3 Lone Gunmen
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Byers: Born on November 22, 1963 and named after the thirty-fifth president who was killed on that day, John Fitzgerald Byers looks like a professor who has wandered into a CIA rendezvous by mistake. His background as a public affairs officer for the Federal Communications Commission explains his current look. But while his neat beard and dapper suits seem out of place among his grungier colleagues in the Lone Gunmen, his sharp mind and no-nonsense demeanor attest to an encyclopedic knowledge of conspiracy theory and current speculation on everything from the Kennedy assassination to the latest in DNA research. The military and information systems expert of the Lone Gunmen cabal, Byers has an on-going crush on Suzanne Modeski, a scientist whose life is perpetually in danger. He becomes involved in saving her from a secret shadow group, which opens up Byers' eyes to the real conspiracies in the government. The Gunmen join forces trying to protect her, meeting Mulder for the first time. Byers occasionally indulges in a wit as sardonic as the FBI agent, as when he tells him, "That's why we like you, Mulder: Your ideas are weirder than ours." In "One Breath" (2X08) Byers unerringly recognizes and describes the bizarre recombinant chemistry that lies at the heart of Scully's disease, and quietly expresses sympathy to Mulder. Unlike co-conspirators Langly and Frohike, he is the least liable to crack a joke or even a smile, but his calm intelligence lends authority and believability to the unlikely trio's offices. Frohike: Short, unshaven, and clad in combat boots, Melvin Frohike is the Frog Prince of the Lone Gunmen editorial board. Next to Langly and Byers, he looks like the proverbial dirty old man. From his first leering appearance in "E.B.E." (1x16), he has made no secret of his attraction to Agent Scully. He once loaned Mulder a pair of night-vision goggles only after extracting Scully's phone number. Yet he has shown a tender side as well, being the only person to bring Scully flowers when she lay dying in "One Breath" (2X08). Frohike is the photographic and surveillance specialist in the group and he formerly made money selling illegal cable descramblers under the Frohike Electronics Corporation name. In many of the Gunmen's sting operations, he has been known to ironically single out those suspects being observed as "men of distinction." The possessor of small quips such as "She's tasty," Frohike becomes more loquacious only when Mulder teases him. He succinctly summarized the atmosphere of suspicion and paranoia in Mulder's apartment during "Anasazi" (2X25) with one bon mot: "weirdness." Langly: Sporting black-rimmed glasses, long blond hair and T-shirts from a dozen hard-rock bands, Ringo Langly is not the picture of a conventional conspirator. As the computer wizard and communications expert of the Lone Gunmen editorial collective, he is the one most likely to joke with Mulder or invite him to "hop on the Internet to nitpick the scientific inaccuracies" of a new science fiction show. Langly's skills once allowed him to tap into Maryland's DMV mainframe and secure a handicapped parking permit. In "Fearful Symmetry" (2X18), his colleague Byers explains Langly's absence in a meeting as a philosophical aversion to having his image bounced off a satellite. An avid paranoid, Langly automatically records every incoming phone call, and is evidently as conversant with current conspiracy theory as his two colleagues. But he is a master at the Dungeons & Dragons game, and is always ready with a joke any time Mulder's theories get a little "out there." Nevertheless, when Mulder insists that Langly turn off the taping device in "E.B.E." (1X16), Langly does not hesitate to lie to him and record the entire conversation.
