Season 6: S.R. 819 (6X10)

Written by: John Shiban

Directed by: Daniel Sackheim

A man is rushed into the emergency room near death. One of the doctors tells the nurse to call Agent Scully because the sick man works for the FBI. We assume that it is Agent Mulder; only to find, however, that it is actually Assistant Director Skinner.

Flashback twenty-four hours. Agent Mulder finds A.D. Skinner in his office, not feeling well. He calls in Scully who posits that Skinner may have been poisoned. When asked to recall if anything out of the ordinary happened in his day, Skinner remembers that a renowned physicist named Kenneth Orgel stopped him in the hallway earlier in the day. Mulder and Skinner pay a visit to Orgel, only to find him in the process of being kidnapped. The kidnappers get away with Orgel; Mulder captures one of the fleeing bad guys, but must release him when he discovers that the man is a Tunisian with diplomatic immunity.

Scully, in the meantime, examines a vial of Skinner's blood. Upon close levels of magnification, she finds miniscule foreign bodies that seem to multiply uniformly and rapidly. These specks are forming dams in Skinner's veins, cutting off his blood flow and building a heart attack.

Mulder rifes through Orgel's house and finds a connection to Senator Matheson. Paying the Senator a visit, he finds out about Senate Resolution 819 - a health bill which will supply medical technology for third world countries. Ripping apart Skinner's office, Mulder finds that Skinner was doing a security check on the resolution and that, somehow, his connection to the resolution is what got him poisoned. He confronts Senator Matheson again and finds out that nanotechnology - microscopic atom-sized machines that had been previously thought of as only theoretical - have been injected into Skinner and someone is programming them to kill him.

Meanwhile, Skinner lies on a hospital bed, his pulse flatlines. The orderly calls time of death. Moments later, Skinner gasps and comes back to life. Weeks later, Scully reports that whatever infected Skinner has gone into remission. Mulder asks for permission to continue the investigation but Skinner closes the case.

At day's end, Skinner heads for his car. In the backseat, he finds the man who had been driving the nanotechnology atoms - Krycek. Krycek glares at Skinner - he's got Skinner under his thumb and intends to keep him there.

Notes:
Nicholas Lea wasn't credited in the opening act so as not to ruin the surprise of his appearance.

A potentially time-consuming and expensive fight scene between Skinner and Krycek was cut due to budgetary reasons.

This is the third attempt to break Skinner away from Mulder and Scully. In ''Piper Maru'' he was shot by Luis Cardinal, in ''Avatar'' they tried to frame him for murder, and here they infect him with a disease which Krycek eventually uses to blackmail him.

Quotes:
Tunisian man: (something Arabic and angry)
Mulder: Yeah, so's your Mom.
Tunisian man: (something Arabic and angry)
Mulder: Hey, give it a rest, huh?!

Dr. Plant: It's carbon. Pure carbon. How in the world would that get into his bloodstream?
Scully: How is it working as a poison?
Dr. Plant: By all rights, it shouldn't be.
Scully: Look at them - just rattling around in the solution.
Dr. Plant: It's just bizarre. Did you see that?
Scully: Did you just touch something?
Dr. Plant: No, I didn't.
Scully: It just multiplied. Look! It just did it again.

Skinner: I've been expecting you to show up.
Krycek: You know I can push the button any time.
Skinner: What do you want from me? What's this about, Krycek?
Krycek: All in good time.

Episode Number: 126
Season Number: 6
First Aired: Sunday, January 17, 1999
Production Code: 6X10