John Fitzgerald Byers/The X-Files

===Helping Mulder and Scully in the 1990s===
====1991====
Despite losing contact with his father, Byers continued his friendship with Mulder; in 1991, Byers learned that Diana Fowley, Mulder's girlfriend since his graduation from the , had accepted a legate assignment in Berlin, Europe. Byers was curious as to why she and Mulder had separated, but never discovered an explanation. 
====1994====
While Mulder and his skeptical FBI partner - Special Agent - were visiting the Lone Gunmen's office in 1994, Byers claimed that Vladmir Zhirinovsky, the leader of the Russian Social Democrats, was being put into power by the CIA, which he described as "the most heinous and evil force of the 20th century".
Byers showed Agent Scully, who had never met him nor his partners before, the magnetic anti-counterfeiting strip inside a twenty dollar bill she gave him, breaking a law by defacing her money. Byers claimed that the strip was only one of several methods used by the US government to track members of the American public and to determine how much money a person was carrying when they stepped through a metal detector at an airport. He also suspected that the US government was hiding something by putting the strip on the inside of the bill, as other countries put the strip on the outside, and wondered what it was the government was hiding.
In response to questions Mulder asked about subjects related to the Gulf Wars, Byers explained that the Gulf War Syndrome was due to artillery shells coated with depleted uranium and that, while the Gulf War had been fought, there would have been no reason for secret planes to have been flown. He was amused when Mulder suggested the "weird" theory that UFOs had caused the Gulf War Syndrome, even though Byers did admit that the ideas of his group were almost as weird as Mulder's. 
In April of the same year, Byers and his partners published an article in that month's edition of The Lone Gunman that concerned the CIA's new micro-video camera, which was small enough to be placed on the back of a fly. Byers later remembered the article after Mulder showed him and his partners a fly that had been purposefully dropped onto a lawn in Franklin, Pennsylvania. Byers identified the insect as a Eurasian cluster fly, commenting that it often infested vegetation and was known to inflict a great deal of damage to crops. He offered the theory that agents of competing South American agricultural corporations, while posing as Franklin city employees, were secretly releasing flies to destroy crops but his hypothesis was considered to be improbable when it was discovered that the fly had been irradiated, most likely to control propagation.
When Mulder asked about a specific chemical compound, Byers identified the substance as lysergic dimethrin, an unreleased experimental synthetic insecticide that triggered a fear response in insects. When asked whether the substance might affect humans in the same way, Byers showed Mulder a video of a chemical called D.D.T., which the government had determined to be safe, being sprayed onto lawns and people. Byers explained that, thirty years later, it had been discovered that women exposed to the chemical had higher rates of breast cancer, but he recalled that officials had taken a subsequent decade to ban the chemical. He remarked that, since then, groups carrying out similar stunts with different chemicals only differed in the fact that they had learned how to be more discreet. 
After Scully was returned following her , Byers studied her medical charts in the Lone Gunmen's office and downloaded her medical data to the newest member of the group, a hacker known as "the Thinker". Byers determined that the charts, which Mulder and Frohike had smuggled out of the hospital where Scully was staying, showed that abnormal protein chains, unlike any Byers had ever seen before, were present in her blood. He relayed news to Mulder, Frohike and Langly, while they were with him in the office, that "the Thinker" had determined the protein chains to be a result of branched DNA, a biological equivalent of a silicon microchip.
When asked what it might be used for, Byers answered that it could be the developmental stages of a biological marker. Other theories were suggested, but Byers discovered that none of them, not even his own, were accurate as the branched DNA was inactive, a waste product that was nothing more than a biological poison remaining from experiments done on Scully that were no longer being conducted. In response to a question Mulder asked regarding the possibility of whether Scully would survive, Byers gave him the solemn news that, even if her immune system had not been decimated and she was perfectly healthy, he would doubt that she could recover from having inactive branched DNA in her blood Miraculously, Scully did continue to live, however, and was able to return to working with Mulder. 
====1995====
In early 1995, Byers (accompanied by Frohike) communicated, via live audio and visual satellite transmission, with Mulder, who was in Fairfield, Idaho. Byers was curious as to what cost using the satellite equipment would be to the American taxpayers (the answer was expensive - "150 bucks an hour"!) When asked what he knew about Fairfield, Byers told Mulder that the town's zoo was the subject of many bizarre stories regarding escapes and disappearances of animals and that, weirdly, no animal at the zoo had ever brought a pregnancy to term. Byers also revealed that a gorilla belonging to the woman who ran the zoo knew sign language, supposedly with a vocabulary of 1,000 words. 
On April 11 of the same year, Byers, Frohike and Langly discovered that "the Thinker", whose real name was Kenneth Soona, had hacked into the Defense Department computer system, as Byers had done in 1989, and urgently went to Mulder's apartment to deliver him the serious news Fearing that they may have been followed to the apartment by a multinational black ops unit code-named Garnet, Byers asked, after Mulder opened his door, if they could speak with him inside his apartment. Once Mulder reluctantly complied and had begun listening to his visitors, Byers reminded him that he had previously heard of Kenneth Soona, but referred to only as "the Thinker", and revealed the hacker's crime to Mulder.
Byers had learned that, whatever "the Thinker" had become involved in, the anarchistic hacker was now an extremely wanted man. When Mulder asked why they had come to him, Byers revealed that, in the last communique he and his partners had received from "the Thinker", the hacker had asked to meet with Mulder at a certain location within a three-hour time window. When the men heard a nearby gunshot, Byers followed his three friends as they raced out of Mulder's apartment and discovered that a female neighbor to Mulder had shot her husband of thirty years, killing him. 
Byers later examined a black and white photograph that Mulder and Scully were interested in. Although the image seemed to merely show eight men standing in front of a large building, Byers was amazed by the picture when Mulder told him it had been taken about 1973, as he had recognised one of the men as . Byers explained that Klemper was the most evil Nazi to have escaped the Nuremberg trials and that he, as well as a notorious Nazi called Wernher von Braun, had been granted safe haven in the US due to a post-World War II project known as Operation Paper Clip.
In exchange, Klemper and Von Braun had helped the US win the space race; as Byers explained, the Americans had used their scientific data to help put astronauts on the moon before the Russians. Byers admitted that his earlier amazement had been due to the fact that, even though Operation Paper Clip was supposed to have been scrapped in the 1950s, the picture seemed to prove otherwise. He was still present when, moments later, Frohike entered and relayed news to Scully that her sister was in critical condition after having been shot. 
In October of the same year, Byers helped analyse several satellite photos of a ship. He explained to Mulder, who claimed to have obtained the images from a Japanese diplomat, that the pictures had been taken using German optics, technology that was probably American and a satellite that was most likely Japanese. Once the ship had been identified as the Talapus, Byers explained that the vessel had been a salvage ship out of San Diego that had spent months searching for a Japanese submarine that had been rumored to be carrying a load of gold bullion when it sank in World War II.
Byers later demonstrated that the pictures tracked the ship as it had journeyed through the Panama canal to a naval shipyard in Newport News, Virginia. Puzzled as to why the craft had gone there and had not returned to San Diego, Mulder suggested, while Byers stood next to him, that the Talapus may have found something other than the Japanese submarine. 
In late 1995, Byers used his ice-skating expertise while helping his compatriots retrieve a digital tape of the MJ documents, data stolen by "the Thinker" near the start of the year, which was reportedly in a locker at Capital Ice, an ice-skating arena in Rockville, Maryland Along with Langly, Byers looked for any suspicious spectators while Frohike went to the locker. To the disappointment of the group and Mulder, only an empty envelope had been concealed within the locker.
However, they later found a faded impression of writing on the envelope, and, as Mulder went over the impression with a pencil, Byers recalled that the FBI had managed to identify and convict a major serial murderer with the proof of a pen impression and detailed the Bureau's ability to lift a perfect impression from a surface. Byers also witnessed Mulder's discovery that the "writing" was actually a New York City phone number. 
====1996====
In April 1996, Byers helped analyse a device that Mulder brought to the Lone Gunmen. Byers commented to Mulder that the device looked very similar to a standard video trap, used for blocking premium cable channels. He later showed Mulder that two test signals, one of which was routed through the device, initially seemed identical. After his partners showed Mulder that the test signals were actually different, Byers explained that the difference was caused by extra information being added by the device. He explained that neither he nor his partners knew the nature of the added information and that all they could ascertain was that the device, which Byers believed was of an amazingly sophisticated design, was emitting a signal.
After Scully became extremely paranoid and went missing, Byers and his colleagues examined a video tape found in her room that contained television footage which had passed through the device. When Mulder next visited them, Byers explained that they had used interpolating freeware downloaded from the internet to blank out visible frames that had been recorded onto the videotape, thus isolating the signal emitted by the device. The Lone Gunmen had then significantly slowed the signal down since, as Byers told Mulder, it had been designed to cycle at a certain rate in order to induce a condition known as the "photic driving response", the manipulation of which had been linked to heightened suggestibility in several studies. Byers compared the device's signal to subliminal messages that had been used in cinemas to sell popcorn and recalled that both Russian and American scientists had worked for decades to develop technologies like the device Mulder had found.
Though Mulder had watched videotapes of images that had been sent through the device, he had not been affected in the same way as Scully. When asked if color could be a factor in the device's signal, Frohike and Langly looked at Byers, who replied, "Maybe". After Mulder admitted that he was red-green color-blind, Byers speculated that his inability to perceive red might render him immune to the mind-altering effects of the images. He continued discussing the theory with his colleagues as Mulder received a telephone message from the Maryland State Police. Byers and his publishing partners later learned from Mulder that he had been asked to identify a body that had possibly been Scully's. 
In November of the same year, the Lone Gunmen discovered the possible history of a spy known to some as "". Before revealing their information to Mulder and Scully in the Lone Gunmen's office, Byers co-operated with Langly to conduct a thorough search of the area for bugs, but found none. He also commented, after the CSM25 countermeasure filter was activated, that no electronic surveillance known could penetrate the filter. Unknown to Byers, however, "Cancer Man" was indeed listening to their conversation and was able to cut through the filter using technology of his own. 
====1997====
In an attempt to obtain information that could possibly help with Scully's cancer in 1997, Byers helped hack into a supposedly impenetrable mainframe in the Lombard Research Facility from the security of the Lone Gunmen's office. He later revealed to Mulder the details of a device he and his partners had used to hack into the mainframe and notified him that all they had discovered in regards to Scully was a gene code they had seen before - specifically, the branched DNA that had been detected in her blood after her abduction. When asked why the gene code may have been secretly stored, Byers commented, "Scientists get funky about having their research poached".
With Mulder, Byers subsequently broke into the Lombard Research Facility, having never previously visited that location. Though he was initially equipped with a personal communications device that enabled him to talk and listen to the other Lone Gunmen, Mulder took the device from him before they discovered that a Doctor Kevin Scanlon, who was treating Scully's cancer, was a member of the research facility's staff. Tasked with relaying the news to Scully, Byers separated from Mulder, leaving him with the communications device, and hid from several security officers before exiting the Lombard Research Facility. At Allentown Bethlehem Medical Center, Byers finally managed to notify Scully of the news and brought Mulder to Penny Northern's hospital ward, which Scully was visiting. 
In October of the same year, Byers prepared and conducted a test to determine the contents of a metal tube that Mulder had taken to the Lone Gunmen after having been told it held the cure to Scully's cancer. Though Byers announced that the tube only contained de-ionized water, it never occurred to him what the water might be for until later that month, when Mulder tapped the tube on a petri dish and a microchip fell out Byers was still initially puzzled as to how the microchip could cure Scully's cancer but learned from Mulder that Scully had developed the illness only a short time after the removal of a small metallic chip that had been found implanted in her neck following her abduction. Clearly amazed by the technology, Byers remarked, "It's unreal!" Scully's cancer went into remission shortly thereafter. 
====1998 & Early 1999====
In 1998, Agents Mulder and Scully brought another item to the Lone Gunmen that caused Byers amazement - a laptop computer owned by Donald Gelman. While Langly and Frohike examined the computer, Byers reminisced that Gelman had been present when several important advances in computing had been made and that, although he had been part of the inventive groups, he had commonly been thought of as older and "brighter" than the other members, even at the relatively young age of 28. When Scully asked if Gelman had disappeared because he had found himself under investigation by the NSA, Byers responded that Gelman had been a visionary and subversive, not a capitalist.
Byers seemed shocked when Mulder divulged that Gelman had recently died, possibly due to his laptop computer, and became interested in a CD found in the computer's CD-ROM drive. Shortly after, he determined that the CD included code hidden as a form of enhanced background data. He was unable to ascertain what the code was or what it might be used for, but suspected it could constitute a program designed by Gelman. After Byers and his friends found that only one e-mail had recently been sent to Gelman, he read the message aloud.
When Scully and Mulder took the message's sender, Esther Nairn, to the Lone Gunmen's office, Byers seemed awed by her, though he did not voice his amazed reaction nearly as much as his two partners. He was present when Esther Nairn began talking about an Artificial Intelligence program that had killed Donald Gelman by using "a dozen crack dealers" and, when she came to the conclusion that the program had built itself "a little safehouse", Byers tried to limit the possible locations of such a place by stating that the program would need a T3, later explaining that they were used by internet service providers and major research laboratories.
After a message reading "Bite Me" suddenly appeared on a computer in the Lone Gunmen's office, Byers was the last of his group to see the words. 
Late one night in 1998, Scully disturbed the Lone Gunmen - while they preparing for sleep - with news that child chess prodigy Gibson Praise was being suspected by some as a fraud. Commenting on the suspicion, Byers asked, "Dorf on chess?" (referring to a slightly idiotic character that managed to excel at a variety of sports). When Scully began to ask who Diana Fowley was, Byers remarked that he and his partners hadn't heard Fowley's name in a long time and confirmed that he knew her. He later managed to recall that she had accepted a legat appointment in Berlin and admitted to having always wondered why she and Mulder had separated. 
Later the same year, Byers learned that Mulder had been hospitalized after having been shot in the head. Upon visiting the hospital, Byers lent his clothes to Mulder in order to assist in his escape as he was secretly being watched. 
:In the script of The X-Files Movie, Byers informs Mulder of the hospital staff's work on him by providing the technical description, "They gave you a craniotomy to relieve the pressure from a subdural hematoma". This line of dialogue seems to imply that Byers is well-versed in medical terminology but it does not appear in the final version of the film.
After the Lone Gunmen discovered that Mulder had disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle while searching for the SS Queen Anne, they visited the FBI's headquarters, intending to notify Scully of the news. It was Byers who explicitly informed her of Mulder's disappearance. He also showed Scully proof that the Queen Anne had reappeared and asked her to acquire satellite data that was needed in order to determine Mulder's fate.
After Scully obtained the data, Byers traveled with her and the other Lone Gunmen on a search for the Queen Anne. Although Scully could hardly believe her eyes when they found the ship, Byers confirmed that the craft was indeed the object of their quest. He suggested the possibility that Mulder was already on board the ship and helped look for him on the Queen Anne but to no avail; Mulder was ultimately discovered floating unconscious in the water and was subsequently hospitalized once again. 
In November of the same year, Byers ate huevos rancheros that Frohike served to both him and Langly. After Frohike corrected Langly that he should have asked for "más" rather than "more", the consistently polite Byers added that Langly should also have said "por favor", Spanish for "please". Moments later, Scully arrived with a flight data recorder that she wanted analysed and a companion who seemed to be Mulder. At first, Byers turned his attention to the data recorder - which Scully told him had come from a location near Area 51 - and explained to her that the Aurora spy plane related to that particular area was a hypersonic reconnaissance aircraft fueled with slush hydrogen.
However, Byers and the other Lone Gunmen soon learned, much to their initial disbelief, that Scully's companion was actually Morris Fletcher, an Area 51 employee who had switched identities with Mulder when the aircraft that had been carrying the flight data recorder had crashed and consequently caused a warp in the space-time continuum. Byers and his publishing partners listened as Fletcher claimed to be responsible for much of the stories they investigated. Although Byers subsequently helped to examine the data recorder and was particularly pleased upon learning that he and his colleagues had managed to break the encryption that secured information within the device, their efforts were ultimately proven unnecessary as the warp in the space-time continuum soon reversed, returning Mulder and Fletcher to their previous existences. 
It is unlikely that Byers retained any memory of these events, as the space-time continuum's reversal erased any and all memories made since the warp in the continuum had been created.
In early 1999, Byers helped Scully confront Mulder with her suspicion that Diana Fowley was untrustworthy, recalling that Fowley had taken a position in the FBI's foreign counter-terrorism unit in 1991 and had spent seven years in Europe. He and Scully, as well as the other two Lone Gunmen, had learned, however, that no information whatsoever was stored in the FBI files regarding Fowley's activities in Europe. Other seemingly incriminating facts about Diana Fowley had been found but Byers was not directly involved in relaying them to Mulder. 
Category:John Byers