Scully provides an
opening narration about how we live in a darkness of our own making.
Who are these beings we do not understand? If they know our secrets,
why can't we know theirs? We see a UFO landing, but as the narration
concludes, the image of the ship dissolves.
"We live in
darkness of our own making. Blind to a habitant would, all but
unseen by us. A world of beings traveling through time and space,
imaginable to us only as flights of fancy. Who are these beings we
dare to imagine but fear to accept? What dark work goes on inside
their impossible machines, cloaked from us by invisible forces? If
they know our secrets, why can’t we know theirs?"
After Doggett
repeatedly shouts orders, Mulder releases Gibson, who runs away.
Mulder doesn't otherwise speak or react. Mulder backs away from
Doggett toward the cliff. Doggett runs forward to stop him, but
Mulder falls off the cliff and strikes the ground far below. In a
close-up we see that Mulder almost immediately awakes with a start.
Scully & Skinner drive up, but Doggett and the other the agents
now present don't know where Mulder is. His body is not where it
fell. Doggett can't explain it, but says cops see amazing things
sometimes.
Skinner:
Come on, he cant be gone.
Doggett: Yeah, he can't, but he is.
Doggett shows
Skinner the point of impact a set of tracks leads down into a gully
and providing clear evidence that Mulder ran away from where he
fell. Scully is convinced that it may have looked like Mulder, but
it wasn't.
Scully: I
told you that I’ve seen things. Things that I can’t explain.
Well, I have seen what looks like a man, transform into another man.
Doggett: What looks like a man, but who’s not a man?
[Scully sighs] So what is he?
Scully: You don’t wanna know. [turns and starts to walk
away]
Doggett: If he’s not a man, what the hell is he?! Hey,
don’t turn your back on me, I’m asking you a legitimate
question. [Scully turns back]
Scully: He’s alien. He’s a bounty hunter.
Doggett: Looking to collect a bounty on…?
Scully: On Gibson Praise, because he’s part alien. He’s a
human anomaly.
Doggett: So this alien bounty hunter, he disguised himself as
Mulder to come out her to grab the boy?
Scully: To take him back to his ship. Where we believe Mulder
is.
Doggett says she is
starting to remind him of Mulder. After Doggett leaves, Skinner
tells Scully that if it [bounty hunter] is true, he could become any
of them. She tells him that she does think its true and possible.
Scully: "And
wherever Mulder is right now, he better damn well be smiling'"
The other agents
gather back at the school with the children outside. As Doggett
drives up, the girl Gibson looked at earlier looks at them
strangely. Gibson cannot be found, so they search the school
building. The Bounty Hunter, still looking like Mulder, is inside,
but he transforms to look like the principal to talk to Doggett.
Outside, Skinner
wants to know how Doggett got out there and how he know where they
were going. Scully tells him that they are going to turn the place
upside down looking for the wrong person. Skinner asks her what
happened to Gibson. She doesn’t know, but she speculates that
whatever happened to him, he’s long gone. Wherever he is, he is
three steps ahead of them.
She and Skinner see
the girl get on a bicycle and ride off. While Skinner distracts an
agent, Scully follows on foot, having to trot to keep up. Scully
finds the bicycle abandoned, and soon finds a sand-covered trapdoor.
Gibson and the girl (Thea) are there. He tells Scully that she
shouldn't have come. Scully promises to protect him. They only
reason the aliens want to take him is because he is special. The
girl is the only one at the school he told. Gibson broke his leg
while running away. Scully sets his leg but has to go get a car to
transport him.
Kersh phones
Doggett. Doggett says he saw Mulder, but does not have him in
custody. Kersh can't understand how Doggett could find Mulder then
lose him. Kersh orders Doggett to do the job he put him out there to
do. Doggett and Skinner talk -
Doggett: You
think I was spying on you?
Skinner: No, but I think our new Deputy Director was.
You’re being made a pawn in a rigged game. [Doggett nods to
Skinner and they move a little bit away from everyone else]
Doggett: All right, you painted me the picture, now put it in
a frame.
Skinner: All right. You got a good rep. Agent Doggett. You
don’t compromise; you don’t quit. You’re a damn good FBI
agent, best of the best. Lot of guys put you in the director’s
chair one day. Which is why you’ve been set up to fail. There’s
no amount of search and rescue, or rolling cordons, or
eyes-in-the-sky that are gonna turn up Mulder. It’s just the wrong
approach.
Doggett: It’s not a question of approach; it’s the only
approach I got.
Skinner: The only way you’re gonna find Mulder is to give
into the truth, to listen to Scully. But even then, say you do find
him, even then you lose. You put anything about aliens, or UFOs, or
alien bounty hunters in your report, Kersh will ruin you. I’m
betting that was his plan.
The Bounty Hunter
is inside the school, now looking like Scully, but the real Scully
also walks up to Skinner and Doggett, who are standing outside. They
are bemused to see Scully in person at the same time that an agent
radios that she is inside the building. The Bounty Hunter attacks
the agent indoors. The real Scully and company rush in and chase the
Bounty Hunter, but they are eluded. Doggett can't deny that he saw
two Scullys. Scully realizes that the Bounty Hunter is masquerading
again, as someone in the room. The deaf girl knows which it is as
she notices the blood dripping from one of the Agent's hands, but
slips away and does not tell anyone. As Gibson sleeps in his
underground hiding place, he has a vision of Mulder, still in the
alien's medical examination restraints.
An ambulance
arrives to transport the injured agent. Scully wants to sneak away
in a vehicle to get Gibson, but Skinner intercepts her. Paranoid,
Scully thinks that its the Bounty Hunter and gets in her car. She
looks around for her car keys as Skinner danges them outside the
window.
Scully: Who
are you?!
Skinner: Who am I?! [Scully pulls out her gun, then Skinner
pulls his]
Scully: Drop your weapon and turn around!
SkinnerI’m not gonna turn around.
Scully: Just do it! I know how it works. Kill shot to the
back of the neck.
SkinnerScully, you’re pointing your weapon at a friend.
Scully: Turn around or I’m gonna assume that you’re not
who you say you are.
SkinnerScully, it’s me! Skinner! [Scully doesn’t budge,
so Skinner drops lowers his gun and turns around] I can prove it. I
know your secret, who else knows it?
Scully: Okay. Tell me.
Skinner*You* tell me. How do I know it’s you? [Skinner
quickly spins around and grabs Scully's gun] I don’t like pointing
guns at pregnant women, any more than I like them pointing guns at
me. [Scully believes him finally] This has gone too far, Scully.
Scully: No, that’s what’s wrong here. It hasn’t gone
far enough. I need those car keys.
SkinnerAnd what to you think you’re gonna do?
Scully: Look, we are being hampered here, by the FBI, by John
Doggett, by doubt, by our own mistrust. Whatever it is, it is
working, as long as we let it.
SkinnerYou told me Mulder wouldn’t allow it. Wouldn’t let
me ruin my career over this, over him. But what about you, Scully? I
mean, my God, you’ve got even more at stake.
Scully: (almost crying) I can’t take the chance that I’m
never gonna see him again.
SkinnerMulder could just come walking out of the dark, we
don’t know.
Scully: Look, I’ve got one last chance here. Waiting for us
out there in the desert. Gibson Praise. It may just be who gets to
him first.
Skinner tells
Scully to get in the car, he'll drive. The deaf girl (or is it the
Bounty Hunter?) has observed their conversation. When they get to
Gibson's hiding place, he is not there. They find him several yards
away.
Gibson: He’s
here. I hear him.
Scully: What are you talking about [checking his forehead for
fever]
Gibson: Mulder. Somewhere out there.
Scully: He’s got a really bad fever. I think his leg might
be infected.
Skinner: All right, we gotta get you to the hospital, okay
Buddy? [Skinner goes to pick him up]
Gibson: (to Scully) You’re so close now.
Skinner picks
Gibson up as Scully looks on. He turns back around, and Scully tells
him to take Gibson to the hospital. He questions what she’s going
to do, but she doesn’t answer him. He understands and walks away
with Gibson.
Skinner delivers
Gibson to a hospital. Later, in his room with Skinner watching over
him, Gibson wakes up. Gibson senses something looking out of the
door. Skinner looks and no one is there. Suddenly, Thea enters the
room and shuts the door.
Meanwhile, Scully
walks the desert in he night, calling for Mulder. She sees the
lights of what seems to be a UFO flying in the distance. It
illuminates her, but it is a helicopter. It lands and Doggett gets
out.
Scully: For
someone who claims he’s not following me, you sure have a knack.
Doggett: Hey, you’re where the action is.
Scully: What does that tell you? That I’m crazy or that
I’m right?
Doggett: Well, wondering around in the dead of night? You
call it.
She tells him that
he said he wanted to find Mulder, but he won’t do what it takes.
He’s afraid that she’s right. He tells her that he’s not
afraid of anything, except that maybe Mulder’s got even her
believing in this "crap" now. She tells her that he’s
seen the crap for himself, and asks how he can explain what happened
earlier.
Doggett: Let
me ask you something, hypothetically. If you were to find him out
here, or this ship, or this alien bounty hunter, what would you do
then?
Scully: I know what Agent Mulder would do. He’d do whatever
it took.
Doggett asks her if
she means lying like she’s been lying to him, and like she
didn’t tell him about the boy. She denies she ever saw the boy.
Doggett knows that Skinner took Gibson to the hospital. Doggett's
men followed Skinner to the hospital. Scully is concerned that the
Bounty Hunter may have infiltrated Doggett's men? They get into the
helicopter and fly to the hospital. Unseen by them, there is a
cloaked UFO nearby. Mulder is inside and senses Scully's nearness.
Scully arrives at
the hospital. Doggett is now ready to question his own security.
Scully pulls out her gun and remarks sarcastically - "Hey, if
something tries to rip your throat out, I got you covered".
Doggett and Scully go to Gibson's room and Gibson is gone. Scully
runs out and quickly begins a search. Still in the room, Doggett
realizes that the only way they could have gotten past the security
is to crawl through the suspended ceiling. Above the ceiling they
find Skinner, unconscious and his eyes covered from infection from
the bounty hunter's toxic blood.
Down the hall, the
Bounty Hunter, posing as Skinner, flags Scully down. She is again
suspicious, but he shows her that Gibson is there. Gibson shakes his
head "no" to Scully. As she tries to move away, the Bounty
Hunter attacks Scully. She ends up shooting him at the back of his
neck. Green blood fizzes out and the body quickly dissolves. Doggett
bursts in and Scully cries as Gibson looks on. Doggett pulls her
over and conforts her as she cries.
Back in Washington,
Kersh reviews the pictures of the injured Skinner and the green
slime. There must have been hazardous chemicals that caused the body
to dissolve, Kersh muses. Kersh belittles many of the facts of
Doggett's report as Science Fiction but Doggett counters that the
report reads like an X-File. Doggett accuses that it's what Kersh
intended when he assigned Doggett to he case. Kersh says he assigned
Doggett to give him some answers and that Doggett should not come
back until he has those answers.
Doggett visits
Scully in her hospital room with a Get Well Soon card.
Doggett: My
dad always said it’s not who wins or loses, it’s who takes the
worst beatin’ that counts.
Scully: That’s supposed to cheer me up?
Doggett: I thought so.
She doubts that he
believes her, but he provides her several bits of information on
case. Gibson is a ward of the state and Doggett has asked for
special protection for him. Doggett tells Scully that keeping her
apprised of the case is his job now. Scully tells him that its not
his job, but he tells her that its his officially - he is assigned
to the X-Files. Scully is surprised. Doggett promises that no mater
what their differences, he will find Mulder. In the final scene, we
see Mulder, still in the alien medical facility, surrounded by
Bounty Hunters in the nearby darkness.
