agents are led outside, the CSM arrives via helicopter and brushes off Mulder's angry accusations. Behind a door that Scully and Mulder had almost reached, Krycek painfully regurgitates the black oil, with pours into a spiral symbol atop the immobile UFO.  CSM, knowing Krycek is inside, leaves after ordering the irradiated bodies disposed of. Skinner comes to Mulder's office, where Mulder thanks him for putting his career and life on the line for them.  Skinner has something he needs to tell Scully, whom Mulder meets at Melissa's grave.  He reveals that Luis Cardinal found dead in his cell of an apparent suicide.  Scully contemplates that the men they are dealing with will face no justice, recalling something her father's old friend Christopher Johansen said: conscience is the dead haunting them. Meanwhile, a disheveled Krycek hammers on a small window built into door 1013, screaming for help. The silo, however, has been abandoned once again, leaving Krycek trapped underground. 
<EOS>
The episode begins in a supermarket. A man is seen going through the aisles. He stops at a shelf of energy drinks and scoops about thirty cans of Carbo Boost into his basket. A young man in a jacket regards him closely as he does this. As the first man gets in line, the line is cut into by another jacketed man. The first man grabs a copy of the Daily Informer, scans front cover and puts it back. He then notices a police car outside.  Exasperated, he reaches over to the guy in front of him and pulls down a fold on his jacket, revealing the letters FBI.  Immediately, he is tackled and pinned to the check-out counter. He is put in handcuffs as the lead officer, Frank Burst, appears.  As the man is led away Agent Will Collins reads him his rights. In the car, Burst asks for the man's real name. "Pusher's good enough," he replies calmly, almost casually. Suddenly, he comments to the driver, Deputy Scott Kerber, that his jacket is a nice shade of cerulean blue, a color which makes him think about a gentle breeze. As he repeats this phrase over and over, Kerber appears to go into a trance, and a blue tractor trailer in his line of vision vanishes. Almost in a dreamlike state, Kerber drives directly into the path of the truck, while Burst screams for him to stop and Pusher ducks in the backseat. In the X-Files office, a slideshow depicting the aftermath of the accident is shown. Burst, his face covered in bruises, narrates: before Kerber died, he managed to get out of the car and unlock Pusher's handcuffs, allowing him to escape. Burst adds that Pusher himself called the FBI, claiming to have murdered fourteen people as a game. At first, the FBI dismissed him as a crank, since all fourteen of the murdered people were officially found to have committed suicide, but Pusher knew details about each death that were only available to the police. Burst flips to the next slide, which shows the truck, with the words Cerulean Hauling painted on it. He flips to the next slide, which shows the letters NIN OR smeared on the truck with blood. Mulder walks over to the projector and flips the slide the other way around to read RO NIN, a Japanese word for a master-less samurai. Later, Mulder and Scully are in the FBI research library, reading through a pile of issues of American Ronin. A woman called Holly delivers even more magazines to their table. A bruise can be seen on her right cheek, the result of a man knocking her down in Georgetown and stealing her purse. After she leaves, Mulder starts to theorize that Pusher can force his will onto others; as usual, Scully expresses skepticism. Mulder points to an advertisement which reads "I SOLVE PROBLEMS. OSU", followed by three phone numbers; he's seen this ad in numerous other issues, dating back to the time the murders started. Mulder looks up the word osu in a Japanese-English dictionary and finds that it means to push. Scully suggests they try the numbers in the ad. Their stakeout of the phones lasts through the night.  As they prepare to give up, the phone they're at starts to ring.  Pusher taunts Mulder by saying that, if they want to find him, "You'll have to follow my little bread crumb trail, prove your worth."  Mulder's next clue is said to be right in front of him, and then Pusher hangs up.  Mulder checks the last number dialed on the public phone and gets a recording for Tee Totallers, a driving range and pro golfer's shop. At Tee Totallers, Pusher is on the driving range with some Japanese gentlemen, whom he appears to be pushing. He notices a suspicious looking piece of brown bush carrying a rifle and leaves, saying "Konichiwa, gentlemen. I was never here." Agents start to surround the building. Collins enters the dimly-lit basement and confronts Pusher, who tells him to relax and take off his mask and helmet.  "I need you to do something for me," he says. Mulder, Scully and Burst are walking towards the building when Collins stumbles out, sobbing. He is carrying a can of gasoline, which he has soaked himself with, and holding a lighter. Realizing what will happen next, Mulder and Burst try to talk him out of it as Scully runs away. Collins pleads for help as he lights the lighter and presses it to his chest, engulfing him in flames.  Scully re-appears with a fire extinguisher, spraying Collins with it as Mulder tackles him to the ground and smothers the flames with his coat. Collins is badly burnt, but still alive and trembling, saying light it up over and over. While Burst calls for help, Mulder hears a car horn in the distance and runs over to it, followed by SWAT officers. He opens the door and finds Pusher exhausted and covered with sweat, saying light it up over and over. Pusher looks at Mulder and smiles: "Bet you five bucks I get off." In court, Pusher gives his name as Robert Patrick Modell. Mulder tries to argue that Modell was behind the fourteen suicides that have taken place since 1994. However, Modell's lawyer manages to convince that judge that Modell is not guilty; he merely placed several drunken calls to police and pretended that he helped those people commit suicide.  Modell helps his case by subtly pushing the judge to rule in his favor.  Afterward, Modell requests five dollars from Mulder, who starts to pay up, but then tricks Modell into thinking his shoe is untied. "Made you look.  How do you do it?" Mulder asks, pulling the bill away when Modell grabs for it. Pusher smirks and walks away, ignoring Burst when he calls after him: "I know your name now.  I know where you live!" At the FBI firing range, Mulder empties his gun into a target. Scully enters, having found out more about Modell: after an average schooling, he enlisted in the military, wishing to be a Navy SEAL or, failing that, a Green Beret, but was rejected from both programs and served as a supply clerk. He had also previously applied to the FBI, but did not pass a psych screening which found him to be acutely ego-centered; he has no regard for other people's feelings and considers them to be little more than objects.  Scully has seen enough to believe that Modell is guilty of murder, but is looking for some more mundane explanation than Modell is able to control other people's minds, pointing out that if he had that ability, he wouldn't have spent all his life as such a little man who wishes he were someone big. Mulder speculates that the ability came to Modell more recently, and challenges Scully to come up with a mundane explanation for why Agent Collins - a family man with no prior history of psychological problems - would intentionally set fire to himself. In the FBI headquarters' lobby Modell, seeing the metal detector at the front, scrawls the word PASS on a piece of paper and attaches it to his lapel. Modell asks for directions to the computer records section and the guard lets him through without a second glance, even as the metal detector starts to ring. Pusher heads to Computer Records, where he finds Holly. Modell closes the door and all the blinds, and then pushes Holly into checking up a personnel record and having her print it out. At the same time, AD Walter Skinner passes by the office. Seeing the closed blinds, he grows suspicious and tries to open the door. It is locked. He draws his gun, then kicks it open.  Pusher tries to psych Skinner as well, but Skinner slams him against a cabinet and orders Holly to call security. Pusher orders Holly to attack Skinner, planting the idea that he was the one who mugged her in Georgetown. Skinner starts to call security himself, but Holly stops him by spraying pepper spray into his eyes. Skinner screams in agony and falls to the floor, writhing. Pusher tells Holly to hurt him back, and leaves as Holly begins kicking Skinner mercilessly. In Skinner's office, Holly has come to her senses and is apologizing profusely. Crying, she explains that it was as if she was watching herself attacking Skinner from across the room. Mulder walks in, and asks to speak with Scully and Skinner outside. He says that he looked at the security tapes and Modell could clearly be seen entering the building with the word PASS on his lapel, but the guard does not remember waving him through. Scully agrees with Mulder. Skinner asks Mulder why Modell is so interested with him; the only file he accessed was Mulder's.  Skinner tells them that trespassing on government property is enough for a search warrant. At Modell's apartment, the door is broken down and the place is cleared by Burst and the SWAT team. Mulder opens the fridge to find cans upon cans of Mango Kiwi Tropical Swirl energy drinks. Scully finds a bottle of pills known as Tegretol in the bathroom.  Through a call, she finds it is used to relieve seizures caused by temporal lobe epilepsy. She adds that the doctors she just spoke to would only tell her that the prescription dates back to 1994, when the murders began. Mulder asks what causes a man to develop epilepsy this late in life, and Scully speculates, a head injury, a brain lesion or tumor. Mulder interrupts, citing several studies that believe brain tumors are linked to the development of psychic ability. He suspects that Modell's ability is a form of psychokinesis brought on by a tumor. Scully objects that a man with a brain tumor wouldn't be healthy enough to play cat-and-mouse games with the FBI, and Mulder guesses that that is the whole point: Modell is dying, and so he confessed to fourteen murders that he'd already gotten away with, just to be sure he'd go out with a bang. The telephone rings and Burst picks up. After ordering for the tracing gear, Burst signals to Mulder and Scully, who run to another room and pick up the other extension. As the trace runs, Modell begins to go on about how Burst, who is not exactly slim in size, probably eats a lot of fried food, and then meticulously starts to explain what is happening to his arteries and his heart. Upon hearing this, Mulder orders Burst to hang up, but Burst, despite being visibly in severe pain, demands to continue the trace. Mulder rushes in and tries to grab the phone, but is stopped by the SWAT men on Burst's orders. Scully tries to unplug the phone line, but is stopped as well. Moments later, Burst collapses. Scully checks for a pulse, but there is none. Mulder picks up the phone as Scully administers CPR. Mulder asks Modell what he wants, and Modell replies that he wants a worthy adversary. He then rattles off the number of the phone he is calling from; it matches the number from the trace. It is a pay phone, located at 12000 Block Chain Bridge Road. SWAT lieutenant Brophy checks the map and finds out that there is a Fairfax Mercy Hospital nearby. On a hunch, Scully checks the label on the bottle of Tegretol, which came from Fairfax Mercy Pharmacy. At Fairfax Mercy, the SWAT team surround the building while Mulder, Scully and Brophy monitor the situation from a surveillance van. A SWAT man finds Modell's car and checks the engine, which is still warm, suggesting that Modell is inside. Brophy offers to send his men in and flush Modell out, but Mulder does not want to run the risk of Modell turning his men on each another in a crowded hospital. He decides to enter the hospital himself, to give Modell what he wants: a worthy adversary.  Scully is not happy with this, and Mulder offers to wear a microphone so they can stay in contact with him. Mulder is fixed up with the equipment, which includes a bulletproof vest, a mike and a mini camera that allows Scully and Brophy to see what is going on from his point of view. After handing Scully his gun and smiling reassuringly at her, Mulder enters the hospital. He tells the curious receptionist to carry on with her business as he approaches the MRI ward. Suddenly, shots are fired and the camera footage turns to static. Scully is about to go after Mulder when the picture comes back to reveal two men dead in the ward.  It looks as if the guard shot the MRI technician and turned the gun on himself; the gun is missing.  On a table nearby is a computer and some charts; looking at them, Scully determines that Modell's tumor is almost certainly fatal at this point, and he has nothing to lose. Scully tells Mulder to get out of the hospital.  Mulder turns around to see Modell, holding a gun point-blank in Mulder's face. He grabs at Mulder's camera and the screen turns black, sending Scully into a panic. In the hallways of the hospital, Brophy tells Scully that there are too many patients still in their rooms to risk trying to gas Modell out.  Scully has donned a bulletproof vest and hands Brophy her gun before walking down the hallway. She checks each room as she passes by, and stops when she sees Mulder's discarded vest on the floor beside a bed. She opens the door wider and sees Modell and Mulder sitting on opposite sides of a table, the guard's gun between them. Modell and Mulder are staring at one another.  Mulder is expressionless, with his right eye slightly out of focus. Scully enters and sits down at the table, between the two men. Checking that the gun has only one bullet and spinning the chamber, Modell hands the gun to Mulder and forces him to play Russian roulette. Mulder points the gun at Pusher and pulls the trigger, despite Scully's warning that pulling the trigger in a pure-oxygen room could be dangerous. The hammer falls and nothing happens. "Piece of cake," Modell says.  "Your turn."  Scully cries out and Mulder cringes as he puts the barrel to his temple and pulls the trigger.  No bullet. Mulder now points the gun at Scully.  A tear falls down Scully's face as she tries to dissuade Mulder, while Modell pushes him to pull the trigger.  Obviously trying to fight Modell, Mulder tells Scully to run. As he is about the fire the bullet, Scully runs and activates the fire alarm behind her.  Modell, for the first time, breaks his gaze away from Mulder. Mulder snaps out of it and turns the gun on Modell before pulling the trigger.  This time the gun fires and Modell is thrown to the ground.  Brophy and the SWAT team storm the room as Mulder stands over Modell, pulling the trigger over and over. As Mulder finally lowers the gun, Scully stares at him in terror. He hands her the gun and slumps into a chair with his head in his hands. In a hospital room, Mulder views Modell, lying in a coma after the shooting, with bandages covering most of his head.  Scully comes in and says that, regardless of how long Modell lives, he will never regain consciousness. Mulder surprises her by informing her that, according to the charts, Modell used the MRIs to measure how long he had left to live, but consistently refused treatment for the tumor, which remained operable right up to the end. Baffled, Scully asks why, and Mulder suspects it is just as she said earlier: Modell was always such a little man, that he couldn't let go of the one thing that made him feel big. Scully contemplates this, before taking Mulder's hand. "I say we don't let him take up another minute of our time", she says, and leaves the room. With one last glance at Pusher, Mulder leaves as well. 
<EOS>
The episode opens on an archeological dig in the Ecuadorian highlands. An argument between Dr. Bilac and Dr. Roosevelt over the removal of a native-American burial urn, called an Amaru. Then We see A native shaman distributing Yaje, also known as the Vine of the Soul, to the villagers and Dr. Bilac. We then see Dr. Roosevelt murdered by the Jaguar spirit. Mulder and Scully begin investigating the disappearance of Dr. Roosevelt, after a security guard at the Boston Museum of History discovers a large amount of blood in an archaeology lab. They interview both Museum Curator, Dr. Lewton, and Moana Wustner. They also visit Dr. Bilac.
Dr. Lewton is killed by the Jaguar Spirit when his car, ironically a Jaguar, won't start.During an investigation of the crime scene, Scully come across a party of rat corpses in the engine compartment of Dr. Lewton's car. Mona is then asked by Scully about strange or bizarre happenings in the museum of natural history, in which Mona replies nothing out of the ordinary occurred. Meanwhile, Mulder and a group of Boston police search for Dr. Lewton's remains. Scully sees blood dripping on Mulder's face from above and, upon looking up, they see Dr. Lewton's small intestine hanging from a tree. Scully, about to perform an autopsy on Dr. Lewton's intestine, is interrupted when Mona suddenly calls, saying that Bilac was under the influence of Yaje. Mona then hears noises from the women's bathroom and, upon opening the toilet lid, she sees rats forcing their way out of the sewer. When the two agents arrive, Mulder goes to the women's bathroom due to the presence of strange noises. He then sees Dr. Bilac crying beside one of the toilets. Mulder then asks, "Where is she?" Bilac replies, "She is dead." Elsewhere in the museum, Bilac escapes from the room in which he is being held without exiting through the only door. Mulder notices a large drag mark through the dust on the floor, leading to a strange hatch in the wall, under a table. Mulder then asks where the entrance leads, and the museum security guard says that it leads to the old steam tunnels. Mulder and Scully enter into the manhole and Mulder jokingly says, "Ladies first", upon which Scully gives him a piercing look. They walk through the hidden underground room only to find rats, the bodies of those missing and presumed dead, including Mona's, and a multitude of ferocious cats. Scully then gets attacked by a cat with blood on its mouth and others come rushing towards them; in an attempt to escape, they find the hole the rat came through earlier and Bilac's body, mutilated and bloodied like all the others. As the two agents make their way out, the demonic cats scratch down the door and burst through the hole before Mulder closes the lid. The episode closes with Mulder suspecting that the animal attacks were associated with the Sokona Indian burial urn that had been unburied and removed against the wishes of the shaman and his clan. It is shortly returned to the burial grounds where the Sokona shaman watches the urn's burial with his jaguar-like eyes. As it is being buried, the Amaru seems to stare back at the man through the Jaguar Spirit's eyes. 
<EOS>
Amid a hectic Chinese street festival at night, a young Chinese man, Johnny Lo, warily flees through San Francisco's Chinatown. He hurries into a darkened alley and up a flight of back stairs to an apartment door, pausing to examine newly-painted white Chinese lettering on the door. Once inside, he is confronted by a man hidden in shadow who, in Cantonese, insists that he must pay. In desperation, Lo stabs the man, who bloodily falls to the floor. Lo then turns to see three masked figures standing before him. BAYSIDE FUNERAL HOME Later the same night, a night watchman in the Bayside Funeral Home is distracted from a handheld video game by a metallic bang in another area of the funeral home. He investigates the noise, momentarily catching sight of the masked figures. He also finds that the clatter is coming from an operating crematory oven that holds Johnny Lo, who writhes in agony as he is burned alive. A Detective Neary shows Mulder and Scully the badly burned corpse of Johnny Lo. Mulder is critical of the detective's words, but both agree that there have recently been numerous similar cases of victims having been burned alive. Scully notices that the latest victim's body includes a glass eye. Looking inside the now-deactivated crematory oven while talking with Neary, Mulder discovers a Chinese character scrawled inside the oven. Neary introduces Mulder to Detective Glen Chao, who is of Asian descent and translates the writing as the Chinese word for ghost. Mulder also finds a small scrap of paper, among the oven's ashes. Chao explains that the paper is hell money, a symbolic offering to spirits during the Chinese Festival of the Hungry Ghosts. Mulder suggests that it may help them identify the victim. In daylight, the two FBI agents exit their car outside Lo's apartment building. Scully notifies Mulder of information she has learned about Johnny Lo, including his name and occupation. As they climb the same back stairs that Lo used, Scully thinks Lo was purposefully killed by a cult or gang but Mulder lengthily explains his theory that ghosts were to blame. The agents meet Detective Chao outside Lo's apartment. Chao tells the agents he is perplexed by the meaning of the white lettering on the apartment door. Inside, Mulder notes that the apartment's carpet has been newly installed but shabbily laid. Scully opens a drawer to find Chinese herbal medicine and a dried frog, both of which Chao identifies for her; he adds that frogs are occasionally used as charms, for good health, prosperity and protection. Mulder then announces that he has discovered blood stains beneath the carpet. At night in another Chinatown apartment, an Asian man, Hsin, returns home from work and takes both tea and food to his daughter, Kim, as she lies in bed. Even though she twice asks him to stay with her, he hesitantly tells her that he needs to leave to do money-making business so that he can pay doctors to make her well. Kim recalls that the doctors have said the required operation costs too much money, but this statement only frustrates Hsin and he then leaves. Hsin makes his way to an upper floor of an abandoned restaurant, where a room bustles with working-class Asian men. Three suited men enter the room and organize a strange game in which the lower-class men participate by drawing colored tiles from jade vases. A Wiry Man with one milky eye draws a tile that elicits great excitement from the crowd and a sense of relief from Hsin. The Wiry Man is then reluctantly escorted to a back room by one of the suited men. Chao, Scully and Mulder browse through a Chinese apothecary, with whose herbal contents Scully is entirely unfamiliar. The investigators question Dr. Wu, an Asian lady who is the store's proprietor, and Chao acts as a translator. Dr. Wu identifies the herbal medicine found in Lo's apartment as skullcap root and Chinese angelica, which - Chao adds - are both used as painkillers. Upon viewing a hand-drawn rendering of the characters on the door of Lo's apartment, Dr. Wu adopts a fearful expression, mutters in Cantonese and hurries away; Chao explains that Dr. Wu had said the apartment had been branded a haunted house, which relates to the Festival of the Hungry Ghosts. As Chao continues to tell the agents more about the festival, the Wiry Man is drugged, drinking a warm liquid as he sits on a chair under a bright light. He sees apparitions of ancient Chinese figures, one of whom seemingly removes the man's heart even as he watches. He closes his eyes and his visions disappear. The Hard-Faced Man approaches while wearing surgical garb and opens the Wiry Man's good eye, checking on his condition. The agents ask Detective Chao about the festival as they walk down a street in Chinatown. The detective supposes that a connection between the recent murders and the festival would make sense, as the festival is almost over. He also implies that he does not feel strongly for or against his ancestors' belief in the festival. HIGHLAND PARK CEMETERY A night watchman encounters three masked figures near an open grave in Highland Park Cemetery. He quickly grabs a flashlight but the intruders are gone by the time he returns. Later that night, Detective Neary shows the agents to the grave, telling them that the three figures - whose motives are still unexplained - were wearing the same masks as were spotted in the crematory. Neary also reveals that the open grave is newly-dug, in preparation for a burial on the following day. Acting on a hunch, Mulder digs in the dirt at the bottom of the grave, unearthing the dead face of the Wiry Man. A curious Mulder approaches Scully while she is still autopsying the Wiry Man's corpse. She shows him that the man's body organs had been harvested. The agents exchange jestful banter and, when Mulder asks Scully how her discovery of organ harvesting relates to the other victims, she recalls Johnny Lo's glass eye. As Scully continues with the autopsy, a frog climbs out of the corpse, shocking the agents. The strange game meanwhile continues, with Hsin again included among the crowd of participants. This time, he is the individual who is dragged towards the back room. At first interrupting Chao from a phone conversation that he duly concludes, Scully and Mulder confront the detective about their findings of both the frog - which Scully believes probably contradicts Chao having earlier claimed that frogs are used as good luck charms - and the fact that the organs of the latest corpse had been harvested. The agents suspect Chao is being protectively secretive about the goings-on within the Chinese community but Chao responds by explaining that he himself is an outsider from that community. He begins to lead the agents to the company that installed the carpet in Johnny Lo's apartment. The investigators pay a visit to Hsin's home. He has a heavily bandaged eye, which he claims is a work-related injury. While Scully questions an unforthcoming Hsin about having laid the carpet in Johnny Lo's apartment, Mulder comes across one of the colored game tiles and Chao talks with Hsin's bedridden daughter, telling her what is happening. Mulder ends Scully's discussion with Hsin and the agents wait for Chao in the hall outside the apartment. The detective has a conversation with Hsin but, once he follows the agents out, he claims he was merely warning Hsin that a blocked-up back window in the apartment was a firetrap. Chao also says he does not recognize the game tile that Mulder found, although he does identify a character on it as meaning wood, and the agents agree that they should subsequently follow Hsin's every movement. As the trio leave, Hsin spies on their departure from inside his apartment. His daughter approaches him and questions him about his eye. Despite initially trying to dismiss her concerns, he then revealingly implies more of the truth: that the injury is related to his desperate attempt to find money for her operation. Meanwhile, Chao returns to his own home, an elaborate town house. He finds red Chinese signage painted on his front door and encounters, inside, a trio of individuals who wear the typical masks. Tired and jumpy, Mulder is conducting an uneventful stakeout on Hsin's apartment when Scully arrives. She tells him that Chao has been attacked and hospitalized, so they leave. However, their departure is secretly observed by one of the game organizers, a Hard-Faced Man, who heads towards Hsin's apartment. Moments later, Hsin lets the Hard-Faced Man inside, declaring that he wants to leave the game, although his visitor tries to convince him to do otherwise. They are unaware that Hsin's daughter is witnessing their meeting from her bedroom door. Even though the Hard-Faced Man threatens that the Chinese ghosts will claim Hsin if he breaks the game's rules by leaving, Hsin begs the Hard-Faced Man for permission to be excluded from the game. Leaving, the Hard-Faced Man denies responsibility for choosing whether Hsin is given such permission. ST. FRANCIS GENERAL HOSPITAL Mulder and Scully arrive in St. Francis General Hospital, only for Neary to inform them that Chao has already left without waiting to be dismissed. The agents talk while Neary fetches a medical chart on Detective Chao, for Mulder's perusal. The chart shows that the blood found on the carpet padding in Johnny Lo's apartment was actually that of Detective Chao. Mulder suspects that Chao was the person who asked for the carpet to be installed, suggesting a secretive connection between the detective and Mr. Hsin. Furthermore, Mulder concludes that their conversation was not actually about a firetrap. When the agents return to Hsin's apartment, his daughter answers the door to them, as her father is away. She permits them entry and allows the agents to interview her, admitting what little she knows of her father's desperate effort to find money and that she has been diagnosed with leukemia. She also reveals that the symbol on the colored game tile not only means wood but also corresponds to the eye, information that Chao did not tell the agents. As Scully determines that Hsin was rejected as a bone marrow donor and more recently had both his liver and kidneys measured by the Organ Procurement Organization, Mulder suddenly realizes that Hsin and the victims have been participating in some sort of game. Elsewhere, Hsin once again returns to the bustling restaurant room as the game gets underway. The agents visit the Organ Procurement Organization, where they are told by an OPO Staffer that numerous Asian men have been requesting typing and antigen work-ups, only to have subsequently disappeared. The game continues and the agents arrive outside the restaurant building where it is held, having been led there by a clue from the OPO Staffer. They see Detective Chao enter the building just after their arrival. Despite trying to escape, Hsin is again dragged to the back room, this time watched by Chao. The agents enter the restaurant, finding the ground floor to be darkened and deserted but containing frozen human organs in the restaurant's kitchen. Chao meanwhile asks that the game be stopped but, when his request is strongly denied by a game organizer who reminds Chao that he has been paid well for protecting the game from foreigners, Chao angrily smashes one of the jade vases, revealing that it contained tiles of all the same color. As this proves that the game has been fixed, the crowd of participants storm the gaming room, noisily alerting the agents to their presence. In a room that contains a jarred frog, another operation is about to be conducted on Hsin when he sees a vision of his daughter, of whom he begs forgiveness. Detective Chao interrupts the procedure and shoots the Hard-Faced Man, but both the detective and the Hard-Faced Man are then taken into custody by Mulder and Scully. The Hard-Faced Man later speaks to Scully in a questioning room. Smoking a cigarette, he tries to justify the game. Scully argues against him, however, and retorts by notifying the man that he will be sent to prison for a very long time. Scully is called out of the room by Mulder, who informs her that Hsin is still in intensive care at St. Francis Hospital but that Hsin's daughter has fortunately been added to the recipient list of the Organ Procurement Organization. The agents then meet up with Lieutenant Neary. Both he and Mulder let Scully know that they can't convict the Hard-Faced Man without testimony from Chao, who has since gone missing. Unbeknown to the agents and Neary, Chao is lying inside a crematory oven wherein he awakens and sees a blue-lit pilot light. He watches as the oven is turned further on and flames rise. A wall of the oven itself bears the Chinese character for the word "ghost. 
<EOS>
A UFO seems to cruise across the sky. The UFO is actually the bottom of a basket from an electric company van and a utility worker, Roky Crikenson, is inside the moving basket, inspecting the power-lines in Washington's Klass County. Inside a passing car, two teenagers, Harold Lamb and Chrissy Giorgio, are out on their first date, when Harold prematurely professes that he is madly in love with Chrissy. Their car suddenly loses all power and, as two beings that seem to be Grey aliens walk towards the vehicle from under the bright light of a hovering, disc-shaped UFO, a frightened Chrissy Giorgio asks Harold what the beings are, to which he replies "How the hell should I know?" The teens soon lose consciousness and, as they are dragged towards the UFO by their abductors, a triangular UFO appears beside the first craft. Moments after a third alien appears, this one a ferocious beast completely different from the other two, one of the Grey aliens asks the other Grey alien, Jack, what the newly arrived monster is, to which he replies, "How the hell should I know?" In the basement X-files office of the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building, author Jose Chung contemplates the UFO on Fox Mulder's I Want to Believe poster, admitting that he never gave much thought to the idea of life on other planets. Chung's interviewee, Special Agent Dana Scully, says that she also did not consider it much, before she took her current job, and apologizes for the absence of Mulder, her FBI partner. She and Chung exchange compliments, with Scully confessing to being a fan of Chung's literary work. When Scully becomes curious why Chung is writing a book about an alien abduction even though he has no interest in such matters, he explains that his motive is profit from creating, with his next book, a new literary genre, non-fiction science fiction. Scully urges him to report the truth in his book but Chung wordily explains that truth is entirely subjective. As he takes notes, Scully begins to recall what happened, mentioning that the supposedly abducted girl was found on the morning after her disappearance had been reported. In Klass County, Chrissy Giorgio, the girl of whom Scully is speaking, sits alone in her car, dazed, looking bedraggled and fingering a button while Scully recounts that the female abductee was suffering a loss of memory, her body showed signs of physical abuse and all her clothes were both inside out and backwards. In the X-files office, Chung exclaims how he has had many mornings like that. He and Scully discuss whether they prefer the term abductee or experiencer and Scully explains that the girl was considered to be neither, at the time she was found, as she seemed to have been the victim of date rape instead. As Scully continues with her account, mentioning that the girl received her visitation later that night, Chrissy Giorgio lies asleep in her bed. She awakens, upon finding that her nose is bleeding, to see a shocking, momentary vision of a Grey alien at the end of her bed, where a small toy cat actually sits. She moves to her bedroom window, from where she sees a silhouette that seems to be from a Grey alien, until Harold Lamb steps into the light below Chrissy's first-floor bedroom. Chrissy is annoyed and upset to see her visitor, implying that she holds him responsible for raping her, and - moments after her father shouts angrily from inside, suspecting an intruder - Harold flees from the house, telling Chrissy that he loves her. Scully relates that the police then apprehended Harold at his own home. Harold is subsequently questioned by both Detective Manners and then by Mulder and Scully, telling the detective that he and Chrissy were abducted by aliens but apparently admitting to the agents that he raped Chrissy. In the consecutive questionings, both the detective and Mulder individually note that Harold does not seem sure of his account, before he says to both, by way of explanation, that what happened seems highly crazy. Harold, according to what Scully tells Chung, passed a lie detector test regarding his claim of alien abduction, before she and Mulder arrived, but Harold is not willing to take a lie detector test for Mulder, concerning his own claim that he raped Chrissy. While Scully tells Chung that Mulder continued the questioning with Chrissy, the reportedly abducted girl sits in the police questioning room with her parents and the two FBI agents. Mulder asks her whether she is experiencing a list of symptoms, to each of which Chrissy answers positively. As Mulder speaks to Chrissy's parents, Scully skeptically relates to Chung that Mulder became convinced that the girl was suffering from a condition he termed Post Abduction Syndrome and persuaded the girl's parents to allow their daughter to be hypnotized. In the X-files office, Scully specifies that she is skeptical about the use of hypnosis as an aid of memory. Chung, mentioning one of his previous books that Scully compliments, muses over the unexplained power of hypnotism. In the police interrogation room, a Dr. Fingers hypnotizes Chrissy while her parents, Mulder, Scully and Detective Manners watch. Describing her observations to an unseen Dr. Fingers, Chrissy sees herself strapped to a grid-like vertical table in a darkened area she refers to as a spaceship, surrounded by Grey aliens standing in the same positions as her human observers with a seemingly drugged Harold Lamb on a similar table next to hers, in the same position where, inside the interrogation room, a box of donuts sits on a table. The aliens, according to Chrissy, do not visibly speak, although they argue and do something to her that the leader claims is for the good of her own planet but that she does not like, describing it as being like he is inside her mind and is stealing her memories. Following the hypnosis session, Mulder and Scully argue about the legitimacy of Chrissy's account but their discussion is interrupted by Detective Manners who shouts that the agents have mucked up the investigation, using, amid his tirade and in place of a curse, the term bleeped. Scully explains to Chung that, even though she is using a stand-in verb for her account, the detective did actually swear. She is about to reveal what expletive Manners really used when Chung stops her from doing so, admitting that he himself is already well aware of the detective's colorful phraseology. Continuing his use of the replacement words, Manners insists on keeping the boy in custody and, even though Mulder argues that Chrissy's account under hypnosis seems to confirm Harold's alibi, the detective completely disagrees. Harold Lamb finds himself in one of many cages as noises of torture resound in the distance. Chrissy is in the same cage, but she is unconscious, and in a nearby cage, sits a Grey alien, of whom Harold demands to know what it wants with himself and Chrissy. In the police interrogation room, Mulder asks Harold how the alien responded and the boy starts to recount the alien's only reaction. The Grey alien smokes a cigarette in its cell and Chrissy regains consciousness, confused about their present circumstances. Even though Harold assures her that he will protect her, she is pulled, screaming, towards a light that momentarily shines into their cell from above, while the ferocious alien's monstrous roars can be heard and Harold fearfully curls up into a ball. When Mulder asks Harold what the Grey alien had been doing during these events, the boy states that the alien had been saying repeatedly, in English, just one thing. The alien is then shown saying, over and over, "This is not happening." Harold tells the alien to be quiet before being taken up towards the light himself, leaving the alien to its repetitive behavior. Harold tells Mulder and Scully that he does not know where he was taken because he was shielding his face due to being in constant pain. The boy claims to Mulder that he had suddenly been flying through the air before he had collided with the ground and that he had then immediately run to Chrissy's house to check on her safety but, when Scully directly asks if he and Chrissy willfully partook in sex that night, he implies that they did by replying with concern that, if Chrissy's father discovers the truth, he himself will be a dead man. Scully later presents her opinion to Mulder that what actually happened to the teenagers was simply underage sex, but Detective Manners bursts in on their conversation and announces that someone is claiming to have witnessed the teens' abduction. The agents then question this supposed witness, Roky Crikenson, who gives them a written account that he says he wrote over a straight forty-eight hours, following the abduction. He warns the agents that they are endangering their lives by reading the document due to an incredibly weird experience that happened to him, one night before now. Roky is sitting at his desk, in the same place where he has been talking to the agents, when a car speeds into his garage and a man from inside the car remarks that no other object has so often been mistaken as being a UFO than the planet Venus. Roky asks, "Really?" but he is now recounting his story to the agents. He adds that he knew the situation was weird because he hadn't then warned the visitor off his property, like he usually did. Mulder interrupts Roky to guess that the man had been dressed entirely in black, a conclusion that Roky confirms in wonder before Mulder explains that the Men in Black have been associated with close encounters since the 1950s. Chung further lectures Scully about the history of Men in Black but she suspects that no amount of historical knowledge about such men will lend credence to Roky's statement. In Roky's garage, the Man in Black tries to persuade him that all he saw was Venus. A second, even more mysterious Man in Black momentarily towers over Roky before the first Man in Black threatens Roky that, if he announces to anyone that he saw something other than Venus, he will be a dead man. The Men in Black then climb back into their car and, although Roky insists that he won't be threatened, the first Man in Black reminds him that he just has been. The visiting car then backs out of the garage at speed, exactly like it arrived but in reverse. Roky leaves the agents with his written testimony and mysteriously exits his garage. Mulder later reads the account aloud, in his and Scully's motel room. According to the statement, Roky witnessed the third alien attack the two Grey aliens, from the safety of his truck, but then experienced a life-changing event. Roky is driving along a road in Klass County when his truck stalls and he sees the beast-like alien slash out at the two Greys, who cower below the monster. As Roky futilely attempts to hide in his truck, the ferocious alien plods towards the vehicle and, in eccentric English, assures him not to be afraid as his efforts are needed for the survival of humanity. The alien begins to explain to the puzzled Roky how he can accomplish his task but the alien's sentence is finished by Mulder, reading from Roky's written account. Mulder continues with the story, mentioning that the alien, referred to in the text as Lord Kinbote, quickly took Roky aboard a hover vessel and into inner space, heading towards the Earth's molten core, Lord Kinbote's domain. Chung and Scully discuss their extreme skepticism concerning Roky and his claims, but Chung is more profuse in his doubtful reaction and wonders how Mulder could have believed such nonsense. Scully explains that, on their usual X-file investigations, Mulder commonly explores every possibility. In the agents' motel room, Mulder realizes that Chrissy's account is the only one that does not add up so, ignoring Scully's objections, he starts to make a telephone call, to have the girl re-hypnotized. Indeed, Chrissy is again put into a trance by Dr. Fingers, witnessed by her parents, Detective Manners and the two agents. Her supposed recollection now matches Harold's but she also apparently recalls being questioned by a group of official-looking men who stand in the same positions as her current observers. The men argue, attempting to locate UFOs and the closest man to Chrissy apparently begins stealing her memories, telling her it is for the good of her country. Following the hypnosis session, Scully and Mulder privately argue about whether Chrissy's account was being influenced by Mulder and Dr. Fingers. Just as Mulder starts to explain that he thinks aliens are not actually involved, Detective Manners enters and announces news that some crazy individual is claiming to have found a real live dead alien body. Jose Chung questions the geeky Blaine Faulkner, who explains his bizarre desire to be abducted by aliens and begins recalling that he had been out in a field. As he wanders through that darkened field, he tells Chung that he was hoping to stumble across one of the few UFO sightings that had been reported in the area. Moments later, he stumbles in the field and, as he races back away from an unseen horror, he relates to Chung his own regrets regarding having called the authorities. As Blaine explains to Chung that his regrets came from encountering the authorities' companions - who he describes as Men in Black - Scully and Mulder arrive in the field with Detective Manners and several officers, encountering Blaine. Blaine describes Scully as one of the Men in Black, unconvincingly pretending to be a woman, and Mulder as a mandroid whose only reaction was upon seeing the dead body. In the field, Mulder emits a single high-pitched yelp, but remains otherwise expressionless. Under instructions from Detective Manners, the officers pick up the lifeless, Grey alien body that Blaine earlier tripped over. Scully threatens Blaine as the investigating team leave, warning him that, if he tells anyone what happened, he will be a dead man. Back in Mulder's basement office, Scully passionately repudiates this account in her conversation with Chung, and remembers that the investigators even allowed Blaine to view the subsequent autopsy. Blaine bursts into an autopsy room to find Detective Manners, Mulder and Scully. The detective tries to restrain an uncooperative Blaine from approaching the alien body, where Scully is starting her autopsy, but Mulder asks the otherwise unwelcome visitor if his video camera actually works, to which Blaine nods. The operation, conducted by Scully, is filmed through Blaine's handheld, amateur camera and the footage is hosted by The Stupendous Yappi. As the host is speaking, the footage suddenly rewinds; Chung has been watching it on a television in the X-files office. He interestedly continues to watch it with Scully, who is embarrassed about the video and complains that all her significant findings have been edited out of the footage. In the autopsy room, where Blaine is still filming, Scully finds that the dead alien body is actually a costume containing a dead human man. Blaine seems disappointed by this finding and rushes out of the room, apparently about to vomit. Even though the investigators are uncertain of the victim's identity, Mulder suggests that they can ascertain that information from the military database. Scully is later pacing through a corridor outside the autopsy room, carrying a document about the man, who is actually Major Robert Vallee, when she meets Mulder. He implies that Blaine is missing and Scully notifies him of her discovery that the dead man was indeed from the military, as Mulder suggested. The two agents are then approached by an armed unit of Air Force officers, led by Sergeant Philip Hynek. Mulder claims that the missing Lieutenant Jack Sheaffer was earlier in the corridor but then pretends to come to the conclusion that Sheaffer is still missing. The same conclusion, regarding Major Vallee, is assumed by Sergeant Hynek, upon finding that the autopsy room, where Scully had been autopsying Vallee, is now empty. Mulder follows the Air Force officer out of the room, intent on finding Blaine. Mulder's quarry is meanwhile at home, watching his video taped footage, when the two Men in Black arrive, forcing their way into his apartment and removing his video. Blaine encounters the more mysterious of the two men before uttering the same uncooperative statements he made upon being restricted from entering the autopsy room, repeatedly citing "Roswell!". He is finally knocked unconscious by the first Man in Black. As his dazed body lies on the ground, Blaine relates that he lay there for an unknown duration before something caused him to regain consciousness. Mulder slaps him and he awakens. Blaine is forced, by an uncharacteristically violent Mulder, to reveal that the other Men in Black took the video and is threatened by Mulder that, if it is learned that he has lied about the video, he will be a dead man. In Blaine's bedroom, Chung wonders why his interviewee is not nervous telling his story but Blaine attributes his courage to years of playing Dungeons &amp; Dragons, a statement that Chung laughs at before realizing that Blaine is being serious. While Mulder drives along a highway, Scully comments that her FBI partner had recovered the video and was returning to the motel when what happened next, according to his account, was more odd. Mulder comes across a naked man, walking across the highway. Mulder immediately believes the man is Lieutenant Scheaffer, the currently missing pilot, but the naked man neither confirms nor denies this possibility, instead repeatedly remarking, "This is not happening!" 
<EOS>
Skinner is debating whether or not to sign a document. His lawyer urges him to, reminding him that the city clerk expected it ten minutes ago. He ultimately refuses to sign, putting it off until tomorrow. As he leaves, it is revealed that the papers are a petition for the dissolution of marriage--divorce papers. Later, Skinner is having a drink at the bar in the Ambassador Hotel where he meets a woman, Carina Sayles. The two get a room together for the night, but Skinner wakes up after a nightmare to find Sayles dead beside him. Specifically, her head has been turned completely around. Mulder talks to Detective Waltos, who is in charge of the investigation. Although Mulder is reluctant to believe it, Skinner is a suspect in a murder case, and his refusal to take a lie-detector test is not helping him at all. Skinner does not want to talk to Mulder or Scully. This can be for two reasons: He is either frightened or embarrassed about what happened or he does not want to be saved- he fears he really did it and is deserving of the crime. Scully calls Mulder, and hears most of his conversation with Waltos. He tells her that she should take a look at the body, and he meets her at the coroner's office to exchange information about the case. Sayles was a law secretary, who was fired for an indiscretion--her side work as a prostitute. Her spinal cord was crushed, and the only fingerprints on her body are Skinner's. As Scully is about to leave, she turns off the lights and notices a phosphorescent substance around Sayles's mouth and nose. Mulder and Scully visit Sayles's madame, Lorraine Kellcher. Although initially reluctant, she tells them that a man paid for Sayles's company last night, and that that man is Walter Skinner. As they are leaving, Mulder gets a call from the police station--Skinner is being released. Skinner is not happy that the two agents are involved in the case, but then he sees, standing on the steps in a red raincoat, the same woman from his nightmare. He runs across the street to her almost getting run over in the process, but it turns out that the woman is actually his wife. No one else saw the woman in the red coat, but Mulder believes that Skinner actually saw something unearthly, even if Skinner does not believe it himself. Mulder firmly believes that this is a clue to something bigger- bigger than murder and bigger than anything ordinary. While Scully is reluctant to hear it, Mulder tells his theory: the woman was a succubus, a female demon who seduces a man to have sex with her, in which during the act, she draws out his energy for her own sustenance. This, Mulder tells Scully, is seen in folk tales as early as the 15th century. Scully tells Mulder about the luminescent residue found on the victim's mouth, but upon returning to the body, the residue is not found. Skinner keeps his personal life as unknown as possible from his agents. His wife, however, is deeply concerned about him. She visits him and they talk in his apartment. Skinner insists he's fine. In reality, Skinner has been having sleep problems. After the incident, he is afraid to go sleep, fearing that the old woman will come back and hurt him. He eventually tells Mulder and Scully this. Skinner admits to Mulder that he saw the woman during his experience in Vietnam, but passed it off as being due to drugs. While Scully remains skeptical, she cannot ignore the facts in front of her that point to a paranormal explanation. At the end of the episode, Skinner's condition is still unknown and its origin still unexplained. The only thing resolved is Skinner's marriage. He never signs the divorce papers, and the scene ends with him putting on his ring at his office. He still doesn't want to talk about it, even to Scully and Mulder who have proven to be trustworthy friends for him over the years. 
<EOS>
Mulder and Scully investigate a missing person case after Dr. Bailey's body disappears at the edge of a large lake. Apparently, he and another scientist, Dr. Faraday, had a heated discussion, in which Dr. Faraday said Dr. Bailey that nature should be preserved, not only for future generations, but also out of respect. Nature is dangerous. Scully brings along her dog, Queequeg, because of the Mulder's hasty schedule. In his case debriefing, Mulder tells Scully about the case of another missing person, involving a Boy Scout leader. Scully wonders why a missing person's case would attract Mulder's fascination, until she finds out that the place is the home of a legendary lake monster called Big Blue. Mulder and Scully then ask the local bait shop what they believe in this tale. The locals enjoy the publicity because it brings tourists like them. A local man makes it his priority to photograph Big Blue and make a movie. Despite his persistent efforts to do so, and out of the hundreds of photos taken, he has been unsuccessful. The Boy Scout Troop Leader's body then resurfaces, or at least half of it. Mulder and Scully discuss nature, saying that while we may eat them, they, ultimately, eat us. The halved body is still not enough evidence for Scully. She believes that a possible propeller in some kind of boat could have done that much damage. Even if it didn't halve the man, he would have been finished off by the nibbling/ biting of local fish. "Were they saving the other half for later?" Mulder asks. On the contrary, Mulder believes that this mystical creature is a prehistoric dinosaur. It has been attacking people because it is being forced to protect itself from colonization; not alien, from locals. The frog population was also dying out, meaning that the creature was being driven into the woods to find alternative food sources; the water was being polluted and being used more by people. The two then decide to have a little stake-out. While Mulder looks through all of the pictures taken by the determined local, Scully takes Queequeg out for a walk. Unfortunately, it was his last. Scully never did see what bit through the dog's leash and took him away. Mulder, being as sympathetic as he can, decides to go out for a boat ride and quench this mystery once and for all. While driving the boat, Mulder notices something on radar: it's big and fast, coming straight for them. Whatever was in the water crashed into the side of their boat, forcing them to abandon ship. They rest of a rock out in the middle of the lake, thinking that they're miles from shore and that the water is too deep. While sitting there, Mulder and Scully have a meaningful conversation. Scully talks about her dad and his respect for the sea and nature, and Mulder delves into his beliefs of cannibalism and life. Scully compares Mulder to Captain Ahab, being so driven to find the answer that it will destroy his life and ultimately kill him. Mulder doesn't notice the criticism, but rather how Scully is able to know and list everything about him through the analogy. Dr. Faraday discovers them sitting on the rock, but they're fairly close to shore. Later on, Faraday is attacked by something in the woods. He is hurt, but does manage to survive. Mulder races after the creature despite Scully's pleas. The creature surprises and charges Mulder, who empties his gun into it before it finally dies. The creature turned out to be an alligator, of all things. Disappointed, he and Scully have one last look at the lake. Scully tells Mulder that there are more mysteries out there to be solved, and that just because this adventure didn't support his theory, he shouldn't give up. As they turn away, the real Big Blue, indeed a plesiosaur-like creature, rises up from the water to watch them before diving back down below the surface, unnoticed by either Mulder or Scully. 
<EOS>
Mulder is given a newspaper article about a number of people who became psychotic and murdered several people by the Plains Clothes Man. One man killed five people, all believing them to be the same man. Mulder and Scully travel to see this man, who is in a psychiatric hospital now under the care of Dr. Stroman. He freaks out upon seeing a news show about a war criminal in the former Yugoslavia. Mulder and Scully travel to the man's house where they find two boys watching a movie on the man's television. The boys quickly leave and Mulder and Scully poke around. Mulder sees a cable repair company van drive by while Scully finds many recordings of a news show. She theorizes that the violence on the shows caused the man to murder the five people. That night, Scully watches some of the videos the man had in his house to try and find any reasons for the murders. When she stepped out into the parking lot for a break, she saw Mulder and the Cigarette Smoking Man talking in Mulder's car. The next day, Mulder denies that the conversation took place. The same day, Mulder and Scully go to a woman's house where a similar murder took place. The woman thought she saw her husband in a hammock with a blond woman; in reality it was her neighbor taking a nap with his dog. Mulder sees the same cable repairman, but he drives off before he can catch him. Mulder climbs up the pole and finds a device in the cable box. Mulder brought the device to the Lone Gunmen, who found that it interfered with the regular television, but couldn't tell him how. Mulder calls Scully to update her, but she is growing more paranoid, and combs through her hotel room, looking for listening devices after hearing clicks on the phone. Mulder arrives at her hotel room, but upon opening the door Scully fires at him four times and runs off. A team of police/FBI arrive to find Scully but Mulder says that they are searching for her like an escaped prisoner. Skinner defends the search team, saying that Scully is armed and dangerous. Mulder calls Mrs. Scully to inform her of Scully's disappearance. The Lone Gunmen call Mulder again and Mulder goes back to their place. They tell him that the device he found in the cable box is slipping images into the television these people are watching. The Lone Gunmen believe it to be a mind control device. Mulder was not affected by these images, because he is red-green color blind. The police find a body that they believe to be Scully's. Mulder goes to see it, but he confirms it not to be her. The doctor present mentions that Mrs. Scully hasn't been answering her phone, leading Mulder to go to her house. There, he finds Scully who is still very paranoid and points a gun at him. Scully accuses Mulder of being part of the men who abducted her and killed her sister. Mrs. Scully steps in and calms Scully down. Scully is then hospitalized. Once she is better, Mulder tells her his theory that the device amplifies people's anxieties and causes dementia. Mulder asked Scully's doctor if she would treat someone in Scully's condition for an amphetamine addiction, like Dr. Stroman was with the first man, who killed his wife. The doctor told him no, and Mulder tries, without success, to contact Dr. Stroman. He tracks Dr. Stroman to an empty hotel room, with cigarettes in the ash tray. Mulder finds Dr. Stroman and the cable repairman in a house with the help of phone logs from the hotel room. Before Mulder can enter the house, shots are fired. When Mulder enters, both men are murdered by X. Mulder accuses X of misleading him by using a third party to inform him of the murders, and of putting him and Scully in harm. Mulder also calls X a coward, but X refutes his accusations, saying that he was being watched too closely and that Mulder needs him. Mulder and Scully finish their report for Skinner but their evidence is not enough to present a serious case. X meets up and gives a report to the Cigarette Smoking Man. 
<EOS>
At a fast food restaurant a man pulls out a gun, taking everyone inside hostage. An older man tries unsuccessfully to get him to calm down, but he shoots three people before being shot himself by snipers outside. The older man tells the shooter he's not going to die, and with the palm of his hands heals his wounds. Mulder and Scully arrive on the scene to investigate, but find that the healer, named Jeremiah Smith vanished while talking to an investigator on the scene. Meanwhile the Cigarette Smoking Man meets with Mulder's mother at her former summer home in Rhode Island. The Cigarette Smoking Man tells her he called her to ask her to remember something, causing the two to argue while someone photographs them from a distance. Mulder and Scully later watch a video of Smith and the Detective, finding that someone else suddenly appears in Smith's place after the Detective looks away. Mulder is notified by Assistant Director Skinner that his mother has suffered a stroke and heads to the hospital, where she writes down the word 'PALM'. Smith meanwhile is taken captive by the Cigarette Smoking Man at his place of work, the Social Security Administration and is locked up in a high security prison. Mulder heads to the house in Rhode Island where he meets X, who shows him photos of his mother arguing with the Cigarette Smoking Man. X believes that they argued over something very old and very important. Meanwhile Jeremiah Smith appears at FBI headquarters and turns himself in, saying he has no memory of healing anyone or leaving the crime scene. Mulder searches through the house and after rewording 'PALM' to 'LAMP' finds an alien stiletto weapon in one of the lamps. 
<EOS>
In a rural part of Alberta, Canada, a telecommunications technician gets stung by a bee. Five identical boys crowd around the telephone pole he is working on. The technician begins to shake violently, so that his harness is detached. The man loses his grip and falls down on the road to die soon after. The children appear untouched by this and walk off silently. Back at the hospital, the First Elder and Grey-Haired Man meet with the Cigarette-Smoking Man possessing the photographs that X took of him when he met with Mrs. Mulder. They realize that they have an information leak and will attempt to find out who it is by releasing false information about Mulder's mother being in danger. The Alien Bounty Hunter learns of where Mulder is heading when he listens into a call Mulder makes to Scully while she is held captive by him. Scully is called into Skinner’s office where she is informed that the other Jeremiah Smiths have all disappeared. Scully and Agent Pendrell investigate some of the data that the men were working for, and Scully contacts X who tells her it is related to a Small Pox Eradication program. X also tells her that he believes Teena Mulder's life is in danger. Meanwhile, Mulder comes across the day-old corpse of the telecommunications technician, grossly disfigured and covered in ants. Jeremiah takes Mulder to the Alberta valley where an unknown flowering shrub is cultivated for pollen. Mulder sees a series of children - the girls all identical to his sister and no older than she was when she was abducted. Jeremiah informs Mulder that these children are agrarian drones, chattel kept to tend the fields, and that they have no language. They go to the nearby colony where the children live and Jeremiah goes to find gasoline. Mulder tries to take a clone of his sister with him, but before Jeremiah can protest, a car driven by the Alien Bounty Hunter chases the trio. The three, led by the clone, head into a secret bee hive, only to discover that they are trapped. After entering the apiary in pursuit of them, the Alien Bounty Hunter is crushed by a large honeycomb wall. Meanwhile, Scully and Pendrell report to Skinner and the Office of Professional Responsibility on the data being tracked by the Jeremiah Smiths, which appear to be a cataloging of human beings. Mulder calls Scully from a phone booth to tell her he is on his way back when the Alien Bounty Hunter arrives at the wheel of the technician's van, plowing into the booth and Mulder's car, knocking him unconscious. Jeremiah Smith runs away and the Samantha clone shrieks in fear of the bounty hunter. What then becomes of them is not revealed. Mulder manages to return to the hospital to see his mother, resigned to the fact that he won't be able to heal her. Meanwhile an 'X' is placed on Mulder's apartment window. When X arrives, he realizes he has been led into a trap, but is shot by the Gray-Haired Man as he heads towards the elevator. He crawls to Mulder's apartment, writing the words 'SRSG' with his blood before dying. X's message leads Mulder to Marita Covarrubias, the assistant to the Special Representative of the Secretary General. Covarrubias tells Mulder that the fields in Canada have been abandoned, but shows him a picture of the children tending to the plants. At the hospital, the Cigarette-Smoking Man convinces the Alien Bounty Hunter to heal Mulder's mother, telling him that the fiercest enemy is the one with nothing to lose. 
<EOS>
After Scully comments on the community she jokes that Mulder might go into catatonic schizophrenia without his cell phone. He informs her that it is a town like this which he would like to settle down in, if not for his job. While talking to Sheriff Andy Taylor, Mulder asks whether the house nearest to the scene - the Peacock house - had been questioned about the baby. Taylor tells them that the house had been built during the civil war and still does not have electricity, running water or heating.  There are presumably just the three brothers, as no one has seen the parents since they were in a serious car accident a decade back.  Taylor also insinuates that the family members  "raise and breed their own stock if you get what I mean." All the while, the Peacock family watches from their porch. Inspecting the corpse, Scully comments to Mulder that it looks as if this child has been affected by every rare birth defect known to science.  After a cursory examination in the police station's bathroom because there is no morgue, they discover that the baby suffocated by inhaling dirt, indicating it was buried alive. Following the autopsy, Mulder and Scully talk outside the police station. Scully seems distressed by the abandonment of this child and the defects presented. They sit down on a bench and Mulder flirts with her, suggesting that she find a man with a spotless genetic make-up and a high tolerance for being second guessed to pump out uber-Scullys. She inquires about about his family, and Mulder claims that other than the need for corrective lenses and alien abductions, the Mulder family passes genetic muster. Mulder suspects this case is nothing more than kids disposing of an unwanted birth. Scully believes the child is not a result of a freak accident in mating and must have been inbred as Sheriff Taylor suggested. Scully and Mulder consider this as a seemingly impossible feat, however, since the Peacocks are known to be an all-male household. Suspecting the birth mother may be a kidnapped woman, the duo proceed to the Peacock residence where they knock on the door. Mulder is about to enter but Scully exclaims that they have no probable cause. After looking inside with a flash light, they proceed within, weapons drawn. They discover bloody boot prints, which match the ones found at the crime scene, and a mud-encrusted shovel. They leave after gathering some evidence, not realizing that someone is observing them from the shadows. Later that night, Sheriff Taylor calls Scully to inform her that he has put out warrants for the arrest of the Peacock brothers. Taylor then opens a locked box and pulls out his service revolver, which seems to have not been used in a while; he then thinks better of this and puts it back. Scully gathers her things while Mulder fiddles around with the T.V. antenna. He tells her to hold still, joking that she's improving the reception. Scully asks, "Still planning on making a home here?"  He replies, "Nah, not if I can't get the Knick's game." She then comments on the infanticide, hoping that does not play into his decision, and says good night. Mulder replies, "Good night, Mom," and as she reaches for the door knob she discovers the lock is broken. Mulder comments, "you don't have to lock your doors around here." He puts a chair against the knob. The Peacocks are setting out in their car, and the Sheriff seems apprehensive on his porch back at home. His wife consoles him and they go to bed, leaving their front door unlocked. The Peacocks arrive with Johnny Mathis' Wonderful, Wonderful blasting, waking the already spooked Sheriff, who tells his wife to hide under the bed. Unable to reach his revolver in time, he arms himself with a baseball bat and attempts an ambush but is overwhelmed by the Peacock brothers, who are armed with homemade clubs and shrug off his attack.  They savagely beat the Sheriff and his wife to death before leaving, with Johnny Mathis still turned all the way up. The next morning Mulder and Scully arrive at the Sheriff's house to find Deputy Barney Paster smoking a cigarette in shock. He hands them the lab report and tells them the car the Peacocks were driving originally belonged to a woman from Baltimore, who abandoned it when it died. Looking at the corpses, Mulder comments that the Sheriff's chest is one big hematoma and the Peacocks really went caveman on them. Reading the lab results, Scully claims that the Federal Crime Lab screwed up. The results show many of the gene imbalances she had suspected, but to an extent she didn't imagine possible. They also suggest that both parents of the baby were members of the Peacock family, which Scully doesn't understand because no one has seen a female Peacock family member in years. Eager for vengeance, Paster tells Mulder and Scully he will provide back-up to save the supposed missing woman, whom they believe could have given birth to the baby. The FBI agents cannot understand why the Taylors were murdered at all, since no one could have known about the warrants. They suspect someone must have been in the house when they were searching it. The three prepare to assault the Peacock residence. Upon arriving, Deputy Paster puts on a bullet-proof vest; he claims he has seen them fire muskets before, and refuses to be taken out by some antique. Inside, the brothers are told by a shadowy pair of eyes to maintain the Peacock way of life. The agents begin to flank the property and Paster breaks down the front door, only to be decapitated by a booby-trapped axe--too late to heed Scully's warning. The brothers descend upon Paster's body and tear it apart. Falling back, Mulder recalls a show he watched the previous night about animals and how they hunt. He states that the eldest will move in to ensure the prey has been killed. Encircling the prey signals that it's safe to approach. He tells Scully they are witnessing undiluted animal instincts. He proposes that they lure the brothers out of the house by releasing their livestock. Upon entering the house and avoiding a trap, Mulder and Scully encounter the Peacocks' mother.
She is in terrible shape, with missing teeth, amputated limbs, and living under the bed on a sled. She screams in terror, and Scully tries to comfort her. The two ladies discuss the accident that killed the Peacock mother's husband and left her without her limbs. The Peacock mother does not hold any resentment towards her children, even when Scully mentions that they have killed two people. She also tells Scully that she knows Scully does not have children, because if she did, she would understand. The Peacock boys, realizing they've been tricked, rush into the house and attack Mulder and Scully.  Mulder and Scully shoot George repeatedly until he finally dies;  Sherman chases Scully until he accidentally sets off a booby trap and is impaled by a large spike. During the fight, however, Edmund, the eldest child, escapes with Mrs. Peacock.  Once they realize this, Scully contacts the local sheriff's department and orders roadblocks set up. While Scully believes they will be caught, Mulder claims that they are already caught - in a struggle with themselves. On an abandoned road, Mrs. Peacock and Edmund are in the trunk of their car, presumably breeding again.  In voice over, Mrs. Peacock says that Sherman and George were good children and that she and her son will have more members of the Peacock family.  She tells Edmund that they have to leave Pennsylvania, in hope of finding a place they can call home. Edmund then climbs out of the trunk and drives away as Wonderful, Wonderful plays on the radio. 
<EOS>
On a plane en route to the United States from Burkina Faso, one of the exhausted passengers goes to the lavatory to splash some water on his face. Above his head, a tiny cabinet opens, revealing a pair of eyes in a white face watching him. The man looks up, and screams. A few minutes later, a young African man, Samuel Aboah, emerges from the lavatory and wordlessly obeys the flight attendant's request to resume his seat. After the plane lands, one of the attendants notes the absence of one of the passengers, and goes to the lavatory. Opening the door, she sees the man lying dead, his skin turned ghostly white, and screams. Scully is called into Skinner's office to meet with Dr. Simon Bruin of the Centers for Disease Control. Skinner explains that four African-American men have vanished off the streets of Philadelphia. A joint FBI/Philadelphia PD task force had no leads, until the body of the most recent victim was discovered, his skin turned pale white. The coroner having found no sign of violence, the CDC has concluded that some kind of disease is at work, rather than a criminal. Agent Mulder, however, believes that more than a simple pathogen is involved. His investigations lead to a cover-up of the death of the man on the plane, and the presence in the body of a paralyzing drug, made from a plant native to West Africa. Meanwhile, Scully discovers that the victim's pituitary gland, which produces melanin among other hormones, has somehow been destroyed. While their investigation is under way, the killer strikes again. This time a young black student is stalked and kidnapped from a bus stop. The evidence leads Scully and Mulder to a recent West African immigrant, Samuel Aboah. They arrest him when he attempts to escape. Hospital tests reveal that, among other peculiar abnormalities, Aboah lacks a pituitary gland, which means he should not be capable of living at all. A tip from his UN informant Marita Covarrubias sends Mulder to Minister Diabira, a diplomat on the staff of the Burkina Faso embassy. Reluctantly, Diabria admits he had ordered the cover-up of the first murder - because he knew the identity of the killer. It was one of the mythical Teliko: evil spirits of the air, who emerge at night to suck the life and color out of their victims, and have the ability to hide in spaces too small for a human being. Diabira himself narrowly escaped a childhood encounter with a Teliko, which his father dismissed as a nightmare, until they found his cousin dead the next day, as pale as a ghost. Who would have believed that a terrifying West African folktale could come to life in 20th century America? No one, except Mulder. While Diabria narrates this story, Aboah escapes from the hospital, concealed in the tiny drawer of a hospital cart. Mulder explains his theory to a skeptical Scully: the Teliko are not ghostly entities, but members of a lost African clan, who have survived over generations by hunting down other humans to steal what they lack - hormones from the pituitary gland. When Aboah escapes the hospital, his next intended victim is his immigration counselor, Marcus Duff, who cheerfully offers him a ride in his car. A short while later, Duff is lying on the ground, paralyzed, and watching in horror as Aboah produces a needle-sharp wooden tube and inserts it into Duff's nostrils. In the manhunt for Aboah, Mulder and Scully follow Duff's trail and find him, wounded but barely alive. They separate to search for him, and Aboah, lurking in a nearby vent, paralyzes Mulder with a blow dart. When Scully comes back, she finds Mulder frozen, and starts to call for an ambulance. Above her head, Aboah prepares to pounce, but Mulder has just enough movement to point his gaze over her shoulder, and she turns just as Aboah leaps, shooting him in the chest. Scully types her final report, narrating that Duff is recovering from his injuries and will bring charges against Aboah, however, Aboah is slowly dying in hospital despite hormone therapy to replace the hormones his body lacks. He is not expected to last the month, and the truth about the Teliko is destined to die along with him. 
<EOS>
In Traverse City, Michigan, a young woman, Mary Lefante, goes to a local pharmacy to get her passport photo taken. While waiting for it to develop, she returns to her car and finds her boyfriend dead. A hooded man then pricks Lefante with a hypodermic needle, causing her to pass out. The hooded man grabs her and carries her off. In the pharmacy, Lefante's photo develops, showing her screaming amidst a distorted background. Mulder and Scully join the case. No demand has been made from her kidnapper, and Scully initially theorizes that the pharmacy photographer is involved. But this comes under doubt when they meet him, an elderly clerk. The boyfriend was found to have died by having something long and sharp pushed into his ear. When discussing the photograph, Mulder tells Scully about Ted Serios, who was famous for faking thoughtographs, photos which showed what was in his mind. Mulder takes pictures using a camera found in Lefante's apartment, and they all appear the same as the one from the pharmacy. Mulder thinks whoever kidnapped Lefante has been stalking her nearby. Lefante turns up alive, but appears to have been given an icepick lobotomy. Another woman, Alice Brandt, is kidnapped. She wakes up bound in a dentist's chair with her kidnapper brandishing an ice pick and speaking in German. Mulder returns to Washington D.C. to examine the photos and finds no evidence that they were doctored. By closely examining the photos, he finds the face of an old man as well as the shadow of the kidnapper. Scully, finding a construction company referenced at both crime scenes, investigates the possible lead. She meets a man named Gerry Schnauz, who worked near both scenes of the kidnapping. When Mulder calls Scully, telling her that the kidnapper's legs were out of proportion in the photo, Schnauz, who is on stilts, runs. Scully pursues Schauz and captures him. The agents interrogate Schnauz, who was once institutionalized for beating his father -- the old man in the photo -- with an axe handle. Schnauz initially denies committing any crimes. However, when questioned on the location of Brandt, Schnauz claims she is safe from the howlers. Brandt is soon found in the woods, lobotomized. Mulder believes that Schnauz thinks he is rescuing his victims from howlers and that the photos show his nightmares. A police officer takes Schnauz's mugshot. However, when it develops, and it shows the officer shot through the head. Schnauz manages to kill the officer seconds later and escapes, although the death is completely different than that shown in the photo. Schnauz robs a nearby drug store, taking cameras, film, and an assortment of drug-related materials. When Scully leaves, she passes out after being pricked by a needle by Schnauz, who is hiding beneath her car. Examining a photo of Scully taken in the drug store, Mulder finds it distorted like the other photos. Mulder heads to the office where Schnauz's father used to work as a dentist, and finds the chair missing. Scully awakens bound to the chair with Schnauz claiming he's going to kill the howlers in her head, despite her claims that they don't exist. Schnauz is convinced that the photos show the howlers, and takes a photo of himself. Mulder, having found a clue in the photos of where Schnauz is holding her captive, finds Schnauz's trailer in a cemetery. He manages to get in and shoots Schnauz before he tries to lobotomize Scully. Mulder looks at the photos Schnauz took, in which he is dead. 
<EOS>
In Apison, Tennessee, authorities receive a tip from someone named Sidney alleging child abuse and weapons possession by a local cult called the Temple of the Seven Stars. The FBI and BATF stage a raid on the Temple's compound, but are unable to find its leader, Vernon Ephesian. Agent Fox Mulder experiences deja vu and walks into a field on the compound, where he finds a trapdoor. Inside, Mulder and Agent Dana Scully find Ephesian preparing to drink a red liquid with his six wives. Mulder stops them and handcuffs Ephesian, but he feels a strange connection to one of the wives, Melissa Rydell Ephesian. Walter Skinner warns the FBI and BATF that Ephesian and his wives will be released in a day unless they can track down Sidney and the Temple's reported weapons cache. The agents question Ephesian, who states that there is no member of the temple named Sidney. When they interview Melissa, she suddenly begins to talk like Sidney, claiming that Harry Truman is president. Scully believes Melissa is exhibiting multiple personality disorder, but Mulder thinks she is recalling a past life. The agents take her back to the temple, where she takes on the personality of a woman from the Civil War period and says that the weapons were hidden in another secret bunker in the field. She also states that Mulder, in a past life, was in the field with her, and she watched him die. Mulder has Melissa undergo regression hypnosis for her to recount her past lives. She implies that she and Mulder have met over their past lives, but only in passing. To confirm her events, Mulder has himself hypnotized and recalls a time when he was a Jewish woman with a son, who had the same soul as his sister Samantha; his deceased father, who was Scully, is dead, was taken to a Nazi concentration camp by a Gestapo officer who was The Smoking Man. Mulder also recalls his past life from the Civil War, when he was a man named Sullivan Biddle, while Melissa was Sarah Kavanaugh; Scully, Mulder claims, was his sergeant in the Union Army. Scully finds pictures of Biddle and Kavanaugh in the county's hall of records and gives them to Mulder. The FBI and BATF plan to make another search of the compound. Ephesian, realizing that he will not survive another siege, passes out poison to the cult members and all but he and Melissa die, Melissa having feigned drinking it. As Mulder rushes into the temple, Ephesian forces Melissa to drink the poison, and when Mulder arrives he finds both of them dead. Mulder caresses Melissa, looking out into the field. 
<EOS>
Everyone wants to be beautiful. And the Aesthetic Surgery Unit of Chicago's Greenwood Memorial Hospital can make anyone more attractive for a price. For one patient thought to be undergoing a scalp-reduction the price is a grisly death, when Dr. Lloyd goes insane during surgery and performs a violent liposuction instead and literally sucks the life blood out of the man. Scully and Mulder are called in to investigate the doctor's unusual defense: demonic possession. Scully logically assumes the doctor's sleeping pill addiction caused a psychotic break. When Mulder discovers evidence of a pentagram--an occult symbol of protection-- on the floor of the operating room, he concludes that some kind of magic is at work. Scully is dubious, to put it mildly. Another surgeon goes into an uncontrollable frenzy, using a laser to burn through the flesh of a patient's face . Mulder discovers the mark of the pentagram on this body as well -- placed there by Nurse Waite, a practicing witch. Dr. Franklyn admits that Nurse Waite worked at the clinic ten years earlier when similar deaths had occurred. Scully and Mulder search her house, finding a spooky den of candles, incense, herbs and witchy objects. But Nurse Waite is gone. She's lying in wait for Dr. Franklin; submerged in a tub full of gore in his bathroom. Her sneak knife attack fails, and she's arrested. Before Nurse Waite can explain herself to Mulder, she dies horribly, vomiting hundreds of pins, in what Mulder recognizes from Nurse Waite's occult books as a classic case of death by hex. Waite was trying to protect the patients but against what or whom? Maybe Dr. Franklyn -- who smiles inscrutably as he levitates a few feet above his bed. Putting all the clues together, Mulder deduces that Franklyn is a black magician. Cursed with the sin of vanity, Franklyn transforms his looks beyond the limits of surgery: using sorcery and human sacrifice. Ten years ago, he had escaped suspicion. Today, he manages to escape even Mulder. Mulder is too late to stop the final sacrifice that completes the spell. Dr. Franklyn slices off his own face, to disappear forever. And the classically handsome Dr. Hartman is welcomed aboard at a Los Angeles cosmetic surgery clinic. 
<EOS>
Agent Scully is called upon to make a statement to Congress regarding the recent and mysterious disappearance of her FBI partner, Fox Mulder. She uses this opportunity to attack the superiors that she blames for preventing her from doing her job and then refuses to answer the question of Mulder's whereabouts, while a large group, including the Cigarette-Smoking Man, watch on. Ten days earlier, at Honolulu International Airport, a diplomat carrying a locked briefcase is taken into Customs for a random search. After refusing to unlock the case, it is confiscated by Security and he is given a cavity search. Found to be clean of illegal goods, he is released amid much protest and anger, and finds that one of the security officers is dismantling the contents of the case; a steel canister. Despite the diplomat's warnings that the shipment is bio-hazardous, the officer takes out the main case, and then drops it. It smashes and a black substance pours out, quickly forming into a series of worm-like shapes that climb into the officer's skin and seemingly paralyze him as his eyes cloud up. The diplomat is left slamming on the door and screaming in fear. Meanwhile, in Flushing, Queens, New York City, Mulder and Scully are preparing as part of a raid on a tipped off right-wing anarchist group as they unload weapons. The tipster has been sending the FBI receipts on recent firearm purchases. During a brief firefight, in which most of the terrorists are arrested, the pair go after the transport truck, which suddenly veers away and hits a wall. As they close in on the vehicle, they see that the driver has been shot dead by his passenger. Shouting for him to come out with his hands on his head, Mulder is stunned to see that the man is Alex Krycek. Stopped by Scully from beating him, Mulder listens to Krycek as the former spy explains that he was the tipster. After an interrogation, they learn that Krycek was released from his apparent doom within the North Dakota missile silo by the terrorist group, and he affirms that he is a patriot and used the opportunity to expose them. Mulder is skeptical, and frequently knocks him around. However, Krycek insists that he has information on other bombs. Using his intelligence, Mulder and Scully, with a handcuffed Krycek in tow travel to the airport, and their prisoner points out a 'diplomat' carrying a diplomatic pouch. The man has apparently returned from a mission in Russia. When Scully approaches the man, he runs from her. She and Mulder give chase but lose track of the man at one of the emergency exits. However, they recover the contents of the pouch: a rock. Mulder furiously scolds Krycek, who quickly defends himself and implies the rock itself is massively important. Mulder and Scully split up, with the latter heading off to get the rock checked out by experts, while Mulder travels back to the capital and up to Skinner's apartment, asking whether he can house Krycek for the time being. Initially blindsided by seeing the man again, Skinner agrees before beating him up and handcuffing him to a railing on his balcony, despite the cold. At a NASA laboratory, Scully speaks to a Dr. Sacks about the examination of the rock and is told that it is quite possibly a piece from an asteroid or meteor which originated from Mars. Mulder gives him permission to dissect it to discover whether there is any biological matter within. Back in Washington, D.C., Skinner is approached on the street by the Cigarette Smoking Man, who makes breezy small talk before inquiring whether the Assistant Director knows the location of the diplomatic pouch. Skinner denies that he does and angrily rids himself of his former colleague. As Skinner storms off, the CSM calls after him, "Wars have broken out over far less, Mr Skinner." Back at Skinner's apartment, Krycek is awoken by an intruder, who turns out to be the diplomat who escaped from Mulder and Scully. The man messily searches through the apartment, apparently desperate to find the pouch. Krycek attempts to avoid detection by hanging by one of his handcuffs from the balcony but the man hears this and comes to investigate. He is grabbed by Krycek and dragged over the edge, falling to the street far below. As Skinner later returns home, he finds police swarming around the area, and is stopped by one asking which apartment he lives in. After telling the cop that he works for the FBI the officer apologizes but then inquires as to why there is a man hanging from the outside of his balcony. Skinner quickly calls upon Mulder's assistance and the pair manage to sneak Krycek out of the building. As Dr. Sacks begins his incision into the rock, he is splattered by the black matter, which quickly forms and begins to crawl into him. Despite his air-tight bio-suit, he is overwhelmed and left in a catatonic state. Mulder, with Krycek once again along for the ride, travels to New York and visits Marita Covarrubias, looking for information regarding the source of the diplomatic pouch. After a long time spent on the phone, Marita informs Mulder that the rock was gathered during an undisclosed visit to a city in Russia near Tunguska. Seizing on this mention, Mulder makes to leave but quickly asks Marita why she is so keen to help. She replies that he is not the only one in search of the truth, before giving him travel arrangements. Mulder returns to the car, all set to fly to Russia, and once again hits Krycek for being insouciant. Scully phones Mulder, informing him that Sacks appears to be dead, as a result of the experiment on the rock, but that she has no idea how this could be. Scully and Pendrell investigate in detail and are stunned to see that the scientist appears to be still alive. Mulder drives to JFK Airport and, as he prepares to leave, he informs Krycek of his intention to leave the double agent there to freeze. As Mulder walks away, he pauses in his tracks upon hearing Krycek cursing at him in Russian. He walks back to the car, asking Krycek how he knows the language, who replies that his parents were Cold War immigrants. With this is mind, Mulder brings him along. In an unknown location, the CSM vists the Well-Manicured Man as he observes his daughter show-jumping on a dressage horse. Full of reluctance, the CSM informs the Well-Manicured Man of Mulder's trip to Russia, and is promptly excoriated, with the Well-Manicured Man once again implying the CSM's incompetence and his ignorance regarding the seriousness of the situation. Dropped off by a passing truck thanks to Krycek's Russian linguistics, Mulder and his prisoner rush off-road and discover a razor-wire perimeter, quickly digging in underneath. Krycek once again urges Mulder to explain what is going on. Mulder tells him that, in 1908, an explosion that razed a forest in Tunguska recorded one thousand times more atomic damage that the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and that only theories of a meteor exist. As they make their way forward, they discover what appears to be a gulag camp, with men on horseback marshaling miners who are whipped when they fall or slow down. They are forced to run, as more cavalrymen chase them down, and both are captured before being thrown in a cell. Back in Washington, D.C., Scully and Skinner are subpoenaed by Senator Albert Sorenson to discuss the death of the courier. The pair refuse to give any clear answers, especially Skinner, who's apartment appears to be where the man was, when he was thrown off the building. They also cover for Mulder, who was also supposed to appear but is now unaccounted for. Guards enter the cell, and Krycek quickly demands something unknown. When Mulder asks what he is saying, Krycek tells him that he is asking for the guard's supervisor. As Krycek is taken away by the suddenly hesitant guards, he bids Mulder farewell in Russian. With his compatriot gone, the other prisoner tells Mulder that Krycek was lying and that his friend is not who he says he is. Guards burst into the room and, overseen by a bald man with glasses, they inject Mulder with a sedative, rendering him unconscious. As Mulder awakens, he finds himself secured to a table by chicken wire, surrounded by dozens of others in the same conditions. Overseen by the Glasses Man, black matter is dumped onto the faces of the prisoners, who scream, and Mulder is unable to fight back as the oil takes the form of worms that subcutaneously clamber into his eyes. 
<EOS>
Having been imprisoned in a gulag in Krasnoyarsk, Fox Mulder learns Alex Krycek, the shadowy agent he was captured alongside, is in fact a double agent working for the Russians. Mulder is able to escape from the camp while taking Krycek hostage, although the two become separated in the confusion. Krycek is found by a group of men whose left arms have all been amputated, and has his arm forcibly severed to prevent his involvement in black oil vaccination tests. Meanwhile, Vassily Peskow, a former KGB agent, has come out of retirement, in order to travel to the United States of America. While there, he assassinates Bonita Charne-Sayre, a doctor working for the Syndicate to develop a black oil vaccine. From here, Peskow tracks down Charne-Sayre's test subjects, testing a Russian vaccine on them before killing them to cover his tracks. Mulder has been able to return to America with the help of a group of Russian peasants and rejoins his partner, Dana Scully. Scully and Assistant Director Walter Skinner had been detained by a United States Senate committee seeking to uncover Mulder's whereabouts, which is adjourned upon Mulder's arrival. The agents attempt to track down Peskow, following the trail of murders. However, the assassin is able to outwit the agents and destroys the last of the oil-containing rocks in an oil-well explosion. He returns to Russia, where it is revealed he had been hired for this task by Krycek. 
<EOS>
Mulder experiences a series of vivid dreams that lead him to the discovery of the long-buried skeleton of a murdered child. Mulder is shaken, recognizing the modus operandi of serial killer John Lee Roche, one of the first killers Mulder profiled. Between 1979 and 1990, Roche abducted girls from the ages of eight to ten from their homes, strangled them, and cut a heart-shaped piece of fabric from their clothes as a trophy. When captured, Roche confessed to 13 murders. Mulder fears that this discovery means there are more victims than those Roche had admitted to. When the girl is identified, it proves that Roche began his crimes as early as 1975. Another clue from the dream helps Mulder locate where the killer hid his trophies. He finds a total of 16 hearts, and realizes there are two more unknown victims. Scully and Mulder interview Roche in jail. He will not tell them about the missing children, and toys with Scully and Mulder's questions. Oddly, he comments that he understands why Mulder is taking the case personally. His meaning becomes clear with Mulder's next dream. Mulder goes back in time to the terrifying night in 1973 when his sister Samantha was abducted, except the creature who bursts through door is not an alien: it is Roche. Could Roche have abducted and murdered Samantha? Mulder tries to get the truth from Roche, who claims that he sold a vacuum to Mulder's father before Samantha's disappearance. When Roche will not answer Mulder directly, Mulder becomes enraged and punches Roche in the face. Scully, who witnesses Mulder's loss of control, tries to convince him the dreams are nothing but images from his subconscious. She is certain that Roche is only cleverly manipulating Mulder's emotions. Mulder always believed Samantha was abducted by aliens, and now he does not know what to believe. His fears seem confirmed when in the basement of his family home, Mulder discovers the same model of vacuum that Roche claimed Mulder's father bought for his mother. When Skinner finds out Mulder struck Roche, he denies Mulder further access to the prisoner. However, Skinner is sympathetic when Mulder tells him his fears about Samantha, and finally allows Mulder interview Roche again, provided Scully keeps an eye on Mulder. Mulder finally agrees to give Roche what he had been demanding: the heart trophies he cut out of pajamas of his victims. Mulder demands to know the truth about Samantha. Roche's description of the night Samantha was abducted is exactly the same as Mulder remembers. He refuses to tell Mulder if one of the cloth hearts was taken from Samantha's clothing. Instead, he makes Mulder choose one of the hearts at random, and tells them where to find the body. Another body is discovered, but it is not Samantha. When Mulder and Scully return, Roche is fully in control. Refusing to divulge anything more unless he is taken to the scene of the crime. Scully cannot stand to listen anymore, and makes Mulder leave with her. She insists that Roche is playing Mulder. Willing to risk everything to find out the truth about his sister's abduction, Mulder makes a difficult decision. Without notifying Scully or Skinner, he releases Roche from jail and takes him to Mulder's childhood home in Martha's Vineyard. Inside the house, Roche describes everything in great detail, except Mulder says they are in the wrong house. He has tricked Roche by deliberately taking him to a house six miles away from his childhood home. Now he now knows Roche has been lying all along. Mulder guesses that his extensive knowledge of Roche enabled Roche to get into his head saying, "I profiled you. Maybe some connection was created between us. And through it, you pilfered my memories of Samantha." Mulder plans to return Roche to jail the next morning. In the motel, he has one final dream of Samantha, and wakes up to find himself bound in his own handcuffs with Skinner and Scully pounding on the motel room door. Roche is missing, and so are Mulder's FBI badge and his gun. With Mulder's ID, Roche tracks down the whereabouts of Caitlin, a little girl he had spotted on their flight to Boston. Mulder shoulders all the blame for placing Caitlin in such horrific danger. He admits to Scully that she was right; Roche was just playing him. Mulder's knowledge of Roche pays off when he correctly identifies where Roche took the girl. He shoots Roche to save Caitlin's life. However, he is still plagued by the doubts Roche planted about Samantha's fate. With Roche dead, will Mulder ever find out the truth? 
<EOS>
In a migrant workers' shantytown in California's San Joaquin Valley, Eladio Buente flirts with pretty Maria Dorantes, while his brother, Soledad, watches jealously. Flakita, a nosy neighbor, bemoans the age-old story: "Two brothers. One woman. Trouble." Suddenly, three ear-splitting booms come from the sky, followed by a painfully bright flash, and a brief but torrential downpour of hot yellow rain. In its aftermath, Flakita discovers the mutilated corpses of Maria and one of her goats, their faces partially eaten away. Eladio is missing. Mulder and Scully arrive at the shantytown to investigate Maria's death. According to Mulder, the strange occurrences preceding Maria's demise are called Fortean events. They are an unusual or highly infrequent meteorological phenomenon. Fortean events have been linked to alien encounters, and cattle mutilations. Scully greets Mulder's information with her usual skepticism. She can not tell much from the goat's corpse, and Maria's body is at the morgue. According to Flakita, Maria was killed by El Chupacabra, a gray hairless creature out of Puerto Rican folk tales, with a small body, large head, and bulging black eyes. Scully notes the amazing similarity between the descriptions of El Chupacabra and a gray alien. Soledad angrily refutes Flakita's story. He accuses his brother, Eladio, of killing Maria out of jealousy. This lover's triangle convinces Scully that Eladio is the killer, until she examines Maria's remains at the morgue. The state of Maria's corpse shocks even Scully. It is hardly visible beneath mounds of greenish fungal growth. Meanwhile, Mulder locates Eladio with the help of Conrad Lozano, a cynical Immigration agent. Eladio is in INS custody, segregated from fearful prisoners who think he is El Chupacabra. Eladio denies killing Maria, claiming something or someone unknown mutilated Maria during the yellow rain. Mulder believes Eladio did not kill Maria, and Scully must agree. Scully's autopsy of the body revealed that Maria succumbed to a massive fungal infection. No one, she says, could deliberately do such a thing. Eladio escapes from INS custody, and the agents discover the driver of the INS deportation bus dead from a different fungal infection. Mulder thinks there may be a connection between the fungi and the missing immigrant. Lozano and Mulder track Eladio to a construction site where he has found work, but the vengeful Soledad is also on Eladio's trail. Both brothers escape before Lozano and Mulder can take them into custody. The site's foreman is dead, his body ravaged by a myriad of fungi. Scully calls Mulder and warns him against touching or inhaling the lethal lichen. During a meeting with a mycology professor, Scully is informed that the professor has isolated an enzyme that acts as a catalyst, accelerating fungal growth. If it escapes into the environment, there could be a biological hazard of frightening proportions. Scully believes that Eladio is inadvertently responsible for deaths by spreading the enzyme which he is somehow carrying. Mulder now thinks the Fortean events could have been caused by something falling from space, which would mean the enzyme is alien. Scully, on the verge of losing patience with Mulder's theories, just wants to find the man who seems to be spreading it. Now quite ill, Eladio begs his cousin Gabrielle for help. She reluctantly agrees to lend him money. Flakita, the village gossip, warns the agents that Soledad is planning to kill Eladio. Eladio eludes them again, but Lozano arrests Soledad. When Eladio sees his own face for the first time, he cannot believe the horror of it. He no longer looks human. Eladio has indeed transformed into El Chupacabra. Gabrielle tells Scully and Mulder that Eladio has run away to Mexico. However, Mulder realizes it is a lie. Speeding on their way, he alerts a hazmat team to meet them at the shantytown where it all began. This is the place where the two brothers will finally settle their dispute over Maria. What really happened that night? According to Flakita, Lozano brings Soledad to the camp, and orders Eladio to face his brother like a man. However, Eladio is no longer a man; he is El Chupacabra. Flakita hides as gray aliens, whom she calls Chupacabras, descend on the village. They kill Lozano, and take Soledad up in the sky with them. Gabrielle weaves another tale. Lozano orders Eladio to face Soledad. In the horror of realizing his brother is El Chupacabra, Soledad cannot shoot. He and Lozano struggle over the gun, and Lozano takes a bullet. The two brothers, now both Chupacabras, run away to Mexico. The story Mulder and Scully report to Skinner is not much clearer. All they know is that by the time they got to the camp, both the brothers were gone. Lozano was dead, brought down by two bullets and the fungus. The Chupacabras? The Buente brothers, their faces luridly disfigured, may have hitchhiked off into the Mexican night. 
<EOS>
An ambulance races through the streets, carrying Leonard Betts and his partner, who are trying to save a man who Betts diagnoses with cancer. Amazed at her partners ability, she never sees an oncoming semi, which T-Bones the ambulance and decapitates Betts. Later, in the morgue where Betts is stored, an attendant is attacked, and a man with bloody footprints is shown walking out. Mulder and Scully are investigating the area, going over a surveillance tape that shows a man walking out of the morgue, head obscured by interference from the camera. Also, the locker where the body was stored was opened from the inside, bloody footprints as evidence. While Mulder interrogates Betts' partner, Scully decides to autopsy the severed head. When she goes to slice it open, however, its eyes open, and the mouth moves. Scully claims it is merely electrical response, but Mulder is still curious. Mulder travels to Betts home and discovers evidence the body had been there. When Mulder leaves, Betts--who has regrown his head--rises out of his iodine-filled bathtub. Mulder interviews Michelle Wilkes, Betts' former partner, who recollects his ability to detect cancer. When an interior slice of Betts' polymerized head is examined, the agents discover that his frontal lobe displayed signs of pervasive cancer. Mulder has Chuck Burks subject the slice to an aura photography test; the final image shows corona discharge that takes the appearance of human shoulders. Using fingerprint records, Scully learns that Betts had an alter ego named Albert Tanner. The agents visit his elderly mother, Elaine, who claims that Albert died in a car accident six years previously. Meanwhile, Wilkes tracks down Betts at another hospital and confronts him. After an apology, he gives her a lethal injection of potassium chloride; Betts is then pursued and captured by a security guard. After he is handcuffed to his car, Betts escapes by tearing off his thumb. The agents search the car the next morning, finding disposed tumors in a cooler in the trunk. Mulder believes that Betts subsists on the tumors, and that his nature makes him the embodiment of a radical leap in evolution. Upon learning that the car is registered to Elaine, the agents have the police search her home. Elaine recounts how her son endured bullying as a child because he was different, and says that he had his reasons if he killed anybody. Meanwhile, Betts accosts a bar patron and kills him to obtain his cancerous lung. Later, in a storage unit, he seems to shed his body and create a duplicate. When the agents come across the storage unit, the duplicate Betts attempts to flee in a car, which explodes when fired upon and seemingly kills him. Scully suggests that Betts' first death as Albert Tanner was staged, but when they exhume Tanner's casket, they find his body still inside. Mulder becomes convinced that Betts can not only regenerate his body parts, but his entire body itself. Because of this, he believes that Betts is still at large. At Elaine's behest, Betts removes a cancerous tumor from her body before summoning an ambulance. The agents, already staking out Elaine's house, encounter the paramedics when they arrive. Scully accompanies Elaine to the hospital while Mulder conducts a search of the neighborhood. However, after arriving at the hospital, Scully realizes that Betts has stowed himself away on the roof of the ambulance. Betts locks her inside the ambulance with him, calmly but apologetically telling her that she has something he needs. This leads Scully to realize that she herself has cancer. After a struggle, Scully kills Betts by pressing charged defibrillator paddles against his head. Scully remains silently stunned by the revelation of her illness. Later, in her apartment, she wakes up with a nosebleed, confirming her disease. 
<EOS>
In Philadelphia, Ed Jerse loses a divorce settlement to his ex-wife, who has sole custody of his children. After getting drunk at a local bar, Ed wanders into a tattoo parlor and impulsively receives a tattoo depicting Bettie Page. He is then shown to return back to his home, to collapse after viewing the new tattoo. At work the next day, Ed hears a woman calling him a loser; he has a violent confrontation with a female co-worker--who denies saying anything--and is subsequently subdued. In Washington, Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully conduct a discreet meeting with a Russian informant, Vsevlod Pudovkin, who claims to have seen a UFO at a secret research center. Upon returning to FBI headquarters, Mulder heads out on vacation, leaving Scully to follow up on the Pudovkin case for him. Scully is uninterested in the case and expresses serious doubts about Pudovkin's credibility, leading to an argument with an inconsiderate Mulder. Scully becomes upset over the direction her life and career are going. At his home Ed is called by his boss and is fired. He hears the same voice as before, and yells at the woman living below him, thinking it was her. Upon hearing the voice after a pair of Jehovah's Witnesses stop by, Ed goes downstairs and murders his neighbor, throwing her body in the furnace. The voice talks to him again and he realizes it's coming from his new tattoo. Scully heads to Philadelphia where she watched Pudovkin enter a tattoo parlor. Scully heads inside where she sees Ed arguing with the owner, wanting the tattoo to be removed. Ed strikes up a conversation with Scully and invites her out to dinner, to which she replies she has other business to take care of. That night Scully talks to Mulder, who is in Graceland, telling him that Pudovkin is a con man and part of the Russian mafia. Scully calls Jerse and tells him that she changed her mind. The two head to a nearby lounge but she is concerned about Ed's arm, where he has burned the tattoo with a cigarette butt. Ed convinces Scully to get a tattoo, and she has one of an Ouroboros applied to her back. That night Scully stays at Ed's apartment. The tattoo is angry at him, saying she'll be dead if he kisses her, which he does anyway. The next morning two detectives arrive at the apartment after Ed has gone out, who tell Scully that Ed's neighbor is missing and blood was found in her apartment with an unusual chemical substance in it. Scully researches the material on Ed's laptop and tries to call Mulder at the FBI headquarters but hangs up before Mulder has a chance to answer. When Ed arrives Scully tells him that they found blood in his neighbor's apartment and that it was likely his. She thinks that the chemical came from the tattoo ink and wants them both to head to the hospital to be tested. Ed tells Scully about the voice he's been hearing from his tattoo. As Scully heads to the other room to get ready, her FBI badge falls out of her coat pocket. Scully discreetly picks it back up without Ed noticing. Then, the tattoo begins to talk again, convincing Ed to redial Scully's last call to see who she was speaking to. An FBI operator answers and, upon learning that Scully is a FBI agent, the tattoo forces Ed to attack Scully. Scully tries to escape but is overpowered by Ed, who binds her in a bedsheet and carries her down to the basement to throw her in the furnace. At the last moment Ed is able to overpower the impulses of the tattoo and instead thrusts his own arm into the furnace. 
<EOS>
Scully stands in a hospital gown next to a bare lighted wall, studying a cranial x-ray that she holds. The x-ray shows an irregularly-shaped transparent mass, between the eyes and behind the nasal cavity. Assistant Director Skinner meets with the agents in his own office, sympathetically learning of Scully's plight and agreeing - on her request - to keep the matter confidential. Scully relates to Skinner that she is eager to start investigating her cancer and Mulder informs him that, in the previous year, the agents encountered a group of female purported-abductees who reported symptoms similar to Scully, after having implants removed from the base of their own necks. According to Mulder, one of these women, Betsy Hagopian, had been undergoing treatment but has recently been uncontactable. Mulder and Scully arrive at Betsy Hagopian's former property, only to find it is soon to go on sale. A female realtor opens the door to the agents, jumping to conclusions about their identities, and reveals that Betsy Hagopian recently passed away. After Mulder shows his FBI badge to her, the realtor reveals she is ignorant of Betsy's activities as a MUFON member. On Mulder's request, the agents are allowed inside, where Scully begins to recall having met the women. The agents discover that someone is remotely accessing a computer in the building's basement and Scully starts to call for a trace to be run. She and Mulder arrive, at night, outside the apartment building where the hacker, Kurt Crawford, lives. The duo attempts to enter the building, Mulder heading up a fire escape at the property's rear. Kurt Crawford makes an escape attempt but is caught by the agents. Mulder notices blood running from Scully's nose but she insists that she is fine. In Kurt Crawford's apartment, Scully cleans her nosebleed but exits to find that Mulder has released Crawford from handcuffs. Scully learns that Crawford is allegedly an innocent MUFON member who was downloading files for safekeeping, as he believes a dangerous government conspiracy is trying to cover up the files and were involved in the fates of the women. According to Crawford, virtually all the other members of the MUFON group that Scully met died from cancer in the last year, with the exception of Penny Northern, who is now hospitalized in critical condition. Mulder privately advises a reluctant Scully to not only admit that her condition was due to her own abduction but to also interview Penny Northern, as an investigator if a personal visit will be too difficult for Scully. ALLENTOWN-BETHLEHEM MEDICAL CENTER Receiving a call from Scully at Betsy Hagopian's house, Mulder tells her he has found evidence, in the MUFON files, that some of the group members had been treated at a nearby fertility clinic. Scully lengthily asks Mulder to help her be readmitted into hospital, so Mulder helpfully agrees. He irritably departs and heads for the medical center. Armed with a gimlet weapon, the Grey-Haired Man subsequently enters the house and executes Crawford. As the man exits, Crawford lies dead, his remains becoming a puddle of green ooze on the basement floor. Scully begins chemotherapy and radiation during which she is comforted by Penny Northern. Mulder goes to the Center for Reproductive Medicine in Lehigh Furnace, Pennsylvania at night and attempts to run through the center's computer files. A man identical to Kurt Crawford is also there looking for data, and Mulder thinks he is dealing with the same man, not knowing about the first Crawford's execution. They manage to find information about the Lombard Research Facility, a fertility clinic at which Agent Scully's name figures in the directory. Mulder asks Assistant Director Skinner to arrange a meeting with the Cigarette-Smoking Man, but Skinner advises him to find another way, saying you can't ask the truth of a man who trades in lies. Mulder runs to the hospital where Scully has already learned the news about Doctor Scanlon from Byers. Scully remains at Penny Northern's bedside all night and the woman gives up the ghost at dawn. Scully is distraught as she gives Mulder the sad news. She decides to cease her treatments and shares her struggle with Mulder who embraces and comforts her. Mulder calls Skinner to tell him Scully is coming back to work. It is then revealed that Skinner has contacted the Cigarette-Smoking Man after all and is about to make a deal in an effort to help Scully. 
<EOS>
In Brooklyn, New York, a group of Hasidic Jews gather at a cemetery for the funeral of Isaac Luria, who had been beaten and shot to death by a gang of three young Neo-Nazis. The last to leave is Isaac's wife, Ariel, and her father, Jacob Weiss. During nightfall, a dark figure enters the cemetery and crafts a man-shaped sculpture out of mud. When one of Isaac's assailants is found strangled with the dead man's fingerprints on his body, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are called in to investigate. Scully suggests that the murder was an act of retribution, and argues that the evidence was staged to look like revenge from beyond the grave. When the agents visit Ariel and Jacob, their request for the exhumation of Isaac's body angers the old man. Mulder and Scully then interview Curt Brunjes, a racist owner of a copy shop across the street from the market where Isaac worked. Mulder tells Brunjes that the other two boys, who work for Brunjes, are in danger. Scully mentions that there is a rumor spreading that Isaac has risen from the grave to avenge his death. The two boys, who are eavesdropping on the conversation, are terrified at this prospect. That night, the boys dig up Isaac's grave and find his body intact. While retrieving tools from the car, one of the boys is brutally murdered. The next morning, Mulder and Scully find a book on Jewish mysticism buried with Isaac's body; it mysteriously bursts into flames. On the book is Jacob's name. The agents search for Jacob, finding him in a synagogue with the strangled body of the last remaining boy. Although Jacob admits to both of the murders, Mulder believes that a Golem--a creature from Jewish mysticism--is the true murderer. Later, Brunjes is found murdered and Mulder and Scully watch the shop's surveillance tape. They discover that the Golem has features similar to Isaac. Mulder deduces that, because Ariel and Isaac were not officially wed in a Jewish synagogue, Ariel created the Golem out of love to serve as a surrogate for her late husband. The two agents arrive at the synagogue to find Ariel and the creature exchanging wedding vows. After an intense fight, in which Jacob and Mulder are both wounded, Ariel declares her love for Isaac and returns the creature to dust. 
<EOS>
The episode begins at the National Mall, where Major General Benjamin Bloch gives a speech to a crowd of Vietnam War veterans. Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, and Walter Skinner patrol the crowd, searching for a potential gunman. However, when the agents see the gunman, he repeatedly disappears and makes their efforts to track him difficult. Mulder finds himself aiming his gun towards the panicked crowd, desperately searching for the gunman as he had disappeared right in front of him. Twelve hours earlier, at Fort Evanston, Maryland, Lieutenant General Peter MacDougal is shot in his limousine by the gunman. Skinner briefs the agents on the killing, noting a king of hearts playing card--used by the soldiers in Vietnam to mark their kills--was left at the scene. The FBI suspects a far-right paramilitary group, the Right Hand, of killing MacDougal in an effort to stop an upcoming re-dedication of a Vietnam war memorial in Washington. Mulder and Scully head to Virginia to question the Right Hand's leader, Denny Markham. A search of his fenced-off cabin uncovers ammunition and a photograph showing him in the company of a Sergeant Nathaniel Teager. After being arrested, Markham reveals that Teager was a soldier in Vietnam who was left for dead as a prisoner of war. Meanwhile, at the Vietnam memorial, Teager approaches a war widow and claims that her husband is still alive as a POW. After giving the woman her husband's dog tags, Teager mysteriously disappears. Skinner informs the agents that Teager is officially dead, and that his remains are at the Army's forensics lab. However, Mulder learns that the lab only possesses Teager's dental remains, and that the cause of his death was recorded as inconclusive. Mulder believes that General John Steffan, who signed Teager's death certificate, is his next target. Teager makes his way past Pentagon security and kills Steffan in his office. Upon seeing Teager on the Pentagon's surveillance tapes, Mulder notes the frequent unexplained appearances and disappearances of Viet Cong troops reported by POWs in Vietnam. During a meeting with Marita Covarrubias, Mulder learns that Steffan, McDougal, and Bloch were all involved in negotiations concerning POWs. Meanwhile, as Bloch's motorcade makes its way to the Mall, Scully spots Teager in the crowd, only to see him vanish in an instant. Mulder tells Skinner and Scully that the government has arranged for their investigation to fail in an effort to cover up the truth about American POWs still being kept in Vietnam. In the present, during the re-dedication ceremony, Mulder realizes that no one can see Teager if they are in his line of sight. Teager follows Skinner and Bloch to the motorcade, where he unsuccessfully shoots at the general and Skinner suffers a flesh wound. Teager is shot in turn by the agents as he tries to escape. As he succumbs to his wounds, Teager repeats his Army identification. Afterwards, the Pentagon states that the assassin was a different person--which Mulder denounces as a lie. He leaves Skinner to silently ponder his own service in the Vietnam War as he looks upon Teager's name on the memorial wall. 
<EOS>
On an airliner flying over Upstate New York, a nervous Max Fenig clings to a napsack and is reassured by the man sitting next to him about the comparative safety of air travel. Max notices a man who has been observing him for some time get up and use the bathroom. Inside, the man assembles an improvised handgun out of a variety of non-metallic components. Armed with this weapon, the man approaches Max in his seat, but is knocked off his feet as the plane experiences severe turbulence, and a bright light encircles them. With the passengers screaming in fear, the plane appears to be losing control until a blinding light halts and shines through the windows at them. After sitting in on the meeting, despite the lack of FBI involvement into the matter, Mulder speaks up and voices his views that the plane was forced down, and dwells on the possibility of extraterrestrials. The meeting's chief, Mike Millar, shows his skepticism towards this idea, but nonetheless allows the agents to accompany them to the crash site. At Fulton County Airport that evening, Scully arranges for Graffia, who has been under FBI protection, to be flown in. Speaking to her on the airfield, Scully inquires as to whether Max was carrying anything radioactive on the plane. She learns that Max worked at an environmental energy plant in Colorado under an alias, and surmises that he may well have stolen something similar to plutonium. She meets with Mulder and passes on this information, but he is highly doubtful at the thought, not understanding what Max would be doing with plutonium. At the Paradise Motel in Northville, Sharon Graffia is being held as part of her protection. As she frantically goes through what appears to be Max's notes and writings, the room begins to shake, and a blinding lights shines through the windows. As the papers fly in all directions, and Sharon stares at the door, terrified, it is blown in. Scully, who is overseeing the NTSB's efforts to re-assemble to plane to determine the cause of the crash, notices Mulder walking away and goes to speak to him. Mulder explains how the watches have gone, probably along with other evidence, and that there is some kind of clean up going on which will result in no cause of crash being determined. Mulder and Scully visit the Von Drehle Air Force Reserve Installation, where a military air control tower is situated. The agents speak to one of the men of station the night of the crash, Louis Frisch, who tells them that very little out of the ordinary occurred and that 549 simply disappeared off of their radar. After Mulder and Scully leave, Frisch is joined by the his colleague, Gonzalez, who states firmly that he wants to tell the truth and that he cannot stand the lies. Frisch grabs him, demanding that he control himself, before he drives off. Mulder and Scully drive to Sharon Graffia's safehouse, to find that she has disappeared and her room trashed, including the front door being broken in. Mulder notices that the glass in the peep hole has been blistered. While at the motel, they meet Millar, who tells them that their investigations have revealed that 549's main cabin door had been blown out from the outside, something that he describes as impossible. Back at Von Drehle, Frisch returns to find Gonzalez in the control tower. He apologizes for their argument earlier, and admits to feeling a great deal of guilt over what happened. Noticing that his colleague is neither responding nor moving, he approaches him and discovers that he is dead from a cranial gun shot wound, in what looks like a suicide. Stunned, he looks outside and sees a convoy of black vehicles approaching. As a team of commandos enter and search the tower - led by Dark Man - Frisch hides on the roof before escaping in his car. While in his motel room, Mulder listens to the audio recordings of air traffic control, and becomes suspicious of 549's pilot mentioning an intercept. He phones Scully and mentions this, before telling her to come round. As she does, she is grabbed and restrained by Frisch, who tells her not to shout out and that he has information regarding the night of the crash. He then claims that he was responsible for the plane's crash. Mulder and Scully drove him down to the hangar where the NTSB's salvage was taking place. Here, he was introduced to Millar, and explained that he had been given orders to track the coordinates of 549, and had then called these in for another aircraft, a US Air Force jet, to intercept. After this, 549 had disappeared from the radar and presumably crashed. Using this story as a basis, Mulder claims that he believes the jet was shooting down a UFO that had taken control of 549, and that the plane went down with it. He says this had been an attempt by the UFO to abduct Max Fenig and recover whatever it was in his possession that emitted radiation, explaining the wounds to the passengers and the cabin door being blasted in. Millar expresses his amazement at this theory, saying that it is probably the best one available, but that nobody will ever accept it as being possible. Believing that based on this, there will be a second crash site, the they head off, with Mulder and Scully drive away with the intention of allowing Scully to take Frisch to Washington and into protection, while Mulder will follow up on the possible crash site. Millar, meanwhile, drives alone to the original site. While driving clear of the airfield, Mulder and Scully are pursued by the same convoy of cars who had come for Frisch earlier. After a brief chase along one of the runways, Mulder used a landing plane as a means of cover. As a result the chasing cars broke off, and Mulder and Scully escaped. Millar arrives at the crash site, and is stunned when he sees a large searchlight in the distance apparently emanating from midair. Wading through the swamp water to get closer, he makes out what appears to be a silently hovering craft searching the area. Suddenly the light switches off, and after a brief pause, reappears directly over Millar, who stares up in utter disbelief. The light disappears once again, along with the craft. Immediately, Millar hears a woman's voice screaming "someone help me please", he runs to find Sharon Graffia, weeping uncontrollably, "don't let them take me" she says; Millar comforts her. Back at the airport, Mulder persuades their pilot to fly him to a nearby woodland next to, that Mulder is now convinced is the sight of the second crash. He is flown out, and arrives at a nearby jetty to find a bewildered boatman who speaks of teams of black clad men searching the lake. Mulder convinces him to sail him out to the lake's center, and also to use his scuba gear. 
<EOS>
A wounded Garrett escapes from the Headless Woman Pub. Scully immediately turns her attention to Agent Pendrell, who was caught in the crossfire. Paramedics are called to the scene and Pendrell is transported to a nearby hospital. Skinner tells Scully that Louis Frish is being placed under military arrest for suspicion of murder and providing false testimony to a federal investigation. Records reveal that Sharon Graffia is not Max Fenig's sister, but an unemployed aeronautical engineer who spent time in mental institutions where she met Fenig. The agents search Fenig's mobile home. They discover a videotape in which Fenig states that the military salvaged alien technology for use in their own technological applications. He claims to have undeniable, irrefutable proof to back up his assertion. Mulder describes for Mike Millar the sequence of events that he believes led to the downing of Flight 549. According to Mulder, Max boarded the plane carrying physical proof of the existence of extraterrestrial life. Someone followed him aboard the craft, intending to obtain the object at any cost. But before the assassin could carry out his plot, Flight 549 was intercepted by a UFO. As the UFO began to abduct Fenig, flight controllers ordered a military jet into 549's airspace on a mission to destroy the alien craft. When the Air Force shot down the UFO, the airliner, caught in its tractor beam, spun out of control and crashed. The manager of the trailer park where Fenig lived gives Mulder Fenig's undelivered mail. One envelope contains a luggage claim ticket bearing a three-letter designation for Syracuse. Meanwhile, Scully meets with Sharon Graffia at a mental health center. She admits she stole an object from her employer after Max insisted it could prove the existence of alien life. The object was divided into three parts. Max and Sharon each took a segment, but they were later confiscated. 
<EOS>
Jason Nichols and Lucas Menard, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, become embroiled in an argument as they walk down a city street. They are approached by an elderly man, who warns Menand that he will be run over by a bus at exactly eleven forty-six that evening. Menand tells a campus security cop that the old man is harassing him. The guard places him in the back seat of a sedan and drives away. A few moments later, Menand is run down by the bus at exactly eleven forty-six. Mulder and Scully review the facts of the case. Nichols was taken into custody after the bus driver told police that he pushed Menand into the path of his vehicle. But Nichols tells authorities he was attempting to save Menand as an unidentified old man had forewarned of his colleague's impending death. The security guard who arrested the old man is found frozen to death. Scully concludes guard was somehow exposed to some sort of chemical refrigerant, as weather conditions are too warm to explain the corpse's frigid internal temperature. Mulder interviews Nichols at the police station. Nichols explains that he and Menand had been arguing because Menand threatened to go public with a claim that he had falsified data on a research paper. A short time later, the elderly man kills Dr. Yonechi, a Japanese researcher, by pricking him with a metallic stylus. Mulder and Scully examine Yonechi's frozen corpse. Lab tests reveal that the doctor was injected with an unidentifiable chemical compound. The agents approach Nichol's girlfriend, Lisa Ianelli, who is also a researcher. She recognizes the chemical compound as a rapid freezing agent that Nichols had been engineering for years. But she points out that the chemical has not yet been invented. Lisa tells the agents that if Yonechi was injected with the chemical, he may not be dead. With Lisa's help, Scully and a team of medical personnel successfully resuscitate Yonechi. But his body temperature suddenly and rapidly begins to increase, until finally, he bursts into flames. Lisa realizes she made an error when she recommended that doctors remove Yonechi's body from a tub filled with yellowish fluid. Lisa confesses that it was she who falsified the data to get the research grant. Those who would have figured out the truth--Menand and Yonechi--are now dead. Police receive a tip that the elderly man is living at a nearby hotel. Inside the elderly man's room, the agents discover a faded color photograph picturing Nichols, Yonechi and Lisa toasting champagne glasses inside the cryology lab. Mulder realizes the photo was taken five years in the future-on the day the researchers successfully synthesized the freezing compound. The elderly man is attempting to alter that future; when he failed to save Menand from being killed by the bus, he in turn killed Yonechi as a substitute. Mulder also realizes the elderly man is none other than Jason Nichols, albeit an elderly version of Nichols, likely from an alternate timeline. Lisa locates the elderly man in his apartment and confronts him. The elderly man tells her that 10 years from now, she will attend a scientific conference in Zurich, where she will be inspired to create time travel by a lecture on tachyons, sub-atomic particles that can move backwards or forwards in time, if only at 0 Kelvin. He gathers the courage to inject her with the chemical after doing this. But Scully successfully resuscitates Lisa, and remembering the girl's words, immediately returns her body to the tub to prevent the fire that killed Yonechi. Nichols confronts his elderly self in the computer mainframe room at the cryogenic lab, where the old man has erased all of Nichols' files from the computer. The old man tells Nichols that the success of their research made time travel possible, but also plunging the world into chaos. The details he gives are vague, but the elderly man implies that in the alternate time-stream where he comes from, through time travel, humanity is given the disturbing ability to know everything that could ever conceivably happen; a world without history, where past, present, and future do not exist. Confused and enraged, Nichols lunges at the old man, choking him. Mulder, unable to open the lab door, yells to Nichols. He tells him that Lisa is alive. The old man sneaks up behind Nichols, cryptically telling him that "it's better that we never were." Wrapping his arms around his younger self, the old man bursts into flames. The fire consumes them both. Later, Lisa recovers, and once again sets to work at the cryonics lab, ominously attempting to reconstruct the chemical compound. 
<EOS>
While being rolled down a hospital hallway to deliver, a pregnant woman admits the father is from another planet. She gives birth to a little girl, but the doctor looks puzzled. Out of view of the mother, he holds up the child to reveal a wiggling tail on the baby and says, "Lord, not another one." Mulder and Scully are driving to investigate while Scully examines a tabloid front page featuring the Monkey Babies. They interview the mother, Amanda Nelligan, who states the father was Luke Skywalker. The agents then visit the fertility clinic where the other four babies were conceived via IVF and Dr. Pugh admits he was surprised at the 90% success rate, speculating that maybe IVF wasn't really responsible. Mulder takes a foray down the hall and finds a maintenance worker, Eddie, whose plumber's crack reveals he once had a tail. PCR DNA results show he's the father of all the tail babies. While in police custody, he transforms into a policeman and escapes. The agents visit Amanda again who says she dated Eddie Van Blundht in high school, so the agents go to his house and talk to his father. The father has a tail and performed in the circus. Mulder soon realizes the old man is really Eddie, who runs off and pretends to be the husband of a woman down the street who is the mother of one of the tail babies. A search of the Van Blundht house reveals the remains of the father, including the tail, in the attic preserved by quicklime. Scully finds anomalous striated skin muscles covered the man's entire dermal structure. Mulder revisits Amanda in the hospital again, but she says he was just there. It was Eddie pretending to be Mulder. In the hospital locker room, Eddie jumps from the ceiling tiles, locks Mulder in the basement with a sandwich, and successfully impersonates Mulder by the time Scully and the others arrive. Eddie's mannerisms carry through into his performance as Mulder, as well as his tendency to repeat word phrases, such as small potatoes, even throughout different personas. Although Eddie's portrayal of Mulder is not perfect, Scully and Skinner do not catch on. Skinner reprimands Mulder for misspelling Federal Bureau of Investigation in his report twice. Afterwards, as Scully and Mulder are talking in the hallway, Mulder can't locate the correct key to unlock the door to his office. Later, Eddie, as Mulder, attempts to seduce Scully at her apartment with a bottle of wine. Due, presumably, to Scully's latent feelings for Mulder, the two spend a long time talking, and Eddie is very nearly successful--until the real Mulder bursts through the door. Eddie meekly surrenders. In the final scene, Mulder visits Eddie in jail, at Eddie's request. When Mulder questions Eddie about the hat he is wearing, Eddie explains that his court-appointed therapist makes him wear it. It is revealed that Eddie is on muscle relaxers to prevent him from using his ability. During their discussion, Eddie suggests that Mulder is a loser. On their way out, Scully disagrees with Eddie's assessment. As the two agents walk down the hallway, they pass by the camera, revealing a clear view of a prisoner mopping the floor, wearing the same prison garb and hat as Eddie was wearing in confinement. 
<EOS>
Jane Brody, a mail sorter at an overnight delivery company, sneaks into the female employee's rest room to smoke a cigarette. Without warning, hundreds of bees creep into the stall where Jane is sitting. When the young woman attempts to swat the insects so she can escape, the bees swarm and attack, stinging her to death. An e-mail file containing photographs of the victim is sent to Mulder, but Skinner intercepts and deletes the file. Skinner then covertly erases evidence of the bee attack, and incinerates Jane Brody's body. Identifying himself as Fox Mulder, Skinner visits a police forensics lab in Virginia where he switches a vial containing Brody's blood with another identical container. As he is leaving, Skinner is approached by Detective Ray Thomas, the man who e-mailed Mulder photographs of Brody's body. Skinner tells the disappointed Thomas that the evidence does not warrant his further involvement in the case. Mulder pays Skinner an unexpected visit. He states that someone has gone to great lengths to keep news of the bee attack from reaching him. He also reveals that Detective Thomas was found dead, the victim of an execution-style shooting. With Scully undergoing tests at a hospital for the treatment of her cancer, Mulder asks Skinner for his help in solving the mystery. Later that night, Skinner is approached by The Cigarette-Smoking Man. Skinner accuses him of murdering Detective Thomas. The Cigarette-Smoking Man counters that Skinner failed to neutralize a potentially compromising situation. Mulder discovers that someone stole Brody's body from a morgue and switched her blood sample at the police station. He also discovers that Thomas was murdered by someone using a government issue gun. Shortly thereafter, Skinner realizes his own weapon is missing. Skinner revisits the women's rest room where Brody was killed. He discovers part of a massive honeycomb inside the rest room wall, and brings a piece of the honeycomb to entomologist Peter Valdespino for analysis. Mulder discovers that a bank surveillance camera captured a blurry image of someone talking to Detective Thomas shortly before he was murdered. He hopes the Bureau's Photo Unit can produce a clearer image of the man who he suspects is Thomas' killer. Using larvae taken from the honeycomb, Valdespino hatches more bees to identify the species. The insects unexpectedly swarm the entomologist, killing him. Mulder later discovers that Valdespino died from smallpox. He hypothesizes that someone has engineered a method of spreading the contagion using the insects. Skinner questions Brody's co-worker, Misty Nagata. She reveals that a damaged overnight package was confiscated by other investigators working on the case. Students at an elementary school in South Carolina are attacked by a swarm of bees. Skinner tells doctors at a hospital emergency room that the children should be treated not for bee stings, but for smallpox. Working from surveillance camera footage, the FBI photo unit produces a clear image of Skinner talking to Thomas shortly before his death. Outraged, Mulder accuses Skinner of working in conjunction with The Cigarette-Smoking Man from the very beginning. But Skinner insists he was framed. Skinner again confronts The Cigarette-Smoking Man, firing several shots in anger. Afterward, The Cigarette-Smoking Man instructs Marita Covarrubias, in the company of Syndicate members, to tell Mulder whatever he wants to hear. 
<EOS>
Angie Pintero, the working-class owner of a bowling alley, tells one of his employees, a mentally-disturbed, compulsive man named Harold Spuller, to go home for the evening. Shortly thereafter, Angie discovers a badly-injured blond girl wedged inside a pinspotter carriage. The girl attempts to speak, but no words come out of her mouth. Angie notices police in a nearby parking lot and rushes outside to get help. He realizes a crowd has gathered around the dead body of the same girl he saw only moments earlier in the bowling alley. Angie relates his bizarre tale to Mulder and Scully. Mulder suspects that Angie encountered the dead girl's ghost, a spirit that was attempting to communicate with the living for reasons unknown. Three similar encounters, and three similar murders, were reported in the area in as many weeks. The agents discover the words, "She is me" written on the bowling lane where Angie saw the spirit. But its meaning remains a mystery. Detective Hudak tells Mulder and Scully that an anonymous caller phoned 911 with a message regarding Penny Timmons, one of the killer's victims. The caller claimed that Timmons' last words were "She is me." But Hudak notes the victim's larynx was severed, making it impossible for her to utter dying words. The agents trace the source of the 911 call to a payphone at the New Horizon Psychiatric Center. Mulder notices one of the patients, Harold Spuller, avoiding his gaze. After viewing photographs of the murder victims, Scully comes to the conclusion that Spuller fits the killer's profile: a compulsive person consumed with the desire to organize, clean and reorder. Scully uses a rest room to attend to a nose bleed. There she encounters the spirit of another blond girl. Moments later, Mulder relays word that the body of yet another victim was found nearby. Mulder discovers Harold holed-up in a dimly-lit room accessible from the bowling alley. The walls of the room are covered with score sheets, including those of the victims. Mulder realizes that Harold met each of the murdered women at the bowling alley. Suddenly, Harold lapses into a strange seizure. From his point of view, he sees Angie's ghost standing behind Mulder. He rushes out of the room and makes his way to the bowling alley, where Angie lies dead, the victim of a heart attack. Mulder tells Scully that every person who saw the apparitions was about to die, implying that Harold may be next. Scully, who also saw a victim's ghost, is struck by the implication. Harold is transported back to the psychiatric center. There, he is tormented by Nurse Innes, who ridicules his intellect and physique. Later, Mulder finds Innes lying on the floor, half-conscious. Innes claims Harold went berserk and attacked her. One of the other patients, Chuck Forsch, tells Scully that Nurse Innes was trying to poison Harold. Scully slowly realizes that Innes, not Harold, was responsible for the murders. When Innes attacks Scully with a scalpel, Scully draws her weapon and fires, striking her in the shoulder. While summarizing the case with Mulder, Scully explains that Innes has been ingesting Harold's medication, triggering violent and unpredictable behavior. Scully hypothesizes that Innes committed the murders in order to destroy the love Harold felt towards the young women. Later, Harold's body is discovered in a nearby alley, the apparent victim of respiratory failure. But Scully suspects Harold died from what Innes took away from him. Scully admits to Mulder that she saw the ghost of the fourth victim shortly after she was murdered. Later, Scully sees Harold's spirit sitting in the back seat of her car. 
<EOS>
Mulder experiences a dreamlike vision, apparently a memory from childhood, in which he sees his mother and father reacting as if some terrible tragedy has entered their home. Mulder awakens in a motel room, sweating profusely, his hands and shirt stained with blood. He telephones Scully, who drives to the motel to offer assistance. Suffering from a mental blackout, Mulder cannot recall how he got to the motel. Scully discovers that two rounds were fired from his gun. She also traces a car parked outside Mulder's room to a David and Amy Cassandra. The agents travel to the Cassandra residence, where they speak with a house-keeper. Inside the home are dozens of paintings of a white clapboard house. Mulder realizes he was inside the home, but cannot remember why. The housekeeper gives the agents the address of the home depicted in the painting. As Mulder approaches the dwelling, he is suddenly struck by a flashback in which he encounters a young Cigarette-Smoking Man inside his parent's home. When the seizure subsides, the agents walk inside the cottage, where they find the dead bodies of David and Amy Cassandra. Blood from both victims is found on Mulder's shirt. Detective Curtis places Mulder under arrest. A toxicology report reveals traces of the anesthetic ketamine in Mulder and Amy Cassandra's blood. Scully realizes the drug could account for Mulder's memory loss. A short time later, Michael Fazekas, an admitting officer, steps inside a bathroom at the police station and shoots himself in the head. Scully discovers a small scab on the man's scalp, similar to one found on Amy's hairline. Detective Curtis reveals that Fazekas was a believer in UFOs. Inside Fazekas' apartment, Scully discovers a UFO magazine featuring a photograph of Amy, who believed she was an alien abductee. A forensics report reveals that the blood spatter pattern on Mulder's shirt does not correspond to the point of entry detail. Curtis concludes the Cassandras died as the result of a murder-suicide. Further research reveals that Amy had been seeing Dr. Charles Goldstein, a psychiatrist, in an effort to recover suppressed memories. Goldstein admits he used unconventional therapy to stimulate electrical impulses in the brain. Mulder suffers another seizure. During the attack, he experiences a vision in which a young Cigarette-Smoking Man pulled Mrs. Mulder close to him, as if to kiss her. Mulder and Scully drive to Mrs. Mulder's Greenwich home. There, Mulder confronts his mother. He accuses her of lying to him about having been forced to choose Samantha over him. He also accuses her of being unfaithful to his father. Mrs. Mulder angrily denies the allegations. Mulder storms out of the house and drives off. Mulder goes to Dr. Goldstein and forces him to finish his treatment -- to make him relive what he believes to be to his past. Goldstein drugs Mulder, then slowly lowers a spinning needle towards his hairline. Police arrive at the scene and place Goldstein under arrest, but Mulder's whereabouts are unknown. The psychiatrist tells Scully that Mulder left his office to exorcise his demons. Scully finds him at the house in Quonochontaug, balled up on the floor, a gun in his hand. Jolted by seizures, Mulder aims his gun at Scully. She attempts to convince him that the powerful hallucinogen injected into his body has affected his mind and that his visions and apparent memories cannot be trusted. Mulder fires a shot, but the bullet shatters a wall mirror behind Scully. Breaking down into tears, Mulder lowers the weapon. Scully's fear changes to sympathy as she comforts her partner. 
<EOS>
Scully enters Mulder's apartment, where a group of detectives and forensic technicians are waiting. Detective Rempulski introduces himself, then pulls back a sheet draped over a body lying on the floor. Scully positively identifies the victim. Later, Scully appears before a group of FBI officials led by Section Chief Scott Blevins. During the meeting, Scully recounts how, four years earlier, Blevins assigned her to a project known as The X-Files. She states that the purpose of the current meeting is to report on the illegitimacy of Mulder's work. In flashback, a pair of anthropologists, Arlinsky and Babcock, are flown by helicopter to a snowbound camp at the base of a mountain. Accompanied by a guide, the pair make their way up the steep terrain. Upon reaching the summit, the men enter a cave where the body of a gray alien is perfectly preserved in ice. A group of guests gather at Mrs. Scully's house for a dinner party. Amongst the attendees are Dana's brother, Bill Scully, Jr., and a Catholic Priest, Father McCue. Scully realize McCue was invited by her mother for the purpose of discussing her faith at a time when Scully's health is at great risk due to her cancer. After dinner, Father McCue and Scully briefly talk about her drifting from the church before their discussion is interrupted by a phone call from Mulder. He has received information about a something that was discovered in Canada. Mulder arranges for Scully to meet he and Arlinsky at the Smithsonian. Arlinsky claims that, based upon ice core samples taken from the scene, the alien body is some two hundred years old. He asks for the agents' assistance in verifying the alien remains. Mulder and Arlinsky fly to the base camp, which is eerily deserted. Unbeknownst to them, a mysterious assassin armed with a shotgun pistol has murdered the Summiteers. Upon reaching the summit, the men discover the bodies of Babcock and a foreman. Inside the cave is a rectangular hole where the alien body had been entombed. Later, Babcock, injured but alive, tells the pair that he buried the alien body beneath his tent. Meanwhile, Scully and lab scientist Vitagliano examine ice core samples taken from the cave. Later that night, Scully returns to the Bio Lab, where she is assaulted and thrown down a flight of stairs by an unidentified attacker. Agent Hedin matches fingerprints found on the stairwell to a Michael Kritschgau, who works for the Pentagon's research division. After viewing a personnel file, Scully positively identifies Kritschgau as her attacker. Later, she confronts Kritschgau inside a parking garage and places him under arrest. But Kritschgau warns that if he is taken to jail, the same people who gave Scully cancer will kill him. Mulder and Arlinsky transport the alien body to a warehouse where an autopsy can be performed. Scully contacts her partner at the warehouse and arranges a meeting so he can hear Kritschgau's story firsthand. Soon afterward, the assassin, Ostelhoff, shoots and kills Arlinsky and Babcock at the warehouse. Meanwhile, Kritschgau, who claims to have run the Department of Defense's agitprop arm, tells the agents that the government has been orchestrating an elaborate hoax to divert attention away from itself. The alien corpse, Kritschgau claims, was forged from bio-materials and frozen into place over the course of a year. He insists Mulder was only meant to see the alien--to make him believe the lie. Mulder counters that it is Kritschgau who is the liar. But when Mulder returns to the warehouse, he discovers the dead bodies of Arlinsky and Babcock--and the alien specimen missing. Shortly thereafter, Scully tells him the men behind the hoax gave her cancer all in an effort to make him a believer in their lies. Mulder is stunned by the revelation. Back in the current day, Scully tells FBI officials that she received a phone call from the police department asking her to identify a body inside Mulder's apartment. Struggling to maintain composure, Scully reveals that Mulder died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. 
<EOS>
Later that day, two fire engines from the County Fire Department arrive at the scene. Fire Captain Miles Cooles exits one of the vehicles and runs towards the cave. He sends two firefighters, Danny and T.C., into the pit and reports the location of the rescue situation to officers in Dallas. After Cooles loses contact with his two dispatched firefighters, however, he orders two other officers, Glenn and Sal, to enter the cave. Later, a helicopter from Dallas arrives at the scene and HAZMAT suited men in white exit the aircraft, carrying a bubble litter. A doctor named Ben Bronschweig also exits the craft and clears the area of several curious civilians clustered nearby. Cooles informs Doctor Bronschweig of the situation as they walk towards the cave. They watch while the HAZMAT team carries Stevie to the helicopter inside the bubble litter. Bronschweig seems extremely concerned, as the boy's paralyzed body passes him, but Cooles' only concern is for his officers in the pit. As the helicopter takes flight with Stevie aboard, a fleet of unmarked, white Freightliner trucks arrive and surround the fire engines. Cooles is puzzled at their arrival as Bronschweig walks away. The doctor phones his employer and tells him that an impossible scenario, the like of which they have never planned for, is imminent. A helicopter transports Special Agent in Charge Darius Michaud to the roof of the Federal Building, where many FBI agents are positioned. Michaud meets with another FBI agent, who reports that, even though the building has been evacuated and searched, no trace of an explosive device has been found. Although the agents have already sent dogs to search through the building, Michaud tells the man to send the dogs again and walks away. The wearisome FBI agent reluctantly tells the other officers to begin again. Michaud walks to the edge of the roof and watches another FBI agent on top of an adjacent building. There, Special Agent Dana Scully calls her partner Fox Mulder, informing him of her location and launching into a lengthy diatribe in which she criticizes his hunch that the building where she is contains the bomb, even though the FBI are answering a bomb threat that was called in to the Federal Building across the street. Moments after she ends her long tirade, he sneaks up on her and uses the element of surprise to intentionally startle her, as a practical joke. He then verbosely supports his decision to act on his hunch. Believing he is bored with their assignment, Scully reminds him that the X-Files have been closed and that there is new procedure and protocol for them to follow. Scully seemingly tricks Mulder into thinking that the door to enter the building from the roof is locked but, upon discovering her cunning, he claims to have always known the door had been open. Inside the building, the agents continue their jesting and Mulder shows her an emotionless expression that he describes as the face he makes when he is panicking. They playfully argue whether he made that expression when Scully had pretended the door was locked and, on Scully's instruction, Mulder heads away to buy drinks for them both. He passes a Black-Haired Man on the way into a vending room where he finds the bomb within a drinks dispenser. Also discovering that the door to the vending room is locked, he contacts Scully and apprehensively alerts her to the situation. She is initially skeptical that he is in serious danger, instead believing that he is trying to trick her, but then confirms for herself that he is indeed in jeopardy, when she sees that the keyhole to the vending room door has been soldered over. Thanks to her efforts, Mulder is released from the sealed room by their fellow FBI agents and the building is evacuated. However, SAC Michaud, apparently intent on defusing the bomb, remains inside the vending room, where he sits, looking at the bomb without taking action, as Mulder senses, now outside, that something is dreadfully wrong. He turns back to the building but ultimately complies with Scully's anxious urges for them to flee before it is too late. The bomb detonates as Scully, Mulder and another agent start to rush away from the building in a car. The explosion of the bomb causes major devastation to the building. While Mulder and Scully gaze up at the wreckage after exiting their car, Mulder tries to make light of the situation by telling Scully -- with darkest irony -- that next time will be her turn to buy them both drinks but his comment is not met with laughter from Scully, who instead continues to look up at the devastation as Mulder wanders away. In Washington, D.C.'s J. Edgar Hoover Building, Scully is attending an OPR hearing, presided over by Assistant Director Jana Cassidy. Mulder enters, late for the meeting, as AD Cassidy begins to cite a list of individuals who - the FBI have discovered - were in the bombed building, upon its destruction; the list not only includes SAC Michaud but also three firemen and a young boy. Even though Mulder interrupts the Assistant Director by questioning the list, AD Cassidy asks him to leave the room until Scully has been debriefed. Mulder eventually complies with the request. Assistant Director Walter Skinner finds him in a corridor outside the room, where Mulder argues that he himself should be assigned OPR's blame for the blast - claiming that he breached protocol - even though Skinner says Scully is taking the blame and defending Mulder. She herself exits the OPR room and, advising Skinner that the OPR panelists wish to speak with him, Skinner leaves the two agents. The duo calmly but passionately discuss the likely imminent end of their partnership, with Scully mentioning that OPR is reassigning her and that she would be uninterested in a transfer to an FBI field office, after having experienced the things she has. Mulder correctly deduces from her latter pronouncement that she instead intends to quit the FBI. Skinner calls Mulder back to the OPR review room and, as he returns there, Scully hands him his FBI jacket, also wishing him good luck. Agents Mulder and Scully arrive at the morgue where Stevie Richardson and the firemen's bodies are kept. A soldier is present to guard the entrance, but Mulder manages to convince the young man to let them through. Scully is shocked at what she is seeing when she gets to examine one of the firemen's translucent body, declaring nobody could explain what caused the man's death. Mulder asks Scully to perform an autopsy while he seeks out Doctor Kurtzweil for more information. Mulder finds Kurtzweil's apartment building surrounded by police cars and climbs up to discover the man has been falsely accused of selling child pornography as a way to have him arrested and silenced. Kurtzweil is hiding in the back alley behind the building and calls out to Mulder, telling him about a secret government and their plan to experiment with the virus found in Texas. The doctor encourages Mulder to go back to Dallas and investigate. Mulder is joined by Scully in Dallas where they get to examine bone fragments found in the pit and kept for further observation at the FBI field office. Scully is astonished after looking at them under a microscope and mentions the tissue samples taken from the fireman she autopsied contained a protein code she'd never seen before. She is worried that what killed the victims could be a serious health threat, considering how fast it acted. As Doctor Bronschweig's team is ready to pack everything and leave Blackwood County, the scientist descends into the pit to inoculate the infected victim with the Syndicate's vaccine. The man finds the fireman's body torn open. He warns his colleagues about it but a strange sound gets his attention. A slimy figure is observing him from a dark corner, and Bronschweig decides to try inoculating the alien being with the weak vaccine instead. He is unaware of the alien's strength and long claws and is soon attacked by the creature. Bronschweing calls for help, but his colleagues close the pit's entrance and bury the two alive. When spending time with his family in England, the Well-Manicured Man is called to a meeting of the Syndicate in London. Upon arrival, all of the other members are present, and the Well-Manicured Man has to give his apologies for being late, owing to his grandson breaking his leg. The man is then given the new information concerning the black oil; the virus is not an agent that would enslave humans but a colonizing force that feeds on its host and becomes a fully grown alien being. Security camera footage from the morgue revealing Mulder and Scully's visit is also shown to the man. Meanwhile, Alvin Kurtzweil is found by the Well-Manicured Man who executes him and hides his body in the trunk of his car. As Mulder comes looking for the doctor, he is met by the Syndicate member who orders him to join him in the car. They are driven around Washington while the Well-Manicured Man reveals details about the mutated virus, the Syndicate's motivation to pursue hybridization experiments and survival to colonization. The man knows he is acting against Syndicate orders, but entrusts Mulder with a vial of the weak vaccine, giving him Scully's exact location and telling him he must get to her within 96 hours or it will be too late. The Well-Manicured Man tells the driver to pull over in a back alley only to shoot him and tells Mulder to leave the car which explodes soon after. After recovering from her ordeal, Agent Scully hands in a report on the recent events and is called to another OPR hearing. Assistant Director Cassidy is confused by what she has read, unable to take Scully's report seriously. She demands concrete evidence to justify the story, and Scully walks up to her superior, handing her the encapsulated honey bee collected by the Lone Gunmen on the night she was stung. "I don't believe the FBI currently has an investigative unit qualified to pursue the evidence in hand," she stresses, and walks out of the room. Scully takes a break outside where she finds Mulder sitting on a bench reading the newspaper. "There's an interesting work of fiction on page 24," he says, pointing to a reassuring, made up explanation for the black oil incident that took place in Texas. A frustrated Mulder tells Scully she was right to want to quit, that she should go be a doctor and get as far as she can from him and his hollow cause. Scully stands firm and responds she will work by his side, because if she quits, they win. The Cigarette-Smoking Man steps down from a helicopter and strolls along a new cornfield planted in the middle of the tunisian desert. He is led to fellow Syndicate member Conrad Strughold and tells him he got a telegram he needs to see: "X-FILES RE-OPENED. STOP. PLEASE ADVISE. STOP." 
<EOS>
A distraught Fox Mulder sits in his apartment. He receives a phone call from Michael Kritschgau, who tells him that they may be listening. Mulder, spotting a small hole in his ceiling rushes upstairs and bursts into the apartment above his. Inside he finds Ostelhoff burning phone records. When Ostlehoff reaches for his gun Mulder shoots him. Mulder meets Dana Scully at her apartment, telling her that Ostlehoff was a Department of Defense employee spying on him for at least two months and he now lays dead in his apartment. He also reveals that the phone records he was burning show numerous calls made to the FBI. The Cigarette Smoking Man heads to Mulder's apartment and is surprised to realize the apartment was being monitored. Scully does some research into the phone numbers that Ostlehoff was calling and finds that they were made to the executive level of the FBI and potentially could have been to Skinner. Scully meets with the climatologist whom she gave the ice core samples to, who says he found a chimera, a new lifeform within them. Scully believes that she can prove the conspiracy if she finds evidence of this organism in her own body and works with him to find whatever evidence she can. She finds Skinner there, who has forensics data on the body in Mulder's apartment and demands she stop lying for him. Mulder meanwhile continues through the Department of Defense Headquarters finding more fake alien bodies inside. He heads through a tunnel to the Pentagon, where he finds an elaborate filing system and warehouse of evidence, ultimately tracking down a small metal vial that he believes may contain Scully's cure. Scully completes her research, finding evidence that the material from the ice core samples is within her body as well. She meets with an FBI panel led by Blevins that is looking into Mulder's death. Scully explains that Mulder was a victim of an elaborate conspiracy and that she was given a fatal disease by someone in the room. As she's about to present her evidence her nose bleeds and she collapses. Mulder brings the vial he found to the Lone Gunmen, who tell him its not a cure, but only deionized water. 
<EOS>
A distraught Fox Mulder sits in his apartment, he receives a phone call from Michael Kritschgau, who tells him that they may be listening. Mulder, spotting a small hole in his ceiling rushes upstairs and bursts into the apartment above his and kills government employee Scott Ostelhoff. He tells Dana Scully about the incident, telling her that Ostelhoff had numerous calls made to the FBI. The next day Scully identifies Ostelhoff's body as Mulder, she is then met by A.D. Walter Skinner who tells her that Section Chief Scott Blevins is looking for her. She meets with them, and tells them about the previous incidents leading to Mulder's apparent suicide. Meanwhile Mulder has broken into the Department of Defense. While Mulder is gone, the Cigarette Smoking Man searches Mulder's apartment, believing he is not dead. Scully does some research into the phone record to the FBI, coming to the conclusion that Ostelhoff was calling Skinner. Mulder meanwhile continues through the Department of Defense Headquarters finding more fake alien bodies inside. He heads through a tunnel to The Pentagon, where he finds an elaborate filing system and warehouse of evidence, ultimately tracking down a small metal vial that he believes may contain Scully's cure. Scully debriefs the FBI panel, and explains that Mulder was a victim of an elaborate conspiracy and that she was given a fatal disease by someone in the room. As she's about to present her evidence her nose bleeds and she collapses. Mulder brings the vial he found to the Lone Gunmen, who tell him its not a cure, only deionized water. After hearing of Scully collapsing, Mulder arrives at the hospital where Scully is being contained. Before he is able to make contact with her, he is detained by Skinner and two FBI agents. Mulder is then brought to Blevins and a Senior Agent who demand information on why Scully lied about Mulder's death. After the meeting, Mulder tells Skinner that a traitor in the FBI gave Scully her cancer. Meanwhile, the Cigarette-Smoking Man has a meeting with the Elder, trying to convince him that Mulder will join their side if he is given a good reason to do so.
After the briefing with Skinner, Mulder travels to the hospital to see Scully. Mulder tells her that he wants to reveal the conspiracy to the public. As he's leaving, he meets with CSM who tells him he can cure Scully's cancer, if Mulder joins his quest. Meanwhile Michael Kritschgau goes before the FBI panel, denying any knowledge of Ostlehoff's murderer, also revealing that his son died that morning. Kritschgau claims to work for not only the Department of Defense but a congressional lobbying firm known as Rousch. Mulder sees Scully and her doctor about the chip. Scully's family is skeptical, particularly her brother Bill, who is quite upset with Mulder. Scully decides to go ahead and have the chip inserted in her neck. Mulder later meets with Blevins, who now has the evidence Skinner was withholding. Blevins tells Mulder he can help him if he names Skinner as the traitor in the FBI. Later Mulder meets with Scully, telling her he was going to make the deal with the Cigarette Smoking Man but now won't after his meeting with Blevins. Despite Scully's pleas he refuses to name Skinner as the traitor in the FBI. As a PET scan performed after the insertion of the chip shows no improvement, Scully is dismayed and expresses her spiritual struggle to her mother who had previously tried to help her by arranging a meeting with Father McCue. Scully decides to turn to prayer and asks for the priest. Mulder witnesses their meeting and Scully tells him he will be in her prayers. 
<EOS>
In 1989 in a warehouse in Baltimore, a group of SWAT agents head in, finding a naked Fox Mulder in a box, shouting "They're Here!" Frohike, Byers and Langly sit in a Baltimore prison, blaming each other for the predicament they are in. Byers sits down with Detective John Munch in an attempt to explain what happened. Byers tells Detective Munch that he is a public affairs officer for iou the FCC and attended a computer and electronics show at the Baltimore Convention Center. Byers follows a beautiful woman who passes by his booth and also by booths manned by Frohike and Langly, offering bootleg cable. When Byers bumps into her she introduces herself as Holly and says that her daughter has been kidnapped by her ex-boyfriend. The only clues she has to his whereabouts is that he's in the Baltimore area and a piece of paper with ARPANET/WHITCORPS written on it. Byers realizes that the paper is referring to a Department of Defense network that she requests he hack into. Byers finds a file on her daughter, named Susanne Modeski, but it is encrypted. Just then a man who Holly claims to be her boyfriend passes by, Fox Mulder. Byers and Holly recruit Frohike to help them decipher the encrypted file. Byers and Frohike think it would be a better idea to beat Mulder up but don't do it when he introduces himself as an FBI agent to them. Returning to his booth, Byers finds his colleague being arrested for the hacking he did. Frohike convinces him not to turn himself in and recruits Langly to help them hack into the FBI database to learn more about why the FBI is after Holly. Hacking into the FBI Database they find that Holly actually is Susanne Modeski, and that she is wanted for murder, sabotage and terrorist acts that killed four people at a weapons facility in New Mexico. Holly/Susanne arrives and admits to lying to them, but claims that she has been scapegoated for trying to leave her job where she was working on Ergotamine, an aerosolized gas that causes paranoia and anxiety. She claims that the government plans to test the gas on the civilians in Baltimore. After deciphering the encrypted file they find that she's telling the truth and where the gas is located. Susanne also finds evidence that she has had a tracking device put in her teeth, which she pulls out. The four of them head to a warehouse, where they find the gas stored inside asthma inhalers. Suddenly, Mulder arrives to arrest them, but two dark suited men arrive after afterwards to take Susanne. They fire at Mulder, hitting the boxes behind him and exposing him to the gas. The exposure causes Mulder to strip naked, hide in the box, and hallucinate about seeing aliens in the warehouse. Susanne kills the suited men and escapes. More men arrive, led by Mr. X. He who intimidates Byers, Langly, and Frofike. The apparently shaken Byres confronts Mr.X, asking him about his actions and mentions the supposed cover-up of the JFK assassination. Mr. X's obviously unconvincing denial is the origin of the trio's name. Mr X's then leaves, as the police arrive and arrest the trio. Detective Munch doesn't believe Byers story, but when Mulder corroborates the story he, Langly and Frohike are released. They later encounter Susanne again who has failed to get the media to believe her story. She tells them to reveal the truth to as many people as possible. She is captured by X and his men soon afterwards. Later the three of them meet Mulder in the convention center and explain what happened to him. 
<EOS>
A pair of surveyors are working on plotting out an area of the forest in North Florida when they are attacked by unseen assailants with glowing red eyes and killed. Later in the day, a father, son, and their dog are hunting for possums in the same stretch of woods when they come across a bloody jacket. Finding the jacket of one of the surveyors, the father orders his son to run home as fast as he can and not stop for anything. As the son and dog take off, he loads his shotgun amidst the sounds of rustling in the underbrush ahead. The sound of the father's gun stops the son and dog in their tracks. The dog growls and tries to run back the way they just came, but the boy is able to turn him around, and they continuing running out of the woods. Meanwhile, Mulder and Scully are sharing a road trip with Agents Kinsley and Stonecypher, en route to a leadership and team building seminar. A visibly uncomfortable and annoyed Mulder is relieved when they are stopped at a roadblock by local police, who inform them that they seem to have had a shooting up ahead. Mulder decides to investigate. Mulder briefly speaks with the boy's mother, who is frantic because no one will tell her what has happened to her husband. Making their way deeper into the woods, Scully and Mulder encounter more local law enforcement who inform the pair that they haven't found the body of the father, but have evidence of a shooting. That night, at home, the boy tells his mother that he suspects his father is dead, as he was a good shot and if he had hit what he was shooting at, he'd have been home already. In the meantime, Mulder and Scully are at the hotel for the reception. Scully visits Mulder in his room with a plate of cheese, and Mulder informs her that no animals in the wild will attack the strongest member of its prey when a weaker target is available. Later that night at the home of the family, the dog Bo is upset and begins barking. The mother goes out to fetch him and bring him back in the house, but when she tries, she sees that the door has been bolted from the inside. The boy Louis is cornered by one of the creatures and just barely manages to escape through the dog door where he runs into Mulder, informing him that it is in the house. The next morning, law enforcement is on the scene at the house and Scully and Mulder discuss the previous night's happenings. Mulder mentions that they found some tracks outside which appear to be human, but that the weight distribution is all wrong. Also, the fact that the creature attacked and killed three grown men and disposed of the bodies, as well as luring the mother outside of the house in order to get to Louis suggests to Mulder that the creatures are paranormal in nature. That, combined with the population pressures as human habitation expands might be at work in these killings. An expedition into the woods with law enforcement and Infrared devices proves fruitless, as one of the officers is attacked after having been separated from the rest and the creatures fail to appear on the radar. At this point, Mulder advances the possibility that the creature is related to the Mothman of Point Pleasant, WV. Shortly, Mulder and Scully lose their only other companion to the creatures, and they are left alone, lost in the woods as night falls. That night, Scully and Mulder attempt to build a campfire and fail miserably. In order to help stay awake, Mulder convinces Scully to sing for him, which she does rather reluctantly, belting out a sadly uninspired rendition of Joy to the World by Three Dog Night. The next morning, Scully and Mulder are foraging for berries, when Scully falls through a hole, into an underground bivouac where the bodies of their missing companions are stored. She sees a pair of red eyes coming towards her and shoots, as Mulder drops into the hole with her. Having killed the creature, Mulder and Scully take a look at it and see that it is remarkably human-like, albeit with a wood-like texture to its skin. Near them the words Ad Noctum are found carved into a tree trunk. Shortly thereafter, Agents Stonecypher and Kinsley, with police in tow, locate Mulder and Scully and help them out of the hole. Kinsley remarks that they got all the credit while Scully and Mulder did all the work. He also shows Mulder a crosscut of a tree with various dates inscribed on the rings including that of 1521, with Ponce de Leon searching for the Fountain of Youth in Florida. Mulder suggests that perhaps the predators are the result of Conquistadors who found the fountain and have adapted to life in the forest and are acting aggressively out of a need to defend their territory from encroachment. Kinsley ridicules the idea, although he admits that Ad Noctum was a phrase often used by the Conquistadors as they tortured and massacred Indians. Unfortunately, a further inspection of the cave reveals that the body of the creature Scully killed has mysteriously vanished and that they have been unable to locate it. Realizing something is amiss, Mulder rushes off to the hotel. Meanwhile, back at the hotel room, Scully is packing. She takes her clothes from the closet and the camera lingers as if it will detect one of the predators. It doesn't. A similar thing happens concerning a chair. No dice. There is a knock at the door. It's Mulder, who, after ascertaining that Scully has finished packing, urges her firmly to vacate the room. She looks a little puzzled but leaves with him. The camera moves back into the hotel room probing places a predator might be. The camera pans under the bed where a pair of red eyes open. 
<EOS>
In a rural Indiana neighborhood, Shaineh Berkowitz watches a daytime talk show on television. So entranced is she by the interview, that she fails to notice someone covering the home with termite tenting. A dark figure enters the kitchen and drops a white cake into a skillet, triggering a chemical reaction that produces a gaseous white cloud. Sensing a presence in the house, Shaineh investigates. Suddenly, a horribly disfigured, Frankenstein-like face emerges from the misty darkness. Shaineh gasps in horror. Later, as the agents drive through the Indiana farmland, Scully reads aloud a letter addressed to Mulder. In it, Shaineh describes how, eighteen-years earlier, a presence entered her smoke-filled bedroom as, strangely, the voice of singer Cher filled the air. Three days later she woke up pregnant with her son, Izzy Berkowitz. A few days ago, it happened again and Shaineh is once again pregnant. Shaineh explains that she saw Mulder on The Jerry Springer Show, and hopes he will investigate her case. The agents do, indeed, drive to Shaineh's home. There they discover a comic book bearing the exact likeness of the creature Shaineh claims attacked her. Shaineh explains the monster is called The Great Mutato, a creation of Izzy's fertile imagination. Izzy claims he, and many others in the community, have seen the creature--who apparently has a penchant for peanut butter sandwiches. Izzy and his friends lead the detectives to a wooded area, and using sandwiches for bait, lure the creature from its hiding place. The group gives chase, but the creature disappears into the darkness. Mulder then encounters an Old Man, who claims the real monster is his own son, renowned scientist Dr. Francis Pollidori. The agents visit Pollidori, who describes his experiments in genetic manipulation. He displays a photo of a fruit fly head with legs growing out of its mouth. Later, Pollidori bids good-bye his wife, Elizabeth, as he embarks on a trip out of town. Moments later, termite tenting falls past Elizabeth's window. When the agents stop by a country diner in downtown Bloomington, they are feted with heaping plates of food. It turns out that the entire town believes Jerry Springer will do a story on the creature--the result of a newspaper article in which Mulder is quoted as verifying the monster's existence. The agents realize Izzy secretly tape recorded their conversations. As the agents drive along a country road, Mulder spots Pollidori's tented house. The pair race inside, where they discover Elizabeth's unconscious body. Shortly thereafter, the agents also lose consciousness. The Old Man, Professor Pollidori's father, steps from the smoke, a gas mask covering his face. When the agents regain consciousness, Elizabeth describes her attacker as a hideously deformed man with two mouths. The Old Man brings the Creature a peanut butter sandwich as it watches the movie Mask, starring Cher, on television. Pollidori confronts his father, and in a rage, strangles him. A mob of townspeople forms around the local post office as a mail clerk proclaims he's found the monster. He pulls someone wearing a rubber Mutato mask from the back room, then yanks off the mask, exposing Izzy. The postal worker then displays a box he intercepted, which is filled with identical masks. Records indicate that the residue from the white cakes is a substance used to anesthetize herds of animals. Its use is monitored by the FDA, leading the agents back to the Old Man's farm. When the agents arrive at the scene, a diligent newspaper girl, who had been recording notes about the case, describes how she witnessed the creature burying the Old Man. Shortly thereafter, an angry mob makes its way towards the farm. The agents realize Pollidori killed his father. They befriend the frightened Mutato and attempt to escape, but they are spotted by the mob and retreat into a cellar. Pollidori and the townspeople burst into the basement. There, Pollidori claims the Creature was brought to life by his father. The Creature claims he never harmed another soul. He explains how, 25 years earlier, the Old Man realized his son was conducting secret experiments--of which hewas an unfortunate product. The Old Man grew to love the Creature, and then set out to create it a mate. As the Creature continues his tale, the agents, putting together two and two, look around the cellar at the townspeople one of whom resembles a horse, another a Billy goat and so on. The mob concludes Mutato is not a monster after all. A police cruiser transports Pollidori from the scene. The agents take the Creature into custody, but instead of transporting him to jail, they head for a Memphis nightclub, where Cher sings to Mutato, her biggest fan. Shaineh and Elizabeth appear on the Jerry Springer Show to talk about their mutated offspring. When questioned about whether it is difficult to love the children, Shaineh says, "What's not to love?" After that, Cher takes the Mutato's hand and takes him to floor, and Mulder takes Scully's hand and they dance. Out comes the ramnce of all time. 
<EOS>
In a dream-like sequence, Dana Scully walks through a desert and picks up a gold cross necklace on the ground. Continuing from the previous episode, agent Fox Mulder arrives at the hospital in San Diego where Scully introduces him to Emily Sim. Mulder tells Scully that Melvin Frohike has found that Emily's surrogate mother is a woman named Anna Fugazzi and that there are no true records of how Emily came into the world. Mulder, along with Scully's family attend a meeting regarding Emily's adoption at the San Diego Hall of Justice. Mulder tells the Judge that Emily was conceived from Scully's ovum, which was taken from her during her abduction, which he has a hard time believing. Later, Scully receives an abandoned call from the County Children's Center, and she and Mulder head there, where they find Emily safe, but coming down with a fever. They find a greenish cyst on the back of Emily's neck. Later, when a nurse pierces the cyst with a needle, green liquid comes out, causing her to become gravely ill. Emily appears unaffected. Mulder believes that Emily has the same body chemistry that they have seen before with alien-human hybrids. Dr. Ernest Calderon refuses to transfer Emily's medical records to the County Children's Center, causing Mulder to visit him and rough him up when he refuses to do anything. Later Mulder follows Calderon after he leaves his office. Scully has imaging tests conducted on Emily. Calderon goes to see the Dark Suited Men, one of whom kills him by stabbing him in the neck with a stiletto. Both men morph into Calderon. Mulder follows as one of them leaves. The results of Emily's tests show her to be suffering from a tumorous infection. The other Calderon arrives at the hospital and injects Emily with something. He escapes by morphing into someone else. Scully believes that he is trying to continue the treatments and that the Sims were murdered because they were trying to stop him. Mulder heads to a building he saw Calderon going to, where he meets Anna Fugazzi, an elderly woman in a nursing home. 
<EOS>
In the Lorton Penitentiary Hospital Ward in Lorton, Virginia, a physical therapist is supporting a patient as the patient slowly pushes a big plastic wheel across the floor. Nearby are two orderlies, whose names are Chuck and Piero. As the therapist encourages the man to take another five steps, Chuck and Piero bring a wheelchair behind him, and the patient is lowered into the wheelchair after his five steps. As they wheel him towards his cell, Piero explains to Chuck that the guy in the wheelchair was a cop killer, and Chuck was never to underestimate him if he wanted his stint here to last more than a week. The guys wheel him into the cell, and we see the man's face for the first time. It's Robert Patrick Modell. That evening, Chuck is sitting in his office on duty. Suddenly, he notices the red light next to Modell's cell blink. He walks over to the cell and sees Modell chained to the bed. However, the light is still blinking. Pulling out a can of pepper spray, he unlocks the cell and walks towards Modell. Modell's mouth moves, but the words are unintelligible. Chuck leans closer to him. The next morning, Piero walks towards the office and notices that Chuck isn't at the station. He then hears some thudding noises down the hall. He runs down the halls and stops at Modell's unlocked, open cell. The bed is empty, and Chuck is sitting against the wall with his arms around his knees in a daze, rhythmically banging his head against the wall. Piero demands to know what happening. Dazedly, Chuck replies, "He had to go." A few hours later, AD Walter Skinner is in the penitentiary ward, briefing many US Marshals on the case just as Mulder and Scully walk in. It appears that Modell simply walked out of the front door when he escaped. Skinner then announces that the investigation will be led by SACs Mulder and Scully. Mulder briefly introduces Modell, and that he was looking for a worthy opponent. Scully adds that he thought of himself as a ronin, a warrior without a master, and likes to leave clues to his whereabouts. When Mulder explains how Modell can force his will onto others by talking to them, the marshals don't believe him, and Mulder tells them to just approach Modell with extreme caution. Having ended their briefing, Mulder and Scully move aside as Skinner hands out assignment notes to the marshals. Scully tells Mulder that Modell's condition is extremely weakened and that he can barely walk. Apparently, he had suddenly woken up from his coma, induced by a bullet Mulder had shot in him a couple of years ago, six months ago. The brain tumor in his head was still affecting him a lot. Mulder suggests that they speak with the physical therapist here, but Scully worriedly asks him if he's deliberately playing Modell's game again by heading the investigation. In a sports shop, a person named Todd is watching a news report on Modell just as a person approaches the counter. It's Modell. Todd slowly reaches for a baseball bat stashed under his counter, but Modell tells him that it's a timber rattler he's holding by the head. Sure enough, Todd believes him, although he's actually only holding the bat. Modell tells him quietly not to drop the snake and to go to the back and put the snake down. Todd walks off carefully as Modell goes behind the counter and grabs a Carbo Bar. He rips open the packet and begins to eat the bar as he watches the television and sees Mulder and Scully exiting their car and entering the prison. The agents burst into the sports shop from earlier. Mulder notices the Carbo Bar wrapper on the counter and examines it. The agents fan out into the store, but there is nobody in it except for them. Mulder looks outside and catches sight of a white figure slowly walking down the middle of the road. Mulder runs after him, almost getting knocked down by a car. He whips out his gun and spins the man around. It's not Modell, but Todd, the person behind the counter of the sports shop. Skinner and Scully catch up to the pair and Skinner demands to know where Modell is. In a daze, Todd replies that Modell had to go. Inside a house, Modell is looking at a photograph of a middle-aged woman, and he leaves a blue fingerprint on the photo as he puts it down. We then see a spilt bucket of blue paint on the floor and a head of a man drenched in blue paint as the door closes. A while later, Mulder and Scully are seen in that house examining some blue symbols that have been scrawled on the walls. Scully opens the dead man's mouth. Blue paint spill out of his mouth, much to Scully's revulsion. She notices the color of the paint: cerulean blue, just like the color of the paint the truck was exporting as it crashed into the car Modell was in in TXF: Pusher. She then tells Skinner that the dead man was Nathan Bowman, who was the one who tried Modell back in 1996 in TXF:Pusher. A female agent, who is probably of Japanese origins, examines the blue symbols on the walls and announces that they're the same idiogram written over and over again. The word is kitsunegari, which is Japanese for fox hunt. Scully contemplates the fact that Mulder's first name is Fox, and Mulder is a little offended. He then notices the photograph of the young woman with the blue paint smeared on its cover and asks if Nathan had been married. Scully checks the body, finds a wedding ring on his fourth finger and says yes. Mulder then examines the speed dial list next to Nathan's telephone and finds one called Linda office. On a hunch, he rings that number and asks to speak with Linda Bowman. However, the receptionist tells him that Linda has just gone to visit a Mr. Fox Mulder at a commercial property in Falls Church. The agents are now at 214 Channel Avenue, Falls Church. Two of them enter the warehouse and split up. Suddenly, Modell's voice can be heard echoing through the warehouse, as he leads one officer towards him tauntingly. The officer stops at a dead end and Modell turns around, clutching a gun. He yells for Modell to put the gun down and get down on the ground. He yells for his partner, seemingly somewhere else, to join him. Outside, a few cars stop in front of the warehouse and Mulder, Scully and Skinner enter the building. When they get to the officer, they see that the officer is actually pointing the gun at his partner who is on the floor. His partner begins yelling frantically that the officer's gone crazy, that he wasn't Modell. Skinner relieves the officer of his gun, and states that Modell did come, but he came for the woman, Linda Bowman. Scully is baffled at what he would want with her. Just then, another officer comes up to them and announces that they've got a visitor. Outside, Mulder approaches the visitor and sees that it is Linda herself. Shortly after, the agents interview Linda in the warehouse. Shakily, Linda says that her secretary was the one who made the appointment and that she only knew that she was to meet a Mr Fox Mulder here. Scully asks Linda if her husband, Nathan had ever discussed his work with her, and that if he ever mentioned a person known as Robert Patrick Modell. She is shocked to find out that they think that Modell was the one who murdered her husband, and that his cell had been empty since that morning. Skinner offers to place Linda in protective custody, before ordering Mulder and Scully to find him. Scully turns to leave but sees Mulder pondering over something. Upon being asked what was he thinking about, Mulder asks Scully why Modell didn't just kill the two officers, and that something just wasn't making sense. He then borrows a radio from a US Marshall. As Skinner helps Linda into a van, Modell watches the goings-on from a nearby building. He is eating another Carbo Bar. He gets up to leave, but not before giving the janitor who is nonchalantly taking a break in the same room a friendly "Gracias, amigo.". Just then, Mulder enters the same building he is in. He spots a Carbo Bar wrapper on the ground and pulls out his gun. He continues on upstairs. As he turns around a corner, he sees Modell standing at the end of a hall. Modell asks him, "What took you so long?" Mulder, pointing the gun at Modell, speaks to Scully in the radio, telling her to come quickly. Modell tells Mulder to hold on as they need to talk. Mulder tells him to shut up. Modell still tries to get Mulder's attention and Mulder tells him to shut up again. Finally, Mulder threatens to shoot Modell if he doesn't shut up. However, his resolve is clearly weakening. Scully and a couple of agents run up to the building, and Mulder walks out of it, without meeting their gaze. Scully asks him what happened, and Mulder replies casually, "He had to go." Ten minutes later, Scully hangs up from the conversation she was on and walks over to Mulder, concerned. He is leaning against a police car with his head down. To Scully's question on how he was feeling, he replies "Well, aside from the utter grinding humiliation that comes from knowing I let our suspect go? Pretty good." Scully tries to comfort him that it could have happened to anyone, but Mulder says that Modell was finding him, and not Mulder finding him. Modell wanted to give him a message. Scully asks what the message is, and Mulder tells her. "Don't play the game." The agents are not sure what game he is talking about. Again, Mulder asks Scully why Modell didn't kill the officers when he had the chance, or the prison orderlies or even Mulder himself. Scully says that Modell did kill Nathan Bowman. Mulder disagrees. He agrees that Modell was definitely there, but it did not mean that he was the one who did it. He then says that Modell was involved, somehow, but not in the way they thought. Finally, he decides to revert to something that they both agree on: Why Modell was after Linda Bowman, and why. Later, Mulder and Scully interview Linda again, but this time in the FBI safe house. Linda apologizes for not being able to add anything else to what they already know. She then goes on to say about how Nathan had discussed the case a lot with her, like how he wished that Mulder had just shot him dead instead of leaving him comatose as it would have saved the tax payers the cost of the trial, and like how the case was Nathan's "first brush with greatness. Mulder asks her how long it had been since she knew Nathan, and she replies that they've only known each other for two months and two days. She said that Nathan was not impulsive or flighty, and she wouldn't want to paint him as that. Mulder thanks her, and then leaves the room with Scully. As Skinner joins them, Mulder announces that Linda was the one who killed Nathan, that Modell was there for some other reason. Scully and Skinner are surprised at his statement, but Mulder goes on to say that Linda had said weird things such as first brush with greatness and doesn't want to paint him as being impulsive. He says that she was waving it under their noses and playing with them. Modell warned them not to play the game, which in Mulder's opinion, referred to Linda's game. Skinner does not believe him, but Mulder also finds it strange that Linda had not asked how Nathan had been murdered, or any of the details of the murder. She also does not appear afraid from the escaped serial killer that is supposedly stalking her. Skinner rebukes this, saying that Linda is in shock, that she's not herself. "Neither are you," Skinner adds. Mulder rounds on Scully for support, but she only tells him that he was the one who told them not to listen or trust Modell, but he had done both. Skinner asks Mulder for his weapon, tells him to go home and that he was suspended from the case until Skinner was sure Mulder's judgement was sound. Scully tells Mulder that she thinks he should do what Skinner says. Mulder is stunned, but gives his gun over to Skinner. Just then, Linda asks for some water and Skinner tells her that he get someone to get her some. Mulder then walks away, vowing to prove his theory right. Mulder is back at the penitentiary ward, talking to Modell's physical therapist again. He asks her if he had ever talked about his past. The therapist says no, but there was one thing someone else had said about him that ever struck her as unusual. Mulder asks what it was, and she said that one of the nuns from the Little Sisters of Charity had called him a conquered warrior. On a hunch, Mulder takes out the photograph of Linda Bowman and shows it to the therapist, asking her to confirm if that was the person. The therapist says that she'll need her glasses. Just then, the phone rings. The therapist picks up the phone, and Mulder hands her her glasses case. As she speaks into the phone, she opens the case to find it empty. She starts to search her desk for her glasses, while talking at the same time. Mulder turns away to look somewhere else, just as the therapist walks over to an electrical switch box on the wall. "Oh yeah, he's here.", she then says into the phone. Overhearing this, Mulder turns around suspiciously, just in time to see the therapist open the electrical switch box and reach into the box with her bare hand. Mulder yells No! as he races to stop her, but it's too late. Hand and bare wires connect, sending thousands of jolts of electricity into the therapist's body and she begins convulsing wildly. Mulder grabs a mop nearby and uses the handle to prod her hand away from the switch box. The therapist falls to the floor, motionless. Mulder yells for help as he begins to administer CPR on her. Just then, at the FBI safe house, a Falls Church police car stops at the security checkpoint and the US Marshall sees Modell in the backseat. Modell rolls down the window and tells the marshal to go home. Not much later, Modell enters the room that Linda Bowman is in and locks the door behind him. At the Chain Bridge Mall, Scully's phone rings. She picks up and finds out that it is Mulder. Mulder tells her that he's at the prison, where a paramedic can be seen pulling a black cloth over the therapist's face. Ignoring Scully's warning that he was asked to lay off, he tells her that Modell's therapist had just electrocuted herself right in front of him, and that she was on the phone when she did it. He tells Scully to trace the call and cut off Linda's access to a phone. However, Scully wasn't at the safe house, but was investigating a suicide at Chain Bridge Mall. Mulder then asks why wasn't anybody picking up at the safe house switchboard. Realizing that there was something wrong, Scully commands the marshals to get back into the trucks to get back to the safe house. At the safe house, Skinner is walking past Linda's room when he notices the phone ringing and no one on duty outside of her room. Sensing something was amiss, he pulls out his gun and turns the doorknob slowly. It's locked. He then kicks the door down and finds Modell and Linda standing opposite each other. Skinner orders Modell to get down. Modell turns to look at Linda. As Skinner orders him to get down again, Modell calmly says that he has a gun. He turns around. Sure enough, he is holding a gun. Without hesitation, Skinner shoots Modell and he falls to the ground. Linda gasps. Skinner moves towards Modell, and sees that his right hand is curled into the shape of the gun, but there is actually no gun in his hand. Outside Linda's room later, Modell is being wheeled out in a stretcher, and Scully follows it. Scully asks Skinner if Modell tried to speak with him, and Skinner replies that he said that "we got our man". Mulder comes running, and asks what happened. Skinner tells him that Modell had a gun, but Scully says that they haven't found a gun yet. Mulder then says "He said he had a gun.". Skinner agrees, then excuses himself. Mulder claims that Modell was actually unarmed and that he got Skinner to shoot at him on purpose in order to protect Linda Bowman. Scully doesn't believe him, as usual. Mulder asks where Linda is, and Scully says that they've taken her home as there was no need to keep her in protective custody anymore. Mulder then says he's going to the hospital to talk to Modell if he makes it through surgery. Scully tells him that talking to Modell has already done him enough harm. Mulder, annoyed, asks Scully to give him a call when she thinks he's come to his senses, before leaving. Mulder gazes at Modell, who is unconscious in his bed, waiting for him to wake up. Just then, a nurse enters and tells Mulder that she has to change the patient's bandages. Mulder makes to leave, and tells the nurse to call him if Modell wakes up. As he walks out of the room, we see that the nurse is actually Linda Bowman, with a piece of paper with the word NURSE on it safety-pinned to her shirt. Linda enters the room and calls Modell's name. His eyes open slightly. He tries to talk but the tracheotomy on his throat prevents him from doing so. Linda places her finger over the hole in the tube to allow him to talk. In a faint croak, Modell tells her not to make a mistake. Linda tells him that she' going to finish what he started. Modell croaks out, "No. Stop no. Stop.", and Linda removes her finger from the hole. Modell is in great pain and gasps. Linda then talks Modell into relaxing and his heart into stopping, turning the heart monitor off as it begins to beep frantically. The monitor then begins to register flat lines. Mulder is walking around in the hospital when a nurse suddenly runs past him. He also begins to break into a run and follows her into Modell's room. It is obvious that Modell is dead. As a sheet is pulled over Modell's head, Mulder notices the piece of paper with the word NURSE neatly printed on it on Modell's bedside. He then flips it over to read the words 214 Channel Avenue. In Skinner's office, Skinner looks at Linda Bowman's brain scan, where a bright white patch can be seen at Linda's temporal lobe. Mulder and Scully are present in the office. Scully explains to Skinner that like Modell, she too had an advanced temporal lobe tumor. "It seems to run in the family." Skinner is surprised to learn that Linda and Modell were fraternal twins, separated when they were two weeks old. It seemed that she initiated the fox hunt in order to get revenge for what Mulder did to her brother, Modell. Skinner asks Mulder if he would like to add anything else to the report, and Mulder says no. With nothing else to add, Mulder and Scully get up to leave. Just then, Skinner asks Mulder to stay. Skinner then praises Mulder for doing a good job. Mulder doesn't know what he did in order to get his praise. Skinner replies, "Nobody could have figured this out but you. You knew it was Linda Bowman and not Modell. You were way ahead of me.". Mulder argues that he nearly killed his own partner. Skinner says that he won her game, despite that minor detail. However, Mulder says that he feels that he had lost the game. He then leaves the office. 
<EOS>
In Coats Grove, Michigan, Bobby Rich, a sixteen-year-old boy, is berated by his stepfather, Phil, for not finishing his lawn work outside the house. Bobby picks up a shovel and instructs his stepfather to keep his distance. As the dispute escalates, Bobby drops the shovel and runs into a nearby orchard. Phil gives chase. Suddenly, Phil's feet are knocked out from underneath him. A short time later, Phil's wife, Patti, makes her way through the darkened orchard. She discovers Phil's body buried in mud up to his shoulders, with mud seeping from his nose and mouth. Kneeling beside Phil is Bobby, his eyes wide with terror. Scully performs an autopsy on Phil's corpse. She discovers over twelve pounds of mud in his stomach. Her conclusion: Phil's head was forcibly held in the mud, mostly likely by his son, Bobby. She hypothesizes that Bobby may have dug the pit that trapped Phil, and, noting a rope-like bruise on Phil's ankle, speculates that Bobby may have had help from an accomplice. Mulder interviews Bobby, who claims his father enjoyed physically abusing him. Later, Patti tells Scully that, from her point of view, it appeared as if Bobby was attempting to help Phil out of the muddy orchard pit, not cause him harm. She also reveals that her son has been undergoing therapy for his anger since 1995. Later, the agents meet with Bobby's therapist, Karin Matthews. She describes Bobby as the victim of physical abuse. But Mulder expresses his belief that Bobby may not be to blame for his stepfather's death. Bobby tells a pretty fellow student, Lisa Baiocchi, that she must stand up to her father just as he had done with Phil. When Lisa returns home, her angry father demands that she stop seeing Bobby. An angry Lisa storms off to her room. Shortly thereafter, a window explodes, and a shadowy, arm-like appendage grabs Mr. Baiocchi by the throat. His lifeless body is discovered lying on the ground outside the house. Though Scully concludes that Mr. Baiocchi died as the result of being pushed out the window, Mulder discovers evidence suggesting he was pulled out the second story window. Later, the agents learn that Lisa is also one of Karin Matthews' patients. Karin tells Mulder her approach with victims of abuse is to encourage them to empower themselves to confront and stand up against their abuser. With the aid of a town coroner, Mulder a small splinter of fresh wood embedded in Mr. Baiocchi's neck. Mulder matches the fragment to the living tree outside the Baiocchi home. A short time later, the agents are approached by a man named Ramirez, who holds an axe at his side. He tells the agents that the trees are all dying because of a bad man. Karin invites Lisa to stay at her home until her aunt can pick her up the following day. As Lisa listens from her bedroom, she overhears an argument between Karin and a male voice. A curious Lisa makes her way to the root cellar, where she discovers the body of a man. Terrified, Lisa turns towards the door, only to hear it slam shut. A dead bolt turns, locking her within. She hears the unidentified man's voice refer to her as a snoop. Later, Karin tells the trapped Lisa she must remain quiet, or the unidentified man will hear her voice. Mulder discovers that Karin's father was pulled from the mud of an orchard twenty years earlier. He finds it strange that Karin failed to mention the coincidence. Ramirez tells Mulder that Karin Matthew's father's death brought about an end of a blight affecting the trees. Karin attributes the tale to her father's stature, believing powerful men inspire fantasy. Later, Mulder digs up Mr. Matthews' casket and finds it empty, save for roots. When Lisa's aunt, Linda, arrives at Karin's house, Karin informs her that Lisa left for a bus station. Before Linda drives off, Lisa smashes the glass of a window in the basement. Linda rushes to her niece's aid, but she is attacked and killed by an unseen force as tree branches sway in the wind above her. Later, Bobby tells Mulder that, as part of therapy, Karin made him pretend he was Phil and that, all along, he was never a really a victim. Lisa hears the cellar door bolt slide. She stands up only to realize the unidentified male voice has been coming from Karin all along. Scully and Mulder search Karin's house, where they come upon the corpse Lisa discovered earlier in the root cellar. Mulder concludes the body is that of Karin's father. Karin locks the agents in the root cellar, but Mulder forces it open. They find Lisa frightened but unharmed in a corner of the kitchen. Mulder attempts to pursue an escaping Karin, but his car crashes into an enormous tree. Karin drives to the Rich residence, where she chases Bobby into the orchard. Suddenly, Bobby is dragged downward into the mud. While attempting to rescue the teenager, Mulder simultaneously encourages Karin to break the cycle and to fight the voice inside her head. But Karin is unable. A tendon-like root snakes out of the mud and drags Mulder downward. Ramirez appears, axe in hand, and decapitates Karin. Mulder and Bobby are released by the unseen force. 
<EOS>
In Amma Beach, Maine, five-year-old Polly Turner accompanies her mother, Melissa Turner, to the grocery market. Polly sits in the child-carrier seat of a shopping cart, clutching a doll, Chinga. As Melissa strolls the aisles, she attracts the attention of Dave the Butcher. Polly notices Dave, and tells her mother she doesn't like the store. Melissa responds by quickly pushing the cart into another area of the market. As Melissa strolls down the frozen food section, she comes upon the image of Dave, reflected in the glass of a cabinet, a knife protruding from one eye. A horrified Melissa tells Polly they are going home. But as Melissa makes her way towards the store's exit, customers begin clawing at their eyes. Back in the butcher section, Dave's attention is diverted by the shape of a large Chinga doll, as reflected in a metal door. Dave grabs a knife from his belt but suddenly turns it on himself. Vacationing in Maine, Scully turns her rental car into the grocery market parking lot. An Old Man exits the store and tells Scully that a doctor is needed. Inside the store, Scully sees Dave with a knife protruding from his eye. She telephones Mulder and describes the bizarre situation. Mulder tells his partner the event might be the result of witchcraft or sorcery. Scully, however, can find no physical evidence that might support this theory. Assisted by Police Chief Jack Bonsaint, and his deputy, Buddy Riggs, Scully reviews security camera footage of the event. She notices Melissa Turner rushing towards the exit, the only customer unaffected. Bonsaint tells Scully that some townspeople believe Melissa is a witch. Buddy Riggs telephones Melissa with news that Bonsaint will be questioning her about the occurrence at the super market. Riggs promises to help Melissa, but she warns him to stay away. In the background, unseen by Melissa, looms the shadow of the large Chinga doll. Bonsaint and Scully visit Melissa's home, but find it unoccupied. Bonsaint tells Scully that Melissa had married a fisherman, but was widowed when the husband was killed in a boating accident. Bonsaint explains that there had been an incident between Polly and the proprietor of a daycare center, Jane Froelich. It seems that Jane slapped Polly when she became uncontrollable. Shortly thereafter, Jane claims she was thrown to the ground. Bonsaint, however, believes the little girl never touched Jane. Bonsaint then tells Scully that Dave the Butcher's interest in Melissa was unrequited. Riggs meets Melissa and Polly at an ice cream shop. Melissa describes how she has seen images of violent deaths, such as Dave's, before they occur. Riggs give Melissa the key to a remote cabin and suggests she leave town. Meanwhile, Polly grows upset when a girl clerk does not meet her demand for more cherries. Shortly thereafter, the clerk's pony tail gets caught in an ice cream machine. Riggs jumps the counter and rescues the girl. Scully and Bonsaint pay Jane Froelich a visit. Froelich claims Melissa is the descendant of witches--and she is passing her cursed lineage to Polly. Later, while speaking with an official at a ranger station, Melissa experiences another vision, this time seeing Froelich's bloody image reflected in the rear window of the car. Melissa turns the car around and heads back home. Meanwhile, Froelich hears the song Hokey Pokey emanating from the day care center. She makes her way through the darkness and comes upon the big Chinga doll. She picks up a piece of broken phonograph record, but instead of using it as a defensive weapon, turns it upon herself. Later, Melissa experiences another vision--this time seeing Riggs' corpse. Riggs finds Melissa at home, and convinced she had something to do with Froelich's murder, insists she accompany him to the police station. Later, Riggs' body lies on the kitchen floor, his nightstick covered with blood. Scully recognizes the Old Man from the supermarket aboard the boat where Melissa's husband was killed. The Old Man tells Scully the story of how Rich Turner came upon the Chinga doll while checking lobster traps. Rich intended to give the doll to his daughter, but several days later the Old Man found Rich's body, a grappling hook through his skull. Melissa begins nailing shut every door and window in the house. Polly tells her mother she cannot sleep, and Melissa promises the noise will stop. Moments later, Melissa sees a bloodied reflection of herself in a window, a hammer buried in her skull. Scully and Bonsaint drive to the Turner home. Scully, peering through the windows, discovers Melissa attempting to set fire to the house, with her, her daughter and the doll trapped inside. Polly comes downstairs and sees her mother desperately trying to light matches, but the doll tells her 'Don't play with matches' and all the matches Melissa lights flicker out moments after lighting. Melissa tries to get a kitchen knife, but the doll stops her from taking one either. Bonsaint breaks down the door as Melissa runs to a closet and grabs hold of a hammer--which she turns upon herself. Thinking quickly, Scully grabs the Chinga doll and throws it inside a microwave oven in the kitchen. As the doll melts, Melissa drops the hammer and regains her senses. Later, another lobster fisherman pulls a trap from the water and discovers the burned Chinga doll inside. The doll's eyes opened as the fisherman picked it up saying, "I want to play." 
<EOS>
Several heavily-armed crack dealers receive an anonymous telephone call alerting them to the whereabouts of a hated enemy. The men all converge on a diner, but none find their target. Two deputy marshals receive a similar anonymous tip, alerting them about a Colombian fugitive in the same diner. The marshals enter the diner and order everyone onto the floor. Drug dealers draw their weapons and a fierce gun battle ensues. As the agents observe the aftermath of the shoot-out, Mulder pulls a tarp off the face of Donald Gelman, one of the co-inventors of the Internet. Gelman had been working at his laptop inside the diner when the shooting broke out and became trapped in the cross-fire. Mulder sneaks Gelman's laptop under his jacket and brings it back to Scully's car. He finds a blank CD in the laptop drive, which when placed inside Scully's CD-player emits music while the vehicle's lights flash in rhythm. Puzzled, Mulder brings the CD to the Lone Gunmen for further analysis. When they are unable to crack the disc's security code, Scully suggests they check Gelman's e-mail log. They find a message containing a standard ID number for a shipping container. The message is signed by someone named Invisigoth. The agents track the number to a container yard. A figure springs from the darkness, zaps Mulder with a stun-gun, and runs off into the night. Scully apprehends the suspect, Esther Nairn and escorts her back to the container, which is brimming with sophisticated computer equipment. Esther's attention is diverted to one of the monitors. She tells the agents that an armed Department of Defense satellite has locked onto their location. Despite the farfetchedness of the tale, Mulder convinces Scully they must leave the area immediately. Shortly thereafter, a strange green light descends from the heavens and destroys the shipping container. Mulder concludes that Donald Gelman realized his lifelong dream: the construction of a sentient artificial intelligence, a computer program with its own consciousness. Esther confirms Mulder's suspicion, describing how Gelman unleashed the program onto the Internet so it could evolve--much like the primordial slime from which mankind evolved. She tells the agents that the AI monitors all communication, and will destroy her the moment it locks onto her location. Esther also reveals that Gelman was in the process of creating a special virus program, nicknamed Kill Switch, that would hunt down and destroy the rogue system. Instead of simply destroying Gelman with a laser from above, Esther is convinced it killed its creator with a dozen crack dealers in an effort to show off its sense of humor. She also believes the virus is holed up on a computer somewhere--and the only way to kill it is to find and destroy its safe house. By accessing government files, Mulder locates a suspicious T3 line, one that would be needed by the AI to access the Internet. He traces the cable to an abandoned farm on which sits a trailer. Meanwhile, Esther gets the jump on Scully and forces her at gunpoint to drive to an isolated location where she hopes to find one of her colleagues, a man named David Markham. Esther exits the car and begins crying at the site of a demolished house. During her absence, Scully manages to unshackle her handcuffs. Esther gives Scully back her gun and asks her to put her out of her misery. Esther then admits to Scully that she and David had planned to upload their consciousness and enter the AI. But Gelman forbade the idea. Mulder rings the doorbell on the trailer with the T3 link but receives no reply. Unbeknownst to him, several thermal-imaging cameras are watching him and the doorbell is actually a thumbprint scanner which discovers his identity by running it through a computer. Mulder instead manages to make a hole in the bottom of the trailer and breaks in. Inside he discovers David Markham's body, his face concealed by a virtual reality mask. Removing the mask, Mulder finds Markham is dead. Suddenly, several crab-like droids spring from the jungle of cables and constrain Mulder, putting him in a device similar to Markham's. Sparks fly around Mulder and he passes out. Mulder experiences strange visions involving sexy nurses in a 1940's style hospital who threaten to amputate him, limb by limb, unless he reveals the location of Kill Switch. Meanwhile, the AI pinpoints Scully and Esther in their car near a turntable drawbridge. The pair become trapped and, at Scully's urging, Esther tosses the laptop into the water. Moments later, a green laser blasts the water. Scully and Esther climb into the trailer where Mulder is bound by the crab-droids. Several of the robotic creatures attack, and Scully dispatches them with her handgun. Scully finds Mulder, his head encased in the virtual reality mask. The AI's screen shows that it is now targeting the trailer. Esther produces the CD, and Scully gives the AI what it wants, inserting the disk into a drive. The targeting system stops. The AI releases Mulder, and Scully drags him outside. Esther accesses a keyboard and try to contact with the AI, which might already have David's memory and consciousness. She also restarts the targeting system in the process. When Scully reenters the trailer, she finds Esther wearing the virtual reality helmet, the body of her beloved David nearby. Esther tells her to leave, and Scully races from the trailer, as Esther instructs the AI to upload. Moments later, the green laser destroys the trailer. When Mulder recovers, he tells Scully that Esther's consciousness may have joined the AI. Meanwhile, in a trailer park, two teenagers are playing catch with a ball when one of them accidentally throws the ball over a fence next to a seemingly ownerless trailer. As one of the teenagers gets the ball and climbs back over the fence, a thermal imaging camera on the top of the trailer observes them. 
<EOS>
We see a teenage boy running through the woods, late at night, screaming "Help me! Somebody help me! Help! That guy's gonna kill me! Help!". He is being pursued by a man in a black suit with an overcoat. He continues to run, screaming frantically until he stumbles and lands on the ground. His pursuer quickly jumps on top of him, holding him down, and reveals a wooden stake which he rams into the boy's chest. The man then picks up a rock and proceeds to slam the stake with it, driving it deeper and deeper. Another person runs up to the scene, we see it is Scully. She speaks only one word, "Mulder?". It is here we see that the attacker is, in fact, Mulder. Scully kneels down beside the two as Mulder opens the boy's mouth to reveal fangs. "Look at that. Huh. Huh?" Mulder pushes. Scully taps the boy's fangs and they fall out. She picks up the fake teeth and holds them up for Mulder to see. Mulder stares unbelievably and replies, "Oh, shi-". Mulder is sitting in his office at his desk as Scully opens the door and peers inside. There is a bit of awkward silence between the two as she comes in and sits down. She begins to talk but Mulder quickly silences her, telling her "Don't even start with me" and pointing his finger. He proceeds to let out his frustrations on the office trash can after a missed shot with a paper wad. The two discuss the fact that Skinner expects a report in the next hour and what they should do. They agree to tell exactly what they each saw, although this thought worries Mulder as he believes they have conflicting views on what exactly happened. Scully reminds Mulder that the family of the boy Mulder killed plans to sue the FBI for around $446 million dollars and that both of them, not just Mulder, will be held accountable. She goes on to say that Mulder overreacted. Mulder decides he wants to hear Scully's side of the story, starting from the beginning. Throughout Scully's version, Mulder is very energetic and playful. Perhaps even a bit more than usual. Beginning the story in the X-files office, Mulder enthusiastically tells Scully about the deaths of a number of cows in a small Texas town called Chaney, rarely letting her get a word in. Approximately one each week has been drained of blood over the past six weeks, all with two small puncture wounds on their neck. Scully discusses the possibility of satanic cultists and even, jokingly, El Chupacabra, both of which Mulder throws out as possibilities. His explanation is classic vampirism. He then goes on to add that a vacationer from New Jersey was killed the night before in the same way. After asking why he didn't tell her that in the first place, Mulder ushers her out of the office. They then head for Texas. The agents arrive at the PEACEFUL SLUMBERS FUNERAL PARLOR, as the town is too small to maintain a morgue. They wait with the mortician for the Sheriff to arrive and show them the body. The Sheriff, Lucius Hartwell, soon arrives clad in cowboy boots and even a cowboy hat. As he introduces himself, Scully is obviously a bit taken with his appearance. Mulder introduces he and Scully, seemingly perturbed at their immediate attraction and intermittently embarrasses her. The three walk into the examination room. Scully asks if an exam has been done and the Sheriff replies they thought they should leave that up to the experts. This makes Scully smile. Mulder, jokingly, tells Scully to inform the Sheriff of her theory. She goes on to explain that she now believes the killer is someone mimicking a vampire, having filed down their incisors to create fangs, and that a moulage casting should lead them to his identification. She continues, delving into different psychological conditions which someone mimicking a vampire may suffer from. The Sheriff eagerly agrees with her, goes so far as to say "you really know your stuff, Dana." Back in the X-Files office, Mulder cuts in and stops Scully's story. Claiming it silly that he call her by her first name, as he did not know it. Scully continues, citing that this is the moment when Mulder has his breakthrough. Now back to the story , Mulder makes the discovery that the victim's shoes are untied. When Scully asks what that means, Mulder proceeds to ask the Sheriff about the town cemetery and asks to be taken there immediately. He tells Scully to perform a full autopsy in his absence and when asked what she is looking for, he simply replies "I don't know". And with a tip of the Sheriff's hat, the two leave. Later on, Scully is in full Scrubs performing the requested autopsy. She weighs various body parts and then moves on to the contents of the victims stomach. She finds remnants of pizza, remarks at how good that sounds, and grudgingly continues. In a voice over, Scully tells us that after finishing the autopsy she checked into the DAVEY CROCKETT MOTOR COURT to rest. Mulder quickly corrects her, saying the actual name was the SAM HOUSTON MOTOR LODGE. On screen, DAVEY CROCKETT MOTOR COURT appears first, then is erased and replaced with SAM HOUSTON MOTOR LODGE as Mulder says this. In her room, Scully puts money in the magic fingers, kicks off her shoes and falls onto the bed. Very soon after, Mulder enters the room, covered in mud. Scully tells him that Chloral hydrate is that thing you didn't know you were looking for, as she found traces of it in the victim's system. She then asks him what happened to him, but he averts that question and asks who gave the Chloral Hydrate to the victim. Scully states that her theory is that their vampire did it in order to extract the victim's blood. Mulder asks what kind of vampire would do that and Scully triumphantly replies "exactly". Mulder then informs her that there is another dead tourist and that she's going to have to do another autopsy that same night. After some debate Scully dejectedly leaves, passing the pizza guy on her way out. We then see that the pizza boy is the same boy from the teaser, Ronnie Strickland. Scully returns to do another autopsy, though not taking her time as with the first one. She repeatedly slaps the various organs on to the weight tray, going as quickly as she can. She finds Chloral Hydrate in this system of this victim as well and is about to move on to his stomach contents when her phone rings. She answers and hears nothing but heavy breathing. Thinking nothing of it, she hangs up and continues. In the victim's stomach she again finds pizza and then makes the connection between the Chloral Hydrate and the pizza, realizing that the pizza guy is, in fact, the murderer and that she left him with Mulder at the hotel. Back at Scully's hotel room she kicks down the door and frantically searches for Mulder. She sees his feet on the floor on the other side of the bed. Just then, Ronnie stands up from the side of the bed and hisses, his eyes green and glowing. Scully fires at him as he leaps over the bed and knocks her down. He runs outside and she fires at him again from the floor. Scully walks over to check on Mulder who wakes up and recites the theme to SHAFT. Back in the X-Files Office, Mulder denies having done so. Scully finishes her story, saying she pursued Ronnie on foot and that when she got to the clearing in the woods Mulder had gotten to him first and overreacted. And that his fangs were fake. Mulder seems weary of her story, even though Scully tries to reassure him that they did stop a killer, though not a supernatural killer. Mulder accuses her of being afraid of the truth and says that that isn't how it happened at all. Scully then suggests that he then tell his side of the story. Throughout Mulder's version Mulder acts very subdued and nice, while Scully is mean and uninterested. Again, the story begins in the X-Files Office. The conversation is very similar except Scully whines about going to Texas and seems very agitated at the whole situation. When Mulder suggests vampires, Scully quickly dismisses the idea stating they don't exist and adds that it's not that Mexican goat sucker, either. The two arrive again at the PEACEFUL SLUMBERS FUNERAL HOME. Mulder quips that he heard something from the Mortician that Scully missed. Mulder asks him why this small town needs so many caskets and the Mortician answers repeat business. He is the only one to find that funny. Sheriff Hartwell enters, and Scully lets out a Hoo-boy to show her admiration. The Sheriff looks exactly the same as in Scully's version except when he talks, we see he has big buck teeth. In the morgue, the mortician removes the stake from Ronnie's body and walks away with his back turned. Suddenly, Ronnie inexplicably wakes up and attacks the mortician. In the office, Skinner informs the agents of the disappearance of Ronnie's body. Also, although the mortician is not dead, he was 'bitten on the neck'. The agents return to Texas. They arrive at the cemetery at night. Sheriff Hartwell appears again, so Mulder has him stake out the cemetery with Scully while Mulder himself goes to 'check something out' at the RV Court where Ronnie is staying. Mulder reaches the motel and goes into Ronnie's room. He finds a coffin, containing a sleeping Ronnie. Suddenly Ronnie wakes up and attacks Mulder. Mulder manages to restrain him by sitting on top of the coffin lid and uses handcuffs to lock Ronnie in. Looking out the window, though, he sees all the villagers approaching in vampire form, with glowing green eyes. He goes outside to confront them, but they surround him and attack. Meanwhile, Scully and the Sheriff are in the car in front of the cemetery. The Sheriff apologizes for Ronnie, saying that although most of them live normal lives, Ronnie finds it hard to restrain his urges. Scully talks about how she heard vampires are supposed to be charming, although she does not believe this because, as Mulder said, there are many kinds of vampire. When she looks back at the Sheriff, his eyes are glowing green. Mulder and Scully both wake up after falling unconscious during their individual attacks. Neither of them have any bite marks, but all the villagers seem to have mysteriously disappeared. They return to the office and recount it all to Skinner, assuring him that it is 'exactly what happened.' When the screen turns black in preparation for the credits, Mulder's voice can be heard, quickly stating 'Except maybe about the buckteeth.' 
<EOS>
In Kazakhstan, former Soviet Union, two teenage boys watch as a UFO disappears behind a mountain top. The boys run off to tell their families, but as they sprint through the woods, they come upon an area filled with burning automobiles. A screaming man, his body ablaze, appears out of the dense smoke, causing the boys to run. One of them, Dmitri, takes refuge in the woods. The next morning, he is discovered by Krycek, who is in the company of a unit of Russian soldiers. With the boy in custody, Krycek and his men approach Marita Covarrubias, who, along with U.N. troops, is sifting through the burned out wreckage. Krycek tells Marita he knows who she works for--and to tell her superiors he has a witness Dmitri. Back in the United States, Mulder takes part in a visiting lecturers forum. He disagrees with the opinions voiced by his fellow panelists regarding a woman referred to as Patient X, an apparent abductee who seeks answers as to why aliens are on Earth. Mulder maintains that there is no complicity between the military and alien abductions. Instead, he believes the government is developing biological warfare and hiding the fact by concocting stories about little green men. When the discussion ends, Mulder is approached by Dr. Werber, the man who performed regression hypnosis on him five years earlier leading Mulder to believe his sister was abducted. Werber reveals that he is Patient X's doctor. He arranges a meeting between Mulder and the woman, Cassandra, believing that she will change his mind regarding his new theory. Cassandra believes the aliens are on Earth to deliver a message. But something, she fears, has gone wrong. Krycek extracts information from Dmitri by subjecting him to a beating. He then orders a Russian doctor to expose the teenager to the alien black oil. The liquid enters Dmitri's body through his mouth and nose. Dmitri, his eyes and mouth sewn shut, is then transported back to the US on a Russian freighter. Meanwhile, Covarrubias briefs Syndicate members on the mysterious burn site in Kazakhstan. Covarrubias believes the act was aimed at the Syndicate, and reveals that Krycek captured a witness at the site. Krycek phones the group and offers to trade Dmitri for all research information pertaining to a vaccine against the black oil. At the FBI building, Scully is approached by Agent Spender, who identifies himself as Cassandra's son. Spender tells Scully that his mother is a very disturbed woman. Later, Scully tells Mulder about the conversation. She then peruses Cassandra's medical file, growing intrigued when she realizes Cassandra claims to have been abducted at Skyland Mountain, the same site where Scully was taken by Duane Barry. The file also reveals that Cassandra has an implant in the base of her neck. Mulder brushes off the findings, agreeing with Spender's conclusion. But so intrigued is Scully by the developments that she pays Cassandra a visit at the psychiatric hospital. There, she grows unnerved when Cassandra tells her that some nights she awakens feeling as though she must be somewhere, but not knowing where to go. Meanwhile, a group of abductees gather at Skyland Mountain. As an Unknown Man drives down the mountain road, he encounters faceless men chasing another man. One of the faceless men drives a metallic wand into the Running Man's back, setting him ablaze. Later, Mulder and Scully inspect the site. The situation forces Scully in the opposite position she would normally take, for despite a lack of evidence, she believes the event is linked to her abduction. The agents are contacted by Cassandra, who warns they must be stopped. The agents are then approached by Spender, who explains that his mother was part of a UFO cult. Back at the Syndicate office, group members conclude that the latest burning is aimed at sabotaging their work. Quiet Willy is dispatched to deal with the situation. Meanwhile, Covarrubias rendezvous with Krycek at the freighter, which is docked in New York Harbor. The two share a hungry kiss, then exit so they can be alone. When Krycek returns, Dmitri has vanished. The Well-Manicured Man appears, demanding to know where the boy has gone. After examining the evidence, Mulder concludes the victims of the mass burning were led to Skyland Mountain by the government when it triggered the implant devices. But he is at a loss to explain why they were killed. Their conversation is interrupted by a call from Covarrubias, who informs Mulder of the similar incident in former Soviet Union, and of the witness, Dmitri. Suddenly, the black oil oozes from Dmitri, and Covarrubias drops the phone. 
<EOS>
Meanwhile, rescue workers sift through the area near the dam where blackened bodies lie along the length of a bridge. Amongst the bodies is Quiet Willy, the Syndicate's hit man. Skinner directs Mulder to a nearby provisional tent, where Scully is ministered by medics. Nearby is the body of Dmitri, the Russian boy, his exposed skin blackened by the fire. When Scully regains consciousness, she tells Mulder she has no memory of what occurred at the dam. Outside of Scully's room, Spender tells Mulder that rescue workers were unable to locate his mother, Cassandra. Skinner reviews an audio tape of Werber's session with Scully. Mulder tells Skinner the entire event was staged to cover up a classified military project. Skinner admits, however, that Scully's UFO scenario is more plausible. Meanwhile, when Covarrubias fails to respond to the vaccine, the Elder informs the Well-Manicured Man that the captured alien is being turned over to the colonists. 
<EOS>
In a flashback to the 1950s, Dales and his partner Hayes Michel are sent to arrest Skur for being a communist. When Dales is told that Skur hanged himself while in custody, he feels guilty and returns to Skur's house to apologize to his wife. While there, he sees Skur alive and tries to recapture him. In the following struggle, an appendage emerges from Skur's mouth. Skur is forced to flee when a neighbor interrupts the fight. Dales' partner and Mr. Cohn warn Dales to change his report about the attack. He does so, but feels guilty about it. Later, Dales and Michel are called to investigate the death of a German doctor in Chevy Chase, Maryland. The local police deny calling them, and Dales finds a coaster for a bar with come alone written on the back. At the bar, Dales meets Bill Mulder, an agent from the State Department. Bill tells him that Skur, Gissing, and Oberman were experimented on and Gissing and Oberman have killed themselves. Skur killed the German doctor in revenge for what was done to him, and he will kill Dales and Michel too because Skur believes they are part of the plot. Dales tries to warn Michel but he is too late and Skur kills him. Dales tries to investigate but Mr. Cohn covers it up. A secretary at the FBI office, Dorothy Bahnsen, helps Dales find a file that mentions Gissing. She explains that she files all the unsolved cases under X because there is more room under X than U. Gissing's body is still in the morgue and Dales convinces the technician to cut open the body where they find a strange creature has been sewn into Gissing's chest. Dales goes to Skur's wife and tells her what was done to her husband and that he wants to expose the experiments. Skur's wife goes down into the backyard bomb shelter to tell Skur, but he is overcome by his parasite and kills her. Cohn picks up Dales and takes him to the office of the Director who gives him a speech about patriotism and convinces him to help bring in Skur. They take Dales back to the bar to meet Skur, who attacks Dales. Bill Mulder and the other agent wait outside until they think Dales is dead before rushing in to find that Dales has handcuffed Skur and is still alive. Back in the present Fox Mulder is dismayed to hear what his father was involved in. He asks Dales how Skur escaped and Dales speculates that someone might have helped Skur escape hoping that the truth of what was done to him may one day be revealed. And we see Bill Mulder driving down a road with Skur and giving Skur the keys to the car and walking away. 
<EOS>
As Marty Glenn, a twenty-something woman, moves about her apartment, she suddenly experiences an internal vision. As she watches, horrorstruck, a murderer, switchblade in hand, advances on an another man standing before a bathroom sink. A short time later, police are summoned to a motel, where the body of the murderer's victim lies on the bathroom floor. Marty, a bloody sponge clutched in her hand, is discovered hiding in the shower. As the officers place Marty into handcuffs, they realize she is blind. Scully and Mulder meet with Wilmington Homicide Detective Lloyd Pennock, who has been assigned the murder case. Pennock explains that, under normal circumstances, Marty would have been charged with the murder. But since Marty has been blind since birth, he is at a loss as to how--or why--she managed to kill the heroin dealer, Paco Ordonez. Pennock states that he has 48 hours to prove to the District Attorney that his suspect possesses a kind of sixth sense or wait until she kills someone else. The detectives meet with Marty inside her jail cell. During questioning, it becomes obvious that Marty--who has adopted an uncooperative attitude--possesses knowledge that only the murderer should know. As Mulder stays behind to supervise Marty's polygraph test, Scully visits the scene of the crime. There she discovers a bloody leather glove hidden behind the bathroom mirror. Meanwhile, by phrasing a question in a certain manner, Mulder determines that Marty did somehow manage to witness the murder. Marty experiences another internal vision. This time, the killer makes advances on a sexy woman, Susan Forester, who sits at a bar. Marty notices the name of the bar reflected in a mirror. She requests that she be allowed to make a phone call from jail. By using an information operator, Marty phones the bar and makes contact with the murderer, a man named Gotts. She warns him to leave the woman alone. Scully brings the bloody glove to the jail. She informs Marty that her fingerprints were located on the glove, and perhaps even more importantly, the glove fits Marty perfectly. Pennock concludes that Marty is the murderer. Mulder, however, is plagued with doubt. Scully offers a possible explanation: Marty may not be blind. Scully expands upon this theory, noting disorders that would permit sight on a subconscious level. As Marty undergoes an eye exam, she is suddenly struck by another internal vision. Mulder notes a reaction on a measurement mode screen used by the ophthalmologist. But Marty refuses to explain what she saw. Though the examiner concludes that Marty is completely blind, Mulder tells Pennock and the Daniel Costa from the District Attorney's office that there is evidence of neurological activity which caused her pupils to dilate--perhaps a physical response to images in the mind's eye. Costa concludes that it is unlikely his office could convict a blind woman based on fingerprints alone. As a result, Marty is released from custody. As Marty makes her way through the city, she is struck by another vision. This time, she witnesses Gotts attack the sexy woman from the bar. With some help from a passerby, Marty makes her way to the alley where the attack occurred. She discovers the woman's body inside a dumpster. Marty then returns to the police station and confesses to both murders. Marty is released from custody after police match fingerprints on the briefcase taken from the locker to Gotts who turns out to be Marty's own father. Marty tells police that Gotts, who was recently paroled from prison, can be located at the Blarney Stone tavern. Mulder and Scully stake out the bar, waiting for Gotts' appearance. Meanwhile, Pennock provides Marty with protection from harm by guarding her at her apartment. Marty experiences another vision, this time seeing Gotts reading names on mailboxes in the lobby. Using a coffee pot, Marty knocks Pennock unconscious. She pulls his gun from his holster and takes position, waiting for Gotts. Meanwhile, Mulder realizes that the blind Marty has been experiencing visions of the inside of Gotts's prison cell for almost thirty years. He tells Scully that Marty misdirected them on purpose to keep Gotts from going back to prison. They race to Marty's apartment, where they find Gotts dead on the floor. Later, Marty asks for no special treatment in her defense and is sent to prison--where she is finally free of Gotts. 
<EOS>
Father McCue meets Scully at the Easter church service and asks for her help in solving the mystery of the girl's death. Later, Scully visits the Kernoffs, and learns that Dara was adopted six years earlier. The girl suffered from severe spinal deformities which confined her to a wheelchair her entire life. There is no explanation as to how Dara walked out of the house, though Lance is convinced he saw the Devil standing over her in the street. Scully and a pathologist, Vicki Belon, examine Dara's body. Belon notes her misshapen hands and feet, which contain six digits. Belon reluctantly proposes that the girl was struck down by God, as if she was a mistake. Meanwhile, a man named Father Gregory visits a psychiatric hospital hoping to visit a girl named Paula Koklos, Dara's twin sister. But his progress is hindered by Aaron Starkey, a department of social services worker, who notes that the priest's adoption petition lacks his approval. Upset, the priest leaves the hospital. That night, a man enters Paula's room. An intense halo of light surrounds the figure and wings form its back. The next day, Scully examines Paula's body, her eyes burned out, kneeling much like Dara. Mulder joins his partner and reveals he has located Dara's birth records, which show she was one of quadruplets. Shortly thereafter, Starkey reveals that Paula was about to be adopted by Father Gregory. The agents pay Father Gregory a visit at his church. He insists he was trying to protect Paula from harm, and makes reference to an ongoing struggle between good and evil for all souls. Later, while examining Paula's body, Scully experiences a vision of Emily. Mulder performs further research on the adoption records. He uncovers information on a third sister, who walked into a teen crisis center a week earlier and is apparently homeless. With Starkey's help, he canvases abandoned buildings in a desolate part of town. But the Dark Figure, this time sporting a lion's face, finds the girl first. Mulder draws his weapon and orders a darkened figure to step into the light. It is revealed to be Father Gregory. The priest laments that they are too late, as he found the third sister dead. Mulder concludes Father Gregory is responsible for the murders. But Gregory insists he tried to protect the girls' souls from the Devil. He warns that the fourth sister must be located before it is too late. The agents step out of the police interrogation room where Father Gregory is being held when new information about the fourth sister, Roberta Dyer, comes to light. Scully urges Mulder to find the girl. Meanwhile, Starkey enters the interrogation room where the priest is being held. He demands to know the location of the fourth girl. When Father Gregory does not answer, he is burned alive by the demon. Mulder makes his way to the home of George Dyer, the fourth sister's adoptive father. Dyer eventually reveals that Father Gregory took Roberta away. Shortly thereafter, Scully is approached by the Dark Figure, whose head rotates, revealing the faces of a man, eagle, lion, and an ox. Stunned, Scully seeks out Father McCue for answers. He explains that the vision she experienced is a Seraphim, an angel who descended from the heavens and fathered four children, the Nephilim, with a mortal woman. God sent Seraphim to earth to return the girls, who have the souls of angels, back to heaven to keep the Devil from claiming them as his own. Later, Starkey tells Scully that the fourth girl is at Father Gregory's church. Once inside the church, Scully sees Starkey's shadow, which is in the form of a demon. Scully rescues the girl from a crawlspace and attempts to make her way out a back exit. A blinding white light suddenly erupts, the source of which is the mysterious Dark Figure. The fourth girl changes into the form of Emily--and begs Scully to let her go. Scully reluctantly releases the girl's hand, and she disappears into the light. When the light fades, only the girl's body remains, her eyes burnt away. Later, Scully tells Mulder they should have been protecting the girls from Starkey, not Father Gregory. She also believes that no one killed the girls but they are now in a place where they were meant to be. She concludes the incident was about letting go of Emily. 
<EOS>
Skinner, Scully, Mulder and a dozen FBI agents participate in an undercover operation in a Washington, D.C. park. Its purpose: to catch Jacob Haley, a militia group member wanted on domestic terrorism charges. As Skinner and Scully monitor events from a surveillance van, Mulder and several other undercover agents slowly close in on their suspect, who meets with a Goateed Man sitting on a park bench. Haley hands the Goatee Man an envelope, then suddenly runs off. Mulder gives chase, unaware that the skin on Goatee Man's face and hands is slowly being eaten away. Scully jumps from the van, intending to warn her partner. But when she reaches Mulder, she is astounded to discover that the suspect eluded capture. Scully voices her concerns to her partner, looking for some explanation as to why he allowed Haley to escape. But Mulder sidesteps the issue. Shortly thereafter, the agents attend a meeting of a counter-terrorism council, which is headed by Skinner and U.S. Attorney Leamus. During the meeting, Scully states that the Goatee Man was killed by some form of bioweapon. Skinner then shows those in attendance a photo of August Bremer, the militia group's mastermind. He notes that Bremer and Haley are reportedly vying for control. Her curiosity piqued, Scully begins surveilling her partner's movements from afar. Mulder rents a room at a motel, where he has a heated telephone conversation with Haley, one that implies the pair are working together. Shortly thereafter, a BMW rolls into the motel parking lot, and Mulder climbs in. Scully tails the car, but her progress is halted when two sedans force her to stop. Four large men then approach her vehicle. Scully is escorted to a government building where, to her surprise, she is met by Skinner and Leamus. They explain that Mulder is participating in a deep cover assignment, the existence of which is known only to Skinner and Leamus. Someone in the militia group reached out to Mulder after he voiced his opinions about governmental conspiracies during a UFO conference. The BMW transports Mulder to a remote farmhouse. There, Mulder is questioned by Haley, who accuses him of spying on the group. When Mulder fails to give acceptable answers, a Skin-Head Man pushes back on his finger, causing Mulder to scream in pain. The torture session continues until Mulder suggests a mole exists within the group. Suddenly, the Skin-Head man pulls back on the finger, snapping it like a piece of celery. When Mulder passes out, Haley turns to him and says, "I believe you." Meanwhile, Bremer tests the bioweapon on patrons at a small movie theater, killing fourteen people. But the question remains as to how the pathogen was spread to the victims. When Mulder returns to his apartment, he is surprised by Scully. She tends to his broken finger and discusses the undercover operation. Unbeknownst to them, Bremer is secretly recording their conversation. Later, Mulder reports back to Skinner and Leamus. It is determined that the militia group intends to rob a bank. Mulder also relays word that Haley demanded copies of surveillance files of militia group members hoping to flush out the mole. Leamus reveals he anticipated such a request, and already has redacted microfilm documents prepared. Mulder returns to the motel and gives Haley the microfilm. He is then transported back to the farmhouse, where the militia group is readying its assault on the bank. Scully determines that the toxin was not developed by the Russians as previously believed. In private, she tells Skinner that the United States is operating a secret bioweapons program--and that someone in the government may have sent Mulder on a suicide mission. Later, it suddenly dawns on Scully that the source of pathogen's distribution is money. Wearing monster masks, Mulder and the militia members storm a bank. Bremer accesses the vault and sprays the money with the pathogen. The group stages a successful getaway, and later Mulder realizes that the entire purpose of the break-in was to contaminate the money. Bremer pulls a gun on Mulder, announcing that his undercover work has been exposed. But Haley intercedes, noting that Bremer's alias was discovered on the microfilm, exposing him as the mole. Bremer responds by playing back the secret tape recording he made of Mulder and Scully's conversation. Bremer hands Haley a leather car key holder, allowing him to leave the group unharmed. But Bremer and the Skin-Head Man march Mulder away, intending to execute him. Suddenly, Bremer kills the Skin-Head Man. Bremer tells Mulder to run before they are both exposed. Mulder makes his way back to the bank, which has already been sealed off by Scully and Skinner. Scully explains that she recognized Mulder on a bank surveillance tape by the bandage on his finger. As the money is hauled out of the bank, Leamus tells the agents that the bills have tested clean. Scully accuses Leamus of having orchestrated the entire plan. Later, Haley slumps over in his car, his face eaten away by the biotoxin, which was transmitted by the key holder given him by Bremer. 
<EOS>
Gary Lambert works as a vinyl siding telemarketer in Oak Brook, Illinois. On the surface, Gary would seem to be a mild-mannered Everyman. But unbeknownst to his co-workers, Gary is convinced that his boss is an evil monster who preys on his own staff, turning them into the undead. One morning, Skinner summons Mulder and Scully to his office. He explains that the company Gary works for, VinylRight, received an anonymous, audio-taped manifesto, on which a man threatens to commit a violent act. As a result, the company wishes to have the threat investigated. Mulder is puzzled as to why Skinner is sending he and Scully to investigate. Skinner then explains that the maker of the tape spoke of a monster threatening employees. Somewhat irked, Mulder tells Scully he will handle the case alone, labeling himself Monster Boy. When Mulder arrives at the company, he is greeted by office manager Greg Pincus, who plays him the taped message. Mulder's interest is piqued by a reference to hiding in the light. He telephones Scully and asks her to investigate previous X-Files cases for such a phrase. Meanwhile, Gary grows concerned when a fellow employee, Nancy Aaronson, is summoned to Greg's office. When Nancy returns to her cubicle, Gary notices that, from his point of view, she appears to be dead. Scully telephones Mulder when she finishes researching the files. It turns out that the phrase hiding in the light was also used by a deacon at a Lakeland, Florida church. The deacon was convinced that one of his parishioners was an evil presence. One Sunday, he entered the church for mass and opened fire on his flock. When Mulder returns to VinylRight, he finds a sea of deserted cubicles. Nancy's head peeks out from behind a wall and warns Mulder to take cover. Before he has time to react, Gary approaches--armed with an AK-47. Mulder slowly raises his hands into the air. Scully flies to Illinois and joins FBI and SWAT team members who have surrounded the building. Inside, Gary uses his co-workers to form a human barricade. A SWAT team commander overrules Scully and dials Mulder's cell phone. Gary opens Mulder's jacket and notices his firearm within. Gary kicks Mulder in the head, knocking him to the ground. A hostage then charges Gary, but he swivels and opens fire, killing the man. Gary then speaks with an FBI agent, and demands that a television crew be sent into the building so he can broadcast his fears to the public. Using a closed-circuit system, the FBI fools Gary into thinking his image is being broadcast throughout the city. Addressing the camera, Gary raises his gun and points it at Greg. He instructs everyone to look at Greg to look at it. Mulder glances over his shoulder and sees a monster where Pincus was standing. Suddenly, an Armored Personnel Carrier bursts through a wall. A SWAT team member opens fire, striking Gary. Mulder cannot dismiss what he saw inside the office complex. After performing additional research, Mulder determines that five previous X-Files cases involve monster that went unnoticed by all except the claimant. Scully reacts with incredulity when Mulder suggests that Gary was not insane, but actually saw the creature he described. Scully attributes Mulder's behavior to folie a deux, a madness shared by people under tense conditions. Meanwhile, Mulder follows Greg Pincus to the home of Gretchen Starns, one of his employees. As Mulder stands outside of the house, and gazes through a window, he sees the monster advance behind Gretchen, its insect-like mouth aiming for the back of her neck. The woman suddenly screams, prompting Mulder to shatter the window glass. The monster defies gravity by crawling over the house. Gretchen lodges a complaint with the FBI, accusing Mulder of breaking into her home. During a meeting with Skinner, Mulder sees Pincus, in the form of the monster, advancing. Mulder draws his firearm, but Skinner, believing Mulder has lost his mind, gains the upper hand. Mulder is then admitted to a mental institution. Later, at Mulder's prompting, Scully examines the back of the dead hostage's neck. There she discovers tiny puncture marks. At the hospital, a restrained Mulder listens in horror as the monster approaches the window to his room. Mulder calls for the nurse only to realize that she is one of the monster's minions. Scully visits the hospital and experiences a vision of the nurse as one of the living dead. She races to Mulder's room, where she discovers the creature crawling on the ceiling. She opens fire, but the creature escapes. Later, Scully meets with Skinner. She voices her belief that Mulder is of sound mind. She notes that an unidentified toxin was found in the dead hostage, and notes that Pincus has disappeared, along with the nurse and several VinylRight employees. After recovering from his ordeal, Mulder returns to work. Scully informs him she told Skinner the truth: the incident can only be explained as a folie a deux. In another VinylRight office, a man starts seeing the monster as well, acting like Gary Lambert did. He is heard whispering "It's here" to someone on the phone indicating he sees it, and the screen fades to black. 
<EOS>
Inside a sports arena, two chess masters, a Russian man and an odd-looking 12-year-old boy named Gibson Praise, engage in a battle of the minds as an audience sits in reverential silence. High above the crowd, on a catwalk overhanging the arena, a sniper aims his rifle towards the back of the child's head. As the gunman slowly squeezes the trigger, the little boy announces "checkmate," and slides back in his chair. A gunshot rings out and the Russian falls to the floor, dead. Meanwhile, two armed, masked figures close in on the cabin where the Cigarette-Smoking Man has holed up. A sensor alerts the Cigarette-Smoking Man to their presence, and he manages to kill one of them before making his escape into the woods. The second masked gunman gets the drop on his prey and reveals himself as Alex Krycek. Skinner briefs Mulder on the death of the Russian chess player. It turns out that the sniper is a former member of the National Security Agency. The case was assigned to Agent Spender, who specified that Mulder be excluded from the investigation. Despite this, Mulder and Skinner crash Spender's briefing. While viewing videotape of the assassination, Mulder reaches the conclusion that the shooter's target was Gibson--not the Russian--as the boy reacted in an almost precognitive fashion moments before the shot rang out. Spender disagrees with the theory. Agent Diana Fowley, an attractive woman in her thirties, opines that Mulder is correct. Spender rewinds the tape and forms the same conclusion. The Cigarette-Smoking Man meets with the Syndicate Elders. Labeling Gibson a threat, they ask for the Cigarette-Smoking Man's help in orchestrating his elimination. Mulder, Scully and Diana Fowley visit Gibson inside a psychiatric hospital. The boy declines Mulder's invitation to match wits against a cheap chess computer, giving credence to Mulder's suspicion that the boy is not a chess master, but a mind reader. Tests on the child's brain reveal that Gibson is, indeed, clairvoyant. Later, Mulder visits the shooter in his cell. He offers him immunity from prosecution in exchange for his cooperation. Scully cannot help but notice chemistry between Mulder and Fowley. She pays the Lone Gunman an unexpected visit. She gives them data from the tests performed on Gibson, and asks that it be analyzed. Scully also asks for information on Diana Fowley. The three men confirm that she and Mulder were an item back when Mulder graduated from the Academy and first discovered the existence of the X-Files. Scully returns to the psychiatric hospital intending to show Mulder the data she has accumulated. But when she approaches the observation room, she notices Mulder and Diana inside and Diana holding Mulder's hand. Scully, a confusion of emotions, both personal and professional, leaves the hospital. When Mulder enters the hospital's parking garage to retrieve his car, he notices Spender talking to the Cigarette-Smoking Man. Mulder pushes Spender hard in the chest, demanding to know his business. Spender explains that he does not know the identity of the mysterious man. He then reveals that the shooter wishes to speak with Mulder. Scully meets with Skinner and Mulder to reveal the results of the psychiatric tests on Gibson. It turns out that an area of the child's brain, dubbed the God Module by neurophysicists, exhibits extraordinary activity. Mulder believes the child's life is in danger because of his gift, as it might be the key to solving the unexplained phenomena contained within the X-Files. He also suspects that the assassin holds the key to the vast conspiracy working against him. Skinner points out that the very existence of the X-Files would be put at risk if he asks the Attorney General to grant immunity to the assassin. Later, Mulder approaches the shooter and asks him for information he can corroborate. He reveals that Gibson is a missing link--genetic proof of man's relationship to an alien race. The Cigarette-Smoking Man puts his plan in motion. The assassin is murdered inside his cell. Shortly thereafter, a bullet strikes Fowley as she stands watch over Gibson. The Cigarette-Smoking Man delivers the child to the Well-Manicured Man and Krycek. When Mulder sees Spender at the Bureau, he pushes him into a wall. He angrily accuses him of orchestrating Gibson's disappearance in conjunction with the Cigarette Smoking Man. Other agents restrain Mulder, dragging him away. Spender responds by stating that Mulder's days are numbered. Later, Scully informs her partner there is talk of shutting down the X-Files. That night, the Cigarette-Smoking Man sneaks into Mulder's office and steals a file on Samantha Mulder. He then addresses Spender face-to-face. He informs him that he is his father. Suddenly, a fire alarm sounds and agents make their way into the hallway. The Cigarette-Smoking Man disappears into the crowd. Later, Mulder inspects the damage to his office, where the cabinet containing the X-Files is a melted skeleton. Scully places her arms around her partner, offering support. 
<EOS>
A group of workers are carpooling in a Roush Technologies company van in Phoenix, Arizona. Sandy, a man in the vehicle, is obviously not feeling well. The men proceed to drop him off at his house. He enters and turns the thermostat up as high as possible. He appears to be freezing cold and looks at his hand to see that it is becoming translucent. His coworker comes to pick him up the following morning, but he doesn't answer the door. The windows are condensated and the house is very humid. His friend enters the house and finds Sandy on the couch. His stomach appears to have burst open. The man is then viciously attacked by a grotesque, long-clawed alien. He attempts to open the door but is dragged back inside and clawed to death. After the review, Scully tells Mulder that the virus is not what he thinks it is, stating that the virus is very much of this world. Meanwhile, Assistant Director Skinner tells Mulder that his request to be reassigned to the X-files has been denied. Skinner says that he might be able to help Mulder obtain proof of what he is alleging and hands him a folder that contains a disturbing picture of the man who was killed in Arizona. In a surgical operation room, the CSM supervises a procedure on Gibson Praise's brain but tells the medical staff to conclude the operation because Gibson's expertise is required. At the crime scene in Arizona, Mulder describes to Scully what happened to the man. He says that the first man was killed hours before the second. He then says that the same thing happened to a man he had seen in Antarctica. Mulder also finds what appears to be a fingernail embedded in a claw mark on one of the walls. The CSM pulls up to the house with Gibson, who tells him that the creature is no longer in the house. A man named Homer is sleeping at his work station at the Rolling Hills Nuclear Power Plant, outside Phoenix. A co-worker wakes him up and reminds him that he should be doing his routine systems check. While checking, the co-worker notices that the cooling system is overheating. Homer consequently goes into the plant, to investigate. The alien grabs and kills him. Scully nurses him back and she sees what they did to him. The incisions on his head were poorly sutured. He tells them that he got away from his captors and went to them for refuge. He has infections and a fever. Scully recommends that they take him to a hospital. Just as Scully and Mulder are driving Gibson to the hospital, Agent Diana Fowley arrives and stops them, but she doesn't see Gibson. She tells Mulder that she is on his side but has to pretend that she isn’t. Mulder reluctantly trusts her and they go to the power plant. Scully takes Gibson to the hospital. Fowley tells Mulder what happened. She suggests that the alien entity is still developing and that is why it went to the power plant, to get heat. They enter the power plant and look around. Near the place where Homer was killed, Mulder finds what appears to be the skin of an alien as if it had molted. Mulder gets a call from Scully and she tells him that Gibson has been infected with the virus. As she is calling Mulder, a Syndicate operative dressed as a hospital worker kidnaps Gibson from the hospital and takes him to the power plant, so he can find the alien. Mulder witnesses this happening through a locked door with a window. Just as this happens, the man is attacked by the alien. After killing the man, the alien looks at Gibson. Mulder calls out to Gibson, but can’t get to him. Agent Fowley returns and draws her gun on Mulder as power plant security officers arrive. Back at FBI Headquarters in Washington, Mulder and Scully are told that, from now on, they are to have nothing to do with the X-files and will report to AD Alvin Kersh. In Mulder's old office, the CSM is talking to Spender and tells him that he did well. Spender says that there is no way that Mulder will give up. The CSM says that there are solutions but that they can’t use them, in this scenario. The CSM says that you can kill a man but you can’t kill what he stands for, unless you break his spirit first. Gibson is hiding back in the plant and is looking over a pool of water with cooling rods. In the water, the alien is molting again. When it completes its molt, it takes the shape of the traditional Grey Alien. 
<EOS>
The agents get wind of this bizarre car chase as they're doing scut work in Idaho. Mulder coerces Scully into taking a detour by Elko, Nevada on a hunch that this may be an X-File. Once there, however, Mulder manages to get himself kidnapped by Crump, who has escaped from the police. Mulder realizes that Crump is in a considerable amount of pain and that the only way to ease the pain is to drive west. Scully investigates the Crumps home and discovers that an antenna array emitting ELF waves stretches beneath their property. She deduces that an abnormal surge in these waves somehow caused a rising pressure in the inner ear of the nearby inhabitants. Westward motion seems to be the only thing to help the ease the pain of the increasing pressure. 
<EOS>
Floating in the sea is the wreckage of a small sailing vessel. Amongst the wood and debris is Fox Mulder, floating face down. After knocking out a Nazi soldier bearing an uncanny resemblance to Jeffrey Spender, and taking his uniform, Mulder and Scully end up on the deck of the ship, as the British are still fighting the Nazis. Mulder tells Scully that she has to get the ship out of the rift in space by turning around and heading back into the Triangle. Mulder grabs Scully and kisses her, in case they never meet again. After she punches him in the face, he jumps overboard, and Scully throws a lifesaver after him. Mulder is found floating among the wreckage of the small vessel, and wakes up in the hospital in the present day. Scully, the Lone Gunmen and Skinner are there. Scully explains Mulder did something incredibly stupid, looking for a ship in the Bermuda Triangle. When Mulder informs Scully and Skinner that they were there with the Nazis, everyone thinks that he's delirious, but he insists that Scully saved the world and that she believed him. Scully explains the Queen Anne was nothing more than a ghost ship, and his boat was smashed into a million pieces. As she's leaving the room, Mulder calls her back and tells her, "I love you." Scully rolls her eyes and leaves the room. Mulder gingerly touches his black eye, presumably given to him by the 1939 Scully after he kissed her. 
<EOS>
On Highway 375 in rural Nevada at 11:17 PM, Mulder and Scully approach their destination, Area 51. Mulder received a tip from a source who actually works in Area 51 though Scully questions the likelihood of it and wonders if they shouldn’t pursue the normal lives everyone else leads. As they drive on the highway, they are surrounded by jeeps loaded with soldiers and a smoking man in a black suit, Morris Fletcher. They show the man their IDs to the man and Scully flippantly tells him they are there to see flying saucers. "Flying saucers. I got a top secret for you: There’s no such thing as flying saucers." Mulder calls after the departing Scully and Fletcher and the soldiers ask if they should open fire. Mulder stops them and orders them to return to base. He enters the jeep awaiting him and finds two other Men in Black, Howard Grodin and Jeff Smoodge. Grodin is confused as to why Fletcher let them go while Smoodge figures he just knew they couldn’t disappear two FBI agents. Smoodge assumes they can get the agents’ superiors to reign them in; Mulder agrees, eager to pretend to be Fletcher. The Men in Black return to Area 51 and Mulder enters Fletcher’s office to find an array of pictures of Fletcher with various important world leaders like Saddam Hussein, the Reagans, &amp; others. He tries to call Scully who is arriving at a gas station with an oddly acting Mulder. Fletcher ignores the phone and asks Scully to pick him up a pack of cigarettes. Jeff Smoodge tells Mulder that someone called the FBI from the phone in General Wegman’s office, suggesting an arrogant leak who dared use their boss’s phone. After an angry phone call from Joanne Fletcher, Mulder is returned home by Smoodge. He decides to sleep downstairs in an easy chair and watch porn. Deputy Director Alvin Kersh calls Fletcher and Scully into his office to reproach them for their intrusion onto a military base. Fletcher apologizes to Kersh and says it will never happen again while a stunned Scully watches him. A baffled Scully questions him about his willingness to turn over a source to Kersh, Fletcher excuses himself for a moment to hit on Kersh’s assistant, and when he returns to Scully who accuses him of acting bizarre, he says merely: He pats her on the butt as he passes by. General Wegman is introduced to Captain Robert McDonough and Mrs. Lana Chee. While McDonough rocks back and forth praying in Hopi, Lana Chee, the 75 year old Hopi woman, salutes the general and reports as to what happened to the ship. Mulder calls Scully while Fletcher plays a golf game on his computer. She clearly doesn’t believe the man calling is Mulder and has Fletcher pick up and listen in on the conversation. He asks to be picked up ASAP. Fletcher decides they should immediately report this incident. Mulder buys sunflower seeds from an attendant at a gas station and leaves. The man watches a tremor shake the place as things start falling off the shelves and all the glass shatters. Three jeeps approach Mulder as he is driving away from the gas station. The last jeep stops and Grodin and Smoodge tell him to turn around and follow them. Returning to the gas station, Mulder finds it in ruins. The military sets up a perimeter and the other Men in Black are confused as Mulder rushes into the place looking for the attendant. They find him phased into the floor and Mulder demands that they help the man. The others disagree and believe they should leave before whatever phenomenon happened repeats or returns. The soldier cuts the conversation short by executing the attendant. They leave and torch the place. Smoodge reminds Mulder that there was nothing they could have done. Scully goes to Mulder’s apartment to find Kersh’s assistant just leaving. Scully tells Fletcher that they traced the phone call to a pay phone near Groom Lake and she suspects it is Mulder’s source though unsure why they would try and impersonate Mulder. Fletcher is indifferent to this news and Scully yells at him. His behavior is far too strange and his lack of concern for the X-Files is completely out of character. "Well, yeah, but I mean, how do we reverse it? How do we get the lizard out of the rock?" "Who says we can?" Scully drives through the desert towards Groom Lake and stops at the burned out gas station, finding a penny and a dime merged like other space time distortion artifacts that have been found. Joanne Fletcher confronts Mulder about their marital problems but she misunderstands Mulder as having erectile problems as he tries to defend himself. His claim that Scully doesn’t even sound like a woman’s name is broken when Joanne Fletcher answers the door to find Dana Scully looking for Morris Fletcher. As Joanne Fletcher roars insults at Mulder and throws Fletcher’s things out of the house, Mulder tries to convince Scully that he is Mulder. She remains her usual skeptical self, believing any information he describes could be obtained other ways. "Even that yogurt thing?" Mulder tells her that he will bring proof of the defect of the UFO and the resultant problems tonight. Fletcher watches Mulder and calls into Howard Grodin and informs on himself so Mulder will be captured by the Men in Black. Searching through the laboratory, Mulder finds the flight recorder and sneaks out with it in a paper bag as a concealed Grodin watches. Scully receives a phone call from Kersh who demands that she follow his instructions exactly or she’s gone from the FBI. Her partner Mulder already informed Kersh of what is going on. "Scully, he’s not me!"
<EOS>
Morris Fletcher narrates Mulder’s life. How he lost his sister. How he worked hard and became a great FBI agent. How his obsession over his lost sister led him to piss away his brilliant career by looking into the X-Files for answers to her disappearance. Above all though, how Fletcher is going to turn that all around now that he has taken over Mulder’s life. As Fletcher’s body with Mulder’s mind is dragged away by the soldiers, Scully begins to question if it isn’t Mulder in Fletcher’s body somehow. Fletcher in Mulder’s body steps up to Scully and apologizes for telling Kersh but she feigns acceptance of it. "I’ve been telling you for years you should play more by the book, haven’t I?" Mulder is placed in the brig and encounters the pilot in Lana Chee’s body. Scully informs Fletcher that she has received a two week suspension. He sets up a dinner date with her at Mulder’s apartment. Fletcher prepares for the dinner he is making for Scully only to find out that Mulder’s bedroom is filled with junk. "This guy hasn’t been laid in ten years." Mulder returns home to find all Fletcher’s stuff out on the lawn, two angry children leaving in the mini-van, and a car with two Men in Black watching the house. He goes inside and tells Joanne Fletcher that he is Agent Fox Mulder but she figures it must be a mid-life crisis of some sort, despite him pointing out the car spying on the house. Fletcher gives Scully a tour of the new improved apartment, including the bedroom. He gets her to sit down next to him on the four poster bed, which turns out to be a waterbed. With a full length mirror above it. Fletcher returns with his champagne and two glasses. Scully asks him if he knows what would be really fun while holding out handcuffs. Fletcher buys her act and handcuffs himself to a chest of drawers. Turning he finds himself face to face with Scully’s sidearm. She announces that he IS Morris Fletcher and demands to know any way to restore Mulder to his body. Mulder’s source calls again and she forces Fletcher to take the call and set up a meeting. Mulder asks his wife if there’s a place they can go with a lot of people there in tiny Rachel, Nevada. Mulder slips out and talks with Scully in the car. Joanne Fletcher sees him there and cries at the sight of Morris Fletcher with another woman. General Wegman exits and orders Smoodge and the others to follow him. They detain Mulder who claims to only have beer in the paper bag; this is true. Smoodge and the others have been misdirected from Fletcher who leaves with Scully thanks to the general’s aid. Mulder meets with General Wegman about the craft. Wegman believes that now that Fletcher knows who he is, when they restore things Fletcher will turn him in. Even if he didn’t, the other Men in Black would figure it out eventually. Mulder asks Wegman why he sabotaged the craft and learns that a curious Wegman really wanted to know the truth himself. He hoped that Mulder could explain to him if aliens actually exist; apparently the military is just given the crafts, they have no idea where they are from or how they work. Two guys and a girl arrive at some mailbox which is supposed to be a reference point for a good place to watch for UFOs. While one of the guys continues spouting about UFOs, the other guy and the girl make out. A ripple speeds across the land. The guy and the girl horrifically merge into one phased being. Mulder and Scully meet and discuss the results of the Lone Gunmen’s deciphering of the data. She tells Mulder that the Gunmen don’t think the event can be undone. Upon learning about Scully losing her job at the bureau, he tries to cheer her up. She looks at him trapped in Morris Fletcher’s body and says: "I’d kiss you if you weren’t so damn ugly." The man who saw his friends phase together runs into the road and stops the incoming vehicle. Howard Grodin goes with him to see the phased couple. When they arrive, they find them completely unharmed and acting as if nothing had happened. Grodin believes the man about something having been wrong before. Scully driving with the noxious Fletcher orders him to stop at the gas station they are passing by. The burned out gas station is undamaged and the attendant is alive again, oblivious to his death and the destruction of the place. Grodin gathers up Lana Chee and the pilot; he seems to have figured it all out. The land shimmers as the shockwave passes through them. It reverses the events of the last several days. Mulder and Fletcher are restored as they return to the moment when Fletcher’s troops pulled them over on that lonely highway. This time no ship passes overhead and the pair of FBI agents leave uneventfully. Scully calls Mulder and explains that they managed to go on their trip to Nevada without Kersh finding out. She studies the penny merged with a dime in her desk drawer. He returns to his apartment, and seeing in disbelief that the cleaned up apartment is his, he checks the door to see 42 and that it is, in fact, his apartment. 
<EOS>
Mulder calls Scully on Christmas Eve to check out a mansion which Scully grudgingly obliges to do. Mulder tells Scully that they are there for a stake out. Through constant questioning, Scully finds out that Mulder is here, not on FBI matters, but to investigate ghost activity. He tells Scully that during Christmas of 1917, a young couple was faced with death from both war and an epidemic. The couple agreed to a lover's pact, one killing the other and the remaining one committing suicide. He explains that they couldn't stand the thought of being alone after the other died and during the afterlife; they wanted to experience it all together. That was 81 years ago. Now, Mulder explains, they want to make couples who venture into their mansion have the same fate. Scully is hesitant and not interested in exploring the house because it's Christmas Eve and she has wrapping to do. Mulder then decides to go alone. Feeling guilty, Scully leaves his car and attempts to open her car door. However, she can't find her keys. She runs up to Mulder to ask him to give them back to her. He insists he doesn't have them. Strange things happen: The door to the mansion slams shut, preventing them from leaving, there are creaks heard in the ceiling from the upper floor, there are gusts of wind, indicating that a door or window is open, a shadow in the form of an old woman in a nightgown, and a clock which keeps perfect time starts dinging at exactly midnight. They fearfully and hesitantly decide to investigate the floor above them. Scully call their fear an irrational fear that all humans face. She explains that people who go in haunted houses and try to find ghosts are not afraid of death, but rather, afraid of life. Death is the only thing we as humans know will happen. It is inevitable, inescapable. So going after ghosts says more about the living than it does about the dead. Our whole life has been tainted and influenced by scary movies. We magnify every little detail, like a creak or howl or gust of wind. They're cliches that have been programmed into our brain, thereby making us scared of something that won't and can't happen. Mulder isn't listening to Scully's analytical view of Christmas; instead, he's trying knobs to see which will open. One finally does. Scully marches bravely into the room to discover a massive library room full of book shelves, a lit fireplace, and lights on. "Have you ever considered that someone may actually be living here?" asks Scully. Mulder and Scully investigate the room, along with its eccentric features. The floor boards start shaking, and upon cracking open a few boards, they discover two corpses beneath the floor. The bodies have the same clothes and hairstyles as Mulder and Scully along with two gunshot wounds. It is made to look like a lover's pact. This only frightens them. They decide to go search other rooms, only to find that every door they walk through is the same library room they first entered into. They then decide to split up, hoping to figure out a way out of the room, since the staircase mysteriously disappeared during a time of intense lightning. Mulder realizes that the man is a ghost because every door he tries to walk through is suddenly transformed into a wall of bricks. Scully is then confronted by the two ghosts. She doesn't believe they're ghosts, despite what Mulder says. She tells them to put their hands up. They do, only to reveal their wounds. Maurice has a hole in his head, which was covered by his hat. And Lyda has a hole in her stomach. Scully then passes out, realizing Mulder was right. They did a lover's pact. Mulder and Scully try their hardest to find each other by pounding on doors and yelling. However, the ghosts are turning them against each other. Scully is told that Mulder will kill her, just like her future self seen in the floorboards. She is told that Mulder is lonely and that he can't go on. Scully at first doesn't want to believe this, but she can't help but be hesitant when Mulder pounds on a nearby door to let him in. Scully does let Mulder in, only to find that once he is inside the room, he pulls out his firearm and starts shooting at her. Mulder starts behaving bizarrely. He cries out that there's no way out and that they should just die there. One of the bullets hits Scully in the stomach. She lies down on the floor, writhing in pain. "Merry Christmas Scully and a happy new year," said Mulder as he towers above Scully. He then points his weapon at his head. Scully is completely confused and beginning to lose consciousness. Shifting perspective, we see that Lyda is actually the one carrying out these actions and through her ghostly ability to create apparitions is causing Scully to see Mulder instead. Maurice grabs Lyda so that she won't pull the trigger. Mulder comes upon a bleeding Scully lying on the floor. When he leans over her to try and help her, she shoots Mulder in the stomach as well, blood gushing out of his hands as he tries to stop the bleeding. We see that Lyda is pretending to be Scully to manipulate Mulder. She has a laugh as Mulder lies helpless. While they both lie on the floor covered in blood, they hear Christmas music being played. They both stumble down the stairs in hopes of just getting outside to die. Mulder and Scully meet up by the door, both crawling on the floor, covered in massive amounts of blood trying to escape the mansion. Scully claims he shot her first, while Mulder claims she shot him first. Mulder realizes that their stories don't add up. Upon realizing that, Mulder stands up to find that the blood drenched in his white shirt isn't his. He tells Scully to stand up, for she hadn't actually been shot either. It was a trick. She slowly stands up and realizes she isn't wounded either. Opening the door to the outside, they examine themselves to find their clothes completely clean and bloodless, and then run out for their cars to get away as fast as possible. Late at night, Scully knocks on Mulder's door. He opens it, surprised that she is there and not wrapping presents with her family. She wonders whether anything they experienced actually happened that night. Mulder says he doesn't believe so. As it snows outside, a Christmas song plays, and they open their gifts. 
<EOS>
Jeffrey Spender receives and discards an x-file from a sheriff from Virginia. The x-file involves a woman who, after finding out her unborn child had demon-like abnormalities, dreamt her baby was taken from her. When the woman woke up she had miscarried. Mulder picks up the x-file and, after visiting the couple, suspects the husband of committing a 'demon fetus harvest'. While the police are investigating the case, in particular the possibility of illegal abortion, they find the remains of the baby in the garden furnace. The husband quickly confesses to destroying the evidence after he found his wife had aborted in a trance like state the night they lost their baby. The wife takes the blame for the abortion and goes to jail. Meanwhile the husband maintains an affair with another pregnant 'wife'. Mulder puts the pieces together and reaches the conclusion that the husband is a demon trying to have a normal baby and terminating pregnancies when the fetus exhibits demon-like abnormalities. The 'other wife' experiences a similar dream except she recognizes the dream demon as her husband. Nevertheless, she loses her baby and tracks down Mulder and Scully. Mulder and Scully seek out the demon and caught him digging something. They have a short conversation before he is shot by the original sheriff. At the end of the episode, Mulder and Scully discover the remains of normal babies in this 'other wife's' yard. Upon seeing the evidence, Mulder figured out that this wife is, in fact, another demon who is unable to have a baby demon spawn unless another male demon impregnates her. And all she ever wanted was a baby demon spawn. That she is a demon herself is the reason why she could recognize her husband as a demon, and was able to stop him from extracting her baby. It becomes apparent that 'losing her baby' didn't really happen and was, in fact, just a trick to frame her demon husband. The episode ends showing her driving away with a baby demon, whose seed came from her demon husband. Her eyes flashed with red gleam and vertical pupils before returning back to normal. Then screen turns black. 
<EOS>
On Valentine's Day in Kroner, Kansas, Sheila Fontaine and Daryl Mootz get into an argument. Fontaine had put their engagement news in the paper, but Mootz had wanted to keep it a secret for as long as the drought makes business poor. After the argument, Mootz goes for a drunken drive but crashes after heart-shaped hailstones wreck his car. Six months later, Mulder and Scully arrive in Kroner by request of the mayor. For several months a terrible drought has plagued the region. However, Mootz, now styling himself as The Rain King, seems to have the power to control the weather. For a hefty sum, he is able to make it rain. Mulder and Scully obtain a client list and head to the local television station to talk to the weatherman, Holman Hardt. Hardt admits that while Mootz's talents are odd, he appears to truly have the power to control the weather. Mulder and Scully, both skeptical, attend one of Mootz's rituals. Despite their preconceived notions, Mulder and Scully witness Mootz bring rain to a dry farm. Mulder and Scully check into a motel, where a cow crashes through the roof of Mulder's room. After the incident, a tearful Sheila confesses that the cow might have been her fault. She admits that she's experienced a strange history of weather-related phenomena, and believes that she can unconsciously control the weather. Mulder assures her otherwise. During the conversation, Hardt over-hears that Mootz was drunk the night of the accident, and is relieved. Immediately, Mootz's rain powers seem to disappear. It is revealed that Holman Hardt is actually the one controlling the weather. All of the bizarre weather was the side-effect of his long-silent love for Sheila. He felt guilty that his weather-related problem caused Mootz to crash his car, so he would cause it to rain for Mootz. Once he realized Mootz had been drunk the night of the accident, however, he stopped. Unfortunately, Mulder begins to unintentionally attract Sheila, resulting in a massive thunderstorm that materializes due to the meteorologist's emotions. At the town's high school reunion, however, Hardt admits his love for Sheila, who accepts him. The storm stops, and Hardt and Sheila live happily ever after. 
<EOS>
Assistant Director Skinner is unwell and horribly discolored in hospital. Twenty-four hours earlier, Skinner loses a boxing match after experiencing a dizzy spell. He is discharged from the hospital but Mulder and Scully witness a bruise on his ribs growing. After trawling through security footage from the entrance to the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building, Mulder and Scully recognize a physicist who brushed past Skinner that same morning. Mulder and Skinner travel to the physicist's house but find he is being held hostage. Mulder apprehends one of the kidnappers, Tunisian Man. He doesn't speak English but Mulder does a background check on him. The background check leads Mulder to Senator Matheson, which results in a dead end. Scully discovers Skinner's blood sample and, after checking, she finds that Skinner's blood contains multiplying carbon. Meanwhile, Skinner ends up in hospital following a gunfight in the FBI parking garage. Mulder and Scully reunite at the hospital, where Mulder tells Scully that Skinner was investigating a health funding bill. The physicist dies from the same carbon blood condition that Skinner is sick from. Skinner remembers having seen, on numerous occasions, a bearded man who showed up suspiciously and is actually running the scheme. He saves Skinner and sacrifices one of his own men. The case is closed and Skinner is, once again, mean to the agents, ordering them to report exclusively to Kersh. The bearded man was actually Krycek, who continues to control the potentially debilitating nanotechnology in Skinner's system. 
<EOS>
In New York City, a man with a camera follows a woman from an elevator through a corridor to another elevator, where all the people appear to be gray. He gets off on a floor before the woman's and runs down the stairs. Lights flicker and the elevator cable snaps. As the man reaches the basement, the cab crashes and its door spills open to reveal the woman's wrist, covered with blood. The man begins to snap photos. In D.C., Mulder and Scully are working on background checks when A.D. Kersh calls Scully into his office. Agent Peyton Ritter has come from New York with a report on a police photographer whose film reveals in several cases that he took photos of a death scene before summoned by the police, then returned afterwards to take official pictures. The photographer is Alfred Fellig, the man who took the photos at the elevator. Kersh tells Scully that because she has expertise in forensic pathology, he believes there is hope for her career' Mulder is a lost cause. While Mulder snoops in the material on Scully's desk and points out that the case looks like an X-file - and that Kersh is obviously splitting them up - the photographer follows another man in New York, whom he witnesses having a heart attack. As the man falls, still breathing, he looks gray like the people in the elevator. Fellig takes photos of his death. Scully and Ritter discover that Fellig has worked as a police photographer since 1964, but are surprised to see that he has not aged at all in any of his official photos on his renewal applications. Elsewhere in the city, Fellig watches a criminal kill a youth for his sneakers. When he approaches to take photos of the dying young man, the murderer returns and repeatedly stabs Fellig, but he pulls the knife out of his back and walks away. Scully and Ritter learn of the crime and of the fact that Fellig's prints were on the knife, so he is brought in for questioning. Mulder calls Scully to tell her he has kept up with the case - he knows that Malcolm Wiggins is the name of the criminal who actually committed the stabbing - and asks whether she'll let him do a background check on Fellig. Ritter leaves Scully staking out Fellig's apartment, but Scully is unnerved when she sees Fellig shooting photos of her out his window and bangs on his door, demanding to know how he took photos at a crime scene before the police even knew the crime had been committed. He invites her to take a ride with him so he can show her. They drive all night while he looks for the shot. Finally he sees a prostitute who appears to be gray to him. Fellig tells Scully that the woman will be dead very soon, though he doesn't know how she will die. A pimp approaches the woman and begins to harass her. Scully leaps out of the car with her firearm, announcing that she's a police officer and handcuffing the pimp, but when the prostitute tries to flee, she is hit by a truck while Fellig takes photos of the event. Ritter is angry that Scully left the stakeout and confronted Fellig; the young agent is determined to press murder charges. Scully asks if his methods include fudging evidence, and her angry new partner warns her that he will tell Kersh if she screws up the conviction. Then Mulder calls to tell Scully that as far as he can tell, Fellig is 149 years old; he previously worked under the names Henry Strand and L.H. Rice, but the fingerprints are identical. Scully admits to Mulder that the case looks like an X-file, and he advises her to get to Fellig before he becomes someone else. Scully goes to warn Fellig that he is about to be charged for murder, which she isn't even sorry about because he profits off people's deaths. He scoffs at the notion that he should cry for them when he considers the dying to be lucky, and says, "I don't take those people. HE does." In his darkroom, Fellig shows Scully a photo of a dead woman with an odd fuzzy shape around her head, which the photographer claims is Death. When asked why he bothers to try to photograph Death, Fellig says that it's so he can look Death in the face and die. He claims to be as old as Mulder said he was, and says he cannot kill himself. Scully tells Fellig that she doesn't believe him, but he says that he knows she does - that's why she's there. When looking through a book of Fellig's old photographs, she sees the name Lewis Brady as the photographer. Withdrawing to another room, she calls D.C. and asks Mulder to check on the name. Overhearing, Fellig picks her pocket to steal her phone when she returns, continuing their conversation about how he can tell when people are going to die by how they appear to him. A while later, Mulder calls Ritter in search of Scully. Mulder says that Fellig is a murderer though he murdered under the name Lewis Brady, killing two people in a Connecticut hospital to try to catch up with Death. Since Scully's phone is turned off, Mulder asks Ritter to find her; the other agent is already on the way to Fellig's. Inside Fellig's darkroom, Scully points out that most people would like to live forever, but Fellig says that love doesn't last forever. When she asks about the science of his immortality, he says he was meant to die of yellow fever, but he refused to look Death in the face, so instead Death took the kind nurse who had taken care of him. Then he notices that Scully is gray, and says, "You're very lucky." Seeing the look on his face, Scully demands to know if he thinks she is about to die; when he turns on his camera, she demands that he turn it off, but he says Death is coming. A bright light suddenly shines into the darkroom. Fellig takes a photo just as Ritter enters and shoots. The bullet passes right through the camera and through Fellig into Scully, who collapses. 
<EOS>
At a rail yard in Arlington, Virginia, doctors perform an operation on an individual who bleeds green blood and instantly heals when cut by a laser scalpel. Another doctor, Eugene Openshaw, arrives and is greeted by the team, who tell him that his work is now a success. Openshaw seems stunned by the news and turns down an offer to celebrate with his group. As the doctors leave, they are attacked by faceless alien rebels and are incinerated. Openshaw is the last one to be set upon, and after setting him ablaze, one of the rebels studies the patient, who is revealed to be Cassandra Spender. Sitting in a dark office, Cigarette-Smoking Man explains how he and his fellow Syndicate members created a conspiracy to hide the truth about aliens and the planned colonization of Earth, as well as how they had an alliance with the aliens that would see them spared. He goes on to hint that the project has fallen apart, and that his son has betrayed him. In the X files office, Spender is visited by Skinner, who notes that a status report that Spender is writing is probably the only one he has made since taking up his position, and bluntly speculating that Spender's objective is not to make progress on the X files. Skinner goes on to tell Spender that his mother Cassandra has been found in Virginia, and that she is the only survivor of an arson attack. They immediately travel out to the site, and Spender finds Cassandra unharmed but dazed. She barely recognizes him, but when she does, she asks for Mulder, infuriating Spender. As he leaves, Skinner follows and recommends that if Spender wants to find the people who abducted Cassandra, he should use every resource at hand, including Mulder. Scully visits Mulder while he plays basketball at a D.C. gym, and they joke about Mulder's frustrating work load on basic duties at the FBI. Scully informs him that Spender wants to see him. Mulder finds Spender at Mulder's desk and quickly makes clear his frustrations with him. Spender explains that Cassandra has been found and that she is asking to see him. Mulder spurns the request, deducing that he is being tricked into a position of weakness. Cigarette-Smoking Man visits Openshaw, who is suffering from extreme third degree burns in a hospital. Openshaw reveals the work on Cassandra was a success and the project is complete. CSM reacts in shock. When Openshaw states that soon people will come to question him, CSM switches off his oxygen supply. As Openshaw calmly waits to die, he notes that nobody should live long enough to see their children, or their work, destroyed. At his desk, Mulder examines photos of the corpses from the train yard. He is visited by Scully, who asks what Spender wanted. Mulder tells her about Cassandra, but says he will not go to see her because he feels it will leave him open to attack from his enemies. Scully notices the photos Mulder is examining and notes the similarity of the burnings to those at Ruskin Dam and Skyland Mountain in 1998. She suggests he visit Cassandra in secret since she may hold the truth about the abductions and tests. Mulder and Scully break into the X files office in an attempt to find information on Spender's father. They find a file with minimal information on Cigarette-Smoking Man, which apparently shows that his name is C.G.B. Spender. They are interrupted by Skinner, who tells them to gather what they took and leave quickly. As the three leave, they are intercepted by Spender, who has them suspended. Spender meets his father at the Syndicate room and makes clear his frustration with having to hound Mulder constantly. CSM angrily tells him that he will follow his father's orders, and that Spender would have nothing if it weren't for him and his connections. Sickened by his son's impertinence, CSM spits that Spender pales to Fox Mulder. Scully visits Mulder at the gym, having conducted research into C.G.B. Spender. She notes that it is an alias and one of thousands on record. She shows him a photo that she has found of CSM and Bill Mulder. Spender meets CSM, who apologises for his earlier behavior. He says he is giving Spender a chance to prove himself, instructing him to visit Second Elder and kill him, as he in an imposter who has infiltrated the group. Although baffled, Spender takes a gimlet weapon proffered by CSM and gets into a car driven by Krycek to the house. He arrives and introduces himself to Second Elder, claiming that he has to speak with him about a decision made by the Syndicate in regards to the Rebels. When inside, Spender pretends to drop a letter, causing Second Elder to stoop down to take it. With the back of his neck exposed, Spender arms the gimlet but is quickly overpowered by Second Elder. As he is throttled, Spender tears off Second Elder's face, revealing his identity. Krycek appears behind the rebel and kills him with a gimlet of his own. Continuing his narration, CSM notes that with his son now turning traitor and his colleagues powerless against the rebel threat, he needs a new ally to help him. It is revealed that the person he is speaking with is Diana Fowley, who agrees to help him before walking out. Skinner goes to find Cassandra at the hospital but finds only an empty room and no guards. He is met by Spender, who demands to know where she is. Cassandra shows up at Mulder's apartment in hysterics, stating that she is the one and that if she is found and recovered by the Syndicate, it will all start. She begs Mulder to shoot her, and he raises his weapon as somebody begins banging on his door.
<EOS>
Cassandra Spender demands that agent Fox Mulder kill her. Before Mulder can do anything, the front door is smashed open by a group of people in anti-contaminant suits, including Diana Fowley. The intruders capture Dana Scully, Mulder, and Cassandra and bring them to a Centers for Disease Control facility at Fort Marlene. Fowley tells Mulder and Scully that agent Jeffrey Spender called her in because Cassandra Spender has contracted a contagious organism of unknown origin. Scully gets upset at Diana, but Mulder believes her explanation. Meanwhile, Alex Krycek reports on Cassandra's escape to the Syndicate, saying that the alien rebels want Cassandra kept alive. Regardless, the Syndicate decides to turn Cassandra over to the colonists and start colonization in order to save themselves. CSM tells Mulder the Syndicate agreed by majority vote, against Bill Mulder's objections, to align with the alien colonists in order to delay colonization. The colonists forced the Syndicate to give up members of their own families in exchange for the alien fetus. Because Bill Mulder was slow to cooperate, Samantha Mulder was taken later than the others. Using the fetus, the Syndicate worked on creating alien-human hybrids who could survive colonization. The Cigarette Smoking Man tells Mulder that colonization will begin once Cassandra is handed over and that Mulder will be able to see his sister again, providing him with an address to the hangar where the Syndicate members will be meeting the colonists. Jeffrey goes to Syndicate headquarters, finding only Krycek there. Krycek tells him that the Syndicate members are preparing to be given the hybrid genes--except for Spender's father, who has gone to retrieve Cassandra. Diana returns to her apartment, finding Mulder there, and the two head to the hangar at El Rico Air Force Base. Jeffrey arrives at the hospital, finding his mother gone. However, while at the hospital he finds Marita, who tells him how to get to El Rico Air Force Base. A Syndicate surgeon attempting to procure the alien fetus is killed by one of the alien rebels, who takes his form. Mulder contacts Scully and the two try but fail to stop the train transporting Cassandra to El Rico. Krycek finds the dead surgeon and the fetus missing and tells Jeffrey the rebels are going to win. The Syndicate and their families gather at El Rico Air Force Base. Shortly after the CSM and Diana Fowley arrive, a white light appears around the base. It is revealed to be the rebels, who kill the entire Syndicate while CSM and Diana Fowley escape. The next day Mulder, Scully, Walter Skinner, and Jeffrey report to Assistant Director Alvin Kersh on the deaths of the Syndicate. Jeffrey tells Kersh that Mulder and Scully could have prevented it. He resigns and recommends that they be reassigned to the X-Files. Heading to the X-Files office in the basement, Jeffrey finds CSM, who then shoots Jeffrey and leaves. 
<EOS>
Sara Shipley and her son, Evan, desperately try to flip the washing machine but fail to do so as tentacles ensnare them. Arriving there in Florida during a hurricane, Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully arrive at the home of retired FBI agent Arthur Dales, the first to look into the X-Files. He tells them about the Shipley family and how Sara Shipley called him in a panic after her husband was attacked by something in the bathroom with tentacles. Scully is dubious about this but believes that something has indeed happened to the Shipley family during this hurricane. Mulder and Scully go to the Shipley house and find the bathroom door barricaded shut, no sign of any people, and a cat hiding in the washing machine. They have a brief run-in with Deputy Greer who believes they are burglars until Mulder disarms the man and shows their FBI ID. They attempt to go to the airport but are trapped by the hurricane. Elsewhere at the Breakers Condominiums, Deputy Greer encounters the creature after finding a dead man covered in a slimy substance on a toilet. Arriving at the anti-government gun nut’s condo, Mulder attempts to get the man to come out and join them for his own protection. Mr. Vincent refuses but the attack by a creature in his apartment forces him outside. Mulder hypothesizes that this entity attacking them was driven here from the bottom of the sea by the hurricane. It was driven into the city’s water system and is now attacking people. Dougie the looter steals the deputy’s wedding ring and knocks over a container of Epsom salts into the tub where the unconscious Greer is soaking in water after Scully’s removal of some creatures from his neck wounds. While Angela Villareal relieves herself, she spots the creature in the tub with the deputy. Mulder suggests they use the deputy’s Prowler but then notices the looter, Dougie, has disappeared. Charging outside, he finds the vehicle missing along with the looter. Mulder gets attacked by the creature in the hall. When he returns with the welts all over his throat, George Vincent slams the door and takes them all hostage, leaving Mulder to die in the hallway. Angela goes into labor and Scully finds herself forced to deliver a baby. Water accumulates in the light fixture above them and the creature appears. It grabs George Vincent by the neck and Walter Suarez saves the man with a well placed gunshot. Scully told Walter to aim for the sprinklers, having realized that the freshwater kept the creature at bay like with the deputy until Epsom salt was added to the water. 
<EOS>
FBI special agent Fox Mulder, bleeding out from a gunshot wound while Scully tends to him. They are revealed to be hostages in a bank holdup, and Scully attempts to reason with their captor, only to have him reveal a bomb strapped to his chest. The police begin to storm the building, prompting the gunman to detonate the bomb, seemingly killing them all. Mulder then wakes, unharmed, to find that his water bed has sprung a leak, his alarm clock is broken, and he needs to pay his landlord for water damage. To do so, he is forced to go to the bank, instead of going to the meeting with his partner Dana Scully, Walter Skinner and various other FBI officials. When he arrives, the same gunman, named Bernard, arrives and nervously attempts to rob the bank, shooting Mulder in the process. The teller sets off the bank's silent alarm and police cars come rushing to the scene. Scully arrives and once again attempts to help her partner as he lies dying, but events go the same way - the police rush the building, Bernard detonates the bomb, and everybody dies. Suddenly, the action starts over. Mulder wakes to find that his water bed has sprung a leak, his alarm clock is broken, and he needs to pay his landlord for water damage. To the audience, time itself is stuck in a loop. Everyone is oblivious to the repetition of events except for one person, Pam, Bernard's girlfriend. Over multiple iterations of the events, Pam does everything in her power to save the agents, including trying to prevent them from entering the bank, trying to inform them of the time loop, and even begging Skinner not to let the police into the building. It is implied that she has lived these events many times, as she refers to having had Mulder ask her the same question over fifty times. There are subtle changes in the events, and Mulder and Scully's conversation is worded differently each time, but the results are always the same: Bernard detonates the bomb, usually after shooting Mulder, and they all die. The time loop continues ad nauseam, though each time Pam speaks to Mulder, he comes closer to being able to remember her. She is finally able to convince him that events are repeating themselves, and before he is killed by the blast, Mulder begins repeating he's got a bomb to himself, in an attempt to recall it the next time around. In the following iteration of the day Mulder finds himself repeating the phrase in the bank, and acting on his hunch, calls Scully and then confronts Bernard before he begins the holdup, changing events on a fundamental level. Scully, acting on Mulder's phone call, brings Pam into the Bank. Mulder and Pam convince Bernard to give up and walk out with Pam. The sirens of the approaching Police response become audible and Bernard becomes agitated and attempts to shoot Mulder, but Pam throws herself in front of Mulder as he fires. As she lies dying, she admits, "This never happened before." Bernard collapses to his knees, horrified by what he has done, and is peacefully arrested. The bomb blast averted, time continues as normal. In Mulder's bedroom, Mulder wakes up again then he finds that it is really the next day. 
<EOS>
Disgruntled homeowner Dave Kline arrives home to find his neighbor Win Shroeder has repainted his mailbox from desert sienna to desert sage to comply with homeowners association rules. His wife Nancy tells him to calm down and that rules are rules. However, in the mailbox was a package from an unknown person, containing a tacky windmill which Kline puts on the roof to annoy the neighbors. While in bed that night, Kline hears an intruder in the house. He goes to investigate while his wife stays in bed. A creature attacks Kline and eventually Nancy as well. After the Klines' disappearance without a trace from their planned residential community, Mulder and Scully go undercover as the new homeowners moving into the dead couple's house: Rob and Laura Petrie. Mulder is unhappy with the assignment, believing it is a waste of their time since they were just reinstated to the X-Files, and continuously makes jokes, accusing Scully of just wanting to play house. The members of the community immediately take an interest in the new couple, with everyone pitching in to make sure they are moved in before 6:00 p.m., and Win Shroeder nervously tucks away Mulder's basketball hoop into the garage, promising he could talk to the president of the homeowner's association and perhaps get special permission. After the move-in, Mulder and Scully begin searching the house, which has been scrubbed clean. They find what appears to be blood on a blade of the ceiling fan. When Big Mike, one of the neighbors, wants to let the Petries in on the consequences of breaking the community rules, the HOA president Gene Gogolak describes him as a weak link. That night, he finds his outdoor light burned out. Although he frantically replaces the light bulb, a monster attacks him as he shouts, "I fixed it! I fixed it!" The next day, Shroeder hoses Big Mike's blood from his porch, where he encounters Mulder and Scully. He asks the couple over for dinner, where Mulder and Scully probe the Shroeders for information on the community and Big Mike's whereabouts. Mulder continues to torment Scully by telling the Shroeders they met at a UFO conference, and Laura is a new-ager. Scully and Cami Shroeder take an after-dinner walk with the Shroeders' dog Scruffy, who runs off into a storm drain. While Scully looks for Scruffy, she finds Big Mike's necklace and a substance on Scruffy's face that looks like blood. The next day, Mulder sticks a pink flamingo in the yard, which promptly disappears without Mulder seeing who did it. Next, he messes with the mailbox and watches out the door to see who fixes it. After hours of watching, he finally has to use the restroom. When he comes back, the mailbox is repaired and a note inside says, "Be like the others before it gets dark." After dark, Mulder brings out his basketball hoop, and Shroeder runs over to frantically argue with Mulder to put it away. Meanwhile, something comes out of the grass at Mrs. Shroeder, who screams. Mulder chases it away, but they all notice their light has burned out. The basketball goal is put back in the garage by an unknown person, and the door closed. Scully returns home to hear a creaking upstairs, but Mulder doesn't answer. Mulder is still outside looking for the creature, and digs around in the yard. Scully searches the house, armed with a fireplace poker and nearly hits Mulder as he comes in downstairs. Mulder admits to Scully that this is an X-File after all. Shroeder confronts Gogolak, accusing him of sabotaging his light, the same thing he had him do to Big Mike. Instead he's told Rob Petrie is the real problem. Meanwhile, Mulder believes the creature moves through the yard, under the grass. Scully shares her lab results: the blood on the ceiling fan and on the dog isn't blood at all, but grime, as the neighborhood is built on top of an old landfill. Mulder believes the Klines were buried in their yard, so the next day he gets a bulldozer to dig up the front yard, telling the neighbors he's putting in a reflecting pool, which isn't against the community rules. They don't find the Klines, but they do find the tacky windmill that had been mysteriously delivered to the Klines before they died. The windmill bears a label from Gogolak's company. Mulder says they need to get an excavation team out there to dig deeper. Meanwhile, a creature stirs in the pit they've dug. Gogolak begs for help, knowing the creature is coming. Shroeder starts toward Gogolak, but his wife stops him, stating Gogolak gets what he deserves. Mulder, still digging Scully out of the closet, hears screams outside and rushes out of the house. He sees the creature attack Gogolak and, as he dies, the creature disintegrates into dirt. Scully comes outside too late to see the creature, the remnants of which are at Mulder's feet. The epilogue as narrated by Scully, stating the neighbors have now blamed Gogolak for the previous deaths, but claim ignorance as to how he did it or what killed him. The Falls at Arcadia remains one of the top planned communities in the US. 
<EOS>
On a freighter in the South Pacific two Chinese men are inspecting a crate with an animal inside. They open the box. When the ship reaches port the authorities find the two men in the crate and the animal missing. In Mulder's office, he explains to Scully the incident on the ship. He hands her the report that says the animal was a dog and that the crate was locked from the outside. Also that the men died of bite marks but Scully says that the only way to die from a dog bite is to bleed to death which these men did not. Bellflower, California: A man hears his dog barking in the backyard and lets it in the house. He runs the other dog off and returns to the house where he finds his dog dead. He then hears the growl of the other dog as it enters the room. The dog then shows its teeth and its eyes glow red before it attacks him. Mulder and Scully arrive at the port and talk to the owner of the dog Dr. Ian Detweiler, a cryptozoologist, who says the dog is an Asian breed thought to be extinct for 150 years. After investigating the other crime scene Mulder believes the dog has near human intelligence. Mulder and Scully arrive at the scene followed by Berquist. She finds a paw print with five toes, one more than regular canines. After words Scully questions her motives and believes she has a thing for Mulder. Detweiler arrives at a vet's office to get tranquilizers and leaves. The vet goes to the back and is attacked but he locks the dog in the back room. The dog catchers arrive and open fire on the wrong dog. The vet finishes patching up the hurt dog as Scully enters the building. She hears a scream and finds the vet has been attacked. After Scully leaves the hurt dog transforms back into the Asian breed. Scully questions Berquist about her being sick and her luring Mulder into this investigation. Mulder is searching the vet's office and discovers Detweiler had been there and calls the head wildlife officer. The officer gets in his truck and is attacked. Mulder visits him in the hospital and finds Detweiler already there. Mulder confronts him about being the killer and that he tried to tranquilize himself to stop it. Mulder visits Berquist and says he thinks she has not been honest with him. She said she knew when she saw him he was the animal. She says he will try to finish his kill. Mulder explains his theory to Scully but she is skeptical and doesn't believe Berquist. Berquist is locking the outside kennels at her house when she hears something in the woods. She goes upstairs and gets a tranquilizer gun. Mulder figures out she lied and she is the next kill not the officer. He calls her answering machine and tells her to lock the doors and that he is on his way.
<EOS>
Scully performs the autopsy on the body and concludes that the severing of the torso and severe burn marks could have possibly been caused by the weather conditions at the time and that a substantial amount of the torso is missing from the severing. Upon investigation at the crime scene, the guard that found the governor's body insists that it was Pinker but cannot explain how he did it. Mulder finds that a wall in the office has become extremely brittle and crumbles in his hand. Meanwhile, a couple is watching the TV when a report comes in about the tornado killing Pinker as it hit the prison. The woman is visibly disturbed by the news. Elsewhere, Pinker has broken into a clothes store and is apprehended by a security guard. After cuffing Pinker, the guard goes to report in the apprehension but finds that Pinker has somehow slipped out his cuffs and steals his car. Mulder and Scully arrive at the store and listen to the security guard explain how Pinker escaped. Mulder inspects the handcuffs used to restrain Pinker and finds they crumble into dust. Mulder and Scully arrive shortly thereafter and find the dead man on the floor. Mulder examines how the bullets have ended up in the wall and find they too, crumble into dust when compressed and muses that Pinker appears to have been affected by the weather causing him to be able to pass through walls unharmed and that lead bullets cannot penetrate his flesh. Scully argues that Pinker can not possibly defy the laws of chemistry. Clues including a photograph lead the agents to attempting to locate the lady who was upset over Pinker's death, June Gurwitch, but no records exist since 1996. June's sister, Jackie, warns June but is accosted by Pinket. Mulder and Scully discover her in her severely chemically altered house where she tells them that Pinker walked through her walls. Once Mulder arrives and stops June, she asks what he wanted. And Mulder deduced, "Maybe another chance". 
<EOS>
The man is then seen walking down metal stairs into a cluttered basement, and opens the door of an incinerator. Noticing a beating heart amidst the flames, the mysterious individual appears unphased by the vision and nonchalantly tosses in a paper bag. Scully encounters the stranger as she walks into an elevator. Both ride in silence up to the fourth floor, and we see Scully somewhat unsettled by the experience. The stranger and she exchange a final glance in the hallway before reaching their respective destinations. Scully knocks on Mulder's apartment door. Mulder and Scully briefly discuss the man; he is a new arrival to the apartment building, and a writer of undisclosed material. The conversation quickly shifts to a case the pair are working on, wherein the heart of a second victim had been removed with the absence of any significant physical evidence. Mulder believes the heart was removed with a 'misunderstood' technique known as psychic surgery. The stranger stands on a chair with his ear to an air vent, listening to the conversation. The night follows. Shirtless unnamed writer reclines on a bed, smoking and thinking. He mysteriously steals away in compelled haste. A Jeep is parked in the woods with two teenagers, Maggie and Kevin, in the middle of a lover's quarrel. A hooded figure can be seen through the rear window of the vehicle. Frustrated at Kevin and unknowing of the third party, Maggie takes off into the woods to be alone. The boyfriend gives chase, meeting an unfortunate and rather surprising end at the hands of our sinister assailant. Unnamed writer intensely transcribes the event on his typewriter. Mulder and Scully discuss the latest incident via telephone, speculating on motive and reasoning. An unmarked envelope is discovered by Scully in the office; contained inside is a pendant or charm. Voice-over exposition from the writer describes Scully's most intimate feelings and directives as she examines the unsolicited gift, and we see the stranger at his typewriter imprinting these thoughts into words on paper. These events are followed by a man who is stalking the agents and recording the case from their point of view in a fiction authors prose. Mulder and Scully meet in Autopsy to continue their discussion of the case. Scully relays her most recent encounter with the writer to Mulder, and the two now take additional interest in the author. "What kills you is his audacity.". Mulder meets the author, Phillip Padgett in the elevator of his apartment building who shows interest in the case and a hint of jealousy. Meanwhile Padgett continues his story with an erotic chapter detailing a sexual encounter between himself and Scully. Padgett woos Scully into his apartment with more character revelations. Mulder bursts in and arrests him based on accurate descriptions of the case murders in his novel. While Padgett is in custody, Maggie is murdered in the same fashion as Kevin. This establishes a de facto alibi for the author. Lacking concrete and connective evidence to the murders and hoping Padgett might lead them to his partner in crime, Mulder releases Padgett from custody. One last exposition from the author is given, explaining his final actions. The stranger lies stricken on the basement floor in front of the incinerator, his heart in hand, having given what he could not receive". 
<EOS>
Dales, a member of the Roswell Police Department, has been assigned to protect Exley, who is hesitant to the idea. That night, on the bus with Exley and his teammates, Dales sees Exley with the reflection of an alien in the window while he sleeps. The next day, during a game, Exley is hit by a pitch and starts uttering a strange language before coming back to his senses. Dales spots green ooze where Exley's bleeding head had been resting. Dales looks into Exley's hometown of Macon, Georgia, finding that a boy with that name vanished about five years ago. When Yankee scouts arrive at one of Exley's games, he purposely performs poorly and denies doing so when Dales approaches him about it later. That night at the hotel, Dales, hearing noises from Exley's hotel room, breaks in and sees Exley in his true form, that of an alien. Exley tells Dales that he is forbidden from intermingling with the human race but fell in love with the game of baseball, which is why he is here. Meanwhile, the Alien Bounty Hunter, who is in pursuit of Exley, takes his form and murders a scientist investigating the green ooze that Dales found. Dales warns Exley that he's now wanted, and Exley goes into hiding. The narrative returns to that of the start of the episode. The KKK leader is, in fact, the Alien Bounty Hunter, who tells Exley that he now has to die. The Bounty Hunter demands he revert to his true alien face before he dies but Exley refuses. The Bounty Hunter kills Exley just as Dales arrives. To both of their surprise, Exley bleeds human blood instead of alien. Back in the present, Mulder invites Scully go hit baseballs with him on an empty field. 
<EOS>
In a high stakes poker game, Byers of the Lone Gunmen) is thrown out after being exposed as a fraud at a government convention. Unbeknownst to the other Gunmen Byers is harboring an attraction to a long gone fellow conspirator and hoping to meet her at the convention. Scully and Langly are performing the autopsy when they are attacked by an agent who injects something into Scully who falls asleep. It turns out Susanne is pretending to have switched sides so she can slow progress on the governments harmful initiatives. She works alongside the Gunmen to set up her new husband who she discovers has been lying to her. Timmy, the late Jimmy's friend, asks Langly to attend a Dungeons &amp; Dragons game in Jimmy's honor but it is just a setup to inject Langly like Scully and Jimmy. Melvin Frohike finds an extremely flirtatious Dana Scully at the bar with a large cluster of men around her, including Morris Fletcher. He takes her back to the suite where Susanne Modeski recognizes Scully as suffering from the effects of a chemical weapon she developed known as analytic histamine. Its effect is to make the victim very vulnerable to suggestion; perfect for mind control. She hadn't actually made the compound yet except for a small batch accessible only to her and her husband Grant Ellis, confirming her husband's betrayal. She counteracts the weapon's effect on Scully as Langly returns. His neck has the puncture wound now. Langly reports to Timmy the next morning and is given his instructions: Enter the meeting room using the provided pass and fire three rounds into the target during a break. Scully attempts to enter the meeting hall but is stopped by security outside. Langly draws a gun and shoots Susanne Modeski three times in the chest during the break. Scully comes in with the guard and has him call for an ambulance. Byers and Frohike arrive as the EMTs and take her away on a stretcher. Unfortunately the ruse fails as Timmy Landau tastes the blood on the floor and realizes it is corn syrup, not blood. Byers attempts to take Timmy down when he has the gun to Susanne's back but Timmy easily knocks him down by pistol whipping him. Turning his gun on Langly and Frohike, he sneers. "You know the best thing about killing you three? I won't have to dress like you anymore." At this moment, CIA operative Timothy Landau is injected with the AH compound from a prostrate Byers. As it takes ahold of him and he collapses, they have to figure out what to do with him. On the television, a reporter states that Timothy Landau confessed to the murders of Grant Ellis and Susanne Modeski. At the same time, Scully learns that the Lone Gunmen tricked her into coming into Las Vegas. Langly and Frohike try and cheer him up. 
<EOS>
Wallace and Angela Schiff returning home after a day out hiking in the fields of North Carolina. Angela appears to be exhausted after spending most of the day chasing after her over-eager husband and is starting to get a headache. Whilst taking a shower she thinks she is hallucinating and seeing images of a yellow gooey substance running down the walls in the shower but shakes it off. Angela and Wallace head off to bed in each other's arms but as the camera pans out we see their skeletal remains in the same position in the middle of a field. Mulder is filling in Scully about the discovery of the remains at a well known site of strange unexplained phenomena but Scully seems keen as ever to find a more rational explanation. After showing her images of the bones and the fact they were only a few days old Scully concludes it looks like a ritualistic killing and that the bones were stripped of the flesh by boiling with/or acid. However, they head off to examine the remains themselves. The coroner is just about to send the remains away for burial when Mulder and Scully arrive to view them. After closer examination they find a strange yellow goo covering the underside of the skeletons which was missed in the original examination. Mulder heads out to the scene of the discovery while Scully stays to perform more testing on the remains. As Mulder arrives in the fields, he inadvertently drives over a patch of mushrooms with his car which seem to release a cloud of smoke. As he exits the vehicle and takes a look around he spots what he thinks is Wallace running away and takes chase, eventually following him down a cave. Inside the cave, Mulder finds that the way he came in seems to have been replaced with solid rock. He catches up with Wallace in the cave and discovers that Wallace thinks he and his wife Angela have been abducted by aliens who covered up their disappearance with the skeletons.
Meanwhile, Scully has discovered that the yellow goo mainly consists of organic material found in digestive juices but this seems to emanate from a plant rather than an animal. Unable to reach Mulder on the phone she heads off to find him. Arriving at the field, Scully starts to look for Mulder and accidentally steps on some more of the mushrooms that Mulder flattened earlier. Starting to follow his tracks, Scully finds they lead up to the cave and apparently lead inside. Mulder and Wallace are now talking when a bright light appears in the tunnel entrance. Wallace is scared it's the aliens returning but Mulder heads up to take a look and finds Angela has returned from her 'abduction'. After describing the 'text book' story of the tests that have been performed as well as locating an implant, Mulder starts to believe their story. Once again, the bright light from the tunnel entrance begins to shine and Mulder heads up to investigate. We fade to Mulder's front door as Scully arrives. Mulder answers and checks she is on her own before letting her in. Inside are Wallace and Angela and Mulder explains how they got there. Scully still doesn't believe the alien abduction story until Mulder shows her into his bedroom and hiding behind the boxes in the dark is an alien creature. Scully is astonished and quickly apologizes to Mulder for ever doubting him. However, Mulder starts to doubt his surroundings and his disbelief in what is going on begins to increase. As he washes his face with water he starts to see the yellow goo Angela saw earlier but quickly shakes it off as a dream. But then as he discusses the situation with Scully everything seems to fade away and Mulder awakes in the cave he followed Wallace into earlier, covered in the yellow goo apparently, being digested alive. Outside in the field, Scully and the coroner happen across more of the yellow goo. The coroner also spots footsteps leading out of the cave which Scully insists weren't there earlier. However, as the coroner follows them, he finds Mulder's skeletal remains lying on the ground. At the coroner's office, Scully is identifying Mulder's remains from his dental records but finds no evidence of the goo on the skeleton. The coroner then informs Scully that he believes that this is a ritualistic killing with boiling of the bones in an acid to remove the flesh, the theory Scully had originally believed to explain the remains of Angela and Wallace. Back at the FBI, Scully is reporting back to Skinner about her report and her findings of the deaths of Mulder and the Schiffs. Skinner seems to agree with Scully's report but Scully is herself doubting her own findings and is not convinced by her own theories that everyone seems to be agreeing with. We cut to Mulder's apartment and it appears that Mulder's wake is in progress. Notably, Skinner and the Lone Gunmen are in attendance along with several others. The Gunmen tell Scully they looked at her report and totally agree with her findings, Scully finds their agreement unbelievable. There is a knock at the door and Scully answers to find Mulder standing in the doorway. The rest of the wake congregation have meanwhile, disappeared. As Mulder and Scully discuss what has happened, they both begin to realize that they are both still in the cave being digested by the goo and that the mushrooms they broke caused an LSD type 'trip' causing them to become comatose whilst the organism began digesting them. As the realization occurs, they both awaken, deep in the cave and Mulder fights his way out of the ground dragging Scully behind him to safety. We cut to Skinner's office where Mulder and Scully report on their findings, that an organism spreading many miles underground lures its prey into being consumed by inducing a hallucinogenic trip whilst it digests them. Skinner notes that this might be the first time their reports agree on the same conclusion. However, Mulder begins to doubt that they're free at all, asking Scully to name any sort of drug that causes its effects to halt once the user knows they are hallucinating, and observing that they have no apparent flesh injuries despite being exposed to the goo's hydrochloric acid. Scully is in disbelief until Mulder proves his point by shooting Skinner in the chest; the yellow goo oozes out of the bullet wounds. Once again, their surroundings fade away as they awaken underground again in the cave. Mulder manages to stick his hand through the earth ceiling as Skinner and a team of rescue staff with masks on manage to locate them and drag them out and haul them to the safety of an ambulance. On the Ambulance, Scully and Mulder hold hands. 
<EOS>
Skinner brings agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully on the case, providing them with a rubbing made from the artifact. Mulder says that both men espoused a theory known as 'Panspermia' that theorizes that life originated off of Earth. While heading to the basement Mulder suffers from a headache and has a hard time hearing Scully. The agents visit with Dr. Barnes at the University who claims not to believe in the theories of the now missing Dr. Sandoz. Mulder once again feels strange when near the rubbing. The agents meet with Chuck Burks, who tells them that the symbols on the artifact are Navajo. Mulder, who continues to feel strange, declines Scully's recommendations to go to the hospital and tells Scully that he believes Barnes murdered Merkmallen. The agents head to Dr. Sandoz's apartment and find a picture of him with Albert Hosteen, a Navajo code breaker who has worked with the agents in the past. They find the body of Merkmallen in the garbage disposal. Mulder and Scully report to Skinner on the case. Mulder believes that Sandoz is being framed and that the artifact emits radiation. During the briefing, Mulder experiences further headaches and announces that someone else is involved on the After the agents leave Skinner provides a video tape of their conversation to Alex Krycek. Krycek later provides the tape to Dr. Barnes. Scully discovers that Albert Hosteen is dying of cancer. Mulder heads back to the University but passes out in the stairwell. Scully finds Sandoz at the hospital and confronts him. He claims that Albert Hosteen was helping him translate the pieces of the artifact that he and Merkmallen possesed and that the translation included passages from the Bible. Scully travels to New Mexico with Sandoz and contacts Mulder, who is resting at home. Mulder believes that the artifact proves that humanity was created by aliens. Diana Fowley takes care of Mulder and contacts the Cigarette Smoking Man. A healing ceremony is held for Albert, but Scully is forced to leave when Skinner contacts her, telling her Mulder is in the hospital in serious condition. Scully arrives a the hospital, tired and angry from her long flight. Mulder is being held in a padded cell and is displaying Scully is about to find a surveillance camera in the X-Files office when she is called by Sandoz telling her that the artifact contains information on human genetics. Sandoz is shot and killed by Krycek shortly afterwards. Scully heads to the West African Coast where she discovers that the artifact is part of a large spacecraft partially buried in the ocean. 
<EOS>
On the coast of Côte d'Ivoire, Scully sits in her tent studying detailed photographs of the spacecraft half-buried on the beach nearby. A figure, the Primitive African Man, mysteriously appears before suddenly vanishing, after which Scully's tent is swarmed by flying insects. Back in the United States, Walter Skinner visits a delusional Fox Mulder, who is being kept in a padded cell at a Georgetown hospital. Mulder seemingly attacks Skinner, but actually covertly passes him a torn shred of his hospital gown reading, "HELP ME". Scully is visited by Dr. Amina Ngebe, Solomon Merkmellen's former colleague who warns Scully to not tell any of the locals about the swarm or the Primitive African Man, although word is already out on the African internet. Soon afterwards, one of the locals working on excavating the ship is apparently scalded by boiling seawater. With the arrival of Dr. Barnes another plague occurs - that night the ocean turns blood red. Skinner revisits a heavily drugged Mulder, who cannot talk but writes Kritschgau. Skinner goes to visit Kritschgau, now unemployed and living in a low-cost apartment, and convinces him to visit the hospital with him. Once there, Kritschgau believes Mulder has alien induced mind reading abilities and injects him with a drugto slow down his brain activity. Later Diana Fowley and his doctor arrive, and with his mind-reading abilities, Mulder is able to tell Skinner that he knows about him being indebted to Krycek, and Diana Fowley's connections with the Cigarette Smoking Man. Scully, with Dr. Barnes' help, is able to translate some of the spaceship, which contains information on genetics and various religions. Dr. Barnes' behavior becomes increasingly erratic however and, armed with a machete, he refuses to let Scully or Ngebe leave. He soon realizes that the craft is bringing dead fish back to life, and Scully and Ngebe take the opportunity to knock him out and escape. Scully sees the vanishing man again in the car as they drive off. Kritschgau and Skinner put Mulder under additional tests to verify his abnormal brain activity. They again inject Mulder with phenytoin, but this time they are caught by Fowley and Mulder goes into a seizure. Meanwhile Dr. Barnes, in a bizarre type of experiment, kills his driver, but the driver soon reanimates and kills him instead. Scully flies back to the U.S. and visits Mulder at the hospital. On the African coast, Ngebe arrives with the police, finding Dr. Barnes dead and the spaceship gone. 
<EOS>
Teena Mulder and The Smoking Man visit Mulder, who is paralyzed in a hospital. After administering a drug that cures his paralysis, The Smoking Man reveals himself to be Mulder's father and takes him from the hospital. Meanwhile Kritschgau visits Scully and claims that Mulder's contact with the shard of an alien spaceship has reawakened the extraterrestrial black oil with which he was infected three years previously; because he is infected with the virus, Mulder is proof of alien life. Skinner, who has been looking for Mulder, tells Scully that Mulder's mother signed him out of the hospital. The Smoking Man takes Mulder to an unfamiliar neighborhood; inside a new home, he finds his former informant Deep Throat. Deep Throat claims to have faked his own death to escape the burden he was under by being a part of the Syndicate, and he suggests Mulder can now do the same. Mulder meets Fowley, and the two become intimate. On the hospital security tapes, Scully sees Mulder's mother talking to The Smoking Man but is unable to contact her. Scully receives a package containing a book on Native American beliefs, which describes how one man will prevent the impending apocalypse. Again visiting Kritschgau, she notices he has a stolen copy of her information on the alien spaceship. After he admits hacking her computer, she deletes the files from his laptop. Mulder is reunited with his sister Samantha in his new life. He marries Fowley and they have children. The years pass quickly; he grows older and Fowley dies. Mulder is revealed to be dreaming everything: in reality he is in a government facility being tended to by doctors while The Smoking Man and Fowley watch. The Smoking Man is preparing to have portions of Mulder's cranial tissue--which have been infected and activated because of the alien virus--implanted into himself. During the operation, The Smoking Man admits that he believes that Mulder has become an alien-human hybrid, and that by taking Mulder's genetic material he alone will survive the coming alien onslaught. Mulder becomes an old man in his dream, accompanied by an ageless Smoking Man who tells him that Fowley, Deep Throat, Samantha and Scully have all died. The Smoking Man looks out the window, revealing an alien holocaust. Back in reality, Alex Krycek kills Kritschgau, burns his papers, and steals his laptop. Scully, having earlier been visited by the spirit of Albert Hosteen who convinces her to pray, awakens in her apartment to discover that someone has slipped a security card under her door. Using it, she enters the facility where Mulder is being held. In Mulder's dream, Scully meets him at his bedside and convinces him to break with his imaginary life. In reality, Scully finds Mulder and the two escape the facility. A week later Scully meets Mulder at his apartment and tells him that Fowley was found murdered. Mulder confides that, during his ordeal, Scully served as his touchstone. 
<EOS>
When Donald Edward Pankow's body is discovered with the brain removed from the skull in Costa Mesa, California, Mulder and Scully are assigned to assist the local police in their investigation. The only clue being a button recovered from the body which leads them to the Lucky Boy Burgers restaurant. They check that all of the employees have their badges and discover one of the staff, Derwood Spinks' badge is missing, although he claims he left it at home. When it later transpires that Derwood has a criminal record, he becomes the prime suspect for the local police department and Agent Scully. Agent Mulder however has a different theory, that the victim's brain was sucked out of his head by some kind of proboscis. Mulder's suspicions fall on another employee Rob Roberts who was working late the night the victim died. Derwood Spinks visits Rob at his home, annoyed at being fired from the Lucky Boy Burgers restaurant for lying about his criminal record. He confronts Rob with evidence that he is the murderer and attempts to blackmail him. But Derwood does not realize what Rob is and falls victim to his hunger. Rob is contacted by Dr Mindy Rinehart, hired by Lucky Boy Burgers to counsel the employees following recent events. In session with her, Rob admits that he is battling an eating disorder and she sends him to an Overeaters Anonymous meeting, not fully understanding what Mulder seems to know, that Rob is a really a monster with a compulsion to feed on human brains. Rob Roberts attends the OA meeting after being visited by Mulder who clearly suspects him of being the killer. He sees his landlady Sylvia Jassy there and though he doesn't respond well to the meeting, they bond there and on the trip home. His hunger is far too overpowering though and he is compelled to feed upon her. To cover up this latest murder, Roberts smashes up his own apartment, using Derwood Spinks' baseball bat, out of a need to deflect blame away from himself and out of his own self-loathing. He lies to Scully and Mulder that Spinks showed up and he knows he committed the murders. Mulder clearly still suspects Rob Roberts but leaves to confirm a few things. Dr. Mindy Rinehart shows up to find Rob Roberts packing to leave town. She asks him what he is doing and if the OA meeting was helpful and Rob explains the meeting was useless. He implies that he can't fight his biology and is it so bad to let it win. Rinehart asks him if he feels guilty for killing that man. Rob Roberts stops, locks the door, and turns around. He believes she has been talking to the FBI about him but she hasn't. She claims to want to get him the help he needs. He walks towards her, slowly removing the prosthetics and other items that conceal his monstrous nature, and asks if she believes in monsters. Scully and Mulder arrive with guns drawn. Mulder says they found Sylvia the landlady on the way to the landfill. He tells Rob that he just can't stop and that he should get on the floor. Dr. Rinehart tells Rob to be the good person I know you mean to be. Rob Roberts charges Mulder and is shot twice in the chest. He falls and lies dying. Mindy Rinehart asks, "Why?" 
<EOS>
A.D. Skinner checks on Scully about the morgue incident, she has no explanation for the dead deputy having risen from the dead just as Mulder believed would happen. She tells him that the necromancer is the one who saved her and the coroner from the dead man by shooting it in the head. Skinner, Scully, and the FBI are no longer able to contact Mulder, they believe he has gone missing. Scully returns to Frank Black in the hopes that he can help her find Mulder. She asks if the Millennium Group could actually bring about the Apocalypse. Frank Black says he has studied the group’s beliefs for years but he doesn’t believe them himself. Scully leaves and Black checks himself out of the mental hospital. While Mulder stands in a circle of salt surrounded by the undead, Mark Johnson watches him from the basement window. Frank Black appears and the man is overjoyed. He explains that Mulder killed one of the members by shooting him in the head and now Frank Black can replace him as the fourth horseman. Black admits that he sent Mulder there but now he accepts he can’t leave the Millennium Group behind, especially now that the dead have risen. When Johnson hands a gun to Frank so he can kill himself, he turns it on the man. Scully learns from Skinner that phone records of all four dead men lead them to the same address in Rice County. She asks for the address as she keeps driving. Frank Black duct tapes Mark Johnson to a chair and goes into the basement as the man rants. "Don’t do this. I’m begging you, please. You know what the world is. Evil goes unpunished. The good suffer. There’s no future here but uncertainty and pain. Let the judgement come! You’re damning yourself, Frank!" Black enters and speaks with the injured Mulder who tells him to aim for the head and that the zombies are hiding. Lighting flares, Black throws them onto the floor. He kills one zombie on his way to Mulder but another knocks him down, Mulder picks up the gun and shoots the creature as it struggles with Black. The final dead man charges them as the gun runs out of ammunition. Scully’s arrival saves the two men as she kills the last of the undead. 
<EOS>
Three teenagers meet in the woods late at night in Pittsfield, Virginia but are interrupted by a sheriff's deputy. Moments later the deputy lies dead, killed with his own flashlight. Mulder and Scully later examine the deputy's body: the blow that killed him was so ferocious that his glasses were pushed through the back of his skull. They question the suspect, teenager Anthony Reed, whose fingerprints were found on the flashlight, but he denies any part in the murder. Mulder and Scully agree that Tony is innocent, although Mulder's theory of spirit involvement is not shared by Scully, who prefers a more down-to-earth course of investigation, suggesting they question Tony's friends. Mulder and Scully visit Tony's school and speak with the two teenagers who were with Tony in the woods, sheriff's son Max Harden and his girlfriend Chastity Raines. Chastity seems concerned about Tony when Mulder and Scully tell her he may go to jail. However, Tony is later released when the murder weapon disappears. Mulder and Scully review video footage of the evidence room that shows the flashlight simply disappear. A blur on the video footage attracts Mulder's attention and later analysis by an expert reveals the blurred object is solid and matches the local high school colors.  Later, a teacher whom Max despises confronts him with charges of cheating in the lunch room.  Suddenly, witnesses by many students, the teacher is attacked and violently killed by an unseen force, which pins him to the wall with a table and then throws a chair at his head. Mulder believes Max's changing teenage hormones are giving him paranormal abilities that allow him to attack people without touching them. Tony follows Chastity into a cave in the woods and is suddenly endowed with the same paranormal abilities. Meanwhile, Max collapses and is brought to the hospital, where it is found he is suffering from exhaustion, withdrawal, a concussion, and severe ligament damage. In short, he has pushed himself far beyond what his body is capable of handling. Mulder figures out from the green globs on Max's shoes that he has superhuman speed and is quickly burning out. Chastity sneaks Max out of the hospital and they return to the cave, where they are met by Tony. The sheriff finds the flashlight in Max's room and confronts his son about the murders.  Max confesses and then attempts to kill his father, but Tony intervenes, taking the sheriff's gun.  Max is about to shoot Tony when Chastity takes the gun and shoots Max, using her abilities to step in front of the bullet as it passes through him and kill herself as well.  After finding nothing to explain how the three teens got their powers, the city decides to fill the cave with concrete, sealing it forever. 
<EOS>
A man wins $100,000 playing poker against a mobster named Joe Cutrona. Cutrona attempts to kill him by throwing him off the 29th story of a building. After he lands, he stands right back up and walks away, completely uninjured. Two agents in a car stationed outside witness the event so Mulder and Scully take the case, with Mulder believing the man has the ability to cure himself, but Scully thinks he may just be very lucky. The man is Henry Weems, a handyman at an apartment building. Mulder finds him by getting water sprayed at him and falling through the floorboard. Mulder then dry's his hair with a towel. Mulder agrees with Scully after meeting Weems, stating that his luck is the X-File. Then, Cutrona's enforcer comes to kill Weems but is killed by accidentally shooting a lamp, that knocks over an ironing board, trips over the ironing board, and ends up getting tied up in a fan. Weems is obsessed with Rube Goldberg Machines and his apartment is filled with them. He also was the sole survivor of a commuter jet that killed 20 people in December 1989, where he was placed in Seat 13 of Flight 7 which are lucky numbers. Weems picks up a lottery ticket and wins $100,000 but learns that it would take 12 months to get the money, so he throws the ticket away. A man picks the ticket out of the trash and is then hit by a truck after Weems warned him that something bad will happen. Later, Mulder comes to question Weems again and another one of Cutrona's enforcers comes to kill Weems but his bullet ricochets off Weems' pocket knife and kills the enforcer. Weems has been finding a way to get this $100,000 for treatment of a serious illness of a boy in his apartment building, Richie, which has brought him above the radar. It appears that Henry's lucky streak ends and he is hit by a car. Cutrona kidnaps Richie's mom Maggie to stop Henry from testifying against him. Henry is also taken but all the mobsters are killed and it turns out that Cutrona is an organ donor and a perfect match for Richie. 
<EOS>
Meanwhile, Scully keeps hearing the same song everywhere she goes. Mulder and Scully question Orison and show him photos of the remains of the prostitute Pfaster killed. They also find that Orison killed someone and spent 22 years in prison. Orison claims he is being spoken to by God and doing his work. Mulder finds that Orison has three times the bloodflow capacity of the brain, and he drilled a hole in head which allows him to perform mental tricks by hypnotizing people. He does this while repeating the phrase "Glory, Amen." 
<EOS>
A magician, The Amazing Maleeni, twists his head completely around at a carnival. While he's leaving, his severed head falls completely off. Billy LaBonge, another magician, heckles Maleeni during the event and, when he is questioned by Mulder and Scully, he is shown to be very arrogant and considers Maleeni to be a ripoff. During the autopsy, Scully finds that his head was very carefully sawed off, but that he died of a heart attack. She also finds that he was dead for at least a month and refrigerated, even though the carnival manager spoke to him in the moments leading up to his head falling off. LaBonge finds a man, Cissy Alvarez, that won big against Maleeni, putting him in debt. LaBonge admits that he caused his head to fall off, and says that he will give the man the money he is owed if he helps him with magic. Then he makes his fingers catch on fire. Mulder and Scully go to visit Maleeni's brother, Albert Pinchbeck, who turns out to look exactly like that, and is even wearing a neck brace, which he says he got in a car accident in Mexico. Mulder tells him he thinks he did the magic act, but the man shows that he has not legs, which he also lost in Mexico in the car accident. Back at work, Alvarez threatens Pinchbeck that he will kill him if he does not get his money. LaBonge then frames Alvarez for a robbery from a security truck by painting Alvarez' tattoos on his hands. Mulder finds out that Pinchbeck is Maleeni and that he faked having no legs. He said he did so because he owed a lot of money to Alvarez so he had to fake his own death. Maleeni said he found his brother dead of a heart attack at home and used him. Maleeni is arrested and LaBonge brought a gun to a bar to get arrested. Alvarez is then arrested because of the attempted robbery LaBonge did earlier. The vault at Maleeni's work is emptied and the money is found above Alvarez' bar. Mulder and Scully confront LaBonge and Maleeni as they are released on bail, where Mulder explains that he has figured out their plan - that LaBonge and Maleeni were not, in fact, enemies, and that they had worked together to put Alvarez in prison for making LaBonge's life miserable in prison 8 years prior, and that as masters of sleight of hand and escape tricks, the two of them easily escaped, performed the robbery, and returned to After the two magicians make their exit, confident in the lack of evidence against them, Mulder reveals to Scully the true trick being performed - that everything involving Alvarez was purely misdirection. Earlier, when checking whether Maleeni had stolen funds from the bank, the manager had told Mulder they would need his badge number and thumb print to gain access to the EFT system. Mulder shows Scully Maleeni's wallet, which he had collected from evidence before confronting him and LaBonge. When the agents first met LaBonge, he had surreptitiously pick pocketed their badges as an example of his skill with sleight of hand, which gave him Mulder's badge number. Upon their first meeting with Maleeni impersonating his brother, Maleeni did a card trick with Mulder, leaving Mulder's prints on the card, which as Mulder displays, is securely in Maleeni's wallet. Mulder explains that the pair purposely acted in a high profile manner to draw the attention of the FBI, and that if they had collected the badge number and thumbprint, they would have been able to perform EFTs and make the 1.8 million from the bank look like cigar lighting money. As Mulder and Scully leave the jail, Scully shows that she, too, has learned a trick, and turns one of her hands around 360 degrees in a similar fashion as LaBonge had done before. Mulder asks Scully to explain how, and she brushes him off, saying simply magic. 
<EOS>
Jared Chirp, while attempting to flee his home, is attacked by rattlesnakes inside his car and killed. Mulder and Scully go to Reverend Enoch O'Connors church, Jared's preacher of the Church of God with Signs and Wonders, who uses snakes at his services. A woman, Iris Finster, tells Reverend Samuel Mackey of another church called that she feels bad because Jared called her on the night he died to talk to his girlfriend, Gracie O'Connor, but she would not let him talk to her because she was in bed. At Mackey's church later, Iris is bitten when her staple-remover turns into a snake. She goes into the bathroom to clean up and is killed when snakes appear everywhere in the bathroom. Gracie is questioned about O'Connor because she was a former member and they find that she is O'Connor's daughter and he kicked her out of his church and home when she became pregnant. The agents go back to O'Connor's church and Scully is attacked by O'Connor who attempts to stick her head in a box of snakes. He is arrested and attacked by snakes in his cell, but is not killed. While Gracie was alone in his room, he wakes back up and takes Gracie. Reverend Mackey tells Mulder and Scully that Enoch O'Connor is the father of Gracie's child. 
<EOS>
Mulder asks to be a part of an investigation of a little girl, Amber Lynn LaPierre, who has disappeared from her home. Skinner tells him no, because this is not an X-File but simply a missing persons case, but Mulder does not listen and investigates anyway. The parents, Billie and Bud, tell Mulder that they found a note in the girls bedroom, but the episode shows the mother, Billie LaPierre, writing the note herself. They have a real estate attorney act as the family's lawyer. The family is held for questioning, but Mulder does not believe they did it. Mulder finds a similar note in a missing person case in Idaho from 1987. In that case, the mother was convicted and sentenced to twelve years. She had a vision of her son dead before he disappeared as did Bud LaPierre on the night his daughter disappeared. The LaPierres are released because there is no evidence against them. Meanwhile, Mulder's mother Teena is found dead in her home. It is found that she overdosed on sleeping pills after she burned all her pictures of Samantha and placed tape around her baseboards and turned the gas in the oven on. Mulder believes she was murdered and has Scully do an autopsy. The mother in prison tells Mulder that Samantha is a walk-in, and she was taken so that she can be shielded from the harm that would be suffered in her life. She says that they are okay, but does not know where the children are. Mulder believes his mother probably also wrote a note about the scenario of his sister's disappearance. He thinks the alien abduction never happened, and that his mother figured this out, which is why she was killed. However, Scully tells Mulder that it was definitely suicide, because she was ill with Paget's carcinoma. A man playing Santa at a Christmas-themed ranch is shown videotaping the children at his ranch. Billie LaPierre tells Mulder she saw a vision of Amber Lynn in her room, and she thinks her daughter said the number 74. Mulder decides that he cannot finish the case and wants to take time off because he's too close to the case to make any sound judgments. On their way to the airport, Scully notices nearby road 74 leading to Santa's Village and decides to check it out because of the reference to Santa Claus in the notes. Here they find the videotape setup and tapes dating all the way back to the '60s, including one of Amber Lynn LaPierre. The man is arrested and Mulder finds graves all over his ranch. 
<EOS>
Deputy Juan Molina talks with the woman whose home was nearly broken into and explains she is describing it as a claw monster. The sketch artist begins working with her to make the drawing while Mulder shows Sgt. Duthie the claw marks on the door. The sketch turns out to be Freddy Krueger and when Scully returns from the hospital with the released deputy she tells Mulder it wasn’t a bite on Wetzel’s arm but a cluster of insect bites. Mulder begins to rethink his werewolf theory and believes something else is at work. The police scramble around as they get a call about something down the block. They all head over and find Ricky the sketch artist on the ground by a pay phone with claw marks cutting through his bullet proof vest. Scully finds a pink press-on fingernail at the crime scene. Mulder, Scully, Sgt. Duthie proceed to the home of the gay couple that called in the attack on Ricky. Steve and Edy explain they just saw the young man struggling but nothing attacking him. They recognize the fingernail as being from a local prostitute by the name of Chantara Gomez, with bubble gum pink hair to match the nails. Chantara Gomez is extremely agitated as everyone prepares to storm the house. She keeps saying Munoz told her he would twist her head around like a chicken’s head. Sgt. Duthie assures her that she is perfectly fine given the number of police around her. Led by the police and followed by the camera crew, Mulder and Scully enter the crack house and wander past the many people being arrested. They enter the bathroom by the kitchen and find an overdosed man with a dragon tattoo on his head. Chuco Munoz has been dead for days. They rush outside at the sound of gunfire. They find Deputy Keith Wetzel firing into the night but see nothing. He pleads that he did everything he could to save her when it came back. Checking on Chantara Gomez they find her with her head twisted around just as she had feared. They talk with Sgt. Duthie and some of the other officers about the whole thing not making any sense. Nothing could have gotten past Wetzel and though relatively green, he is a good deputy. Bullets are found in the street, having impacted with something. Mulder prods Wetzel a bit and the man admits to what he saw or thought he saw anyway and describes it as a wasp man, something his older brother made up when they were kids to scare Wetzel. Mulder takes Scully aside, with the camera crew still hovering about them, and suggests that given how people see it as different things, perhaps it is some kind of shape-shifting entity that feeds on human fear. It appears as a person’s worst nightmare and feeds off the terror they feel. Scully plays along with the theory and wonders how you could even catch something like that. He suggests that if they learned how it chose its victims they could figure it out. He recounts to her that there is a chain of victims that the attacks followed, but she reminds him that it skipped Steve and Edy. Scully begins to perform her autopsy on Chantara Gomez under the nervous coroner’s assistant’s gaze. The woman is concerned about talk of a contagion. Scully assures her that there is no contagion and that the woman died from a broken neck not the Hanta virus or something. The mention of that specific virus alarms her and she soon collapses, bleeding from the nose and mouth, with Scully demanding the camera crew call 911. Mulder, Scully, and Sgt. Paula Duthie debate what is going on over at the morgue after the coroner’s assistant develops the symptoms of Hanta virus instantly and died. Mulder postulates that some force or entity is in this area given the high crime rate and the terror of everyone in the area. A perfect feeding ground for something that needs fear as its sustenance. Mulder suspects that since Scully had no fear of contagion while the assistant had the fear, she died. A lack of fear is a form of immunity to the entity. Moreover it is a mortal fear that the thing needs so Steve and Edy and others have escaped harm. They don’t really believe him but Mulder points out that Wetzel is probably in danger since he was backing him up earlier and now he is alone. They return to the crack house where Wetzel has gone, the camera crew is hiding in the closet and Wetzel is missing. Checking upstairs, they find a wounded Wetzel with his arm torn open. He was only saved by the sun coming up. Mulder is disappointed his proof wasn’t forthcoming but he assumes whatever it was can go to another feeding ground elsewhere. 
<EOS>
Three young geeks are amped up and ready to fight as the computerized voice counts them down. Lo-Fat, Moxie, and Retro pick out their gear in the weapons room. Retro assures the other two that he is getting to level two today. Game programmers and overseers to the event, Phoebe and Ivan, watch the young men on their monitors. Ivan is exhilarated by it all as he looks over the medical data his monitors are feeding him. "Look at these heart rates!" Phoebe seems rather tired of the whole thing. "If I don’t let these boys out they’re going to kill each other." The door opens as the countdown completes. Moxie, Retro, and Lo-Fat rush out into the bleak urban landscape before them, a high rise to either side with a long road down the middle. They take cover behind a triangular barricade ahead of them. Motorcycles with forward mounted machine guns stream out onto the road. They wait until they close in and then Retro orders them to fire. After the motorcycles and their riders are all destroyed by their streams of bullets, Retro orders them forward as they fire at either skyscraper’s many windows. Uniformed men fire down at them and manage to pick off Lo-Fat. Moxie covers Retro as he runs into the building. Retro hears footsteps on the stairs behind him. "Who are you?" "I am Maitreya. This is my game." A flintlock pistol appears in her hand, she aims, and fires as it all digitizes and fades out. At F.P.S. Corporate Offices in Inland Empire, California, Agents Dana Scully and Fox Mulder arrive, get their ids and irises scanned, then sign non-disclosure agreements. The Lone Gunmen appear and explain that they are invested in this game that is supposed to ship to 50 malls on Friday, but a dead body stands in their way. His death entirely unclear as to what caused it. Scully inspects the body of Retro. She holds up the gun and touches the blood among the paint on the chest armor. When she says this man has been shot, Ivan denies it. He points out the gun is tied into the mainframe and the stun suit is rigged with paint for kill shots. Its all part of their complex blood and body-count virtual game world but its all harmless. Scully has to call the police which upsets Ivan as he storms out raving about what the investors will think. Mulder asks to see what the control booth saw. In the control room, the Lone Gunmen, Phoebe, and Mulder watch the replay of the three men in the game. They have no interior shots of the area Retro went into so Mulder asks Phoebe to reduce it to wireframe. When they see a woman’s wireframe, he asks her to texture-wrap her and print her out. As Scully struggles to explain to the police how there is no murder weapon, no motive, no evidence, and so forth, Mulder arrives and tells Detective Lacoeur that this is his suspect, after handing him the printout of the unknown digital woman. As the dubious Lacoeur leaves, Mulder explains to Scully that no one programmed her into the game. Legendary gamer Daryl Musashi arrives as the Lone Gunmen and Mulder are awed. Byers figures Ivan brought Musashi in to kill the game babe who murdered Retro. A frustrated Scully asks Mulder an important question: "Mulder, why does this game have the effect of reducing grown men back to moony adolescence?" An excited Mulder replies, "That’s Daryl Musashi!" Fearless Musashi obliterates the motorcycle riders and runs straight through to the place where Retro died. Maitreya ambushes him there and cuts off his hands as the control room people watch in horror. She speaks to him quietly in Japanese and then decapitates him. Scully performs the fruitless autopsy. The wound in the center of Retro’s chest has no evidence of gunpowder or a bullet. She tells Mulder that the suit measured the player’s vitals and stuns players with electricity to simulate death. She thought one of the paint charges on the suit might have blown inward and killed Retro but this wasn’t the case. They debate the merits of the game. She believes it adds nothing to an already out of control violent civilization, while he claims it fills a void that modern society fails to provide for. As he shows the digital woman’s image, she reminds him that the woman is digital and her weapons shouldn’t kill anyone as the pieces of Daryl Musashi are brought in. When Mulder and Scully return to F.P.S., they find Phoebe sleeping on the floor in the control room. Apparently she had been up 70 straight hours looking at code and slept longer than she wanted. She relates that Ivan is with the money people and the Lone Gunmen are testing some things down in the projector room. Abruptly the game starts on its own and the Gunmen find themselves being shot at. Mulder eagerly gears up and charges into the game. He lays down cover fire for the three men as they retreat into the starting weapons module. Maitreya runs by in the distance and a foolhardy Mulder pursues her into the same killing ground that Retro and Musashi discovered before. She appears with a sword and then disappears. Reappearing behind Mulder she strikes at him as the Lone Gunmen charge off to rescue him. As they close in, the game shuts down and they find themselves in the projector room with no Mulder anywhere in sight. Scully demands to know where he is and Byers just says he should be in there, its only a digital environment. Phoebe finds Mulder for them, still in the game but the game has vanished. Mulder wakes up in the parking garage with a sword in the pillar by him; he wanders out to meet Maitreya in battle. The Lone Gunmen are altering the hardware to try and make a kill switch for the game but Phoebe says it won’t work. A jubilant Ivan returns talking about how wonderful Scully is. Apparently, the bankers saw FBI and cause of death unknown and decided to proceed with the game anyway. Scully is angry at Ivan and accuses him of placing Jade Blue Afterglow in the game but Phoebe runs away in tears. She follows her and confronts her in the hallway. Phoebe confesses to Scully that she scanned the woman and was making her own separate game. Somehow her creation jumped programs and is now feeding off the male aggression and becoming invincible. She did it as an escape from the constant raging testosterone of those around her. Scully can relate and convinces Phoebe to try and find a way to stop Maitreya. They attempt to power down the game but it isn’t responding as Scully watches the vixen approach. Scully enters the game and saves Mulder from the five gunslinger Maitreyas. But the module door traps them inside and new enemies spawn. And find an exhausted Scully and still cheerful gun-happy Mulder. Dejected Ivan finds his screens active again with a character walking about in the wire frames. Scully’s face appears for Maitreya in the place of Jade Blue Afterglow’s face. 
<EOS>
During the trip, Spender tells Scully that he believes he shares a special kinship with her because he once held her own life in his hands. Mulder finds her message on the phone suspicious and goes to her apartment, where the landlord tells him that she left with Spender, who has been at her apartment before. Spender and Scully arrive at the home of Margarie Butters, a 118-year-old gardener who also has the chip implanted in the back of her neck. Meanwhile, Mulder visits Skinner to voice his concern, but Scully calls Skinner during the meeting and says that she is fine. Mulder still senses something is wrong. At a gas station, Scully removes the wire and mails the recording of it to Mulder, but a man following the two removes the tape from the mailbox. 
<EOS>
While Mulder is in England, Dr. Daniel Waterson, who once was involved with Scully as a teacher and lover, meets her again. The episode revolves around a religious idea that consciousness and time slices make up our existence. Agent Dana Scully dresses in the bathroom. As she walks out, she passes the bed and Agent Fox Mulder in it. She considers if this is the path she chose or if it was chosen for her. And all the myriad moments of time that lead people to wherever they find themselves in life. Scully arrives with lunch and Mulder proceeds with his slide show of crop circles. She reports to him that the girl who was died in the woods did not drown in ectoplasm but rather her own alcohol filled vomit. Mulder goes through the crop circle explanation as Scully half listens while eating her salad. He tells her a new crop circle will appear within 48 hours and they have two tickets to England. Scully asserts that she isn’t going to go. "What it means, Mulder, is I’m not interested in tracking down some sneaky farmers who happened to ace geometry in high school." Dr. Kopeikan returns and wonders what Scully is doing there. When she tells him her name, he explains that Waterston mentioned her as one of his students. Kopeikan explains that Waterston came in with severe chest pains and has gone through a full battery of tests. He has a serious problem but it is treatable. Maggie Waterston calls to relate that her father wants to see Scully but her tone shows deep hatred for her. Mulder also calls to ask her to visit some researcher about crop circles and pick up some data from them; she tells him she doesn’t have time but might get to it later. Returning to the hospital, Scully steps into the wrong room full of happy people. Going to the right room, she finds Daniel and Maggie Waterston. Maggie promptly leaves while Scully and Waterston talk. They clearly care a great deal about each other but have an old feud about her leaving medicine for the FBI. Scully reaches Colleen Azar’s home and realizes the woman was in the wrong hospital room that she had stepped into earlier. She doesn’t entirely like Scully’s brusqueness or skepticism about her crop circle research or Scully shaking off the near car accident like it was nothing. "There is a greater intelligence in all things. Accidents-or near accidents-often remind us that we need to keep our mind open to the lessons it gives." Scully is called back by Waterston who wants her to override Kopeikan’s medical advice about the use of the drug Prednisone. Kopeikan leaves the room and Maggie Waterston soon follows, after another barb at Scully. Daniel Waterston recounts that Maggie figured out about the affair years ago, when things went bad at home. When Scully left, he shut down from his family and he eventually divorced Barbara. He moved to Washington, D.C. ten years earlier. Scully asks if he moved there for her and he admits as much. She begins to cry. He expects she has a life now but asks her what she wants. He holds her softly against his chest as she weeps. Then his heart stops. Scully starts CPR and the team of nurses bring in the defibrillator and so forth. She manages to get his heart pumping once again after a minute. An angry Maggie Waterston yells at Scully about her father being in a coma and then storms away. Scully walks out of the hospital still clutching the flowers she had brought. She sees the woman from the crosswalk as she wanders through Chinatown and follows her to a Buddhist Temple. Before the statue of Buddha, Scully has a vision. Flashes from her life flow by until she sees Waterston floating in a bright white void with his organs visible through his skin. The organs seem sickly. They talk about the events of the past few days and the lives they could have led. Scully seems to think that maybe there was only one path and signs along the way that confirmed that path. She falls asleep when Mulder replies and he puts a blanket over her and turns in. 
<EOS>
The tobacco company Morley creates a form of super tobacco, which in turn is inhabited by a form of super tobacco beetle, which survive the cigarette processing and whose eggs are contained in the smoke of these killer cigarettes, presumably called Brand X. They were tested on a range of subjects by Doctors Peter Voss and James Scobie, the latter of whom is the first victim of these deadly super beetles. Of the four test subjects for this testing, Darryl Weaver is the only surviving participant. Prior to Dr. Scobie’s death, he and Darryl Weaver had an arrangement of an unlimited cigarette supply in exchange for keeping quiet about the testing. After Dr. Scobie’s death, Weaver goes to Dr. Voss, presuming that the arrangement slides on over to Dr. Voss, who hurriedly gives Weaver two cartons of these lethal Brand X cigarettes. A chain of victims succumb to the eggs in the toxic smoke, all of whom are covered in these super tobacco beetles. While interviewing Weaver, Special Agent Fox Mulder is exposed to the Brand X smoke, later coughing up blood and needing his lungs invasively cleared. Dr. Voss, who had until now been hiding behind his legal adviser, has a change of heart upon hearing of Mulder’s condition and tells Assistant Director Walter Skinner of the aforementioned testing. Skinner goes to Weaver’s apartment after getting his name from Dr. Voss and finds a man tied to a chair with a gag in his mouth. When Skinner removes the gauze wrapper around the man’s mouth, the man chokes and beetles begin crawling from his mouth. At the hospital, Mulder is in grave danger due to the hatching of the beetle eggs in his lungs, and Special Agent Dana Scully attempts to find a way to save him, because he is too weak for thoracic surgery. Meanwhile, Darryl Weaver attempts to browbeat Skinner, threatening to light one of the toxic cigarettes. As Weaver attempts to leave the building, Skinner shoots Weaver's shoulder and the pane of glass behind him, leaving him injured and covered in glass. He drops his cigarette to the floor and Skinner dramatically snuffs it out with his shoe. Back at the hospital, Scully realizes that nicotine might save Mulder’s life. She is correct in her solution, noting that Weaver’s nicotine tolerance didn’t allow the tobacco beetles to develop in his lungs. 
<EOS>
Cardinal O'Fallon admits he bought the forged gospel from Hoffman, but believed that it was real. The Lazarus Bowl found at the scene is found to have properties never seen before. During the autopsy of Hoffman, the man comes back to life on the operating table, but when Scully looks down he is back on the operating table. She finishes the autopsy and finds strychnine in his system. Later at church Scully sees a vision of Hoffman again hanging on the cross in the place of Jesus. Mulder arrests Cardinal O'Fallon and Micah Hoffman walks in. Skinner suspends Scully and Mulder for four weeks because of the mix-up, but the Lazarus Bowl actually makes a noise in Aramaic that is one man commanding another to rise from the dead. Hoffman tells Mulder and Scully that he is actually the reincarnation of Jesus Christ and he bombed the church to get rid of the blasphemous forgeries. 
<EOS>
In Kansas City, two missionaries visit two women at two different homes in the same neighborhood that look exactly alike. The second woman yells at them to go away and the two men, inexplicably, get into a fight in the woman's front yard. Two agents that look similar to Mulder and Scully and sound exactly like them visit the first woman, Betty Templeton, whom claims to have never seen the other woman before. That woman then passes her by in a car and the two agents begin fighting each other. They then crash into a tree, putting both agents in critical condition. Both agents said that they were possessed and worked together for seven years. The other woman, Lulu Pfeiffer, applied for a job at Koko's Copies, but did not get the job because she had 17 jobs in 17 states in three years and moves a lot. She becomes aggravated and everyone's copies become black, resulting in the manager hiring her anyway, presumably to help out in the ensuing chaos of angry customers. The other woman goes to another job with the same name and same resume. Mulder and Scully visits Bert Zupanic to ask him about the disappearance of Templeton, but he claims he never saw her. Later, in a bar, Zupanic comes across Templeton. Moments later, Lulu walks into the bar and an earthquake occurs that breaks all the glass in the bar. Lulu then runs out. Mulder finds out through Argyle Saperstein that Zupanic and one of the women are in a relationship and that Zupanic is a professional wrestler. Scully finds that for the past 12 years the women have followed each other across 17 states and left mayhem in their wake. Saperstein calls Zupanic and it is revealed that Zupanic owes Saperstein money and that Betty and Bert are having a relationship and he has been having an affair with Betty. After Lulu leaves, gunshots ring out in the floor about Zupanic. Zupanic and Saperstein meet at a bar to exchange money and an earthquake occurs in the bar before Lulu walks in. Betty comes out of the bathroom and another earthquake occurs. Lulu and Betty see each other in the bar and the glass in the bar begins breaking again before both women leave. Zupanic is knocked unconscious and Saperstein takes the money and leaves. 
<EOS>
In the small hours of the night, Detective Miles is driving along a country road when he is dispatched to a stretch of highway where his deputy, Ray Hoese, has called in a massive fire and a suspected downed aircraft, although Deputy Hoese is now out of contact. As Miles arrives, his watch begins to spin, his car's electricity cuts out and he sees the forest around him ablaze. His car crashes and, as he gets out, he notices Hoese unconscious in his own car further along the road, his eyes bloodied. After the detective goes to investigate, he steps in a pool of green blood and is suddenly confronted by a man who looks exactly like Hoese, but has green fluid seeping out of him and advances on the detective. At FBI Headquarters, Agents Mulder and Scully are separately interviewed and assessed by Special Agent Chesty Short, regarding expenses on their numerous cases over the years. Mulder shows an apathetic disinterest in this subject, stressing slightly that the work they have done more than justifies the means, while Scully is more forceful in her staunch defense of the X-files. Agent Short goes as far as to point out that, since Mulder's search for what happened to his sister was the chief reason for his investigations and because this has since been officially resolved, there no longer stands a purpose to Mulder's work. The FBI auditor also shows clear scorn towards the views pushed via the work in the existence of aliens and of the conspiracy. In a penal colony in Tunisia, the convicts jeer and cat-call as a smartly dressed Marita Covarrubias walks into a large holding cell, issuing an instruction to release one of the prisoners: Alex Krycek. A stunned Krycek bluntly reminds her that, upon their last encounter, he spurned a chance to save her. However, Marita simply implies that she is following orders and states that, if it were up to her, she would leave him to rot in confinement. As Krycek showers, Marita tells him that the Cigarette Smoking Man arranged his release, that the CSM is dying and has some important business with both of them. Agent Short recalls Mulder for another interview, in which he tells the X-file investigator that times are changing and that facts are required and, even then, interest in the supernatural is almost non-existent. He all but insults both Mulder and his investigations, telling him that he has to reduce his vision. Two young UFO enthusiasts, Gary and Richie, arrive at the site of the previous night's activity and are greeted by Detective Miles, who calmly refutes their claims that a Navy jet collided with a UFO mid-flight and informs them that there is nothing for them to see in the woods. As Detective Miles leaves, however, the two youngsters gaze into the woods, their curiosity still piqued. Mulder returns to his office after having spoken with Agent Short and implies that he attacked the expenses auditor, much to Scully's amusement. Mulder's office phone rings and - after he answers the call, putting it on loudspeaker for Scully's benefit - both agents are shocked to hear that their caller is none other than Billy Miles, an abductee from Oregon whom the agents investigated around seven years ago. Alone in his family home, Billy quickly informs the agents that he is deeply worried and does not know who else to confide in, admitting that he is concerned that the abductions have begun again but not to him, this time. He abruptly ends the call when his detective father enters. After brief consideration, Mulder and Scully decide to go to Oregon, with Scully in particular delightfully planning to go waste some money. Marita and Krycek arrive at the CSM's door, at the Watergate Apartments in Washington, D.C.. They exchange a glance as they wait to be let in and are soon led to the apartment's occupant by his nurse. A gray-haired wheelchair-bound CSM, who speaks wheezily and smokes through a hole in his throat, greets them and shows immediate concern for Krycek, who quickly scorns the CSM by iterating that it was he who had him thrown in jail. The CSM defends himself by stating that the reason he did so was that Krycek had tried to sell something that belonged to him. The CSM changes the topic of conversation, saying that they need to focus as one and concentrate on the matter at hand: an alien craft that has crashed in Oregon. The CSM describes it as the chance to rebuild the Project but claims that finding it will be complicated. In the Oregon woods, Gary and Richie search for the craft using flashlights and a Geiger counter. As Gary wanders off, he walks into a forcefield and is shaken at high speed while suspended in mid-air. Richie finds a spot that the light from his torch seems to reflect off and calls out to his friend, receiving no answer. His flashlight begins to glow and combust, and Richie quickly drops it as it bursts into flames. Terrified by sudden high readings on the Geiger counter, he runs away. The following morning, Mulder and Scully arrive in Bellefleur, where they are greeted by Billy, who is now a deputy having appeared to have put his past behind him. He tells them that a mid-air collision took place on the night when Deputy Hoese disappeared and that the Navy has recovered their own craft but not the other. Billy also tells them that his father has not been helpful in investigating and doesn't seem interested in finding anything. At this point, Detective Miles drives up and appears to recognize the agents, after Billy informs him of their identities. The detective reveals his doubts that any UFO will be found, despite Mulder's views, but he recommends that the agents speak to the FAA. After leaving the crime scene, Mulder and Scully speak with Hoese's wife and are stunned when it turns out to be none other than Theresa Nemman. After speaking with her about her abductions and her husband, she leaves the room to get some medical files, leaving her baby on Scully's lap. Mulder watches as Scully plays with the young child. Mulder is looking through the medical files in his motel room when Scully arrives there, feeling cold and having been dizzy a short while ago. He asks her if she wants him to call a doctor but she declines, intent only on getting warm, so Mulder helps her into his bed and hugs her tightly. As Mulder maintains his embrace around her, he tells Scully that he wants her to return home and that he no longer wants her to risk her life and safety, to be with him. Scully quickly refutes this but Mulder insists that she has lost too much and has much more to do with her life than continue to work on the X-files. Outside the motel, Krycek waits in his parked car and phones the CSM, informing him that nobody has found the UFO yet and that he believes this is because it is not even in the area. However, the CSM insists that he is certain of its location and that it is hidden in plain sight. He is then shocked to hear that Mulder and Scully are also there. After Krycek tells him that the agents are looking for a missing deputy, the CSM replies that this is the key to finding the ship. A frustrated Krycek abruptly ends his call with the CSM. On the same night, Theresa Hoese is awakened by someone at her door and is both delighted and relieved to see that it is apparently her heretofore missing husband, who embraces her as he enters their home. As Theresa concernedly asks him where he has been, however, her visitor remains silent and simply looks at her, plainly. Realizing that the visitor is not her husband, she runs away from him and flees upstairs. She hides behind a corner, now armed with a knife, and - as her peculiar visitor nears her - she attacks him, repeatedly stabbing his torso. His body consequently begins to ooze green liquid, causing her eyes to swell up. She desperately tries to reach her child, who is noisily crying in a crib upstairs, but is stopped by the intruder, who then drags her away. Mulder and Scully arrive at Theresa's house to find a police crime scene, with Billy informing them that she was taken in the night and that nobody knows what happened. Investigating the house, Mulder once again sees the black burned residue and points it out to Scully. Both agents recognize the scorched substance as a kind of alien blood they have encountered before. Scully suddenly feels nauseous, much to Billy's concern, but she quickly shakes it off. At the Watergate Apartments, Marita asks the CSM why he went to the trouble of bringing Krycek there, if only to toy with him. The elderly CSM insists that Krycek will find the UFO but states that he can't tell Krycek how to do so, as it would risk allowing him to sell the information. The CSM also states that the UFO is rebuilding itself and that the craft will soon be able to leave again. He also cryptically claims that the ship is the answer to every conceivable possible question and that there is no God besides the alien intelligence that is, according to him, far greater than humanity. When Marita asks the CSM to confirm that the aliens are coming, he simply says that the aliens are merely returning. Outside of Theresa's house, Mulder notices Richie nervously watching the investigators so he approaches the youngster, stopping Richie as he starts to walk away. Mulder introduces Billy to the situation, asking if he knows Ritchie, and Billy thus intervenes, curious about Ritchie's behavior. A panicked and emotional Richie tells Billy that they took Gary from the woods and that Detective Miles knows what is out there. Near the forested location where Ritchie was separated from his friend, he now leads Mulder and Scully through the woodland, explaining exactly what happened on the night when Gary disappeared. Scully separates from her two male companions, to have a look around, but, like Gary before her, she is suddenly caught in the ship's shielding, levitating off the ground and shaking at an inhuman speed. After noticing her absence, Mulder finds a disheveled Scully, half-conscious on the ground. She is unable to recall what happened and simply assumes that she experienced another episode. Mulder tells her that he believes the recent abductions are different from all those that previously occurred in the area, as he believes the abductees being taken this time will not be returning. At the Miles family home, Billy - now highly suspicious - enters and pulls his gun on the man who appears to be his father. Billy questions the man's identity, insisting that the man is not who he seems to be and that he himself will not be taken again. The man claims that he does believe Billy, despite Billy's suspicions to the contrary, and says that he just wants it all to go away. Tearfully, Billy relinquishes his gun, at which point the other man's facial appearance physically morphs from that of Detective Miles to that most commonly utilized by the Alien Bounty Hunter, who is capable of such swift transformations. The Alien notices the arrival of Mulder and Scully, who enter the property to find neither the Alien nor Billy Miles. With Mulder and Scully now back at FBI Headquarters, Skinner approaches Mulder in his office. Mulder displays a resigned attitude towards what he assumes will be punishment for his trip to Oregon. Skinner instead shows his sympathy, telling Mulder that it was just a case and that, despite what he may have achieved, the FBI just don't like him. After a brief hesitation, Skinner signals both Krycek and Marita into the office, much to Mulder's astonishment. He immediately goes to attack Krycek but is held back by Skinner. Krycek shows his understanding of Mulder's hostility but instructs him to listen. Marita reveals to Mulder that the CSM is dying and that he wants to find the UFO in Oregon to restart his Project. Krycek tells Mulder that the ship is in the woods, adding that it is cloaked in an energy field, and says that the Bounty Hunter is cleaning up evidence by taking the abductees. Krycek also insists that Mulder will want to find the proof. Scully enters, totally taken aback by the sight. In an office on an upper level of the building, the five later have a discussion with the Lone Gunmen - Byers, Frohike and Langly - who, by using recovered intelligence, find that there is evidence of the craft's location but that nobody would ever realize what it is. Krycek and Marita reiterate the urgency of the situation and an unnerved Scully exits the room. Mulder follows her out and tells Scully that it is important that she not go with him to Oregon because, as a former abductee, she cannot take the risk of doing so. Scully embraces him and tells him that she will not let him go there alone. Mulder and Skinner travel back to the woods, equipped with lasers for finding the cloaking field, while Scully remains in D.C., reviewing medical records of the abductees. While she does this, Scully notices that the records all show signs of irregular brain activity, identical to a condition that Mulder recently suffered. Realizing that she was rejected by the ship's forcefield in Oregon and that Mulder is the person who is actually in trouble, Scully is once again overcome by nausea and this time collapses, as the Lone Gunmen rush to catch her. Back in the woods, Skinner and Mulder begin to set up their equipment. Noticing a spot where the lasers cease in mid-air, Mulder puts out his hand and sees it shake violently as it enters the forcefield. From his location further away from the energy barrier, Skinner notices that Mulder has vanished and goes to look for him. Mulder is, in fact, on the other side of the shield, invisible to Skinner, where he sees the group of abductees standing in a huddle under a light emanating from the UFO. He enters the light, welcomed by those around him, and looks up to see the ship's hull. The Alien Bounty Hunter approaches him, walking right up to him face-to-face, and appears to look satisfied. The white light that surrounds them flares. Suddenly, Skinner sees the UFO in the sky, where its lights flash brightly before powering away. Realizing what has happened, a stunned Skinner utters Mulder's surname. At the Watergate apartment complex, Krycek and Marita come to visit the CSM, who is already aware of his plan's failure but is resigned to his fate. With Marita holding back Greta, Krycek wheels the CSM out of the room, saying that he is going to send the devil back to Hell. Krycek takes the CSM to the top of a flight of stairs, where an oddly calm CSM says, "As you do to me and Mulder, you do to all of mankind, Alex", almost showing a respect for his former protege's murderous nature. At this point, Krycek shoves him down the stairs, leaving him broken and crumpled at the bottom. Krycek and Marita then step over him, on their way out of the fallen CSM's apartment. Having been hospitalized following her recent collapse, Scully is visited by Skinner, who inquires as to her wellbeing. After a moment, a highly emotional Skinner admits that he lost him, regarding Mulder's abduction, before tearfully stating that he can't and won't deny what he saw. Before Skinner leaves, Scully tells him that, although she cannot understand it, and that it is important that he keep it secret, she is pregnant. 
<EOS>
After Fox Mulder's alien abduction at the end of season seven, newly-promoted Deputy Director Alvin Kersh assigns pragmatic Special Agent John Doggett to head up the taskforce searching for Mulder. At the start of the episode, Mulder's desk is being cleared to find evidence which could help the manhunt. Kersh sends Walter Skinner and Dana Scully down to the taskforce office to be interrogated. While Skinner walks down to the interrogation room with Gene Crane, Scully waits. An unnamed person next to her then starts asking her questions about Mulder. When she finds out that person is Doggett, she throws water in his face. Back at Scully's apartment, she uses her computer to run a background check on Doggett. She then feels sick and leaves the computer and later on calls her mom, Margaret Scully. When she finds out her phone is tapped, she looks outside the window to see if anyone was out there. She sees a mysterious man, and she runs down the hall where she meets her landlord Mr. Coeben who tells her that it was Mulder he saw in the hallway. Scully and Skinner leave for Arizona without giving any of their information to Doggett. Doggett believes that to find Mulder they must first find the whereabouts of Praise. The eventually locate him in Flemingtown, Arizona in the middle of the desert. By the time Doggett's taskforce has arrived, he had already escaped via a window and left for a desert hill top with another person. 
<EOS>
After Doggett explains to Alvin Kersh about Mulder's body, Skinner tells him that he is being set up as the leader of the taskforce, to fail. Doggett then calls Special agent Landau and asks about the whereabouts of Scully, Landau tells him that she just walked in, while Doggett and Skinner are surprised to see Scully by their side. The Scully replica attacks Landau and morphs into Crane when Doggett and Scully arrive at the crime scene. Meanwhile Praise is dreaming about Mulder and his alien abduction scenario. 
<EOS>
An undertaker returns home and his wife tells him to go take off his clothes since they smell like embalming fluid. While taking off the clothes, he looks up and sees a creature above him. His screams bring his wife downstairs so she becomes the second victim. Scully is in Mulder’s office looking at his name plate when Doggett shows up with some of his friends who then take off at Doggett’s encouraging. He says they are curious about her and Scully says she isn’t there to be a curiosity. Doggett wonders about having a desk down there and Scully says it is Mulder’s office and they are merely using it until he returns. Doggett says that he has been reading over all the X-Files and left to get coffee. Scully explains about the death of the undertaker and his wife and the cause of death being blood loss from human bite marks on their bodies using slides much as Mulder would. Scully and Doggett arrive at the crime scene in Idaho and meet Detective Yale Abbott who does the usual we don’t need the FBI bit that most local police do. He says they are less sure that the bites were made by a human and draws their attention to the strange footprint by the door so he believes animals just fed on the bodies after the fact. Scully points out how there is only one footprint and that if it were left by an animal there would be more footprints leading to the bodies. Also that the print is fairly human-like. Abbott takes this to mean that Scully thinks it was done by a human but she says she isn’t saying that at all. Scully and Doggett check out the house finding prints leading upstairs until Scully finds a trapdoor to the attic in the closet near the last print. In the attic Scully and Doggett find the missing fingers of the undertaker. They look like they have been regurgitated by something and the claw marks in the attic suggest something was hanging from the rafters. Meanwhile elderly Mrs. McKesson is killed in her attic while looking at a photo album. At the county morgue Doggett and Scully discuss findings about the murders. Scully explains that she studied the bite wounds and though they are similar to human teeth they are also very different. The saliva on the regurgitated fingers had anti-coagulants in it which only bats have in their saliva. Doggett finds the evidence interesting due to the newspaper article he brought Scully. The 1956 article is about a series of deaths that ended when a group of hunters killed a man bat creature and brought it to the county morgue in part of Montana. The coroner said the creature was neither bat nor man. Then the coroner was killed a few days later and soon after a few more people were killed or disappeared. The cops are upset about Abbott’s death and blame Scully while Doggett reminds them that only the thing that killed Abbott and the others is to blame. Scully explains Ariel McKesson died of heart failure and then was burned to cover something up. All the victims were people who came in contact with the body. Detective Abbott took the call, her mother identified the body, the undertaker prepared the body, and Myron Stefaniuk pulled the body from the river. All but Myron Stefaniuk are now dead. Doggett and Scully find Myron and ask him about Ernie Stefaniuk and learn Ernie was his brother but disappeared long ago. They keep an eye on Myron while discussing how Scully thinks she is trying too hard to be Mulder. Their observation is rewarded by finding a man receiving supplies sent across the river by Myron. The man is Ernie Stefaniuk and he tells them that he hid on that island with his wife Ariel for 44 years. Ernie says that the bat thing has cold hearted human vengeance and that it kills anyone with Ernie’s scent on them so he had burned his wife’s body to try and cover up the scent. He informs them that it hunts only at night and Myron is in danger. Doggett goes to find Myron only to be attacked and badly torn up by the creature at the river. Ernie says Scully is now marked and the creature will go after her too. When his ground radar goes off, Scully goes outside after shooting up the ceiling. Ernie stays inside and is butchered by the bat thing. Scully returns to see it tearing up Ernie and manages to shoot it a few times before being knocked down by it. Doggett appears and shoots the creature a few more times saving Scully. It disappears into the night while Scully helps the injured Doggett. Two weeks later, Doggett appears recovered and tells Scully that Myron Stefaniuk went into hiding. Scully is a bit concerned the creature may come after them while Doggett assumes that since they both shot it, it is dead. Scully tells Doggett that she is thankful for him watching her back and she will get a desk for him down there in the basement. 
<EOS>
Scully goes to investigate the above murder in which the victim’s body had aged prematurely. A twenty two year old backpacker who now shows signs of body decay usually associated with old age. She asks John Doggett to check the X-Files for cases mentioning glyco-proteins (mucus), since he looked through the X Files recently. She is cutting Doggett out but pretends the case is just some minor consultation. A bus passes her while she has the conversation with Doggett on a pay phone. He tells her that Mr. Milsap is the only person with a working phone. Scully goes to his house and learns the line is dead. Mr. Milsap offers Scully a room at the boarding house but Scully tries the rest of the town only to be ignored by everyone. They are all at Bible study groups as Scully travels about only to realize that Mr. Milsap is the only person who will deal with her. She remains paranoid of the situation and keeps her gun close at hand. The next morning, Mr. Milsap tells Scully that there is a man who needs help downstairs. She goes with him and finds the hitchhiker having a seizure. She advises them to take him to the hospital but they pretend not to have any cars. She discovers a strange circular wound on the small of his back. Agent John Doggett calls Sheriff Ciolino in Juab country where Scully said information is supposed to be sent and learns that Scully has not arrived yet so he has the call she made earlier traced. Doggett checks with the Sheriff and tells about the last phone call before Scully being made by Hank Gulatarski, a missing hitchhiker, so clearly something is going on in that specific area. Scully talks with Hank, the missing hitchhiker, again on his own about the creature and thinks she can’t get it out without killing him. She tells him that they are both prisoners and she needs to get him out of there to save his life, then she hands over her gun so he can protect himself. She goes to find a car but, moments after leaving, Hank immediately tells the townspeople what she is up to and that another swap is needed. John Doggett arrives in Utah and informs the Sheriff about a series of other victims with the same back wound and stoning deaths. These occurred all over the western desert states in remote locations. They tie her to a bed and gag her after she starts yelling. Agent Doggett appears in the town and Mr. Milsap and the bus driver pretend they never saw Scully before. Doggett leaves but pretends he fell for their lies. He calls for the Sheriff and his men then heads in to try and find Scully. Scully is packing her things in the hospital when Doggett comes in to inform her about the trial of the cult members and how they are offering little defense except that they are being persecuted for their religious beliefs. Scully muses that they thought the worm was the second coming of Jesus Christ. She then admits that she shouldn’t have gone alone and cut Doggett out. 
<EOS>
Billy Underwood swings at his elementary school. The elementary school is hosting a fair and people are everywhere with Billy Underwood in the midst of it all calling for his pregnant mother, Lisa Underwood. She is busy talking with another woman and then Billy disappears right off the swing, leaving only his backpack. Ronald Purnell quietly slips back into the shadows. Ten years later, 2000, Lisa Underwood arrives at the elementary after receiving a phone call from the principal. Her younger son, Josh Underwood, and the administrators lead her to the swing set where Billy Underwood is, the same age as he was when he vanished a decade earlier. Scully and Doggett arrive at the police station to see Billy. Scully finds that the child seems to be a perfectly healthy seven-year old though he should be seventeen. Before Billy’s parents can take him home, Doggett interviews the boy. Billy is absolutely mute after being returned. To try and force the boy to tell him the name of his kidnapper, Doggett keeps his backpack from him which infuriates his mother and leads Scully to question Doggett’s expertise in child abduction cases. Billy returns home with his parents. His brother and father clearly don’t like Billy and the dog seems to sense something is not right about him. The mother is blind to any problems of her returned son. Scully suggests that the boy is an alien abductee to explain his being perfectly identical to his 1990 self. Doggett dismisses it, not coming up with a credible alternative answer, but instead focusing on the details of the case. He believes Ronald Purnell may have been involved and Scully is somewhat shocked that Doggett broke sealed juvenile records on Purnell. While the Underwoods argue about returned Billy Underwood, Billy goes into his brother’s room with a knife. Doggett questions Ronald Purnell outside the trailer he shares with his mother. Purnell is confused when Doggett says that he wants Purnell to meet Billy. Purnell tells Doggett that he is not making any sense and goes into the trailer. As Doggett sits in his car, he pulls out a photo of a boy from his wallet. Lisa Underwood wakes Josh when she finds a bloody knife stabbed into his bed in the morning. Billy stands in the room, staring at Josh. At the police station, Sheriff Sanchez discusses the knife with Scully and Doggett. The blood is Billy Underwood’s blood but there is no cut on him. The knife is not their father’s and bares a symbol that Billy drew while being interrogated by Doggett that a police psychic also drew ten years earlier. Scully suggests that Billy has to be removed from the home. When the Underwoods are complying with this, Billy is suddenly missing from the van and appears in his brother Josh’s room. Ronald goes into the woods and digs up a skull. Scully and Doggett bring the police-hired psychic, Sharon Pearl, to meet Billy while Billy’s father, Doug and the other son, Josh, leave. Sharon Pearl touches Billy and immediately starts freaking out, saying she feels powerful forces acting through Billy and that she senses emanations from Doggett as well. She then goes into a seizure and the same symbol forms on her forehead. Cal Jeppy threatens Ronald Purnell to stay quiet or he will tell the police what he did to the little boy and where to find the body. When Scully shows the tape recording of the psychic having the seizure, All the Little Horses as sung by a child is on the tape of the psychic when played backwards. While discussing this in the car, Scully and Doggett notice Purnell drive up to the Underwood home. Purnell panics when he sees Billy Underwood in the car with him and drives away after Doggett comes over and notices Billy in the car with Ronald. After a short pursuit, Purnell is arrested and Scully &amp; Doggett fail to find Billy in the vehicle. Elsewhere, Josh Underwood is abducted at a gas station when he goes to see a pony in a horse trailer. The symbol that keeps appearing in the case is on the horse trailer as a logo. Doggett interrogates Ronald Purnell after learning of Josh’s disappearance. Eventually, Purnell confesses to snatching Billy all those years ago on behalf of someone else. Doggett recognizes Purnell was a victim as well and with enough prodding gets the name Cal Jeppy. The police and the two FBI agents go to Jeppy’s home and find Josh in the horse trailer in a compartment under the floor. Doggett and all chase Jeppy into the woods and after Doggett apprehends Cal Jeppy, he demands to know 'where the other kid is.’ Jeppy insists ‘there is no other kid.’ For a brief moment, Agent Doggett sees Billy Underwood again but he is gone when he turns back. He goes over to where he saw the boy and finds the skull unearthed by Purnell earlier. As the Underwoods stand over the shallow grave of their long dead son, Scully and Doggett argue about the events of the case. Doggett is bothered by the impossible series of events and how none of it really makes sense. Scully believes it was justice from beyond the grave and that the important thing is that it saved Josh Underwood. It closes on Doggett watching the Underwoods mourning over their son. 
<EOS>
Waking up and checking for bullet wounds Martin Wells sees Agents Scully and Doggett arrive with an evidence bag and demanding answers. Martin is confused and does not understand what is going on. Doggett furiously suggests Martin is starting some ‘half-assed insanity defense.’ Scully tells him the key card is Wells’ card to his apartment and that it was found in a dumpster behind the hotel he was staying at. Doggett berates Wells since he thinks it is clear Wells is a murderer with that piece of evidence. He wants explanation and Doggett shows a crime scene photo of Martin’s murdered wife, Vicky. Doggett dials it back as he notices Martin’s emotions. He is brought into court and he sees the man who shot him, his father-in-law, Al Cawdry. As the day is announced in court as Thursday, Wells begins to understand that it is the day before instead of Saturday. The judge knows Wells on a first name basis as Wells is a prosecutor. The judge denies bail but decides to transfer Wells. Wells makes a scene in the court accusing his father-in-law of planning on killing him during the transfer. In his second meeting of the day with Scully and Doggett, Wells explains that he can’t remember the last few days. Scully suggests that maybe he did do it. Wells begins having flashes of the murder but they are unclear. Waiting in his cell, he kills a spider. Wells meets his lawyers and tells them about the nanny cam yet its Wednesday not Friday since he still hasn’t entirely grasped the living the week backwards thing. While out in the yard, a man confronts him about being unfairly punished. Shorty is enjoying the downfall of Wells and complains about his conviction over possession with intent to sell and a concealed weapon charge. Concealed weapon was a pipe wrench that he was on his way to use to fix a sink at his mother’s place. This charge added six months onto his sentence but Wells doesn’t care because all that matters to him is that he broke the law. Wells gets shoved into a dominoes game and while picking them up gets slashed on his right cheek from a man with the spider web tattoo on his hand. Martin Wells meets Doggett and Scully and explains that he is moving backwards in time and can not recall the past few days. Doggett is skeptical but Scully hears him out. Wells says there must be a reason for it and Scully suggests that the answer may already be within him. Studying the evidence of the case, he has a flash of the murder that reveals the knife in a hand with a spider web tattoo. Martin awakes at the home of a friend, John Doggett, and thanks Doggett for helping him. Wells tells Doggett the description of the killer but the man isn’t in lock-up yet because that won’t happen until Wednesday. At Trina Galvez’s home, Wells confronts her about the nanny cam and suggests that she gave the killer the keycard to get in. Doggett picks up on the fact that Trina is talking through the only partially opened door with the chain still in place. He covers the peephole and slams the door open. The killer falls to the ground but starts to get right back up with a knife. Doggett pistol whips the man and restrains him. Trina Galvez, weeping, tells Martin that the man threatened to kill her family and that she is sorry. At the station house, Doggett explains the man is named Cesar Ocampo and that he has a record with many narcotics and assault charges. He also informs him that Ocumpo only wants to talk to Martin Wells. Doggett calls Martin Wells out into the hall and the police arrest Martin because they have a case against him. Evidence against Ocumpo isn’t strong enough yet. Wells awakes in the hotel room and immediately calls home reaching an answering machine. He goes to John Doggett and recruits him to help save his wife. Martin admits to evidence suppression and that Hector Ocumpo’s brother is out for revenge. Wells drives home and finds the police that Doggett contacted. Vicky isn’t home yet and the police have checked everything out already. They are unwilling to stick around, believing it to be a false alarm. Hearing someone at the door, Martin Wells gets a knife and waits by the door. He frightens his wife when she walks in but luckily doesn’t stab her. Wells goes to prison for his evidence suppression. He seems to feel he deserves it. 
<EOS>
Agent James Leeds sleeps peacefully in his car when Agent Angus Stedman knocks on his window. "Damn Jim, you fell asleep! We’re on a stakeout, man." Stedman points out that the house’s front door is wide open and they had better check it out. They follow bloody footprints into a room full of dead people. They split up to check out the house. Leeds hears gunfire and heads out to the atrium to find Stedman dead on the ground with the same wound as all the people in the room. Crouched over Stedman, Leeds hears a noise behind him and spins around just in time to see a man with three eyes bring an axe down on his head. Dana Scully wakes up John Doggett with a phone call informing him that an agent surveilling a cult group has been found dead in Pittsburgh and so have all the cult members. Scully is calling to tell him she can’t be there but doesn’t explain that she is in the hospital. Skinner summarizes Tippet and so forth to Doggett, Director Kersh, and other members of the FBI. Tippet made a hybrid religion that preached the importance of following the twin aspects of the Holy Spirit, both light and dark. Get closer to God by going into the darkness through the use of a hallucinogen Tabernanthe Iboga (bark of a tree). The cult followers were not on the drug when killed and there seems to be no forensic evidence which leads Skinner to suggest that Tippet succeeded in reaching a higher plane and his consciousness murdered these people. Director Kersh is infuriated by this answer and assumes that Scully came up with it but Scully had nothing to do with it. A homeless man asks for change from Tippet on the street as he goes to a pay phone. Tippet grabs the man and tells him "you don’t want to know me!" Tippet makes a call to a man blaming him for what is happening. The man slices open his forehead in response to this. Doggett identifies the murder weapon as a ceremonial axe used a thousand years ago and only in museums now. He wants Scully’s help on the case but Skinner insists that she needs this personal time off. The homeless man encounters Tippet again. A three eyed Tippet that watches as the man is pulled into the concrete as if it were quicksand and then the axe falls. While Doggett walks away from the cell, he sees bloody footprints which lead him to a hovering Tippet with three eyes. He finds himself holding the severed head of Scully before Skinner wakes him up with a phone call from her. Scully tells him that he should get some sleep and that he should talk to Mulder’s friends about this. Skinner informs Doggett that the drug Bormanis was attempting to take while they were hauling him in was a super-amphetamine. Doggett realizes that Bormanis doesn’t want to fall asleep and that they need to talk to him now. Bormanis finds three eyed Tippet and sees rats swarm him and bite him to death for his experiments on them. Doggett and Skinner arrive in time to find Bormanis dead. Doggett finds the Lone Gunmen in the X-Files offices. Lone Gunmen bring up the third eye idea, a concept from eastern religions suggesting that if you could open up your third eye that you would see a new reality that is closer to God. Doggett says Tippet believes he has opened his third eye and that he is attempting to destroy others’ third eyes. They suggest that Tippet makes his victims think they are going to be killed and then it comes true but Doggett doesn’t buy it. He does however believe that Tippet believes it so Doggett and Skinner go to Bormanis’s laboratory under the assumption that Tippet would need more of the drug. Doggett notices Scully is in the hospital when he signs the wounded Tippet in. After checking on her, he talks with Director Kersh and Skinner. Doggett says that Tippet thought he could get into peoples’ minds and make their nightmares real to kill them and Kersh says the case is over. Doggett angrily points out how there is no evidence to prove Tippet’s involvement. Kersh insists it is closed. He is visibly shaken and Skinner sends him home to get some rest. 
<EOS>
Scully and Doggett are informed that Mr. Chase was killed with a 9mm armor-piercing round, which appears to have entered the room through the air vent in the ceiling. Upon further investigation, the agents discover that the assassin shot through the roof, a ceiling, the duct work, and into the victim. We then see a woman enter AAA-1 Surekill Exterminators. She plays her message machine and we hear the victim's phone call from the previous night. The woman attempts to get into her right desk drawer, when Dwight walks in, and begins harassing her about a message on the machine. She mentions the murder to Dwight, and he responds by asking her to try and get Randall on the phone. Dwight then confronts Randall in the alley as he kills a rat that is attempting to sneak away from a bucket load of its dead friends. The boss tells Randall that he doesn't mind what he does, as long as he asks first. Scully and Doggett are checking out the Chase residence and find a 45. casing on the floor. Doggett wonders where whoever he shot at is, because he couldn't have missed in such a confined space. Scully replies that he could have if what he was shooting at was outside. Dwight barges in on several men counting money. They point their guns at Dwight and Dwight tells him that he will be taking the money and drugs off their hands. Dwight points his hand in the shape of a gun at each of the men and says bam. As he does so, each is stuck by a bullet and falls to the floor. Scully and Doggett arrive at Surekill and inquire as to the company's client, Carlton Chase. Doggett asks if Dwight did time and he responds that he did. Doggett asks why Chase would have called Surekill just before his death. After the agents leave, Dwight confronts Tammi about the message, and she lies. We see Randall watching Tammi through her wall. Tammi returns to Surekill early the next morning and rushes in to get the money she has taken from the Surekill account out of her desk but is caught by Dwight and Randall. Dwight is interrupted by an FBI agent with a warrant to search. Doggett opens the box Tammi was trying to dispose of, which we discover has nothing inside, to Tammi's surprise. Dwight claims he runs a clean business. Scully pulls out several folders containing invoices for Mr. Chase. Doggett interrogates Dwight, and Scully interrogates Randall. Randall repeats Dwight's words as he reads his lips through a wall. Scully confronts him about this, and the drug dealer killing. Randall replies that they are just exterminators. We then see both agents interrogating Tammi. They want to know why kill Chase. Tammi returns home and notices a man's shadow facing her apartment. Doggett has phone records that show that Tammi and Chase had back and forth phone calls, late at night. Tammi and Randall go to the bus station. It becomes clear that they intend to run away together, but that Tammi must go get her stash of money. Doggett and Scully search Tammi's apartment. Doggett redials Tammi's phone and gets the bus station. Tammi returns from the bank and gets back in her car. Dwight surprises her from the back seat and puts a gun to her head, and tells her to drive. Dwight comes to the conclusion that Randall killed Chase because he and Tammi were together. Dwight hands Randall a gun and tells him to shoot Tammi. Tammi tries to talk Randall out of it but Randall shoots through the wall next to her and kills Dwight. It ends with Randall in the police station interrogation room. Doggett and Scully talk about Tammi having gotten away and that Randall must have seen something in her that she didn't see in herself. Randall sees through the walls of the interrogation room to look at Tammi's picture on a detective's computer screen. 
<EOS>
Agents Scully and Doggett are investigating the crash and find shoe prints in the asphalt. Scully suggests a man stopped the car but Doggett points out how it would have required a dense block of steel to stop the car. Nora Pearce appears and asks what happened to Curtis Delario. Soon afterwards, Scully finds Delario’s body left in a garbage can nearby. Agent Doggett goes to see Nora Pearce and finds Harry Odell, who employed Ray Pearce at the salvage yard. Doggett asks about Ray, whose remains never showed up at the crematorium, but Nora insists she saw Ray die. Both don’t believe Ray could be involved in Curtis’s death. Ray Pearce eats at a halfway house as volunteer Larina Jackson bothers him. She tries to reach out to help him but he is completely uninterested in talking with her. At Southside Salvage, Harry Odell is shredding documents when Ray appears. Harry feigns friendliness while he gets the shotgun out of his desk drawer. He blasts Ray through a sliding glass door. Ray’s detached arm begins to rebuild with metal. Harry is transfixed by this sight as Ray walks back up and kills him. The next morning, Doggett checks out the new murder scene and finds an interesting shredded document. Larina attempts to connect with Ray again and finds the bloody clothes. She tells him she can get a doctor but he tells her to get out. Doggett goes to Chamber Technologies and learns about smart metals, metals that rebuild their original forms but are still a metallurgist’s pipe dream at the moment. When asked about Dr. Clifton, his replacement, Dr. Pugovel, says Clifton left the company and the company would not deal with a city salvage yard. On the phone, Doggett mentions the smart metals and Scully tells Doggett about how Ray Pearce’s medical records show his whole cellular structure was changing due to exposure to an unknown substance. Larina sees Ray’s obituary in the paper and is watching the television news story about the murder at the salvage yard. She decides to call Ray’s widow. Doggett and Scully discuss Ray Pearce with Doggett telling of Ray Pearce being a man who had problems and managed to put his life back together. He wasn’t the sort of man to become a killer. Scully merely points out that if Pearce has become this metal man, then how can he be stopped? Scully and Doggett tell Nora there is no one to blame for it. She tells them that she didn’t get to tell him the name from the files. When she is sent home, Ray shows up demanding the name and twisting her arm despite her being the wife he loved. She tells them the name of the guy he is going after, Owen Harris. Ray Pearce attacks Harris and his family in their car but Harris has no idea what Ray is talking about with the salvage yard. The young son in back calls out to his father. Ray turns and looks at the boy. When Scully and Doggett arrive, the family is fine and sitting by an ambulance. Owen Harris was an accountant who accidentally sent the barrel to the salvage yard. Ray spared him and went off to die somewhere. Scully believes that the last shreds of Ray’s humanity are what drove him to kill in his machine like state but also what drove him to spare the man’s life. A machine knows neither blame nor mercy. 
<EOS>
Potocki checks in at the hotel not saying a word to the bellhop. He sits down on the bed and blood streams out of everywhere. Scully arrives late to the crime scene and Doggett tells her that Potocki’s blood all drained abruptly in the hotel. A child’s bloody print is found. Or so Doggett suggests, but Scully doesn’t believe that a child did this. She thinks he should keep an open mind. In the morgue, Scully describes the massive stomach damage of Potocki which leads Doggett to the idea of drugs being forcibly cut out of him. The man showed no sign of drugs though in the blood tests and Scully tells Doggett that his time of death was 24 to 36 hours ago, long before he left India. 7th grader, Trevor, knocks down 6th grader, Quinton and takes his scooter. Before it can continue further, Quinton’s father intercedes and drives Quinton home. Doggett talks about another dead man in India and Scully notices the weight discrepancy between the victim’s weight in life and when he was in the morgue. She believes that there was a passenger in these people. Doggett points out that even if that was true, Potocki was already dead so how could he have made the trip? Quinton calls for his father after he sees the legless beggar man in his room. His father tells him that he just imagined it. His father goes back downstairs and then screams. Quinton rushes down to find his father dead, his eyes turned red with blood. Doggett and Scully investigate this latest death after the police told them about the strange man the boy saw. Doggett found more handprints. While discussing the lack of any damage to the body except the broken blood vessels in the eyes, Scully comes to the conclusion that maybe that’s the first stage and that the man is still inside the latest victim. While Agent John Doggett checks his watch, Dr. Charles Burks explains that Siddhi mystics could do the things Scully described. They have powers of the mind and can alter people’s perceptions of reality. Make themselves invisible or appear as a different person. Doggett mocks it all before leaving and Burks tells Scully, "It’s hard to believe in something when you don’t understand it." Trevor shows up at Quinton’s home to say he is sorry and says he thinks he knows who did it. Burks returns to the office and Scully explains that she is trying to see it the way that Mulder would. Something she doesn’t understand is why a holy man would commit murder. She theorizes that a mystic is acting out of revenge since an American plant inadvertently released a gas cloud that killed 118 people in Vishi, outside of Mumbai. One of the victims was the 11 year old son of a holy man of the beggar caste. Burks agrees to the possibility but wonders why he’s killing these specific people if he’s out for revenge. Trevor runs home after hearing the squeaking wheels. He runs outside after encountering his mother. She follows him outside to find him face down in the middle of the pool. She dives down to get him and it turns into the legless man. Doggett questions why they are at the new crime scene. He thinks the whole case is a stretch and that Scully is just reaching since there is no pattern. Trevor jumps the fence and returns to his home. When he asks where his mom is, Scully doesn’t answer so Trevor realizes what happened immediately and tells them it was the little man. Scully arrives at Trevor’s home to talk to him and Doggett calls Scully to tell her the man isn’t there anymore. Trevor’s father can’t find his son there. Quinton and Trevor hunt the legless man in the school. When he goes into the janitor’s closet, Trevor tries to get him with a big glass container of lye from his perch on a high shelf. The man is nowhere to be found until Quinton encounters him in the hall and starts running. Quinton retreats into an empty classroom but the windows are locked and he can’t get out. Trevor appears at the window just before the legless man enters the classroom. Doggett arrives at the school and hears gunshots. He rushes in and finds Scully standing over the body of the legless man. Scully exits the classroom in a rush while Doggett and the principal stare at the body in confusion. Two weeks later in Sahar International Airport the legless man watches another fat American man pass by. 
<EOS>
A car drives through the rain to a house. The driver emerges and walks to a door marked with a symbol in blood. The driver bursts into the house and the man and woman in the home demand him to leave. A creature that looks somewhat human-like approaches the woman but the driver shoots it three times. He returns to his car and only now is his identity clear: Agent Fox Mulder. Agent John Doggett is driving towards Squamash, Pennsylvania, while thinking about his task to find Mulder and how Mulder knew he was dying before he disappeared. John Doggett arrives at the sheriff’s office and meets with Sheriff Kurt Frey. Sheriff Frey informs him that Agent Mulder was there investigating a missing person, Marie Hangemuhl, but that it wasn’t really a missing person case as Marie hadn’t left her home, there was no report, and Mulder only heard about it because of Marie Hangemuhl’s sister contacting him. Agent Doggett returns to Washington, D.C. and searches Mulder’s apartment until he finds a gun Mulder kept hidden under his sink. Meanwhile a backhoe digs at a stone circle in Squamash while a few townspeople talk about needing to prove something. Doggett and Assistant Director Skinner talk about the tests on Mulder’s second gun which revealed blood splatter on the barrel. Doggett points out that the gun is missing three rounds and there were three bullet holes in the wall at the Hangemuhl home. No report about the discharge of his weapon was filed though. Mulder’s reports at the time claim he was in D.C. but cell phone records show he was in Pennsylvania. Skinner believes Doggett knows this is his ticket out of the X-Files. Doggett is trying to keep it all quiet though because Scully signed those reports too. The townspeople of Squamash show up at a cabin in the woods demanding ‘it’ to be sent out. A woman comes out attempting to lie to cover its escape but they spot it and capture him. Doggett returns to Squamash with Skinner. They ask the Sheriff about the murder of an unidentified transient. Doggett accuses the Sheriff and the Hangemuhls of covering up the murder of the transient committed by Mulder. Sheriff Frey arrives at the Hangemuhl home where the symbol in blood is on the door again. The sheriff says that she better be ready. As the truck with the captive creature arrives, Marie’s husband kisses her goodbye after she strips down. She lies naked on the floor as the hideous creature opens its jaws wide and bites her. Doggett and Skinner show up and speak with Paul Hangemuhl but the wife is already gone. They can’t help but notice the blood though. Deep underground, the creature vomits into a person shaped hole in the soil. Doggett suggests to Skinner that Mulder shot someone all those months ago to protect Marie Hangemuhl; to protect her from the man who was supposed to be in that grave. Skinner checks in with Doggett who reports that Marie’s kidneys healed spontaneously. Doggett leaves without giving a statement to the sheriff because he knows the man has known all along. He returns to the woman in the woods who watches over the creature. She explains that it looks the way it does because it takes the sickness of others into itself. Doggett is lost about how to start his case report as Skinner shows up. Doggett tells him that he is no closer to finding Mulder than he was months ago. Skinner advises Doggett not to write the report because it would open up a can of worms. Doggett seems willing to accept this as he stares at the medicine wheel symbol. For a brief moment he sees Mulder in the room with him. 
<EOS>
An undercover cop waiting on a subway platform feigns being just another commuter, as a suspected robber appears. They both get onto the train and the police officer draws his gun, as the other man starts to walk towards him from behind. The subway comes to a screeching halt and the policeman drops his gun, which slides away. The robber approaches as screams are heard, flashes of light are seen, and the train loses power there. Later, when the train is running again, a batch of commuters enter the subway car and find the undercover cop, with the flesh on half his face and his left arm stripped down to the bone. When Agents Scully and Doggett arrive at the operations center for the Boston subway system, they are rudely greeted by Deputy Chief Karras and Lieutenant Bianco of the transit police. They eagerly want the FBI to get the job done fast, since the subway has to be reopened in five hours and Karras is irritated that Scully performed an autopsy on the transit cop. Scully has no idea what killed the man yet, but the CDC has been unable to find any biological or chemical agents in the subway. Bianco believes the suspect used acid or lye to destroy the man. They are introduced to the rest of the team going below - Structural Engineer Steven Melnick and Dr. Hellura Lyle, from the Pathogens branch of the CDC - but Scully decides it will work better if Doggett acts as her eyes and ears, and she analyzes the situation from up there in the center. She will watch and hear what is happening through the camera and microphone on Doggett's headset. They march into the dark tunnel. Not long into the tunnels, Melnick gets a burn on the back of his neck, suggesting a chemical leak, but the test of the puddle nearby shows nothing relevant. It is just salt water. Melnick mentions that the tunnels run along the harbor in some places and they get sea water leakage from time to time. Moving ahead, they find an abandoned section of the subway tunnels. They approach the plastic sheeting that seals off the unused tunnel. Out of the tunnel bursts a man with his ribcage and teeth exposed. He knocks Doggett down. He is the suspected robber, eaten away like the other man. It proves he didn't kill the cop and that there may be a contagion. While Lt. Bianco tries to convince them to leave, since they got the robber, they notice three bodies with the same flesh-eating injuries, wrapped in plastic. It becomes clear that there may be a cover-up of the problem in the subway. Lyle spots an unknown person running away from them in the subway, so the team realizes they have to go on to find them, much to Karras' irritation. While approaching the spot where the train lost power, Melnick starts crying out in pain. Visible electrical flashes start destroying the skin and flesh of his left arm. Scully tells Doggett to pour water on it. This stops the flashes. Scully theorizes that it could be some sort of bio-weapon and that they need to contain it. While Lyle stays with badly injured Melnick, Doggett continues onward with Bianco. When Melnick returns to the surface, he seems to be getting worse but Lyle seems okay. Scully then sees the three bodies are being taken away by non-CDC hazmat people. When Scully confronts Karras about this and says the bodies must go to the CDC, Karras tells her that he is organizing it. Scully tells Karras that she already had arranged it and accuses Karras of knowing something was wrong and covering those bodies up. Although Karras claims not knowing about this, he allows Scully to send the bodies to the CDC. When Doggett notices the green glow of whatever it is on Bianco in a dimly lit former subway station, he refuses to allow the lieutenant to leave. Bianco takes down Doggett and runs away. Scully meets with Dr. Kai Bowe, marine biologist, about the water sample. She explains that the sample contained microscopic sea creatures called Medusas which are made out of calcium and are bioluminescent. Bowe doesn't know why the electrical reaction happens but Scully realizes it takes time for it to trigger. Doggett regains consciousness and pursues Bianco. He learns from Scully that Karras has gone ahead of plan and allowed the passengers onto the platforms. The subway will start back up, despite the danger. When Doggett finds the wounded Bianco, he discovers that his condition has gotten worse and Scully tries to show Karras his condition, but Karras flees the room before Scully can show him. Doggett then carries Bianco on his back and helps him continue through the tunnels. They encounter a boy down there with no signs of the luminous green substance on him. Scully realizes that sweat is causing the chemical electrical reaction, since it is conductive to calcium ions. The boy doesn't have well-developed sweat glands yet, so the medusas don't affect him. Doggett follows the boy to a major leak from the bay with the green glow on all the walls. The boy seems to have led him there more to show a way out of the tunnels just beyond the leak. Doggett gets Bianco and follows the boy back to the leak point. The train is coming through the tunnel and Doggett decides to use Bianco's gun to connect the third rail with the water to fry the medusas. He doesn't want to let the people on the subway get exposed to it. Scully comes to see Doggett in the hospital. He is perfectly fine; the Medusas were washed off of him easily before any electrical shocks melted his flesh. He is informed that Bianco and Melnick are with the plastic surgeons, the boy is with social services, and no criminal charges will be pressed against Karras since the electrical charge of the third rail destroyed the proof of the Medusas in the tunnel. 
<EOS>
Agent Scully goes into work and encounters Duffy Haskell and Agent John Doggett down in the X-Files offices. Duffy Haskell claims to have contacted the X-Files offices in the past and that his wife Kath McCready, an abductee, has been murdered because she gave birth to an alien child. He believes the doctors killed his wife and stole the alien baby. After he leaves, Scully fumes at Doggett for bringing the man in because she finds the whole story to be ridiculous. Doggett is highly skeptical too but he thought Scully would be interested because the story of Kath McCready, years of being abducted and experimented on, is identical to Scully minus the pregnancy. Scully tells him that she appreciates his thoroughness in looking through the X-Files but to stay out of her personal files. Scully remembers the time she told Mulder about being infertile because of the tests. Mulder told her then how her ovum were taken and stored in a government lab and were no longer viable; he had not bothered telling her this because with her cancer she had enough bad news at the time. And finds a room of deformed infants suspended in fluid in containers. The doctor, Doctor Lev, asks her what she is doing there. Scully bluffs and claims she was there to see her friend, the patient in the room. When she returns home, she calls her doctor, James Parenti, who inspects an alien infant body in the same jarred infant room after finishing his call with Scully. Assistant Director Walter Skinner, Agent Doggett, and Agent Scully interrogate Duffy Haskell because he has threatened Doctor Lev and Agent Mulder in the past. He claims there are other women out there like Kath before he leaves. He calls Doctor Lev in the elevator to inform him about being called back into the FBI as they knew would occur. A flashback reveals that Mulder agreed to conceive a child with Scully through in vitro fertilization through Doctor Parenti. Mary Hendershot then arrives seeking Scully’s help. Doggett, Skinner, and Scully meet clandestinely to tell Doggett that Scully is taking a leave of absence. Doggett is irritated that they are hiding something from him but Scully still refuses to tell him about her pregnancy. Scully gets an ultrasound and is told that her baby seems perfectly healthy by Doctor Miryum. In Washington, D.C., Doggett intercepts his old friend Knowle Rohrer to discuss Haskell. Rohrer tells him that he needs more time to figure out who Haskell is. Rohrer scoffs at the conspiracy idea but admits CIA wouldn’t be in Doggett’s office just to kill time. Scully has amniotic fluid removed from her womb for tests. After they leave she notices something. The television that displayed her ultrasound has the VCR running. She gets up and removes a tape of another woman’s ultrasound used to deceive her. She finds Hendershot and tells her they need to escape. Doggett catches Skinner as he is leaving and explains it was all a setup from day one when Haskell showed up. Skinner calls the hospital to try and get security to protect Scully. Scully and Hendershot escape from the hospital with the help of Knowle Rohrer. They evade military police but stop in the woods when it is clear Hendershot is about to deliver. Rohrer keeps Scully away from Hendershot while claiming to be protecting her. They sedate Scully but she is conscious long enough to hear the strange cries of Hendershot’s inhuman newborn. Scully awakens to find herself in the hospital with Doggett at her bedside. He now knows the secret she was hiding from him and says that she put herself and her baby at risk but is stable now. He explains that Mary Hendershot gave birth to a normal human baby boy. Scully claims they switched the infants. Doggett relates that the doctors believe Scully overreacted to everything out of fear of complications with her own pregnancy and that it was her ultrasound taped over an old ultrasound tape. Doggett admits that the men who showed up acted on information he provided. They ended up saving Scully’s life. Scully confesses that she believed if the FBI found out about the pregnancy they would remove her from the X-Files. After Doggett leaves, she remembers that the in vitro attempt failed but Mulder told her not to give up. 
<EOS>
Richie Szalay pursues a bright light in his car. When he catches up with the alien spacecraft as it lands, he gets out of the car. He tries to take a picture of the orb of light but notices he didn’t wind the camera, when he looks back up he doesn’t see the ship anymore. He runs towards the site and sees a man run away as he approaches. He trips over a body as he runs. Looking at the horrifically scared naked woman on the ground, he mumbles, "This is not happening." Scully is called into Skinner’s office because of important news. Skinner relates Szalay’s encounter in Montana and suggests this might have something to do with Mulder. He explains that the woman Szalay found was Theresa Hoese, the young mother abducted the night before Mulder’s abduction. That she was returned last night nearly dead. The three of them arrive at St. Jean Hospital in Helena, Montana. Dr. Desai meets with them and explains that the woman is circling the drain and that in all his years he has never seen such abuse. Scully is on the edge of tears as Desai recounts some of what was done to her, such as damage to the soft palette and that her chest was split open and organ tissue scooped out. Scully asks if there were foreign objects implanted but Dr. Desai saw none on the X-Rays. Doggett receives a police report and sarcastically tells them they can continue discussing foreign objects but it looks like they have a suspect. They go and talk to Richie Szalay, who says he came to Montana following chat room stories of UFO sightings. He was trying to find his friend Gary Cory who had been abducted during the incidents in Oregon. Doggett says the police found tracks out there that matched 9 1/2 size Nikes and suggests to Richie that it wasn’t an alien but a man out there. Doggett storms off at Richie’s alien related response. Scully follows him out to talk about it. Doggett suggests that Scully is afraid to find Mulder because of Hoese’s condition on return. Though he doesn’t believe in the alien abduction theory, he does believe someone took Mulder and the others. Skinner and Scully meet with Doggett and Monica Reyes out at the site where Hoese was returned. Monica Reyes is from the FBI and has a background with ritualistic crime; Doggett says he worked with her on a case in the past. She suspects that this is cult ritual abuse and that Mulder has joined or been forced to join a UFO cult. That they left the woman out there but did not think she would die, suggesting that they cared enough about her not to kill her. Scully leaves and as Doggett trails her, Scully reminds him that the doctor who released Hoese was in two places last night. Scully and Reyes have a conversation at the hospital about how Reyes believes they are dealing with a UFO cult but that doesn’t mean she can’t believe alien abduction is a real phenomenon. She explains she was a black sheep at the New Orleans field office because she claims to be sensitive to energies in the universe that give her feelings about things going on. Reyes sees the bright orb while driving home that night. She gets out of her car and tries to stop the Nike man and the man who saw Hoese healed from escaping with a human they pulled out of the field. They get away with one man in the back of their truck but another is still there. Scully performs the autopsy on Richie Szalay’s friend Gary Cory. Richie identifies the body while Scully struggles to hold her composure. Reyes and Doggett talk in the hall about how Doggett had the same fear as Scully years ago. He was afraid they would find his son dead and that is what they found after three days of searching. Reyes shows a wanted poster of one of the men she saw that night. Absalom is a cult leader who believed aliens would take over the Earth at the millennium. The healer man arrives and tells Absalom that they are coming. The FBI swarm the compound and round people up. Absalom is apprehended by Skinner while Scully finds a completely healed Theresa Hoese. In interrogation, Absalom recounts how the alien ships leave nearly dead abductees and he comes to the sites to save them. They throw suspicion upon him because of video cameras at the compound but Absalom smoothly explains that abductees feel the cameras give them a sense of safety. Scully asks if Absalom has seen Mulder but he claims he hasn’t seen him. While reviewing video tapes, Scully recognizes the healer man as Jeremiah Smith who she and Mulder encountered years ago. They see him change from himself into Agent Doggett on tape. She sees an alien ship approaching the cult’s farm. She rushes inside to find the cult members panicking and the FBI agents staring at the light in confusion. The beam of light is concentrated at the part of the building she left Jeremiah Smith in. Bursting into that room she finds him gone and screams, "This is not happening!" 
<EOS>
Three months after Dana Scully, John Doggett, Walter Skinner and Alvin Kersh gathered for Fox Mulder's funeral, Doggett is transferred off the X-Files. If he leaves, the office will be closed since Scully is on maternity leave. In the meantime a fishing trawler catches a body in the water, which is later revealed to be that of Billy Miles, who had been abducted at the same time that Mulder was. Fearing that they had buried Mulder alive, Skinner gets his body exhumed at a hospital. Dr. Lim, Mulder's attending doctor, said that he had little chance for survival since his body was decomposing. In the meantime, Scully notices that Miles has two heartbeats. Kersh tries to persuade Skinner to stop investigating Mulder's apparent death. When Skinner walks down an FBI hallway, his veins in his neck bulge making him stumble. It is revealed that Alex Krycek was behind this, Krycek reveals that he has the vaccine that could save Mulder's life, but he will only give it to Skinner if Scully does not give birth to her baby. In the meantime, Miles regains consciousness, he takes a shower and his decaying flesh sloughs of away, revealing a healthy body beneath the decaying. Miles later tries to persuade Scully and Doggett that the aliens are trying to save mankind. Scully gets a new lab report which states that Miles has literally became a new person. Skinner later reveals to Scully that there is a cure for Mulder's disease, but doesn't tell her about Krycek's demands. 
<EOS>
A man puts on black gloves and climbs the White House fence. While reporters photograph him bemusedly, he runs at the White House and is intercepted by the Secret Service ERT. As he struggles with them, he pulls a gun and accidentally shoots himself. Bleeding on the ground, he begs the agents to get something to the President and hands them a computer disk with three words on it: Fight the Future. Mulder remembers his experiences on the alien ship as he touches the scars on his face and chest. Scully enters with Dr. Lim and they give him surprisingly good news, especially given he was in a coffin until recently: The neurological condition that was killing him, before his disappearance, is gone, the virus he contracted recently is gone, and his scars are healing fast. He is in perfect health. Mulder returns to his apartment with Scully and he congratulates her on the pregnancy she had sought for a long time. He is a bit distant; a lot has happened and he hasn’t processed it all yet. Deputy Director Alvin Kersh calls Agent John Doggett and Assistant Director Skinner into his office. He informs them that he has received an application for reinstatement to the X-Files from Fox Mulder and that he intends to deny the request, claiming a higher percentage of success with Doggett. Though Skinner and Doggett defend Mulder, Kersh clearly is uninterested in restoring Mulder because he perceives him as a crusader. While Mulder talks about getting back to work, Absalom escapes from his prison work detail by attacking a guard with a board with a nail in it. Agent Doggett returns home after work and finds Absalom waiting for him with a gun. Absalom demands Doggett show the back of his neck to confirm that Doggett is still himself. He tells Doggett that the man killed at the White House, Howard Salt, died for what he knew about an alien invasion. Meanwhile, Skinner directs the manhunt of Absalom before he and Agent Scully are called down to the X-Files offices by Mulder. Mulder shows them that Howard Salt was one of the abductees that Absalom knew and that the census worker must have known something important that got him killed. Doggett and Skinner discuss the death of Absalom when Mulder comes in and shoves Doggett, accusing him of setting Absalom up to die. Mulder goes to see the Lone Gunmen at Scully’s house. They decrypted the hard drive of Howard Salt and found out it had data downloaded from the Federal Statistic Center. Now high level firewalls protect the center and you would need to access the data on site. They recommend Mulder give up this time. He refuses. Agent John Doggett meets with his informant, Knowle Rohrer, to ask if he was indeed used to get that man killed. Rohrer cryptically says that what Doggett is dealing with is far above anything he’s dealt with before and that he can only tell him three words: Fight the Future. Doggett goes to see Mulder but knows he won’t listen so he has Scully tell him about the disk labeled Fight the Future that the census worker had and how those three words are a pass code for the databank. After she gives the tip to Mulder, she realizes she shouldn’t have told him because he will use the code but she goes on the fool’s errand nonetheless. Skinner wake ups Doggett because he can’t reach Mulder or Scully. Skinner tells Doggett that it is about information on the census tracking people with specific genetic backgrounds. Doggett shows up at the Federal Statistics Center and tries to convince Scully to leave, claiming he set them up to be killed unintentionally due to the information he passed on. Mulder slips into the Center with the help of Langly, Byers, and Frohike hacking the security systems. He begins searching the data on the computers, as Doggett arrives to warn him, shooting his way into the server room. Mulder claims certain people have been targeted for abduction and replacement by facsimiles based on their genetics. As they are talking, the troops begin to arrive to murder them both in cold blood. Mulder doesn’t believe Doggett is trying to save him but Scully calls the three Lone Gunmen and they explain that there are troops approaching as seen on the security cameras. Langly tells Mulder the data is trapped and they aren’t managing to get anything uploaded. Byers explains to Mulder and Doggett how to get out of the server room through the ventilation system. 
<EOS>
Jeb Larold Dukes is told that he is fired. His boss keeps telling him how sorry he is and then Jeb walks out of the office. Agent Monica Reyes arrives at the crime scene, encountering Detective Franklin Potter while getting some nicotine gum out. Potter believes the murders are satanic cult related so he called Reyes in. Reyes points out the devil pictures are Marilyn Manson and the killer probably just snapped from a trigger event, like being fired. But as she is leaving, she sees one of the bodies carbonize into a charred corpse before her eyes. After Potter distracts her, she turns back to see the victim’s body back to normal. Fox Mulder is visiting Dana Scully when she doubles over in pain, clutching her pregnant belly. John Doggett meets Mulder at the hospital but since neither man is the husband, only co-workers, they can’t go in and see Scully. The staff says she should be okay but they are going to run some tests. Mulder receives a phone call from Monica Reyes about a strange case that she wants to discuss with him. He reminds her that Doggett is in charge of the X-Files but she tells him that the case involves Doggett and she can’t talk to him about it. Jeb Dukes is in a hotel room in Georgia trying to shoot himself through the head. Staring at himself in the mirror as he holds the gun to his head, the gun becomes extremely hot. Dropping it, he sees burns all over his hand. He notices something wrong with his face; he claws at his face peeling away the skin to reveal a lake of burning of embers beneath. Mulder and Reyes meet in a FBI records room, after she finds the case file on the death of Agent John Doggett’s son, Luke Doggett. Years ago, when Doggett’s son disappeared, the FBI were called in to investigate. Monica Reyes was one of the agents on the case and Doggett himself was involved in the investigation, working at the NYPD at the time. They never found the killer and when they discovered Luke’s body, Reyes and Doggett saw the body transform into ashes momentarily. Reyes says that Doggett has spent the last few years convincing himself he didn’t see it. Reyes believes it was a psychic message, some sort of clue that could help them, and now with the other crime scene, she has seen it again. Doggett attacks Mulder over looking into his son’s case until Reyes shows up and explains why they are looking into the case. Bob Harvey, a suspect in his son’s murder, died in the burning car outside the office building where the shooting happened. Reyes stresses the vision’s importance but Doggett dismisses it. Reyes goes to visit Jeb Dukes’ sister, Katha, and learns he did not know Bob Harvey. She does not believe her brother is capable of these murders. While Reyes is there, Katha receives a call from Jeb but tells him to call later. As Jeb leaves the phone booth, a woman with car trouble appears asking for help. All she finds is a murderer. Doggett visits Scully again and asks her what made her start to believe in the paranormal. She says she realized she was afraid to believe. Doggett seems to be on the edge of remembering the vision he saw of his son. Jeb Dukes takes the car of the woman who had the flat tire. He sees himself surrounded by fire in the reflection on the windshield. As Doggett approaches the body of this latest victim, he finds himself seeing Reyes surrounded by law enforcement officers at the body, just like when he found his son. Though the deja vu is unsettling he sees no vision but merely the woman from the payphone face down on the ground with a gunshot through the back. Doggett storms off but Reyes refuses to let it go, finally revealing her theory. That this is a thread of evil, a belief common everywhere but the West. Much as one would see God in a rose, one would see evil in death, in a murder. This thread connects through time and opportunity back to the first crime but Mulder points out that if Doggett doesn’t see it, then he won’t see it. Scully relates to Mulder that she had a partial abruption and tells Mulder he should keep trying to help Doggett. Katha Dukes returns home with her daughter and finds Jeb Dukes there. He insists it wasn’t him and that he needs help. He hugs his niece Mia when she comes in; there is nothing evil about him then, as if he didn’t kill anyone even with blood still on his face. Doggett and Reyes talk about his son and how Doggett has to believe that he did everything he could to save Luke but the supernatural implies there was more he could have done and he can’t accept that. They receive a phone call from Katha about Jeb Dukes being there. At the hospital, Doggett hopes to speak with the wounded Jeb Dukes about a connection to his son. Reyes suggests that maybe all of it was just to lead them to save that little girl. Doggett finally embraces the memory of finding his son and seeing him as charred. Mulder calls him out of Scully’s room and talks to him about his time in Violent Crimes. Mulder couldn’t understand the monsters they saw there and began to think of evil like a disease that infected people. Some lacked immunity to this disease of evil because of some tragedy in their lives. Perhaps the man is infected with evil and that it passes on from person to person. In the end, Doggett watches a bedridden catatonic Katha Dukes in her restraints. 
<EOS>
Agent John Doggett arrives at the X-Files office and finds Agent Fox Mulder looking through the files. Mulder, no longer assigned to the X-Files, questions why Doggett is not pursuing the death of an oil worker found horribly burned with charring consistent with exposure to high levels of radiation. Doggett recognizes that Mulder is referring to incidents of the black oil in the X-Files; sarcastically he recounts that it is supposedly an alien virus key to the conquest of Earth and that the virus can take over a person’s body and mind. Doggett believes this burned oil worker and the missing communications officer were merely the victims of an explosion as the oil company claims. Agent Dana Scully calls the office and tells Doggett that Deputy Director Kersh demands to see them because someone from their offices supposedly called the oil company. Mulder and Doggett both go up to the meeting because clearly Mulder called them and misrepresented himself as part of the X-Files department. Mulder apparently stirred up a hornet’s nest by implying the FBI was launching an investigation into the death of the Mexican worker, Simon de la Cruz. A Vice President from the oil company, Martin Ortega, explains that the oil platform discovered a vast new oil field but it extends far south into Mexican waters. The Mexican government would like to use Simon’s death as an excuse to claim the new field for themselves. Now Kersh will have to launch a criminal investigation to confirm no wrongdoing and will send Doggett. Doggett arrives on the platform via helicopter with the new communications officer, Yuri Volkov. The manager, Mr. Saksa, meets him but is confused since they heard only one agent was being sent but another arrived that morning. Mulder is already there and meeting with the crew chief, Bo Taylor, about the incident. Doggett is ticked off at Mulder but Mulder insists he sit down and listen to the crew chief so he won’t have to repeat his story. Taylor tells them that Simon de la Cruz went mad out there, like some people do stuck on a rig for long durations, and he tried to blow up the rig; the communications officer was on the drill floor taking a walk and was caught in the explosion. Doggett says he could call Kersh but he won’t as long as Mulder follows his lead. Mulder assumes Doggett will not be able to find anything but Doggett immediately realized the crew chief was lying through his teeth. That he knew what really happened. Mulder agrees and suggests other people know as well. Scully talks with Assistant Director Skinner about the autopsy she conducted on Simon de la Cruz. She reveals that the man had the black oil alien virus in his brain but the virus was dead for an unknown reason. She asks Skinner to tell Kersh that they need a forced evacuation of the oil rig but Skinner says there isn’t enough evidence. The new radioman, Yuri, tells Taylor that there’s some sort of high frequency interference on the radio system that seems to be an incoming signal. He needs to power down to fix it, but Taylor disagrees and infects the man with the black oil. Scully calls the rig and is surprised to get Mulder, she tells him about the situation and he passes it onto Doggett who has the rig quarantined. Mulder and Doggett ask Mr. Saksa, manager of the rig, about a missing deckhand Diego Garza. Saksa notices the man is indeed gone and says Garza was a friend of de la Cruz. Skinner and Scully meet with Ortega in the morgue and he doesn’t think the crew is infected. He plans on having that crew go home and a new group sent over. Kersh confronts Skinner and Scully about being kept out of the loop on this autopsy and the quarantine of the rig which he learned about through Ortega. Skinner accepts responsibility for the quarantine and Kersh demands that the quarantine be lifted. Scully tells him that they have lost radio contact and would have to wait until it is reestablished. Mulder tries to contact Doggett but Doggett is being held captive by Garza. Garza cuts Doggett to confirm he has red blood; through him Doggett learns that Garza set the fire, that de la Cruz was murdered by the oil workers, and that the radio is being used to contact the flying ships. "Vienen!" "They’re coming?" Scully illuminates Skinner about de la Cruz. He had an extremely high T-cell count, due to his genetic background as a Waicha Indian, which made him a virus fighting machine so he was irradiated by the crew because the virus didn’t work on him. Doggett convinces Garza to let him go and promises that he will get Garza home to his family. When Doggett leaves he promptly runs into Taylor who demands to know Garza’s location. He tries to infect Doggett, revealing the black oil eyes to the skeptical Doggett, but Mulder knocks out Taylor. They retreat into the radio room as the oil workers siege the room. Doggett insists on finding Garza and getting him out too. He returns to where Garza was hiding. Mulder says, "Is he coming?" Doggett turns the body of Garza finding him covered with radiation burns. They run out of there and find out why the workers disappeared. They have been damaging the rig and the whole place is going to explode. The black oil victims stare at them as they are cut off from Doggett and Mulder by falling debris. The two FBI agents leap from the platform to be rescued by the helicopter that has arrived. Mulder accepts the fall to protect Doggett and the X-Files. He reminds Doggett that he saw the black oil in people’s eyes there, that he knows the truth now. He passes the X-Files on to Doggett recognizing that the man has given the offices a renewed credibility and that Doggett has Kersh’s ear. 
<EOS>
Arlen Sacks is killed by an unknown reptilian creature that sprays venom on his victims while his son, Gary, microwaves dinner. In the meantime, at the FBI headquarters, Dana Scully packs up her belongings at the X-Files office. Among her various keepsakes, she finds a medallion commemorating the Apollo 11 space flight. Scully gives John Doggett the medallion, explaining that it symbolizes teamwork. Scully then leaves the office, and Special Agent Leyla Harrison turns up. She tells Doggett that she is his new partner. They are to investigate the Sacks' murders in upstate New York City. Doggett and Harrison make their way to the crime scene where they search for clues. Doggett finds some sort of slime which is sent to an FBI lab for analysis. Harrison than explains to him that she processed Fox Mulder and Scully's travel expenses during their time on the X-files, and as a result she knows everything about the X-Files. Doggett follows a wooded trail away from the crime scene to an upscale mansion. As he makes his way inside, unbeknownst to him, the strange creature is clinging to a wall, observing what he is doing. Sensing something is wrong, Doggett pulls out his gun and instructs Harrison to stand by the door while he flushes the creature out. Harrison is sent outside, where she hears a noise directly above her and opens fire. Doggett rushes onto the front lawn, where he falls through a trap door into an underground tunnel. From an autopsy of Arlen Sacks, Scully discovers that Arlen was blinded by a kind of reptile venom. In the cave, the creature sprays their eyes with venom slowly blinding them. The agents find Gary Sacks nearby in need of medical attention. Again, Mulder returns to the area were Doggett and Harrison went missing. This time he spots the creature and chases it to the mansion where it climbs up to a second floor. Mulder bangs on the front door, until Stites opens the door. Mulder warns Stites that the monster is in his house. Stites lures Mulder into the catacombs, where Harrison and Doggett are being kept. Mulder goes in, without realizing that Stites has locked the door. Mulder finds Doggett and begs the still-blinded Doggett to open fire. Doggett hesitates saying that he can't see. But he shoots blindly and hits the monster. As it dies, the monster morphs back into Stites. Later, in the hospital, Mulder returns the Apollo 11 key ring to Doggett in a gesture of goodwill. Doggett, however, has a suggestion; Scully and Mulder gift the key ring to a grateful Agent Harrison. 
<EOS>
While preparing for Scully's baby shower, her mother invites Lizzy to help Scully. Lizzy, who is not who she says she is, replaces one of Scully's medications. Billy Miles verifies that the work that Zeus Genetics begin is successful, kills Dr Lev and burns the lab, destroying all evidence, and the abomination alien-human hybrid baby. Mulder visits Doggett, informing him of the fire and asks to go along to see the facility. Mulder reveals that Dr Lev's partner is Scully's Obstetrician, so they set off to visit him. They find another storage room of fetuses. They confront the doctor, who denies everything. Back at Scully's home, she takes the replaced pills. Lizzy leaves and is picked up by Mr Haskell. They go to Scully's house to regroup. Lizzy talks to Haskell on her cell phone, until Billy Miles shows up and decapitates him. Skinner, Doggett, and Mulder find Mr. Haskell's body, and his cloning lab. They had apparently been monitoring Scully's pregnancy. Scully catches Lizzy tampering with her medications, though Scully's doctors determine the replacements are vitamin supplements. Later, Lizzy tells the agents that Scully's baby is a perfect human child with no human weaknesses. Billy Miles shows up, and the agents sneak Scully out with Reyes, while they lead him to the roof. Mulder pushes him off the roof and into a waiting garbage truck, which then compacts him. Scully and Reyes then pull away, and the scene ends with one of Doggett's agents pointing them to safety, then turns around, revealing to the camera the scales on his spine. 
<EOS>
In a conference room at Our Lady of Sorrows Hospital, Doctor Dana Scully, surrounded and watched by other members of the Catholic hospital's staff, discusses Christian Fearon, a boy patient at the hospital, during a televised conference with an On Screen Doctor. After Dr. Scully mentions her fear that the extremely ill Christian has Sandhoff disease, her medical consultant reminds her that there is no treatment for that brain disease and she sadly looks to Father Ybarra, a priest at the hospital who has entered during the conference. Scully later notices Christian being wheeled out of his ward in a wheelchair by his mother and father, and approaches them, making friendly smalltalk with the boy and notifying his parents that the medical staff intend to do some more tests on him. Special Agent Drummy arrives and tells Scully that he, on behalf of the FBI, is urgently looking for Fox Mulder, Scully's former FBI partner. Even though she claims that she no longer works with Mulder, Agent Drummy requests that she contact him, as her doing so might help save the life of another agent, indirectly referring to Agent Bannan. A short time later, Scully drives home to a small, secluded house where she and Mulder live. She enters an office decorated with many newspaper clippings related to the paranormal, where Mulder spends much of his time in isolation and is alone here now, busy cutting another article out of a newspaper. As he does not turn to face her when she enters, Scully opines that he has become incredibly trusting, for a man wanted by the FBI, but Mulder jokingly claims he literally has eyes on the back of his head, and recites science pertaining to such a phenomenon. When Scully tells him that the FBI are requesting his assistance, Mulder is initially very reluctant to help the organization, recalling that they put him on trial for bogus charges and attempted to discredit a decade of his work, but -- after Scully exits the room, leaving him to ruminate on a photograph of his sister -- he agrees to accept their request, on one condition. Shortly thereafter, he and Scully leave their residence via a black helicopter. At night, the helicopter comes to land on the roof of the FBI's Headquarters in Washington, D.C., where former agents Mulder and Scully meet with Agent Drummy. Mulder thanks him for sending the helicopter but Drummy admits that the credit for doing so is not his to take and, shortly thereafter, leads Mulder and Scully through a corridor in the FBI building, where agents stare at the duo as they pass. After Drummy leaves the pair waiting outside a conference room, they glance at a framed photograph of George W. Bush and another of J. Edgar Hoover. Drummy soon returns, however, and leads the former agents into the bustling conference room, where ASAC Whitney greets them, mentioning that she is aware of Mulder's previous work on the X-files, and briefs them on the case. They learn that Joseph Crissman is a former priest who contacted the FBI with a claim that he was experiencing a psychic vision of Agent Bannan before he led the search to the severed limb and, after Mulder makes a use of language that he innocently intends to be humorous but becomes embarrassingly discomforting, he and Scully discover that Father Joe is a convicted pedophile. Two FBI cars enter and park in a snowy area of Richmond, Virginia where Mulder, Scully, Whitney and Drummy exit one of the vehicles and prepare to enter a series of tall buildings nearby, while FBI agents from the other car remain outside the automobiles. While Agent Drummy leads the way, ASAC Whitney describes the buildings to Mulder and Scully as dorms for habitual sex offenders who police themselves, including Father Joe, who lives here voluntarily with a roommate. Mulder makes another joke, as they near the dorms, and Joe's roommate permits them access. Once they enter, Scully and her companions see that Father Joe is finishing his prayers in an adjacent room. When Mulder questions him about his visions, Joe reveals that, in his mind's eye, he sees the female victim being assaulted and putting up a fight, hears the noise of dogs barking and has the feeling that the victim is still alive. Scully makes it clear, during this questioning, that she detests Father Joe, doubting both the validity of his prayers and his claims of paranormal ability, before rushing outside in frustration. Mulder approaches her as she leans over a balcony outside, startling her, and they discuss Father Joe, with Scully apologizing for her conduct -- even though Mulder praises her actions -- and further explaining her doubts. Mulder reveals that he is about to accompany Whitney, Drummy and Father Joe on a journey to determine the former priest's psychic capabilities, but -- rather than join them, as Mulder suggests -- Scully instead leaves. Meanwhile, in Our Lady of Sorrows Hospital, Scully speaks with Christian in his ward but his eagerness to leave causes her to realize he has been scared by the sight of Father Ybarra, who stands in a corridor outside. Advising the boy not to be afraid, Scully vacates the room to meet with Father Ybarra and passionately discusses Christian with him, arguing that the boy's test results are not in his purview. He refutes this and, even after he hands her a set of the test results upon her request for them, he states that there are better facilities available for Christian, as the hospital will not be able to heal the boy. When a nearby accidental clatter distracts Father Ybarra, Scully hurries away from him. She enters her office and sits at her desk where she opens the folder of test results and starts to cry but, noticing a colleague looking across at her, she composes herself, taking another file and a packet of tissues from her desk drawers as her colleague retreats from the room. Scully is left alone, staring sorrowfully down at the files in front of her. In their home, Mulder and Scully are lying together in bed but Scully is having difficulty sleeping so she talks to Mulder about the issue troubling her, telling him about Christian and the boy's predicament for the first time. She questions God, regarding the boy, and wonders whether a strong connection she feels to Christian is due to the loss of their son, William, but Mulder dismisses this possibility. After he persuades her to go to sleep, the couple kiss but Scully humorously complains he has a scratchy beard and, before she begins to completely relax, she remembers to tell him about her discovery that, weirdly, traces of an animal tranquilizer had been discovered in the tissue of the severed arm, news that now keeps Mulder awake. Within moments, he is on his feet and moves to the bathroom, followed there by Scully. He prepares to shave himself while pondering the evidence, recalling that Father Joe mentioned he heard the noise of dogs barking and cried tears of blood. Even though it is late at night, Scully answers a call from ASAC Whitney, who is a passenger in a car with Agent Drummy, driving, as well as Father Joe, and tells Scully that the FBI group are following a new lead provided to them by the former priest. THREE HOURS LATER After Scully and a cleanshaven Mulder drive to the same snowy, rural area where the FBI previously found the severed arm and are searching again, Whitney approaches the pair and explains that Father Joe led the search effort back to this location. Doubting Father Joe's repetitive descriptions of his own supposed visions, Drummy convinces ASAC Whitney to allow him permission to dismiss the tired searchers. Mulder turns to Father Joe, who claims he now sees the face of an anonymous person whose eyes stare out of a surface like through dirty glass. When Father Joe starts to pensively walk away, heading for a nearby tree line, Mulder asks Scully what Joe's description means, but she ignores the question, instead accusing Mulder of still, after years, looking for his sister and urging him to finally accept that his sister is beyond saving. In an attempt to ignore her, Mulder calls the departing FBI team back and they trudge after Father Joe, following him towards the tree line and then to a clearing in the forest, where he and Mulder begin to dig. While the manual excavation continues, resulting in the discovery of a block of solid ice that is buried in the snow and contains at least one body of a deceased woman staring out of the dirty glass of the ice, the team are unaware that one of the abductors, the snowplow driver, is in the vicinity as he maneuvers his truck along a forest track, stops the vehicle -- knocking over a sign that reads no hunting -- and takes a bag that drips blood from the back of the truck before he walks, hauling the bag, to the edge of a cliff, overlooking the team. He seems concerned, as he gazes down at the search effort, but moves away again. As the FBI team disperses below the cliff and agents hurry to find equipment that will enable them to exhume the block of ice, Scully watches in concern as Mulder walks out of the clearing but she whirls in alarm to face Father Joe, who is standing behind her and tells her not to give up. In the conference room at Our Lady of Sorrows Hospital, Father Ybarra finishes informing staff and doctors on the hospital's decision to relocate Christian to a hospice, as Scully enters. She disputes this arrangement but eventually relents and quietly takes a seat as Father Ybarra begins to turn his attention to the discussion of other matters although, moments later, Scully speaks up to present the controversial option of treating Christian's condition with a form of stem cell therapy, which she insists is not the choice of hospital administration to make but her own. As she withdraws from the room, Father Ybarra recommends that she consult the highest authority on the matter, claiming he already has done so. As Mulder tries to call Scully from an FBI laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, he looks at a photograph of Agent Bannan where he notices that she is wearing a medical I.D. bracelet and Scully researches stem cell therapy at the hospital, using Google as a resource. Mulder records a message on her answering machine, informing her, while scientists constantly work on the ice block behind him, that eleven cleanly amputated human limbs, taken from victims, and more traces of the animal tranquilizer have been found in the ice. After Whitney arrives just as he ends the call, Mulder excitedly claims he has a hunch that they are close to solving a dozen murders but Whitney indicates that her priority is finding Agent Bannan. Later, surrounded by curious FBI agents in a conference room within the same facility, Father Joe attests to having a vision of Cheryl Cunningham and, inspired by his account, Mulder asks Whitney to make preparations for them to investigate the recent kidnapping. Mulder, Whitney, Drummy and Father Joe arrive at the crash site, where they learn more about Cheryl Cunningham's disappearance. Drummy suspects that she merely crashed her car, escaped the vehicle by knocking out its window and fell asleep on the snowy ground while taking a shortcut but Mulder disagrees, basing his opinion on the angle of the crash. Despite the fact that Father Joe is unable to psychically sense anything at the scene, Mulder comes across another medical I.D. bracelet, lying on the snow-covered ground, and, on his suggestion, the searchers force open the car's locked trunk to uncover another clue -- a bathing suit that is frozen stiff but still smells of chlorine. This finding leads the team to McLaren Natatorium, where questioning an elderly male receptionist, who is slow on the uptake, proves unfruitful, at least initially. As Christian is being wheeled into an operating theater before his treatment of stem cell therapy begins, he talks with Scully, commenting that she now looks scared. Preparing with the rest of her team, Scully watches Christian from an adjacent room, looking through a window at him and, once he is unconscious, she is instrumental in his operation, inserting stem cells into his brain. Shortly after this procedure, Scully is writing medical notes in a shower room when Mulder arrives. Although she feels a need not to be disturbed from her work, they discuss Christian at length, one day after the night when Scully first told Mulder about the boy, and she explains that the hospital's medical staff won't know whether his treatment is working, until a series of the procedures are completed. When she realizes that Mulder has come to the hospital to talk about something else, he apprises her of the most recent disappearance, revealing several facts that he and the FBI investigators have learned, such as their discovery that both Agent Bannan and Cheryl Cunningham swam at the same pool, that both had medical I.D. bracelets and that both had a rare blood type. Scully immediately deduces, from this information, that the two victims were targeted for their organs and she advises him on how to proceed with the case but, when he implores her to stay involved with it, she refuses, explaining that they have both moved on in their lives and that she is not willing to allow the darkness into her home. Even though Mulder insists it is in his nature, Scully sympathetically encourages him to write down his experiences in a book and, although he initially assumes that she is asking him to give up, she declines to do so but sadly declares that she will not be coming home. Mulder urges her to reconsider but she admits that she is at a loss for another course of action and the couple part, each wishing the other good luck. Scully later meanders down the hospital's main stairs and encounters Christian's parents at the bottom, who announce that they have decided to end their son's stem cell therapy and instead put their faith solely in God, notifying her that they have spoken with Father Ybarra but have come to their new decision without his influence. Clearly holding back tears, Scully considers aloud what might happen if the treatment was successful and admits that she does not want to give up. The snowplow driver obtains a liver from an operating theater at Manners-Colonial Hospital, putting the organ in a blue ice chest -- specifically designed to be used for organ transportation -- as a female anesthesiologist reminisces to her colleagues, while they are carrying out an operation in the room, about a death-defying experience she had with someone she was in love with, defining the incident as having been romantic. Just before he has a chance to leave the hospital, the snowplow driver is detained by Robert Koell, from the District Attorney's office in Richmond, and a police officer. When Koell interrogates the man, he testifies, with a Russian accent, that his job requires him to speedily transport the liver to Willow's Memorial Hospital. Ignoring a question about whether his employer would say that his work has ever not been legitimate, the abductor claims that his employer is sick with cancer. In the abductors' compound, one of the Russian men who earlier knelt down by Cheryl Cunningham's box does so again, offering her food and unlocking her wooden kennel. He is distracted by the sudden and extreme shaking of Agent Bannan's body nearby, however, and rushes away. With her box now unsecured, Cheryl escapes from it and scrambles past the dog cages before clambering down a metal chute, all the way to the end. Dragging her lower body behind her, she bursts through a dirty plastic curtain into the wintry air outside, where a two-headed guard dog charges at her, barking first and then ferociously growling. A group involving Mulder, Whitney, Drummy and at least one other FBI agent arrives in cars outside the dorms for sex offenders, where they find Scully, amid a bustling scene of emergency, ensuring that Father Joe is taken away by a medical team. Whitney relays news to her that they now have a suspect -- the snowplow driver, whose real name is Janke Dacyshyn. Whitney also reveals to Scully that he was questioned by the Richmond D.A. but was released, due to a lack of evidence, and that the FBI have located a fairly credible witness who is alleging that the man swam with the two currently missing women, at the same pool as them. While Mulder and Scully quarrel about how this relates to Father Joe, Drummy steps forward with new information recently determined by the FBI; specifically, that Franz Tomczeszyn -- their suspect's employer and husband, and the same man who helped kidnap Agent Bannan but now bears wounds from her assault on him -- was one of thirty-seven altar boys that Father Joe molested. The cars begin to leave without Mulder, as Scully attempts to persuade him to let them go, but he draws the attention of the FBI unit before they leave and rejoins them, much to her dismay. In the abductors' compound, Dacyshyn shouts, in Russian, at the scientist who opened Cheryl's cage earlier while Tomczeszyn lies on a gurney, his head joined to Agent Bannan's lower body. At Our Lady of Sorrows Hospital, Scully walks through a corridor and unlocks her office door. She is sorting through some files when she happens upon detailed information and images pertaining to transplant experiments, being done in Russia, on dogs. She makes an unanswered call to Mulder, ignorant of his crash, and leaves a message for him about her discovery, suspecting that the abducted women have been the victims of similar experiments and coming to the significant conclusion that Agent Bannan is indeed still alive, as Father Joe prophesied. The car Mulder was driving lies overturned in the snow but he manages to dig himself out of the wreck and gets to his feet, unsteadily. He peers up at a steep, rocky overhang, towering over the crash site. At FBI Headquarters, Special Agent in Charge Fossa answers a call from Scully but transfers it to the nearby Agent Drummy, who apologetically refuses to comply with Scully's request for assistance in her search for Mulder. In considerable irritation, she instructs him to obtain someone who will help. Meanwhile, Cheryl Cunningham is removed from her box, as she struggles, and is drugged. In the cold night outside, the snowplow breaks down and, abandoned by Dacyshyn, the vehicle is later found by Mulder, who takes a wrench from inside the truck and slips it under his jacket before dashing away. Inside the abductor's compound, the scientists begin an attempt to transplant Tomczeszyn's head from Monica Bannan's lower body to that of Cheryl Cunningham, as Dacyshyn whispers caring assurances to his injured accomplice. Mulder simultaneously finds the compound and climbs over its perimeter fence but encounters the two-headed guard dog, which knocks him to the ground. Drawn to the noise of the dog's aggressive barks and snarls, Dacyshyn rushes outside to find the animal -- yelping helplessly, lying on the ground, where it bleeds -- as well as a trail of bloodied footprints through the snow. Scully's car is being hauled to the top of the cliff when she arrives there in a black FBI car and is approached by a uniformed female sheriff. After Scully hurriedly introduces herself, the sheriff recalls that she was called by an FBI dignitary from Washington. Scully agrees with the sheriff's recollection, pointing out the man she spoke to, Walter Skinner, who stands nearby and looks down the cliff. The sheriff hands Mulder's phone, the only evidence of what has taken place to have been found in the area, to Scully and then politely moves aside. Scully's worry for Mulder increases when she sees blood on his phone but Skinner assures her that Mulder must be okay and probably climbed up the cliff. Dacyshyn follows the footprints to the facility and searches the area, walking past the opening of the chute where Cheryl tried to escape and where Mulder now hides. Further inside the facility, the scientists remove Tomczeszyn's head from his temporary body as Mulder emerges from the chute. He orders the surgeons to stop what they are doing but they begin to shout at him in Russian so, threatening them with the wrench from Dacyshyn's snowplow, he demands that they back off. Although Mulder realizes that none of the surgeons in the room speak English, he directs them to undo their work -- to take Cheryl out of an ice bath in which she is immersed, remove tubes that are pumping blood out of her neck and sow up small cuts in the same area of her body. While the Russian scientist continues to squabble at Mulder in the surgeon's own language, Mulder uncovers Monica Bannan's naked lower body and is shocked to see the eyes of Tomczeszyn's severed head open, while the head lies in an ice bucket. Mulder's alarm at this sight distracts him away from the Russian scientist, who shoots tranquilizer into his neck with a gas hypodermic. Dacyshyn enters, drags Mulder to his feet and speaks to the intruder in Russian before punching him, knocking Mulder to the ground. As Skinner drives Scully in their FBI car, he encourages her to have faith that they will find Mulder, stating that he knows the onetime FBI agent and claiming that he wouldn't do anything crazy. Dacyshyn hauls first the headless corpse of Monica Bannan and then Mulder's dazed body outside and into a woodshed, where an ax is embedded in a chopping block. Near the compound, Scully and Skinner pass an area when a thought occurs to Scully. On her recommendation, Skinner reverses the car to a row of mailboxes by the roadside where Scully is led, remembering the passage of scripture that Father Joe quoted to her earlier, to one particular mailbox. In the woodshed, Dacyshyn lifts the headless remains of Agent Bannan onto the chopping block and, from his position on the ground, Mulder groggily looks over to see that an arm of the deceased body still bears Bannan's medical I.D. bracelet. Dacyshyn swings the ax as Scully opens the mailbox. Still led by Father Joe's biblical quote, she looks through the mail inside and finds a letter addressed to Dr. Uroff-Koltoff. She and Skinner are uncertain of any further significance the letter may have or how to proceed until, moments later, she discerns the barking of nearby dogs. Scully races off towards the direction of the noise. While Dacyshyn stuffs chopped body parts into a sack, Mulder, still woozy on the ground, watches this and then feebly struggles to reach the ax. Dacyshyn grabs it out of his loose grip and prepares to use it on Mulder but, as he readies the ax in the air, the criminal is rendered unconscious by Scully when she suddenly appears behind him and strikes him once with a piece of wood. She checks that Mulder is conscious and he apologizes for wrecking her car before warning that Cheryl Cunningham is still inside the surgical facility. A surgeon is beginning to cut deeply into the remaining victim's neck when Skinner enters. Armed, he forces the resistant surgeons to stop their procedure and is appalled by their unscrupulous deeds. Scully enters, eager for Mulder to receive warm clothes and fluids, but, when Skinner indicates the ice bath, she realizes that her medical expertise is greatly required inside the facility. Skinner herds the surgeons into the same kennel where they confined Cheryl, as Scully takes off her coat and begins preparing to conduct her needed work on the currently bleeding victim. Skinner heads outside, taking off his own coat to wrap around Mulder, and tends to his frostbitten friend, who is surprised to see him. In daylight, Scully's car is parked outside the countryside house where she and Mulder live. Mulder, now sitting in his cluttered office with minor visible wounds, is cutting yet another article out of a newspaper, this time concerning the recent case he became involved with and headlined, "FBI arrests modern-day Frankenstein doctor". An image below the headline shows Agent Drummy apprehending the Russian surgeon. After Scully enters the office with news that Father Joe is dead, Mulder complains that the FBI are claiming Father Joe was an accomplice and are completely concealing his psychic connection to Tomczeszyn. When Scully states that they will never know the truth, Mulder cites the fact that both men suffered from lung cancer as further proof of their psychic link. He also suspects that Father Joe died at the same time that Scully pulled the tubes from Cheryl's neck and cut off the blood supply to Tomczeszyn's severed head. However, Scully is of the opinion that no-one at the FBI will care whether the connection can be proved. She professes to have believed that Father Joe was a conduit for God and to have acted on Joe's advice not to give up, contributing it to Mulder's successful rescue but also to hardships Christian has faced due to the stem cell therapy she has insisted upon. Mulder considers the possibility that Father Joe was forgiven because he didn't give up but Scully challenges him to prove that theory. Due at the hospital to supervise another of Christian's surgeries, Scully exits her house. Later, at the hospital where she is employed, Scully paces down a corridor, passing a colleague who spoke out against her when she first suggested using stem cell therapy. At the end of the corridor, Father Ybarra stands, speaking to Christian's parents. All three gape at Scully as she rounds a corner, moving past them, and scales a flight of stairs. In the operating room, final preparations are made for Christian to undergo another of the procedures. When a colleague asks Scully if she is ready to begin the surgery, she looks around at the faces of her waiting staff and at three nuns who appear in the window of a doorway to the room. She replies positively to her colleague's query and confidently smiles down at Christian. The shadow of a helicopter glides across the surface of a deep blue ocean. The greenery of a heavily forested landmass, marked with the occasional clearing, flourishes in the sunlight and, far from its coralled beach, a small boat is oared by Mulder, wearing only red swimming trunks, while Scully also sits in the boat, sunbathing opposite him, in a black bikini with a white open wrap, exposing her trim figure; heading towards a small, sun-drenched desert island in the distance, they momentarily wave to the sky above them before continuing on their journey.
<EOS>
Carl Wormus, an EPA official picks up a beautiful woman, Shannon McMahon, in a Baltimore bar. While driving home with her, she forces the car off a bridge and then holds Wormus down so he drowns. Agent Monica Reyes meets up with A.D. Brad Follmer in his office where he hands her two video tapes from the night of the birth of Agent Dana Scully's son, she shows them to Agent John Doggett, the evidence of the parking garage battle with Agent Crane and Knowle Rohrer is gone. Doggett goes to Agent Fox Mulder's apartment to consult him but finds it empty. In a water reclamation plant, McMahon drowns a worker there named Roland McFarland. Doggett goes to Scully to try and find Mulder but she refuses to reveal his whereabouts, she urges him to drop the investigation. When he refuses she asks him to leave. Doggett tries to contact some of his old marine friends including McMahon to find out what happened to Knowle Rohrer. While working in the FBI office someone slips an obituary of Wormus to Reyes, she doesn't see who leaves it. Meanwhile Scully's baby causes the mobile of his crib to spin of its own accord. This worries her and she contacts Doggett urging him to continue his investigation, he calls her in to an autopsy on Wormus' body. She finds fingerprints from McMahon holding him down on his ankle. After leaving they see McMahon who goes and takes the body before Scully and Reyes are accosted by Follmer who has been ordered to reign in Doggett's investigation by Alvin Kersh. The Lone Gunmen find that Wormus had been receiving data from McFarland, the drowned reclamation worker. Agent Doggett breaks into McFarland's office with A.D. Walter Skinner and finds files on Chloramine, but Follmer arrives, Doggett slips into a filtration tank to escape Follmer but is pulled deep under water by McMahon. 
<EOS>
A captain of a vintage WWII navy ship passes through a series of tight security points to deliver a communique to Dr. Nordlinger. He is working in a lab with tests being done on human ova, and upon receipt of the communique is unsettled. He immediately orders the captain to return the ship to base. Follmer leaves the water reclamation facility after failing to spot Doggett, who passes out under water. Shannon McMahon passes air into his lungs keeping him alive. Back at FBI headquarters Reyes is called into Follmer's office. Follmer warns her to distance herself from Doggett and his investigation of Kersh but Reyes believes Follmer has his own agenda against Doggett and is merely using her. She walks out, despite being advised by Skinner that Follmer is the only one who can help her keep her job. Skinner later warns Scully about Doggett and Reyes being hell bent on the investigation of Kersh. A troubled Scully informs Skinner that something happened with William and that she cannot let Mulder know, due to it being too dangerous for him to be brought back to the FBI. Back at Doggett's house, Doggett wakes up and finds McMahon there who tells him that she and Knowle Rohrer are products of 50 years of military science to create Super-soldiers who cannot be killed. She wants to stop the program and asks for Doggett's help to expose the deaths of the two men she killed. Scully is called to Doggett's house and she tells him the program is to be expanded by adding chloramine, a mutation inducing chemical, to the water supply. She goes onto add that the technology has been so far developed that they have now given birth to a super-soldier through a mutated egg, hinting that William is this super-solider. Back on the ship, the Captain leaves the ship and unsuccessfully attempts to call Carl Wormus, the EPA official drowned by McMahon. Back on board the ship he is approached by Knowle Rohrer who informs him he is the new second in command. Rohrer later queries the captain about the vessel's mission. The body of the original second-in-command is then found floating in the water nearby. Scully examines McMahon and finds her to be physically normal. Doggett is called into the FBI and suspended by a smug and gleeful Follmer and Kersh, for gross insubordination. Reyes is untrusting of McMahon, and tries to find out more about her history, learning she is a DOJ employee and had been contacted by Wormus and McFarland to expose the plans to contaminate the water supply. The Lone Gunmen intercept a call from the Captain to Wormus telling him to contact the FBI. Rohrer is nearby eavesdropping on the call. The Captain then pulls a gun on the Navy Seal, demanding that Nordlinger hand over the project's data. He doesn't notice Rohrer creeping up behind him. Scully, Reyes and Doggett go to the ship after hearing Reyes' findings. They expect to meet the captain but instead find Rohrer whom Doggett shoots repeatedly to no effect, as Reyes and Scully flee. Rohrer attacks Doggett brutally and attempts to kill him before being decapitated from behind by McMahon. She in turn is then stabbed through the stomach by the headless torso of Rohrer, and they both tumble into the harbor's water. The Agents then board the ship and find it empty, Reyes and Scully find the decapitated body of the Captain before finding a secret lab where human ova are being altered with lists of test subjects and women who have been targeted, Doggett finds a bomb and urges his fellow agents to leave. They narrowly escape the explosion. Under water we see McMahon's and Rohrer's lifeless bodies, and suddenly McMahon's eyes snap open. Scully wakes up suddenly, presumably having this nightmare, she goes back to sleep as the mobile above William's crib starts to move of its own accord. 
<EOS>
Darren and Evelyn Mountjoy are playing Scrabble in their home as two men drive up near the house in a pickup. Evelyn lets the barking dog outside while Darren peeks at her letters. The power suddenly goes out and Darren tells his wife to remain there while he goes to get the gun. After he leaves, a hand covers Evelyn’s mouth as she is pulled away into the shadows. Agent Monica Reyes arrives at the murder scene and goes in to find Darren and Evelyn Mountjoy posed in their chairs at the table with the Scrabble board between them. They are meant to appear as a murder suicide despite it obviously being something else. The word Daemonicus appears on the Scrabble board. Reyes seems particularly unsettled by the scene of the crime. Agent John Doggett enters the house and tells Reyes about the Mountjoy’s dog being found with its neck broken outside and the footprints in the mud suggesting two perpetrators. Reyes was called in for her expertise in ritual murder and she agrees that the elements are there: The word being Latin for Satan or demonic possession and the couple being in the murder-suicide pose to suggest they were possessed. Reyes wonders if there isn’t something supernatural going on since she felt a feeling as soon as she arrived. Agent Dana Scully begins teaching at Quantico’s FBI Academy and finds Doggett quietly enter the classroom. She performed the autopsies on the Mountjoys. She reveals that the husband killed the wife accidentally, he was then killed in his chair, and the snakes were sewn into the body after the fact by someone with a fair amount of medical experience. Reyes relates to Scully and Doggett that she had worked hundreds of cases like that and this one is different. That she felt she was in the presence of evil when she entered that house. Doggett receives a phone call from a sanitarium claiming their patient was behind the murders. Doggett and Reyes arrive at Chessman State Mental Hospital in West Virginia and meet with the hospital’s chief administrator, Dr. Monique Sampson. Dr. Kenneth Richmond, was committed for sewing strychnine tablets into his patients stomach lining and killing three people that way so Sampson believed it sounded related. He escaped within the last few days. Reyes asks questions about Richmond potentially being possessed or knowing a lot about Satanic ritual but Dr. Sampson doesn’t humor Reyes and dismisses it. She does however point out that if they are looking for an accomplice, one of their guards, Paul Gerlach, is missing. In the woods, the two men from the Mountjoy murders face each other with their demonic masks on. One draws a gun, while the other waits patiently to be shot. Doggett and Reyes go to see a former Professor, Josef Kobold, in the sanitarium. Doggett tries to convince the man to tell anything he knew about the escape of Richmond from the cell next to Kobold’s but Kobold doesn’t say anything coherent. He asks Doggett if he can protect him from the Devil. They leave as the conversation proves fruitless. They are called back hours later to an extremely agitated Kobold, who claims he can lead them to a body based on the dark voices he is hearing. When the mask is cut off, they find out that it is Paul Gerlach, the missing guard. Reyes believes that Gerlach could have been a willing host for Satan and that Kobold knows everything since he is tapped into that evil as well. Doggett disagrees. He researched Josef Kobold and learned he was a history professor who ground up six co-eds and used their flesh to fertilize his garden. Reyes wonders why Kobold would still be imprisoned, if he was involved in the crime; he could have escaped with Gerlach and Richmond. Reyes goes to Kobold for help because she believes he can solve the case. When Reyes gets to Kobold he says something that suggests Dr. Sampson is in danger. The murderer drives away moments before the police and the FBI arrive on the scene. They find Sampson with dozens of syringes injected into her face. Scully informs Doggett that the syringes were filled with the same anti-psychotic that Dr. Richmond was taking. While Scully suggests something strange may be happening, Doggett insists it is like Scully told her class: that most evil in the world is from mankind. He thinks that Kobold has Reyes thinking just the way he wants her to think and now Scully is starting to think that way also. Doggett attempts to provoke Kobold into revealing that he orchestrated the murders by showing him a paper he wrote years earlier about how the idea of Satan influenced Renaissance thinking. Kobold needles Doggett about Doggett having feelings for Scully that she doesn’t reciprocate because he just can’t compete with the long lost Mulder. Doggett grabs Kobold and is promptly thrown up on as the man collapses in a pool of vomit. Scully and Reyes want to test the vomit but Doggett is convinced the man is faking it all, playing a game with them based on his knowledge of Satanic ritual. Kobold tells the guard, Officer Custer, about where they can find the last body: Happy Landing. When Doggett passes on this information via cell phone, Scully tells him she knows where it is and she is actually near there. She arrives at the old pier first and the others will meet her there. The masked man grabs Scully when she leaves her car. After they arrive and find Scully missing, Doggett demands Kobold reveal where Scully is and Kobold tells him: "Game’s over, Mr. Doggett. You’ve lost." A gunshot draws them to an old workshop where they find the masked man dead. Scully tells them that the man held Scully at gunpoint until they arrived and then he killed himself. Doggett rushes back to the car and sees a fleeing man in patient garb. He shoots him and the man falls off the dock into the water. After Scully explains to her class that all cases, no matter the evidence, will have some uncertainty and doubt, Doggett and Reyes arrive to talk about her report on Kobold. Kobold accessed information about all of them through the internet and staged the murders to look like Satanic ritual because he knew they would investigate. Doggett writes DAEMONICUS on the chalkboard and explains that Kobold went to all this trouble to escape while everyone thought he hadn’t escaped. That way by the time they started to look for him, he would be long gone. Doggett found a page from the phone book with Darren and Evelyn Mountjoy circled. They were chosen only because of their names. The second victim was Monique Sampson and the final victim was Officer Custer who died dressed as Kobold running on the dock. As Doggett leaves, Reyes explains that there is something that Doggett refused to talk about. 
<EOS>
Monica Reyes is unpacking in her new apartment. John Doggett arrives to deliver a housewarming gift. Polish sausage from the best place in the city. While Reyes goes to get plates, she receives a phone call for A.D. Walter Skinner. He tells her that they have found Doggett shot in an alleyway downtown. She says that is impossible as she steps into the other room to find no one there. When she reaches the hospital, Reyes meets A.D. Brad Follmer and Agent Dana Scully. Scully says that if he pulls through he will be paralyzed. Reyes doesn't believe it was Doggett that was shot as he was with her in her apartment. They go into his room and there lies a severely injured Doggett being kept alive by machines. After hearing Reyes once again state that Doggett was in the apartment, Scully relates the visitation by her dead father moments after his death. Reyes listens but flatly tells Scully that wasn't what happened to her. Walter Skinner calls and asks Scully and Reyes to go to the police station. Follmer awaits Reyes in the interrogation room. Follmer asks her a few questions and tells her that the ballistics confirm her gun shot Agent Doggett. Reyes realizes that there is a witness behind the glass to identify her and she angrily yells at the glass. On the other side of the glass, Erwin Lukesh is thanked for his help in identifying the suspect. "Anything I can do to help." Skinner and Scully talk with Reyes at Doggett's bedside. They explain that Follmer will not arrest her yet because there are holes in his investigation, like how Skinner called her at home, 14 miles away from the crime scene. Additionally, the bullet matched her gun but her gun had not been fired recently. As Reyes asks about the witness, Doggett taps out a message with Morse code: LUKESH. Erwin Lukesh returns home and makes the exact drink that his mother asks for before she asks for it. Pausing, Skinner tells Reyes that Erwin Lukesh claims to have heard a gun shot and found Reyes leaving the alleyway. Lukesh was diagnosed with a delusional disorder and spent four months in a sanitarium years ago. Reyes suggests that Doggett was investigating Lukesh. Follmer demands that Skinner bring Reyes to talk to Doggett at the hospital. She goes in to see the injured man and Doggett explains through the computer that Lukesh killed her and tried to kill him. Elsewhere, Lukesh slips away in the night with his straight razor. The air shimmers around him as he disappears. Reyes talks with Doggett about how she could be at a stakeout with him and he could be in her apartment with her at the same time. While Lukesh has no criminal record, Doggett claims he has killed many women and managed to escape every time somehow. Reyes theorizes that since Lukesh disappeared the second Doggett looked away, the man can somehow travel between parallel universes. This is how he got behind Doggett and how Doggett appeared here in this universe. He accidentally went through the portal. Going through pushed the Doggett of this universe into the other one. In interrogation, Erwin Lukesh plays with Skinner and Follmer as they ask about the injured Doggett's claims that Lukesh enjoys killing women with a straight razor and cutting their tongues out. They try and convince him to submit to a gun-shot residue test but he refuses. When Skinner brings up the idea of the FBI going to speak with his mother, he gets extremely angry. He runs into Reyes on the way out and she confronts him about being able to switch between worlds. She suggests he needed a place where he could act out his sick fantasies but it couldn't be this world. All that anger needed a place to be expressed. He leans in close to Reyes and tells her how much he enjoyed killing her. Erwin Lukesh's mother, Miriam Lukesh, has taken his gun from the drawer and asks him about it. She tells him. Back in the hospital, Doggett tells Reyes that he believes her theory and think if she pulls the plug, the other Doggett would return. She refuses to do it and suspects Doggett just wants to die. Skinner calls Reyes and informs her that they found Miriam Lukesh and that Erwin Lukesh may come after them now. Follmer, Scully, and Skinner watch Reyes from the surveillance van. She patrols her apartment until Lukesh grabs her and puts the razor to her throat. He holds her just out of camera view and tells her, "This time, I get to bleed you slow." Follmer bursts in and catches Lukesh with a round in the center of the forehead. Reyes returns to Doggett's hospital room and holds his hand. She carefully turns off the alarms on the life. Then she finds herself there in her apartment as if nothing has happened in the past few days. She hugs a very confused Doggett in perfect health. 
<EOS>
A group of teenagers are filming one of their friends, Captain Dare, doing stunts for their cable TV show, Dumbass. After a stunt fails and Dare falls out of a shopping cart, he is found dead with part of his head having collapsed. The local coroner calls in FBI Special Agents John Doggett and Monica Reyes, due to them being specialists in the unexplained. As Reyes examines the boy's body, flies erupt from his eye socket. The two immediately bring Dr. Scully in to examine the body. She discovers the caving-in of the head was not the result of an impact injury but because insects fed on the inside of Dare's head to such a degree that it simply collapsed. At the local high school, Dare's friends are filming a memorial for their friend, much to the annoyance of Dare's girlfriend, Natalie. His friends catch Dylan Lokensgard - a misfit who is preyed upon because his mother is the principal - looking at Natalie, and harass him before being caught by his mother. Doggett and Reyes arrive at the school to talk to Dare's friend, David, who hosted the Dumbass show. During the questioning, blood-sucking insects attack David and their bite marks spell the word Dumbass into his backside. Scully later diagnosis the bites to have been caused by body lice, now extremely uncommon in the First World. While watching the recordings of the show, Doggett notices that Lokensgard was at each of the stunts and decides to question him. His mother becomes furious with the two agents, insisting they have no right to interrogate him when Dylan himself becomes covered in flies. Reyes starts to believe Dylan is behind the attack and called those flies on himself to draw suspicion off himself. She and Doggett take a tissue soaked with Dylan's sweat back for Scully to analyze, and it comes back heavy in insect pheromones. Late that night, Natalie sneaks into Dylan's home; the two were once close friends but grew apart in high school. She tells him she never forgot about him and that, with Dare's death, she realizes how important he always was to her and to have someone around who understood her. They kiss but she pulls away, when something apparently cuts her mouth, and she leaves in tears. David and his friends, who believe Dylan had something to do with Dare's death, pull up moments later and drive off with him. During the drive, an insect-like protrusion comes out of his mouth and sprays webbing everywhere, causing the car to flip and crash. Doggett and Reyes find the crashed car, and the teenagers tell them that Dylan chewed his way out the back window, while Scully and an insect specialist search Dylan's home. Scully leaves to help Reyes find the teenager while the specialist stays behind, and is attacked by Dylan's mother. Reyes tracks down Natalie, whom they saw talking to Dylan earlier in the day, but Dylan arrives and cocoons Reyes. Dylan's mother approaches him and tells him he is not like other kids and never will be, and that what's happening to him is what she was trying to explain to him earlier. Doggett arrives at Natalie's home and finds Reyes cocooned alive. Scully goes back to the Lokensgard house after losing contact with the entomologist and finds Natalie sitting frozen in fear and crying on a chair in the living room, but Dylan and his mother are nowhere to be found. A search of the Lokensgard home turns up the insect specialist, who was cocooned but survived, as well as the bodies of several other people, including Dylan's father, who supposedly ran off, years earlier. Dylan and his mother drive away, with Dylan looking visibly depressed. Natalie looks out her window to see fireflies forming the words I Love You, while Scully overtones that, sometimes, the heart wants what the heart wants. 
<EOS>
Scully is approached by a couple, whose infant apparently shows the same strange abilities as William. The father, an NSA agent, discovered that their infant was part of the government's supersoldier project and begs her to call Mulder out of hiding to give him this information. Doggett and Reyes confirm that most everything the couple has presented gels with what they know of the supersoldiers, and at first Doggett encourages Scully to contact Mulder. Scully, fearful for Mulder's safety though desperately missing him, lies and says that she doesn't know where he went or how to get ahold of him. Train security orders the train to keep going, and while Scully consoles the NSA agent's wife, Doggett returns saying that he can't find the other man's body. Scully, fearful that the man was a supersoldier pursuing Mulder, chases after the train with Doggett and Reyes. They get a call saying that someone jumped off a train and into a rock quarry. Doggett and Reyes chase after someone they believe to be Mulder while Scully goes deeper into the quarry. She is attacked by the supersoldier who is mysteriously attracted to the red rocks being mined there and is subsequently destroyed by them. 
<EOS>
Doggett is now in jail in the town. After he fails to get the attention of the guards, he starts a conversation with another prisoner. He learns he is in the town of Sangradura in Mexico. Doggett is intent on calling the U.S. Embassy and going home but the prisoner suggests that if he can’t remember anything, then maybe he is one of the many Americans that show up in that non-tourist town to disappear. As he sleeps, he has a flash of a memory of his wife and son. Doggett catches the drug addict from earlier and demands the man give him anything else he stole from him. The man hands him a tiny silver skull out of his pocket and uses a word that Doggett doesn’t understand: Desaparecido. That night in the bar, Doggett meets Domingo and his associate, Nestor, again. This time he actually asks about the job and learns that the two men are coyotes (people who smuggle people across the border into the USA). He agrees to work for them and Domingo gives him his first month’s pay so Doggett can rent a room above the bar. Doggett shows the tiny silver skull charm to Domingo and Nestor. Nestor is unnerved by it while Domingo is unfazed and wonders why he is giving him money if he has silver. After he leaves, Nestor asks Domingo why he is doing this since he doesn’t know what Doggett wants. Domingo says in Spanish, "He just wants to remember. Same as all the rest." Doggett inspects himself in the mirror before turning in. He finds a cut at the hairline on each side of his forehead and a US Marine Corps tattoo on his arm. Outside, a man watches Doggett’s room from the street. He smokes a cigar, revealing a charm bracelet of silver skulls with one missing. Day 12: Agent Dana Scully and Assistant Director Skinner report to Deputy Director Kersh on the search for the missing Agent Doggett. They show that they have a photo of him at the border suggesting that he is in Mexico but Kersh refuses to extend the search into Mexico because they just don’t have enough evidence to push that forward. They try and convince him to allow Agent Monica Reyes to at least search since she grew up in Mexico. Kersh requires that any work she does remains on the US side of the border. Elsewhere, Agent Reyes is having a conversation with Mr. Mariano Molina and his lawyer down in San Antonio, Texas. The man sells farm equipment but also drugs. Reyes asks him about Hollis Rice, who disappeared. Doggett was investigating the disappearance and would have asked Molina questions about it but Molina denies ever having met Doggett. She accuses Molina of being a middleman in a smuggling operation and that Hollis Rice laundered money for the cartel until he got too greedy or something. Molina’s lawyer ends the meeting without Reyes getting any answers to her questions. John Doggett awakes in the police station’s waiting room after a fragment of memory about his son. He has a phone call from the Marine Corps Public Affairs Office. He lies and tells the Staff Sergeant on the other end that he is a detective trying to track down the identity of a man run over by a taxi cab in Mexico. Doggett feeds the Sergeant his own physical characteristics and explains about the tattoo which refers to a unit killed by the bombing in Lebanon in 1983. He leaves before he gives the man a number to reach him because the police who brought him have showed up. Later in Domingo’s garage, Doggett is fixing up the engine of the bus. Domingo arrives with a notice about a Henry Bruck who is wanted in connection to a double homicide and though there is no picture, he emphasizes to Doggett how the description fits. Domingo tells him that they will keep him safe and that he should stay away from the Federales. Nestor goes to the Skull Charm Man about Doggett. He is concerned about Doggett and says he is different from the other disappeared ones. Caballero tells him that Doggett is an FBI agent and that his orders from the cartel were not to kill him. Caballero implies that if something were to happen to Doggett though, it would not be his concern. Reyes and Scully talk in the San Antonio offices. Scully explains that Kersh doesn’t know that she is there, nor that Skinner has gone down to Mexico. She shows Reyes the info about a Detective Ladatel looking for information from the Marines about a man matching Doggett’s description and they decide to trace the call given that Ladatel is a Mexican calling card. Nestor tries to kill Doggett with the revolver while he’s under the bus in the garage. He reveals that he speaks English and tells him, "See you in Hell, FBI!" Then Doggett hits the release for the jack and crushes Nestor’s right foot. The wounded man and Doggett fight in the garage as the gun goes off again. Domingo arrives to find a dead Nestor, shot through the head, and a threatening Doggett asking if Nestor was sent to kill him. Domingo surrenders to the threats and tells Doggett that he is one of the disappeared ones; that the drug cartel runs the town and some people who mess with them disappear and are dead while others who really cross the cartel are left alive but dead. "They took away my memory? How? How do I get it back?" Domingo replies, "You don’t. That’s the point." As he gets painful disabling flashes of memory, Doggett is disarmed and beaten by Domingo. Reyes pretends to be looking for her dead-beat husband and bribes them to convince the Mexican police to tell her about any Americans they’ve found recently. This leads to a man beaten to death that almost looks like Doggett. Reyes notices the matching pair of scars on the forehead of this man. Reyes arrives at the garage and tells Doggett who he is and who she is but the corrupt local cops arrive and surround the building. Doggett tells her that the cops will kill them if they step outside and asks Reyes what his son’s name is, since all he can remember is that he has a son but not his name. Reyes tells him Luke but is quietly horrified given what happened to Doggett’s son. Her reactions make him realize what happened and it all starts to come back to him. He breaks down weeping, overwhelmed by the knowledge of his son’s death, while Monica deals with the smoke canisters being thrown into the garage. She convinces him to get it together and he tells her to get on the bus. They drive the bus out through the blockade. Unfortunately, they flip the bus and the cartel-owned police officers walk towards them. Doggett, Reyes, Skinner, and the Federales go to challenge Caballero. Doggett speaks with Caballero about how he remembers everything and how he took his memories and the memories of other people, robbing them of their identities. Caballero speaks to Doggett about his memories since he experiences the memories of people he mind wipes. "Why would you want to remember? You can’t tell me you’re happier now, because you recall your life. I saw it all. So much pain. Why would you want to struggle, so long, and hard, to get that pain back?" He walks away as the Federales move in to apprehend Caballero. Doggett remembers his son riding his bike. Reyes offers her condolences about Doggett having to remember it all over again. Doggett, lost in his memories, merely says, "I’ll take the bad as long as I remember the good."
<EOS>
Ed’s friend Victor Dale Potts nervously lights a cigarette as the doctor asks him about how he is doing. Victor explains he’s been having nightmares about seeing people skinned alive. Pruit says that the fear plagues them even in their dreams. As Victor and Ed leave, Ed asks Victor if he gets tired of that group and all its crap. Does it make the nightmares go away? Victor turns and sees Ed as a skinned man walking around with him. "No, it don’t." Agent Monica Reyes meets Agent John Doggett and Agent Dana Scully at the FBI training academy in Quantico, Virginia about the murder of Victor Dale Potts. Victor was a career criminal murdered five days earlier but the way he was killed is what is special. Scully shows Doggett the body, skinned alive, the blood vessels kept intact to prolong the agony of death. Reyes explains that Potts had been having dreams about being skinned alive and then it actually happened suggesting an X-Files case. Neither Doggett nor Scully are entirely convinced but Reyes asserts that she has to solve this case. It is just a feeling. Reyes goes back outside and sees Van Allen again. He says that she is familiar to him somehow. Ed Kelso and Terrance Pruit have an argument at the Maneri Meat Packing plant where they both work. Pruit accuses Kelso of killing Victor Potts and explains how the FBI will ask them both questions given how Victor died. Kelso threatens Pruit but leaves when the buzzer sounds the end of the work day. Terrance Pruit yells after him, "Yeah, that’s right; walk away. But just like you said you can’t run from what you are." Ed Kelso responds with, "Yeah, and I’ll see you in hell." As Pruit follows, walking parallel among the pig carcasses, he sees Ed Kelso skinned and walking around like its normal. Pruit follows the man all the way outside to see him, normal again, driving away with a woman; he can’t believe what he has seen. Scully receives some cases about skinning victims from an FBI cadet. The one that matches and stands out is from 1960. Scully goes to investigate at a retirement home where the doctor who performed the autopsy, Bertram Mueller, lives. Bertram Mueller recounts that the victim was a John Doe and that they never found a suspect or anything. The local Sheriff didn’t follow up because he had others things on his mind. He committed suicide not long after the murders. He tells Scully it was a string of murders. Reyes is woken from a nightmare, about searching for Dr. Holland and finding her skinned, by Doggett who received a phone call about a new murder. They arrive and Van Allen shows them the body of Pruit hanging there skinned. Reyes freaks out at the sight of another body and runs outside. Scully arrives with information about the string of murders in 1960. Doggett realizes that Terrance Pruit is still alive! Doggett asks him who did this to him but Pruit can’t say anything coherent in his state. Ed Kelso packs up his things while his girlfriend Roxanne asks him if they are going somewhere. He tells her that he is going somewhere but she isn’t and tells her to get out. He is terrified. She walks right into the FBI and police outside but remains silent. Doggett catches Ed Kelso. Reyes goes in to talk with Ed Kelso and admits that she has been having nightmares just like Kelso and just like Victor. Doggett calls her out in the hall and tells her that telling him that could blow their case against him. He wonders what she isn’t telling him about this case. Van Allen arrives to release Ed Kelso since the girlfriend vouches for him. As he leaves he sees Dr. Holland skinless. Reyes meets Scully back at Quantico. Scully had previous victims exhumed and found the same exact tool marks in the same way as the current victims, suggesting the same killer despite the length of time that had passed. Also she points out something that she believed Reyes suspected: That the date of death for the original victims corresponds with the date of birth for the new victims. When Reyes calls Doggett to ask about Ed Kelso’s DOB, he tells her that the protection detail isn’t there and he goes to investigate the house. He finds Ed Kelso tied to a table, with a gag in his mouth, skinned alive just like the other two. Doggett yells at Van Allen and his incompetence in protecting Ed Kelso but Reyes calls him inside to the crime scene. Reyes explains what Scully showed her and while Doggett believes the killer chooses people with the same birthday as the death date of the other set of victims out of some psychological reason, Reyes believes it is reincarnation. That the souls of these men come back only to be destined to die in the same way over and over again. It won’t let them rest. Doggett doesn’t believe her but she looks down at the body of Ed Kelso covered by a white sheet. "A rag is stuffed in his mouth. A dirty rag. Black with soot." She lifts the sheet and reveals the rag that only Doggett had seen. "Coal dust from a coal mine." Doggett asks how she could have known that but Reyes doesn’t know herself. She goes deeper into the mine and finds the skins of the victims pinned up against plastic sheeting. Behind her a man says, "You shouldn’t have come here." Reyes pulls her gun and heads out through the plastic sheeting into the mine. The man slips up behind her and holds the skinning knife to her throat. "You can’t stop it. You never do." He moves closer and reveals himself as Van Allen. "You always fail. It’s your lot." Doggett enters the mine and finds Reyes. She explains that Van Allen is the reincarnation of a man skinned alive in the 1860s and that he comes back as a police officer every time to avenge his own death and make sure the crimes are never solved. He won’t kill himself yet though, he has one victim left to take and Reyes suspects who it is. As they drive back to Novi, Reyes calls Dr. Holland and explains that Van Allen is coming to kill her. Her group has just left and now she sees the silhouette on the glass door. Van Allen enters but can’t find her. "Time’s come! You’re the last." Reyes watches Van Allen in the ICU as Doggett walks up to speak with her. He doesn’t really believe in the reincarnation aspect of the whole event but he realizes that Reyes knew key details somehow and used that to save a woman’s life. Scully shows up as Doggett leaves. Reyes asks her if she believes in second chances and explains that is what the victims were trying to do, atone for what happened in 1868, but this man wouldn’t let them. Scully asks Reyes who she was in the past. Reyes doesn’t know but just that it was someone who failed each time to save them and that her deepest fear is that she will fail. 
<EOS>
Scully is called into a meeting at the FBI with Kersh, and after entering his office is surprised to see Skinner, Follmer and a few unknown men also in attendance. Despite her initial concern, she agrees to be questioned, and is shown a copy of the alien rubbings from the crash and is asked whether she can identify them. Although she recognises them instantly after encountering identical markings on an alien craft in the Ivory Coast, Scully pensively evades the question, and is instructed by Follmer to cooperate. The men refuse to answer any of Scully's questions, although Kersh admits the rubbings were found in the possession of a man attempting to cross the Canada-US border. Scully claims she wants to cooperate, but is unhappy at not being told the circumstances of the case. A short distance away, the bike's rider emerges from undergrowth severely burned from the crash. He reaches into his jacket pocket and clenches an alien artifact which seems to heal his wounds. Reyes calls Scully to her apartment, where she has been researching the rubbings. She tells Scully she has read that the markings translate into religious creeds, which Scully confirms. She also admits that she had previously refused to accept the possibility that the craft was the source of the world's religions, but now she can find no other explanation for the FBI's secrecy on the matter. Doggett visits Reyes' apartment, showing her the rubbings he stole and also confirming the identity of the motorcyclist as an FBI Special Agent, Robert Comer, who Reyes knows from a previous case. Doggett explains that Comer has been deep undercover for sixth months. He also admits that he stole the files. In Jessup, Maryland, Comer attempts to hotwire a cargo truck, but is caught by the driver. Comer, now fully healed of his wounds overpowers the driver and knocks him unconscious, taking his keys and boarding the truck. He searches a road map, looking for Georgetown. At Scully's apartment, she convinces her mother to babysit William while she goes to speak with Doggett and Reyes. Margaret argues that Scully should not be questioning William's nature, but instead be thanking God for giving her a child and loving him regardless. Scully states firmly that she has to know before leaving. Scully arrives at Reyes's apartment where Doggett informs her that Comer was undercover in a UFO Cult in Canada, and that the FBI is covering up his identity because they believe he was converted by the cult. Doggett also tells her that Comer is now missing. Reyes reveals that Comer's rubbings do not match those from the Ivory Coast, suggesting that they are from a second Alien craft. Margaret returns to Scully's apartment with William after a walk, and is confronted inside by Comer, who overpowers her and shuts himself in William's room with the baby. Scully arrives and finds the door open, discovering her mother who says a man is trying to kill William. Scully enters William's room with her gun ready, but is ambushed by Comer who is able to throw her out of the room and disarm her before locking the door. As Comer prepares to smother William, Scully breaks through the door and guns down Comer with her back up side arm. In Calgary, Canada, one of the cultists, a woman wearing an overcoat, sees a newspaper headline reporting Comer's shooting, exposing him as an FBI Agent. She rushes to the site of the dig and informs Josepho, who says that it changes everything, before confirming that there is only one thing to do. The woman shows her understanding and leaves. At the J. Edgar Hoover building, Scully and Doggett are called into a meeting with senior staff identical to that faced by Scully. She immediately shows her scorn towards her superiors, describing the meeting as a secret interrogation, while Doggett agrees, citing the FBI's hush hush as a cause for suspicion. Kersch admits that Comer was an FBI Agent who had infiltrated a UFO Cult led by a former US Military Office. He goes to explain that Comer was given the assignment due to a series of threats on Mulder's life. When Scully asks why she was not told this, Follmer admits that Comer had received reports that Mulder was dead. Reyes brings William back to Scully's apartment, and Reyes quickly realizes that something is amiss. She questions Scully, who begins to tell her about Mulder when the drawer housing the Alien artifact begins to shake violently. Reluctantly, Scully opens the drawer, and the artifact flies out and hovers over William's head. William serenely stares up at the object as it levitates over him. Called by Reyes, Doggett rushes to the scene and meets her. Reyes explains what happened, much to Doggett's startlement. Scully takes William into her car to take him somewhere safe, and Doggett notices Overcoat Woman watching them from in her car. As Scully and Reyes drive away, Doggett confronts the woman at gunpoint, but she runs him over and knocks him unconscious. Scully drives into an abandoned alleyway, where they meet the three Lone Gunmen, who agree to look after William while Scully attempts to find out who is pursuing him. Scully says an emotional farewell to William before leaving with Reyes. They return to Scully's apartment, finding police and ambulance teams. Skinner informs them that Doggett is in a coma after having been run down by an unidentified woman. Realizing the danger, Scully returns to her car and drives away. As the Lone Gunmen meanwhile head to a safe location, they are ambushed by a woman who opens fire on their van and knocks the vehicle off the road. With Frohike and Langly incapacitated, the woman opens the back door of the van to find Byers holding William inside the vehicle. The woman puts a gun to Byers' head, threateningly. 
<EOS>
Josepho stands above the strange aperture at the top of the spacecraft newly uncovered by the excavation of the cult members. A.D. Follmer discloses to a room of FBI special agents the current situation: Agent Dana Scully’s son William has been abducted. The Lone Gunmen are identifying the woman who took the child and also ran over Agent John Doggett, who is now in a coma. He mentions Agent Comer’s attack on the child as well but Follmer excludes any motive for these crimes. A frustrated Scully leaves the room. A.D. Skinner follows her and they have an argument. Scully accuses Skinner of holding out on her with reports of Fox Mulder’s potential demise. She believes that D.D. Kersh, Follmer, and Skinner are part of a conspiracy to obscure the truth. Skinner denies this and goes to check on Agent Doggett. Agent Monica Reyes is watching over him and Skinner tells her he probably can feel her holding his hand and hear her talking to him in the coma. Scully asks Reyes to see her alone. Reyes arrives and learns the Lone Gunmen refused to identify the woman who took William. Scully asked them to do this and is now asking Reyes to quietly look into the woman’s background. However, John Byers of the LG put a cell phone in with the baby’s things so they can track the woman. They track the signal’s source and Reyes and Scully head out to find William. Overcoat Woman reports that she has William to Josepho. The aperture of the ship seals two men inside and Josepho and his cultists scramble to get them out of there. Scully and Reyes find the car seat in the deserted van but no sign of the woman or William. Follmer finds Reyes praying and shows her that Comer had the word Jacket written down. When Reyes tells Scully about this she realizes that he wants the alien artifact to be used to heal him. Comer is revived and reveals his secrets. He was sent undercover within the cult of Josepho. This cult believes that aliens will soon rule the world and Josepho led them all to the site of an alien craft far to the north. Josepho claims to speak to God and that the craft they are now excavating is a temple that holds the physical manifestation of God. Josepho ordered Comer to seek out William but to protect him, at least until it was learned Mulder was dead. Apparently a prophecy says William is some savior of mankind but only if Mulder is still alive, otherwise he is not and he will lead the forces of evil. A nurse and some FBI agents come in and ask Reyes and Scully what they are doing there. Scully says Comer no longer needed the life support machines. The lead agent demands that Skinner and Follmer come down immediately. The lead agent is alone with Comer and the sick man seems terrified about that. Overcoat Woman arrives with William and then the aperture opens revealing the two men burned to death. An angry Follmer and Skinner arrive downstairs but Reyes and Scully ignored orders and left. Follmer tells Skinner they need them now. Reyes and Scully have a discussion about the things that Comer said and while Scully believed it, Reyes dissuades Scully from believing it, suggesting that everything the cult believes is wrong and Scully shouldn’t buy into it.. Skinner shows up and calls them back to Comer’s room saying that Comer has died. Reyes returns and accuses Toothpick Man and the others in the room of doing something to Comer but she comes off badly to the agents there. Meanwhile Scully is with Doggett who wakes up and tells her: "They’re going to come to you, but you can’t trust them." Right after he says that, Josepho contacts her and wants to meet with her. Scully goes to meet with them near Calgary, Canada. Josepho claims to be protecting the infant and says the super soldiers are the true sons of God. He says William will lead the alien race that is coming. He demands confirmation that Mulder is dead since he now doubts Mulder’s demise and only the head of Mulder will free William. The Lone Gunmen place a tracking device on Josepho’s truck and Reyes and Scully pursue the man when he leaves. As Josepho returns, Overcoat Woman relates that the aperture started glowing after the baby started crying. It becomes a pillar of light as the cultists are gathered around. The craft begins to rise up out of the ground. Scully and Reyes see a craft burst out of the enclosure, lighting it on fire as it goes; it flies out into space. A desperate Scully runs through the fiery wreckage finding the burned bodies of cult members everywhere. Reyes signals Scully to be quiet for a moment and they hear a baby crying. They find a miraculously unharmed William among the debris. Doggett talks with Reyes in the hospital church about how a voice in his head kept telling him to wake up and warn Scully. He asks if Reyes told him that but she says she only prayed for his life. 
<EOS>
Agent Monica Reyes drops off Agent John Doggett at his house in Falls Church, Virginia. They talk about their weekend plans or rather the lack thereof. Reyes suggests that maybe they need to get pets. Doggett says he was thinking about getting a cat. Reyes tells him he is a dog person. "You’re faithful, you’re dependable, you’re without guile, you’re very comfortable to be around." They share a moment but it passes quickly. She drives away and is sideswiped by a speeding car. She shows up at the hospital on a gurney but as the doctor starts to ask her questions, she fades into unconsciousness. She awakens in the hospital but there are no people and its very quiet now. She wanders around this empty place until she reaches the automatic doors at the entrance. Monica looks out from that threshold on the swirling sky-like void beyond. Reyes encounters other people in the more tranquil hospital. Stephen Murdoch, who came into the hospital with chest pains, brings her to Val Barriero, who had an accident at a construction site and a deep scar on his head. Murdoch suggests that they have all died. Reyes denies this. Agent Dana Scully arrives at the medical center and speaks with the mournful Doggett. He finds it strange how much things can change in an instant. He and Scully go to see Reyes and Scully confirms that she is brain dead, alive by machines only. Doggett refuses to accept this. Reyes checks around some more and finds that all writing is gibberish there. There are no signs on the walls or doors and paperwork is now covered with nonsense words. She and Murdoch talk about their predicament and he suggests this is Hell or a way station on their way to whatever. Reyes attempts to find a way out and drops a coffee cup into the swirling void at the entrance. It is destroyed in a burst of electricity. Dr. Jack Preijers informs Scully and Doggett of Reyes’ living will. He suggests that the plug be pulled and that her organs be donated as per her instructions within the living will. Doggett doesn’t believe that should be done just yet. He finds the fact that Reyes has no broken bones or serious head injury, yet is brain-dead quite unusual. Reyes pursues a strange woman but loses her at a dead end. Murdoch calls for her and she arrives in time to find Val Barriero screaming in agony as electricity flows through his body and he dematerializes. In the real world, Val Barriero is pronounced dead by Dr. Preijers in front of Barriero’s family. The strange woman that Reyes chased pushes her flower cart away. Scully admits the brain scans suggest only minor brain swelling but that there is no exact formula for how much damage equals death. Doggett says the doctors will carve up Reyes tomorrow. He takes the EEG papers that monitored Reyes’ brain in hopes of reversing whatever happened. Doggett and Dr. Preijers discuss Reyes. Preijers is defensive and gives Doggett the records of what they did to try and save her. Doggett finds the strange woman at Reyes’ bedside and learns she is a patient aide. The woman says, "She’s not gone. Not her soul." The woman returns home where she has a model of the hospital. She stands before it and appears in the ward with Reyes and Murdoch. She introduces herself as Audrey Pauley. She says she can’t help them but that Reyes’ friend loves her. Reyes asks her to tell Doggett that he is a dog person. Doggett asks Scully to do an autopsy on Nurse Whitney shortly after her body is found, and test her blood to try and ascertain how she died and if it relates to Reyes in any way. Audrey Pauley delivers the dog person message to Doggett and he asks Audrey how she knew it. Audrey says Reyes isn’t gone, like she said. Reyes suggests to Stephen Murdoch that the problem with words being missing or jumbled is a clue - that the place they are in is like a movie set only made by someone who didn’t entirely grasp what it was they were making. Murdoch falls over in great pain. Doggett is shown the model of the hospital by Audrey Pauley. She lives in the basement of the hospital on the permission of the nuns. She explains how she visits the hospital in her mind and that it was just her in there until recently when the patients began showing up. Doggett asks her what patients started showing up in there. Doggett tells Scully about the other patients and suggests Preijers may have poisoned them with something out of a doctor death sort of persona. He refuses to tell her the way he learned about them but they are too late to save Stephen Murdoch. Preijers pulls the sheet over the man’s face while watching them. Reyes watches Murdoch go and he goes. "There’s so much I’d do differently." Reyes asks, "What?" The dying man says, "Life." Doggett returns to Audrey Pauley. Though Audrey believes she isn’t capable of much, he asks her to tell Monica Reyes to fight. He breaks down and cries. As he leaves, he walks past a concealed Dr. Preijers. Audrey Pauley returns to the astral hospital and asks Reyes to show them some sign that she is still alive. Reyes realizes that Audrey is dyslexic, that she made the hospital realm, and can change it however she wants. When Audrey returns to reality, Dr. Preijers is waiting. "You’re not going to yell out, are you, Audrey?" Reyes watches as the place begins to collapse. Audrey Pauley brings Reyes to the entrance and tells her that she has to leave. It is safe now, but Reyes will have to hurry. Reyes jumps into the void as Audrey shimmers and fades away. Scully enters Reyes’ room and tells Doggett the transplant teams are ready. Suddenly, Reyes wakes up and tells Doggett that Audrey needs help. Doggett slams Dr. Preijers into a wall as he finds the man pocketing an empty syringe. He finds Audrey Pauley dead in her room. Three days later, Doggett drops off Reyes at her home. They say goodnight to each other but as John watches her enter her apartment building and she looks at him, it is clear they have more to say to each other. 
<EOS>
Robert Fassl sits in his Triboro Cable van. He touches the crucifix danging from the rear view mirror as a voice from behind him calls out. "Get going." Fassl begs, "Please." The bearded man in back insists, "Do your damn job." Fassl goes to the door and claims to be there to repair the cable. The daughter, Janet, knows nothing about the cable being out but lets Fassl into the house anyway. Her father comes downstairs saying the cable isn’t out as he is watching the game upstairs. He asks who called in the work order. As Fassl holds up the paper to look at it, arterial blood spatter splashes across the paper. He looks up and sees no one in view. Then he sees the father on the floor dead with his throat slit and in the kitchen are the mother and daughter in the same condition in pools of blood. Abruptly, two police officers burst into the house and apprehend Fassl. The officer who goes to check out the kitchen, turns to reveal he is John Doggett back when he was a NYPD uniform cop. He growls at Fassl about how they got him. Present Day Agent Monica Reyes finds Agent John Doggett yelling on the phone; he hands her the newspaper article about Robert Fassl being exonerated by DNA evidence within the last few days. Hanging up, Doggett describes catching Fassl and how he certain he was of the man’s guilt. Agent Dana Scully arrives and confirms the test results conclusively disprove Fassl as the killer. Doggett asks for their help with this and heads out for New York City. At Sing Sing Prison, Fassl weeps as he is released from his cell. He opens up his box of personal effects and kisses the Rosary. His lawyer calls him back from his staring and the man is no longer there. Doggett and Scully walk along with Assistant District Attorney Damon Kaylor, discussing the situation with Fassl. Kaylor explains that the city has to pay off Robert Fassl for being imprisoned all those years. He doesn’t want to let them look at the old files at first but Doggett convinces him to allow them to look through the files given that if Fassl isn’t the killer, then someone else is, someone out there still. Scully and Doggett begin looking over the files. As arresting officer, the capture of Fassl helped Doggett make detective. Scully tries to comfort Doggett by saying that even good cops make mistakes, however Doggett realizes that already and thinks this isn’t one of those mistakes. He quotes a cop he knew about how you don’t clock out unless you did everything you could. That is why he is here now; he has to make sure he did everything he could. Fassl is staying with Jana Fain in her inherited mansion. She shows him his room and talks about setting up job interviews. Bob Fassl holds his Rosary beads and prays frantically. After she leaves, he finds blood on his hands. Looking up, he reads "Kill Her" on the wall in blood. Doggett finds his old mentor and friend, Duke Tomasick, who was with him on the arrest of Fassl all those many years ago. Tomasick accepts that Fassl must have been innocent. Jana Fain finds Bob Fassl praying and is proud that Bob hasn’t let his faith be destroyed by all that has happened. "I pray all the time. I pray even when it looks like I’m not praying." "I know someone’s listening, Bob. Goodnight." As she closes the door, the Bearded Man appears behind him. He begs for the man not to hurt her but he strikes Bob and walks out the door with a screwdriver. Scully tells Doggett that her own test of the DNA confirms its not Fassl’s. However, the DNA is similar enough with many alleles in common, suggesting a blood relative. Fassl is an only child and his parents died when he was thirteen. Doggett and Scully are confused by this detail. Jana Fain confronts Robert Fassl about possibly being in her things. He is relieved that she is unharmed but learns that the housekeeper Mrs. Dowdy is missing. Fassl finds her body, cleans up the blood and dismembers her remains to cover up what has happened. Kaylor shows up to inform Doggett that it is over, they are giving a settlement to Fassl, and the FBI should go back to Washington, D.C. Then Reyes shows up and recounts what she learned at the prison and suggests the Bearded Man obeys Fassl or Fassl obeys it and that it is some kind of entity rather than an actual person. Though Doggett wishes to dismiss all this, Reyes points out they could compare the DNA evidence left by the Bearded Man from the prison murder to the earlier homicides. Scully says that they can’t as it has been learned that the DNA evidence that convicted Fassl was planted. Kaylor goes to see Jana Fain but finds only her client, Bob Fassl. He tells him about the settlement deal but Bob begs to go back to prison and says its his fault. Kaylor refuses to hear this but then stops moving. Blood spills out of him as he crumples to the ground with the Bearded Man standing behind him with a bloody screwdriver. Agent John Doggett confronts Duke Tomasick about planting evidence. He admits to it but claims it was the only time and he did it to catch the Screwdriver Killer. Scully shows up and mentions that Kaylor is missing. Fassl places Kaylor’s remains among others in the sewers. He walks away from the trophy shelf. Scully, Reyes, Fassl, and Jana Fain meet to discuss when they last saw Kaylor. Fain says they haven’t seen him but when Scully and Reyes show the picture of the man from the prison, Fassl gets nervous and clutches his Rosary beads. Fain gets angry and leaves with her client. Reyes theorizes that Fassl is unwilling to see his darker half to such a degree, because of his piety, that he actually is two people now. The innocent and the killer. She suggests it goes beyond merely having two personalities, rather he physically changes into another person, hence the different but similar DNA. The Bearded Man demands that Fassl kill his lawyer. He beats him up and when Fain checks on him, she finds an injured Fassl. She says she’ll fix him up. He stands behind her as Fassl, then she opens the medicine cabinet. When she closes it, the mirror shows the Bearded Man. The Bearded Man immediately ambushes them and nearly stabs Reyes. He runs, escaping all of Doggett’s fired rounds. They split up in their search for the suspect. Reyes falls through a grate and into the sewer water. She finds a wall of skeletons and fresher corpses. Doggett is attacked and a screwdriver is held to his throat as Reyes shows up. She talks to the Bearded Man as if he is Bob Fassl. Or contains Bob Fassl anyway. The Bearded Man freaks out and Doggett struggles, getting loose from his grip. Reyes guns down the man who falls into the water. Doggett climbs in after him and pulls out Robert Fassl. Jana Fain asks to see her housekeeper but Scully tells her its better not to see her. She says there were more victims than they ever realized. As the police drag Bob Fassl’s body out, Jana Fain firmly states: "I saw a Bearded Man. I know what I saw." Doggett looks completely lost. He can’t accept what he has seen. Reyes tries to remind him that it doesn’t matter as long as the case is solved. He is isn’t sure about that since what will happen with the next bizarre case he just can’t believe? 
<EOS>
A killer who is guided by numerology and the influence that Burt Reynolds has on the figures around him. Numbers and particularly multiples of three feature heavily. Agent Reyes is investigating a series of cases that she believes are linked by numerology. While explaining the case to Scully, Scully spots another possible link - a mark made by the killer's ring on the victims faces. On consulting a numerologist, Reyes ties the murders together, however, the killer also finds the numerologist, murdering her. Reyes' numerology theories don't go down well at the FBI, but the pattern of the killings when viewed on a map seem to show a spiral or is it a number? Scully and Reyes revisit the murdered numerologist's office and meet the killer in the elevator. Scully recognizes the ring on the killer's hand and draws her gun on him. The killer slips out of the elevator and gets to the parking lot first. Reyes and Scully arrive only to see a car fleeing the garage and the gate closing behind it. They are stuck in the garage, alone; or maybe not. Scully and Reyes chat on the phone and discuss Scully's number while Scully also wonders "Who was that man?" "God Knows." says Reyes. In a nearby Italian neighborhood, a party is in progress. Two men sing a jovial song and lead a crowd through the streets. The camera zooms out to reveal that the entire neighborhood from above suggests the appearance of Burt Reynolds face. 
<EOS>
A little boy lies awake in the dark as he hears scratching noises on the window. Frightened he tries to take a look underneath his bed. He calls his father who takes a glimpse if there is anything under the bed and despite having seen a shadow, he tells his son that everything was alright and leaves the room again. As the boy tries to fall asleep again, he sees something underneath the bed and tries to get out of the room calling for his father screaming "They are in here!" but the father is seen outside the door, keeping it closed to keep his son inside. Scully's trying to have her lunch at the FBI headquarter as Leyla Harrison visits and shows a picture of a dead woman which she claims to be an X-File. She tells the story of a boy called Tommy who says that a monster called his mother and his cat as well, showing Scully a passport picture of Tommy, the boy from the teaser. Scully doesn't think it's an X-File and rejects Harrison, telling her that she believes that it was a suicide where the woman stabbed herself 16 times with a knife. At home, Scully gets a call from Monica Reyes who's on the road to Pennsylvania with Doggett and Harrison trying to tell her about the case, only to find out that Leyla Harrison already told Scully about it but didn't inform Reyes about it. Despite Scully's opinion, Harrison convinces the two agents to drive to Fairhope. Mr. Collinson, the father from the teaser in seen, trying to bury something in his garden as the agents and Harrison arrive around seven o' clock in the evening. They wish to speak to Tommy but the father tries to send them away telling them his son was sleeping. Tommy appears at the door because he heard noise outside but when they try to find out what he knows, when Harrison asks him about the monsters he replies rather unconvincingly that monsters don't exist. Reyes, Doggett and Harrison start to leave again, being watched by Tommy and Mr. Collins, Tommy telling his father the monsters won't let them get away. As Doggett starts the motor, blood splashes against the window. They open the car and find out that something was inside the car that broke the engine. Scully gets a visit late at night by a boy that brings her the dead cat that Harrison talked earlier about. In the Collins' house Doggett tells Reyes and Harrison that the motor can't be fixed that quickly as they hear the boy screaming. They find his dad keeping the door closed, but push him away and see insect-like creatures crawling on the floor. Doggett tries to shoot them, but even when they get shot, they revive and escape. Later the boy sits at a table and draws. Doggett tells Reyes that he couldn't find any creatures in the room. They ask Tommy about it who explains that those are the things that killed his mother but his dad said he wasn't allowed to talk about it. Mr. Collinson tells them that everything was in control, but that they have arrived and want to kill everyone. He claims that they cannot be killed and when you try to one becomes two. In the Collinson's garden Doggett tries to dig out whatever Mr. Collinson is trying to hide in his garden. He finds the broken mirror from Tommy's room. As they want to leave the house and go to the sheriff's office the sheriff appears in the apartment. Mr. Collisons claims that it's not the sheriff, who attacked Doggett. As Doggett hits him with his fist, his hand goes right through his stomach. Scully thinks that the cat as well as Tommy's mother had something inside that was painful and they tried to cut it out. Scully arrives at the real sheriff's office trying to find a way to the house but since it is snowing, he tells them that there's ice on the streets. Back in the FBI headquarters, Harrison tells Doggett that he did a very good job, better than Mulder could have ever done it. Doggett's inability to believe in the illusions he was seeing protected him, making him the best agent for the case. Tommy is seen in the last scene, lying in a hospital in front of a dozen televisions, each with a different channel with the voice comment from Doggett saying that they try to reduce the boy's fantasy.
<EOS>
Morris Fletcher narrates the exploits and adventures of John Fitzgerald Byers, Melvin Frohike, and Richard Langly. Describing them correctly as geekish heroes, he recounts their journey from the beginning to the present, including the addition of their allies, Jimmy Bond the oafish but goodhearted assistant and Yves Adele Harlow the opportunistic mercenary with enough good in her to end up helping the Lone Gunmen. The lascivious Morris Fletcher sits in a boat off the Bahamas wearing shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. Two laptops lie open with navigation maps and the radar pings away. His companion, the enticing bikini-clad Brittany, carries two large margaritas over to Morris. He impresses her with convincing lies about his life as a spy while he rubs lotion on her back. But Brittany notices an approaching boat. They get back on their boat and speed away with their hostage as one of the men throws a flare into the boat. It catches fire and soon explodes, but not before Fletcher jumps out into the water. A schematic for a UFO floats upon the waves. At the Coast Guard base in Miami Beach, Florida, Agents Monica Reyes and John Doggett meet with a fearful but still sleazy Fletcher. He is up on charges and tells them he will reveal all he knows from his work at Area 51. They are about to leave Fletcher and his lies when he mentions super soldiers. Doggett and Reyes go to visit the Lone Gunmen at their picked-over offices. They ask the men about Yves Adele Harlow who Fletcher claims is a super soldier. They don’t believe this claim from Morris Fletcher, their old enemy who supposedly had Yves abducted and transformed into a super soldier. The beleaguered Bond relates that he has been following Lois Runce all around the world. He found her at Hartwell College in New Jersey but she ran. He learned she murdered a man there. Elsewhere, Yves Harlow burns something glowing, that had been extracted from a person, in a furnace. "One down." Reyes and Doggett learn from Prof. Gillnitz that Douglas Houghton, the murdered professor, did research on rays, skates, and sharks for medical purposes. The Gunmen call in the conceited hacker Kimmy to help them track Harlow down. They leave him, Fletcher, and Jimmy Bond there to contact them in the field. Doggett and Reyes learn that it is bioluminescence that makes the dead professor glow. The medical examiner explains the man had surgery to graft something inside himself. They realize that something was taken out of the container-like cartilage within the man. Fletcher denies knowing anything about mysterious organs to Reyes and Doggett. Kimmy, angrily yelling at the Lone Gunmen’s computer, lets it slip that the Gunmen are completely broke and they hocked everything they owned just to keep paying the rent. They haven’t published their newspaper in months. Fletcher smirks at all this. "So saving the world doesn’t pay the bills." Jimmy Bond glares down at him and explains that when Fletcher took Yves, the guys spent everything trying to find her. "They’re loyal to their friends. Hilarious, huh?" Byers, Frohike, and Langly bumble into the room to stop her. As the man realizes someone is behind the door, he slams it into Yves, knocking her out. He charges past the guys. An irritated handcuffed Yves Harlow tells them she prefers Yves over Lois as her name, that she is certainly not a super soldier, and that she knows they meant well but they messed everything up. Doggett and Reyes return without having found Leonard Southhall, the man who was in the hotel room. His name is fake but no one knows who he really is, including Yves. Doggett inspects the medical supplies in her handbag but she defends herself, claiming innocent people are at risk. They return to Morris Fletcher and find a tracking device under his bandaid. He secretly works for a man who wanted him to track down Yves Harlow. Fletcher used Doggett and Reyes since he knew they would contact the Lone Gunmen, who would find her again. The man who hired him is Yves Harlow’s father. An arms dealer, billionaire, supporter of terrorism, and utterly despised by his daughter. Jimmy Bond wonders about Yves given that she did murder a man. She rationalizes that the man she killed and the man she was going to kill were both zealots funded by her father. Houghton’s research into sharks allowed the creation of a biological container to hide a virus inside a person, allowing them to pass through metal detectors and other scanners undetected. This pouch breaks down automatically like a biological countdown clock and the other man’s internal container will trigger in five hours, releasing a virus that will kill tens of thousands. Frohike talks about how maybe it is time to quit, given the year they have had. Byers convinces him that they never give up and that is what counts. They track down Southhall at the college. Doggett and Reyes capture him with doctors wearing haz-mat suits but all scans of Southhall show no signs of a foreign object within. They realize that Yves was after the wrong second man and that there is another elsewhere. They have one hour to find him. Fletcher realizes that Southhall was a decoy since all information pointed to him. It was a scam, something he is an expert at. They know Southhall was involved though since he went to the college, their base of operations, so it must be someone else from the university. Langly, Harlow, Byers, Bond, and Frohike attempt to convince the guard at the bio-ethics conference to let them through. Their expired press passes and their claims of a dangerous man being in there fall on deaf ears. Jimmy Bond screams John Gillnitz into the room and an anxious Gillnitz gets up and runs out of the hall. Jimmy apologizes to the security guard and head butts the man, knocking him out. The five of them storm into the conference hall and exit through the same door that Gillnitz left through. Kimmy says goodbye to his friends, touches each of the three coffins, and walks away from the dwindling number of funeral mourners. Doggett talks to Skinner about getting Langly, Byers, and Frohike into Arlington National Cemetery. Skinner had to pull strings to do it, but it was the least he could do. Skinner, Doggett, and Reyes pass Dana Scully, Jimmy Bond, and Yves Harlow as they go. Jimmy holds three folded US flags under his left arm as Scully remembers how much she cared for those three men. Fletcher arrives and reminds them as Langly said, ‘the ones who never give up, never die.’ Scully declares that the world is better for people like them and that they live on through everyone else. 
<EOS>
Mrs. Van De Kamp sweeps around the front door until her husband chides her about all this unnecessary cleaning. She seems upset and he goes over to her. She doesn’t understand why someone would give up a child for adoption. Mr. Van De Kamp merely says God has his reasons and his ways. They turn to see a car driving up a dirt road to their home. Two women, both social workers, step out of the car and say how difficult it was to find the house. The younger woman carries an infant out of the backseat of the car. Mrs. Van De Kamp wonders as to the health of the child but the older social worker assures her the baby is healthy and the mother needed to give up the child for his own good. They hand the child over and introduce him as William. Agent Dana Scully returns home and is singing to her son William as she takes him out of the car. In the shadows, an unknown man watches them. Agent John Doggett steps out of the office but returns because he seems to have forgotten something. When he returns, he picks up the file he left on the floor as a man attacks him from behind. He is knocked down temporarily, kicked a few times, but he gets back up and pursues the fleeing man. He draws his sidearm and commands him to stop. The man turns and slowly steps back towards Doggett with his hands up. Doggett’s expression suggests horror at the man’s face. Scully speaks with Agent Monica Reyes on her arrival at the room where they are holding the man. Reyes recounts that they were told the man is named Daniel Miller, he was a victim of the alien conspiracy, and he is severely burned and will only talk with them while the lights are out. Scully goes in and questions the man, learning he knew Mulder and was sent there to find files. He got in using a keycard supposedly given by Mulder. Scully suspects the whole story to be a web of lies but she asks to examine the man’s burns to explore the claim that they are the result of something done to him. Scully removes the man’s wig, fake eyebrows, prosthetic ears and nose, to look more clearly upon the horrific disfiguration of the man. When Scully mentions that the scarring is not from burns or acid, Miller claims to have been injected with something than made him burn inside and outside. Doggett arrives with the information that he is not Daniel Miller from Pennsylvania as he had claimed. He theorizes that Miller is actually Fox Mulder and that is how he got in. Scully refuses to accept this but is uncomfortable when she returns to study Miller’s scarring. She draws his blood and discusses what the man expects them to do and why he gave a false name. He claims he used a false name because his true identity would invite death upon him from certain people still at the FBI. They take him to the X-files unit but the scarred man can’t find the files he sought. Miller claims a new conspiracy has formed after the previous one was destroyed; the new one being hidden within the government and the people involved being alien. The injection he received failed to transform him into one of the aliens. Scully had already removed the files and she gives them to him in her home in Georgetown. Miller checks on William when he starts crying but Scully is concerned about this stranger going into the infant’s room. He explains that Mulder would like to return but can’t and asks to hold the child for a moment. Scully seems to think the man is Mulder when he picks up William and the baby quiets. Assistant Director Skinner meets with Doggett and discusses the idea of the man they captured being Mulder. Skinner points out that the man is shorter and weighs less than Mulder. Also that he would know those files inside and out if he were the actual Fox Mulder. When the lab calls with a definite result on the DNA tests, Skinner needs to know where Miller is right now. Scully accuses the man of being Mulder and that he knew the files were in the apartment but feigned lack of knowledge because he wanted to be brought to William. Miller tells her that William is part-alien and she is being used to raise the child. Scully demands he confess his true name but Reyes appears and asks the man to step outside. Doggett enters the room and tells her the DNA is a match to Mulder but Scully still can’t believe it. Soon after, Doggett notices Miller has escaped the home in Georgetown and he catches him. He says they will protect him now, calling him Mulder by name. After Miller is given sleeping pills, he turns in. Doggett and Reyes comfort Scully about what they believe is a disfigured Mulder, though Scully still doubts. Miller never took the pills and quietly slips into William’s room with a syringe. Though William’s crying alerts them to something going on, Miller returns to his bed before they reach William. Reyes and Scully take the baby to the hospital while Doggett threatens Miller and finds the syringe and other equipment. The doctor reports that William is fine except for a puncture mark on his neck and an elevated amount of iron in his blood. Spender admits to this and says the metal compound was magnetite and meant to make William normal. The aliens needed the child and now they have lost him through this change. However, he knows the conspirators will always pursue the child despite what he has done. He acted out of his hatred of his father since the new conspiracy was founded by the Cigarette-Smoking Man after the alien rebels burned the original group. Reyes talks with Scully over William about how Spender lied and that she shouldn't think they can’t protect him. Scully believes that she can’t protect him and that William should have a better life. The Van De Kamps tuck in their new son. William looks at the mobile but he can no longer move it telekinetically. He is safe. He is normal. He is free. 
<EOS>
Agent Dana Scully presents her FBI cadets with a Jane Doe’s body that Doggett found in the wall last night. She reveals that an anonymous tip led him to the body and the sounds of rats feeding on her led Doggett to the wall she was sealed in. Scully’s best cadet, Rudolph Hayes, answers her challenge to further explain what happened to the woman and how they could ID her. He says she was a single woman, unemployed, and drunk when she was killed. She met the wrong person in a bar; the man had killed before and intended to kill her with one stab wound into the heart but she struggled so he was forced to stab her multiple times instead. Scully calls Agents Monica Reyes and John Doggett in after confirming that the woman that Doggett found was the second victim just like her cadet had told her. She points out that they both disappeared from the same bar and though it is certainly not an X-File, they should run with the case now that they have it. When Reyes and Doggett go to thank Hayes for his help, he dismisses the profile of the killer of the two women. Hayes claims to see things and he says it’s an ex-con recently paroled, in his 40s, lying to his parole officer about looking for a job since he has resumed his old job of murdering people for an organized crime syndicate. As Hayes walks away, Doggett stares at the departing man, completely stunned. Reyes turns to him and says, "Kind of annoying, isn’t he?" Reyes and Doggett speak with parolee Nicholas Regali. He denies knowing anything about the women despite the evidence that the two agents point out. They leave but warn him that he will be caught. Unable to sleep, Doggett gets up in the night and takes a box out of the closet. It is his son’s ashes. In the morning, Doggett calls Rudolph Hayes in about his son, Luke. Doggett gives a rundown of Luke’s disappearance and murder. While riding his bike around the neighborhood, with his mother watching from the porch, Luke suddenly didn’t come back around for another lap. No ransom, no clue as to why he was taken. The police scour the area for two days and find nothing. After three days, they find him dead in a field. Doggett asks Hayes to look into this case now but Hayes tells him something interesting. "Agent Doggett, that case I helped you with yesterday? That is your son’s." Hayes brings Doggett back to his apartment and the walls of pictures from unsolved homicides. Hayes enlightens Doggett about how he does it. He says he collects the photos from these homicides because if he sits with the pictures for a long time quietly, they speak to him. Doggett obtusely suggests Hayes may be crazy. Hayes shows the photo of the best suspect they ever had, Bob Harvey. Hayes says Harvey took Luke Doggett but it was Regali who murdered the boy. Doggett goes to see Assistant Director Brad Follmer who was once on the organized crime FBI task force in New York City. Follmer says Regali was low level and as far as he knew not involved in Luke Doggett’s death. However, he will ask around, pull some files and so on. Reyes talks with Doggett about how he believes Regali was involved in his son’s murder. Reyes expresses doubt out of some desire to protect Doggett. Though the evidence is thin, Regali gassing up his car two miles from Doggett’s home in Long Island was suspicious. Doggett goes to see his ex-wife Barbara Doggett in Woodbury, Long Island. He convinces her to come in and try and identify Regali in a line-up as someone cruising their neighborhood. She is very reluctant to do so but goes in anyway. She fails to recognize Regali in the line-up. Barbara Doggett stops Scully in the hall and relates how John Doggett feels he failed his son. She believes he could have something with Monica Reyes if he would let her in. Doggett and Reyes come into the hall. Barbara briefly tells Doggett that she will be at her mother’s and leaves. Scully discloses that the force and the trajectory of the wounds suggest Luke Doggett died at the hands of the same killer as the women but different weapons were used, there is no clear M.O., and so forth so it would never hold up in a court of law. Doggett walks off, saying he will find some evidence that will hold up. Hayes stands in the sunlight in his apartment concentrating on the photo of Luke Doggett. Doggett suggests that Regali was bribing someone because there isn’t even a sign that a case was being built against him. Reyes immediately gets an idea from this. Reyes and Doggett confront A.D. Follmer about his time in New York. Reyes recounts how she saw him talking with a mobster three years ago and taking money from the man. She broke off their relationship as a result and left, rather than report it to the higher-ups in the FBI. Follmer claims they were buying the help of the man she saw to get at the crime family and that it is all documented. Follmer nudges the conversation into a different direction by casting doubt onto Cadet Rudolph Hayes. The real Hayes died years ago and the man they have been speaking with is Stuart Mimms of Mendota, Minnesota. He was a mental patient diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He checked himself out in 1992 and they can place him in New York city in the year of Luke Doggett’s homicide. The FBI storm the apartment of Hayes. They find him sitting there patiently waiting for them. All the pictures have been taken off the walls. He doesn’t resist as they take him away. A new line-up is organized and Barbara Doggett steps forward to look at the men arrayed behind the one-way glass. She recognizes Hayes/Mimms. Scully and Doggett face Stuart Mimms about his falsification of an identity to get into the FBI and possible involvement in Luke Doggett’s death. Mimms explains that Doggett’s ex-wife identified him since he used to watch her and John Doggett when he became obsessed with the case. He admits to doing all of this to get into the FBI and get close to Agent Doggett because no one would believe a mental patient. He reminds Scully that he studied the case obsessively because that’s what schizophrenics do, obsess. They realize that Hayes/Mimms gave the tip that led them to the Ellen Persich’s body at the beginning of the case. Hayes/Mimms asks to leave. "I’ve received another message. I’d like to go back home now to the institution." Doggett goes to see Regali in the bar. "I’m not here as an FBI agent. I’m here as a father." Regali decides to tell Doggett the story of what happened as a hypothetical situation. Basically, there’s a businessman who has to associate with various forms of scum, like pedophile Bob Harvey. Harvey took a little boy and when the businessman walked in on Harvey with the boy, the boy saw the businessman’s face. That was a problem and there was a solution. John and Barbara Doggett stand on the beach, the waves crashing at their feet. Weeping, John pours the ashes of his son into the water. Barbara soundlessly leaves with the container for the ashes. He walks away from the water and embraces Monica Reyes. 
<EOS>
Two men in their early twenties named Blake and Mike sneak into a house that Blake claims was where the comedy television series The Brady Bunch was filmed. Inside, they find a perfect recreation of the house from the series; Mike, unsettled, gets worried and leaves, but Blake plods on. Blake is subsequently sent hurtling through the air and smashes into Mike's car, killing Blake. John Doggett and Monica Reyes are called in to investigate. They interview Mike, who claims that Blake died after visiting The Brady Bunch House. The three speak to the owner, Oliver Martin, but upon entering discover that the house looks nothing like the one featured in the teaser. Doggett, feeling something is not right, checks Martin's trashcan and finds asphalt shingles; earlier, on top of Mike's car, Doggett had found a piece of a shingle. He deduces that Blake was thrown through Martin's roof. Later that night, Mike looks into Martin's house and sees the whole Brady family eating dinner. He storms into the house, only to find that the family has disappeared. Suddenly, he is confronted by Martin, who tells him to leave. Mike refuses, and is thrown through the roof, only to be embedded in the yard. Dana Scully looks through various X-Files and discovers one about a young boy named Anthony Fogelman who possessed psychokinesis. She learns that Fogelman later changed his name to Oliver Martin. She meets with Dr. John Rietz, a parapsychologist who worked with the young Fogelman. Rietz claims that, despite being extremely lonely, Martin was not dangerous and that his power faded as he grew up. Reyes makes the connection that Fogelman changed his name to Oliver based on Cousin Oliver from The Brady Bunch. Scully notes that, in the show, Oliver was portrayed as a jinx, and the three agents deduce that Fogelman must see himself as one, too. Doggett and Reitz decide to talk to Fogelman. Initially, he is apprehensive and nearly sends Doggett hurtling through the roof. It is revealed that Fogelman's powers are temperamental and sometimes he cannot control them, such as the case with Mike and Blake. Reyes and Scully show up and convince him that his powers could positively impact the world. The agents take him to Washington, D.C. and his powers to Walter Skinner by making him float in midair. Suddenly, however, Fogelman collapses. Scully later reports that his body is destroying itself because of his extreme power. Doggett realizes that Fogelman must stop using his powers; he notes that his power had faded earlier when Dr. Rietz was studying him as a boy. Doggett tells Rietz that his power faded because, with Rietz around, Fogelman did not feel lonely. Rietz visits Fogelman in the hospital, and the two rekindle their friendship, saving Fogelman's life. Scully laments the fact that there may not be any vindication for the X-Files, but that cases like Fogelman's might show that there is proof of more important things. 
<EOS>
A group of government visitors arrive at the Military installation Mount Weather, disembarking from a helicopter to be escorted via bus into the facility. One of the men is Fox Mulder, in a suit, who sneaks away from the group and into one of the base's intelligence stations. After using a keycode to enter a computer room, Mulder accessed a tactical file and reads the screen, which displays the phrase End Game and the date December 22, 2012. Before he can continue, he becomes aware of somebody approaching and hides. The man who enters is Knowle Rohrer, who instantly notices that the computer has been accessed. Mulder jumps out of the shadows and attacks Rohrer, but is easily overpowered. He flees, with Rohrer following. As he sprints down a tunnel towards an escape route, Mulder notices a man standing in the doorway watching him. After hesitating, he rushes through and the man seals the door behind him, locking out Rohrer. Mulder turns to see that the man is in fact Alex Krycek. Although Mulder angrily questions how this is possible, Krycek calmly tells him to leave, and that there's others. The apparition of Krycek disappears, and Mulder runs down a walkway over a laboratory, but is confronted again by Rohrer, who has outflanked him. As Mulder attempts to escape via a ladder, he is grabbed by Rohrer, who tries to kill Mulder with his bare hands. Noticing electrical pylons below the walkway, Mulder forces Rohrer over the gantry and survives by holding perilously to the handrail. Rohrer, meanwhile, falls into the pylons and is violently electrocuted. As Mulder climbs back onto the walkway, he is confronted by armed guards and arrested. At home, Scully receives a phone call from Skinner, telling her that Mulder has been arrested by the military at Mount Weather for the murder of a military man. The two immediately go to visit him, and are shocked when they see him apparently talking to himself in his cell. Scully greets him emotionally, but she is stung by Mulder's blank response, as is Skinner. Mulder says that he deserves to be where he is and that he is a guilty man. When the pair are forced to leave, Mulder turns back to the corner of his cell and asks "Why are you helping me?" At this point, the apparition of Krycek reappears and replies "Because you can't do this alone". When Mulder is taken away by the guards, the apparition once again disappears. Scully informs Doggett and Reyes about Mulder's incarceration and both are stunned. The news that the alleged victim is Knowle Rohrer is greeted by scorn, with both testifying to the impossibility of this. Skinner states that there are thirty witnesses that say Mulder pushed Rohrer to his death and that Mount Weather is allegedly the base of a shadow government. Kersh speaks with General Suveg at Quantico and is told that as a compromise between the Marine Corps and the FBI the trial arranged for Mulder will be overseen by an FBI panel under the laws of Military Court. Kersh says he is uncomfortable with the situation especially after Suveg makes it clear that he wants a guilty verdict and that Mulder will not be provided with a lawyer. Despite his unease, Kersh accepts. Scully visits Mulder for a second time along with Skinner this time in an empty room. After scaring the pair by way of a practical joke, Mulder laughs and reveals that he is in fact fully in control of himself. He passionately kisses Scully admitting to how much he has missed her, and tells her that his initial coldness was a necessary ruse when in front of the guards. Mulder claims that the trial he faces is rigged and that the truth is what is really on trial. Skinner cites the witness testimony as the strongest evidence against Mulder. Mulder asks Skinner to act as his lawyer much to Skinner's surprise. Doggett and Reyes arrive, and after a brief greeting, Doggett informs them that the government has recovered Knowle Rohrer's body. The news is received with shock. Some time later, Scully visits Mulder alone. She confesses that she is terrified of what will happen to Mulder and that she doesn't want to lose him yet again. She also admits tearfully to giving William up for adoption, although Mulder confirms that Skinner already told him. He comforts Scully, telling her that he missed both her and William greatly. Scully asks Mulder where he has been, and Mulder replies New Mexico, where he was looking for the truth, but he says he can not tell her what it was he found there. In New Mexico, a young man speeds through the desert on a motorbike to a small secluded caravan. He arrives and walks inside, where Gibson Praise is living. Gibson states that Mulder needs his help, and starts making preparations to leave immediately. At his apartment, Doggett is attempting to get access to Rohrer's body, and is on the phone to an army receptionist who hangs up on him. Reyes worriedly tells him that there is someone in the yard, and Doggett sees someone running round the house. He confronts the person at gunpoint, and it proves to be Gibson's friend. When Doggett demands an explanation, the boy says that his friend wants to help Mulder but that he can't risk being harmed. Skinner presents Gibson, and recounts how Mulder and Scully became involved with him during an attempt on his life years earlier. He tells the court of how the junk DNA that lies within everyone is active in Gibson, giving him the ability to read minds. When the prosecution mocking asks if he can read everyone's mind, Gibson says yes and he can even read one of the minds of the judges. When asked why that judge was special, Gibson replied because he's not human. Mulder immediately interrupts Gibson and is hauled out court. Meanwhile, Doggett contacts Scully and tells her that he has acquired Knowle's body after talking with someone who apparently wasn't told to not release the body and had it shipped to Quantico. While Scully performs an autopsy on the corpse, which had been badly burned, she asks Reyes to get ahold of Knowle's medical records. Later, Scully interrupts the court with evidence that the body provided was not Knowle Rohrer's but simply a man who's neck was broken and was set on fire after his death. Kersh angrily tells Scully that she had no authority to examine that body and abruptly adjourns the hearing. Sometime later, Mulder is brought back for sentencing; he has been found guilty of aggravated murder. When addressing the court, Mulder congratulates them for the show they have put on, but that the truth will never stay buried no matter how deep they try to bury it. Back at Scully's home, Doggett answers the phone and after a minute gives everyone the bad news; Mulder has been sentenced to death by lethal injection Late that night, Mulder is broken out of his cell by Doggett and Skinner; hurrying through the base they run into Kersh, who assists them in helping Mulder escape. The four escape the base despite an alarm being sounded when Knowle Rohrer finds Mulder's cell empty, and meet up with Reyes and Scully. Kersh, when asked what he was doing, responds with "Something I should have done years ago." and tells Scully and Mulder to head north to Canada and take a plane off the continent and that if they aren't gone in 24 hours, they probably won't leave ever. Mulder tells Doggett, Kersh, Reyes and Skinner that they will never be safe now. Doggett responds by saying to leave that to us. Mulder and Scully take off in an SUV, but a short time later Mulder takes a road heading south. He tells Scully that a man in New Mexico sent him the keycard and codes, and he wants to talk to him. During the trip, Mulder pulls over to relieve himself and is startled by the apparitions of the Lone Gunmen who try to convince Mulder to turn around and leave with Scully. He shrugs them off and eventually arrives at the ruins of an Anasazi dwelling seeing smoke coming out of one of the windows, the two investigate and find a woman inside taking care of the Cancer Man. After taunting Mulder and Scully, he tells Scully what Mulder found out; that the alien re-colonization of Earth is set for December 22, 2012 and that he took joy in seeing Mulder finally broken. Back in DC, Doggett and Skinner try to talk to Kersh after finding that Doggett and Reyes's office have been cleaned out and the X-Files have all been removed. The man who Gibson claimed was an alien shuts them out, and Gibson says that he knows where Mulder and Scully are and that they didn't leave as told to. Gibson tells Doggett where they are, and he and Reyes rush there via helicopter to find them. Upon arriving at the ruins, they find Knowle Rohrer pulling up in a van; the two confront him to no effect. As Knowle corners them, he is destroyed by the red magnetite stones that made up the dwellings. Doggett yells to Mulder and Scully to run for it; all four of them drive off as helicopters arrive and blow up the ruins with missiles, killing the Cancer Man. The episode ends with Scully and Mulder in a motel room in Roswell, New Mexico with Mulder remembering a similar situation during the early years of their partnership. He tells Scully that he didn't tell her of the invasion plans because he didn't want to risk crushing her spirit. The two come to an understanding that, even though much was lost in their search for the truth, their spirits are not broken and that they will never give up fighting regardless of what is laid before them. 
<EOS>
A doctor approaches a downed UFO. The military discovers an alien and shoots it dead in cold blood. The doctor carries the corpse away to research the body. Dr. Dana Scully prepares for a surgery when she receives an urgent call from Walter Skinner. She contacts Fox Mulder and requests he attend a meeting with Tad O'Malley on Skinner's request. After earning a certain amount of their respect for his appreciation of alien phenomenon, O'Malley, a conspiracy theorist host of a popular TV and web series, takes them to the house of Sveta, a woman who claims to have memories of her many abductions. She claims that she was pregnant many times and they took her babies. While Scully examines Sveta to see if she contains traces of alien DNA, O'Malley shows Mulder a fully functional alien craft inside a warehouse. He demonstrates that it can go entirely invisible. Mulder visits Sveta and asks her about her alien abductions. She corrects him and tells him that it was very clearly humans that abducted her. He contacts Scully and tells her that their entire decade on the X-Files was a ruse and all part of an even larger government conspiracy. Mulder visits his old basement office at the FBI office. Skinner enters and a frustrated Mulder rants about his entire time on the X-files being a waste of time. Skinner tells him he's one of the best agents he's ever worked with. Meanwhile, Scully tests both her and Sveta's genome for any alien DNA. Mulder meets an old man in an empty park. The man, who contacted Mulder in 2006, will only confirm or deny conspiracies Mulder discovers, but will not lead him in any particular direction. Mulder shares the early forms of his latest conspiracy with the man who confirms most of his thoughts, adding "Roswell was a smoke screen." At Sveta's house Mulder shares his conspiracy with Scully, O'Malley, and Sveta: that the nuclear weapons used and tested during World War 2 attracted aliens to earth. Humans captured their biology and technology for research purposes. Over the past 70 years a conspiracy of scientists and powerful individuals conducted experiments on humans using the alien technology in preparation of a takeover of the entire planet. O'Malley added to the conspiracy, saying that in recent years the increase of government surveillance, consumerism, and gluttony are purposefully desensitizing the world against the possibility of the conspiracy. The ultimate outcome of the conspiracy is to use the alien technology to grasp power over the entire population of the world, no matter the human casualties. Sveta agrees to go public with the information. Scully thinks it is dangerous treasonous ravings. The next day, Sveta is interviewed by the press and says that she was paid by O'Malley to spread rumors of her abductions. Men raid the warehouse with the craft and destroy it using explosives. Scully tries to look up O'Malley's website to discover that it has been taken down. Scully and Mulder talk and he is furious that the conspiracy got to both of them. Scully tells him that she's found that her DNA was tampered with so she is ready to pursue the conspiracy. Walter Skinner texts both Scully and Mulder and requests to see them immediately. In a remote area near her house, Sveta's car stalls on the street at night. A craft appears overhead and causes her vehicle, with Sveta inside, to explode. A man receives a phone call. As an assistant puts a cigarette to his tracheostomy tube, the Cigarette Smoking Man reveals to his mysterious audience that he has bad news: The X-Files have been re-opened.
<EOS>
Dr. Sanjay, a research scientist, attends a meeting during which a sudden sharp ringing noise causes him to flee the room. He locks himself inside a server room and attempts to export files. The ringing, which no other person can hear, grows too loud so he writes a message on his palm and commits suicide by jabbing a letter opener through his ear. Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are called to the scene because the facility operates with the Department of Defense and the server room is highly classified. After being chased away by a DOD agent, Mulder reveals he stole Dr. Sanjay's phone. He contacts Gupta, a contact named secret and discovers he is Dr. Sanjay's secret gay lover. Meanwhile, Scully performs her autopsy and discovers the message written on the victim's hand - Founder's Mutation. She also pieces together his outburst about the sound he claimed to hear and the fact that he punctured his brain's auditory cortex. Mulder and Scully investigate Dr. Sanjay's secret apartment and discover images of children with mutations. They collect some patient files but Mulder begins to exhibit effects of the sound that drove Dr. Sanjay to suicide. The police enter the apartment while Mulder cowers in pain on the floor. Later in Walter Skinner's office, Mulder and Scully are told that the case is closed. Another DOD officer threatens action if they reveal anything they read in the files. He leaves and Skinner tells his agents they have a few days to complete their investigation. Following records they found in the files they recovered from Dr. Sanjay's apartment, the agents visit Our Lady of Sorrows hospital and discover that Augustus Goldman, the man funding the research performed by Dr. Sanjay, was also responsible for donating money to a pregnancy ward for women expecting birth defects. A pregnant woman, Agnes, has decided to keep her baby and asks Mulder and Scully to help her escape. Mulder slips her his contact information. Outside of the hospital, Mulder posits that the DOD is continuing the work of the Syndicate and continuing to breed alien-human hybrids using the maternity ward to attract homeless or impoverished women. Mulder and Scully talk about William and both share their worries that they have no way of knowing if he was the result of similar experiments. At home, Scully dreams of a young William on his first day at school. The dream continues to an accident where William breaks his arm. She wakes abruptly when she dreams that she enters his room and discovers that he appears to be mutating into an alien-like form. The next day the agents visit Augustus Goldman at Goldman Technology to inquire about his research into genetic mutations. He shows them children, many of whom were seen in pictures in Dr. Sanjay's apartment, and informs the agents he is working on research to cure them. A patient throws a tantrum in the hallway and Dr. Goldman asks them to leave. On their way out, Mulder receives a message that Agnes has killed in a car accident. They visit the crime scene and notice that her baby is missing. At the morgue, Scully concludes the baby was surgically removed. Mulder discovers that Goldman's wife Jackie was admitted into a mental institute after she killed her child. At the hospital the agents attempt to ask Jackie some questions. After initially refusing she tells them a story of how she discovered her 2-year old daughter Molly breathing underwater in the bottom of their swimming pool, and had been there for about 10 minutes. She knew her husband had performed tests on her, so she decided to flee in the night with her unborn son. However, a deer jumped in front of her car, flipping the vehicle. Crawling out she gave herself an emergency C-section when a very loud ringing sound told her to. When she woke up the baby was missing and she was in the hospital. While leaving, Mulder notices the uniform of the janitor, who confirms that the company he works for is sub-contracted to provide cleaning services to many companies. Mulder then pieces together that another company janitor was the same person that worked at Jackie's institute, and was working near Dr. Sanjay when he killed himself. Security video shows the janitor, who was standing in the office above Dr. Sanjay, having some sort of reaction which affects Sanjay, causing his death. Mulder and Scully visit the home of the janitor, Kyle, and ask his mother questions. Mulder realizes that she is not Kyle's biological mother, though she does care for him, and asks where she found him. She grows upset and Mulder once again hears the painful ringing noise, causing him debilitating pain. Scully searches the property and finds Kyle, who apparently stops the noise. They apprehend him and tell him they know his past including his involvement in the suicide. He unloads, telling them that it was an accident and Dr. Sanjay was trying to help him find his sister, whom he can hear. Mulder realizes that Kyle can't control his abilities. They visit Goldman Technology and Dr. Goldman draws blood from Kyle, not knowing he's his son. Kyle asks to see Molly and Dr. Goldman takes him to a teenage girl. Kyle quickly learns that she is not Molly so he races through the facility and finds his true sister. They communicate via telepathy and break the glass window on her locked door and all the nearby windows with their minds. When Dr. Goldman and Agents Scully and Mulder arrive, Kyle angrily attacks Dr. Goldman with the ringing noise, causing lethal bleeding from all the orifices of his head as he screams, while Molly telekinetically throws and knocks out Scully against the wall, and then pushes and pins Mulder to the opposite end of the hall where he can only watch helplessly. Later, outside the facility, Skinner passes onto Scully and Mulder that the teenagers have escaped, and the DOD has locked down everything to do with the building and removed the case from the FBI's jurisdiction. On being asked about Dr. Goldman's cause of death, Mulder reveals that before he blacked out, he witnessed the man's eyes popping out of his head, a memory he could have done without. They walk away and Mulder shows Scully that he has stolen the vial of Kyle's blood. Mulder dreams about raising William. They watch 2001: A Space Odyssey together and discus the monolith. They build and shoot rockets together. Mulder approaches his son's door to horrifically discover his son is being abducted in the same manner Samantha Mulder was abducted. Mulder wakes from the nightmare and the episode ends with him sitting at his kitchen table, looking at William's baby picture. 
<EOS>
When a dead body is found with its throat ripped open in the woods outside Shawan, Oregon, Dana Scully and Fox Mulder are called in to investigate whether it was an animal attack, a serial killer, or just maybe a strange creature as described by eyewitnesses. Mulder continues to question his faith in the unexplained as he attempts to gather proof of the existence of the new creature he and Scully investigate before jumping to conclusions. During an inspection of a truck stop, Mulder, Scully, and an animal control officer named Pasha seemingly encounter the creature. Eventually, evidence starts to coalesce, and Mulder begins to suspect that an individual named Guy Mann is actually a murderous were-monster, capable of transforming into a lizard person. After confronting Mann, his suspicions are proven only half correct: Mann is not a man who turns into a lizard person, but rather a lizard person who turns into a human. Mann apparently became a shape-shifter after being bitten by a human some days before and laments the existential hopelessness of human life, full sentience, and modern society. In the end, it is revealed that Pasha was the true killer, and that Mann was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Upon learning this, Mulder rushes to tell Mann, who quickly brushes off the news. He informs Mulder that he will be going into a 10,000 year hibernation, but that he was glad to have met Mulder. Then, before Mulder's eyes, Mann turns back into his original lizard person form and scampers off into the night. Mulder thus witnesses a paranormal happening, and his faith is renewed. 
<EOS>
After terrorists bomb an art gallery in Texas, FBI agent Miller visits agent Mulder to ask for his assistance or advice on how to communicate with one of the bombers who is on life support. He believes the man has information on other terrorists in the same sleeper cell. Both Scully and Miller's partner Einstein scoff at the request. Miller and Einstein leave for the airport empty handed. Each unaware of what the other agent is doing, Scully flies to Texas to work with Miller to attempt to measure the suspect's brainwaves as they ask him questions while Mulder convinces Einstein to administer him psychedelic mushrooms in an attempt to communicate with the man on another plane of existence. During Mulder's trip, he dances out of the hospital to a country music bar where he sees AD Skinner and the Lone Gunmen celebrating with him. He then has a seductive encounter with Agent Einstein before the trip sends him to a rowboat captained by the Cigarette Smoking Man wielding a whip. He sees a woman holding the terrorist. Mulder wakes up in the hospital and Skinner tells him that he's crossed the line and Einsten reveals she only gave him placebo pills. While walking out of the hospital, Mulder identifies the woman from his trip and brings her into the suspect's room. Noora, Shiraz's mother, attempts to communicate with her son via the brainwave rig Scully has set up, but Shiraz dies. With no hope remaining to communicate with Shiraz, Mulder concentrates deeply on his trip to remember the words Shriaz muttered. With Arabic translation from Miller, Mulder is able to recall Babylon Hotel which is where the FBI finds the rest of the sleeper cell. At the airport in Texas, Einstein and Miller share a moment of mutual respect. Back in rural Virginia, Scully visits Mulder and they talk about mother love and the nature of God. 
<EOS>
Scully arrives at FBI headquarters to find that Mulder has disappeared after watching an excerpt from Tad O'Malley's online news broadcast which had been revived after being shut down prior. As Scully informs Skinner and Einstein of Mulder's absence, Mulder attempts to leave Washington--visibly unwell, and badly bruised. Back in Washington, D.C., Scully receives a phone-call from O'Malley, who has arrived at Mulder's house for a pre-arranged meeting to discover that there are signs of a struggle. O'Malley explains that he suspects alien DNA has been injected into every American citizen in order to facilitate the widespread outbreak of a contagion, the Spartan Virus. Designed to strip humans of their immune systems, this contagion quickly begins to manifest itself nationwide, with Scully and Einstein noting a sharp increase in patients admitted to hospitals and triage centers. Miller, finding a phone-tracking app on Mulder's computer, notes his position at Spartanburg, South Carolina, and leaves Washington in order to track him down, while Einstein questions Scully's medical theories. Scully, accepting that Einstein's doubts may be correct, receives a phone-call from former X-Files agent Monica Reyes, who asks to meet, claiming to know how to develop a vaccine. Scully and Einstein attempt to develop a vaccine using Scully's DNA, as Scully realizes that it is a combination of the alien genomes that remained after she was abducted and tested on, and the DNA anomalies instilled within her at the request of Reyes, that are protecting her from the contagion. It is the absence of alien DNA that is making everybody else susceptible. Mulder, meanwhile, approaches Cigarette Smoking Man, who offers him a chance to survive the outbreak. He declines, and is found by Miller, who returns him to Washington with the hope of finding a cure. O'Malley tells the nation that his friend, a doctor, has informed him of the existence of a vaccine. The episode ends with Scully looking at the lights of the spacecraft, shining down directly onto her and her partners.
<EOS>