Daytime. Middle of nowhere. Mulder and Scully's car winds down a deserted road toward a settlement of Native American pueblos, nestled against the side of a mountain. Smoke billows out of the top...um, apartment of one of the pueblos. Our heroes finally come to a dusty halt, and Mulder leaps out of the car. He's changed into his Tight White Pec-Tastic T-Shirt and beat-up blue jeans. Don't ask me when that happened, but it was very nice of Scully to bring along all the outfits that make him look hot. Scully slides out of the passenger side and looks up into the sun. Her blouse is very unbuttoned. I'm just saying. She looks around. "What are they?" she asks. "Pueblos," Mulder tells her. "Anasazi Indian. Abandoned two thousand years ago. Nobody knows why." Scully looks up at him. "Yeah, Mulder," she drawls. "But what are we doing here?" Mulder points at the smoke billowing out of the pueblo farthest from them and walks over to it. She follows him over to the structure and up two sets of twig ladders.

Inside the pueblo, an old Native American woman cooks over an open fire. Mulder climbs inside. "My name is Fox Mulder," he says. She almost drops her spoon into the flames. "Do you understand me?" he asks, as Scully climbs into the room behind him. The woman -- let's call her, oh, Cooks For Evil -- scurries behind a curtain. "Mulder, what is it?" Scully asks. "I was sent a message and the key to the government facility at Mount Weather," Mulder tells her. "The Indian said it was from a wise man who lived in the ruins, the keeper of the truth." Hmm, do you think it's Albert Hosteen? Oh my God, do you think it's...? Nah, there's no way. ["Yeah, 'cause he was killed falling down stairs, as if." -- Wing Chun]

Outside the pueblo, a helicopter swoops into view. Inside it are Moronica and Doggett, each scanning the landscape. "Do you see anything at all?" Moronica asks. Doggett turns to her, sadly. He shakes his head.

Cooks For Evil leads Mulder into a room deep inside the mountain. An old man with long gray hair sits with his back to camera. He's smoking a cigarette. When I saw this scene the first time, I literally leapt off the sofa and yelped, "CSM!" It was very exciting. It made my being unspoiled for this episode completely worth it for me. "What's the matter, Agent Mulder?" CSM drawls, taking a drag from his tracheotomy hole. "You've come to see the wise man, but you look as though you've seen a ghost." Girl, please. No one thought that fall down the stairs did you in. ["Exactly." -- Wing Chun] "You're not a wise man. You're a dead man," Mulder says. "Just like Krycek and X." Scully finally makes her way down the hallway and into the anteroom. "Do you see a dead man, Agent Scully?" CSM asks. Scully looks shocked. "I hoped and prayed you were dead, you chain-smoking son of a bitch," she spits. Hey, do you know who CSM looks like with his new long, skanky hair? An older, eviler Ozzy Osbourne. And if anyone's the prince of fucking darkness, it is indeed CSM. "You waste your time," he smiles at her. "Ask Mulder. He knows the futility of hopes and prayers." Scully shoots CSM an angry eyebrow. "He knows the truth, now," CSM announces. Scully looks over at Mulder. "You have told her the truth, haven't you, Fox?" CSM asks. "I helped you find it," CSM adds. Mulder sneers that CSM didn't help him: "You sent me to that facility knowing exactly what I'd find." CSM takes a long drag on his cigarette. "And now you refuse to speak it," CSM says. "Not to Scully, not to anyone." Scully furrows her brow and looks from father to son, confused. "You even refused to testify what you'd learnt," CSM continues. "Even though it would have saved your life. You damned me for my secrets, but you're afraid to speak the truth." Mulder shifts on his feet. "You call me afraid?" Mulder finally asks. "You're sitting here alone in the dark like a fossil." CSM looks around his cave and calls it "the final refuge. The last place to hide from those who are insidiously taking power now." Scully tilts her head. "Who?" she asks. "The aliens," CSM says, as though it were all so obvious. Scully shoots a sharp glance at Mulder, who avoids her gaze. "They fear this place," CSM continues. "Its geology. Magnetite. Like that which brought down the original UFO in Roswell. Indian wise men realized this over two thousand years ago. They hid here. And watched their own culture die." Scully and Mulder just watch as CSM exhales a long plume of smoke. "The original shadow government," he says.