Anasazi

Internal dating: Dates, dates, dates.... The passage of time is marked every step of the way with onscreen captions, showing that this episode, as far as Mulder and Scully are concerned, takes place from April 11th to 16th 1995.

The earthquake is April 9th 1995, the hacker gets the information on the 10th and Mulder gets the tape on the 11th. Mulder attacks Skinner on the 12th and Scully is called before an enquiry on the 13th. Mulder's father is killed on the night of the 13th/14th. Mulder himself is shot on the evening on the 14th and wakes up in New Mexico in daylight on the 16th. He disappears on the afternoon of April 16th 1995.

April 9 1995. Navajo Reservation, Two Grey Hills, New Mexico. A Navajo youth (Eric) goes out into the desert following an earthquake. His grandfather, Albert Hosteen, says that the earth has a secret it wants to tell. In a quarry, Eric sees something white exposed by a crack in the earth and starts to dig. Later he returns home with the twisted body of something that looks alien. Albert says it should be returned. "They will be coming."

April 10th. Dover, Delaware. A computer hacker (seen reading "50 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time") gets access to the Department of Defence computer. He saves the information to digital tape.

Same day, United Nations building. An Italian official is informed that someone has broken into the MJ files. He calls a Japanese official, who calls a German, who calls Cancerman. "I've already taken care of it," Cancerman says. Then he turns to the other men in the room. "Gentlemen, that was the phone call I never wanted to get."

Armed men break into the hacker's room but he's not there.

The Lone Gunmen knock on Mulder's door and come in, despite his insistence that he's not interested. "I'm not feeling well," he says. They say they could have been followed by a multi-national black ops unit, code-named Garnet. They are seeking Kenneth Soona, aka the Thinker, the hacker we saw earlier. The Thinker wants to meet with Mulder. Suddenly there is a shot. One of Mulder's neighbours has killed her husband of 30 years. "Weirdness", mutters Frohike.

Mulder meets the Thinker in the Botanic Garden and is given the tape. It contains everything the Defence Department has on UFOs. He wants Mulder to promise they answer to the people.

In his office the next day, Mulder tries to view the tape. He calls it the Holy Grail - the biggest lie of all - but the information is all encoded. Mulder is furious, but Scully says it looks like Navajo - used in World War 2. Mulder leaves to see Skinner, who had been asking for him. As he leaves, Scully asks anxiously if he's okay. He says he hasn't been sleeping.

Mulder meets Skinner in the corridor. He refuses to come into the office. Skinner asks about the rumour that he has possession of some secret files, but Mulder turns his back to walk off. When Skinner grabs his shoulder, Mulder throws a punch at him. "Are we finished, Agent Mulder?" Skinner shouts, when Mulder's been subdued. "Are we done?" Mulder turns and walks off.

Next day (April 13th) Scully is called before a committee of enquiry. She's asked if Mulder confides in her. "Of course," she says. "He's my partner." She's reminded (by a man played by Chris Carter) that she was originally assigned to debunk Mulder's work. She says this is true (and says it was a year and half ago, despite the fact that, according to the date of the pilot episode, it's more like three years) and she's been writing regular reports ever since. "Would you lie to protect him?" she's asked, and is warned that her job would be under threat if it was discovered that she has lied.

West Tisbury, Martha's Vineyard. Bill Mulder has a visit from Cancerman. "What are you doing here?" he says, looking horrified. "We agreed that you'd never...." Later, they discuss what has happened. "Regret is an inevitable consequence of life," Cancerman says calmly, when Bill Mulder says the files should have been destroyed. "As always we maintain plausible denial," he adds. "The files are only as real as their possible authentication." "My name is in those files," Bill Mulder says. The conversation moves to Fox. Bill Mulder asks if any harm will come to him. "I've protected him so far, haven't I?" comes the reply. He adds that Fox has made some provident alliances, and they mustn't make him a martyr. He encourages Bill to "deny everything" if Fox finds out.

Back in Mulder's apartment, Scully comes in to find him asleep, having taken a pill. She tells him about the committee that questioned her, and demands to know more about the files, having put her job on the line by lying for him. Is this cassette worth risking everything for?" she asks. He shouts at her, and is hostile. "I just need some kind of assurance that they're not going to let us hang ourselves on this - that I'm doing the right thing" she shouts. He puts an X in the window to get the answer. She then asks him why he attacked Skinner. "I've thought about that, Scully," he replies. "I honestly can't say."

Scully consults a woman at the Office of the Navajo Nation. She can't read the print-out apart from the words "merchandise" and "vaccination," but suggests she ask a proper code-talker to find out more.

That night, Mulder is feverish and sick, still waiting for X to answer his call. His father calls and asks him to come over. "It's very important," he says.

Later, Scully comes to Mulder's apartment and finds no sign on him. As she walks over to the window a shot rings out and she's grazed on the head by a bullet through the window.

Mulder arrives at his father's house and is surprised to get a hug. (see Colony for the last time Mulder tried to hug his father.)

Bill Mulder: "It's so clear now - simple. It was so complicated then - the choices that needed to be made."

Mulder: "What choices, Dad?"

Bill Mulder: "You're a smart boy, Fox - smarter than I ever was... "

Mulder: "About what?"

Bill Mulder: Your politics are yours. You have never thrown in. The minute you do that, their doctrines become yours."

Mulder: "You're talking about your work in the State Department?"

Bill Mulder: "You're going to learn of things, Fox. You're going to hear the words, and they'll come to make sense to you."

Mulder: "What words?"

Bill Mulder: "The merchandise."

Bill Mulder looks overcome with emotion and Mulder rises to hug him, but his father goes to the bathroom to take some medication. When he looks in the mirror, there's Krycek, hiding in the shower. Mulder hears a shot and arrives to find his father dying. "Forgive me," Bill Mulder says as he dies, and Mulder weeps over his body.

Mulder calls Scully, telling her his father's dead. His hands are covered with blood and he switches off the light, huddling in a corner in the darkness. Scully is hard pressed to get any coherent answers from him as she asks him where he is and what happened. "Were you arguing?" she asks, but he assures her he didn't do it. She tells him he must leave - everything points at him anyway, so running away will make no difference. She tells him to come to her apartment, telling him about the bullet through his own window.

When Mulder shows up at Scully's door he's still covered with blood, feverish and can scarcely walk. He leans heavily on her as she leads him to her bed. "We've got to find out who killed my father!" he calls, as she hushes him and tells him it will be okay.

Next morning (April 14th) Mulder wakes up to find Scully gone (though someone appears to have taken his clothes off!). His gun has gone too.

Scully goes to the Firearms unit to get a comparison run on Mulder's gun and the gun that shot Bill Mulder. Mulder calls, furious that she took his gun. He won't believe that she's trying to clear his name. "Were you afraid I was going to shoot you too?" he shouts. Scully says she's been called into Skinner's office that afternoon and he's going to want answers. "So you can clear your conscience and your name?" he shouts. "You've been making reports on me from the beginning, taking your little notes." She tries to assure him she's on his side, but he won't listen. "You have my files, and you have my gun. Don't ask me for my trust," he says, cutting off the call.

Scully goes to Mulder's apartment to dig the bullet from the wall. Looking out of the window, she sees an unmarked white van removing a tank of water. She investigates and finds a brand new tank, supplying drinking water to Mulder's apartment.

At night, Mulder arrives home but catches sight of Krycek. He catches up with him and the two of them have a vicious fight. "Did you kill my father?" Mulder keeps shouting, getting the better of him in the fight. Just as he's about to shoot Krycek, Scully appears and tells him not to kill him. Mulder won't listen, so Scully shoots him in the shoulder. Krycek runs away.

Mulder awakens a day and a half later to find himself in New Mexico. Scully had kept him sedated for the long cross-country journey. "You shot me," he says to Scully. She explains that she had to stop him shooting Krycek with Krycek's own weapon. If it was the gun that killed his father, he couldn't use it. "I'm sorry about your father, Mulder," she she's finished explaining. She goes on to show him how she found a dialysis filter in his water, and guesses that they've been drugging him with some sort of psychotic drug. "These men are quite possibly the same men who killed your father, and who systematically tried to destroy you by turning everyone you could trust against you. I don't think I have to tell you why." "I've gotten too close to the truth," says Mulder.

She then introduces him to Albert Hosteen, a Navajo codetalker who's been deciphering the print-out. Albert says he knew Mulder was coming, from the earthquake last week. The tape reveals a global conspiracy dating from the late 40s. Evidence is buried nearby, and he'll take Mulder as soon as he's well enough, "What about you?" he asks. She sighs. "I'm afraid you're on your own with this," she tells him, saying that she missed a meeting with Skinner and is worried about the repercussions. "You took a big risk," he says. "I was certain they were going to kill you," she replies, and he touches her arm briefly. "Thank you," he says. "Thank you for taking care of me." "There's something else," she tells him. "My name is in those files. It appears in the latest entries with Duane Barry's....something to do with a test. I want you to find out, Mulder. I need you to."

Albert and Mulder drive out to the reservation. "Why me?" Mulder asks, when Albert says it was foretold that he could come. "You are prepared to accept the truth, aren't you?" Albert asks. "To sacrifice yourself to it." He then tells Mulder about the old tribe of "Anasazi" who disappeared without a trace, but "nothing disappears without a trace." He thinks they were taken by "visitors who come here still."

Albert's grandson Eric takes Mulder out to the quarry where he found the alien. As Mulder descends, his phone rings. It's Cancerman. "He was never an opponent of the project," he says, speaking of Bill Mulder. "In fact, he authorised it - that's what he couldn't live with." Mulder accuses him of murdering his father, but Cancerman says he wasn't involved in that. Mulder threatens to expose the project, but Cancerman says, "expose anything and you only expose your father."

Mulder ends the call but it's still enough for Cancerman and his men to trace his location. They set off in a helicopter to track him down.

Mulder goes to the thing buried in the desert, which turns out to be a boxcar. He climbs down inside, and calls Scully from within. "There are bodies everywhere ... stacked floor to ceiling." Scully says she's found evidence in the files of experiments on humans (referred to as merchandise) carried out by Axis scientists given asylum after the war. "These aren't human, Scully," he says. "By the look of them, I'd say they're alien." Then he notices they all have something that looks like a smallpox vaccination scar. "Oh my God, Scully. What have they done?"

Then the door slams shut.

A helicopter descends and armed men grab Eric and demand to know where Mulder is. They search in the box car but can't find him. "Nothing disappears without a trace," Cancerman shouts. "Burn it."

Flames shoot out of the box car.

To be continued in Blessing Way.

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