UNUSUAL SUSPECTS

                I heard it was a lone gunman.

The episode opens in medias res in 1989, when a SWAT team conducts a raid on a Baltimore warehouse. Inside, they find a naked and disoriented Fox Mulder in a box, shouting, "They're here!" Three men attempt to flee the scene and are captured; they are revealed to be the three men that the audience know as the Lone Gunmen. As they sit in a city jail, they begin blaming each other for the predicament they have found themselves in. Detective John Munch interrogates John Fitzgerald Byers, who tries to explain what happened.

In the flashback, Byers, a public affairs officer for the FCC, attends a computer and electronics convention. There, he follows a beautiful woman who passes his booth; he also passes by booths manned by Melvin Frohike and Richard Langly, who are both selling stolen cable television. When Byers bumps into the woman, she introduces herself as Holly and claims that her daughter had been kidnapped by her ex-boyfriend, who is in the Baltimore area.

Holly possesses a piece of paper with "ARPANET/WHTCORPS" written on it. Byers realizes that the words refer to the Defense Department's computer network, which she requests he hack into. Byers, at the time an unquestioningly loyal government employee, complies after great reluctance. He finds an encrypted file on her daughter, named Susanne Modeski. Just then, a man whom Holly claims to be her boyfriend passes by Byers' booth—Mulder.

Byers and Holly recruit Frohike to help them decipher the file. Both Byers and Frohike decide to assault Mulder, but they decide not to when he introduces himself as an FBI agent. Returning to his booth, Byers finds his FCC colleague being arrested for the hacking he committed. Frohike convinces Byers not to turn himself in, and recruits Langly to help them hack into the FBI database to learn more about Holly. They discover that "Holly" is actually Susanne Modeski, who is wanted for acts of murder, sabotage, and terrorism at a weapons facility in New Mexico.

Susanne admits her deception but claims that she was scapegoated for trying to leave her job at the weapons facility. There, she had been working on ergotamine, an aerosolized gas that causes paranoia and anxiety. Susanne claims that the government plans to test the gas on civilians in Baltimore. After deciphering the file, the Lone Gunmen find that she was telling the truth, learning the location of the gas. Susanne also finds evidence that she had a tracking device put in a tooth, which she pulls out.

The four of them head to the warehouse, where they find the gas stored inside asthma inhalers. Suddenly, Mulder arrives to arrest them, but two dark-suited men come to take Susanne. They fire at Mulder, hitting the boxes behind him and exposing him to the gas. The exposure causes Mulder to strip naked, hide in the box, and hallucinate about seeing aliens in the warehouse. Susanne shoots the men and escapes. More men then arrive, led by X, who intimidates the Lone Gunmen. Byers confronts X, asking him about his actions and mentioning the supposed cover-up of the John F. Kennedy assassination. X's unconvincing denial—"I heard it was a lone gunman"—becomes the origin of the trio's name. X leaves, just as the police arrive and arrest the Lone Gunmen.

In the present, Detective Munch does not believe Byers' story, but it is soon corroborated by Mulder. After the Lone Gunmen are released, they encounter Susanne after she has failed to get the press to believe her story; she tells them to reveal the truth to as many people as possible. Susanne is then captured by X, who leers at the Lone Gunmen as he departs with her. Later, the three of them meet Mulder in the convention center and explain what happened to him

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