Jason Nichols and Lucas Menand, researchers at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, become embroiled in an argument as they
walk down a city street. They are approached by an elderly man,
who warns Menand that he will be run over by a bus at exactly
eleven forty-six that evening. Menand tells a campus security
cop that the old man is harassing him. The guard places him in
the back seat of a sedan and drives away. A few moments later,
Menand is run down by the bus… at exactly eleven forty-six.
Mulder and Scully review the facts of the case. Nichols was taken
into custody after the bus driver told police that he pushed Menand
into the path of his vehicle. But Nichols tells authorities he
was attempting to save Menand-as an unidentified old man had forewarned
of his colleague’s impending death.
The security guard who arrested the old man is found frozen to
death. Scully concludes guard was somehow exposed to some sort
of chemical refrigerant, as weather conditions are too warm to
explain the corpse’s frigid internal temperature. Mulder interviews
Nichols at the police station. Nichols explains that he and Menand
had been arguing because Menand threatened to go public with a
claim that he had falsified data on a research paper.
A short time later, the elderly man kills Dr. Yonechi, a Japanese
researcher, by pricking him with a metallic stylus. Mulder and
Scully examine Yonechi’s frozen corpse. Lab tests reveal that
the doctor was injected with an unidentifiable chemical compound.
The agents approach Nichol’s girlfriend, Lisa Ianelli, who is
also a researcher. She recognizes the chemical compound as a rapid
freezing agent that Nichols had been engineering for years. But
she points out that the chemical has not yet been invented. Lisa
tells the agents that if Yonechi was injected with the chemical,
he may not be dead. With Lisa’s help, Scully and a team of medical
personnel successfully resuscitate Yonechi. But his body temperature
suddenly and rapidly begins to increase, until finally, he bursts
into flames. Lisa realizes she made an error when she recommended
that doctors remove Yonechi’s body from a tub filled with yellowish
fluid.
Lisa confesses that it was she who falsified the data to get the
research grant (Nichols is in jail because he is covering for
her). Those who would have figured out the truth-Menand and Yonechi-are
now dead. Police receive a tip that the elderly man is living
at a nearby hotel. Inside the elderly man’s room, the agents discover
a faded color photograph picturing Nichols, Yonechi and Lisa toasting
champagne glasses inside the cryology lab. Mulder realizes the
photo was taken five years in the future-on the day the researchers
successfully synthesized the freezing compound. The elderly man
is attempting to alter that future: when he failed to save Menand
from being killed by the bus, he killed Yonechi. Mulder also realizes
the elderly man is none other than Jason Nichols.
Lisa locates the elderly man and confronts him. The elderly man
gathers the courage to inject her with the chemical. But Scully
successfully resuscitates Lisa, and remembering the girl’s words,
immediately returns her body to the tub (to prevent the fire that
killed Yonechi). Nichols confronts his elderly self in the computer
mainframe room at the cryogenic lab, where the old man has erased
all of Nichols’ files from the computer. Nichols lunges at the
old man, choking him. Mulder, unable to open the lab door, yells
to Nichols. He tells him that Lisa is alive. The old man tells
Nichols that “it’s better that we never were.” Wrapping his arms
around his younger self, the old man bursts into flames. The fire
consumes them both. Later, Lisa sets to work at cryonics lab,
attempting to reconstruct the chemical compound.
THE X-FILES “SYNCHRONY” #4X19
Original Air Date: 04/13/97
CAST:
DAVID DUCHOVNY as Special Agent Fox Mulder
GILLIAN ANDERSON as Special Agent Dana Scully
GUEST CAST:
JED REES as Lucas Menand
JOSEPH FUQUA as Jason Nichols
SUSAN LEE HOFFMAN as Lisa Ianelli
HIRO KANAGWA as Dr. Yonechi
JONATHAN WALKER as Chuck Lukerman
BRENT CHAPMAN as Security Cop
ERIC BUERMEYER as The Bus Driver
PATRICIA IDLETTE as The Desk Clerk
AUSTIN BASILE as Bellman
ALISON MATTHEWS as The Doctor
WRITTEN BY:
HOWARD GORDON
DAVID GREENWALT
DIRECTED BY:
JIM CHARLESTON
