Agent Doggett investigates the death of an EPA official after his car is forced off a bridge by a woman he picked up. He asks for assistance on the case from Scully, who has returned to her teaching position at the FBI Academy in Quantico.

Doggett catches up with Shannon McMahon, the woman who the EPA official picked up. She claims to be a super soldier and that the people she has killed were poisoning the water supply, and she wants Doggett to expose the truth.

Scully is approached by a couple who claim their baby has the same abilities as William and have information about the super soldier program; however, they will only talk to Mulder, believing him the only person who can make the connections and uncover the truth. Scully is forced into an awkward situation when she has to decide whether to put Mulder's life in more danger even though she desperately wants to see him.

When pieces of the spaceship beached in Africa resurface, the conspiracy within the FBI attempts to hide the information from the X-Files, especially the one person for whom the pieces have a special significance - Scully. When Doggett and Reyes discover that Scully and her child have been put in great danger, they race to protect her and William from the evil forces pursuing him, and Scully is forced to take drastic measures to protect her child.

Scully is anxious to recover William from his kidnappers and takes matters into her own hands when the FBI's attempts to assist in the investigation are less than helpful. With the help of the Lone Gunmen, Scully discovers terrifying information about her child's captors, and is once again forced to confront the mystery regarding the sinister interest in her son.

Doggett catches someone in the X-files office trying to steal documents pertaining to Mulder's sister. The intruder is a severely scarred man who blames his disfigurement on Government conspirators. He claims the source of that information - and, in fact, the one who helped him gain entry - is Mulder. Although he refuses to divulge the missing agent's whereabouts, the mystery man has enough knowledge of the X-files and its history to lead Doggett to suspect that he just might be Mulder himself. Scully's fears for the safety of her son are elevated when he is injected with an unknown substance. With the mystery surrounding William becoming even darker, Scully must allow herself to send him away for his own safety.

After not knowing Fox Mulder's whereabouts for the last year, A.D. Skinner and Agent Scully learn he's being held for the murder of a military man he couldn't possibly have killed: Knowle Rohrer, one of the government's secret super-soldiers. With Skinner acting as Mulder's defense, people who Mulder has dealt with during his last nine years as an FBI agent testify on his behalf. But the military tribunal isn't interested in the truth.

When an unexpected person comes to Mulder's rescue, Mulder refuses to slip north over the border to safety. Instead, he heads southwest to the Anasazi ruins of New Mexico seeking a mysterious wise man who the Indians call "The Keeper of the Truth".