It was already passed visiting hours when Skinner returned, but he used his FBI authority to be let in. This time, Byers was with him, and as soon as they entered Mulder's room, he began to set up a small workstation.

The disk was where exactly Scully left it. Skinner handed Byers the disk and he started to work. The lone Lone Gunman quickly passed through the layers of encryption until he was slowed down by a passcode he could not break.

"Isn't there a program to run through all the possible password combinations?"

"There is, but there's programming on this disk that prevents that. We need to either guess the password or find out what it is?"

"Is there a way to determine the characteristics of the passcode?"

Byers shook is head. He began typing in random passwords. Mulder – error. Scully – error. Aliens – error. Skinner paced around the room, his mind deep in thought. Only Mulder kept calm. There was something that he recalled from his ordeal with Butch, but for once, his photographic memory failed him. Luckily, there were ways to cure that.

"When Scully and I were brought in, did they take pictures of our injuries?"

Skinner replied with an affirmative and left to retrieve the photos. Byers watched in confusion. Mulder offered no explanation. When Skinner returned, Mulder quickly flipped through the photographs until he found the one he wanted.

"Try 03604."

Byers stared at Mulder in apprehension.

"Just try it."

Byers punched in the numbers.

"Error."

"Fu … It can't be wrong. I know its right."

Byers tried entering the same numbers in different sequences but each came up with the same response.

"It's a code then. The numbers mean something."

"It could … but Mulder, you shouldn't put your faith in this."

Mulder was taken back by Byers frankness. Usually the Lone Gunmen humored him and followed his whims, but he rarely dealt with them singularly. Frohike and Langly were off in New Mexico, following up a lead while Byers opted to stay behind to finish working on his social commentary piece of their next issue.

"Pager code."

"What?"

Mulder never took Skinner to be one who followed trends.

"Pager code. 03604 spells out 'decoy.'"

Mulder started at Skinner quizzically, hoping for an explanation.

"My niece had a pager a few years ago. She'd page me messages using pager code."

Byers sighed and punched in the word "decoy" then hit then "enter" button.

"We're through."

Mulder sat up a bit straighter as Byers began to furiously browse through the sought after data. A few minutes passed, the only noise breaking the silence was the tapping of keys, until Byers spoke up.

"It's a list of abductees. Names, dates, places, and what was done to them."

He turned to the computer over to Mulder so he could take a look. His eyes scanned the information, soaking it in.

"It's a fake. I've seen all this information before on websites dedicated to abductees and their experiences."

"Then why would your source leak you this disk."

Mulder thought for a while, piecing together all the parts of the puzzle.

"He didn't. 'The Red Mole' said that he was apprehended after dropping a disk off at my apartment. Whoever did this to us could have easily switched disks."

"It could also be possible that he was given the fake to begin with."

"Sir?"

"You said it yourself, you were set up. What if this set up goes all the way to the top. It's plausible that 'The Mole' was set up to set you up. We're missing something here. We don't know their agenda. We don't know who "they" are."

Byers and Mulder were both blown away. Skinner was never one to form conspiracy theories.

"Are you implying that our dear friends at the government are behind this?"

"Who else could it be?"

There was truth in that. Mulder and Scully have been hounded by freaks before, demons, psychotics but whenever anything was directly related to their work, only one group was behind it.

"But what did they want this time? They could have easily killed us but they let us go time and time again."

"Obviously they still want you and Agent Scully alive, but …"

A nurse knocked on the door, throwing off Byers' train of thought. Mulder recognized her as the ICU nurse who was assigned to Scully during the night shift.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, but Agent Scully is waking up."