The X-Files (1993–…): Season 9, Episode 9 - Provenance - full transcript

A man is chased from the Canada/US border and reportedly burned alive though his body is not found. Meanwhile, in the burned remains, the FBI finds papers with the same UFO markings Scully found in Africa.

Sector Station to Unit One.
Unit One, please report.
Unit One reporting. No traffic or unusual activity, Sector Station.
Tell her my ass is freezing off and I need somebody here to get the blood circulating.
Sector Station, Agent Daley here has a very special request.
The mic‘s off.
- Don't scare me like that, man. - C'mon. Keeps you awake, don't it?
- Something moving. - Where?
Heading right through the trees. Straight ahead.
You see it?
Got it.
Unit One to Sector Station. We are in pursuit of an illegal border crossing.
The rabbit's running for the hole.
End of the road, buddy.
Agent Scully. He's expecting me.
Go right in, Agent Scully. They're all waiting for you.
"They"?
- Sorry to keep you waiting. - Have a seat, please, Agent Scully.
- May I ask what this is about? - You can take a seat, please.
Deputy Director Kersh has called you here today to ask you a few questions.
All right? Just a few... routine questions.
Do you know what this is?
Should I?
It's a simple question, Agent Scully.
Do you know what this is?
- I'm not sure. - But you've seen it before?
Am I under suspicion here?
Assistant Director Skinner led us to believe that you'd be able to identify this evidence.
- And why is that? - You once worked on the X-Files.
Then why don't you ask somebody who's working on the X-Files?
Because we're asking you.
Where did you get these?
They were found during an illegal border crossing in North Dakota. Canada to the US.
- An illegal border crossing by whom? - We're asking the questions here today.
What AD Follmer is saying is,
your cooperation is important to this investigation, Agent Scully.
I'd like to cooperate. I'd be happy to cooperate.
I just wish that you would tell me who or what you are investigating.
Were you called about this?
- Has AD Follmer been down here? - Brad Follmer?
Yeah. Going through the X-Files.
I doubt Agent Follmer even knows who we are down here, Agent Scully.
Why? What are you looking for?
These.
- What are they? - Rubbings.
- Taken from the surface structure of a craft. - A craft?
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 traveled there to study it, and I took these.
What has this to do with Follmer?
I was called into the deputy director's office and shown an exact copy of that rubbing.
I was asked by senior staff to identify it for them.
- Where did they get them? - A guy running the border from Canada.
Or so they say.
What did you tell them about these?
Nothing.
And what aren't you telling us?
That they're powerful.
We're talking about pieces of paper with marks on.
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.
Special Agent John Doggett, out of Washington.
Looking for the agent in charge out here.
Anybody point me to the ASAC?
Agent Doggett.
Assistant Director.
I don't recall asking for your help or assistance on this case.
The way it looks, I'm the only agent outside DC you didn't ask.
What's the big attraction?
Last night, a man made an illegal border crossing from Canada.
A chase ensued. Ended here.
Do you know anything about him? About what he was doing?
We're endeavouring to learn as much as we can, Agent Doggett.
- Was he carrying anything interesting? - Like what, for example?
I don't know. Like, uh... maybe something you'd find in an X-File.
If that's what you came looking for, then you came a long way for nothing.
- Then what's with the cavalry? - Excuse me?
A lot of good shoes out here looking for what's gotta be a dead man.
The guy was killed, right?
A man survives a fall like this, on fire?
It's not very likely.
You got a body?
We will, Agent Doggett.
Like you say, I got the cavalry out here.
You find that funny?
A dead man up and disappearing? Happens every day, right?
At least it does on the X-Files.
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, and I promise you, you'll live to regret it.
Hi. Thanks for coming.
I needed to talk to you about this in person.
What is it?
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.
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.
Yes.
And you wrote in your report they were millions of years old.
Based on radiometric readings from fossils encrusted on the surface of the ship.
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.
It'd mean that everything mankind believes in... is in question.
And you believe this?
I didn't.
I mean, I refused to believe it.
But now I think...
I think there may be answers there.
Answers to what?
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.
Why would the FBI keep that from you? From us?
And what exactly do they want with them?
Those are questions I can't answer.
Forget our extension?
Or you just can't be bothered?
- Excuse me? - Returning calls.
Agent Reyes's, mine. What the hell's that about?
I've been tied up, Agent Doggett. I just haven't had a chance.
That's not what your phone log says. It says you've returned everyone's calls but ours.
Agent Doggett, let me remind you who answers to whom here,
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 keeping us from investigating.
Are you ready for my answer, Agent Doggett? It's not an X-File case.
That's why you have 40 agents combing the border for a dead man that ain't dead.
- You don't know what you're talking about. - I was there.
Without any authorization!
I don't understand.
None of us do.
Why you're keeping their secrets. Why you're keeping quiet.
Because I know things you don't, John.
And it's for your own good.
- Yeah? Who's there? - It's me. Open up, Monica.
- Got it. - Got what?
What they've been keeping a secret. What they won't tell Scully.
What they wouldn't tell us.
What am I looking at?
A file on the guy crossing the Canadian border last night.
- Special Agent Robert Comer. - He's FBI.
I know this guy. I worked a case with him in New Orleans. Straight as a ruler.
Last six months he's been deep undercover.
Undercover doing what?
We got a pile of reading to do - what's not blacked out. Oh, and, uh...
I picked these up in a bargain.
- AD Skinner gave you these? - I sort of got it on loan.
- We'd better call Agent Scully. - I already did.
Hey, you need a hand there, bro?
How about I just help you out, huh?
I'm on my way.
That was Agent Doggett again. They're waiting. Mom, I gotta go.
I just don't understand why it can't wait till tomorrow?
- It's important. I wouldn't go if it weren't. - You say it's about getting answers.
Answers about William, Mom.
I know you're worried about him, but there are things you just can't explain.
- If you got answers, what would it change? - Mom, he's my child!
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.
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.
- Where'd you get those? - I got 'em.
And the FBI's file on the man who was carrying 'em.
He's one of ours, working deep undercover,
infiltrating a religious group, some whacked out UFO cult.
- A case they never told us about. - Where's this cult supposed to be?
North Dakota. At some point they disappear into Canada.
Agent goes along with them, FBI loses contact with him.
What did they think he was doing running across the border with these rubbings?
The FBI thinks he went on to the dark side, became whacked out himself.
And that's the secret they've been trying to keep.
That's it? That's the big secret?
That, and... they can't seem to find him, best I can figure.
I was questioned this morning by the senior staff of the FBI,
not about an FBI agent but about these rubbings.
There's gotta be something more.
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?
- What are you talking about? - The set of rubbings the man smuggled
doesn't match the rubbings you took.
Wait a second.
How can that be?
It could only be that this whacked UFO cult found a second spacecraft.
Mom?
He wants to kill the baby!
Don't! Please!
Don't!
I'll kill you! I'll kill you if you touch my baby!
Dana!
Oh, my God!
Mrs Scully, are you OK?
- What the hell happened here? - I need your help, OK?
Agent Reyes, I need you to take my mom and the baby. Can you do that, Monica?
Of course.
Who is that? Is somebody here?
You gotta tell me what this is, who the hell this is, Dana.
That man, that FBI agent, came here to kill my baby.
- You gotta help this man. - No. Not until he tells me why.
He won't tell anybody anything unless you get him to a hospital. He's losing blood fast.
I am not gonna turn him over to the FBI.
I am not gonna let them cover their tracks on this.
Why? Why do you want to hurt my son?!
Agent Doggett, put down the phone!
He has to answer me!
- He has... - What?! Say it!
- Your son... - Say it!
- ..has to die. - Why?!
Who told you that?!
He's my son!
I've got a medical emergency, a man in critical”,
This man have any kind of a weapon?
A pillow.
Whatever brought him here, I hope to God we figure it out.
What is it?
- This changes everything. - He can expose all this.
He's got proof he can show them.
What do you wanna do?
There's only one thing to do.
Agent Scully, Agent Doggett.
You can both have a seat.
If this is just gonna be another interrogation, I'd prefer to stand.
Agent Scully, a man was shot in your apartment. An FBI agent.
Trying to kill my son.
That is not in question. There'll be an investigation.
Another secret investigation,
or one where I'm given warning that my family's in danger?
It would help us to help you if you tell us anything this man communicated to you.
I wouldn't tell 'em anything until they explain
why all the hush-hush over this case,
why the doublespeak, the mincing words from Mr Follmer.
Cos I want answers myself.
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, one led by a former military officer,
a very dangerous man by all accounts,
and who also believed in very dangerous ideas... about aliens.
Why wasn't I told? Why not Agent Doggett, or Agent Reyes? Why wasn't this an X-File?
I asked them to put somebody else on the case
because I was afraid it might break you.
What are you talking about?
Agent Corner, our undercover man, was sent to infiltrate the cult...
based on a series of... threats.
What threats? Threats to who? To me? My child?
Threats... on Agent Mulder's life.
That's what this is about?
Then why pull me in here and show me those rubbings?
I don't understand.
Before losing all contact with our undercover agent,
he sent us a communication,
a communication we've been trying to confirm,
that, uh...
that Mulder was already dead.
- Here's your mommy. - Hi, honey.
Dana, what's wrong?
What's happened?
It's OK. Just tell me what it is.
It's Mulder.
What is it?
An artefact.
I got it from the man who was trying to kill William.
OK. But what the hell is it?
It's a piece of the spacecraft.
- Where's Agent Scully? - She's still upstairs.
I wanna talk to you before you see her, to explain what's happened.
You said it had something to do with the kid, that piece of metal.
A piece of that ship in Canada.
Come on, Monica. You're just guessing there's any such thing.
It flew through the air at the baby. I saw it.
- Just tell me the boy's OK. - I don't think you understand.
The boy has some connection with this thing, this piece of metal.
You saying this kid's an alien?
You can believe or not, but the man who tried to kill Scully's baby believed it.
So must this cult, who are obviously more than willing to kill for their belief.
- Where are we going? - I'll tell you on the way.
- You drive. - What is it?
- I'm right behind you guys. - What is it?
Probably nothing.
Federal agent! Stop the car!
- Who are we meeting? - The only ones left we can trust.
Hey, little man.
Your baby's in good hands.
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.
We understand. Langly?
There's a chance that my phone lines have been tapped.
- If so, they can trace you. - We thought about that.
Six cellphones, their signals scrambled. Use each one once and then throw it away.
Whatever you do, don't worry.
- What's going on here? - I don't know.
What happened?
Is it John?
Agent Scully. Scully.
My baby. They're after my baby. I have to get back.
- What the hell is this? - What the hell is what?
I made this!