Agent Jeffrey Spender is put in charge of a case of an international chess master who was felled by an assassin's bullet during a tournament. Mulder believes that the target was actually the man's opponent, a 12 year-old chess prodigy by the name of Gibson Andrew Praise. Mulder soon realizes that the boy's skill isn't so much at chess as it is to read the thoughts of others. The boy is under protective custody but the conspirators have brought in someone whose sole task is to get his hands on the boy: the Cigarette Smoking Man. Testing shows that Gibson uses part of his brain that doctors know little about. For Scully, it may be the link they need to firmly establish the alien conspiracy theory. Mulder's pursuit of the case comes at a very high cost however.
—garykmcd