9ABX10 Provenance

Scully: Agent Scully. He's expecting me.

Kersh's Assistant: Go right in, Agent Scully. They're all waiting for you.

Scully: They?

Kersh's Assistant: Mm-hmm.

[Scully enters the office. There are a lot of senior FBI officials waiting in Deputy Director Kersh's office, including Skinner, Assistant Director Follmer and the Toothpick Man]

Scully: Sorry to keep you waiting.

Deputy Director Kersh: Have a seat, please, Agent Scully...

Scully: May I ask what this is about?

Deputy Director Kersh: You can take a seat, please.

Assistant Director Follmer: Deputy Director Kersh has called you here today to ask you a few questions, Agent Scully. All right, just a few... routine questions.

Deputy Director Kersh: Do you know what this is? [He holds up an evidence bag containing the charred remains of an artefact rubbing]

Scully: Should I?

Assistant Director Follmer: It's a simple question, Agent Scully. Do you know what this is?

Scully: I'm not sure.

Deputy Director Kersh: But you've seen it before.

Scully: Am I under suspicion here?

Assistant Director Follmer: Assistant Director Skinner led us to believe that you'd be able to identify this piece of evidence.

Scully: And why is that?

Assistant Director Follmer: Well, you once worked on the X-Files.

Scully: Well, if this is an X-File then why don't you ask somebody who's working on the X-Files?

Assistant Director Follmer: Because we're asking you.

Scully: Where did you get these?

Deputy Director Kersh: They were found during an illegal border crossing in North Dakota. Canada to the US.

Scully: An illegal border crossing by whom?

Assistant Director Follmer: As I said, we're asking the questions here today, Agent Scully.

Deputy Director Kersh: What AD Follmer is saying is; your co-operation is important to this investigation, Agent Scully.

Scully: I'd like to co-operate. I'd be happy to co-operate. I just wish that you would tell me who or what you are investigating.

---

Scully: Were you called about this? Has AD Follmer been down here?

Reyes: Brad Follmer?

Scully: Yeah. Going through the X-Files.

Doggett: I doubt Agent Follmer even knows where we are down here, Agent Scully.

Reyes: Why? What are you looking for?

Scully: These. [She pulls a file from a filing cabinet and opens it]

Reyes: What are they?

Scully: Rubbings. Taken from the surface structure of a craft.

Doggett: A craft?

Scully: A spacecraft. Agent Doggett, if you can wrap your brain around that. They were found by fishermen off the western coast of Africa. Two years ago, I travelled there to study it and I took these.

Doggett: What does this have to do with Follmer?

Scully: This morning I was called into the Deputy Director's office and I was shown an exact copy of that rubbing. I was asked by senior staff to identify it for them.

Reyes: And where did they get them?

Scully: A guy running the North Dakota border from Canada. Or so they say.

Reyes: What did you tell them about these?

Scully: Nothing.

Reyes: And what aren't you telling us?

Scully: That they're powerful.

Doggett: We're talking about pieces of paper with marks on it.

Scully: They're not just marks, Agent Doggett. It's writing. Words. Powerful words. And if the FBI has them and they're keeping their investigation of them a secret, then they have a sense of their power as well.

---

Doggett: Special Agent John Doggett out of Washington. I'm looking for the agent in charge out here. Anybody point me to the ASAC?

[One of the agents directs Doggett to a small ravine]

Assistant Director Follmer: Agent Doggett...

Doggett: Assistant Director.

Assistant Director Follmer: I don't recall asking for your help or assistance on this case.

Doggett: Well, the way it looks I'm the only agent outside of DC. You didn't ask. What's the big attraction?

Assistant Director Follmer: Last night, a man made an illegal border crossing from Canada. A chase ensued; ended here.

Doggett: You know anything about him? About what he might have been doing?

Assistant Director Follmer: We're endeavouring to learn as much as we can, Agent Doggett.

Doggett: Was he carrying anything interesting?

Assistant Director Follmer: Like what, for example?

Doggett: I don't know. Like... maybe something you'd find in an X-File.

Assistant Director Follmer: If that's what you came looking for, you came a long way for nothing.

Doggett: Then what's with the cavalry?

Assistant Director Follmer: Excuse me?

Doggett: Lot of good shoes out here looking for what's got to be a dead man. Guy was killed, right?

Assistant Director Follmer: Man survives a fall like this, on fire? Not very likely...

Doggett: You got a body?

Assistant Director Follmer: We will, Agent Doggett. Like you say, I got the cavalry out here. You find that funny?

Doggett: Dead man up and disappearing? Happens every day, right? At least it does on the X-Files.

Assistant Director Follmer: Trust me, Mr Doggett. This has nothing to do with you. Nothing to do with you or the X-Files. Stick your nose in this case I promise you, you'll live to regret it.

---

Reyes: What I'm reading in your field report on these rubbings, Dana — there's something I didn't understand. You say these were taken off a spacecraft. You determined they were words — writings. You didn't tell us you knew what they said.

Scully: What little I read was through the help of an interpreter.

Reyes: But you interpreted them as text from the Bible, from the Koran... scripture from religions around the world. And science, too. The periodic table of elements.

Scully: Yes.

Reyes: And you wrote in your report they were millions of years old.

Scully: Based on radiometric readings from fossils that were encrusted on the surface of the ship.

Reyes: Agent Scully, I know you've become more open-minded about these things... but do you know what it is you're saying here? If it were true, these symbols wouldn't just be words... they'd be the very word of god on the surface of an alien spacecraft.

Scully: It'd mean that everything mankind believes in... is in question.

Reyes: And you believe this?

Scully: I didn't. I mean, I refused to believe it. But now I think... I think there may be answers there.

Reyes: Answers to what?

Scully: Answers about my son. I know how that sounds. I have no one else to say it to. That I was meant to find these... somehow. These were meant for me.

Reyes: But why would the FBI keep that from you? From us? And what exactly do they want with them?

Scully: Those are questions I can't answer.

---

Doggett: You forget our extension? Or you just can't be bothered?

Skinner: Excuse me?

Doggett: Returning calls. Agent Reyes', mine. What the hell's that about?

Skinner: Well, I've been tied up, Agent Doggett. I just haven't had a chance.

Doggett: That's not what your phone log says. Your log says you've returned everyone's calls but ours.

Skinner: Agent Doggett, let me remind you who answers to whom here.

Doggett: Oh, I think you owe me an answer, Sir — and if you don't owe it to me, you owe it to Agent Scully — on this X-File case the FBI's got. The one they're working so hard to keep us from investigating.

Skinner: You ready for my answer, Agent Doggett? It's not an X-File case.

Doggett: That's why you have 40 agents combing the Canadian border for a dead man that ain't dead.

Skinner: You don't know what you're talking about.

Doggett: I was out there.

Skinner: Without any authorisation!

Doggett: I don't understand — none of us do — why you're keeping their secrets... why you're keeping quiet.

Skinner: Because I know things you don't, John. And it's for your own good.

---

Reyes: [answering door] Yeah. Who's there?

Doggett: It's me. Open up, Monica. I got it.

Reyes: Got what?

Doggett: What they've been keeping a secret. What they won't tell Scully. What they wouldn't tell us.

Reyes: What am I looking at?

Doggett: A file on the guy crossing the Canadian border last night.

Reyes: [reading] Special Agent Robert Comer?

Doggett: He's FBI.

Reyes: Well, I know this guy. I worked a case with him once in New Orleans. Company man — straight as a ruler.

Doggett: Well, according to his file last six months he's been deep undercover.

Reyes: Undercover doing what?

Doggett: We got a pile of reading to do. What's not blacked out. [He takes an evidence bag containing rubbings from his jacket] Oh... picked these up in the bargain.

Reyes: Agent Skinner gave you these?

Doggett: I sort of got it on loan.

Reyes: We'd better call Agent Scully.

Doggett: I already did.

---

Scully: [on phone] I'm on my way. [She hangs up] That was Agent Doggett again. They're waiting. Mom, I've got to go.

Margaret Scully: It's the middle of the night, Dana. I just don't understand what can't wait 'til tomorrow.

Scully: Mom, it's important. I wouldn't go if it weren't.

Margaret Scully: Yes, I know, Dana. You say it's about getting answers.

Scully: Answers about William, Mom.

Margaret Scully: I know you're worried about him... that there are things about him that you just can't explain — but even if you were to get those answers what would it change?

Scully: Mom, he's my child.

Margaret Scully: And you have to love him and raise him in spite of everything. Dana, god has given you a miracle. A child that wasn't supposed to be. Maybe it's not to question... just to be taken as a matter of faith.

Scully: Mom, I can't take this on faith. I need to know. I need to know if it's really god I have to thank.

---

Scully: Where did you get those?

Doggett: I got 'em... and the FBI's file on the man who was carrying them. He's one of ours — working deep undercover. Infiltrating a religious group, some kind of whacked-out UFO cult. A case they never told us about.

Scully: Where's this cult supposed to be?

Doggett: North Dakota. And at some point, they up and disappear into Canada. Agent goes right along with them. FBI loses all contact with him.

Scully: What did they think this guy was doing running across the US border carrying these rubbings on him?

Doggett: The FBI thinks he went over to the dark side. Became whacked-out himself. And that's the secret they've been trying to keep from everybody.

Scully: That's it? That's the big secret?

Doggett: That and... they can't seem to find him the best I can figure.

Scully: I was questioned this morning, by the senior staff of the FBI. Not about an FBI agent, but about these rubbings. There's got to be something more. There has to be.

Reyes: There may be, Agent Scully. But I'm not sure even the FBI is aware of it. How could they be without access to your files?

Scully: What are you talking about?

Reyes: The set of rubbings the man smuggled over the border doesn't match the rubbings you took.

Scully: Wait a second. How can that be?

Reyes: It could only be that this whacked UFO cult found a second spacecraft.

---

Scully: Mom?

[Margaret Scully is thrown out of William Scully's room, she hits the floor with a thud]

Margaret Scully: He wants to kill the baby!

[Scully pulls her gun and enters William Scully's room cautiously. Agent Comer pushes the door into Scully, knocking the gun out of her hands. He picks up her gun, but Scully attacks him. He overpowers her]

Scully: No! No! Don't! Please! Don't! [Agent Comer tosses Scully out of the room and locks the door] I'll kill you! I'll kill you if you touch my baby!

Margaret Scully: Dana! [She hands Scully a second gun]

[Scully bursts through the door to William Scully's room. Agent Comer is holding a pillow over the baby's cot, Scully fires three shots into his abdomen]

---

Reyes: Oh, my god!

Doggett: Mrs Scully, are you okay? [Margaret Scully nods] What the hell happened here?

Scully: I need your help, okay? Agent Reyes, I need you to take my mom and the baby. Can you do that, Monica?

Reyes: Of course. [She takes William Scully and leaves with Margaret Scully]

Doggett: Who is that? Is somebody here? [Scully opens the door to William Scully's room] You going to tell me what this is, who the hell this is, Dana?

Scully: That man — that FBI agent — came here to kill my baby.

Doggett: You got to help this man.

Scully: No, not until he tells me why.

Doggett: He's not going to tell anybody anything unless you get him to a hospital. This man is losing blood fast.

Scully: I am not going to turn him over to the FBI! I am not going to let them cover their tracks on this one! [She grabs Agent Comer's shirt] Why? Why do you want to hurt my son? Agent Doggett, put down the phone! He has to answer me!

Agent Comer: He has to...

Scully: What? Say it!

Agent Comer: Your son...

Scully: Say it!

Agent Comer: ...has to die.

Scully: Why? Who told you that? He's my son! He's my son!

Doggett: [on phone] Yeah. I've got a medical emergency, a man in critical condition at...

---

Doggett: This man have any kind of a weapon?

Scully: A pillow.

Doggett: Whatever brought him here, I hope to god we figure it out.

[Scully notices Agent Comer's jacket. She finds an alien artefact in the pocket]

---

Lieutenant Colonel Josepho: What is it? [The Overcoat Woman tosses him a newspaper. The headline reads: Missing FBI Agent Shot In Washington and shows a photo of Agent Comer] This changes everything.

Overcoat Woman: He can expose all this. He's got proof he can show them. What do you want to do?

Lieutenant Colonel Josepho: There's only one thing to do.

---

Assistant Director Follmer: Agent Scully, Agent Doggett. You can both have a seat.

Scully: This is just going to be another interrogation, I prefer to stand.

Deputy Director Kersh: Agent Scully, a man was shot in your apartment. An FBI agent.

Scully: Trying to kill my son.

Deputy Director Kersh: That is not in question here. There'll be an investigation.

Scully: Another secret investigation or one where I'm given advance warning that my family's life is in danger?

Assistant Director Follmer: It would help us to help you if you could tell us anything this man might have communicated to you.

Doggett: I wouldn't tell him anything, not until they explain why all the hush-hush over this case, why the doublespeak — the mincing words from Mr Follmer — 'cause I want answers myself.

Deputy Director Kersh: The man you shot had been undercover, which you've already found out through whatever unethical means. His assignment was to infiltrate a religious cult. A cult led by a former military officer. A very dangerous man by all accounts, and who also believed in very dangerous ideas... about aliens.

Scully: And why wasn't I told? Why not Agent Doggett? Why not Agent Reyes? Why wasn't this an X-File?

Skinner: I asked them to put somebody else on the case because I was afraid after all that you'd been through it just might break you.

Scully: What are you talking about?

Deputy Director Kersh: Agent Comer — our undercover man — was sent to infiltrate the cult... based on a series of... threats.

Scully: What threats? Threats to who? To me, to my child...

Assistant Director Follmer: Threats... on Agent Mulder's life.

Scully: That's what this is about? Then why pull me in here and show me those rubbings? I don't understand.

Assistant Director Follmer: Before losing all contact with our undercover agent, he sent us a communication. A communication we've been trying to confirm that... that Mulder was already dead.

---

Reyes: What's happened? It's okay. Just tell me what it is.

Scully: It's Mulder...

[A rattling noise is coming from the next room. A dresser drawer is rattling and shaking]

Reyes: What is it?

Scully: An artefact. I got it from the man who was trying to kill William.

Reyes: Okay, but what the hell is it?

Scully: It's a piece of the spacecraft.

[The drawer rattles louder. Scully opens the drawer. The artefact bursts out, heading straight for William Scully. It crashes through the cot and stops directly above the baby, hovering there and spinning slowly in a clockwise direction]

---

Doggett: Where's Agent Scully?

Reyes: She's still upstairs. I want to talk to you before you see her, to explain what's happened.

Doggett: You said it had something to do with the kid. A piece of metal these rubbings were taken from.

Reyes: A piece of that ship in Canada.

Doggett: Oh, come on, Monica. You're making an outrageous leap. You're just guessing there's any such thing.

Reyes: It flew through the air at the baby. I saw it.

Doggett: Just tell me the boy's okay.

Reyes: I don't think you understand. The boy has some connection with this thing — this piece of metal.

Doggett: You saying this kid's an alien or something?

Reyes: You can believe or not, but the man who tried to kill Scully's baby believed it... so must this cult he got involved with, who are obviously more than willing to kill for their belief.

Doggett: Where are we going?

Scully: I'll tell you on the way.

[Reyes puts William Scully in the car. Doggett spots a station wagon parked nearby, the Overcoat Woman at the wheel]

Doggett: You drive.

Reyes: What is it?

Doggett: I'm right behind you guys.

Scully: What is it?

Doggett: Probably nothing.

[Reyes drives away. Doggett heads for the station wagon. The car starts and heads towards him]

Doggett: Federal Agent! Stop the car! [Doggett fires at the station wagon, breaking the windshield. The Overcoat Woman runs Doggett down and drives off after Reyes]

---

Reyes: Who are we meeting?

Scully: The only ones left we can trust.

[The Lone Gunmen get out of their van. Frohike gets William Scully, in his child seat out, of the car]

Frohike: Hey, little man. [He hands the baby to Langly and gets the baby bag]

Langly: Your baby's in good hands. [Byers takes the child]

Scully: I need to know that you're taking him to a safe place. I need to know that you're... that you're taking every precaution.

Byers: We understand. [to Langly] Langly.

Scully: Now, there's a good chance that my phone lines have been tapped, and if they're tapped, they can trace you.

Frohike: We thought about that.

[Langly returns with a plastic bag he gives to Reyes]

Langly: Six cell phones, their signals scrambled. Use each one once and then throw it away.

Scully: [to William Scully] Hey... it's going to be okay.

Frohike: Whatever you do, don't worry.

---

Scully: What's going on here?

Reyes: I don't know. [She gets out of the car and approaches Skinner] What happened? Is it John?

[The EMTs have Doggett on a gurney and are putting him in the ambulance. Scully gets behind the wheel]

Skinner: Agent Scully! Scully!

Scully: My baby! They're after my baby! I have to get back!

---

Frohike: What the hell is this? [A station wagon blocks the alley]

Byers: What the hell is what?

[The Overcoat Woman fires at their van, it crashes into a pole. The Overcoat Woman walks toward the back of the van, opens the back door and points her gun at Byers, who is protectively holding William Scully]