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NAVAJO RESERVATION
TWO GREY HILLS, NEW MEXICO
APRIL 9
Dawn. A dog barks. The rumble of an earthquake is heard. Inside one of
the reservation homes, the shaking causes a lamp to fall from a table,
and a Navajo youth wakes up.
In the morning, the youth, Eric, tells his father and grandfather that
he's going out riding. The grandfather, Albert, tells him to leave the
snakes alone today. After Eric leaves, Albert tells his son in Navajo
that the Earth has a secret it needs to tell.
Eric rides out into the desert on his motorbike. Stopping on a ridge,
he looks down into a quarry and sees something large and white buried
under the red dirt and rocks, now exposed by the earthquake. He goes down
to the valley floor and begins to wipe the dirt off it.
"I found something. Better come see," Eric tells his father and grandfather
when he returns home. Out in the yard, a group of neighborhood boys are
gathered around Eric's find. Albert speaks in Navajo. When Eric asks what
he said, his father tells him he said it should be returned - "They
will be coming." The boys scatter, and on the ground is a small mummified
alien body.
EI 'AANIIGOO 'AHOOT'E
DOVER, DELAWARE
APRIL 10
Numbers churn through a password-testing program on a computer screen,
while the hacker sits by reading The 50 Greatest Conspiracies of All
Time. At the sound of an alert beep, the hacker sits up and sees "ACCESS
GRANTED." Astonished by his good fortune, the man hurriedly begins typing
out commands, and thrusts a digital cassette tape into his computer.
UNITED NATIONS BUILDING
NEW YORK CITY
APRIL 10
A man brings a message to another man at a desk in a large office. Speaking
Italian, he says, "Someone has broken into the MJ documents." The man
at the desk picks up his telephone. Quickly the message spreads among
men speaking Japanese, and then German - and then to the Cigarette Smoking
Man. He tells his caller not to worry, it has already been taken care
of. Putting down the phone, he says, "That was the call I never wanted
to get."
Men with battering rams break into the apartment in Dover, Delaware.
It appears empty. They sit down at the computer.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
APRIL 11
Mulder is in his kitchen, in tee shirt and jeans. He doesn't look well.
He pours himself a glass of water, and is taking aspirin when he hears
a knock on the door. The Lone Gunmen push into the apartment, past a reluctant
Mulder, who tries to beg off, telling them he's not feeling well. "I'm
really not in the mood for the Three Stooges." Frohike checks the window.
"I don't think we've been followed." He shows Mulder a newspaper clipping
about a man named Kenneth Soona. "You've heard us refer to him as 'The
Thinker'," Byers tells him. The Thinker has hacked into the Defense Department
computer system. Now he wants to meet with Mulder - if he is not already
dead.
Shots are fired. The Lone Gunmen dive for cover, while Mulder pulls out
his gun and heads down the hall. There, he finds one of his neighbors,
a grandmotherly woman, crying hysterically on her couch. Another neighbor
tells him the woman has just shot her husband. They'd been married for
thirty years - it was like she'd "just gone crazy." As the police arrive,
Mulder returns to his apartment. "Weirdness," comments Frohike.
US BOTANIC GARDEN
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Mulder meets The Thinker, who gives him the digital tape of all the Defense
Department documents he managed to download. He tells Mulder it contains
all the DOD's UFO intelligence from the 1940s on, including Roswell, MJ-12,
everything. He wants Mulder to make the information public. "I want you
to promise that those ratbastards answer to the people."
FBI HEADQUARTERS
WASHINGTON, D.C.
APRIL 12
In his basement office, Mulder is eager to see what's on the digital
tape. Scully comes to tell Mulder that Skinner is looking for him. He
tells her to come in, that he has "The Holy Grail." But when they look
at the files on the computer screen, all they see are long strings of
incomprehensible letters. Calling it gibberish, Mulder jumps up angrily,
cursing and kicking the file cabinet. But Scully, looking closer at the
screen, says she thinks it's encrypted. She recognizes it as Navajo, which
was used by the Allies during World War II - the only code the Japanese
could never break. Calmer now, Mulder asks Scully to see if she can find
someone to translate it. Scully asks if he's all right. He says he's fine
- he just hasn't been sleeping.
Mulder runs into Skinner in the hall outside Skinner's office. The AD
asks him to come into his office, but Mulder resists. "Is this another
jerkoff assignment where I end up doing the government's dirty work?"
Skinner tells him there's a rumor that he may be in receipt of some sensitive
files. Mulder says he isn't and turns to walk away. When Skinner grabs
his arm, Mulder whirls around and hits him in the face. They skirmish
briefly, until Skinner gets Mulder in a headlock. "Are we finished, Agent
Mulder?" With forced calm, Skinner releases Mulder, who angrily walks
away.
APRIL 13
Scully is in a meeting in Skinner's office. Skinner and several other
agents question her about Mulder's bizarre behavior. She says only that
he hasn't been sleeping well, and tells them nothing about the digital
tape. Skinner says that Mulder's been notified of a disciplinary hearing,
and if Scully is found to be covering for him, she'll be subject to the
same summary action - dismissal without chance of reinstatement.
WEST TISBURY
MARTHA'S VINEYARD
MASSACHUSETTS
Mulder's father is surprised by a visit from the Cigarette Smoking Man.
Sitting in the kitchen, CSM tells Bill Mulder that the Defense Department
files have been stolen, and that Mulder is believed to have them. "My
name is in those files," Bill Mulder says. He is concerned that his son
will learn of his involvement in the project. The Cigarette Smoking Man's
advice: "Deny everything."
Mulder is asleep on his couch. Scully enters, startling him awake. He
says he'd come home running a fever, and had taken a pill. Scully tells
him about the meeting in Skinner's office that morning, upset that she'd
had to lie to protect him, worried about losing her job. He's only concerned
about finding out what's in those files. She says she's meeting somebody
about them in an hour, but wants some assurance from Mulder that she's
doing the right thing. Taping an "X" onto his window, his signal to X
that he wants a meeting, he says he'll try to find out. As she leaves,
Scully asks why he attacked Skinner. He honestly doesn't know.
OFFICES OF THE NAVAJO NATION
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Scully meets with a Navajo woman, who studies an excerpt from the tape.
She says she recognizes a few words, but a code talker is needed to make
sense of it. She'll give Scully the name of a man who might help. The
few words she can translate mean "merchandise" and "vaccination." "They
are modern words, which is why they stand out."
Mulder's father telephones him, telling him that he needs to see him
right away. Mulder agrees to come up to the vineyard.
Scully returns to Mulder's apartment. As she passes by the window, a
shot is fired into the apartment, grazing her forehead. She sees the bullet
hole in the wall, and hears the sound of screeching tires as a car drives
away.
Mulder arrives at his father's house. Expecting his usual cold greeting,
Mulder offers his hand to shake, but his father pulls him into a hug.
In the living room, Bill Mulder begins a tentative attempt to explain
what Mulder may soon find out. He tells Mulder he will hear the words:
"the merchandise." Seeming to lose his nerve, Bill Mulder says he's taking
some medication and leaves the room. In the bathroom, he opens the medicine
cabinet to get his pills. As he closes the medicine cabinet door, Alex
Krycek is seen in the mirror behind him.
Mulder, sitting on the couch, hears a shot, jumps up and runs to the
bathroom, where he finds his father in the floor, dying in a pool of blood.
As he dies, Bill Mulder says, "Forgive me."
After carrying his father out to the couch, Mulder calls Scully and tells
her his father is dead. "Were you arguing?" she asks him. "I didn't
do it, Scully." She tells him he has to get out of there - he's been acting
erratically, he'll be suspected. He turns out the light and sinks to the
floor in grief and confusion. He agrees to meet Scully at his apartment,
but she tells him he can't go home, someone shot through the window earlier.
Mulder goes to Scully's, nearly collapsing as he comes in her door, covered
with his father's blood. Seeing how sick he is, she insists he go into
the bedroom and lie down, despite his protests that "We've got to find
out who killed my father!"
APRIL 14
Mulder wakes up in Scully's bed. Scully is gone, and so is Mulder's gun.
FBI HEADQUARTERS
FIREARMS UNIT
A technician fires Mulder's gun into a tank of water, recovering the
bullet for comparison to the one found in Bill Mulder's body, while Scully
watches. Mulder calls her and accuses her of betraying him. "You've been
making reports on me since the beginning, Scully, taking your little notes..."
She tries to convince him he can trust her.
Scully returns to Mulder's apartment to retrieve the slug from the wall.
While there, she notices a van parked outside, and a man wheeling a tank
up to it. Curious, she goes down to the basement, where similar tanks
feed soft water into the building's water supply. She locates the one
that's just been replaced.
That evening, Mulder returns home by cab. As he approaches the front
steps of his building, he notices someone in the shadows darting around
the side. Circling the building from the other direction, he waits around
the corner as the stranger approaches. It's Alex Krycek, in leather and
jeans, hair slicked back. As he passes the corner of the building, Mulder
grabs him by the arm and slams him against the wall, knocking the gun
out of his hand. Their fight is dirty and vicious. Mulder throws Krycek
over the hood of a car, hits him twice, then retrieves Krycek's gun and
points it into Krycek's face. "I'm going to kill you anyway, Krycek, so
you might as well tell me the truth. Did you kill my father? Did you?"
Krycek refuses to answer. Furious, Mulder throws him to the ground, kicks
him, then pulls him to his feet, holding the gun on him.
Scully arrives. "Don't shoot him!" But Mulder is out of control with
rage. "He killed my father, Scully!" As Mulder's finger tightens on the
trigger, Scully stops him the only way she can - she shoots Mulder in
the shoulder. He falls, and as Scully runs to him, Krycek grabs his good
fortune and runs.
APRIL 16
Mulder awakes in a strange bed, his shoulder bandaged. The Navajo man,
Albert, is looking down on him. Then Scully greets him. "You shot me!"
he exclaims. She tells him she did it to prevent him from killing Krycek.
She shows him the dialysis filter she found in the water tank at his apartment
building, explaining that it was used to introduce some sort of psychosis-inducing
drug into the water supply. Horrified, Mulder recalls the murder that
took place in his building.
Scully tells him that they are in Farmington, New Mexico, and introduces
Albert Hosteen, a code talker who had helped to encode the original files.
He's been translating them, and says they contain evidence of an international
conspiracy dating back to the forties, concerning secrets, evidence of
which is buried near there.
Scully, who skipped a meeting with Skinner two days ago, now says she
must go back to try to salvage her job, while Mulder goes with Albert
to see the evidence he spoke of. She urges Mulder to find out what's going
on. "My name is in those files."
NAVAJO NATION
NATIONAL RESERVATION
As Mulder and Albert drive to Albert's house, Albert tells Mulder about
the Anasazi - the people who lived in that area 600 years ago. Historians
say the Anasazi disappeared without a trace - but nothing disappears without
a trace. They were abducted many years ago, by "visitors who come here
still."
Albert's grandson, Eric, takes Mulder to the quarry on his motorbike,
and shows him the boxcar he'd found buried there. Mulder's cell phone
rings. The caller is the Cigarette Smoking Man, who warns Mulder against
taking his father's words at face value. He says that Bill Mulder never
opposed the project - in fact, he authorized it. That's what he couldn't
live with. Mulder accuses him of having his father killed, but CSM denies
it.
Ending the call, the Cigarette Smoking Man gets out of his car. He's
at a military installation. A soldier tells him they've got the coordinates,
and they get into a helicopter with several other soldiers.
Mulder enters the boxcar, calling Scully from inside. He tells her what
he sees - stacks of bodies. Scully says the files contain references to
experiments conducted in the US by Axis scientists after the war - tests
performed on humans, referred to as "merchandise." Mulder says the bodies
in the boxcar aren't human - they're alien. Then he sees a smallpox vaccination
scar on the arm of one of the bodies. "Oh my god, Scully, what have they
done?"
The boxcar door slams shut. Eric has heard the helicopter coming. Mulder's
call is cut off.
The helicopter lands. Soldiers grab Eric, who refuses to answer the Cigarette
Smoking Man's questions. The soldiers search the boxcar, but say no one
is there. "If he was here, he's vanished without a trace."
"Nothing vanishes without a trace!" the Cigarette Smoking Man insists.
Then, turning away, he orders, "Burn it!" He drags Eric away. The soldiers
throw an incendiary device into the boxcar, which explodes into flames.
The Cigarette Smoking Man gets back into the helicopter, and it flies
away.
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