Página PrincipalInternal dating: There are no actual dates on any of the scenes. Episode aired 17th January 1999.
St. Katherine's Hospital
9:29 P.M.
In a busy hospital corridor, a young male doctor in surgical scrubs calls out to another doctor, Dr. Cabrera, handing her a medical chart. She asks him where "he" is and the doctor tells her that he is in Trauma, that they said she would know what is wrong with the patient. She demands to know who transferred him from ICU and he tells her that he did, that he was scheduled for Therapeutic Plasma Pheresis and he went into shock. His vitals aren't good. She tells him to call the FBI and notify Agent Scully, and tells him that this man is a FBI agent. The doctor asks her what's wrong with him and Dr. Cabrera says that he is going to die.
They enter a hospital room with monitoring equipment beeping in the background. Skinner is lying on a gurney, his veins large and pulsing over his exposed arms and face. Dr. Cabrera leans over Skinner, asking if he can hear her. His lips move and she asks him to speak up, leaning closer. He whispers again and she looks at the other doctor, straightening up. The other doctor asks her what he said and she says, "A name."
His signs suddenly go flat and the male doctor announces that he's coding, grabbing the paddles and telling everyone to clear. Dr. Cabrera stands looking down at Skinner, her hand on his shoulder, and he calls her name again.
Male doctor: Dr. Cabrera, clear. Dr. Cabrera!
Dr. Cabrera: Let him go.
The other doctor looks down at Skinner's lifeless face.
The credits roll: The Truth is Out There
Skinner's body is lying on a gurney, his lifeless eyes open and staring.
Skinner (Voice Over): Every minute of every day we choose. Who we are, who we forgive, who we defend and protect. We choose a side or to walk the line. To play the middle. To straddle the fence between what is and what should be. This was the course I chose. Trying to find a delicate balance of interest that can never exist. Choosing by not choosing. Defending a center which cannot hold. So death chose for me.
A sheet is pulled over his head.
SOUTH STREET GYM
24 HOURS EARLIER
Several boxing matches are going on in the background while a trainer fastens Skinner's boxing gloves, telling "Slugger" to go easy on his sparring partner. Skinner looks over at his opponent, and a longhaired, bearded man passes in the background. They get into the ring and Skinner is winning, backing his opponent into the corner. Suddenly everything seems to go blurry; Skinner shakes his head and his vision clears. He backs up and they go at it again, but his opponent manages to get a blow under his guard to Skinner's right side, then another to his chin. He staggers and half-turns, and his vision goes blurry again. He turns back to his opponent but he is clearly having vision problems and the other boxer knocks him down with a blow to the face. The trainer bends over him, removing the helmet, asking if he is okay. Skinner blinks, unable to answer.
Skinner blinks his eyes open again and he is the hospital. The nurse repeats his name and asks if he remembers what happened. Skinner replies that he was boxing and that he must have gotten tagged. She comments that at least he didn't get his ear bit off and says that the doctor will be with him in a minute. Skinner sits up and looks at the clock – it is 9:34. His cell phone rings and he answers it. A computerized voice is on the other end.
Voice: Walter Skinner. Have you heard the news? It's in you. You have 24 hours to go. You are already dead.
Skinner hangs up and the doctor comes in, pleased to see that he is up and around. He asks Skinner to take a seat on the table. Dr. Plant checks Skinner's eyes, says that the good news is that his dilation is back to normal and that he has both his ears. Skinner smiles faintly, tells him he's heard that one. Dr. Plant says he's going to release him, but that he should rethink the boxing – he's not 20 anymore.
Skinner: Then there's nothing wrong with me?
Dr. Plant: Well, you got your bell rung but other than that I think you're fine. You might want to ice that bruise.
Skinner: What bruise?
The doctor lifts his shirt and he has a large bruise under his right ribcage. Skinner doesn't remember getting it, but the doctor says he must have taken a hard one to the ribs. Nothing broken, no internal bleeding – he'll live.
FBI Headquarters
10:21 PM
Mulder is sitting at his desk in the bullpen throwing pencils at the ceiling when he sees AD Skinner slowly walk by the corridor window, his jacket off and his right hand on his side. Mulder gets up and goes down the hallway to Skinner's office, entering the outer office and heading towards Skinner's open door. From the darkness, he hears Skinner's voice and looks around. Skinner is sprawled on the couch in Kim's office, glasses off, tie gone, shirt untucked.
Skinner: What is it, Agent Mulder?
Mulder: I just thought I'd poke my head in and say 'hey'.
Skinner: Hey.
Skinner turns to lie down on the couch.
Mulder: What – are you sleeping one off?
Skinner: No, I was just having trouble seeing. It's nothing. I just didn't think I should drive.
Mulder: You going to be all right, sir?
Skinner doesn't reply.
11:09 PM – The elevator doors open and Scully comes out, entering the darkened office. Skinner is still sprawled on the couch. Scully looks at Mulder inquiringly.
Mulder: He's going to tell you that he's all right.
Skinner: That's because there's nothing wrong with me.
Scully: Not that I could tell if there was. Why are all the lights out?
Mulder tells her that Skinner is having trouble with his eyes, and that he has a nasty bruise on his ribcage. Scully checks out his bruise as Mulder turns on the desk light and shines it on Skinner. He tells her it's nothing, at least in the opinion of the doctor who released him from the hospital. Mulder tells Scully about the phone call telling Skinner that he had 24 hours to live. Skinner insists it was just someone yanking his chain and starts to get up.
Scully pushes him back down, looking at his eyes and feeling his forehead, asking him if in the last 48 hours he's eaten or drunken anything that tasted metallic or otherwise odd. He asks if she thinks he was poisoned. She asks if the doctor took his blood, that it could have been overlooked if he was poisoned. Skinner asks why someone would call him to tell him.
Mulder: To scare you. To see who you'd turn to.
Skinner: Oh. This is about you.
Mulder: Or about the X-Files
Skinner: You are so paranoid, Mulder. You're not even on the X-files anymore.
Scully: No, but you are. You're still supervising them.
Mulder starts asking him about his day, if anything out of the ordinary happened. Scully says it could have been the slightest touch or a handshake.
Mulder: This morning you woke up?
Skinner: I woke up.
Mulder: Alone?
Skinner: Yes, alone.
Mulder takes him through his morning slowly: from the parking deck to his office. Skinner thinks back, seeing the flow of events as he came in, said good morning to his secretary, then goes into his office. Going over it again, he remembers that a man stopped him and asked him the time. The man grabbed him on the right wrist, and we can see that the man was wearing gloves.
They look at the surveillance tape from the Bureau security post and Skinner identifies the man. Scully recognizes him as Kenneth Orgel, and advisor to a senate subcommittee on ethics and new technology, and a well-known physicist. Mulder confirms that he signed in as a visitor coming to see Skinner. Scully wonders why Orgel was coming to see Skinner, and Skinner wonders the same thing.
Scully: If this man poisoned you, you should be off your feet and under a doctor's care.
Skinner: If this man poisoned me, I'm going to put a gun to his head, find out why, and ask him how he's going to make me well.
As Skinner leaves, Scully asks Mulder what hospital he was at and Mulder tells her, then follows Skinner out.
CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND
11:32 PM
Mulder and Skinner arrive at Orgel's, and the man denies knowing Skinner, and that he did not come to see Skinner. He closes the door in their faces, and Mulder tells Skinner to go around back. Mulder pulls his gun and knocks again. Orgel opens the door and tells Mulder that he is bothering him. Mulder tries to force the door open and a bullet comes through the door, hitting the overhead porch light. Skinner hears the shot and forces open the back door, gun in hand. He sees someone dragging Orgel out by the collar and hollers "Federal Agent!" He is hit from behind and knocked to the ground, and the two men drag Orgel out. Mulder comes through the front door, sees Skinner on the kitchen floor, and Skinner yells for him to go on after them. One of the men is shooting at Mulder, the other dragging Orgel to a waiting car. Mulder tackles one man, telling him to drop the gun, and drags him back to the house. Meanwhile, Skinner tries to get up but ends up sitting back on the floor against the doorframe, a large throbbing vein visible on his neck. He touches it gingerly, and looks out the door where he sees through blurry vision that Mulder is returning.
Skinner recovers his gun and meets Mulder outside. The man Mulder captured is talking in a foreign language, and Skinner pulls a diplomatic passport out of the man's pocket. Skinner tells Mulder to let him go, and the man leaves. Skinner tells Mulder that the man is Alexander Lazreg, that he's the Cultural attaché to the Tunisian mission, and asks Mulder to find out more about him. Mulder notices the purple vein with concern and tells him he needs to go to the hospital. Skinner replies that he's trying to stay out of one and leaves.
1:06 AM
20 Hours, 29 Minutes REMAINING
Scully talks to Dr. Plant at the hospital, telling him that Skinner may have been poisoned. They check the lab and find that the samples haven't been processed yet. Dr. Plant tells her that he's not supposed to let her have the vials without written permission, but Scully replies that they may not have time. The doctor points out that he had no symptoms of poisoning while Scully looks at the vials and notices a settling in the bottom of the test tube. She asks him if he's sure that they haven't been processed and he assures her that they haven't been touched.
2:33 PM
Mulder is going through Orgel's desk, looking at his folders. An uniformed policeman comes in and says that he's not sure that Mulder should be doing that, concerned about the preservation of Dr. Orgel's property. Mulder says that he's more concerned about the preservation of Dr. Orgel. Then he sees a set of pictures showing Orgel with Senator Matheson.
Back at the hospital, Scully and Dr. Plant are processing the blood and find it contains pure carbon, but they aren't sure how it got into his bloodstream or how it is working as a poison. As they watch, the carbon starts multiplying. They zoom in on the carbon cells, see them multiply, and wonder what the hell they are.
4:01 AM
Mulder arrives at Senator Matheson's house and the Senator comes downstairs in his robe. Mulder shows him a picture of him and Orgel with Senate Resolution 819. Mulder tells Senator that a friend of his is going to die because of S.R. 819, and he doesn't know why but he bets that the Senator does. He tells Matheson what he has: a Tunisian diplomat, Dr. Orgel, the Health bill, all leading up to a plot to kill an assistant director at the FBI. Matheson tells him that the bill will supply money and medical supplies to the World Health Organization, medical technology to Third World countries. Matheson advises him to leave at once and never to suggest to anyone that the Senator was involved in any such dark intrigue. Mulder says that his friend may die, that he may only have a few hours to live. Matheson says that his intention is to save lives but that he can't save Skinner's life.
EMBASSY ROW GARAGE
5:10 AM
Alexander Lazreg enters the parking garage, followed by Skinner. Skinner stops his car, then checks his rear view mirror to see that his veins on his neck have worsened. A shot comes through his windshield, and Lazreg stands in front of the car with a gun. He moves around the driver's side of the car and Skinner sits up and fires at him, then gets out of the car to look around. He is having trouble walking and his sight is blurring. Lazreg comes up behind Skinner, aiming his gun, and a car suddenly appears out of nowhere, hitting Lazreg. As the car passes Skinner, we see the man with long hair from the gym is driving it. Skinner collapses against another car, setting off the security alarm.
6:14 AM
15 HOURS, 21 MIINUTES REMAINING
Scully and Dr. Plant are in the lab, and Scully is looking at Skinner's blood sample through a microscope. She tells him that she thinks she knows what the carbon is doing. It's not just reproducing itself. It is creating a matrix, stimulated by blood flow in response to movement. It is multiplying, then solidifying, building dams in the vascular system. Dr. Plant says that it is building a heart attack.
A nurse comes in to tell them that paramedics picked up Skinner in a parking garage and that he has been taken to DC General.
At the hospital, the doctors look at Skinner's x-rays while prep nurses are scrubbing up Skinner's arms. One doctor comments that he has some sort of extreme vascular event, and that they don't know how he's still alive. They prep to amputate his arms just above the biceps.
Scully enters and they try to throw her out. She asks what they're doing and Dr. Cabrera tells her that they have to take Skinner's arms if he's going to live. Scully tells them that it's his blood, that they need to get a scope into him, and that nothing else will work. Dr. Cabrera removes her surgical mask.
Skinner comes back to consciousness as he is being moved through the corridor. Scully tells him that it's going to be okay, and that they are moving him to another room. He asks who did this to him, and she tells him that Mulder's trying to find out and that they're going to do everything they can. Skinner has a flashback to the boxing ring, Orgel in the corridor, and the hit-and-run in the garage. The elevator arrives and Scully watches them wheel Skinner onto it.
8:58 AM
Skinner's secretary arrives in the office and hears someone in Skinner's office. She goes in and finds Mulder going through Skinner's papers and desk. He tells her that AD Skinner has been poisoned and is in the hospital, and asks if she has a key to his locked drawer. She tells him that she doesn't have the key and he goes to her desk, looking for a letter opener. He finds a large envelope marked Classified on her desk and opens it, reading the single sheet of paper inside.
At the hospital, Scully looks at Skinner's chart and Mulder comes in. Scully tells him that Skinner is stable but his condition is not good. He had extreme vascular trauma and distention, and that his blood has become a weapon against his body. Mulder asks if they can fight it. She says that they don't know what it is, that the best they can do is keep lasering his arteries open but that will only be a matter of time before they lose, that it's building walls in his vessels faster than they can tear them down. They just don't have the technology to combat it.
Mulder says that maybe they do. He shows her the letter from Skinner's mail, from Senator Matheson's office. Skinner was doing a security check on the Senate bill for violation of trade laws involving sensitive technology. Scully reminds him that it's a routine procedure, but Mulder says that it was going for a vote in the Senate and that all it was waiting on was Skinner's review and an analysis by Dr. Kenneth Orgel. Scully asks is he thinks Orgel poisoned Skinner to cover up his analysis, but Mulder thinks that Orgel came to the FBI to tell Skinner what he knew, that there was a gross violation of export laws involving new technology. Scully gets a funny look and Mulder asks if she knows what it means. Scully says that she might.
A cellular phone is ringing, but not theirs. The nurse hands them Skinner's cell phone and Mulder answers it. It is a computer voice.
Computer: Might as well give up. You can't stop it. Walter Skinner, your time is almost up.
Mulder hands Scully the phone, thinking that the person calling must be in the hospital since he knows Skinner is here. He goes out into the corridor.
A hand with a palmtop-type computer is shown typing the above message. Mulder looks around the corridor and sees a longhaired man with the device. He chases after him, down the stairs to the parking garage. Slowly moving through the garage, he sees the man drive out and tries to follow him. Then he goes up the stairs a level to cut him off, but finds only a smashed car.
Senator Matheson is driving his car and gets a call. A voice tells him that the bill is in danger, that a new threat has emerged. The Senator tells him that he shouldn't have called, and the caller tells him that the blood will be on his hands. Matheson says he doesn't buy hollow threats. We see the longhaired man at a pay phone, and the man says that Dr. Orgel does and that Matheson can ask him. Matheson asks what he's done with Orgel. The man says that he can tell Matheson where to find him. Matheson hangs up.
FBI IMPOUND GARAGE
12:11 PM
Mulder is at the impound to find out what they found out about the car. The investigator says that the car is leased as part of a fleet service that services the diplomatic counsel corps, and that they weren't able to lift much from the outside. Inside they found a couple of hairs from an expensive wig. They scraped the tires and found high levels of PCBs, amounts that were seen in the 1970s before the EPA got fangs. He says that they were saturated evenly in the clay, a demo site maybe or an old power plant.
2:04 PM
Matheson drives up to an old power plant and enters the building. He finds Dr. Orgel strapped to a table, and Orgel has the same disease as Skinner. Matheson asks who did this to him, and tells him that they think he has exposed them to the FBI, to Walter Skinner. Orgel says that he told the FBI nothing, and he promises not to expose any others. In the shadows above we see the longhaired man with the hand-held device. He increases the level on a chart and Orgel starts screaming in pain. The senator backs away, horrified.
5:32 PM
3 HOURS, 56 MINUTES REMAINING
Skinner is lying in a hospital bed. Scully enters the room and tells him that there is something she would like to try. It's called Therapeutic Plasma Pheresis. It involves filtering all the blood in his body, is high risk, and there is a chance that his body could go into shock. He tells her that he's in her hands.
Skinner: I think I owe you an apology, Scully. You and Mulder.
Scully: Sir?
Skinner: I've been lying here thinking. Your quests – it should have been mine.
Scully: What do you mean?
Skinner: If I die now, I die in vain. I have nothing to show for myself – my life –
Scully: Sir, you know that's not true.
Skinner: It is. I can see now I always played it safe. I wouldn't take sides, wouldn't let you and Mulder pull me in.
Scully: You've been our ally more times than I can say.
Skinner: Not the kind of ally that I could have been.
Scully puts her hand over his. Skinner has another flashback, and remembers the longhaired, bearded man. He remembers that he was at the gym, at the hospital, the hit and run driver, at the FBI when Orgel approached him. He'll be on the surveillance tape.
5:56 PM
Mulder arrives at the power plant and recognized Senator Matheson's car. He finds Matheson with the empty table and asks where Orgel is. Matheson tells him that Orgel is dead. Mulder says that he doesn't believe Matheson, that he lied this morning and he's lying now. Mulder wants to know what Orgel knows to save his friend. Matheson tells him that whatever Orgel knew died with him. Mulder grabs him, demanding to know what Matheson knows. Mulder tells him that he knows it's about S.R. 819, and wants to know what they put inside Skinner. Matheson tells him that he already has some idea. Mulder says that it's the same technology that S.R. 819 will export: nano-technology, microscopic atom-sized machines, and that machines can be stopped. Matheson says that his friend is already dead and that if Mulder pursues it they will kill Mulder. Mulder says that he will expose Matheson and his role in it. Matheson says that he's a victim, too, that he's fighting for his life. As Mulder leaves, Matheson shouts that it's too late.
At the hospital, it is 9:33 and Skinner is coding on them, taking over at the point where the teaser ended. They mark the time of death and pull the sheet over his head.
In the corridor outside, the longhaired man is standing with the palm computer and he brings the level on the chart down. Skinner's heart starts beating again and he takes a deep breath. The doctors rush to him, checking him out, and he turns his head to look out in the corridor where he sees the man again. Then the man is gone. Skinner closes his eyes.
THREE WEEKS LATER
In Skinner's office, Scully tells Skinner that she has spoken to his doctors and that his prognosis is excellent. Whatever he was infected with is dormant and his recovery is being hailed as a miracle.
Mulder tells him that the man who poisoned him was at the bureau that day and that Scully was able to pull pictures off the security videotape. He shows Skinner the pictures but Skinner says that he doesn't recognize him.
Mulder tells him that S.R. 819 was withdrawn by committee late the night before without explanation. Skinner says that the man failed. Mulder says yes, if that was his true motive. If he wanted to poison Skinner to keep him from investigating S.R. 819 then why did he call Skinner to tell him? This man worked for the government that was to receive the technology, he drove one of their cars, but he killed one of his own to save Skinner.
Skinner: So you still think this was about you? About the X-Files.
Mulder: Yes, yes I do, and I have an idea who may be behind all this, but I need your authority to continue the investigation.
There is a long silence, and both agents look expectantly at Skinner.
Skinner: I have neither the authority nor the will to allow your continued inquiry into this matter. You will perform your duties as directed by AD Kersh and only AD Kersh.
Scully: Sir?
Skinner: This matter's closed, Agents. Am I clear?
Skinner puts folder in his out box. Mulder looks over at Scully, and Scully is clearly puzzled by Skinner's behavior.
The parking deck is nearly empty as Skinner walks through it, unlocks his car, and gets in. He begins talking to someone in the shadows of the passenger seat.
Skinner: I've been expecting you to show up.
The man closes the computer device and leans forward into the light. Without the wig and beard, he is clearly identifiable as Krycek.
Krycek: You know I can push the button at any time.
Skinner: What do you want from me, Krycek?
Krycek: All in good time.
Krycek gets out of the car and walks away. Skinner sits in the car, a troubled look on his face. Then he starts the car and drives off.
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