Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) is reassigned to teach at the FBI Academy while Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) is given lowly surveillance assignments. After he investigates extraterrestrial cases at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, Mulder is given a new partner, Alex Krycek (Nicholas Lea), and meets a secretive informant, X (Steven Williams). Mulder is recruited to assist in a hostage negotiation when Duane Barry, an alien abductee, captures four people. Barry eventually kidnaps Scully, believing that if he brings her to his original abduction site, Skyland Mountain, aliens will take her instead of him. Mulder follows but is delayed by Krycek, who is revealed to be a mole working for Cigarette Smoking Man (William B. Davis). When Mulder reaches Skyland Mountain, Scully is gone. Barry, who insists that aliens took him, dies soon after an interrogation by Krycek. When Krycek vanishes, Skinner re-opens the X-Files, claiming that is what the conspirators will fear most.