"What is this?" "!" "Excuse me." "Can somebody please tell me what's going on here?" "We're collecting material." "For?" "For anything that might be pertinent to the manhunt." "What manhunt?" "Manhunt for who?" "You're kidding, right?" "Look, there's nothing." "If you're looking for Mulder, you're wasting your time." " Are you listening to me?" " I'm not the man to talk to." "Well, then whose stupid idea is this?" "Yeah, well, somebody might have had the courtesy to tell me." "There are agents tearing apart Mulder's office who say they're part of an FBI manhunt." "I know." "I heard." "Believe me, this is not my idea." "I just found out about it myself." "They're not going to find Mulder this way." "You know that and I know that." "I told you last night, I will find him." "I'm going to do that." "Okay?" "Now, I want you just to cool out." "I don't want you doing..." " ...anything to upset your pregnancy." " Look, I don't understand." "You are the Assistant Director." "Who is going over your head on this?" "Our brand-new deputy director." "A.D. Skinner, Agent Scully." "Thanks for getting right over." "I don't want to lose any time." "We have one of our own missing and the only acceptable outcome is that we find him safe and alive." " I'm sure the two of you agree." " That goes without saying, sir." "Good." "This comes at a stressful time, with my new appointment." "But I'm thankful for your cooperation in the hunt for Mulder." "Our cooperation?" "With due respect, there aren't two people better qualified to be directing this action, sir." "Right now, you and A.D. Skinner are the two primary witnesses to Mulder's disappearance." "I want your statement taken asap." "You make us out to be suspects, sir." "Taken by who?" "My task force leader on this, Special Agent John Doggett." "He's waiting to hear from you now." "One more thing." "Anything leaves this building about aliens or alien abductions or any other nonsense that might cast the Bureau in a ridiculous light, hey, you can forget about looking for Agent Mulder." "You'll both be looking for new jobs." "That's all." "I don't believe this." "This isn't about finding Mulder..." "this is about Kersh covering the FBI's ass." "Why do I get the feeling they'd be happy if we never found him at all?" "Look..." "I saw what I saw." "I have to make a statement in there." "I'm not going to tell them it didn't happen." "Well, you heard Kersh." "They don't want the truth." "You give them the truth, and they'll hang you with it." "They can hang me with a lie, too." "I'm not going to sell Mulder out." "What good are you to Mulder if you give them the power to ruin your career?" "We will find him." "Assistant Director, you can come on back with me." "Agent Scully, I'll ask you to please wait on the wall until we call you." "Water?" "It could be a wait." "Thank you." " Weren't you his partner?" "Mulder?" " Yes." "I guess nobody's beyond suspicion on this thing." "Why are they talking to you?" "Me?" "I knew Mulder back a bit." "They're developing a working profile... character background." "I'd say they have all the character profile they need on him." "Certainly his reputation." "I doubt we agents ever really truly know each other even our partners." "Not at the end of the day." "Their real lives, their friends, girlfriends, deeply personal things, issues." "I think I know Mulder as much as anybody." "Yeah, probably so." "I always took the rumors with a grain of salt." " What rumors are those?" " Well, you know." "Well, that, from the beginning he never felt a real trust with you, that you were ambitious." "Where'd that come from?" "There are women here at the Bureau that he would confide in." "I don't know if you knew that or not." "No." " When was this?" " I don't know, it's just talk." "So, what do you think happened?" "To Mulder?" "What's your theory?" "What's my theory?" "My theory is you don't know Mulder at all." "You never did." ""John Doggett."" "Kersh's task force leader." "You might have just introduced yourself." "Well, I was getting around to it." "Nice to meet you, Agent Doggett." "Hi, this is Margaret Scully." "Please leave a message." "Mom, it's Dana." "I, uh..." "I'm sorry I haven't called you in a while." "I've been busy with work and, um, with something else that I should probably tell you about in person." "I mean, I don't even know if you're in town or if you're checking your messages." "But, um..." "But I really need to see you and talk to you." "There's a lot of stuff that's going on with me right now and, um and I just really need to talk." "Mom?" " John Doggett." " You stay out of my business!" " What?" "Who is this?" " You better have a court order!" " For what?" "Who is this?" " How many phones are you tapping?" "How many agents are you doing surveillance on?" "Is this Agent Scully?" "Thank you." "You just answered all my questions." "Stop there!" "Right there!" "Now come on through the window nice and easy." "Okay, I'm coming." "It's me, your landlord." "I started fixing the antennae on the roof, and..." "I'm sorry, Mr. Coeben." "I'm sorry." "There was a man." "There was someone in the building." "Did you see anyone?" "Yeah, yeah, you know him, he works with you." "Tall guy... brown hair." "Who?" " You don't mean Mulder?" " Yeah, Mulder." "Mulder?" "Are you in here?" " It took some serious voodoo." " Major satellite hacking." " But we got your data." " What am I looking at?" "You're seeing real-time images right off the JPL Topex Poseidon." "We're wired right into the dish." "We're not able to find raw data with UFO activity on it." "But Langly was able to hack into the data storage here and pull up something just as tasty." "You're looking at UFO activity in the Pacific Northwest just prior to Mulder's abduction." "All these markers correspond with reported alien abductions." " It's a regular shopping spree." " So Mulder's abduction..." "Was a UFO whistle stop on the way to the next pickup." "Where?" "Where's the UFO activity after Mulder's abduction?" "Like we said, we can't tell." "Not from the data we're pulling down." "Look, if we can figure out where that ship was going, where it was gonna be, we've got a chance to find Mulder." " Got a minute?" " Yeah, sure." " You fly, Agent Doggett?" " Flying is for birds and baseballs." "USMC, sir." "In Vietnam we used to fly night sorties ten feet above the treetops." "Before night vision, before fly-by-wire." "600 miles an hour and all we had was an idiot gauge and our wits." "Guys used to say they only knew their altitude by the smell of the V.C. rice pots." "You've come a long way, sir." "Using all the same instincts." "What can I do for you, Agent?" "This task force... the search for Mulder, I'm running it, right?" " You're the man in charge." " No one else is involved?" "Someone out there acting under orders from another office?" "I think I'd know, Agent." "What prompts the question?" "My idiot gauge." "My wits." "You got a chance to shine here, John." "Stand in the spotlight." "Show them all you're an ace." " What are you doing here?" " I could ask you the same." " I came by to feed Mulder's fish." " And then you got tired and decided to take a nap." "You've got a way about you, Agent Doggett." "That might have worked with the NYPD but you're talking to a fellow FBI agent now and I'd appreciate some respect." "Respect like you showed me over the phone?" "Give a little, get a little, Agent Scully." "Who ambushed me with the phony chitchat about Mulder and then..." " ...put a wiretap on my phone?" " That's B.S." "And now you're following me." "I just came by to feed the fish." "What do you want to get on me, Agent Doggett?" "What is it you hope to find?" "I'm just trying to find Mulder." "You wouldn't know where to look." "It's in the desk, middle drawer." "I know the answer, Agent Scully." " I don't even know the question." " What happened to Mulder?" "I know what you're gonna say or not because you think I'm the big bad wolf." "Do you really believe it?" "You think by talking in circles, I'm just going to get dizzy and and blurt it out..." "this so-called answer?" " That he was abducted by aliens?" " You said it." "I didn't." "I guess I just find it hard to swallow that a scientist, a serious person, could buy that." "Ever see an alien, Agent Scully?" "You want me to go on record?" "I will go on record to say this:" "that I have seen things that I cannot explain." "I have observed phenomena that I cannot deny." "And that as a scientist and a serious person it is a badge of honor not to dismiss these things because someone thinks they're B.S." "So you think he was abducted?" " I'm just trying to find him." " Then what are you doing here?" "Trying to figure these out." "I found them in his desk there." "Car rental receipts on Agent Mulder's Visa." "Four consecutive weekends in May." "Same mileage each trip... 370 miles, 375 miles..." "Where was he going?" "I don't know." "Like I said, maybe you really didn't know your partner." "John Doggett." "Agent Mulder at the FBI?" "Assistant Director, follow me." " What's going on?" "What is this?" " Mr. Skinner, right this way, please." "You can talk with Agent Scully after we're done." "Have a seat." "Assistant Director, someone came into this office after hours and removed some material." "Files." "We don't know exactly what just yet." "Who?" "The office here is secured by a pass-card lock and whoever came in last night used the pass-card belonging to Agent Mulder." "You think Agent Mulder took the files?" "We're wondering about Agent Mulder's state of mind." "In your statement, you said prior to his disappearance Agent Mulder had felt threatened by the FBI." "No, that's not what I said." "I said he felt the X-Files were threatened by budget cutting." "Is there anything you're not telling us about Agent Mulder or his attitude?" "Do you think he'd ever retaliate against the FBI?" " Agent Mulder was only after the truth." " As are we, Assistant Director." "Agent Scully tells us she was home last night." "We see from your phone log, you were here until at least after 10:00." "You think I came in here last night using Agent Mulder's pass-card?" "You were the last person to see Mulder." "You and Agent Scully." "Skinner is telling the truth." "I believe him." "That still doesn't tell us who used Mulder's card to get in there." "You think it was Mulder?" "I showed you those car rental receipts." "Well, now I find Agent Mulder's Visa was used two days ago in Raleigh, North Carolina." "Two days ago?" "By who?" "For what?" "Flowers." "Automatic debit to a mortuary there." "Mulder's mother is buried in Raleigh." "That's the reason he was going every weekend." "It's one reason." "I don't know what to think." "I don't believe it, Dana." "It just doesn't make any sense to me." "All right." "I got some light on this." "Maybe you can help me out here, Agent Scully." "What is it?" "Agent Mulder's medical records..." "recent stuff, over the last year." "Did you know about a medical condition?" "Either of you?" "No." "A year ago, Agent Mulder was hospitalized." "Ring a bell?" "Something to do with his brain?" " His temporal lobe." " An undiagnosable condition, it says." "Irregular brain activity." "All right, but he recovered." "There was a full recovery." "Was there?" "You know Mulder; he would've told us if there was anything." "Would he?" "Would he tell you about this?" "About his headstone?" "Mulder was dying." " What?" " It's all right here." "For a year, he was going to doctors." "There's a clear record of his decline." "How well did you really know him?" " How far would Mulder go?" " How far would he go for what?" "The truth... his truth." "Whatever it was he was trying to prove, how bad did he need to prove it?" " It was his whole life." " What are you trying to say?" "That Agent Mulder found himself in a place none of us want to go." "Life-threatened, work-threatened, and all for naught." "Nothing proven." "The effort in vain." "No mark left." "Unless he rolled the dice, took one big last chance to make it." "You think that Mulder was here?" "That he broke in to steal those files?" "Broke into your apartment;" "stole your computer." "Took his own computer." "Gathering it up." "To what?" "To prove it?" "Or cover it up." "Create doubt." "I get Mulder, I get him." "I understand obsession, believe me." "But the question is:" "how far would he go?" "I mean, so far as to stage his own disappearance?" "I know what I saw." "I not going to sit here and listen to this." "I watched it happen." "Agent Mulder?" "!" "Please don't report that." "Don't know what good it would do me." "Doesn't help me find Mulder." "No, it's not good enough." "These are records of microburst activity." "What we read is UFO activity since Mulder's abduction." " I think this is a waste of time." " No, it's not." "Just look at them." "I'm looking, and what I'm seeing is activity all over the southwestern states." "That's right." "Mulder disappeared in the Pacific Northwest." "And if Mulder is on that ship, this is where he is now." "Here?" "In the Arizona desert?" "This is what we have." "Okay." "Say this is true..." "Then how do we even begin to start finding him?" "Maybe with whoever it is they're looking to abduct next." " Hey, we're only trying to help." " We're only trying to find Mulder." "That's it." " It just came to me." " What?" "What you saw, why they took Mulder, why they're in Arizona now..." "it all makes sense." "Why do people refuse to believe in aliens and UFOs after all these years of sightings and eyewitness accounts?" " Why?" " Because there's no real proof." "Because, maybe, if there are aliens they're simply going around and they're... and they're removing all of the evidence before it becomes proof." "This isn't Mulder who's going around and collecting this stuff." "It's them." "Then why Arizona?" "Because they are looking to find that which is not in my computer or Mulder's computer or in the files that were removed from the FBI." "They are looking to find the whereabouts of good, hard proof." "That in this case exists in a person, in a boy named Gibson Praise." "This photograph's a few years old but take a good look because the objective in this case has been reframed." "Subject's name is Gibson Andrew Praise." "A child prodigy, pint-sized chess champion who Mulder and Scully first investigated in 1997 after a failed attempt on the boy's life." "His files were the ones we now believe were stolen from this office." "In his investigation Agent Mulder came to believe the boy was experiencing abnormal brain activity." "Unexplained activity." "In his field notes here he says Gibson Praise could, and I quote:" ""read people's thoughts."" "Agent Mulder went so far in one report to claim that the boy may have alien physiology." "Agent Mulder may be looking for the boy who was last seen in Arizona." "So maybe to find Mulder we first have to look for Gibson Praise." "Let's go, people!" "Let's move!" "How do you want this handled?" "I want you to put that on every TV station, post office, and fax machine in Arizona and the southwest." "I want to make that face famous." "You better?" "I need some navigation." "How to start looking for a 12-year-old kid in the middle of the Arizona desert." "Well, there aren't a whole lot of choices." "We got a turn off coming up in five miles." "I take it or keep going straight?" "Gibson Praise was last seen here at a power plant about 60 miles outside of Phoenix." "But all the satellite data shows activity here about 100 miles to the north." "What's out there?" "Well, according to this map a whole lot of nothing." "This is Special Agent Crane calling for task force leader." "Yeah, this is John Doggett." "Just confirmed a location on this kid." "He's at a school for the deaf in a place called Flemingtown." "Little dot on the map about 90 miles from where I am now." "I just talked to the school principal there." " Is the kid in school now?" " Yeah, he lives at the school." "All right, have the principal take him out of class and put him someplace where he can keep an eye on him until we arrive." "Got it." "Gonna take me an hour, an hour and 15 to get there." "All right, well, I'm going to see if I can cut some time off that." "It's a school 20 minutes from here." "Yes, sir, in his science class." "Is it important enough to take him away from his studies?" "I'll go and get him right now." "FLEMINGTOWN School for the Deaf" "Where's the boy?" "You're just going to have to slow down and explain a few things to us before we let you..." " Is he down there?" " He's in my office." "Hi." "Um... we're looking for a boy named Gibson Praise." " Now who are you?" " Kid went out the window." " What are you doing here?" " What are you doing here?" "!" "Trying to find Mulder." "Kid's on the move." "Spread out!" "The kid's on the loose!" "You have the photo!" "Move!" "Let me go!" "Let me go!" "Let the boy go!" "Let him go, Mulder!" "TO BE CONTINUED"