"The man at the last village said there was an archaeologist working up here." Mulder pocketed his badge.

"I think your Spanish needs a little work Mr. Mulder. I'm a geologist, not an archaeologist," said Dr. Cottrell, bending back down to examine her samples.

Mulder turned slowly around, his arms open. "Then this isn't the Lost Land of Mu?"

"How should I know?"

"But the remains of the city," he said gesturing to the pottery fragments.

"I think the term is 'village'," she said. "There was some tribe here before at some point. There's a well over there and a few midden piles. The mesa probably acted as a sort of castle. They would only have to have guarded the two narrow valleys. Perfect protection."

"What happened to them?"

"Could be anything, weather, no water, no food… like i said, not my thing."

"What exactly are you doing here?"

"Paleo-stratigraphy," said Rory as they walked towards the mesa's edge. "Mexican geology is not what it should be. I'm field checking a number of strata for salt diapirs. They trap oil," she explained. "Imogen was very helpful along with the oil companies in getting my grant pushed through pretty fast."

"You expect me to believe you? You just happen to be out at this location at this time and it's not a coincidence." Mulder followed her to her tent.

"Listen, " Rory took a long pull from her water bottle. "You take a grant when you can get it."

Inside her tent, papers were strewn about , mixed with clothes and junk food wrappers. "My partner Dave King left two days ago. I was gonna follow him tomorrow."

"If you're supposed to be a geologist, where's the keg?"

Rory turned towards him and looked over her round gold-rimmed glasses. "Reports of our drinking are greatly exaggerated. For some anyway… A few… OK, a couple of... I've never met them but I know they're out there. Somewhere," she finished lamely. She grabbed a hand-lens off of the card table and walked back outside to stand by the ledge. Mulder followed her outside.

"You didn't really come here looking for Mu did you?" Itw was more of a statement of fact than a question.

"Not really. Look," he began, "I'm trying to find a man. I've been tracking him from Washington DC. He's about 5'8"…"

"… With black hair, white skin, right?"

Mulder looked at her rather oddly.

"He's climbing down the slope," she said pointing.

Mulder began to run.

"Take the south gully; you can get down there before he does!" she called after him.

Sighing slightly, Rory turned back towards her tent.


He never said a word.

Mulder caught Krychek climbing down the cliff towards his land rover.

"All right climb down, slowly," called Mulder. He followed the man's movement with the barrel of his gun "I don't want to shoot you." He came closer. "You should know how much paper work that entails."

The man descended to the base and slipped, coming to a rest facing Mulder.

It wasn't Krychek.

Confused, Mulder hesitated. NotKrychek completed his downward motion, turning down into Mulder, reaching for the gun.

The dusty sand betrayed Mulder. It slipped and swam under his heel, sliding his weight to the left.

On impact, the gun went spiraling out of his hand.

As NotKrychek retrieved the gun, and as thunder rolled in from the west, Mulder reached for his back up pistol strapped to his ankle.

NotKrychek swung the gun round and up.

The gun he forgot the permit for when he got on the plane.

NotKrychek flicked off the safety.

The pistol he left at customs.

Clasped the trigger.

Mulder's hand clutched at empty air.

Pulled.

Ferrets.

NotKyrchek fell to the ground clutching his forehead as blood sprayed outwards. The sound of the sandstone slab impacting with NotKrychek's head was lost in Mulder's cry.

More fragments flew as the rock embedded itself in the surrounding scree.

He looked up to see Rory standing on the ledge of the talus pile, sixty feet above him.

"Boulder rolling," she called down to him. "The only really useful thing I learned at field camp."