In spite of great concern, no major problems result from the "Y2K" computer bug, resulting from software that uses two digits for the date year, rather than four.

The cult leader calling himself Absalom is disappointed when the alien invasion he predicted did not occur at the beginning of what he believes to be the new millennium. His cult disbands and he pursues other activities, some of which cause him to be accused of credit card fraud. He eventually makes contact with Jeremiah Smith. (This Is Not Happening)

Orison. At a prison in Illinois, Reverend Orison is preaching to a group of prisoners, including mass murder Donnie Pfaster. Orison says things like "god's love is a promise," and "God's love will set you free." As the prisoners respond to Orison, Donnie doesn't participate. Later, in the prison garment shop, a prisoner screams because a blade used to cut materials has cut his fingers off. In the commotion, Donnie is able to walk out of the prison. The time is 6:06 AM.

In her bedroom, Scully wakes up at 6:06 AM, but the digital clock briefly reads 6:66. The electricity then flickers and the clock returns to normal. In the next scene, she is with Mulder at the prison in Illinois to help determine how Donnie escaped. She claims that the case does not bother her, but she is clearly affected by her memory of how Donnie kidnapped her years earlier. In the prison room where Orison preached to the prisoners Scully hears a song that she recognizes from her childhood coming from an air vent. Mulder interviews the man whose fingers were cut off -- in reality they weren't, even though he felt the blade. Mulder believes that Donnie escaped as the result of mass hypnosis, but doubts that Donnie did it. Two other prisoners at other prisoners have escaped in the same way, never to be heard from again. Mulder observe that the prison chaplain had contact with all three missing men.

At a bus stop coffee shop, a prostitute propositions Donnie. He offers to manicure her, but Orison interrupts -- the grace of God got Donnie out of prison and it is the only thing that will keep him out. US Marshals arrive, orison flicks his keys and chants a prayer, and the Marshals discover that Donnie and Orison have disappeared. Outside, Donnie runs Orison down with Orison's car, then drives off with the prostitute in the car with him. When Mulder and Scully arrive at the coffee shop, the US Marshals are very confused. They thought they saw Donnie, but then he wasn't there. On a radio in the coffee shop, Scully hears the same song again, "Don't Look any Farther." At the hospital, Scully talks with Orison. He tells Scully that she heard God calling, but doesn't know what to do and says, "Everything has a reason, Scout."

Mulder arrives, with a picture of the dead prostitute. Orison is shocked. Mulder concludes that Orison managed to get the prisoners out in order to kill them. Orison was convicted of murder in 1959 and served 22 years in prison. Scully tells Mulder that she is confused by hearing that song repeatedly. She hasn't heard it for years. When she was 13 and her father was stationed in San Diego, she was listening to that song when her mother told her that her Sunday school teacher had been murdered. That was when Scully first believed that there is true evil in the world. The Sunday school teacher used to call her "Scout." Mulder shows Scully that an MRI scan or orison's head shows what appears to be a self-inflicted brain wound that given Orison greatly increased blood flow to the brain. Mulder believes that this given Orison mental powers, such as the ability to impose mass hypnosis. Later, Orison causes the US Marshall guarding him to not notice as Orison leaves the hospital. Orison leaves a note by the bed that Scully later finds, saying "Don't look any farther."

Donnie is at Orison's apartment. A redheaded call girl arrives. Donnie goes through his usual routine of having her get in the tub so he can shampoo her. She soon decides that he is too weird and begins to leave, but Donnie discovers that her red hair is a wig, and becomes mad. The girl knocks him down and runs, escaping. When Donnie wakes up, Orison is there, with the Marshall's gun. When Donnie asks what he is doing, Orison answers, "Taking you home -- the wicked shall be punished." Outside, Donnie kneels as Orison digs a grave. Donnie cries, but says he is crying for Orison because "you cannot kill me." Donnie's face appears to transform into that of a demon.

Orison's body is found, buried where Orison intended to bury Donnie. Donnie had actually called to tell then where to find Orison's body. Mulder and Scully go home because the X-File, Orison's special powers, is concluded and the US Marshals can handle the search for Donnie. Donnie, however, precedes them and enters Scully's apartment to wait for her. Scully arrives home and after changing into her flannel pajamas discovers Donnie hiding in her closet. They fight and she almost defeats him, but Donnie he managed to bind her. "You're the one who got away," he said. "The only thing I think about." She screams when he says, "I'm going to run you a bath." At Mulder's apartment, a US Marshall has left him a message that the call girl who escaped Donnie reported him. But Mulder does not check his messages immediately upon returning home.

While Donnie is filling the bathtub he leaves Scully in a closet with her wrists tied behind her. She gets out of the closet and begins making her way across the floor to where her gun was knocked onto the floor. She has a couple of close calls in which Donnie almost sees her and she manages to work her legs through her bound wrists so her hands are in front of her. With scenes moving in slow motion, Mulder bursts into the apartment door and holds Donnie at gunpoint. Scully walks into view, carrying her gun, raises the gun and shoots Donnie. The scene fades out and fades back in to show several law officers in Scully's apartment. Mulder tells Scully that his report will make clear that Donnie gave her no choice. He says she cannot judge herself. She tells Mulder that she is sure that Donnie was evil but she wonders who or what was at work in her that made her pull the trigger. Her concern is what if it was NOT God?

(Note: This episode was broadcast in January, but at 6:06 AM there was plenty of light streaming through Scully's bedroom window, suggesting that the episode takes place later in the year.)

The Amazing Maleeni. At the Santa Monica Pier amusement park, a magician, The Amazing Maleeni, puts on a sideshow but does fairly basic tricks and talks a lot. A heckler complains that the tricks are 100 years old and demands something big. Maleeni announces a trick to reattach a severed head and rotates his head 360 degrees. Later, when the park employee comes to his van to pay him, he finds Maleeni sitting in his van and his head rolls off his body and onto the pavement.

Mulder & Scully are at the park looking at the van. Scully is not intrigued. She thinks the trick is unrelated to the subsequent murder. Mulder thinks it is a magic trick gone wrong. A tourist videotaped the performance. On the tape the agents see the heckler. They find a soda cup seen thrown away on the tape and track him down from finger prints. His name is Billy Labonge and he has a criminal record for pick pocketing. He also does sleight of hand and claims that Maleeni was a bad magician. Labonge demonstrates a similar trick, rotating his hand 360 degrees, and says Maleeni had little originality or style. He also says Maleeni racked up some big gambling debts. As they leave, Labonge returns both of their badge holders, which he has pick pocketed. Scully does an autopsy on Maleeni, identified as Herman Pinchbeck, and is bewildered. His head was carefully sawed off and reattached with spirit gum. But he apparently died of a heart attack and had been dead for over a month and refrigerated. Labonge goes to a North Hollywood pool hall and talks to a man named Cissy Alvarez, whose body is covered with tattoos. They were in prison together. Labonge asks if he wants to get back the money Maleeni owed him and Alvarez is intrigued.

At the Cradok Marine Bank, Mulder and Scully talk to a banker who looks just like Pinchbeck - with a cervical collar around his neck. He is Herman's twin brother, named Albert Pinchbeck. He does a card trick for Mulder and explains that years ago he and his brother worked as a magic act. He was in a recent car accident but Mulder wonders if he was the magician who appeared at Santa Monica Pier as one last act for which his brother would always been remembered. It is revealed that Pinchback is in a wheelchair with no legs as a result of the accident. The agents go back to Labonge for advice. He looks through Maleeni's van but does not find where the body might have been hidden. Mulder finds a gambling marker in the van. Meanwhile, Pinchbeck visits the bank vault and asks the guard about his gun, examining it briefly. Alvarez walks in and threatens Pinchbeck, saying he wants him to pay his brother's gambling debt. An armored car stops along the street when the guards hear a noise. They open the back and a masked and tattooed man is there. The guard shoots but the man disappears. It was Labonge - he had fake tattoos on his hands and cleans them off.

The agents question Alvarez about the marker and he denies being involved with the murder. Mulder tells Scully he thinks they are subject to a case of misdirection. Labonge watches them as they drive off. He places an emergency call to police then enters the pool hall where Alvarez threatens him. Labonge runs out, police arrive and arrest him. Mulder and Scully return to talk to Pinchbeck. Mulder pushes him out of the wheelchair - and it turns out that he does have legs. He is Herman and was afraid for his life because he owes a lot of money. He went to his brother, the banker, for a loan and found him dead. He saw it as an opportunity to become someone else. He faked the car accident and his loss of legs. He is arrested but Mulder doesn't believe his explanation about why. The bank president is concerned that Herman may have accessed the Electronic Funds Transfer system, but he has not. The president comments that for Mulder to investigate the EFT system in more detail would take his badge number, thumbprint and possibly a court order. Scully learns about the armored car robbery attempt - Pinchbeck was the authorizing signature that signed out the truck. In the jail cell at the North Hollywood police station, Labonge is next door to Pinchbeck - they are obviously in league with each other and everything is going perfectly.

At the bank the next morning the vault is found empty. The security footage is blank, but from a couple of days earlier they find footage of Alvarez in the bank and the guard recognizes his tattoos as the guy who attempted to rob the armored car. At the pool hall, the money is found and Alverez is arrested, but he claims it's a frame-up by Labonge. Mulder and Scully suspect that Labonge and Pinchbeck may be working together. As they are to be released on bail the agents question them. They think that Labonge was Maleeni's protegee and it was a setup from the beginning. It was Albert, the banker, who died and Herman, the magician, who took his place. He switched the bullets in the guard's gun clip to be blanks. They used escape artist techniques to get out of jail, stole the money, planted it to frame Alvarez, and got back into jail. But Mulder says they will go free, because it can't be proven. Pinchbeck says, "The great ones always know when to leave the stage." It turns out, though, that Mulder has Pinchbeck's wallet, taken from the evidence room. Why have so elaborate a con game? Mulder says it was really about Electronic Funds Transfers, and an FBI agent has the authority to get into the bank EFT system. The magicians had Mulder's badge number from when Labonge pick pocketed it and thumb print from Pinchbeck's card trick, but the playing card is in the wallet, so they will not be able to steal via EFT. The final question is how did Maleeni turn his head all the way around. Scully demonstrates how she can turn her arm all the way around, as Labonge did. Mulder is left wondering how she did it. Magic, she replies. ( Note: Date taken from armored car log.)

Signs and Wonders. In Blessing, TN, a young man, Jared Chirp, is in an old house in the rain. He looks at papers concerning medical tests, tears them up and packs a suitcase, all the time muttering religious statements. A figure can be seen outside watching, in the rain. Jared has a gun. He goes outside and gets in a car but a rattlesnake is in the car - in fact there are several. The door won't open so Jared grabs the gun and begins shooting the snakes.

Mulder has the report on Jared's death. He had 116 different bite marks from 50 snakes. The car was closed but when he was found there was no evidence of snakes at all, plus these snakes hibernate in the winter. It looks like murder, but why? Scully says that serpents and religion go hand in hand so maybe there's something symbolic in the mind of the murderer. Mulder says maybe these snakes really did serve evil.

At the Blessing Community Church, a teenage girl, Gracie and an older woman, Iris, Jared. Iris owns the boarding house where Gracie lives. Gracie is pregnant. Mulder and Scully talk with the minister, Samuel Mackey. Mackey had his suspicions. His church is founded on acceptance of all people and all beliefs but Jared had belonged to a fundamentalist congregation that practiced snake handling. Jared and his girl friend Gracie left together and Mackey says their former church, and its leader Enoch O'Connor, has persecuted them. Mulder and Scully visit O'Connor's "Church of God with Signs and Wonders." The door is open so they enter. There is no electricity and snakes are loose in the building. The agents are uptight about the snakes but O'Connor enters and moves the snakes out of the way. He says Jared strayed from the path and his death was a test of faith. "I don't think you people realize which side you're on." He seems like a suspect, but the sheriff has ruled O'Connor out. At the church, Iris tells Mackey that on the night he died, Jared called very late and wanted to talk to Gracie. He sounded very strange but Mackey asks to wait until after Bible class to hear more. Both Mackey's class and O'Connor's snake handling service go on simultaneously. Meanwhile, Iris works on stapling bulletins for a church service. As she works, her staple remover turns into a snakehead and bites her. Iris goes into the bathroom to wash the wound and suddenly the bathroom seems filled with snakes.

Mulder and Scully talk with Mackey as Iris' body is taken away. Nobody saw or heard anything until Iris screamed. Mackey tells Mulder about what Iris told him - something about Jared paying for his sins. The agents go to talk with Gracie. She is convinced that O'Connor didn't do this but rather that it was Satan's work. It is revealed that Enoch O'Connor is Gracie's father. When Gracie got pregnant her father kicked her out of the church and his home. They go back to O'Connor's and split up to look around. In an outbuilding, Scully finds mice in cages and lots of snakes in boxes. O'Connor enters and grabs her, forcing her head down onto a snake box. O'Connor forces Scully's hand inside a snake box, but she is not bitten. Mulder appears with his gun and makes O'Connor release Scully. O'Connor is arrested. "Your partner could have learned something about herself if you hadn't stopped me," he says. His wife, Alice, died in June 1994 of snakebites, supposedly during a church service. O'Connor claims that Satan is near and says Mulder can't see it. In jail at night, O'Connor awakes. He kneels and snakes slither in between the bars.

O'Connor is in Intensive Care, covered with snakebites. Gracie has prevented the doctors from giving him anti-venom on religious grounds. Scully wonders if Gracie tried to kill her father - she grew up amid snakes and told Scully her father would be judged. Visiting Jared's room, the agents find the medical tests showing that Jared was sterile. He could not be the father of Gracie's child. Scully says maybe he was killed because he discovered the truth. Reverend Mackey counsels Gracie that you can trust God by trusting in the miracles of doctors and medicine and she eventually agrees to treatment. Later, Mulder and Scully arrive at the hospital. O'Connor and Gracie are both gone and nobody knows how. Mackey tells them Enoch is the father, which is why Gracie wanted to get away from him. O'Connor brings Gracie to his church, where his congregation waits. She struggles but they begin to deliver the baby. Snakes slither out from under her dress.

In the morning, Mulder and Scully arrive at O'Connor's church. Gracie is in deep shock and has loss of blood. From the pool of blood on the floor, snake tracks can be seen. Scully goes in the ambulance with Gracie while Mulder heads for Mackey's church, feeling that O'Connor may now threaten Reverend Mackey. O'Connor confronts Mackey and pulls out a knife but Mulder enters and shoots O'Connor in the shoulder, saving Mackey. In the ambulance, Gracie tells Scully that her father saved her, rather than threatened her harm. AS Mackey is in the other room, calling for an ambulance, O'Connor repeats to Mulder that Mulder doesn't know which side he's on. "Be smart down here," O'Connor says, pointing to Mulder's heart. Mulder pulls his gun on Mackey, claiming Mackey is the father of Gracie's baby. Maybe he wanted to destroy O'Connor by any conceivable means. Mackey asks if Mulder were put to the test, how would he do? Snakes appear and surround Mulder, even crawling out of his sleeves and pant legs. Scully arrives at the church and hears Mulder cry out. When she finally breaks down the door, Mulder has been bitten and the last snake is seen leaving.

At the hospital, Scully reports that police have not found Mackey. If it was test, Scully thinks Mulder passed - he is alive. Mackey is seen at another church, in Hamden, CT, now calling himself Reverend Wells. In his desk he has a box of mice. He opens his mouth, a snake emerges and grabs the mouse, then retreats back into his mouth.

(Note: No firm date is given in this episode. The statement is made that the snakes should be hibernating, indicating winter. In one scene Mulder is outside in his shirtsleeves, but for most of the episode he wears a coat which is probably typical for Tennessee in winter.)

Sein Und Zeit. Amber Lynn LaPierre, a young girl, says her prayers before going to bed. Mom and Dad watch from the door then tuck her in. Later, as Dad watches TV, Billie LaPierre is seen in a daze, writing an abduction note concluding with the cryptic statement "no one shoots at Santa Claus." Amber's door slams shut. Mr. LaPierre breaks in the door and the child is gone.

At FBI HQ in Washington at around 3 am, the investigation is under way on the LaPierre kidnapping in Sacramento. Mulder enters and wants the case. Skinner doesn't think it's an X-File but ends up allowing Mulder to fly out and investigate. Mulder arrives at the LaPierre home and questions the LaPierres about the note. They lie about the circumstances. At 10 pm, Scully arrives at Mulder's motel, sent by Skinner to find out why he hasn't reported. As they talk, Mulder's mother calls. She has been watching the news about Amber Lynn and wants him to call when he gets back to the east coast.

In Washington, Skinner is doing a briefing when Mulder and Scully enter. The note may have been written in Mrs. LaPierre's handwriting and the evidence is pointing at the parents but Mulder says none of the theories explain what happened to the little girl. Scully thinks Mulder is personalizing the case, thinking about his abducted sister but Mulder recognizes something in the note. In a Pocatella, Idaho kidnapping in 1987 a note with the same "no one shoots at Santa Claus" signature was found. The agents go to the Idaho state women's prison and talk to Kathy Lee Tencate. She was convicted of the murder of her six year old son Dean, taken from his room with the note found her handwriting. Dean was never found. Mulder thinks she is innocent. She refuses to help, but when they leave she has a vision of her son and calls them back.

Mrs. Mulder calls Fox again, leaving a message on his answering machine. There is so much she has left unsaid that she hopes he will someday understand. She burns pictures of her family. Mulder, meanwhile, is in California and shows the LaPierre's a video of Tencate telling part of her story. It was like the words of the note wrote themselves, she says. She knows her son is safe and protected. The LaPierre's make a private statement to authorities and are released for lack of evidence. A chubby man is seen watching news video.

In Washington, Mulder is discussing the case with Skinner when Scully enters. Mulder's mother has committed suicide. Mulder and Scully arrive at her home in Greenwich, CT, where police are still reviewing scene. The room was sealed and the gas oven opened. She also took sleeping pills. Mulder says it doesn't make sense that she would do this. Why are the family pictures gone? Mulder suspects that whoever took his sister did this to her. He is grasping at straws. He demands that Scully do an autopsy. Mulder returns to Kathy Lee Tencate, who opens up this time. His mother has seen them, she says - the "walk-ins" -- old souls looking for new homes. She can see them sometimes but it is hard because they live in the starlight. "They" took Samantha to protect her soul from the harm it would suffer in life but Tencate doesn't know where the children are taken. At Santa's North Pole Village children's park, kids look at a pen with reindeer. The proprietor says Santa is just flying in. He goes inside and enters a locked room filled with video tape boxes and equipment where he prepares to put on a Santa suit.

Mulder finally hears the answering machine tape. Scully arrives and he plays the tape for her. He thinks his mother knew what he would find in the Amber Lynn case. The parents have had psychic visions of their children. His mother must have written a similar note when Samantha was taken. He's been looking in the wrong place. She was trying to warn him, that's why they killed her, he claims, but Scully's autopsy shows Teena Mulder was suffering from a terminal disease. She knew and didn't want to live. Mulder still believes she was trying to tell him something. Scully thinks his Mom wanted him to stop looking for Samantha - to take away his pain.

At the LaPierre residence, Mrs. LaPierre sees a vision of Amber Lynn standing next to her bed at night. In the morning, Skinner arrives at Mulder's apartment where he is greeted by Scully. Mulder has had a rough night. Mrs. LaPierre is asking to talk to Mulder. All three go to California and Mulder talks to Billie LaPierre who describes seeing her daughter in pajamas, trying to say something to her -- possibly the words "seventy four." Mulder does an unexpected turn around and tells Skinner and Scully that Amber Lynn is dead and that he wants off the case so he can take some leave time. As they drive off, Scully sees a highway sign for route 74. She realizes the Santa Village connection. They drive to the establishment and enter. Mulder and Scully find the inner room with the video equipment. Some of the tapes go back to the 60s. Scully puts one in a machine and finds images of Amber Lynn at a playground, dated two days before her disappearance. The owner of Santa's Village enters and locks Mulder and Scully inside. He runs and Skinner chases. Mulder and Scully break down the door and also give chase. Skinner fires into the air and Santa stops. The man, who says his name is Scruloff, is arrested and nearby the agents find what appear to be several shallow graves. To be continued.

(Note: Dating this episode is difficult. The episode shows a television broadcast recapping the State of the Union Address, which was given on January 27, 2000. On the other hand, there are television clips from the Chris Carter series Harsh Realm, which premiered October 8, 1999, and was canceled after three weeks. The FX cable network announced plans to rerun all eight filmed episodes of Harsh Realm in March 2000, but that is late for a recap of the State of the Union Address. If the episode actually does depict the original Harsh Realm broadcasts, this probably places the beginning of the episode on October 22 or 29, 1999.)

Teena Mulder is buried in Raleigh, North Carolina. (Within)

Closure. In an opening narration, Mulder describes the bodies being uncovered from the shallow graves, one by one. Are they still dreaming the dreams of children or was their innocence taken along with their lives? We see a scene of children getting up from their graves and forming a ghostly circle, as the narration describes them waiting in the starlight to be born again at God's behest.

Mulder and Scully are at the technical services room of the Sacramento police department. Scruloff was 19 when he committed his first murder, the first time he was asked to portray Santa Claus. He has admitted to 24 murders but he refuses to take blame for Amber Lynn. Her body was not found in the graves. Hard as it is, Mulder wanted one of the graves to be Samantha. Harold Piller comes to see the agents. He is a psychic who has gotten some strong "hits" from this case - about Amber Lynn. He has worked with police around the world and has seen children's bodies in previous incidents transported away from an accident scene by walk-ins. Scully doesn't want to involve Piller because Mulder is vulnerable right now. Scully goes back to Washington because she feels she can't do anymore in California. Mulder takes Piller to the grave site. Piller's son disappeared under strange circumstances, then one day he started to see visions of him. Piller believes that the walk-ins are good spirits, saving the children from some terrible fate about to happen. They transform matter into energy - starlight. But Piller senses that Scruloff's victims all died suffering. Amber Lynn wasn't here, Piller says, but he senses a connection between her and Mulder. Piller knows about Samantha - what is the connection between Samantha and Amber Lynn?

Scully and an FBI expert watch a videotape of Mulder's June 16, 1989 hypnotic regression, telling the story of Samantha's disappearance. The expert doubts Mulder's story because it seems to be typical guilt fantasies. Mulder's delusion is playing into his unconscious hope that his sister is still alive. There was a huge search for Samantha in 1973. Even the Treasury Department was involved. The expert advises Scully to leave it be, because Mulder's wound may be too painful to reopen, but Scully feels she owes it to Mulder. Late at night, Mulder is watching Planet of the Apes when Piller knocks at his motel door. In a trance Piller says Mulder's mother is present and we see a ghostly image of Mrs. Mulder in the room. Piller says she wants to tell about Samantha, but then he "loses" her. They then find the words "April Base" written on a paper pad.

Scully visits Mrs. Mulder's home and searches. In the wastepaper basket where pictures were burned she finds part of a document. Scully phones Mulder to tell him that the document scrap matches a document in Samantha's Treasury investigation file. It is a copy of the document signed with the initials CGBS calling off the investigation. Both agents recognize the initials as belonging to the Cigarette Smoking Man and Scully is astounded when Mulder doesn't want to press the Smoking Man on the issue. Mulder is pursuing the matter in his own way. He and Piller arrive at the decommissioned April Air Force Base, where Piller senses something. A security guard drives up and tells them to move along. Meanwhile, Scully arrives home to find the Smoking Man waiting for her. He seems not well and he mentions having had an operation. He wants her to stop looking. He admits to signing the order because he believed Samantha was dead. He didn't tell Mulder for so long because there was so much to protect before that is all gone now. He leaves, sadly.

Mulder and Piller return to the base at night and climb the fence. In a residential area, Piller senses that Samantha was present. They hide as a police car drives by, then Mulder finds the name Samantha and a handprint in the cement of a sidewalk of a home. Beside it is another handprint and the name Jeffrey, a reference to Jeffrey Spender, the Smoking Man's son. Later, Scully arrives back in California. Mulder doesn't believe what the Smoking Man said because of the handprint. Scully thinks Piller was just leading Mulder along. The agents go and confront Piller -- he is the subject of a criminal investigation into the disappearance of his son and he has a history of mental problems, which he claims he has under control. He makes a compelling case that he is no different from Mulder and just wants to find his son. All three sneak back into the base and enter the house where Samantha apparently lived. It has been vacant for a long time. Piller asks them to hold hands so he can try to summon the spirits of the residents. We see ghostly visions of many people. One boy takes Mulder by the hand and leads him down the hall. Scully and Piller realize Mulder is missing and find him in another room. Mulder finds a diary that is apparently Samantha's. They read it in a restaurant. It is dated 1979, when Samantha would have been 14. It describes tests. Samantha lies and tells "them" what they want to hear because she hates them. She suspects her memories were taken by the doctors. She vaguely remembers a brother and she hopes he someday reads the diary. In the final entry she talks about running away. Outside the restaurant, Mulder looks up at the stars and says maybe the starlight really is made up of old souls, because there is nothing as ancient in the universe as starlight. Later, as Mulder sleeps, his mother appears in his room and speaks to him, but we can't hear what she says.

Scully finds a 1979 police report with a description matching Samantha. They visit a hospital to read reports of a "Jane Doe" admitted. Her mental state exhibited signs of paranoia and there were marks, possibly from the tests. Mulder is convinced that the Smoking Man knew about this. The agents and Piller go to visit the emergency room nurse who signed Samantha in. Outside the house, Mulder has the feeling that this is the end of the road, that he has been brought here to learn the truth. He waits outside as Scully and Piller to go the door and talk to the woman, named Arbutus Ray. She remembers the pretty young girl. She had a vision of the girl dead, but nobody believed her, then she blinked and the vision was gone and the girl was sleeping safely. There were men who came to pick her up. One appeared to be her father and as she describes him it is clear that he was the Smoking Man. When the men went to Samantha's locked room, she had vanished. Scully turns and finds that Mulder is no longer waiting by the car. The same spirit boy, Piller's son, leads Mulder to a field where other spirit children play. The lighting of the scene looks as if they might be made of starlight. Amber Lynn is there, as is Samantha who runs up and hugs Mulder. Mulder returns to Scully and Piller. It is the end of the road and they are all dead, he says, with conviction. Piller sees so much but he refuses to see his son. They are all at a better place, Mulder says, but Piller refuses to believe. Scully asks Mulder if he is OK. He replies, "I'm fine - free," and looks up at the stars as the episode ends.

(Note: Closed captioning in this episode gave the name of the killer as "Ed Truelove" while in Sein Und Zeit closed captioning gave it as "Scruloff.")

X-COPS. (This episode, the 150th of the series, was shot on video using the handheld camera style of the FOX network series "COPS." In the episode "tease," before the opening credits, we see the standard "COPS" intro, with the "Bad Boys" music, and see Mulder and Scully among the law enforcement officers seen in the opening credits. A "viewer discretion" warning is also included.)

Los Angeles sheriff's deputy Keith Wetzel, on patrol, talks about how crazy stuff happens under a full moon. A prowler call is received of a reported monster lurking around a high-crime neighborhood. Exiting his car the officer searches the neighborhood. Claw scratches are found on the door of the woman who reported the monster. She is hysterical. He walks behind the house to search further then runs back toward the cameraman - "run, get back in the car, 10-33 officer needs assistance." Something attacks the car.

Assistance arrives to find the police car overturned. Wetzel is disoriented but tells other officers that it must have been "gang bangers." A report of armed suspects nearby is received and the officers run off to find Mulder and Scully. They are first held at gunpoint but then released when the deputies find the agent's FBI IDs. They're working on the same case as the officers. Mulder says it is not a question of who did this, but what. There have been a half-dozen similar sightings in the last 60 days and only on nights with a full moon. Based on previous descriptions, Mulder says it was large, stood on hind legs, and was covered with fur. Mulder discovers that the deputy was bitten. Mulder thinks it was a werewolf. 29 days ago a man was bitten and gave a full description before he died. Mulder says the deputy will have to be isolated. Scully doesn't like the camera crew, but Mulder think that finding proof of the paranormal on national television would be good. Scully takes deputy Wetzel to the hospital.

The Hispanic lady is still distraught, talking about a claw monster. The sergeant overseeing the scene is highly skeptical. Mulder's previous witness provided a sketch that looks like a werewolf but a sketch artist works with this lady and produces a sketch that looks like Freddie Krueger. Scully returns. The deputy's wounds turned out to be insect bites. Scully checked with Skinner who told her to cooperate with the crew from COPS because the FBI has nothing to hide. Another incident is reported and everybody races off to find the sketch artist who had left a few minutes earlier. He has claw marks across his chest. Scully finds a pink artificial fingernail on the ground nearby. They talk to the men in the nearby residence who are homosexual. They didn't see the attacker but heard all of the screaming. They recognize the color of the fingernail as belonging to a streetwalker, Chantara Gomez.

Mulder tells the camera that there have been so many conflicting reports that it is hard to tell what they are looking for but he is certain that it is paranormal. Driving around they see Chantara, identifying her by her description of bubblegum pink hair. She runs but they corner her - with her face blurred on the video. She is crying. She heard screaming and went to help but ran away when she heard the sirens. She says the attacker was "Chuko," her boyfriend who has been chasing her for a week. He told her he was going to twist her neck off like a chicken if she didn't give him more money. Police know him - he is a drug dealer. With a warrant they go to his crack house but Mulder doesn't think he is responsible because no matter how bad his reputation he can't turn over a squad car. Officers raid the crack house. They find Chuko's body. He died of a drug overdose, probably a couple of days ago and could not have been who Chantara saw. Shots are soon fired outside. The officers rush outside to find Deputy Wetzel who says that whatever it was came back. Chantara, who was in one of the squad cars, is dead.

The sergeant doesn't understand what is going on but Mulder finally gets Wetzel to admit what he saw. He says it looked like the "wasp man" quoting a horror story his brother told him when he was little. That fits with his wounds being insect bites, but he can't explain and doesn't know what it really was. Mulder wonders if all of the attacks are all by one creature that appears as your worst nightmare. The only way to find it must be to determine it's pattern. Scully realizes that the two homosexuals, who were witnesses, could also be in the pattern of attack. The agents return to their home and find them fighting about their relationship. Mulder and Scully stay with them for some time to keep watch but eventually leave, stationing a couple of deputies there to protect them. There are only 4-5 hours until the moon sets. Scully goes to examine Chantara's body while Mulder rides with Wetzel, the only person to have seen it twice. Deputy is surprised that Mulder believes him. He's been on the job for 18 months and is worried about being considered crazy. It's hard to get on the law enforcement fast track when people think you're nuts, he says, and Mulder agrees.

At the morgue a second film crew watches Scully do the autopsy, blurring the open body. The morgue attendant is disturbed, asking a series of questions about possible disease. Scully says there is no suspicion of disease here, mentioning the Hanta virus in passing. The attendant becomes even more upset, suddenly sneezing. Blood comes out her nose and she collapses and dies. When Mulder arrives, Scully says it was certainly not the Hanta virus, which doesn't kill that fast. It was like the power of suggestion. She was afraid and her fear killed her, says Mulder, claiming that it is the same MO as the other attacks. Scully didn't see anything, Mulder says, because she wasn't afraid. This thing is attracted to mortal fear. A high crime neighborhood would attract it. Meanwhile the other camera crew is with Wetzel, back at the crack house. They've checked every place else for this thing to reappear, so they'd better check here. They go inside but hear a noise and Wetzel and the camera crew panic, then the screen goes to static. Mulder and Scully arrive at the crack house with other officers and find the door locked. The FBI agents go around and enter a back door while the deputies continue hammering at the front door with a battering ram. They find the camera crew that was with Wetzel hiding in a closet. Proceeding upstairs they hear Wetzel behind a locked door, is crying for help. Mulder calls to him "it can't hurt you." when Mulder finally breaks down the door they find Wetzel on the floor, injured but alive. The sergeant enters, deputies having finally broken open the front door. "What happened?" she asks. "The sun just came up," Mulder responds. Whatever it was just went away until the next full moon. It's going to be a hard one to write up, concludes Scully.

(No exact date reference is given in this episode, however it was first broadcast on the full moon date of February 20, 2000.)

First Person Shooter. Three men, dressed in armor and carrying futuristic looking weapons enter a street between buildings and are attacked by a gang on motorcycles. They fire and each of the motorcycles explodes as it is hit. In a control room, Ivan and Phoebe are watching on computer monitors and monitoring their vital signs. The team, calling themselves "Geeks" is fired on by men from the building windows. One makes his way into a basement and meets a woman wearing black mesh and leather cat suit and spike heels. She says her name is Maitreya and this is her game, her hand morphs into a flintlock pistol and she fires.

At FPS corporate headquarters, Mulder and Scully arrive, passing through heavy security, including retinal scans and signing nondisclosure agreements. FPS stands for the First Person Shooter -- an innovative video game that uses projectors to fill a large game space with the virtual scenery and characters. The Lone Gunmen greet the agents -- they are consultants for the company and there has been an accident. The game is scheduled to ship on Friday but there is a dead body - he has been shot, but there was no gun, other than the guns of the game that do not actually work. They work with the computer and eventually find the image of Maitreya, which Mulder has printed out. Scully calls the police over objections from Ivan Martinez, the game developer who doesn't want to hurt their business deal. A game player enters who is identified as Darryl Musashi, a virtual game guru who also sometimes contracts with the CIA. He enters the game space as the others watch from the control room. The bikers attack and he blows them up. He easily reaches the basement and Maitreya, dressed differently this time, attacks, cutting off his hands, then killing him with a broadsword.

Scully performs an autopsy on "Retro," the first dead man. There is no trace of the projectile. The suit they were wearing is high tech, including electric charges to simulate shots. Scully thinks it's great technology wasted on a stupid game. In spite of her attitude, Mulder and the Gunmen love the idea of the game. "Men feel the need to blast the crap out of stuff," Scully says. The LA Sheriff's Department notifies Mulder that they have picked up a suspect who perfectly fits the description of the virtual suspect. She is a sultry brunette calling herself Jade Blue Afterglow, picked up outside a strip club. She meets a lot of men but had no idea about FPS. When Mulder shows her the computer image, she says she got paid to let a medical imaging facility do a body scan.

The agents return to FPS. Ivan is with the money guys, trying to save his deal. Scully thinks he scanned Afterglow. The Gunmen are on a monitor screen, doing a test, but all of a sudden they are in the game - the program is somehow running itself and they are in trouble. Mulder suits up and enters the game. Byers was shot, but says he's OK. Mulder sees Maitreya and is not willing to leave with the Gunmen. He follows her into the basement and she approaches with the sword, now dressed in a skintight black quasi-Ninja outfit. The Gunmen hear Mulder fire but as they run to help him, the game appears to shut down, with Mulder still in it.

Although they can't find Mulder, in the control room Phoebe is still getting his telemetry. He's alive and still in the game, even though they can't figure out where the game is running. Mulder wakes up and finds the sword but no Maitreya. Returning to the avenue between the buildings, Maitreya approaches in a series of back flips, then disappears again. Ivan returns from meeting with his financial backers -- FBI investigating an unsolved death will be great marketing material. Phoebe, it turns out, knew about Afterglow. She had Maitreya on her computer, developing her own video game. Phoebe has been choking in a haze of testosterone. Maitreya was everything mousy Phoebe couldn't be. Somehow Maitreya jumped programs and is feeding on the male aggression. Phoebe says Scully, being a woman, is the only one who can understand. Meanwhile, in the game, Mulder's gun says out of ammo. Maitreya returns and kicks Mulder around. When he escapes and returns to the basement to get the sword, the program transforms and he finds himself on a western town street.

Diagnostics finally locate Mulder - the western street is level two of the game, which nobody has ever beaten. They can't power down the game. Maitreya, dressed in white as a halter-topped and chapped western gunfighter, appears multiplied into many copies. Scully enters the game to rescue Mulder, wearing the standard black kevlar and body armor suit of the game players. She fires, eliminating the multiple copies of Maitreya. As they continue to fight, Phoebe and Ivan argue - she knows about a kill switch that can end the game, but it will completely erase the game. Maitreya returns on a tank. Phoebe provides the kill command and Frohike ends the game. Mulder and Scully are shaken but OK. "That's entertainment," Mulder quips. Later, Maitreya appears to Ivan on his computer screen, but with Scully's face and hair. He laughs, very pleased.

(Note: Pinning down a date for this episode is difficult. Mulder mentions jokingly that he has "a birthday coming up." Because of the context, his birthday in October may have no relevance. At 5:42 AM the skies are still dark in California, suggesting a generally winter date.)

Theef. In Marin County, California, a family arrives home at a mansion. Robert Wieder, MD, has just won the Bay Area Doctor of the year. He and his wife, Nan, are there, as well as their daughter Lucy and Mrs. Welder's father, Irv, who agrees to spend the night. In his bedroom, Irv opens the covers of his bed and finds dirt in the shape of a person. We see a man later identified as Oral Peattie in the room behind him. In the Wieder's bedroom, Robert hears a signal from the downstairs motion sensor. He goes downstairs to investigate and finds Irv hanging from a rope, dead, his throat cut, with the word "theef" written in blood on the wall.

Mulder and Scully are at the mansion, trying to understand the word "theef." It appears to be a wrong spelling of "thief," as if written by an uneducated person. If Irv killed himself, how did the word get scrawled in the wall? Mulder observes that the dirt in the bed is a powerful element in hex-craft. Scully admits that she can accept hex-craft as the intent, although she doesn't believe he has actual power. Robert says neither he nor his father-in-law had any enemies.

In a low rent rooming house, a landlady is cleaning when she hears a noise in an apartment. She talks with a man inside and complains about the smell but he says it's medicine and offers her a poultice for her bad back. Inside his room we see that he is making little rough-cloth dolls that look almost like voodoo dolls. At the Marin County morgue, Mulder says the dirt contained signs of decay which could be a powerful hex component. Irv's brain was filled with a disease once known to New Guinea tribesmen who were cannibals. The disease causes progressive dementia but is very rare. Mulder wonders if Irv was given the dirt to drive him crazy and kill himself.

Nan Wieder finds a frame with a picture of the family missing and wonders why someone would take their photograph. Peattie is in their house with one of his dolls. He stabs a pin into it. Robert turns down the bed and finds dirt in the shape of a human. Nan begins convulsing and Robert orders Lucy to call 911. At the hospital, Nan is in treatment and is diagnosed with a very rare condition. Mulder says someone directed the disease to her. Robert brushes off Mulder's claim of folk. Scully says at least there was an intruder in their home and the family needs protection. Robert can't believe that all of modern medicine arrayed against a pile of magic dirt will lose. Later, as Robert looks at his wife's x-rays, Peattie enters and says the truth always hurts. He mentions Lynette Peattie but Robert doesn't recognize the name. Peattie says, "ponder it awhile and it gonna come to you. After Peattie leaves, Robert determines that Lynette is not in his patient file. He does find a Jane Doe in his file that he identifies as Lynette.

The landlady knocks on Peattie's door -- the poultice worked a miracle on her back and she wants more. Meanwhile, Mulder and Scully visit an occult shop. Mulder shows a sample of the hex dust. The shop owner says the dust can be spread on or near the victim to bring misfortune. Giving them an exact disease, however, would require much more skill, as well as a doll with several specific items inside, including a picture of the victim. The owner says the person the agents are looking for must be drawing on the energy of a charm - a source of magic power that has great meaning for him. Unless you can separate him from the charm you are out of luck, she says.

The drug therapy being used on Nan is working well and she feels much better, although she has contracted a very rare disease. She is about to have an MRI and her husband says it is no more radiation than a dental x-ray. Peattie is in the hospital and buys microwave popcorn from a vending machine in the hospital. He then puts a doll into the microwave and Nan is burned t death by radiation. Man removes the doll - removes a picture of Nan from it and say "all done."

Robert talks with the agents and wonders how somebody orchestrate this. There was no malfunction and he now believes his wife was murdered. "THEEF" was found written on his wife's chest. He tells Mulder and Scully about Lynette Peattie. He treated her last October after she was brought to the hospital with many other people injured in a bus rollover. She was the worst hurt and in triage everyone knew she was dying. When he saw that he could not help her and that she was in agony, he gave her morphine. In effect, he shortened her life by 20 minutes, because of the condition she was in. Mulder thinks the murderer must be Lynette's father. He thinks Robert robbed him of her daughter and now he's robbing him of her family. Scully determines that Lynette had no Social Security number and only showed up once in the public records, in 1981 when her father refused to allow her to inoculated for Polio in the Allegheny Mountains of West Virginia.

Lynette's grave is exhumed. Mulder thinks Peattie's magic charm is her body - as long as it is there in the bay area he remains powerful, but if they ship it off the Quantico, he will lose his power. When the coffin is opened, however, there is no body in it. The landlady returns to Peattie's apartment for another poultice - he doesn't come to the door so she enters. There is a lump on the bed under the sheet - suspicious, she looks and it is a long-dead body. Peattie sneaks up behind her.

Scully takes Robert and Lucy to a cabin to get them out of their mansion and protect them. While Mulder waits at the mansion for Peattie to arrive he sees a news account of a 56 year old woman who contracted a rare flesh-eating disease. Mulder's suspicion is triggered by the rare disease and rushes to Peattie's apartment. Peattie is gone but the body is still in the bed, missing the head. Mulder alerts Scully that Peattie took as much of the magic charm with him as he could carry. Mulder promises that he is on his way to join Scully and the Wieders. Peattie, however, is already outside the cabin and tells his daughter's head, "soon." He breaks a window of Scully's car. Inside the cabin, Scully hears the noise and draws her gun to guard the door. Peattie finds Scully's FBI security pass in the glove compartment and sews her picture into a doll. He pokes nails into the doll and immediately Scully can't see. Peattie breaks down t he door and Scully fires but misses him. He takes her gun away and she is helpless. Peattie Robert and Lucy. He stabs a knife into a doll and Robert experiences intense pain. Scully has her gun and fires at Peattie, disabling him. Mulder has driven up, found the broken window of Scully's car and found the doll of her inside. He removed the nails, allowing her to see again, find the gun and aim it.

At the medical center, Mulder and Scully talk. Lynette's body is on it's way back to West Virginia. Her father is in Intensive Care. Scully admits that would have done the same as Robert if she was sure she couldn't save Lynette's life. The agents are left with the unanswered question of whether Peattie's magic could have saved his daughter's life.

En Ami. In Goochland, Virginia, the McPeck family drives home in car with an eleven year old boy in back seat. Their car runs a gauntlet of people who are shouting and holding signs. The boy, Jason, has cancer and the religious beliefs of the family prevent them from seeking medical help. At night, a storm comes up, a light glows outside the window and Jason sees men in black approach out of the light.

As Scully leaves her apartment she finds a newspaper outside her door - the Goochland newspaper describing Jason's miracle cure. The family claims the cure was by angels. Mulder also got an anonymous e-mail about it. Someone wants them to investigate. While Mulder checks other sources, Scully visits the family. They believe that it was God's work. Jason says the angels looked like men, told him not to be afraid and pinched him hard on the back of the neck. Scully realizes that Jason has a neck wound and possibly has a chip implanted there, just as a chip cured her own cancer. Scully returns to her car to find the Smoking Man waiting for her. He claims to have saved both Jason's and Scully's lives and left the newspaper and the e-mail. He says he is dying himself and wants to bequeath his cure to her. (He's tired of Mulder's mule headedness.) He leaves a paper on the seat as she drives off.

The paper has a phone number. Scully traces the number and gets the address. Going to the building she finds high security but they send her to the third floor where she finds an office labeled "CGB Spender." The Smoking Man awaits her and tells her that as he looks at the sum of his life, most of his work is in ruins. As the darkness descends, he finds that he has no legacy. He is dying of cerebral inflammation resulting from his brain surgery and has only a few months. He is willing to give her the science that provides the miracle cure, but she has to travel with him - it will take a few days and she must not tell Mulder. She is reluctant, but her interest overcomes her and she leaves word for Mulder that she will be out of town for a few days, claiming a family emergency. She is carrying a microphone, hidden in her bra.

Scully and the Smoking Man talk as they drive. He has always had a sort of affection for her and Mulder. He held her life in his hands when he cured her of cancer. The Smoking Man thinks Scully is drawn to powerful men but also keeps distant from them, which is why she would die for Mulder but won't allow herself to love him. She dismisses his comments as "pop psychology." He takes her down a dirt road, and we see that they are being followed. They arrive at a pleasant country home where a woman named Marjorie Butters lives, who the Smoking Man claims is 118 years old, although she is as vital as a much younger woman. She is gardening and greets CSM with a hug. Scully sees that Marjorie has a scar on the back of her neck - apparent evidence of the validity of the Smoking Man's claims for his science.

Scully's apartment manager tells Mulder about Scully leaving with a "driver," who Mulder recognizes as the Smoking Man. Skinner and Mulder are concerned but can't find Scully. She took an FBI vehicle and her mother knows nothing about an emergency. Scully phones Skinner and says everything is OK, but she won't talk directly to Mulder. Mulder becomes convinces that she is in trouble. Scully and the Smoking Man stop for gas and she goes to the bathroom, talking on the tape to Mulder. She secretly mails the tape to Mulder but as they drive off the man following them is seen to have gotten the envelope out of the mailbox.

They end up at a lake home, late at night. Scully is asleep in the car and the Smoking Man puts on gloves, brushing a lock of hair out of her face. Scully wakes up to find herself in satin pajamas. She thinks the Smoking Man drugged her but he says he just carried her in so that she would be comfortable. They are in Milford, Pennsylvania. She is upset and ready to leave, but finally decides she has to know the answers. The Lone Gunmen arrive at Mulder's apartment, in disguise. They got into Scully's apartment and found e-mails on her computer to somebody named "Cobra." Mulder and the Gunmen barge into Skinner's office carrying Scully's laptop. For the last 6 months Cobra has been e-mailing Scully from the department of defense, but she is unaware of it. Somebody has been posing as Scully to win Cobra's trust. Mulder is convinced that the Smoking Man is doing this and Scully's life is in danger. Meanwhile, the Smoking Man tells Scully that they'll be meeting their contact for dinner and provides her an evening dress. At a fancy restaurant, Smoking Man says that their contact, Cobra, is to human genetic science what the early nuclear scientists were to nuclear warfare. The Smoking Man says that if Cobra receives assurances, the science he turns over will be not just a cure for cancer but a cure for all human disease. How? From the final frontier - largely extraterrestrial. Theoretically the Smoking Man can be cured but it appears that he doesn't really want to be. He is a lonely man. The Smoking Man goes outside for a smoke. The man who has been following them approaches and points out that Cobra hasn't shown up, so they have to wait, but Scully won't stick around for ever. The Smoking Man tells him, "Just do your damn job.

Cobra, however, has slipped Scully a note about where she should meet him. The Smoking Man lets her take a small motorboat to the Calico Cove inlet, down the lake. Another boat approaches hers. Cobra comments that they are finally meeting and that she is just as she described herself. He hands her a CD-ROM. She denies that they have spoken before - but he is shot and dies before they can say more. The sniper then targets Scully, but the Smoking Man kills him before he can fire at her. She returns to the lake home where the Smoking Man meets her. Because she still believes him, she gives him the CD-ROM but he gives it back. Later, Scully is at Mulder's apartment where the Lone Gunmen help examine the content of the disk. It is empty. They return to the building where Spender's office was, but it is vacant. Mulder says that the Smoking Man used Scully. Marjorie Butters was a fake. Jason has a chip in his neck but the parents probably won't let them examine him. Scully believed the Smoking Man but Mulder thinks he used her to save himself, to get the science on that disk - saving himself at the expense of the human race. Scully says that for a moment she saw something in the Smoking Man's eyes, a longing for something more than power - something he could never have. Realizing what he is doing, the Smoking Man throws the real CD into the lake, apparently dooming himself and keeping the cure for all disease from the human race.

Chimera. At an Easter egg hunt, two mothers, Ellen Adderly and Martha Critterdon, talk. It is a perfect event, but they are unhappy that Jenny Uphouse showed up with her son. She is from the other side of town, and they don't like her. Martha's daughter, Michelle, wanders off a bit as she looks for Easter egg and is frightened by a raven and then by Jenny. At night, Martha talks with her husband on the phone - he is on a trip and Martha wants him to come home a day early to be with his daughter. Later she sees the raven in her living room, a mirror shatters and she screams.

Mulder and Scully are conducting surveillance in a red-light district of Washington DC. There is some kind of mystery woman - six women were seen with her at the Dirty Dames club, but each disappeared. Scully dislikes the round-the-clock exposure to the underbelly of society. Mulder is called away to FBI HQ, leaving Scully behind. Skinner assigns Mulder to look into the case of Martha's disappearance two weeks earlier. Ravens are involved, which are mythological symbols. Mulder thinks it is a punishment duty, but Martha is the daughter of a federal judge and the case has high priority. skinner thinks that the elements of the case speak to Mulder's strengths as an investigator. Mulder arrives at the home of Martha and Howard Critterdon and meets the sheriff, Phil Adderly, who is Ellen's husband. The whole town is very concerned. There was no ransom note or evidence. The daughter, Michelle, mentioned a raven. Mulder finds scratches on the mantel that might be talon scratches, as well as the broken mirrors. When Howard was straightening up he found Martha's birth control pills, ordered off the Internet. He thinks she was having an affair because he had a vasectomy some years earlier. He also found an old-looking door key in her things that he doesn't recognize. He thinks that whoever she is with, they don't want to be found.

Ellen is putting out missing person flyers when she sees a raven and Jenny talks with her, displaying hostility. When Jenny leaves, Ellen sees a reflection of something in the window of a nearby car and the glass shatters. Mulder recalls that in folklore, ravens are companions of evil, and mirrors are considers items of enchantment. He dines with Ellen and Phil and they also offer that he spend the night with them. They sit down to dinner when Mulder's phone rings. It is Scully, still on the stakeout - no mystery woman has appeared. Howard and his daughter are also eating. Michelle is unhappy because her mother is gone. She sees a raven outside the window. Howard goes outside to investigate and finds several ravens pecking at the ground - it is Martha's buried body. Her body has claw marks on it. Mulder and the sheriff agree that Howard didn't kill her. Ellen arrives and tells about seeing the reflection of some kind of creature in the car window, but when she turned, there was nothing there. If this is a spiritual creature summoned to kill Martha, who called it? Did Martha have enemies? Mulder and Phil goes to see Jenny, who is a waitress. Jenny is hostile toward Martha and thinks that Martha was "so above the rest of us." They don't think she killed Martha, but Mulder thinks Jenny lied about having been home all evening the night Martha died.

Scully calls and complains again, but notices that the same van with "Jesus Saves" painted on it return to the intersection that she saw earlier. Mulder wants her help on an autopsy, but she puts him off to check out the van. Ellen is sweeping the floor and finds a key like the one found in Martha's things. A raven flies into her home. She picks up her daughter and runs. Two mirrors shatter. She hides in a closet until her husband arrives. Ellen tells Mulder that the creature came back and chased her. That night, Phil slips out of the house and goes to a local motel. He enters cabin six using the key found in his home and Jenny meets him there - they are having an affair. He wants to end the affair but she is only interested in lovemaking. The room has mirrors on the ceiling.

Mulder gets up in the morning to find that Ellen has fixed eggs benedict for breakfast and has laundered Mulder's shirt. Phil is apparently out on a call, she says. She asks if Mulder has a significant other. "Not in the widely understood definition of that term," he says. Phil arrives home. Mulder tell Phil he slept well, only waking up once, when Phil went out. The autopsy says Martha was pregnant. Mulder is suspicious about Phil. At the motel, Jenny is getting dressed, talking with her son on the phone. A raven is at the window - several are on the fence. The ceiling mirrors shatter and the creature attacks Jenny. Jenny is killed, but not before stabbing the creature near the back of the neck with a shard of glass. Later, authorities are at the motel crime scene. Phil confesses the he was having affairs with both Martha and Jenny, but he left Jenny sleeping. Jenny and Martha knew about each other but Ellen didn't. He wanted a divorce two years ago but Ellen got pregnant with Katie. Mulder still thinks it was an entity summoned. Phil wonders if he is the cause and doesn't even know about it.

At home, Ellen puts Katie down for a nap, draws a bath for herself and finds a stab wound on her neck. She remembers struggling with the Jenny. Mulder arrives at the home but doesn't find Ellen immediately. Scully calls - she is free - she solved the case. They arrested a male cross-dresser. The six missing prostitutes are in a halfway house for recovering prostitutes. He dresses up as a prostitute to make the prostitutes feel at ease while he convinces them to seek help. He was sort of a wolf in sheep's clothing - or a sheep in wolf's clothing. That makes Mulder think. He knocks on the closed bathroom door. Ellen tells him to go away. Mulder tells her that Phil is in custody, suspected of murder. Mulder notes that Ellen went out after breakfast and wants to know where she went. "It can't be me," she says. When she opens the door, it is the monster. It attacks Mulder, dragging him into the bathroom and holding his head in the bathtub, but when it sees its reflection in the water it leaves. Mulder gets out of the tub to find Ellen naked, huddled on the floor.

Ellen is in a sanatorium, under observation. Doctors say she has some kind of split personality. Mulder notes to Phil that some alternate personalities display things like high blood pressure that their host personalities don't have. Ellen's alternate personality appears to be more extreme. Mulder thinks she found out about Phil's affairs and did what she did to protect her family. Ellen still sees ravens.

On each of the four weekends in May, Mulder rents a car and drives to Raleigh, North Carolina, where his mother is buried. He uses his VISA credit card to arrange periodic placement of flowers on his mother's grave. Knowing that he is terminally ill, he also has his name added to a marker stone that has Bill, Samantha and Teena Mulder's names on it. (Within) (Note: An alternate interpretation might be that somebody else had Fox's name added to the stone to make it look like he did it.)

all things. As Scully gets dressed we hear an opening narration about time passing and about how rarely we stop to examine the paths we have taken in life to see if our path in life is that of our own making." Careful study of the scene reveals that she is at Mulder's apartment. As she dresses in the bathroom, he is sleeping in the next room. This is apparently a "morning after" scene, after an evening of lovemaking.

63 hours earlier - Mulder is flipping the slides of a projector to the beat of music from a radio or tape player. Mulder is working in his office. Scully enters and turns the music off. They discuss an autopsy in a case in which Mulder turns out to be wrong. He changes the subject, showing her a slide of a computer generated crop circle that he says proves that crop circles are fractals. As he speaks, Scully eats lunch and largely ignores him. She doesn't see the point. He has two tickets in a flight to England, where he expects that more crop circles will be created, but she doesn't want to go. He cancels her ticket and heads off on his own. Scully returns to the hospital to finish paperwork on the autopsy. On an x-ray mistakenly given to her she finds the name D. Waterston - a name she knows. Dr. Daniel Waterston was admitted yesterday in coronary care. She goes to his room where the doctor walks off with a woman who we later learn is Waterston's daughter, Maggie. Scully enters and finds Waterston asleep. His cardiologist tells her that he had severe chest pains the day before. He has a serious but treatable condition. Scully was one of Waterston's students some years earlier. At home Scully receives a phone call from Maggie Waterston. Daniel wants to see Scully, but Maggie is clearly resentful of Scully. "If you come it doesn't mean I accept you in his life," she says.

Scully goes to the hospital. Maggie leaves immediately when Scully arrives at Waterston's room. They are restrained in their greeting. When he takes her hand she is troubled. She asks does he want to remind her again that her choice to enter the FBI was wrong and says that he never accepted her reason for leaving. The viewer may wonder at this point whether they are they talking about medicine or a relationship. She is sorry she came. But he says the fact that she did come means something. Talking to Mulder on the phone while driving, Scully has a close call with a semi, saved only by a women with a blonde pony tail who crossed the street and made her stop her car. It is as if the women knew she was saving Scully.

Scully arrives at an address Mulder asked her to visit and finds a women Scully saw at the hospital. Colleen knows that Mulder has sent Scully for information on her Taoist research. Colleen says that there is a greater intelligence in all things and accidents or near accidents, such as Scully had, often remind us that we have to slow down and keep our minds open. Waterston calls Scully back to consult with the cardiologist. Her informed opinion agrees with Waterston on his treatment. When they are alone, Scully asks Waterston how Maggie found out about them (the word "affair" is never used in the episode). Things got bad at home after Scully left. Their breakup was hard for Daniel. He shut down, got a divorce and came to Washington. She is stunned that he would move there to be close to her but not contact her. What does she want right now? Everything she should want at this time in life - maybe the life she did not choose. She takes his hand again and cries. He comforts her and she rests her head against his chest. Sometime later she is awakened by the flatline sound of the heart monitor -- he has had a heart attack and goes into arrest. Scully performs CPR then works with the hospital staff the staff to restart his heart.

Later, Scully returns to talk to Colleen. Scully wants to ask about what Colleen said about slowing down. Scully had a strange feeling that Daniel may have a more serious condition than anyone realizes. Colleen says that holistic practitioners believe that people have an aura, an energy field that extends beyond the body. Scully maybe sensed pain in this aura. Colleen says that when we hold on to shame and guilt and fear it creates an imbalance and affects who we are. Scully admits that she has had moments when time appears to extend and things become very clear. Colleen says Scully may be more open to things than she thinks - it's just a matter of what she does with it. Colleen says everything happens for a reason.

Scully returns to the hospital. Daniel is in a coma. Maggie resents Scully's involvement. Scully moved on but Daniel's family had to live with what she left behind. In slow motion, Scully walks down the street, thinking. She sees the woman with the ponytail who appeared to save her from the accident and follows her into an oriental courtyard. Entering a building she finds a Buddhist shrine. She kneels and closes her eyes and has a vision of people in her life. Then sees Daniel's body, transparent, with the whole heart and surrounding tissues black, indicating disease. When he opens his eyes she flashes back to awareness, stunned by her vision.

Scully asks Colleen and a healer to help Daniel but the cardiologist belittles the idea. Maggie instructs the cardiologist to allow the session to continue. The healer says Daniel is ready to move on, but unfinished business is holding him back. It is implied that the business is Scully. At home at night she has a dream, seeing herself in the hospital bed. Maggie calls her back to the hospital. Daniel is awake. He denies that the ritual helped him, promises to get well and wants to talk about what happens next. She says it's time for him to take responsibility for the hurt he caused in his family. He's been running for the truth for 10 years. Maybe the reason he's still alive is so he can make up with Maggie. Scully isn't the same person she was. She leaves Daniel and Maggie together. Outside, Scully sees the woman who saved her from the accident and follows her again, but it turns out to be Mulder. He is supposed to be in England but he is back - there was no crop circle. Maybe sometimes nothing happens for a reason, she tells him. They go off together. Talking in his apartment, Mulder finds it hard to believe that he goes away for two days and her life changes. He says God talked to her, but she says it was only a vision. Saying that she had a vision is still radical for her. She considered spending her life with this man but she is astounded at what she would have missed if she had done that. Mulder says that all of those choices lead to this very moment and they wouldn't be sitting there together if any one of those choices had been made differently. She falls asleep with her head on his shoulder. He tenderly covers her with a blanket. The camera pans and we see that there is a little Buddha statue in his apartment.

Brand X. The FBI has a man and wife in protective custody in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and Skinner is supervising the scene. The husband, Jim Scobee, is a biochemist with Morley Tobacco Company, and is getting ready to testify against the company before a grand jury. During the evening, he coughs frequently and viewers see that a bug slips out of his mouth and into a water glass. After 4 am the wife wakes up and Jim is not in bed. He is found in the bathroom, dead, with blood all over his neck and upper chest and the flesh in those areas seemingly eaten away.

Mulder and Scully arrive at the scene the next day. Skinner is taking heat from his superiors. From his photo it looks as is his skin had been stripped or eaten away. Mulder finds the dead bug in the water glass. While Scully does an autopsy, Mulder and Skinner go to talk to Scobee's supervisor, Dr. Peter Voss. Daniel Brimley, head of corporate security, escorts them to a conference room where Voss is flanked with corporate lawyers who won't let him talk. Voss, however, identifies the bug as a common tobacco beetle. Later, Voss arrives home and a man accosts him. We later learn that this man is named Weaver. He and Scobee had an arrangement and now that Scobee is gone, the arrangement slides over to Voss. Voss gives him 2 cartons of cigarettes. Weaver taunts Voss about how people are wondering how Scobee died, but Voss asks him to leave. "We'll be seeing a lot of each other," Weaver says.

Scully does the autopsy. The tissue damage goes all the way into Voss' lungs. There is no evidence of acid of chemical reaction. The airways have been Scobee essentially choked to death. There was no evidence of tobacco beetles in his body, but Mulder thinks that judging from Voss's reaction, they need to investigate further. In a rundown apartment house, Weaver has an argument with a neighbor about a loud TV after which the neighbor starts coughing and bleeding. He collapses and we see bugs all over his face, with flesh around his month missing.

Skinner, Mulder and Scully are at the apartment house, investigating the death. He was a transient and appears to have died of the same thing as Scobee. Mulder thinks that the beetles killed him. Scully speculates that some sort of insect-carried bacteria might have done it. They go door to door in the building and Mulder talks with Weaver. Weaver lights up as they speak and says that the dead man yelled a lot and claimed Weaver smoked too much but beyond that Weaver won't say much. Mulder goes to the Voss residence and talks him about the second victim. Voss won't talk, even though Mulder asks, "how many people have to die before you do the right thing?" As Mulder drives off, Voss takes a phone call from Brimley asking what Mulder wanted. Voss wants to come forward but Brimley talks him out of it. Meanwhile, Scully talks with an entomologist at the university who confirms that the bug is a tobacco beetle, but with variations. Scully wonders of there have been genetic changes. Tobacco companies have been experimenting with genetically modified tobacco. Maybe the in the tobacco itself might have resulted in changes to the beetles. Voss goes to talk to Weaver - Voss wants him to leave town and gives him money but Weaver says he has a good thing going here - cash, cigarettes - and he sends Voss away. As Voss leaves, we see that Brimley has followed Voss.

Scully finds insect larvae filling the lungs of the transient. Scobee's lungs were apparently empty because the bugs exited the lungs, getting out the bathroom window. Mulder begins to cough and spits up blood. Mulder undergoes an operation using special equipment to suck the larvae out of his lungs, but there is concern because for every larva they get there are probably dozens of eggs still in his lungs. He must have inhaled the eggs originally. Maybe the genetically modified eggs survived processing into cigarettes and got into his lungs from somebody who smoked. Skinner serves a search warrant on Morley Tobacco. Against the lawyer's advice, Voss confesses. They thought they were doing a good thing. Why not genetically engineer a safer cigarette? After a few months…three of the test subjects in a focus group died. Scobee was monitoring the focus group and got infected. Weaver was the fourth focus group member. Skinner leads a team that breaks down Weaver's door and finds Brimley bound, with bugs coming out of his mouth. Weaver has Brimley's car. He lights up before entering a convenience store. A sheriff's car stops to check out the stolen car and Weaver disappears from the store.

Scully talks with Mulder in recovery. Scully hopes that when they find Weaver they will be able to figure out how to treat Mulder. As they talk, Mulder has trouble breathing again and quickly becomes critical, with a bug crawling out of his nose. After a commercial break, Mulder is stable again, but they can't maintain him for long. His lungs are still filled with larvae. The doctor wants to do surgery. But Scully thinks he is too weak and wants to wait. Skinner arrives at Voss's house to protect the family, but Voss is not there. Skinner tracks him down at his office, but Weaver is there. Voss says Weaver took the test cigarettes. Weaver claims Skinner won't do anything because you need me. He lights up (although this is apparently a regular cigarette and not one of the infectious "test" cigarettes) and after delaying to the last moment, Skinner shoots Weaver, wounding him. Skinner arrives back at the hospital as Weaver is brought in by paramedics. Scully looks at Weaver's hands and promptly orders that Mulder be injected with a drug that has a high nicotine content.

Some time later, in Mulder's office, the two talk. Mulder is well, but is hoarse from the lung suction treatment. When Scully looked at Weaver's fingers, she saw that they were stained yellow with Nicotine. He apparently already smoked much more than the other test subjects. Nicotine is actually one of the oldest known insecticides. A high level of nicotine in the body protected Weaver, and it was essentially a kind of chemotherapy that killed the larvae in Mulder's lungs. In the final scene, we see that Mulder now has a craving for nicotine.

Hollywood A.D. A man runs through a graveyard. Another man, later identified as the Cigarette Smoking Pontiff, wearing what appears to be a Catholic Cardinal's garb, shouts, "Give it up Mulder, my sniper zombies are everywhere." He tells Mulder to give him the Lazarus Bowl and he will release Scully, who he is holding captive. We see, however, that it is not Mulder but actor Gary Shandling. Scully is not Scully but Tea Leoni. "Mulder" stands and holds the bowl above his head. He orders the man to release Scully or he will break the bowl and send all the zombies back to being corpses. A zombie tries to talk him out of breaking the bowl, but "Mulder" tosses it up and there is a scuffle, at the end of which "Mulder" and "Scully" roll down an embankment and into an open grave hole. They find themselves in each other's arms in a casket, and the casket lid slams shut on them. "Mulder" confesses that he loves "Scully" and they kiss. We see that it is a movie. Mulder and Scully are in the audience, as is Skinner. The agents display emotions that appear to be embarrassment. Skinner is really enjoying it.

The screening continues and during the love scene..."Scully" confesses that she is in love with Assistant Director Skinner. Mulder walks out. Outside in the graveyard set, Mulder is sitting, eating the rest of his popcorn. (Apparently as a promotion, everyone in the theater is eating popcorn from ceramic bowls.) Scully finds him. She got a message from Washington - Hoffman was killed by O'Fallon who then hanged himself. Skinner was so tickled by the movie that he gave Scully a bureau credit card to use for the evening. They walk off chuckling. Mulder leaves his pottery popcorn bowl (that has a label "made in Israel") behind and ghosts rise out of the ground, dance, and enjoy themselves as they would have in life.

(Note: See the October 1998 entry for the flashback sections of this episode.)

Fight Club. Two men ride bicycles in Kansas City. They are making religious calls. They call on a woman who says she is just moving in and brushes them off. Outside her house is a red car with the license plate "Betty." At another house, a few blocks away, they call on another woman who has a car with the license plate "Lulu," and who looks just like Betty. She closes the door on them and the two men begin to fight, which they continue until police arrive.

One day later, Mulder and Scully call on Betty Tempelton - they are investigating a possible hate crime. But they are not Mulder and Scully - just look-alike FBI agents. As they talk, Lulu drives by and the two agents begin fighting. The real Mulder and Scully talk about the case -- it is as if they temporarily lost control of their minds. Scully bristles at the game of Mulder dropping clues but holding things back. She keeps guessing, throwing out wild ideas that could have come from Mulder, eventually hitting on the "right" solution. In downtown Kansas City, Lulu Pfeiffer enters a Koko's Copy store, where she has applied for a sales job. She has had 17 jobs in 17 states in 3 years, which raises a red flag. While she is there, the copy machines begin malfunctioning. Betty has applied for a similar job at a Koko's Copy and her resume lists a similar number of jobs.

In a hotel, a man, Burt, is packing money into a small suitcase. M&S arrive at his door, looking for Betty Templeton. They have a newspaper clipping of him with Betty in last year's Fourth of July parade. He denies knowing Betty, but mentions an address where he thinks she lived. At Fogy's bar, Burt meets Betty and is surprised that she doesn't seem to know him. Lulu also arrives - she is the one who is Burt's girl friend. The bar begins to shake when they see each other, with glasses and bottles exploding.

At Pat Devine's Kansas City Auditorium, Scully arrives to find Mulder sitting with an older man who we learn is a fight promoter and Burt is a wrestler. Scully tells about Lulu and the path of destruction that has followed her. The two women have trailed each other for the past twelve years with things like fights, house fires, explosions, and riots everywhere they go. When the agents leave, the promoter calls Burt asking for his money. Betty is in bed with him. She goes into the bathroom to dress and Lulu comes to the door, asking where Burt was last night and if he is two-timing her. He calms her down and eases her out the door but Betty comes out of the bathroom. Suddenly shots pierce the ceiling from above. Burt goes to a bar to deliver money to the promoter but both Betty and Lulu walk in and another series of explosions racks the bar. Flying glass knocks out Burt and the promoter walks off with his suitcase of money. When he wakes up, Mulder and Scully are there. Scully says Betty and Lulu caused this and they'll do it again of we don't find them. Mulder tracks down Betty at her copy shop job and she says it's Lulu's fault. She follows her around but "it's her or me this time. I don't want to leave Kansas." Scully has just talked with Lulu, who also works in a copy shop and says the same thing about Betty. There is some kind of a psychic connection between them. Outside Betty's work place, Lulu drives up and in the mayhem, Mulder is sucked into an open manhole.

Scully drives up and enters Koko's Copy, looking for Mulder. Scully uses the copy shop Internet access, then goes to the Kansas State Penitentiary to talk to Mr. Damphousse. He appears to be the father of Betty and Lulu, via a sperm bank. She wants to collect information about his family tree. He is angry and insulting. Betty goes to Burt's - he has one more shot at the big time, but his money disappeared when he was unconscious. She says maybe she can help, and leaves. A moment later, Lulu comes to his door and they hold the same conversation. Betty breaks into the copy shop and makes color copies of money. Lulu does the same thing at her shop. Mulder finally manages to get the manhole cover off and escape the storm drain. Scully is still at the penitentiary when Mulder calls her. Scully says the father is the angriest man in the world. Mulder explains that both Betty and Lulu love Burt and don't want to leave. The agents agree that they have to get to the fight and keep the two women apart, but Scully notices that there's is a man who looks just like Burt is in a cell at the penitentiary.

Burt is at the auditorium in a WWF-type wrestling costume, complete with cape. He is known as "The Titanic." One of the women delivers the money, which Burt uses to pay for the fight, and the fight begins. Mulder approaches Betty in the audience when Lulu walks up. Mulder tries to drag Betty off, but the entire audience begins fighting. Scully arrives with the other Burt. The two women are astounded, and the fighting stops. Scully grins but when the two Burts see each other, the fighting resumes. The fighting fades out, and we hear an explanation by Scully - there have been millions of donations to sperm banks and maybe nature has just so many creations. The odds of meeting your double are incalculable, but neither Burt and his sibling nor Betty and Lulu could avoid their two compulsive mannerisms. When two original copies meet the results are unpredictable. We see that both Mulder and Scully have extensive wounds and stitches from the fight at the arena.

The date Bo Merkle's driver's license would have expired, if he had not been killed by Pinker Rawls in 1999.(Trevor)

In the X-Files office, Mulder is talking with Jim when Scully enters. A mouth has been surgically opened for him, but it is gruesome to look at. Jim is convinced that Anson Stokes did this. Anson resurfaced several days later but refused to talk with police. The agents go to the Mark Twain Trailer Court, where Anson lives with his brother, Leslie. Anson now has a huge yacht by his mobile home. Anson is afraid that Mulder and Scully are IRS agents, investigating how Anson could afford the yacht. Anson hides and Leslie tells the agents that they are just taking care of the yacht for somebody. Mulder sees the women from the rug inside the mobile home. Leslie claims that Jim stored chemicals that caused "the mouth thing." Mulder and Scully visit 407 but find odd chemical smells. A calendar is dated 1978. The furniture is expensive and high quality. Might Anson have taken something and sold it to pay for the yacht? They find a picture of the woman Mulder saw at the trailer. Anson talks to the woman - she gave him the yacht because he asked for it. He's upset that it's not in water - and he can't afford it. He makes clear that he has wasted two wishes and only has one left. He doesn't want to wish it until he is completely ready. Leslie suggests a wish for money. Leslie cannot walk and rides in a motorized chair - but is doesn't occur to the brothers to wish for him to be able to walk. Anson finally wishes that he can turn invisible at will. The woman says it's unoriginal, but grants the wish. Anson tests it and fades out. He strips and runs around the trailer court. Then he approaches a couple of pretty girls, but while crossing the street is hit by a truck and killed.

Scully waits in an autopsy room as the invisible body is brought in. She is astounded. She uses power to outline the face, then the entire body. Mulder arrives. Dental records identify the body as Anson Stokes. This is the most amazing thing Scully has ever seen. Mulder agrees that it is amazing but says it probably has nothing to do with science. The previous owner of the items stored in 407 an overnight success, but he died in a very unusual way. Mulder thinks that the mystery woman is the link, but he can find out nothing about her. Scully stays to guard the body while Mulder goes to the mobile home. Leslie says the woman is gone. Mulder thinks she is a genie, a spirit from Middle Eastern folklore. They live in inanimate objects and grant wishes for the people who find them. Leslie agrees to hand over the object and gives Mulder an ornamental box. Later, however, Leslie gores to 407 for the rug.

Mulder goes back to Scully at the autopsy room. Mulder shows her the box, but it obviously has no genie in it - just marijuana. Mulder, meanwhile, has found pictures of the mystery woman using FBI software that matches faces in photograph databases. She is seen in pictures of Benito Mussolini and Richard Nixon, men who got all the power they wished for, then lost it. Leslie talks with the genie. He wants Anson back and the genie grants the wish. Scully leads a team of scientific experts into the autopsy room, but Anson's body is gone, making her very embarrassed. Leslie's wish backfired, because Anson is back, but still with a decayed body and unable to talk. Leslie wishes Anson can talk, and Anson begins scream. Mulder and Scully can't find Anson's body anywhere in the lab. Scully now doesn't know what she saw. Mulder thinks the body disappeared because of a wish being granted. Anson finally stops screaming. Anson can't feel his heart beat and he's cold. As Leslie struggles to think of his last wish, Anson fumbles to light the gas oven, to warm the mobile home. As Mulder and Scully pull up and the mobile home explodes from the ignited gas. The carpet falls to earth near the agents.

The woman is taken into custody. Mulder calls her Gen, short for the female form of the word "genie." The fire department recovers two bodies, including Anson, now visible. Mulder's conclusion is that Gen is evil, or the victim of a curse, but Gen says the only thing people are cursed with is stupidity. In 500 years people have not changed a bit. Greed still reigns. She used to be human, born in 15th century France. A genie offered her three wishes. Her first two were inconsequential. Her third was to wish for great power and long life, which made her a genie. It is forever, like a prison tattoo, and it is clear that she regrets her wish, so many years ago. Scully can't come up with any reason to hold her, but she will not leave. Mulder unrolled the carpet so he gets three wishes.

Mulder and Gen are back at Mulder's apartment. Scully left the airport quickly. Mulder asks what Gen would wish for and she answers to wish that she had never heard the work "wish," and that she could live day to day, relaxing over coffee, etc. Mulder theorizes that in order to avoid problems, his wishes should be totally altruistic, for everyone. He wishes for peace on Earth. She grants the wish, but when Mulder looks outside, he finds that he is the last man on Earth. AT FBI headquarters he walks into Skinner's office and calls Gen. She explains that it is what he wanted - he wasn't specific about how world peace should be established. She accuses him of having a huge ego, to want her to change the hearts of six billion people in his name. He wishes to undo his first wish, and Skinner and a staff meeting appears in the room, causing Mulder much embarrassment. He goes to his office and begins typing a wish, in intricate detail, so that he can get all of the specifics and details correct. Scully enters. She doesn't remembering disappearing of the face of the Earth. Scully says that if Gen really is what she says, the power to make wishes is extraordinarily dangerous. Scully suggests that the meaning of life is to find peace and happiness, and that one man shouldn't try to circumvent the process with a single wish. Scully leaves and Mulder wipes the screen. He is finally ready to make his last wish.

Mulder entertains Scully at his apartment - they are going to watch the movie Caddyshack. Scully observes that Mulder never made the world a happier place. What was his final wish? We see Gen smiling and relaxing in a coffee shop - presumably not a genie anymore.

In rural Pennsylvania, Mulder shoots a creature that has the power to consume illness from other people. The shooting is in the home of a couple who Mulder had questioned earlier. The creature, possibly once a Native American Shaman, cannot die and lives in great pain as the result of the illness he has consumed. members of the public who know about the power of the creature bury it and report it as the death of a transient. After th burial, however, the creature tunnels out of the grave and escapes. (The Gift)

(Does Mulder know that the creature cannot die? Maybe he is conspiring with the human friend of the creature to fake its death.)

According to rental car receipts, Mulder takes road trips of identical length on each of the four weekends in May. Scully and Doggett come to believe that he visits his Mother's grave in North Carolina, although on the first weekend in May he is reported to be in Pennsylvania. (Within and the Gift)

Requiem. In Bellefleur, OR - a police car races down highway.  Driving is Detective Miles, who fans first met in the pilot episode of The X-Files.  He radios to a deputy to wait for backup, but Miles' car loses power and coasts, then strikes another police car that is stopped on the highway in the dark.  The forest is glowing.  The dials on Miles' watch are spinning.  The deputy in the other car, Ray Hoese, appears to be dead and green acid is on the ground.  As Miles gets out of the car, another man with the same face as the deputy stands there, unspeaking.

An auditor is in the X-Files office.  Mulder and Scully have spent a huge amount on travel - by FBI standards these numbers are out of control.  The auditor says that Mulder's two big issues, the conspiracy and the disappearance of his sister, have been resolved, but Mulder points out that nothing the agents have been investigating has been resolved.  Acknowledging that Mulder's sister was a major motivation for Mulder, the auditor asks that given the case report saying that Samantha is dead, what is left to investigate?  Scully also has to defend the investigation of the conspiracy to the auditor.  The auditor tells Mulder that he is evaluating what The X-Files does, so if they go forward they can do it more responsibly. He tells Mulder that if he is going to spend so much time looking for aliens, he should narrow his search to where they are.  Meanwhile, in a "hellhole" middle eastern prison, Marita Covarrubias gets Alex Krycek released.  She tells him that the Smoking Man sent her to find him.  The Cigarette Smoking Man is dying.

Two teenagers, Gary and Richie, approach Detective Miles in the woods.  They heard that there was an airplane collision with a UFO.  He tells them that the Navy found their plane and there is no evidence of another craft.  Miles sends them away.  As Mulder and Scully are talking in the X-Files office, Billy Miles telephones Mulder.  Mulder and Scully immediately remember the name.  Billy was abducted seven years earlier and Mulder and Scully investigated the case.  He tells them that it is happening again, but not to him this time.  The implication is that he thinks his father has been abducted.

Even though the auditor would say they couldn't justify the expense, the agents head out to Oregon to investigate.  Alex and Marita visit the Cigarette Smoking Man's apartment, in Washington DCC's Watergate Apartments.  He is in a wheelchair, attended by a nurse, Greta, and has to smoke through a tracheotomy hole in his throat.  Krycek accuses that the Smoking Man had him thrown in that prison.  The Smoking Man agrees that it was for trying to sell something that was the Smoking Man's.  The Smoking Man counters that they have a singular opportunity now.  A crash in Oregon -- an alien ship has collided with a military aircraft.  It is Roswell and Corona again, the chance to rebuild the project.  Meanwhile, Richie and Gary are back in the Oregon forest at night, looking for the UFO.  Gary has an incident in which he shakes violently, then disappears.  Richie sees lights glowing in the forest and his flashlight bursts into flame. He runs off.

Mulder and Scully arrive in Oregon.  Billy has been a sheriff's deputy for three years.  He got over the abductions, but other people in the area didn't and don't believe it.  Billy is divorced and back living with his father.  He tells about the crash.  The other unidentified craft hasn't been found.  His father has been no help, even though a deputy is missing.  Detective Miles drives up.  He claims that he has been working with the FAA and it looks like there was no second craft.  As they drive to the scene, Mulder finds that the collision of the two police cars happened at the same place Mulder painted an X on the pavement seven years earlier.  Scully finds an ammunition clip, likely from the missing deputy's gun, but there is no indication of what he might have been shooting at.  As Mulder and Scully drive off to see the missing man's wife, Detective Miles places the evidence bag with the shells in his car trunk, and viewers see that the body of the real Detective Miles is in the trunk.  A Bounty Hunter is masquerading as Miles.  Mulder and Scully are surprised that the missing man's wife is Teresa Nemmen, now Teresa Hoese, an abduction victim who seven years ago approached the agents for help.  Her husband is also an abductee, but they keep it a secret because people in the community don't understand.  His experiences were more terrifying than hers.  He was taken many times and tested.  Teresa has medical files and as she gets them, Mulder watches Scully plays with Teresa's baby.

That evening, as Mulder study the files, Scully comes to Mulder's door, uneasy but she doesn't know what is wrong.  She felt dizzy and got chills.  Mulder covers her up in his bed and puts an arm around her to warm her.  Mulder says it's not worth it.  He wants her to go home.  Seeing her holding the baby shows him what has been taken away from her - including her health and the chance to be a mother.  (Recall that Scully cannot have children, because of the procedures done during her abduction.)  Maybe what the FBI says is true, Mulder speculates.  The personal costs are too high.  There is so much she needs to do in her life - so much more than this.  There has to be an end.  Meanwhile, Krycek is in Oregon, too.  He reports by phone to the Smoking Man that in spite of lots of effort, nobody can find the UFO.  He is told that it must be there, hidden in plain site.  Find the deputy and you'll find the ship.  Teresa is awakened in the night.  Her husband, Ray, is home, but when he doesn't speak she realizes that it is not her husband.  She runs upstairs and he follows.  She stabs him with a knife and noxious gas comes out of his body, overcoming her.

Mulder and Scully arrive at Teresa's home.  Billy reports that Teresa is gone, apparently taken because the door was open.  Inside they find the mark they immediately recognize as acid burns from what Scully describes as "arguably an alien."  Scully feels faint again for a moment. Marita, who has stayed with the Smoking Man, asks him why bring Krycek into this matter and then play with him by feeding him incomplete information.  The Smoking Man says that he has great faith that Krycek will find the ship, but if the Smoking Man tells him exactly how, Krycek will be tempted to sell the information.  The ship is rebuilding itself, the Smoking Man says. What we call God is an alien intelligence.  Marita states her conclusion that the aliens are coming and the Smoking Man corrects her that they are coming back.  Mulder approaches Richie, who is watching the crime scene where Teresa disappeared.  He claims that "they" took his friend, Gary.  Billy is surprised when Richie states that Billy's father was in the woods and knows what is going on.  Richie takes Mulder and Scully to where Gary disappeared.  Richie claims that his flashlight beam hit a spot and bent the light.  As Scully walks nearby she is lifted up in the air and shakes rapidly.  Mulder realizes Scully is out of sight and finds her on the ground, groggy.  She doesn't understand why this is happening to her.  Mulder also doesn't know, but is sure that these aren't just random abductions and that the abductees won't be coming back this time.  Billy goes to his father's home and draws his gun, confronting Detective Miles.  Billy says, "I don't know who you are but you are not going to take me."  His father eventually calms him and Billy gives up his gun, but we see that Detective Miles is the Bounty Hunter.  Mulder and Scully walk up to the door and, finding it open, walk in.  Billy and the Bounty Hunter are gone.

Two days later at the FBI building in Washington, Skinner visits Mulder's office.  Mulder thinks he is in trouble and says that if the higher-ups are coming down on Skinner, he is sorry.  Skinner, however, has Krycek and Marita with him.  They explain that they have a singular opportunity.  The Cancer Man is dying.  His last wish is to rebuild the conspiracy. There is a ship in those woods, cloaked in an energy field.  The alien is eliminating proof of all the abductions.  This is Mulder's chance to change all that and find the proof.  Krycek will cooperate because he wants to Damn the Smoking Man's soul.  Scully finds them talking and joins the effort.  They call the Lone Gunmen in to consult and they determine that the ship is so well cloaked that even military satellites don't detect it, but the Gunmen have detected it, because they know exactly what to look for.  It's not going to be there forever, however.  As they talk it is rebuilding itself.  Scully can't handle it and leaves the room.  Mulder follows into the hall.  Mulder won't let her go back to Oregon.  They're taking abductees, he points out, and Scully is an abductee.  Mulder won't risk losing her.  They hug and she vows that she won't let him go alone.

Skinner accompanies Mulder into the Oregon woods, wondering if it is just a "snipe hunt."  Scully looks at the medical records with the Lone Gunmen and realizes that all of the abductees experienced the same kind of elevated brain activity that Mulder had a few months ago.  They realize that it is Mulder who is in danger, but Scully collapses.  Mulder and Skinner lay out a network of laser beams to detect the energy field of the ship.  Mulder walks up to the field and puts his hand into it, causing the hand to vibrate rapidly.  Skinner realizes he can't see Mulder.  Mulder is inside the energy field with many of the other abductees, including some that we thought were dead, like Detective Miles, the deputy, Teresa and Billy.  Mulder enters a glowing circle with them and sees a ship overhead.  The Bounty Hunter walks up and joins them in the circle, ready to be transported up to the UFO, which is hovering overhead.  Skinner sees the ship. It departs and all of the people are gone.

Krycek reports to the Smoking Man and Marita that he failed.  The Smoking Man speculates that perhaps Krycek never wanted to succeed?  "The hour is at hand?" the Smoking Man asks, and Krycek agrees that it is time "to send the devil back to hell."  The Smoking Man's final words are, "As you do to Mulder and to me you do to all mankind."  Krycek pushes the wheelchair down the stairs and the Smoking Man lies at the bottom, apparently dead.  Skinner visits Scully in her hospital room.  She feels OK - they're just running some tests.  She already heard about Mulder's disappearance.  Skinner knows that he will be asked what he saw and says he can't deny it.  He vows that he won't.  They are both crying.  Scully says, "we will find him," and Skinner nods.  "I have to," she adds.  Scully tells Skinner that there is something else she has to tell him, that he must keep to himself.  She can't explain or believe it, but she is pregnant.

(Note: This is the season finale episode of the seventh season of The X-Files.)

Within.  It is the day after Scully discovers she is pregnant. She dreams both of her baby and of Mulder (or possibly receives psychic impressions from him?).  Her visions of him are disturbing.  At work, she finds men in the X-Files office who tell her that they are looking for anything that might be pertinent for the manhunt.  She thinks a conventional search for Mulder is crazy.  She goes to Skinner -- they agree that they won't find Mulder that way. Kersh has been named Deputy Director and is now Skinner's superior.  Kersh tells Scully and Skinner that the only acceptable solution is to find Mulder safe and alive.  Scully feels she and Skinner should be directing the search.  Kersh says FBI agent John Doggett has been named the leader of the search.  Kersh warns that of anything gets out about aliens or abductions, Scully and Skinner will be fired.

Skinner is called to give a statement about Mulder's disappearance. : He vows to Scully that he will tell the truth, but Scully says that he won't be any good to Mulder if he gives them the power to ruin his career.  Scully sits while Sinner gives his statement.  Another agent is near her and strikes up a conversation. He claims to have known Mulder.  He always took the rumors with a grain of salt - that from the beginning Mulder never trusted Scully. : She says she doesn't think he knew Mulder at all, and checks his badge -- it is Doggett.  She throws a cup of water in his face and walks out.  Later, at home, she checks Doggett's computer file, but runs to the bathroom because she has to vomit.  She calls her mom, but gets an answering machine - she leaves a message that she needs to talk, but hears sounds on the line indicating that the line is tapped. She sees someone outside watching her apartment.  She calls Doggett and tells him to keep away from her, but he appears perplexed.  She sees the shadow of someone outside her apartment door, grabs a gun and pursues, but sees no one but her landlord.  He claims he saw Mulder in her building a few moments earlier.  She runs back to her apartment and finds that her computer is gone.

Scully goes to Mulder's apartment.  His computer is also gone.  His bed still has some of his clothes on it.  She lies down.  In a dream (?) we see Mulder with his face skin stretched by mechanical claws.  A drill enters his mouth and begins cutting.  The Lone Gunmen are with Skinner at a satellite dish field - they are pulling down UFO information from the Pacific Northwest, but can't determine where the UFO went.  Doggett calls on Kersh and asks if anyone else is also assigned to look for Mulder that Doggett doesn't know about.  Kersh denies it.  Scully wakes up in Mulder's bed and finds Doggett in the apartment. They verbally fence - she wants respect and he thinks she just sees him as "the big bad wolf."  He finds it hard to swallow that a scientist would accept Mulder being taken by aliens.  She tells him that she has seen things she cannot explain and as a scientist it is a badge of honor to not dismiss these things because somebody else thinks it's BS.  Doggett found car rental receipts for a series of 370-mile trips Mulder took over four weekends in May without telling anyone.