Scully wakes to find an obscure newspaper at her door. Mulder gets e-mail. Both media carry the news that Jason was miraculously cured of cancer. Apparently, someone wants them to investigate.

When Scully visits the house, Jason and his parents tell her that angels saved him. But she's discomfited to see Jason has a scar on the back of his neck -- the result of an implant?

She's even more disturbed when she gets back to her car and finds Cigarette Smoking Man sitting in it. He tells her he's doing "God's work." He also says he's dying, and wants to redeem himself for his destructive life. He's willing to bequeath his secrets to her -- provided she says nothing to Mulder.

He gets out. She drives off.

He also mentions that he's destroyed many people, including the ones most precious to him, and now wants to do something in service to humanity. There's a miracle cure for cancer available, he says -- if Scully takes a trip with him. She agrees to go, but hides a microphone in her bra.

They drive, destination unknown (to Scully). CSM is pleasant, even agrees not to smoke. She has left a message for Mulder saying she'll be gone a few days for a family crisis. Mulder is suspicious.

They drive into the countryside. Scully's at the wheel. CSM murmurs that she's attracted to powerful men but fears their power -- that she'd die for Mulder but won’t allow herself to love him. She accuses him of practicing pop psychology. He tells her to pull off, and suddenly they are in a driveway of a house where a woman is living.

CSM exultantly tells Scully this woman is 118 years old. She looks about 60, and he hugs her.

Left to his own devices, Mulder's getting worried. He approaches Skinner, just as the assistant director's private phone rings with Scully on the line. Scully offers reassurances to Mulder via Skinner, but, disturbingly, won't talk to her partner directly.

Mulder thinks she's in trouble.

Scully and CSM stop at a gas station. He pumps gas while she goes to the restroom. She puts an audio tape in an envelope and mails it. But after they drive off, a man retrieves it from the mail.

It's 1:34 a.m. They stop somewhere. Scully's asleep, and CSM is at the wheel. He puts on a glove and touches her red hair.

The Lone Gunmen knock on Mulder's door. At his request, they’ve been trying to track Scully down. They haven’t found her, but they have found that someone erased some of her e-mail, messages from someone named Cobra.

Morning. Scully awakens -- in bed. She's wearing a robe. She doesn’t know how she got there. She's disturbed that CSM must have seen her bra-mounted recorder.

She goes downstairs, where he's cooking up some breakfast. She angrily accuses him of drugging her. He denies it, saying plausibly that she fell asleep after a long drive. They're in Pennsylvania.

She's free to go, of course, he tells her. The keys are in the ignition. But after starting to storm off, she turns back to the house. Meanwhile, someone is watching from behind some trees.

Mulder and the Lone Gunmen rudely burst into Skinner's office to tell him a federal fugitive code-named Cobra is involved in a shadowy project in the Defense Department, and someone posing as Scully has been trying to win Cobra's trust, via e-mail. That someone must be CSM or one of his lackeys.

If we don't get to her soon, this may be the last time we see Scully alive, Mulder says, with interest.

CSM tells Scully he's invited their contact to dinner, and also taken the liberty of getting her something to wear. It's a long black dress with a lot of cleavage and spaghetti straps. Scully is appreciative, says it's "beautiful."

At an elegant restaurant, CSM further explains that Cobra is a geneticist who needs assurance his scientific work won’t fall into the wrong hands. Moreover, it's not only the cause for cancer but for all human diseases. It’s great stuff. He also says this science was abetted by aliens, and mumbles "final frontier."

Scully asks if he'll be cured too. He seems to demur, saying he's a lonely man.

Cobra doesn't show up. CSM confers with a lackey in the street. He has Scully's envelope.

Daytime. A dock. CSM sees Scully off as she takes a speedboat to meet Cobra. She has a rendezvous with Cobra's boat. But he gets shot. And when the shooter is about to shoot Scully, CSM shoots the shooter, from a hidden vantage point somewhere on land.

Back at the dock, Scully meets CSM and goes off with what the disk. But next, she's with Mulder and the Lone Gunmen. The computer geeks break the bad news. There's nothing on the disk. Mulder gives her a funny look.

Back at the dock, CSM has the real disk. But he looks a little sad. And he tosses the disk into the water.