Albert Tanner

Albert Tanner, better known under his alias Leonard Morris Betts (1963-1997), was a human mutant who worked as an EMT in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His body structure consisted entirely out of cancerous cells, giving him the ability to regenerate lost body parts. In order to survive and help him regrow, however, he needed to regularly ingest cancerous biomass, which he could detect in people with the disease present in their body. 
==Biography==
Tanner's mutant abilities became noticeable sometime in his childhood. His mother believed her son's condition to be a gift from God and that he was meant to do great things. She recalled an incident when he was 8 years old, when two neighborhood boys, who had been bullying him for his abnormalities, beat him up, but he refused to fight back in a showcase of self-restraint. 
For unknown reasons, Tanner faked his own death in 1991, by producing a fully grown replica of himself and having it die in an automobile accident. Following this, he began his new life as Leonard Betts and took up work at emergency services, becoming partnered with paramedic Michelle Wilkes. He also began volunteering at a diagnostic hospital, supervising patients battling cancer. This gave him a steady supply of cancerous tissue to feed on.
In 1997, during an on-board medical emergency, he saved a dying patient's life with an antibiotic injection after diagnosing him with cancer on the spot. Awestruck, Wilkes momentarily lost focus, leading to the ambulance being struck by a truck, Betts being consequently decapitated in the accident. 
Wilkes made the arrangements for his body, saying Betts had no real friends and no living family. After being loaded into a mortuary cooler, Betts escaped the same night, knocking out the attending mortician and taking his clothes. and were brought in to investigate when the empty cooler was discovered, there being the presumption that Betts' body had been stolen from the hospital for illicit purposes. Scanning the hospital grounds, they were able to only retrieve the cranium in a bio disposal site. Scully was about to perform an autopsy on the severed head, which she noted to have shown no signs of decomposition, but was too unnerved by its continued blinking and mouth movement, which she assumed to be a result of residual electrical activity.
Due to strange security video feeds and medical scans, Mulder began to speculate that perhaps Betts' body was able to leave on its own accord and regenerate its severed head – an idea Scully found absurd. Mulder began investigating Betts' home and discovered an entire bathtub full of iodine, which is used in real life to aide tissue regeneration in salamanders and soft corals. When Mulder leaves the apartment, Betts re-emerges from the fluid, gasping for air with his still healing new head. The FBI later received a report listing that Betts' fingerprints had a match under two names. The lead led them to Elaine Tanner, whose son Albert had died in a car accident, six years prior. Albert Tanner and Leonard Betts were clearly identical, yet she did not reveal any connection.
Further tests revealed that Betts' detached head consisted entirely of cancerous material, so much that there was no way he could have lived in that state. Mulder saw this as evidence for his theory, because cancer is inherently capable of regeneration. It was also of note because Wilkes said that Betts had an uncanny ability to diagnose cancer patients simply by looking at them. 
Meanwhile, Wilkes overheard a radio conversation between stations, recognizing one speakers voice as Betts'. She sought him out at another hospital, operating under name "Truelove", and was shocked to see him alive. Tearfully, the two embraced, with Betts apologizing that she discovered his secret. To protect his identity, he then killed her with a lethal injection of electrolytes. Holding her down in grief, a security guard spots him with the body, chasing Betts down and handcuffing him to a car. While the guard went to get backup, Betts ripped off his own thumb to slide his hand through the cuff and escaped.
While investigating the scene, Mulder and Scully discovered in Betts' car a box full of medical waste, mostly extracted cancerous growths. Mulder theorized Betts was consuming the cancer to provide for his regenerative ability. According to Mulder, Betts would kill again the next day. Sure enough, Betts found a suitable source for sustenance, a smoker with lung cancer, to whom Tanner said, "You have something I need!" in a regretful tone. Sensing that his mother was in on her son's secret, the duo go to question her, where she vehemently defends him and denies that Albert would be capable of murder, although if it were the case. she has faith that he'd have done so with good reason. Searching her house with a warrant, they find a key to a storage locker, where they find the dead body of his latest victim, whose left lung had been carefully and skillfully removed, as well as Betts, attempting to flee by car. Scully shoots at the vehicle, blowing it up along with Betts. Scully was about to call the case closed, but pandering to Mulder's theory to be safe, they exhume the casket of Albert Tanner, revealing a burnt corpse nearly identical to that of Betts'. Mulder suggested that Betts was capable of generating and controlling full-sized copies of himself. 
Events were now coming to a head and the agents began a stakeout of Elaine Tanner's residence, suspecting him to have gone into hiding with her. Tanner was indeed with his mother, who agreed with him to act in a ploy to ensure his escape. Soon, an ambulance arrived. The EMTs tell the agents that they received a call about an injured woman being in the building, prompting them to race in, discovering that a cancerous growth had been removed from her, undoubtedly by Betts. Mulder began a search of the area, and Scully accompanied Mrs. Tanner to the hospital in the ambulance. Upon their arrival, Scully discovered dripping iodine and came to the realization that Betts had stowed away on the roof of the ambulance with them. Drawing her pistol, Scully was ready when Betts attacked. She was able to fend him off, but he shouted "You have something I need!", indicating that he detected cancer in Scully, who was not yet aware that she suffered from the disease. As he lunged at her again, Scully grabbed a defribrilator unit and electrocuted him, which stopped his heart, killing him once and for all. ( "Leonard Betts")
:Albert Tanner was played by actor Paul McCrane.
Tanner, Albert
Tanner, Albert
Tanner, Albert
Tanner, Albert
Category:Monster of the Week
Category:The X-Files characters
Category:Mutants