While the Cigarette-Smoking Man recites to an unseen listener everything about the work of the Syndicate involving a global conspiracy in cooperation with an alien species, Cassandra Spender reappears and is pursued by the scientists who would rather kill her than keep her alive. Cassandra runs to Mulder's apartment and demands that he shoot her because she is the culmination of 50 years work - a living alien/human hybrid - and colonization will begin if the aliens find out about her.

After arresting the murderer of Amber-Lynn LaPierre and discovering a mass grave site containing the bodies of dozens of missing children, a man comes to Mulder and claims to have had visions of other victims who aren't buried at the site. Despite Scully's objections, he takes Mulder on a journey which reveals what truly happened to his sister.

The Cigarette-Smoking Man offers to show Scully the cure for all diseases if she travels with him, but on one condition: Mulder must not know about her trip.