The X-Files were comfortably housed in the darkest corner of the FBI building. That was Mulder's sphere of influence. It's a place categorized, labeled and found at the end of a labyrinth of corridors and bureaucracy that rivaled only the National Security Administration and Department of Defense in both scope and complexity. It was where the sidewalk ended; an unrecognizable footnote in the history of the agency. It's file cabinets bulged with the evidence to support a mission so esoteric and unwanted as to highlight the evident career suicide for any and all associated with the X-Files; and yet, here Scully sat ready to be swept away in another incomprehensible case. She sat: legs crossed, lips pursed, and mind sharpened.

Mulder moved through the stacks and stacks of files, folders, photographs with enthusiasm. His motions were quick and confident. He knew the details of all that cluttered his desk, the surrounding shelves, and every file cabinet in this cloistered space. This was Mulder's temple: one man on a mission. The sermon for the uninitiated would begin with only one in audience. His energy and spiritedness was, normally, infectious. Mulder was engaging and charming and, above all else, a believer. To Mulder, the truth was so strange and complicated and… scary that most chose ambivalence or ignorance so that they could sleep not hearing the bump in the night. Mulder was different. He wanted to shine a light, record and catalogue the bump in the night. He smiled at Scully. Today the mustiness emanating from the back, where the older files sat yellowed on shelves, pushed into Scully's awareness. She wrinkled her nose.

"Ah ha," Mulder pulled a scrap from the heap, rounded the desk, and handed it Scully. He promptly flipped on the slide projector. "Any idea what that is?"

"I don't… It looks like-"

"I'll tell you what it is, Scully." With a broad smile, Mulder clicked to the first slide that displayed a sheath of ancient parchment covered in alien flowers and an incomprehensible script. He clicked to the next slide that showed lines and lines of script, possibly Arabic, with an illustration of several odd looking women in a pool of liquid that flowed from a tubular system of unconnected cylinders. "This is-"

"An LSD trip." Scully blinked at the image. "What is this language? Sanskrit?" Mulder advanced to the next slide that showed pod-like plants connected to a system of orb-like root structure. She felt as if she was looking at a page ripped out of an otherworldly 15th century botanist journal.

"These are pages from the Voynich Manuscript." He clicked forward several images. They all showed variations of alien plants, animals, and foreign writings. "It was discovered by an antique dealer in the 17th century, sold to the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia, Rudolf II, and eventually fell into the hands of an avid book collector named Wilfrid Voynich at the turn of the century." Mulder handed Scully a slip of folded paper. "The markings and pictures you see here are unknown. The language it is written is unknown, its origin is unknown, and its age is unknown. Wilfrid spent his life trying to decipher the manuscript that compromises over 240 pages of these." Mulder quickly advanced from slide to slide, the strange pages flipping across the screen. Scully's eyes went wide as her brain tried to make sense of the bizarre images. She felt hypnotized by the mysterious pages as they clicked through her mind one after another after another until the screen went white. Mulder put down the slide advancer.

Scully leaned back in her chair and frowned. She peered down at the slip of paper. "That's a nice story, Mulder. Let me guess. It was stolen from New Haven, Connecticut?"

Nonplussed, Mulder continued. "It was donated to Yale in the 1960's. Carbon dating placed the creation of the manuscript around the 1400s. Materials analysis also confirm it as a product of most likely the 14th or 15th century. Many have tried and failed to translate the text, including cryptographers from both World Wars. Ol' King Rudolf believed it a product of a Franciscan friar named Francis Bacon." He smiled. "Say that three-times fast."

"You know that stolen artifacts are not a bureau matter." Scully laid down the folded paper neatly on the corner of his desk."

Mulder's lips tightened in a line. His brow furrowed, which meant, as Scully understood, that it was a Mulder-matter. "That was slipped under my door." She sighed. "Plus it's a short trip."

"Skinner will not approve." Sitting in the bowels of the FBI building, the weight of Assistant Director Walter Skinner's office, on the 8th floor, sat heavy on Scully's career. "This is not a bureau matter."

Mulder had moved to behind his desk. He was already putting on his jacket. "Quick trip, Scully. Come on, you love… uh… you know, Ivy league towns."

Scully couldn't recall actually agreeing to the assignment, but it would appear a mute point as Mulder, after checking out keys for a bureau sedan, twirled them in his hand. He chuckled. Scully felt a sudden need for control as they approached the standard issue black Chevy Impala. "Gimme those." Mulder, without hesitation, slapped them in her hand. "How far is New Haven from here any way?"

Mulder shrugged. "Mm, it's rush hour so I'd say six and a half hours. You know, Scully, this is an ideal time to update you on the parasite sewage mutant we caught last year. I talked to a geneticist at Hopkins that sequenced it's DNA-"

"Tell ya what," she tossed the keys to Mulder. "I think I deserve a six-hour nap."