Mulder is involved in a hostage negotiation involving an alien abductee named Duane Barry and Scully's life is threatened.

Back to 1985, Duane Barry is lying on his bed asleep when suddenly the TV goes out and the room is surrounded by dozens of grey figures with large heads. Barry's body suddenly raises above the bed as he screams "Not Again!" but no one can hear.

The present. Barry is being held in a mental treatment facility due to the fact that he is claiming that he has been abducted by aliens a number of times and that "they're coming for me again". As Dr. Hakkie, his supervisor is turned away, Duane escapes and takes hold of a guard's gun escaping from the facility while holding Hakkie hostage. Meanwhile, Krycek informs Mulder that he is wanted for a hostage negotiation and that Barry has taken another three people hostage inside a travel agency.

Mulder comes down to "read the script" but is unable to get anywhere as Barry senses the old routine due to being former-FBI. Suddenly, the lights go out in the building and Barry starts shooting his gun at nothing. When power is returned, Mulder and a paramedic enter the travel agency to help a man who was shot. While Mulder talks to Barry about his abduction experience, he flashes back to the times when he was. Mulder convinces Barry to let the man go but he trades Mulder's place instead of him so Mulder is tied up on a chair.

As this is going on, Scully is alerted to what is happening and so finds out a bit more about Duane Barry. She finds that he is in fact delusional and extremely violent because of a gunshot that pierced the moral centre of his brain. He is likely to "act out his fantasies" so Scully rushes over to the travel agency and talks to Mulder down an ear piece that Barry is not what Mulder thinks he is.

Despite this, Mulder continues asking Barry about his abduction experiences. He says that the government are in on it and tells him what they do to him like drilling holes in his teeth. He also tells Mulder that he is fitted with implants in his teeth cavities, sinus and abdomen which is how the aliens track him. Mulder sympathizes with him and tells Barry about what happened to his sister which leads Barry to believe that Mulder is lying to him but he soon calms down.

As the tactical team are closing in, Mulder asks Barry if he made any of it up which puts the abductee into a state of anger almost killing Mulder. Before he can do any more damage, Mulder tells Barry to lock the door. When he walks up to the door a red light appears on his chest and WAMO!

Later examination of Barry shows that he does actually have pieces of metal in the areas he explained and that he is holes in his teeth which could not have been accomplished with any of the current equipment in use. Mulder is convinced that Barry is what he says he is but Scully is not so sure. She still goes down to the supermarket and using the piece of metal that was removed from Duane, she runs it over the scanner which makes the till go beserk and start reading off some kind of serial number.

A shocked Scully rings up Mulder on his answer phone back in her appartment and says that she believes that someone was using the piece of metal to catalogue Duane. Meanwhile, Duane escapes from the hospital knocking the guard over the head with a fire extinguisher. Suddenly Scully hears a knock on the window and goes to look when she finds Duane staring in at her. The window smashes and as the screen blackens out we hear Scully screaming "Mulder, I need your help!". To be continued.......