Title: "Credidi me Felem Vidisse"
Author: KimotoCat
Rating: PG-13
Classification: A short story in a known environment – Washington DC.
Spoilers: None. The setting is somewhere around late 6th season.
Requirements: Well, actually you may need to read "Felis Domestica" by this author to understand what's going on here. If you don't know it, read it on this site immediately!
Pronunciation: Kimoto Takita is pronounced Kimata Takeetah, stressing the middle syllables in each word, okay? Figure out the rest for yourself.
Summary: Mulder had a meeting with an unusual woman a while back. Now two new agents join him and Scully in the search for her. But something about those new agents is not right…
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An official and fully legal disclaimer:
Special agent Fox Mulder, special agent Dana Scully, A.D. Walther Skinner and the concept of the X-files is a registered trademark and property of Chris Carter and FOX. This is not a work of copyright violation, but should be seen as a contribution to a piece of television art.
However, the Kimoto Takita©, Francis Floyd Vandenberg© and Randolph Joshua Simmons© characters, complete with appearances and abilities, are the properties of this author.
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Author's ramblings: This was only my second fanfic and it has been waiting on my hard disc for ages. Please R&R.
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Credidi me Felem Vidisse
Part 1
To Fox Mulder, special agent with the FBI, some days were good days. They started with nice weather, they continued with doughnuts and fresh coffee, followed by an interesting and challenging but not impossible assignment for the Bureau. Mulder liked days like that.
This day was not like that.
First it was raining. Second, he could not get a doughnut when he arrived at work, soaked to the bone. And as for an interesting assignment, it was rarely a good sign when he was asked to A.D. Skinners office 'right away' for some change of schedule news.
"You can go right in," the secretary said as Mulder entered. "They are expecting you."
"They?" he muttered as he continued through the door. This was also not a good sign for the day.
Inside Skinners office, three men were waiting for Mulder. At the desk, looking relaxed as always, Walther Skinner was sitting. He looked up when Mulder came in.
"Good morning, agent Mulder," he said and made a gesture with his hand towards the other two men in the room. "Come in and meet agents Francis Vandenberg and Randolph Simmons."
"Pleased to meet you," Mulder said to the eldest of the two new men, none of whom he had ever seen before. They shook hands, uncordially and professionally, none of them knowing enough to pass any judgement on the other. Yet.
"I'm very pleased to make your acquaintance, agent Mulder," agent Vandenberg said with a peculiar smile. "I've heard a lot about you. You seem to be quite an expert on, well, extraordinary things."
He spoke with a heavy accent, not unlike British, and there was something about his lean, almost pathologic face, Mulder did not like. Perhaps it was the eyes; Mulder knew to have seen eyes like that before. Cold and steady like reinforced steel. He did not know this man yet, but he had always had a very keen instinct for others and he felt certain that he would not like him even if he did get to know him.
"Pleased," Simmons said abruptly as he and Mulder shook hands, hardly even making any eye contact.
"Likewise," Mulder replied, equally abrupt, briefly studying the young, handsome man in front of him. And handsome was the word; golden hair in a short, almost military haircut, well tanned, white teeth, a decent suit and all in all good looking, almost a travesty of an FBI-agent. Mulder felt ready to bet that this man carried a pair of dark Ray-Bans in his pocket.
"Sit down, agent Mulder," Skinner suggested. It did not sound like much of an offer, more like an order and Mulder obeyed. The other agents also sat down in the two other chairs next to Mulder.
"Agents Vandenberg and Simmons have been assigned to a mission, having some connection to an incident a while ago involving you," Skinner explained. "They are looking for one Kimoto Takita, a feline looking woman, who escaped Bethesda Naval Hospital's mental ward a month ago."
"Yes, I remember her," Mulder said, now taking more interest in the affair. How could he forget?
On a boring night he had met her at a bar and she had told him her story. That is, she had told him a story about time travel, other worlds and magic, and claimed for it to be the truth. When Mulder had summoned Scully, his partner and a skilled physician, to help him learn more about this peculiar case, Kimoto had tried to kill her self, rather than ending up in a mental asylum. She did not succeed though, and the very next day she had escaped from the hospital, leaving no trace.
"She is rather feline in appearance," agent Vandenberg said, observing Mulder's reaction. "She has a tail."
"I know," Mulder answered. It was true; he had been attracted to her as the mysterious person she was, because she looked incredible feline. She had a tail, whiskers, canines and huge, emerald cat-eyes. Even Scully had been forced to admit that there were traits of the greater felines in her physical appearance. "I met her and we talked. I suppose you've read the report?"
"Not yet, I'm afraid," Vandenberg said with a smile, which Mulder did not like. The smile was more a professional grimace, showing the well-polished teeth, and it did not reach the grey eyes.
"Agent Mulder," Skinner broke in. "You are to work with these two men on this assignment. When agent Scully comes back from Minnesota, she is to join the three of you. Agent Vandenberg has evidence that Kimoto Takita probably still is in Washington DC and your assignment is to find her."
"What do we do when we find her?" Mulder asked.
"That depends," Vandenberg answered before Skinner could speak. "On her behaviour. She was suicidal but also aggressive when last approached. It is either a mental hospital or it is questioning. I believe she was armed with a weapon of unknown origin, is that not so?"
"Yes, she was," Mulder admitted, almost but not quite hiding his repugnance against both Vandenberg and the assignment. "She carried a heavy gun, discharging electric bolts at high voltage and with effect at some distance. The Department of Defence has the weapon."
"Oh, the Department of Defence…" Vandenberg looked as if this was new to him, which puzzled Mulder slightly. But then, this man puzzled him. He had a gut feeling that agent Vandenberg was hiding something. Something very important.
"Yes, but we do have photographic material."
"Of both the weapon and the woman?" Vandenberg inquired.
"Yes, both. I have substantial evidence in the case, as she was admitted to hospital. Several tests were made before she could make her escape."
"That's good. It may make things easier," Vandenberg said with another automatic smile.
"Excuse me, agents," Skinner broke in. "You seem to get along now. Good." He paused briefly, flashing a smile. "Agent Mulder, I would like if you were to take agents Vandenberg and Simmons to your office and brief them there."
"Yes Sir, I'll do that," Mulder said, getting up from the chair.
"And agent Vandenberg will be in charge of this operation, is that understood?"
Taken a bit aback by this, Mulder nodded in obedience and left the office, closely followed by these two new men, special agents Francis Vandenberg and Randolph Simmons.
o o o
The men left the office and Mulder lead the way to his humble quarters in the basement. He opened the door and gestured to the older man to enter the meagre room, which was the basis of Mulder's operations – his work on the so-called X-Files, cases of supernatural phenomena and inexplicable events.
"Welcome to my humble residence," Mulder said as he removed a pile of photos from a chair. "Have a seat and I'll se what I can find."
"Thank you, agent Mulder," Vandenberg said as he placed himself in the chair, utterly ignoring that it left agent Simmons without anything to sit on. "Funny, I would have expected a man of your status to have a more impressive office. Or is this just a storage-room?"
"It is just a storage-room," Mulder returned, flipping through some of the many files in his cabinet. "And it is also my office. My theories do not get along well with everybody upstairs. Anyway, what have you heard?"
"They say that you hunt for little green men," Vandenberg said in a calm voice.
Mulder briefly looked up from his archives, just to see the expression on the face of the man, but he did not seem as if mocking him.
"Not green men. Grey," he finally replied. "When they are in season."
"And the rest of the time?"
"You tell me," Mulder said in an irritated voice. "You seem to have heard about me."
"I always listen a lot, one can learn from it," Vandenberg said. "They call you-"
"Spooky Mulder, yeah, I know," Mulder broke in. "But how about you guys? You're not regulars here, even I can tell that much. What have you got on Kimoto Takita and how did you get assigned to it in the first place?"
"To take things one at the time, we got assigned because of Kimoto Takita crossing my path, not the other way around," Vandenberg explained. "I have to tell you that our delusional feline has started on a personal crime-spree in this city. She has been sighted on several occasions, leaving private homes. I've been after her since a peculiar break-in at Marlin, a software company in central DC."
"So we are chasing a common thief?"
"Yes, I hate to say it, but she seems to have started a career as, well, a cat-burglar."
Mulder smiled at the pun and pulled out a manila folder from the archives.
"Here it is," he said. "Another X-File, the encounter with Kimoto Takita. Have you been reassigned to Washington?"
"Yes, Simmons and I were put here recently," Vandenberg replied in a concise respond as if avoiding him. "What have you got?"
"Well, I met her as a civilian in a bar, The Sewer, at Jefferson Road downtown…" Mulder explained in detail what he had experienced and how a seemingly innocent meeting had turned into a case-file. He also tried his best to describe what had happened at Bethesda Naval Hospital. Only he did not mention that Kim had promised that they would meet again. Nor had that been in his report, all though Scully knew about it. Dana Scully did however not approve of it!
"As for the presumed Kimoto Takita, the explanation to her extreme physical appearance remains unknown," Mulder read from Scully's report. "How an otherwise human person can evolve into this form and mental capacity remains an unanswered question to science. If we did not have photographic material, x-rays and tissue-samples from this creature to support the claim about her existence, it would be my scientific opinion that she could not possibly exist."
"You have samples?" This was the first time, Simmons spoke and it almost startled Mulder to hear his voice again.
"Yes, but not here. It's in storage, some of it. Why?"
"All things taken into considerance, those samples may be interesting," Vandenberg avoided him before Simmons had a chance to speak any further. "Please do continue."
"Regarding Kimoto Takita's whereabouts since her escape from the mental ward on Bethesda Naval Hospital, there is very little to say," Mulder read on. "Investigations reveal that she must have climbed out the window of the 3rd floor room and left through the park. Extensive search, including the use of police dogs, has not lead to an arrest of her…"
"As for the weapon, the one we talked about, it says…" Mulder flipped through some more pages. "Here it is: The weapon has obviously been made from an unknown facility, as the technology presented within it are not known to any department within the U.S. Officials from the Department of Defence have made a claim on the weapon, which is to be the focus of further investigations. Any further details regarding it have been classified as a matter of national security."
"Did you per chance get a good look at it?" Vandenberg inquired.
"Good look at it? I was shot with it!"
"Shot? Sounds bad."
"Well, almost shot. It seems that the weapon emits some kind of electrical charge and it was fired next to my head," Mulder explained. "I was knocked out, but no permanent injuries."
"It cannot have made any direct impact," Simmons pondered. "If it had, you would have been dead."
"You think so?" Mulder asked, rising an eyebrow and gazing at the otherwise silent agent.
"If it was a real weapon, and everything indicates that it really was no toy, then a point blanc impact would have been deadly!" Simmons explained in a humbly excusing voice.
"Yeah, I guess so," Mulder muttered. "But now you know what I know. So, what can you tell me?"
"I was investigating some ordeal in another case, when I came across a security-camera recording with a cat-burglar with a tail," Vandenberg explained. "When I dug deeper into it, I found various tracks which made the dogs go crazy and sent me speculating about the origin of this particular burglar. Further materials revealed her feline appearance and I have determined for agent Simmons and myself to find her now. Mind you; she's good. Really good."
"Well, I guess cat-burgling would come natural to her," Mulder smirked. Then he got serious again. "Now what do we do? Have you got anything about her present whereabouts?"
"Yes, well, I have tried to find out some facts about her M.O. If she follows her usual pattern of behaviour, she will not be hard to target."
"And when we target her?"
"Careful approach, as far as I've heard. Just like you said, she is believed to have certain, hrmh, gifts. She must be perceived as armed and dangerous," Vandenberg said in a voice with a steel-like ring to it. "But given her nature, it is important to catch her alive."
"I had not considered anything else," Mulder grumbled in a stern voice. "I know she is feline, but I did not consider her a piece of game."
"Sorry, I did not mean to imply anything else, agent Mulder," Vandenberg said, offering another of his professional smiles.
Mulder regarded him carefully. He was lean, grey and withered in an uncanny sense of the word and what ever facial expression he tried to muster, none of it reached those cold eyes. With a shiver, Mulder realised where he had seen something like that before. The Cigarette Smoking Man. They had common traits. No wonder that he instinctively loathed agent Vandenberg.
"More practically speaking, we do some paperwork now," Vandenberg explained after which he suddenly looked up, meeting Mulder's hazel eyes with his own steel. His look gave the word piercing a new dimension. It was almost as if Vandenberg was looking right through him. A bit like the cold and uncaring way, CSM used to eye people. 'I know things about you,' the look said. 'And I know that you do not like me, but I don't have to care!'
"What kind of paperwork?" Mulder inquired in a neutral voice.
"We have to go through some more files about recent cat-burglaries in DC," Vandenberg answered, taking out papers from his briefcase. "To look for more evidence of a certain pattern in her M.O."
"I thought you said you already had done that," Mulder said.
"I have, but this is a big city and I do not have enough," Vandenberg answered, sending Mulder a sharp stare. "We need to be certain about her. Once we close in, she may detect us. As you all ready know, she has some ability for detection!"
"Deceive, inveigle and obfuscate," Mulder mumbled in a low voice.
"What was that?" Vandenberg almost snapped at him, but Mulder noticed a smile in Simmons' face and ignored the other agents' hostility.
"Oh nothing, just an old saying amongst some friends of mine," Mulder answered as he reached for some of the files Vandenberg handed to him. "So, what are we looking for?"
"Unusual cat-burgling," Vandenberg said. "She seems to have a primary M.O. including complicated climbing and entering through the kind of windows, where people would not suspect anybody entering at all. She works alone and steals only money or easily cashed items. At one site, she had not even taken some bearer bonds lying on a desk."
"Then what has she taken?"
"Money, food, a gun..."
"A gun?"
"Yes, an automatic .44, left by a security guard. She is armed now."
"She always was," Mulder muttered, starting to look through some of the papers. Piles of files, all regarding cat-burglaries.
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To be continued…