His apartment , unlike his office , is not a typical reflection of someone who is a truth-seeker: it is plain, dark and mundane. A little across to the left of the entrance way is a window marked with an "X" in tape. He anxiously sits and waits for a signal. All the lights in his apartment are off except for a small blue fluorescent lamp by the window. He sits on the side of his sofa with a torch in his left hand. He switches it on and off for about a minute. Within seconds, a flash from the street is returned and confirmation of message is established.
Standing up, he hurriedly grabs his jacket and proceeds towards the door. The light in his corridor reveals him to be tall, slim and relatively good-looking with short black hair. As he briskly walks down to the elevator, checking whether his badge is in place, the reflection of the lights in the corridor on his plastified badge confirms his identity: Special Agent Fox Mulder, FBI Agent. Truth is in the air for Fox, which incidentally is very apt, for tonight, he is in pursuit of the truth - that abstract and elusive concept - which he strongly believes is out there.
Across the other side of town, a woman sits comfortably in a chair behind her computer. She was typing a few minutes ago. There are no guesses as to what she was typing up. It was most likely a report attempting to debunk her partner’s seemingly wacky idea of there being a force - albeit a supernatural one - watching our every move, or paranormal activity being an inevitable part of human existence. She presses the "page up" button on her computer and re-reads her almost finished report. There is an air of seriousness on her face as the words on the blue background of her computer screen are reflected onto the lens of her circular-rimmed glasses: "To date, I have seen nothing scientifically plausible to substantiate the existence of extra-terrestrials. Special Agent Mulder however, believes that we are not alone…"
Past events in the company of her partner and those which have personally affected her like her abduction by UFOs (as in Ascension) have made her question to an extent her impregnable conviction in the traditional scientific roles that had been inculcated into her during the years she was studying medicine.. Unfortunately, no faith as strong as her partner’s can shake her out of the orthodox belief she so jealously espouses. Why is this? Here was a woman who had seen things no normal person would expect to see: she had been taken up and experimented upon; she had in fact also seen the bright light - the same light her partner claimed to have seen when her sister was abducted. In spite of that, she refuses to still believe.
However, disbelieving is not what he wants to do for he has always espoused a psychologically impregnable faith that if conventional beliefs and science are unable to offer us any plausible explanations, "might we not finally turn to the fantastic as a plausibility?" . He believes that by being open-minded enough to turn to the fantastic as a plausibility, one will be able to better accept the idea of paranormal activity and the existence of UFOs. He seems to be further frustrated by the fact that his sister’s abduction at the age of ten left an emotional hole in him. Under hypnosis, he was able to recall a bright light and remember his inability to respond to his sister’s cries for help due to his paralysed state. In fact, it is the abduction of his sister which has always been the passion which has encouraged him to go on further in pursuit of the truth. His passion is as his female partner admonished "so intense that it can sometimes be blinding" . Nevertheless, he will not give up and refuses stubbornly to succumb to the injustices he witnesses but can do nothing about. Unlike his female partner, he wants to expose these injustices for he believes that people ought to be aware of the web of conspiracy carefully spun and consolidated by government officials in the higher echelons of power which, designed to be impenetrable, he wishes to break. For once it is broken he believes, then the truth will out.
This is not to say that she does not care. She is also aware of the existence of this web of conspiracy yet she does not want to be a crusader and risk her life to break it. She sees herself powerless in the face of all the adversities she has been forced to endure and painfully so, especially since her sister - who espouses a faith similar to that of her partner - was killed by the dark and dangerous men who prevent both these two Agents from ever getting to the truth: the closer they get to the truth, the quicker it tantalisingly rushes away. It is this same government that consistently tries to keep the truth from ever being known. Like Mulder whose father was murdered by the same shadow government, she is indeed terribly aware of such an existence.
Nonetheless, if there is anything which is of paramount importance that they resolve to agree on, it is that those responsible for their family member’s death should be sought and punished. It is ironic that the one unifying link between them is that they have both lost a very close member of their family. Whereas he is prepared to risk anything - even sacrifice his job and life as in Anasazi - to try to exact revenge for his father’s murder, she is much more cautious and reluctant to ardently pursue the truth. It is evident that the memory of her sister and his father’s death will not be forgotten until the people who killed them have been brought to justice for "memory - like fire - is radiant and immutable. While history serves only those who seek to control it, those who would douse the flame of memory in order to put out the dangerous fire of truth" . The dangerously elusive men of the shadow government who killed Mulder’s father and Scully’s sister are the ones whom Albert, the Indian in the Blessing Way, contends should be avoided for "their false history is written in the blood of those who might remember them and for those who seek the truth". Nonetheless, Mulder, now even more determined to seek the truth , will not stop searching until he has done so.
In fact, Mulder’s pursuit for the truth is what has intensified and consolidated his passion for The Xfiles, especially in the wake of the murder of his father who in Anasazi , admitted his guilt to Mulder that the lies he told him were a "...pox and poison " to his soul. Furthermore, the spirit of his father, aware of the profound grief and loss felt by his son concerning his demise and his sister’s disappearance, has assured him that he is the "memory" and that if he were to die, then "the truth would die and only the lies survive us" The spirit of Mulder’s father, as a consequence, has encouraged him to go on further: "The thing that would destroy me; the truth I felt you must never learn, is the truth you will find if you are to go forward " As a consequence, this bizarre and intricate state of affairs - unusual for Federal Agents - has put some fear into Scully and led her to question to a considerable extent, the authenticity of the science she learned all those years ago. Day by day, she wonders whether if the truth really was not out there, her sister would probably be alive.
In the final analysis, if anything links these Agents together, it must be their passion for their jobs at the FBI. They are both very intelligent people: Mulder, gifted with a photographic memory has written several books about serial killers and apparently as a rookie, displayed a natural aptitude in distinguishing the characteristics of serial killers. Scully is a medical doctor, an FBI Academy graduate who now is working for the FBI as Special Agent. They are both romantically unattached and it seems that their keen intellects overlap each other, simply because she is in fact a cynic and he a believer. However, what makes their working relationship between each other so admirable is Scully’s devotion to Mulder despite their divergent philosophies. Not only has she assisted him and put her job on the line for him, but she has also been forced to shoot him also to prevent him from shooting an FBI Agent-turned-turncoat, Krycek who in fact, murdered Mulder’s father. To top it all off, she has on numerous occasions, given him advice and heeded him:" The truth or a white whale - what difference does it make?..Both obsessions are impossible to capture and trying to do so will only leave you dead along with everyone else that you bring with you..." . However, Scully is not stubborn; Mulder is consistently so: he refuses to give up his cause in the face of all his adversities that any crazed man would. He has the capacity to swallow his pride and his fear. Mulder believes that " fear...is the oldest tool of power. Fear of those around you keeps you ignorant of the actions of those above " With this inherent philosophy, he has no qualms about taking the risks that he does and he will continue to take chances - irrespective of their dangers. If the ultimate price is death, then he is willing to die. Special Agent Fox Mulder will always be ready to sacrifice himself to the truth.
@Max Sunrise 1996