We see an object falling from the heavens. Two Russian youths look up to the sky and one says, "They're here." Rushing through the woods to the rest of their group, they are horrified to see a fiery scene of cars in flames with their occupants still inside or lying dead on the ground, charred. Krycek laughs at Marita's authority telling her the only thing he recognizes is her lies. She wants to know what Krycek knows and if the boy has information but Krycek tells her to report back to her group. "You go back and you tell them what you've seen here, what you've found. Tell them it's all going to hell." Mulder says their conjecture is not only false but dangerous. "This woman presents no good or credible testimony apart from the feel-good message she promotes." He seems frustrated with the panel and possibly sees himself in Patient X, the prophet he once tried to be. But now the tables are turned and though he's preaching a new view, he still seems to be ignored. Mulder says he's come to distrust the memories they recovered regarding Samantha. Werber is disappointed and Mulder assures him he doesn't question his techniques, just the memories which may have been planted all along. "A man with faith can indulge in the luxury of skepticism," Werber says. A guard and doctor open a cell door and we see an out of breath Krycek, just finished beating some information out of Dmitri. "The boy has told me what I need to know. You may begin," Krycek tells the doctor. Standing outside the cell, Krycek looks down at a tray of the doctor's equipment. Next to the syringes and needles are several vials of a clear, golden liquid. Krycek pockets one. Dr. Werber introduces Mulder to Cassandra. Cassandra has been experiencing a pull; a feeling that she is being called. "Now is a time of war and stress among the alien nations. The different races--they're in upheaval. I will be summoned to a place, just like Duane Barry," she says. "They're here to deliver a message. Except... Something has gone wrong." Dmitri is missing and the doctor performing the test is dead in the cell. Krycek and the boy have left the gulag and are leaving Vladivostok on a Russian freighter. Krycek enters a dark, wet hold in the ship where he has Dmitri hidden away. He's taken Dmitri for his own purposes but is acting now as a sympathetic caretaker, maybe because he too was once infected with the black oil. Cassandra is Agent Spender's mother and, though he loves her, he doesn't believe her abduction stories and would prefer that they back off so he can maintain a low profile. He tells Scully, "I'd like to build a reputation here, not be given one." Scully understand, having been dubbed Mrs. Spooky in the past. They don't know what the relationship between the victims was but it seemed certain that it had been some sort of staging for a group abduction. WMM says that this would be part of the final phase before colonization but they're years from that stage. The Chunky Italian says this is true if they can believe the colonists' timetable. Marita doesn't think it was planned; more of an act of war against them and their plans. Mulder now buys into the government involvement angle and no longer believes in alien involvement in these abductions. As they talk, Scully begins reading the account of Cassandra Spender's abduction in the newspaper article and her jaw drops as she seems to go pale. Mulder notices and when asked she says, "Cassandra Spender was abducted at Skyland Mountain." The article also says Cassandra has an implant in the base of her neck. Cassandra stuns Scully by saying, "You're feeling it, too, aren't you? (touching the base of her neck) Here. You wake up at night knowing you need to be somewhere, but you don't know where it is. Like you forgot an appointment you didn't know you had." Mulder asks what the relationship is between the victims and Scully, thinking he's being a bit thick, says he's tiptoeing around the obvious. They are right back on Skyland Mountain. "And you think it's related to your abduction from the same place?" Mulder is going out of his way to overlook the connection. Agent Spender informs them that the friends of his mother who died at Skyland Mountain were in the "same ridiculous cult" that she used to be in. Mulder jumps on this information as confirmation of his opinion of Cassandra but Scully is a bit more circumspect. She watches Cassandra make fingerprints on her window to mark out the constellation Cassiopeia in the night sky. Krycek is seeing to Dmitri and is surprised by the appearance of Marita in the doorway. "You think you can pull this off, don't you," she says. Krycek tells her if they give him what he wants, he can rule the world. He rushes her, slams her against the wall, and they embrace in a passionate kiss. After freshening up, Krycek returns to find the boy gone. As he searches the hold for his missing charge, he is once again surprised by the arrival of another player. WMM stands outside the doorway with a gun in his hand. "Well, where's the boy," he inquires of Krycek. Marita is calling from a roadside pay phone and we see Dmitri sitting in the car. Apparently, Marita has double-crossed Krycek and kidnapped the boy from him. As Dmitri sits in the front seat, he begins to pick at the stitches holding his eyes shut. Marita is telling Mulder to come to the phone booth to await a call with further directions when she sees Dmitri standing outside the booth, black oil oozing from his eyes. We see the constellation Cassiopeia centered in the night sky over a hydro-electric plant. A bridge overlooks the dam and on it are dozens of people. Suddenly, someone in the crowd shouts, "There it is," and the call is taken up and runs like a ripple through the crowd. Overhead a beam of light appears and, with a boom of sound, the one light becomes several running lights on a triangular shaped craft. The crowd goes silent, bathed in the bright light as they watch the craft silently glide over the bridge. The party crashers are two aliens with their eyes and mouths sewn shut and healed over. These are the same aliens who set the groups in Russia and at Skyland Mountain on fire. One of them looks exactly like the Pilot/Alien Bounty Hunter. As the crowd tries to scatter and avoid being set afire, Scully stares at the approaching aliens in horror and recognition.

Patient X Patient X opens with a voice-over by Mulder. Speaking of the time before the exploration of space and the belief that the heavens were home to gods, Mulder talks of the world's new religions and beliefs. "And while we've chosen now our monolithic and benevolent gods and found our certainties in science, believers all, we wait for a sign, a revelation. Our eyes turn skyward ready to accept the truly incredible to find our destiny written in the stars." In a segue from the constellations to the actual night sky, we see an object falling from the heavens. Two Russian youths look up to the sky and one says, "They're here." Rushing through the woods to the rest of their group, they are horrified to see a fiery scene of cars in flames with their occupants still inside or lying dead on the ground, charred. Running through the flame lit scene they call out for their parents until they see a man walking toward them in flames. They run into the woods but are separated and one of the boys is stopped by an alien that looks like the Pilot from "Colony/Endgame" except his eyes and mouth appear to have been sewn shut and healed over. As the other boy runs in another direction he can hear the screams of his friend. The next day, Marita Covarrubias arrives on the scene with a team of UN peacekeepers. From a hidden position, the surviving boy watches until someone approaches from behind. It's Krycek who asks the boy his name (Dmitri) and if he saw what happened. When Dmitri answers yes, Krycek says, "Too bad for you." With an escort of Russian guards, Krycek walks down to Marita and asks on whose authority she is there. Krycek is brimming with authority only slightly more than Marita attempts as she begins to site her credentials and the authority behind her UN fact-finding mission. Krycek laughs at her authority telling her the only thing he recognizes is her lies. She wants to know what Krycek knows and if the boy has information but Krycek tells her to report back to her group. "You go back and you tell them what you've seen here, what you've found. Tell them it's all going to hell." We see Mulder at a visiting lecturer's symposium where the subject appears to involve alien abduction, fact or fiction. A video is running with a woman, referred to as Patient X, who cheerily describes her experience. She is a believer and seems happy about the whole thing, telling everyone that the visitors are basically good. When the tape ends there are cheers and clapping from the audience who think it's wonderful stuff. Mulder, on the other hand, sits on the panel with an irritable, disgruntled look on his face. He's not buying it. After three panelists speak, Mulder breaks in with a purely skeptical opinion. He says their conjecture is not only false but dangerous. "This woman presents no good or credible testimony apart from the feel-good message she promotes." Here is our Mulder preaching a skeptical viewpoint to a majority believer audience. He seems frustrated with the panel and possibly sees himself in Patient X, the prophet he once tried to be. But now the tables are turned and though he's preaching a new view, he still seems to be ignored. Following the symposium, Mulder is leaving the lecture hall when he sees a figure from his past. It's Dr. Heitz Werber, the man who helped him with his hypnotic regression and recovery of the memories of Samantha's abduction. Mulder seems not only surprised but possibly a bit embarrassed to see him. Werber says he was interested to see how Mulder's work had progressed so was surprised to see that he'd abandoned his beliefs. Mulder says he's come to distrust the memories they recovered regarding Samantha. Werber is disappointed and Mulder assures him he doesn't question his techniques, just the memories which may have been planted all along. "A man with faith can indulge in the luxury of skepticism," Werber says. Mulder says there's too much evidence that it's all been a lie; a conspiracy not to hide the existence of extraterrestrials but to make people believe it so completely they question nothing. "So, you and I have just been advocates of insanity all along? Is this the extreme possibility you believe in now," Werber asks. Mulder questions Patient X's credibility and Werber tells Mulder she's his patient. He wants to introduce her to Mulder hoping to change his mind. We return to the dark, gloomy Russian gulag in Tunguska/Terma. A guard and doctor open a cell door and we see an out of breath Krycek, just finished beating some information out of Dmitri. "The boy has told me what I need to know. You may begin," Krycek tells the doctor. Krycek is handing down orders; lots of authority, apparently. The doctor doesn't want to do the test on the boy, saying it is only done on criminals but Krycek tells him he's giving him new orders. He pays off the guard in the hall to keep his mouth shut about what he's seen and heard. Standing outside the cell, Krycek looks down at a tray of the doctor's equipment. Next to the syringes and needles are several vials of a clear, golden liquid. Krycek pockets one. Dr. Werber introduces Mulder to Cassandra. She is ecstatic to see him, saying that he saved her life. The entire time Mulder is in the room, he seem uncomfortable, shifting from foot to foot and generally antsy. She has been subject to multiple abductions for the last 30 years and when she heard the story about how he believed Duane Barry during the hostage situation, she felt that her life had been saved. Knowing people like Mulder would believe led her to Dr. Werber. Mulder is not the same person he was three years ago and his beliefs have apparently gone through a drastic shift. He tells her she should check herself out and start living her life but she says it's not a good time. Cassandra has been experiencing a pull; a feeling that she is being called. "Now is a time of war and stress among the alien nations. The different races--they're in upheaval. I will be summoned to a place, just like Duane Barry," she says. Mulder tells her that what happened to Duane Barry involved government forces and Duane died for his beliefs. Cassandra has no trouble believing the government was involved and she expresses true conviction in her beliefs. She tells Mulder, "They're here to deliver a message. Except... Something has gone wrong." She thinks that Mulder, of all people, needs to hear this information because he's the one who can do something. Mulder says, "I'm not," and walks out. Back at the Russian gulag, the creepy bald doctor with glasses (seen in Tunguska when Mulder got his vaccine shot before the black oil test) is ranting at the guard at his side. He's just discovered that the boy, Dmitri, is missing and the doctor performing the test is dead in the cell. He apparently knew nothing of the boy's capture, the details of the fiery incident, or the fact that Krycek got his hands on Dmitri, questioned him and ordered the tests. He's not a happy camper. Krycek and the boy are nowhere to be found because they have left the gulag and are leaving Vladivostok on a Russian freighter. Krycek enters a dark, wet hold in the ship where he has Dmitri hidden away. He's taken Dmitri for his own purposes but is acting now as a sympathetic caretaker, maybe because he too was once infected with the black oil. He brings water for the boy and sprinkles it on his face. We see why when we get a good look at Dmitri. His eyes and mouth appear to be sewn shut. Krycek tells him, "I'm going to take good care of you." Scully walks down the hallway at the FBI building and a young agent stops her, introducing himself as Agent Jeffrey Spender. He says he's talking to her because he hasn't been able to get in touch with Mulder but he wants to ask them if they'll stay away from Cassandra, Patient X. It turns out she's his mother and, though he loves her and considers her to be an exceptional woman, he doesn't believe her abduction stories and would prefer that they back off so he can maintain a low profile. He tells Scully, "I'd like to build a reputation here, not be given one." Scully understand, having been dubbed Mrs. Spooky in the past. We next see a meeting of the Syndicate in their smoky, 46th street hangout in New York. Marita is there, giving a report on the situation in Russia. She tells of the bodies, carbonized by the intense heat and they speculate on the cause. They don't know what the relationship between the victims was but it seemed certain that it had been some sort of staging for a group abduction. WMM says that this would be part of the final phase before colonization but they're years from that stage. The Chunky Italian says this is true if they can believe the colonists' timetable. Marita doesn't think it was planned; more of an act of war against them and their plans. The group is surprised and confused by the information and seem to be especially upset about being taken unawares. Quiet Willy sits in on the proceedings but is silent, as usual. Marita tells them about seeing Krycek at the site and that he has the one witness in custody. They want to know what he knows and coincidentally the phone rings just then; Krycek calling on the batphone. WMM talks to him and finds out that Krycek is in town and wants to deal. Krycek figures the Syndicate has had people working on the vaccine against the black oil and he wants all the information and results. In exchange, he offers the boy who, he says, knows enough to make their vaccine unnecessary. Without giving anymore information, Krycek says that's his opening offer and warns them to make up their minds before the kid dies. Scully finds Mulder in the basement office and tosses a newspaper on his desk featuring a picture of Mulder from the symposium. The headline "All this conjecture about little green men - false, dangerous, delusional" prompts Scully to wonder if it shouldn't have been her picture next to the headline. She asks if this has anything to do with Cassandra Spender and relates her meeting with the son. Mulder says she's proof that everything he's believed has been the truth of a madman and Scully notes that he seems to have invalidated his own work. Mulder now buys into the government involvement angle and no longer believes in alien involvement in these abductions. As they talk, Scully begins reading the account of Cassandra Spender's abduction in the newspaper article and her jaw drops as she seems to go pale. Mulder notices and when asked she says, "Cassandra Spender was abducted at Skyland Mountain." This is the location Duane Barry took her to when she was abducted for three months. Mulder says Cassandra's a nut but Scully tells him the article also says Cassandra has an implant in the base of her neck. Scully is genuinely disturbed by this information but Mulder remains cynical and flippant, saying it's no doubt the spot where the government removed her brain. Real compassionate. Scully goes to the hospital to see Cassandra Spender. As soon as she walks in the door, Cassandra says she recognizes her. "Do I know you? Of course I do." Scully denies an acquaintance and introduces herself, saying apologetically that she talked to her son and read her medical files. Cassandra stuns Scully by saying, "You're feeling it, too, aren't you? (touching the base of her neck) Here. You wake up at night knowing you need to be somewhere, but you don't know where it is. Like you forgot an appointment you didn't know you had." Despite Scully's obvious reaction to this statement, she denies it and tells Cassandra that's not why she's there. She's come to warn Cassandra about removing the implant, telling her that she got very sick when hers was taken out. Cassandra's reaction is even more surprising to Scully. She says, "I'd never dream of removing it. I want to go. Wherever it is. They have...so much to teach us. You being a doctor would want to know...they're great healers. Maybe that's why you were chosen." Meanwhile, we see a steady stream of cars heading up to Skyland Mountain, despite the late hour. One man lags behind the rest, arriving at the guard booth, not even sure where he's going. The ranger takes his entrance fee and says he hopes he can find some parking because it's quite a crowd. Arriving at the summit, he sees rows and rows of cars haphazardly parked and a smoky fog all around. Suddenly, out of the smoke a man rushes toward his car pursued by a figure carrying some kind of torch. As he bangs on the man's window begging for help, he is set on fire. His screams ring out as he continues to bang on the window while the man inside looks on in horror. Arriving on this very scene the next morning, Scully and Mulder see a makeshift tent set up to cover rows of body bags. The victims have all been burned and there are at least as many more bodies that still haven't been brought up from the woods. It appears that everyone had congregated in one main spot and they have yet to find any survivors. Mulder wonders aloud if they set themselves on fire but Scully says there were no accelerants or incendiary devices on the scene. Mulder asks what the relationship is between the victims and Scully, thinking he's being a bit thick, says he's tiptoeing around the obvious. They are right back on Skyland Mountain. "And you think it's related to your abduction from the same place?" Mulder is going out of his way to overlook the connection. Scully seems confused by Mulder's reaction. He even has the gall to ask her if she has any evidence of this abduction scenario, this from someone who has chosen instinct over evidence for the last five years. Watching a news broadcast of the events on Skyland Mountain, the Syndicate members are now royally pissed. Not only are they out of the loop, but this is taking place right in their backyard. They don't like being kept in the dark. Their work with the alien colonists is being sabotaged and they want to begin dealing with the problem themselves before the colonists intervene. WMM casts a look at Quiet Willy when he says this and the man gets up and leaves the room in silence, apparently with a mission. Scully and Mulder arrive at Cassandra's hospital room. She has called them after seeing the coverage of the slaughter on Skyland Mountain and pleads for them to do something. "This is not supposed to be happening. Not like this. I knew these people. They were friends of mine." Scully seems sympathetic but Mulder appears more impatient than anything else. They are interrupted by the arrival of Jeffrey Spender and they adjourn to the hallway. He wants to know why they are talking to his mother after he asked them to leave her alone. They tell him she called them and he informs them that the friends of his mother who died at Skyland Mountain were in the "same ridiculous cult" that she used to be in. Mulder jumps on this information as confirmation of his opinion of Cassandra but Scully is a bit more circumspect. She watches Cassandra make fingerprints on her window to mark out the constellation Cassiopeia in the night sky. As the agents all leave the hospital, we see Quiet Willy arrive and head toward Cassandra's room. Back on the Russian freighter, Krycek is seeing to Dmitri and is surprised by the appearance of Marita in the doorway. "You think you can pull this off, don't you," she says. Krycek tells her if they give him what he wants, he can rule the world. He rushes her, hopefully to choke her or something (anything) but instead he slams her against the wall and they embrace in a passionate kiss. "We've got them on their knees, Alex," Marita says. (WE!? Oh, yuk. Sorry, no more commentary.) They leave together, most likely for a quickie. After freshening up, Krycek returns to find the boy gone. As he searches the hold for his missing charge, he is once again surprised by the arrival of another player. WMM stands outside the doorway with a gun in his hand. "Well, where's the boy," he inquires of Krycek. Scully wakes in her bedroom in the middle of the night. She looks out the window and sees the constellation Cassiopeia. Getting out of bed, she is drawn to the window and, as she stares at the pattern of stars, her hand goes unconsciously to the back of her neck. The next day, Mulder eagerly shows Scully some forensics reports he got back from the Skyland Mountain incident. He had the pathologist pick three victims at random and had x-rays done. What he found was a metal implant at the base of the neck on all three victims. To Mulder, the event remains unexplained but he's now convinced that the government is involved. He doesn't think it has anything to do with the cult since not all the victims belonged, although many belonged to MUFON and had claimed past abductions. He also found that the people shared depression, paranoia, and a belief they would be called to an undisclosed location to be abducted by aliens. He thinks the implant is a homing device leading the people to these staging areas but Scully says it still doesn't explain why they were killed instead of abducted. Their conversation is interrupted by the office phone ringing. As Mulder heads to the desk to answer it, Scully says, "Maybe you shouldn't be so quick...to rule out what Cassandra Spender has to say." Mulder gives her an unreadable look that holds in it some surprise and disbelief. They share protracted eye contact that is broken when Mulder nods slightly then picks up the phone. It's Marita calling. She wants to know if Mulder knows about the incident in Russia and its similarity to the one on Skyland Mountain. She tells him she was in Kazakhstan and has the only living witness to the events with her. Marita is calling from a roadside pay phone and we see Dmitri sitting in the car. Apparently, Marita has double-crossed Krycek and kidnapped the boy from him. As Dmitri sits in the front seat, he begins to pick at the stitches holding his eyes shut. Marita is telling Mulder to come to the phone booth to await a call with further directions when she sees Dmitri standing outside the booth, black oil oozing from his eyes. Mulder hears her scream from the other end of the phone line and gets only silence when he calls her name. When Mulder hangs up the phone, he looks around the office and sees the open hallway door but no Scully. She has left the basement and as she walks through the corridors of the FBI building she seems to be in a bit of a daze. She stops to get a drink of water and looks slightly ill. Meanwhile, Mulder heads to the location of the pay phone that Marita called from but there's no sign of her, only a black, oily smudge on the phone booth glass and the phone off the hook. Mulder decides to call Cassandra Spender's hospital room thinking that Scully might have gone there. Agent Spender answers and we see Dr. Werber standing in the hospital room. Spender tells Mulder that his mother is gone and when Mulder asks where, Spender says, "Look, she's just gone. Don't you get it? She's got nowhere to go." We see the constellation Cassiopeia centered in the night sky over a hydro-electric plant. A bridge overlooks the dam and on it are dozens of people. They all appear to be waiting for something, craning their necks to look up into the night. Quiet Willy is there, wheeling a joyful looking Cassandra in her wheelchair. Dmitri is also there, looking a bit worse for wear but nobody there seems to notice. In fact, everyone seems to be in a bit of a daze. They've come to this place but they don't know exactly why they were drawn here. Scully arrives at the bridge and is wandering along like most people, looking up into the sky. Suddenly, someone in the crowd shouts, "There it is," and the call is taken up and runs like a ripple through the crowd. Overhead a beam of light appears and, with a boom of sound, the one light becomes several running lights on a triangular shaped craft. It's a beautiful scene as the crowd goes silent, bathed in the bright light as they watch the craft silently glide over the bridge. As Scully begins to walk slowly down the bridge toward the receding lights of the craft, she sees Cassandra. Going to her, Scully takes the outstretched hand Cassandra offers and they smile at each other, clasping hands. But this peaceful moment is shattered by screams. At the far end of the bridge, one of the group is on fire. Everyone's silent awe turns to horror as they try to flee the approaching figures with torches. The party crashers are two aliens with their eyes and mouths sewn shut and healed over, not like Dmitri's fresh wounds. These are the same aliens who set the groups in Russia and at Skyland Mountain on fire. One of them looks exactly like the Pilot/Alien Bounty Hunter. As the crowd tries to scatter and avoid being set afire, Scully stares at the approaching aliens in horror and recognition. To be continued...