Plot
At a postal routing center in Virginia a woman is killed by a swarm of bees in the bathroom while taking a cigarette break. Assistant Director Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi), working for The Smoking Man (William B. Davis), covers up the death by deleting the file on the case from agent Fox Mulder's (David Duchovny) computer, cleaning up all the evidence at the scene, burning the woman's body in an incinerator and replacing the police's blood sample for the case by posing as Mulder. As he leaves the police station, Skinner is chased down by Detective Roy Thomas, who believes he is Mulder. Skinner tells him there is nothing on the case warranting his involvement, and leaves.
Shortly after Skinner arrives home he is met by Mulder, who tells him about the case and the fact that someone is going to great lengths to cover it up. Mulder reveals that Detective Thomas was killed, which shocks Skinner. Mulder tells Skinner that Scully is undergoing tests regarding her cancer. Later that night Skinner meets with The Smoking Man, who is accompanied by Thomas' murderer, the Gray Haired Man (Morris Panych). Skinner is angry that Thomas was killed and wants to end their arrangement, which The Smoking Man refuses to allow. Mulder calls Skinner, telling him about the woman's body being burned and the blood evidence being tampered with. Mulder tells Skinner that he does have the gun that Thomas was killed with, which is currently being looked at by ballistics. Skinner searches his drawer and realizes that his gun was missing and is the one that Mulder was telling him about. Skinner, realizing he has been set up, calls The Smoking Man, who confirms that Thomas was killed with Skinner's gun and that by going to the police Skinner would end up implicating himself in the murder. The Smoking Man refuses to provide any details on what he is covering up.
Skinner returns to the routing center where he tears a hole in the bathroom wall and finds a large honeycomb of dead bees. He visits an entomologist to look at one of the bees and is told that Mulder visited him six months ago about a similar subject. Skinner finds Mulder's file on the matter, copying down the contact information for Marita Covarrubias (Laurie Holden). Mulder tells Skinner that a bank near the police station took a picture of the detective, which shows him with Skinner, but the picture is too obscured for Mulder to identify him. Skinner visits Covarrubias, who does not have any evidence to provide him at this time. The entomologist is killed by a swarm of bees. The next day, Mulder and Skinner look at his body, which is infected with smallpox transmitted by the bees. Skinner visits the co-worker of the postal worker who died, who tells him she was pressured to not say anything about what happened by men who demanded a damaged package. At the photo lab Mulder analyzes the photo, which reveals Skinner's identity.
The Smoking Man meets with the Syndicate, who are responsible for the bees. Soon afterward a swarm of bees attacks a nearby school, and one of the teachers dies as a result. Skinner heads to the hospital, where he is met by Covarrubias. She demands to know what he knows about the matter. He tells her he believes that the bees are being used as a carrier for some sort of experiment. Skinner returns home where he is confronted by Mulder, who now suspects that Skinner has been working against him all this time. Skinner is able to convince Mulder that he would not have forced his own drawer lock open and hence could not have been the murderer. Convinced of Skinner's evidence, Mulder turns in the gun with the serial number filed off so Skinner is not blamed for the murder. That night Skinner confronts The Smoking Man in his apartment, angry that nothing has been done for Scully. The Smoking Man convinces him that Scully will die if he kills him and Skinner leaves without killing him, but not before firing warning shots. Shortly afterwards Covarrubias calls The Smoking Man, who tells her to tell Mulder what he wants to hear while an unknown man is shown behind her listening on another phone.
Read more about this topic: Zero Sum (The X-Files)
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“The plot was most interesting. It belonged to no particular age, people, or country, and was perhaps the more delightful on that account, as nobody’s previous information could afford the remotest glimmering of what would ever come of it.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
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“James’s great gift, of course, was his ability to tell a plot in shimmering detail with such delicacy of treatment and such fine aloofness—that is, reluctance to engage in any direct grappling with what, in the play or story, had actually “taken place”Mthat his listeners often did not, in the end, know what had, to put it in another way, “gone on.””
—James Thurber (1894–1961)