In Missouri, at a self-storage business, Jim drives a golf cart among the storage garages, calling Anson on the radio. He eventually finds Anson sitting in an empty storage garage, reading a magazine about pleasure yachts. Jim berates Anson for not cleaning garage 407. Anson opens the overhead door of 407 and finds plastic covered furniture. Inside a rolled up Arabic rug, something moves. Anson unrolls the rug and inside finds a woman. Jim is again calling for Anson on the radio. He drives up to 407 calls out more critical comments. All of a sudden he has no mouth, just unbroken skin where his lips should be.
In the X-Files office, Mulder is talking with Jim when Scully enters. A mouth has been surgically opened for him, but it is gruesome to look at. Jim is convinced that Anson Stokes did this. Anson resurfaced several days later but refused to talk with police. The agents go to the Mark Twain Trailer Court, where Anson lives with his brother, Leslie. Anson now has a huge yacht by his mobile home. Anson is afraid that Mulder and Scully are IRS agents, investigating how Anson could afford the yacht. Anson hides and Leslie tells the agents that they are just taking care of the yacht for somebody. Mulder sees the women from the rug inside the mobile home. Leslie claims that Jim stored chemicals that caused "the mouth thing." Mulder and Scully visit 407 but find odd chemical smells. A calendar is dated 1978. The furniture is expensive and high quality. Might Anson have taken something and sold it to pay for the yacht? They find a picture of the woman Mulder saw at the trailer. Anson talks to the woman - she gave him the yacht because he asked for it. He`s upset that it`s not in water - and he can`t afford it. He makes clear that he has wasted two wishes and only has one left. He doesn`t want to wish it until he is completely ready. Leslie suggests a wish for money. Leslie cannot walk and rides in a motorized chair - but is doesn`t occur to the brothers to wish for him to be able to walk. Anson finally wishes that he can turn invisible at will. The woman says it`s unoriginal, but grants the wish. Anson tests it and fades out. He strips and runs around the trailer court. Then he approaches a couple of pretty girls, but while crossing the street is hit by a truck and killed.
Scully waits in an autopsy room as the invisible body is brought in. She is astounded. She uses power to outline the face, then the entire body. Mulder arrives. Dental records identify the body as Anson Stokes. This is the most amazing thing Scully has ever seen. Mulder agrees that it is amazing but says it probably has nothing to do with science. The previous owner of the items stored in 407 an overnight success, but he died in a very unusual way. Mulder thinks that the mystery woman is the link, but he can find out nothing about her. Scully stays to guard the body while Mulder goes to the mobile home. Leslie says the woman is gone. Mulder thinks she is a genie, a spirit from Middle Eastern folklore. They live in inanimate objects and grant wishes for the people who find them. Leslie agrees to hand over the object and gives Mulder an ornamental box. Later, however, Leslie goes to 407 for the rug.
Mulder goes back to Scully at the autopsy room. Mulder shows her the box, but it obviously has no genie in it - just marijuana. Mulder, meanwhile, has found pictures of the mystery woman using FBI software that matches faces in photograph databases. She is seen in pictures of Benito Mussolini and Richard Nixon, men who got all the power they wished for, then lost it. Leslie talks with the genie. He wants Anson back and the genie grants the wish. Scully leads a team of scientific experts into the autopsy room, but Anson`s body is gone, making her very embarrassed. Leslie`s wish backfired, because Anson is back, but still with a decayed body and unable to talk. Leslie wishes Anson can talk, and Anson begins scream. Mulder and Scully can`t find Anson`s body anywhere in the lab. Scully now doesn`t know what she saw. Mulder thinks the body disappeared because of a wish being granted. Anson finally stops screaming. Anson can`t feel his arm and he`s cold. As Leslie struggles to think of his last wish, Anson fumbles to light the gas oven, to warm the mobile home. As Mulder and Scully pull up and the mobile home explodes from the ignited gas. The carpet falls to earth near the agents.
The woman is taken into custody. Mulder calls her Jenn, short for the female form of the word "genie." The fire department recovers two bodies, including Anson, now visible. Mulder`s conclusion is that Jenn is evil, or the victim of a curse, but Jenn says the only thing people are cursed with is stupidity. In 500 years people have not changed a bit. Greed still reigns. She used to be human, born in 15th century France. A genie offered her three wishes. Her first two were inconsequential. Her third was to wish for great power and long life, which made her a genie. It is forever, like a prison tattoo, and it is clear that she regrets her wish, so many years ago. Scully can`t come up with any reason to hold her, but she will not leave. Mulder unrolled the carpet so he gets three wishes.
Mulder and Jenn are back at Mulder`s apartment. Scully left the airport quickly. Mulder asks what Jenn would wish for and she answers to wish that she had never heard the word "wish," and that she could live day to day, relaxing over coffee, etc. Mulder theorizes that in order to avoid problems, his wishes should be totally altruistic, for everyone. He wishes for peace on Earth. She grants the wish, but when Mulder looks outside, he finds that he is the last man on Earth. AT FBI headquarters he walks into Skinner`s office and calls Jenn. She explains that it is what he wanted - he wasn`t specific about how world peace should be established. She accuses him of having a huge ego, to want her to change the hearts of six billion people in his name. He wishes to undo his first wish, and Skinner and a staff meeting appears in the room, causing Mulder much embarrassment. He goes to his office and begins typing a wish, in intricate detail, so that he can get all of the specifics and details correct. Scully enters. She doesn`t remembering disappearing of the face of the Earth. Scully says that if Jenn really is what she says, the power to make wishes is extraordinarily dangerous. Scully suggests that the meaning of life is to find peace and happiness, and that one man shouldn`t try to circumvent the process with a single wish. Scully leaves and Mulder wipes the screen. He is finally ready to make his last wish.
Later that night, Mulder and Scully sit back and enjoy a beer at Mulder's apartment. Mulder tells her that he didn't wish for peace on earth after all. She asks him what he did wish for, and he simply smiles. Cut to a cafe', where Jenn sits. The mark of the Jinn is gone, meaning that Mulder's last wish was to free her from her prison.
