"Twin war gods come to their father, seeking magic and weapons to eliminate the monsters of the world. My hope is the same for you, and that we might reconcile the differences between us." The letter is signed, Your Loving Father. RESIST OR SERVE Spender materializes out of the chaos and wants to talk to Mulder. "Is she here? Was she found," he asks desperately. Skinner, unaware of all the facts, wants to know who he's talking about. Spender says, "My mother." Scully has no idea why she is in the hospital; no recollection of the events leading up to the incident at the dam. As she looks to Mulder in confusion, she sees the hospital TV over his shoulder broadcasting a report about the deaths at the dam, calling it a cult suicide. "I was there? Doing what," she wants to know. Mulder runs into Agent Spender who is upset with Mulder, considering him to be somehow responsible for his mother's disappearance. "They didn't find her. She wasn't among the victims. They only found her wheelchair." Spender thinks that Mulder must have taken her from the hospital since she's a cripple and hasn't driven a car for years. Now her wheelchair turns up 130 miles from the hospital and she's missing. To top it off, he knows that Scully was there so, in his mind, all signs point to Mulder. Krycek asks if WMM has the boy and is told that Marita took him. "Your alliance with her was as misguided as ours, but it appears she was unaware of the consequences of her deception. You were clever. Infect the boy to ensure infection of anyone who tried to learn what he knows, who would cheat you." WMM wants the vaccine so he can treat Marita but Krycek balks, saying why should he give him the means to save her after what she did to him. WMM tells him giving over the vaccine is the way to save himself. "It all comes down to a question, Scully. Who made that chip in your neck? Our government made that chip, implanted it in your neck as part of a secret military project to develop a biochemical weapon, to monitor your immunity, or to destroy you like a lab rat, if the truth were to be exposed. And your cancer... your cure... everything that's happening to you now... It all points to that chip. The truth I've been searching for? The truth is in you." "Well, whether you trust them or not, they've led you here... and me. But I have no memories to either trust nor distrust, and if you ask me now to follow you again, to stand behind you in what you now believe, without knowing what happened to me out there, without those memories, I can't. I won't." Mulder says, "If I could give you those memories... if I could prove that I was right and that what I believed for so long was wrong..." Scully seems incredulous, saying, "Is that what you really want?" "This is what the boy saw in Russia. The last face the dead saw at Skyland Mountain, and most surely who killed our man at the dam in Pennsylvania. He's a resistance fighter against the alien colonists. This is what Alex Krycek knew--that a war had begun." The Chunky Italian says what good is this knowledge if they still don't have a working vaccine. WMM tells them they do, "Developed by the Russians, stolen by Krycek, given to me. Do you see what this means? Resistance is possible. We have the weapons and the magic in hand." Scully begins to say, "I don't think this is working," when suddenly we see her memory of a bright flash of light as she looks up, eyes wide and she shouts, "Oh my god!" This jolts Mulder from his moody reverie. She is remembering the appearance of the UFO and the beauty and awe she experienced looking up at it. In her hypnotic state, she becomes agitated seeing the horror of the event unfold again. "They're on fire! They're setting them on fire. They have no faces. They have no eyes." Then she recalls the arrival of another ship which fires on the rebel aliens, setting them ablaze. It is clear Mulder doesn't believe the truth behind the tape. He believes "that agent Scully witnessed a very powerful event. Not unlike the one I described on my regression tape of the false memory of my sister's abduction." Scully tells Skinner, "I've listened to the tape several times, and I don't have a clear recollection of what I hear myself saying, but I also don't see any reason why I'd be saying it." "Hear this, agent Mulder... Listen very carefully because what I'm telling you is deadly serious. There is a war raging and, unless you pull your head out of the sand, you and I and about five billion other people are going to go the way of the dinosaur. I'm talking planned invasion. The colonization of this planet by an extraterrestrial race. Kazakhstan. Skyland Mountain, the site in Pennsylvania. They're all alien lighthouses where the colonization will begin. But where now, a battle's being waged. A struggle for heaven and earth. Where there is one law - fight or die. And one rule - resist or serve." Krycek suddenly leans down and kisses Mulder on the cheek. Mulder's eyes are closed, probably thinking the next thing is a bullet in the head but Krycek drops the gun in his lap and prepares to leave. Turning back before he reaches the door, he says to Mulder in Russian, "Good luck to you, my friend." Mulder climbs into the back of the tarp-covered bed of the truck and sees the only item inside. It looks like an isolation cell, secured to the floor. Approaching the small window and looking inside, he sees the alien rebel with his eyes and mouth sewn shut. He now has visual confirmation of Scully's and Krycek's stories. A concentrated beam of light appears near the back of the truck and an alien rebel seems to descend in the beam and block any exit. As the two aliens from warring factions stand facing each other, Mulder springs from his hiding place shouting, "NO!!" It would appear that Marita has recovered from her infection with the black oil. We see her still lying unmoving with eyes closed on the examination table, but when her eyelid is lifted, her eyes are clear of the black oil. From above, in an observation gallery, WMM watches and nods in approval. When the MP's arrive at the abandoned truck, Mulder is the only one they find inside. The isolation cell door is open and the cell is empty. The other two aliens are nowhere to be found. The guards lead Mulder to a car where Scully is waiting in the back seat, also in custody. Mulder is in a daze and remembers nothing. "It seems you have a patron outside this office who thinks highly of you." Skinner doesn't know who it is but says it's someone working with a high level of influence. Spender is stopped by a mail clerk who hands him a legal size red envelope. We see the boy from the opening of the episode making his way back to the house on the snowy hill. Cigarette Smoking Man holds the envelope in his hand as he reads the words stamped on it: RETURN TO SENDER - NO FORWARDING SERVICE AVAILABLE.

The Red and The Black The episode starts with a boy trudging up a snow-covered hill. It is a rural area of Quebec and there is nothing in sight except trees and snow. The scene cuts back and forth between the boy hiking diligently up the snowy path and a man typing on an old manual typewriter. The letter begins "Dear son, I hope this letter finds you well." As he types, we only can see snippets of the letter. One of the more interesting parts says, "You must wonder about me...I remind myself of a Navajo story. Twin war gods come to their father, seeking magic and weapons to eliminate the monsters of the world. My hope is the same for you, and that we might reconcile the differences between us." The letter is signed, Your Loving Father. As the man finishes typing his letter, we see the boy reach a small, isolated house with smoke streaming out the chimney. He knocks on the door and the man answers, handing the boy the letter sealed in a legal size red envelope. "Thanks, mister. I'll mail it right off," the boy says. As he walks away, he stops to read the address and says aloud, "Federal Bureau of Investigation?" At the hydro-electric dam where Cassandra and Scully had joined the others the night before, the scene is much different in the light of day. It's chaotic, as rescue personnel work to remove the dead and airlift the survivors to hospitals. It's quite a contrast to the beauty of the craft and the people bathed in bright light to now see the morning light, starkly illuminating the charred corpses scattered across the bridge. As we pan across the dead, we see that Quiet Willy was not one of the fortunate survivors. Mulder arrives and, as he scans the scene, it is apparent he is looking for some sign of Scully. Starting to panic, he runs down the bridge and his worst fears are tested as he sees a woman with red hair being zipped into a yellow body bag. It's not until he's right on top of her that he realizes it's not Scully. Skinner appears and calls to Mulder, telling him that Scully has survived along with about 50 others who sought refuge in the woods. She has minor burns and her fluids and electrolytes are abnormally depleted but she is alive. Mulder tries to talk to her but she is being attended to by a doctor who says she's in vasogenic shock and needs to get to a hospital. Basically, she's saying that Mulder and Skinner are in the way. As they rush her to a helicopter to airlift her out, Mulder and Skinner follow and watch as she is loaded and the chopper takes off. Skinner wants to know what happened but Mulder doesn't know and says the answer was just taken away on that helicopter. Spender materializes out of the chaos and wants to talk to Mulder. "Is she here? Was she found," he asks desperately. Skinner, unaware of all the facts, wants to know who he's talking about. Spender says, "My mother." The Syndicate has doctors working on Marita with WMM overseeing the procedure, but they seem to be having no success. As the doctor lifts her eyelid, we see the black oil slide over her eye. The doctor says it's probably not a question of dosage, since they've given her three injections since she was discovered along the roadside in this condition. WMM asks, "And you've seen no effect?" "No. It doesn't look good at all," is the reply. Apparently the vaccine or treatment the Syndicate has been working on is useless against the black oil. It is interesting to note the concern that WMM has for Marita; the other consortium members seem less concerned for her and more interested in simply knowing if the treatment will work. Maybe CSM isn't the only one with a question of paternity in the balance. Mulder arrives at the hospital to see how Scully is doing. He is smiling and seems happy simply at the fact that she is alive and well. He laughs when the first words out of Scully's mouth are to ask the time and he tells her, "It's time to thank your lucky stars." But he's not as happy about her confusion and apparent memory loss. She has no idea why she is in the hospital; no recollection of the events leading up to the incident at the dam. As she looks to Mulder in confusion, she sees the hospital TV over his shoulder broadcasting a report about the deaths at the dam, calling it a cult suicide. "I was there? Doing what," she wants to know. Mulder was hoping that she could answer these questions for him but she won't be answering any questions since her nurse comes in and pretty much kicks Mulder out, saying Scully needs her rest. Scully is unsettled and looks like she doesn't want Mulder to go, leaving her a bit lost and confused. Mulder runs into Agent Spender who is upset with Mulder, considering him to be somehow responsible for his mother's disappearance. "They didn't find her. She wasn't among the victims. They only found her wheelchair." When he asks what Mulder was doing with her, Mulder is confused. Spender thinks that Mulder must have taken her from the hospital since she's a cripple and hasn't driven a car for years. Now her wheelchair turns up 130 miles from the hospital and she's missing. To top it off, he knows that Scully was there so, in his mind, all signs point to Mulder. We know Quiet Willy took his mother to the site but Spender is on a roll, telling Mulder, "She's my mother. She's not some test subject of yours." "Your mother will be found," Mulder says, trying to console Spender. But Spender won't calm down and tells Mulder to leave it alone. Back on the Russian freighter, we see Ratboy handcuffed in the dark, lower hold. WMM is holding him hostage and tempts him by offering then withholding water. WMM tells Krycek that the ship is heading back to Russia soon and he's sure Krycek's compatriots will give him a warm homecoming. Not a welcome option for Krycek's, obviously. He asks if WMM has the boy and is told that Marita took him. "Your alliance with her was as misguided as ours, but it appears she was unaware of the consequences of her deception. You were clever. Infect the boy to ensure infection of anyone who tried to learn what he knows, who would cheat you." But the boy is dead now, one of the victims on the bridge. Krycek says he's the only one who knows the truth behind the incidents so WMM has to deal with him. WMM wonders aloud why Krycek would infect the boy unless he had a vaccine; a vaccine that works. WMM wants it so he can treat Marita but Krycek balks, saying why should he give him the means to save her after what she did to him. WMM tells him giving over the vaccine is the way to save himself. The camera pans over a sign on a stretch of cyclone fencing. Wiekamp Air Force Base, No Trespassing, by Authority of the U.S. Government. Panning up in the blackness beyond, the night is suddenly lit up in yellow and red fire as a UFO comes crashing and skidding to the ground. As the fire rages on in and around the downed craft, a lone survivor pulls his dead companion along the ground, away from the craft as guard vehicles approach. Even the silhouette in the flames is enough to identify the figure of the Pilot/Alien Bounty Hunter, but the one with his eyes sewn shut. Back at the hospital, Scully is still completely in the dark. Despite knowing that she was at the scene of the mass death, she can't remember the first thing about it and says she couldn't drive to the spot or even tell Mulder how to get there. It's all a blank. Mulder tells her she's not alone. Apparently, none of the survivors have been able to give a helpful account of what occurred at the bridge. He asks her if she remembers when she last saw Cassandra and Scully asks, "She was there, too," with some surprise. Mulder tells her that he had x-rays done on some of the latest victims and all of them have the implants. He thinks the implant is the key to everything. He says it explains how she was directed to the site without her remembering. Scully says that may be but it doesn't explain why they would want to kill her or how she managed to survive. Mulder seems to have had an epiphany about the implant. As Scully sits, listening to his theory in silence, Mulder says, "It all comes down to a question, Scully. Who made that chip in your neck? Our government made that chip, implanted it in your neck as part of a secret military project to develop a biochemical weapon, to monitor your immunity, or to destroy you like a lab rat, if the truth were to be exposed. And your cancer... your cure... everything that's happening to you now... It all points to that chip. The truth I've been searching for? The truth is in you." When he winds down Scully gathers her thoughts and reluctantly begins, "Mulder, when I met you five years ago, you told me that your sister had been abducted... by aliens, that that event had marked you so deeply, that nothing else mattered. I didn't believe you, but I followed you, on nothing more than your faith that the truth was out there, based not on facts, not on science, but on your memories that your sister had been taken from you." Mulder says he doesn't trust those memories now. Scully continues, "Well, whether you trust them or not, they've led you here... and me. But I have no memories to either trust nor distrust, and if you ask me now to follow you again, to stand behind you in what you now believe, without knowing what happened to me out there, without those memories, I can't. I won't." She obviously is not happy about the potential pain her words might cause Mulder, but she feels it must be said. She has to take a stand on what she believes. Mulder says, "If I could give you those memories... if I could prove that I was right and that what I believed for so long was wrong..." Scully seems incredulous, saying, "Is that what you really want?" The Syndicate has photos of the latest alien model with their eyes and mouths sewn shut. They think the facial scarring is self-mutilation in order to protect against infection by the black oil. WMM says this sewn-up Pilot alien is a rebel. "This is what the boy saw in Russia. The last face the dead saw at Skyland Mountain, and most surely who killed our man at the dam in Pennsylvania. He's a resistance fighter against the alien colonists. This is what Alex Krycek knew--that a war had begun." The Chunky Italian says what good is this knowledge if they still don't have a working vaccine. But they do, WMM tells them. "Developed by the Russians, stolen by Krycek, given to me. Do you see what this means? Resistance is possible. We have the weapons and the magic in hand." He is prepared to test the Russian vaccine on Marita and, if it works, he feels they must make a new alliance with the alien rebels. The other Elders think this is a mistake, saying the rebels will probably kill them and it would be better to turn the rebel over to the colonists. But WMM thinks they should wait to see if the vaccine works. Mulder has brought Scully to Dr. Heitz Werber to see if she can recover her memories from the night at the bridge. He appears uncomfortable, most likely because it is a painful way to be reunited with Dr. Werber. The memories that he once recovered are suspect in his mind and now here he is hoping that what Scully remembers will confirm that those memories were all a lie. Very strange territory. Who would have thought Mulder would be championing such an outcome. Dr. Werber greets Scully and asks her if she's okay with the hypnosis session. She says she is but she seems a bit rigid and nervous. She tells him her only other hypnosis session (Blessing Way) didn't really go so well. Mulder sits on the opposite end of the couch from Scully, arms crossed; there but as distant as he can be in his body language. Werber starts out by telling Scully to relax and walking her through the process in a soothing, calming voice. Scully begins to say, "I don't think this is working," when suddenly we see her memory of a bright flash of light as she looks up, eyes wide and she shouts, "Oh my god!" This jolts Mulder from his moody reverie. She is remembering the appearance of the UFO and the beauty and awe she experienced looking up at it. She reaches a hand blindly across the couch toward Mulder and he takes it. Werber asks where she is and she tells him she's there, with the others and there's a ship...then it's gone. She remembers the arrival of the rebel aliens and, recognizing the Pilot, she says, "They're back!" Werber asks her who she means but her memories are overwhelming her and she can only see the people on fire. In her hypnotic state, she becomes agitated seeing the horror of the event unfold again. "They're on fire! They're setting them on fire. They have no faces. They have no eyes." Then she recalls the arrival of another ship which fires on the rebel aliens, setting them ablaze. She seems to be so traumatized by reliving the memories that Werber asks her if she wants to stop but she goes on. She remembers the crowd watching the newly arrived ship send a wide beam of light down on the crowd which them focused on one of them...Cassandra. Cassandra was lifted from her wheelchair and ascended toward the hovering craft. Scully says, "They're taking her." Werber decides to end the session and brings Scully out of her hypnotic state. We next see Mulder and Scully in Skinner's office. They've given him the tape to review and he says he wasn't prepared for what he heard on it. Scully knows the feeling. Skinner asks for Mulder's opinion and he says he's familiar with Werber's methods and has heard hundreds of similar accounts of abduction scenarios. As he starts ticking off all the common images, it is clear he doesn't believe the truth behind the tape. Skinner is taken aback and Mulder says he believes "that agent Scully witnessed a very powerful event. Not unlike the one I described on my regression tape of the false memory of my sister's abduction." Scully tells Skinner, "I've listened to the tape several times, and I don't have a clear recollection of what I hear myself saying, but I also don't see any reason why I'd be saying it." Skinner says he needs to know what happened so he can file a report and Mulder says he thinks the whole thing was staged to test a classified military project or to cover it up. He thinks Cassandra was taken aboard a military aircraft as part of the staging. Mirroring Scully's earlier comment to Mulder, Skinner says, "Over the past five years I've doubted you, only to be persuaded by the power of your belief in extraterrestrial phenomena, and I'm doubting you now, not because of that belief, but because extraterrestrial phenomena is, frankly, the more plausible explanation." Mulder doesn't give an inch, saying, "Then I suggest you put that in your report," as he gets up and walks out leaving a baffled Scully and Skinner. Back with the Syndicate doctor, it seems the new vaccine is having no effect on Marita. The black oil is still in her system and clouding her eyes. WMM says they have to give it time but the Chunky Italian says, "We must survive first. Survival means collaboration." WMM disagrees, saying "Turn over the alien rebel and you turn over any chance of resistance." But apparently the other Elders have acted without WMM's knowledge since the Chunky Italian says, "It's already been done." Scully goes down to the basement office and is surprised to find Agent Spender behind Mulder's desk. "I heard about this office," he says then tells her he's there about his mother. Scully says they don't have any new information. Spender knows that she went to see Dr. Werber and assumes she's wondering about the possibility of his mother's disappearance being an alien abduction. Spender says, "You went to see her," referring to his mother, "I'd like to know what you talked about." Scully says they talked about how Cassandra was feeling among other things. Spender wants to know if they talked about him. He tells Scully he's brought along a tape to show her that might explain a lot. It is Spender at 11 years old undergoing hypnotic regression. He describes being scared and unable to find his mother then seeing his mother being taken up into the sky in a craft with flashing lights. He says it's all a fabrication concocted from stories he heard his mother tell so many times that it "became a kind of truth". But it was just a substitute for the fact that his father had left his family and it drove his mother insane. Spender came to tell Scully that Werber's process is bogus and that his unsound methods make him dangerous. "If you went through it, I hope you'd question what came out of it," he says. Scully thanks him for his concern but it's clear this information is causing her to re-evaluate her own session and recovered memories. Mulder returns to his darkened apartment and, seeing a note on the floor, bends to read it and pick it up. Four words on the note say "Things are looking up!" As he reads the note he is suddenly jumped by Krycek who knocks him around the room a bit, ending up with a gun pointed at Mulder's head. "You must be losing it, Mulder. I could beat you with one hand," Krycek sneers. He tells Mulder he's not there to kill him but to help him. "Hear this, agent Mulder... Listen very carefully because what I'm telling you is deadly serious. There is a war raging and, unless you pull your head out of the sand, you and I and about five billion other people are going to go the way of the dinosaur. I'm talking planned invasion. The colonization of this planet by an extraterrestrial race." Still the smartass, Mulder laughs and says, "I thought you were serious." But Krycek is serious and continues, "Kazakhstan. Skyland Mountain, the site in Pennsylvania. They're all alien lighthouses where the colonization will begin. But where now, a battle's being waged. A struggle for heaven and earth. Where there is one law - fight or die. And one rule - resist or serve. But Mulder isn't going to believe his enemy so easily. He says Krycek is a murderer, liar, and coward. Krycek tells Mulder that he was sent by a man who knows that resistance is in their grasp. He tells Mulder that the incidents in Russia and Skyland Mountain were strikes by alien rebels who want to upset the colonization plans. "Now, one of these rebels is being held captive. And if he dies, so does the resistance." Then Krycek suddenly leans down and kisses Mulder on the cheek. Mulder's eyes are closed, probably thinking the next thing is a bullet in the head but Krycek drops the gun in his lap and prepares to leave. Turning back before he reaches the door, he says to Mulder in Russian, "Good luck to you, my friend." Despite the gun in his hand and Krycek's retreating form as an easy target, Mulder doesn't shoot and remains where he is on the floor in a disheveled pile. Stunned, the hand with the gun drops back into his lap. In confirmation of Krycek's warning to Mulder, we see the Pilot/Bounty Hunter without the sewn up face sneaking onto the Wiekamp Air Force Base. He is most likely going to eradicate the resistance by locating and killing the remaining alien rebel who crashed at that site. Scully finds Mulder sitting in the same stunned state when she arrives at his apartment, although he has relocated to his couch. Mulder says he's been thinking and Scully admits that she has just taken a long walk and has reconsidered; she thinks she might have been wrong about what happened to her. But Mulder's passing her heading in the other direction. He tells her he may have an answer to a question they seem to have been destined to ask. As he walks to the door, preparing to leave, he shows her the other side of the note Krycek left. On it is written "Wiekamp Air Force Base". It's amazing that, despite Scully's experience and hypnotic regression and her and Skinner's belief in Mulder and all he's stood for over the last five years, all it takes is for Krycek to breeze through his life for five minutes and he's reverting to his believer status. I would think this would be irritating for Scully. They drive together to the Air Force base and are stopped at the guard booth and asked for identification. Their FBI badges alone don't gain entrance for them and Mulder seems about ready to crash on through the gates. Scully cautions against this then sees a truck coming out of the facility. "I know this man," she says as she sees the truck driver. It looks like Quiet Willy, despite the evidence of his charred remains on the bridge. In the obligatory Mulder ditch, Scully is left to face the wrath of the MP's as Mulder runs toward the retreating truck and jumps onto the back as it drives away. The guard shouts for someone to follow the truck; that they might have a potential hijacking. Mulder climbs into the back of the tarp-covered bed of the truck and sees the only item inside. It looks like an isolation cell, secured to the floor. Approaching the small window and looking inside, he sees the alien rebel with his eyes and mouth sewn shut. He now has visual confirmation of Scully's and Krycek's stories. The truck comes to a stop along the side of the road and we see the driver inside the cab morph from Quiet Willy into the Pilot/Alien Bounty Hunter. Climbing from the cab and walking toward the back, he climbs into the truck but doesn't see Mulder who is hidden behind the cell, gun drawn. As he looks through the cell window, the ABH pulls an alien stiletto from his pocket and his intention is clear. But before he can act, a bright light suddenly floods the truck from overhead as a craft passes over. A concentrated beam of light appears near the back of the truck and an alien rebel seems to descend in the beam and block any exit. As the two aliens from warring factions stand facing each other, Mulder springs from his hiding place shouting, "NO!!" He raises his gun and fires but we don't see who he fired at or whether the bullet found its mark. The ABH was the obvious badguy, since he works for the colonists and Syndicate on occasion, but if Mulder had shot him he'd have suffered the consequences of the ABH's body chemistry. But why interfere at all when the alien rebel had arrived with one of his torches in hand and would have released his rebel ally and most likely killed the ABH? It would appear that Marita has recovered from her infection with the black oil. We see her still lying unmoving with eyes closed on the examination table, but when her eyelid is lifted, her eyes are clear of the black oil. From above, in an observation gallery, WMM watches and nods in approval. When the MP's arrive at the abandoned truck, Mulder is the only one they find inside. The isolation cell door is open and the cell is empty. The other two aliens are nowhere to be found. The guards lead Mulder to a car where Scully is waiting in the back seat, also in custody. Mulder is in a daze and remembers nothing. He sits in the car, looking confused. He holds his head and Scully takes his hand in hers to comfort him. She's there for him. The episode ends with Agent Spender answering a summons to Skinner's office. Skinner wants to let him know that there has been no further news on his mother but also to warn him that Mulder has opened an X-File on her disappearance. "This hasn't reflected on you in any way, Agent Spender," Skinner assures him. Skinner tells him he'll do fine and adds, "It seems you have a patron outside this office who thinks highly of you." Skinner doesn't know who it is but says it's someone working with a high level of influence. As Spender leaves Skinner's office he is stopped by a mail clerk who hands him a legal size red envelope. He looks at the return address then puts it in his pocket, unopened. We see the boy from the opening of the episode making his way back to the house on the snowy hill. Returning the red envelope to the man in the house, he says, "Sorry about that, mister." We see the Cigarette Smoking Man holding the envelope in his hand as he reads the words stamped on it: RETURN TO SENDER - NO FORWARDING SERVICE AVAILABLE.