The characters and situations are the creations and property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions and the Fox Broadcasting Corporation and have been used without permission. No copyright infringement is intended and no money shall be made with this piece of fiction.
I can only hope that the aforementioned can find it in their hearts to forgive this fan for taking hours out from watching their show and using their tie-in products to create and showcase a not-for-profit piece of work. To them, I say...please don't hurt me!
Synopsis: This story was written during the Third Season. It's a straihgtforward suspense/conspiracy piece
State Patrol Substation 23
On I-70 in Indiana
8:09 PM
Wednesday
"Holy shit..." Hollis's voice was a dry whisper, and the kid stared wide-eyed and agape all the way up the ramp to the front lot. The same front lot that the State Troopers had been parking their personal vehicles in for the past fifteen years since the asphalt was poured one sweltering day in mid July of 1980. Trooper Jim Abell remembered that day. He'd been two years with the force and partnered with Jerry O'Tafkee. Along with the new parking lot, the state had sprung for a new wing for the station's holding cells. Right now, smoke was pouring out of a window in that wing.
Abell stepped hard on the brake and let the cruiser fishtail to a halt near the front of the building. He could see into the building through a gap made by the front security door being propped open by a motionless body in a uniform. Past that body, Abell could see the white flicker of the fluorescent bulbs. Gritting his teeth he drew his Ruger .45 automatic and jacked a round into the chamber.
"We're not waiting for back up?" Hollis asked incredulously. "Tate and Donovan can be here in fifteen minutes. Lawrence PD can be here..."
"If anyone's alive in there they need help now," Abell answered as he felt the ice take him. The ice that had been his companion since he was thirteen and stared down Jonnie Drake and his three friends after school one day. All day everyone had been telling him to fake sickness, get out of there, Drake and his buddies would kill him for sure, but when Abell had faced them on the football field on that warm fall day when the wind sent leaves cartwheeling past them he felt no fear, only a clamping cold that suppressed his emotions and allowed him to think, plan, strategize, and leave two of Drake gang with broken noses and one with a broken arm. When he'd inadvertently pulled over a driver fleeing a warrant for armed robbery, the ice had gripped him and given him the presence of mind to dive out of the way and crawl under the car when the man started shooting. And when Abell had emerged on the passenger's side and sent three .45 hollow-point bullets through the window and into the man's head, the ice had kept him company throughout the hearings.
The ice had him now, and he knew he'd be okay. He returned the .45 to his holster and gestured to the two rifles that stood in racks between he and Hollis. "Shotgun or assault rifle?" Since their jurisdiction covered a great deal of rural highway, the Indiana State Patrol had every cruiser equipped with three rifles: a .223 assault rifle with a 20-round clip, a Benelli shotgun loaded with 00-buckshot and high penetration slugs, and in the trunk, a Mini-14 7.62mm rifle.
"This is crazy. It's...crazy," Hollis sputtered.
"Take the shotgun," Abell said and yanked the rifle out of its cradle. Hollis didn't have the ice, was scared shitless, and wouldn't be any good at precision shooting, so it made no sense to give him the precision gun.
Abell walked around the back of the cruiser and unlocked the trunk. The night's rain had subsided into a gentle mist and a cold wind was slicing through his nylon jacket. Abell ignored it as he rested the rifle against the bumper and pulled out the two bullet-proof vests.
"My God, I just don't believe..." Hollis came around the car, fumbling with the nylon ammunition-sleeve that fit the butt of the shotgun. "Dammit, Jimbo, this is suicide!" he sighed, as if from the exertion of getting out a complete sentence. Abell said nothing, just handed him a vest, then wriggled into his own.
"Whoever did this..."
"Hurt a lot of our men," Abell finished dryly, then chambered a .223 round. Hollis turned ashen, his eyes suddenly taking on a penetrating quality. Abell could see that the man finally understood.
"Hey!" A sharp cry complemented by footsteps on the asphalt. Both troopers whirled, bringing their guns to bear.
"No!" the slim, slight figure shouted, waving her hands in front of her as she stumbled into the glow of the cruiser's headlights. "It's me." Janice Randall looked exhausted and crushed, her uniform wet and stained with grease and blood. Her holster was empty.
"Janet," Abell caught her with one arm as she slid away from the cruiser's slicked hood. "Janet what the hell happened in there?"
She shook her head, dark, wet wisps of hair clinging to her cheeks. "I don't...the lights went out, then there were the explosions...the gunfire...I couldn't tell who was shooting or who anyone was shooting at, I just...someone hit me in the head, I lost my gun, and then...and then I heard you pull up and I thought maybe some more of them arrived."
"Are they still inside?" Hollis asked. "How many are there? What did they want, did they say? How heavily are they armed?"
"I don't know," Janice shook her head even more violently, "I don't know, I don't know I don't know! I didn't even see any of them!" She stopped, exhaled a few clouds of steam then took a deep breath. "But they're still in there. I know that."
"Okay," Abell said quietly, then brought his leg up so he could pull his Colt Detective Special out of his ankle holster. He handed it to Janice. "Stay in the car. Man the radio. We'll keep in contact with you."
"No. I'm not giving up. Jim, these people may have killed a lot of my friends while I was right there. You can't let me live with that for the rest of my life. Live with the fact I didn't do anything."
"C'mon, Janice! You're strung-out on the fear," Hollis said, but Abell cut him off with a terse gesture.
"There's the M-14 in the trunk and I think a spare vest. Take them if you feel up to it."
Janice did, and a moment later the three troopers walked into a twisted reality that none of them had thought possible in the most tormented nightmares.
Past the bullet-pocked dispatcher's area where Joe Morgan and Julienne Giger's bodies were draped over their computer consoles, the squadroom was charnel house of twisted, blood-soaked bodies, limbs tangled around overturned chairs, hands clawing at unfired or empty pistols, faces contorted and mouths gaping in silent screams. Papers, files, spare ammunition littered the floor which was already smeared and foot-printed with blood. The whole scene was illuminated by the failing lighting systems which flickered and flashed as if deeming the sight too horrible to be shown in anything other than small bits.
"Oh my God," Hollis whimpered. "My god, my god, my...oh..."
"Damn it, Hollis!" Abell snapped.
"Look, there." Janice pointed to a prominent set of bootprints in the blood. They showed a natural confident stride. Someone unaffected by the carnage. They followed that trail, gingerly stepping over debris or bodies. None of the three looked at the faces of the bodies they passed. None wanted to know who was dead.
The footprints trailed off in the computer lab which was well and constantly lit, exposing the young man who sat behind one of the terminals, frowning in concentration. Abell took a step near him, then raised his rifle.
"Hands on your head, asshole, and back away from the computer or you're a dead man!"
"I'm sorry?" the man's eyes narrowed in confusion behind a pair of wire-rimmed glasses.
"Jim," Janice said quietly, lowering her gun, "this is wrong."
Abell didn't lower his rifle, but he could feel that it was wrong. The man behind the computer was too average-looking to have wrought the carnage behind them. He didn't wear combat gear or survivalist fatigues, but a pair of khaki pants and a flannel shirt. His short blond hair was trimmed neatly to accompany the glasses in giving him the look of a college professor or yuppie away from work.
"Who the fuck is this guy?" Hollis whispered, then said it louder, lowering the shotgun and turning to Janice: "Who is this guy? What the fuck is goin' on here? Is this the guy who did all that? How could he have..."
"Shut up, Hollis! I don't know..."
The ice in Abell's chest tightened and he turned his gaze away from the two bickering officers (distraction!) and back to the man behind the computer...
Just in time to catch the first bullet in the neck.
Abell went down, gargling blood. He heard only two more shots.
11:58 PM
Wednesday
She had a job to do, and as such Dana Scully tried not to let the carnage affect her, but every breath she drew through her cotton mask seemed too chalky with the dust of the substation and oily with the lingering smoke of the gas fires to let her completely forget where she was.
In the middle of the second Oklahoma City.
This time, at least, there'd been no children. The target--the place the ruins around them had once been--was a State Police substation. No children, but thirteen state troopers were killed in the blast which tore the one-story structure apart and scattered it over hundred-yard radius. The bodies were lined up under yellow tarps in the Northern parking lot where the blast hadn't reached. Scully was on the salvage team inside the rubble, trying to the missing bits of the bodies to tag and trace so they could be dumped in with other pieces in the lead-lined coffins that would be buried under American flags in two days. As it was, Scully knew, all if the FBI agents who now combed the wreckage like ants, were probably inhaling and exhaling some of the bodies, such was the ferocity of the blast.
She spotted the hand sticking out of a small lump of melted acoustic tiles, though they must have burned before settling atop the extremity, since the patch of flesh that Scully could see--the thumb and wedge of skin leading to the wrist--wasn't charred black, but the blue-grey color of dead flesh. Scully sighed and set up a small, red flag with a number on it. Then she pulled a glassine evidence bag from her overcoat which protected her from the Indiana fall chill and mist and recorded the number on its label.
The human hand. What a miracle of bio-mechanics. A tightly unified package of muscles, nerves, and tendons all working in perfect synchronicity to manipulate the structure and allow it to perform whatever task was at hand--gripping a pen, lighting a cigarette, cupping the chin of a lover, sculpting a masterpiece...now reduced to a worthless lump of dead tissue sitting amid melted plastic, and covered with a light powder of plaster and disintegrated insulation. Ruefully, Scully reached out to pick it up.
And found it snagged.
She tugged gently and carefully--her fingers were cold inside the surgical gloves--and finally the hand came free, and Scully could see what had caused the snag. The fingers were still curled around the grip of a semi-automatic pistol, clutching it in a death-grip. The gun's slide was locked back, and through the ejection port, Scully could see that it was empty.
Shooting? The reports all agreed that a bomb had been smuggled into the station and detonated. The reports also agreed that the troopers were caught completely by surprise.
So who was this one shooting at in the moments before the white-hot rage of an explosive tore his living body apart?
Or was that the way it had happened at all?
Beneath the charcoal Indiana sky, in the mist made silver by the portable crime scene lights, Dana Scully felt the cold finally reach her soul, and she shivered and didn't stop for hours.
228 Washington Ave. Apt 3B
2:23 AM
Thursday
Fox Mulder locked the door behind him, then leaned back against it for support while he felt the rough strap of the duffel bag slide past his fingertips. He should carry the duffel into his room and empty its contents into his hamper or at least kick it out of the way, but he couldn't muster the strength. The Bubird that had carried he and twelve other agents back from Indiana had been a twin-engine turboprop and had hit turbulence over Virginia. Anyone who'd ever studied plane crashes (as all FBI agents must do as part of their academy training) knew that such planes had the worst safety records, and after this flight, Mulder understood why: the little plane had been battered around the sky like a toy boat in a whirlpool. The fear hadn't subsided until the bird touched down at Dulles (landing miraculously on its nose wheel after a wicked tail wind forced the other two off the runway) and Mulder was in the safety of a taxi cab.
Now the fear was hardening and turning into exhaustion--another kind of exhaustion to join the physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion that already owned him. Mulder's body felt as if it had turned to lead from thirty-six hours without sleep. His mind had been taxed to its limits as he and the rest of the Explosives Investigation Team had brainstormed ways the bomb could have gotten into the station, as well as what type of bomb could have caused what they saw. He felt numb from examining the bodies and knowing that another human being had done this. And now, as if he wasn't weary enough, his body was entering the void left by fear's adrenaline. He didn't even have enough strength to kick his bag out of the way.
Mulder wanted nothing more than to collapse on his couch and fall asleep in front of a flickering TV screen, but he couldn't do that anymore. He trudged down the dark hallway to his bedroom, not able to see much in the darkness, not needing to see anything. He walked into his room, shut the door behind him, and began to undress, throwing his clothes on the floor.
"I have to warn you," a throaty voice curled from the darkness, "my boyfriend's an FBI agent and he had guns all over this place, if you're thinking of trying anything perverted."
Mulder grinned tiredly and let his pants fall around his ankles. "It'd almost be worth the bullet."
Maya stirred beneath the silk sheets--bisected by vivid, red slats from where the light from the neon sign on the corner tavern bled through the Venetian blinds. "Almost?"
"I'd have to think about it. As it is, my gun's in my duffel by the front door, so the question is moot." He eased onto the bed, felt his body scream for more, then lay back on the satin-covered luxury.
"You left the revolver under the bed." Maya slithered over to him, her long, dancer's body insinuating itself around his. In the darkness, he felt her long hair spill across his chest. "How was it?"
"CNN will be running non-stop coverage for the next few days. You'll be able to judge for yourself. Right now I just want to pass out."
"Tired?"
"Drained."
Maya lifted her head, her face catching the red slashes, making her smile even more demonic. "You will be when I'm done with you."
"I don't think I could open a beer bottle right now."
Her body slid over him, smoother even than the sheets. Her hand emerged from beneath the other pillow with his .357 Magnum. She pressed it to his temple. "What makes you think you have any choice in the matter?"
"What makes you think I have any control over the matter?"
Maya grinned as she thumbed back the hammer. The gun clicked metallically as her free hand explored his body.
"See?"
She pulled the trigger. The hammer rang on an empty cylinder. Maya pushed away the gun and lowered herself to his chest. "I watched three sleazy made-for-cable sex movies tonight, so if you think you're getting out of this..." she trailed off, kissing his chest, flicking her tongue over his nipples. Mulder groaned and buried his fingers in her lush hair, kneading it as she worked her way down.
"There..." she whispered huskily as she stretched up and then eased herself down on him. "Oh, God, there..."
Mulder gasped, let his hands roam over her breasts and toy with the hard nipples as Maya rocked and found a rhythm. "Was it very bad, baby?" she asked in a whisper.
"Yes..." Mulder answered. Her hands came up and held his face, forcing him to look into her eyes as she began to quicken her movements.
"Look at me, baby...look at me. Let me take it all away."
Mulder looked into her jade-blue eyes and began surrendering to her.
The Killer checked his speed on the Taurus's digital speedometer. 67. He decided it was safe to maintain. He'd made the mistake of driving twelve miles over the speed limit a few hours ago, and been pulled over. The police officer had been driving alone, so it had been a relatively simple matter to draw the Heckler & Koch USP pistol and dispatch the officer with a single .45 round into his right eye. More troublesome was the fact that while the USP's Universal Tactical Light was clipped below the muzzle, the issued silencer was not in place, and the loud report had rolled over the rain-sodden fields around them. The Killer doubted that the gunshot had aroused suspicion--let alone been heard--but it was the sort of error he could not afford to make twice. Conditions next time might not be so accommodating.
The Killer's controller would meet him in Chicago which was only a few hours drive. The Killer was grateful for this, grateful that he would be deactivated, reconditioned. Too many things about this place and this assignment had confused him. The soy fields seemed eerily familiar, as had the small cluster-like cities he'd passed by on his drive out to the target site. These images stirred not just vague memories, but painful sensations in his chest and back as well. It was as if something deep inside of him was trying to escape.
This was ridiculous, of course. He'd been designed to be more durable than the average male, with a quicker immune system and metabolic rate. Surely some malfunction in his body would have been identified and screened out before the activated him for this mission. Still, the memory of those lonely buildings, standing lighted amid the dead lands taunted him. They were like an acquaintance whose name he couldn't remember.
The billboard he passed held an advertisement for a videogame. The Killer enjoyed reading billboards as a way of keeping alert during long drives. His adrenal system had been augmented to prevent him from falling asleep when it was not willed, but this safeguard did little to alleviate the boredom that came with consciousness. The advertisement showed an action scene from the CD-ROM game. A group of soldier were standing close together pointing their guns at unseen opponents. The most prominent was a beautiful Eurasian woman with a severe expression and long, glossy hair pulled tightly away from her forehead.
We are all...
A voice. Unknown, yet familiar rang in his ears. He imagined the pretty Eurasian soldier whispering the words.
...some burn hotter than others...
The pain gripped him again like a fist compressing his heart and spine. He could see her, the woman from the billboard, but she was not wearing combat gear, she was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt--stars...--and her hair flowed in perfect waves around her oval face as she sat on the edge of a cot and read.
Words.
The car veered off the road, kicking up gravel, tires rumbling. The Killer stumbled out and ran screaming into the tangled soybean field, trying to outrun the words and images that were clawing at his mind and...
We are all...
He fell to his knees in the mud and muck, felt its cold soaking through his pants, felt the warmth of his tears coat his cheeks. He drew the USP and swung it in a wide arc at the empty field, ready to negate any threat that may be nearby. There was none.
...some burn...
With a hoarse cry at the clouds above, the Killer pressed the gun to his temple and cocked back the hammer. His finger tightened on the trigger. Words interrupted his action.
We are all made of the things
The stars have granted the Universe
We are all stars, though
Some burn hotter than others...
The words flowed effortlessly from the girl's lips, colored Autumn Sunrise.
He lowered the gun. The words owned him now, and he would find out their meaning, and their creator. It was simply a matter of...excavation. Digging through the tangled pieces of his skeleton--not his bodily skeleton, but the latticework of his mind that his controllers had hung this person on.
He stood and faced the idling car. He was heading the wrong way. Not Illinois. Ohio.
The Killer would find the words and the woman who'd spoken them, he decided. Nothing would stop him.
They were fresh from their morning shower, the steam still twirling off of their bodies. Maya was deliciously wet and pliable, Mulder noticed with satisfaction as he made patterns of cat-kisses over her belly, occasionally dipping his tongue in her naval just to feel her squirm beneath him. Maya twisted her fingers into the short hair on the back of his head, gently urging him downward...
His phone chirped. Mulder looked up.
"Let it ring," Maya cooed.
"It's gotta be work."
"Fox," her muscles tensed, arms bracing his head, "they got the guys who did it. Killed them all in a shootout. You've earned this time off, so shut off the damn phone and get back to more important tasks."
Mulder pulled out of her grip. "Only few people have my cell number. It's gotta be Scully." This brought an exasperated sigh from Maya who used her elbows to inch her way further up the bed and then lift one of her long, strong legs into the air.
"She needs something better to do with her time. Or someone better to do."
"I'll pass that along," Mulder grinned as he picked up his cellular phone from amid a clutter of receipts atop his dresser. Maya switched legs, lifting her left one now, showing off the small butterfly tattoo on her muscular calf. Mulder had once traced the wings of that butterfly with the tip of his tongue.
"You should. Maybe if she was working off some of that repressed sexual energy she wouldn't constantly be calling you, venting that energy."
"Uh-huh."
Maya rolled over, propping her head up on one hand and swinging her legs. "Men are so blind. Is it any wonder we can wrap you around our little fingers with a glimpse of our panties?"
Mulder dialed, letting Maya ramble. He dreaded the day she and Scully had to spend more than a few minutes in the same room. "I'm not following you."
Another sigh. "She wants to fuck you, Foxy-Fox."
"Now you made mew screw up dialing. Maya, Scully and I have been partners for two years, and in that time we've placed our lives in each other's hands more times than I even want to think about right now. If there's intimacy between us, that's where it comes from. Not parts southern."
The tapping of Maya's nails on the bedpost sounded like machine-gun fire. Mulder marveled sometimes at how thoroughly she could take him apart. "Okay, let's make this simple for the big, bull-headed male. Yes, there's this larger than life intimacy between you two, but what do you think grows out of that? You may be content with this '90s-sensitive-male relationship, but she is not. She wants you to brace her against a wall and tear away that cold, business-like exterior, you know what I mean? Rip the buttons off her blouse. Hike up her skirt. Fuck her against that wall."
Mulder rolled his eyes.
"Why do you think she's never shown a hint of sexuality around you? A joke. A comment. Even when you went after the gender-switching killer who offed people with sex, she didn't respond at all, why do you think that is? If you're the only man she can fully trust, why doesn't she trust herself to broach a very common topic with you?"
Mulder shook his head. He was having trouble dialing. "It's a topic that comes up less often than you'd think when you're investigating leech-men and extra-terrestrial."
Maya ignored him. "It's because that particular topic was too close to her. Because she thinks about you at night in her empty apartment watching romantic movies on Lifetime. She wonders how you would feel inside of her. How your mouth would feel on her breasts, on her pussy. And she knows that she'll be with you the next day. Alone. That the opportunity will present itself a thousand time before the end of the week." Maya blew a comma of dark hair away from her right eye and smiled up at him. "So, you still want to take the chance and call her?" She wiggled her heart-shaped rump girlishly.
"I'm sure stumped as to what to get her for Christmas now." Scully's line rang. Maya lay flat on the bed, her hair flowing outward like a stain on the sheets.
"Hello?"
"Scully? It's me. Did you call?"
"Yeah. Just a minute ago. What happened?"
"I was..." Mulder kicked it around, "in the middle of something. I couldn't grab the call."
"He was about to go down on me," Maya called in a singsong.
"In the middle of something?"
Mulder felt his cheeks color. "Scully, what's up?"
"I know it's your day off, and you probably have all sorts of interesting activities planned, but is it possible for you come into the office. There's something I want you to look at."
For a brief, libidinous moment, Mulder wondered if Maya was right, if Scully really was hot for him. The moment passed. "What's up?"
"Not over the phone."
"I'll be right there."
Scully's voice could have turned the Everglades arid. "Take your time, Mulder. Finish what you were doing. I'll be here all day."
Mulder killed the connection and replaced the phone on its nest of receipts. "Well?" Maya asked. "Did she profess her undying love for you? Or did her voice have the usual emotionally-distant twang to it?" Mulder fell onto the bed beside her and nuzzled her hair. It smelled faintly of jasmine. He loved the way Maya smelled.
"Actually she told me to take my time." He ran his hand along her smooth thigh.
"Maybe I'll have to reconsider my opinion of your partner," Maya whispered in his ear before she bit the lobe.
The Killer ignored the woman's whimpering and scrabbling on the hardwood, trying to pull her body off the floor, but unable to establish any leverage because of the blood and her ruined legs. The Killer ran his fingers over the plastic which covered the map, trying to gain purchase on the town's names.
Lebanon.
Kettering.
Xenia.
Piqua.
Each one like a stone dropped into a still pond, sending ripples into the distant waters, and dredging up...what?
Where did the names take him? What were they? When was he here? Not on any of his operations, since he retained full knowledge of them during moments of activation. Right now he could remember the details of every one of the dozen or so jobs he'd done, and these names didn't mean anything to him. He had no life beyond his activation periods. He did not travel, engage in sports or social activities. All he did was read and occasionally go to the movies. These names weren't a part of his present. His past, however...
His past. Fear clenched at his throat, set his heart pounding even faster. He wasn't supposed to have a past before 1987.
His past, he thought as he turned from the map. This was horrifying new ground. He had a past. A life prior to this one. Who was he? Who had he been?
A thousand questions buzzed in his mind like enraged hornets. A new sensation for him, confusion. He almost forgot to shoot the woman in the head on his way out.
The man leaned back in his deep, leather chair and lit his eighth cigarette of the day. He inhaled the spicy tobacco smoke and let it calm his jangled nerves. Nothing was going right these days. First Bob Mulder was killed, then Agent Scully's sister. Kryczeck was still out there with the computer tape, and most of the Navajo nation was aware of what was on it.
Wild cards. Everyone seemed them: Skinner, that damn Indian, Kryczeck. Now this.
What the hell was happening?
"He's only a few hours overdue," the man said into the phone, lilting his voice for the best reassuring quality.
The person on the other end of the line didn't agree with his optimism.
"I think such actions are premature. You must remember that this was an especially risky operation."
The person on the other line felt that this was all the more reason to panic.
"Let's wait a few more hours. If proper protocols aren't maintained, then we'll take action."
The person seemed to think that this was a recipe for disaster.
"I'll have our friends on alert, ready to go on a moment's notice. In the meantime, I think it's best that we don't panic."
The person on the other line took little comfort in this and hung up angrily. The man replaces the phone in its cradle and leaned back even farther in his hair, watching his cigarette smoke drift lazily to the ceiling, wondering how bad this would get before it was through.
J. Edgar Hoover Building
FBI Headquarters
"My God, Scully," Mulder breathed, "what happened?"
Scully turned away from her Compaq PC and gave him a level stare over the wire rims of her glasses. "I cleaned up the place, Mulder. It seemed like a productive way of passing the time while you and the Bohemian were, uh, debating world affairs."
"Feminist theory, actually," Mulder grinned as he slowly circled his desk. Scully had arranged his forms, slipping them into the appropriate intake/outtake slots, as well as neatly stacking his copies of Sci-Fi Universe, Omni, and various and sundry video catalogs beside the desk blotter he wasn't even aware he had. The posters he'd had been straightened and, it appeared, dusted. She'd even stacked the outstanding files neatly in the space between the battle-scarred and dented file cabinet and the wall.
The room seemed huge and impossible bright. Like a gymnasium. Mulder wasn't sure he liked it.
"I don't want to downplay your afternoon's accomplishments, but I kind of liked the clutter." Mulder settled into his creaking chair and surveyed the suddenly spacious, accommodating room. The place was beginning to look like an actual office, and not a converted photocopying center. "Definitely," he said with certainty. "The entropy held a certain mystique."
Scully continued to stare over her glasses at him, her lips pursed in a puffy frown. Mulder examined the look for any trace of throbbing, yearning lust. Maybe he just wasn't empathetic, he thought. "Mulder, I found this computer. Did you know we had it? I didn't." She turned back to the screen. Green scrolling played over his pale skin. "But that's not what I wanted to show you."
"There's more?" Mulder scooted his chair over beside her and looked at the screen. He didn't understand a word of it.
"The bombing," Scully said brittley.
"What about it? Just another anti-government hate group livening up an otherwise dull weekend."
"That's what I thought too, but when I was sifting through the rubble for bodies I found something."
"Am I going to be able to eat after this story?"
Scully barely cracked a smile and continued. "I found a hand in the wreckage. It was still clutching a semi-automatic pistol. A pistol that had been emptied into something. Mulder, if this explosion was an unexpected act of terrorism, who was that trooper firing at?"
"Do you know who the appendage belonged to?"
Scully hook her head. "I tagged it and wrote it up. When I didn't hear from anyone at the Violent Crimes Section, I started to wonder if someone had misfiled my report, so I checked the files." She turned the monitor so Mulder could see it better.
"What is it?" Mulder asked.
"My Crime Scene files."
"I don't see anything."
"Exactly," Scully said, her voice compressing with contained intensity. "This contains all the reports I filed from that crime scene. My report on that hand reads as follows: 'Human appendage located at grid point twelve by double-alpha. Body part appears to be the hand of an adult male.' Mulder, I didn't write that."
"A cover-up," Mulder said dryly. "What are they covering up, though? Something happened there, Scully. Something they needed an explosion to bury. Who was in their jail, Scully? Is there any way you can use this wondrous discovery to tell me that?"
"I think so," Scully adjusted the monitor and began typing. "Can I ask why?"
"Because I can't type as fast as you can." Scully shot him another look that couldn't be construed as romantic. "Someone was in that substation, Scully, people the troopers were shooting at. That means those people were probably shooting at the troopers, right? So why would someone do that? Or a better question: why would the government cover that up unless there was something about it they wanted to keep quiet?"
"Their own men shot that place up?"
"I don't know, but it's a sure bet whatever they were after wasn't a regular fixture in that station. And what's the most fluid aspect of a police station?"
A small smile tugged futilely but valiantly at Scully's lips. "The prisoners in the holding cells."
"Exactly."
Scully began typing with more vigor. A moment later she frowned at the bright screen. "No. Nothing unusual. All nearby residents. All moving violations. What now, Kemosabe?"
Mulder ran his fingers through his cropped hair. His new haircut was growing into something manageable. He tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair, wondered if maybe a late lunch at Reyo's would jump start the mental processes Maya was so good at dulling.
And then he had a wicked idea.
"Scully, exactly which records do we have in this file?"
"Everything the substation kept tabs on, why?"
"Check their expenditures. Namely, dinner allotments."
Scully raised an eyebrow at that one, but did it.
"There it is," Mulder leaned forward in his chair pointing at a line on the screen. "They ordered nine packaged dinners from the county food service. What do you think, Scully? A couple of the troopers get hungry?"
"More like there were two prisoners not accounted for. So someone wanted to make sure they were killed. But who did the killing? And who sent them?"
Mulder leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. "So, how sophisticated is this magic machine?"
The Killer lingered in the Rest Area, scowling at the wad of moist bills in his hand. He'd stolen them off the people he'd killed at the last Rest Area. Together they totalled almost fifty dollars. Added to what he'd stolen from the gas station he had nearly four hundred. He wondered how far that would get him. Assuming he was going someplace in Ohio, his gas and lodging expenses would be relatively low, but there was the future to think about.
His controllers would have cancelled his credit cards by now. They also probably had their teams out to get him. He'd have to be on guard, compartmentalizing his confusion while maintaining a diamond-clear understanding of the tactical situation. On the lighter side, he'd be able to kill without incident. His controllers wouldn't allow a police investigation.
The USP was heavy on his belt, and the Killer decided that he'd have to expand his arsenal before the hit teams arrived. at some point he would have to take a stand, and he might not have the luxury of deciding when that moment came. It might be before he learned all the answers, and the thought of dying before he knew the truth of his past galled him.
Still, amid the questions and the plans for violence, he felt a familiar tug. A good book. he needed a book. He liked to read.
Reading and poetry.
The killer shoved the bills in his pocket and looked out at the rain.
J. Edgar Hoover Building
FBI Headquarters
A full-color map of the state of Indiana appeared on the screen. A moment later the Interstate systems scrolled into existence. A moment after that various red dots swelled along those lines.
Mulder whistled through his teeth. "This has some definite potential."
"You're thinking about Penthouse Online, aren't you?"
Mulder simply shrugged, then decided to skirt the issue. "So what are these things anyway?"
"I accessed the regional 911 system. These are the sites of murders reported in the last twelve hours. Interestingly enough they're all listed as errors." She looked at him "No police investigation. There were however rescue squads sent to these areas."
Mulder nodded. "They needed to cart the bodies away. The same people are covering up these murders. They also give us a warm trail to follow."
Scully pulled off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. Mulder hadn't thought of all the work she'd put in in the last couple of hours, and he felt a twinge of regret.
"Why would professional assassins leave a wake of corpses along the highway, Mulder. That doesn't make sense."
"No," he admitted, "it doesn't. But then again if we understood every element of every case we investigate our lives wouldn't be as interesting as they are."
Scully rolled her eyes.
"I'll look into it. Do you want to come along? You don't have to, you know. You've been on duty ever since the bombing. If you want to take a few personal days, that's fine. I can go this one alone."
Scully's blue eyes were tinged with red but she managed a playful smile. "Mulder, if it wasn't for me looking out for your best interests you'd be guarding the souvenirs shop. Just let me pack. Do you have any idea how we're going to get this past Skinner?"
"We can attach ourselves to the follow-up teams. We won't even have to go through Skinner."
"Clever. Hold down the fort, Mulder I'll be back." She got up and began collecting her things.
"Fine. I've got to make a phone call."
"Is the Bohemian going to be irate?"
"Probably." Mulder looked at the computer, then back at Scully. "There really is a Penthouse Online, isn't there? You weren't just kidding about that?"
The Killer cruised beneath the arch that proudly proclaimed he was now entering Ohio and told him who the governor and lieutenant governor were. He was more interested in the errant crackling of the police-band radio he'd stolen along with the 9mm Beretta automatic pistol and AR-15 assault rifle from the squad car that had stopped to help him when he'd faked a flat tire. There was a great deal of activity on the channels, but no mention of his work.
The controllers were taking measures.
And that meant the assassins were en route.
Based on his own experiences, the Killer estimated they would fly into an airport in Indiana and follow his trail until they could triangulate his position and lead him into a killing box. In his case--the case of an armed and trained target--they'd herd him someplace empty and isolated in case of a protracted battle.
But it would be at least a few hours before they caught up to him, and his mind was toying with Ohio. What a strange state, Ohio. The killer had been all over the country, had thrown a woman off a 39th floor balcony in Miami, tossed a man onto the electric rail of a subway in New York, and sprayed bullets into a ranch-style home in LA. Ohio was a mystery to him. No one important lived in Ohio.
He amended his thinking: no one his controllers would consider important lived in Ohio. No one involved in upper- or murky levels of government lived in Ohio. The state could be important to him only for some reason springing from his past. The name rang in the lower reaches of his mind like a peal of thunder, conjuring up images...
Images too fast and furious to decipher. Emotions so powerful, the Killer feared he would be torn apart by the fury of their release. The Killer pulled over to the side of the road and stopped the car. Fear. They'd eradicated almost all traces of it from his psyche, allowing him to retain only enough to keep him alive and functional. He feared death, but not pathologically. He would avoid life-threatening situations, but only to the extent that they didn't interfere with the completion of his mission. If, to eliminate a subject, he was forced to walk into a hail of gunfire he would. He did not fear heights, spiders, or lightning. Frivolous fears did not exist within him. But the fear of this, the fear of discovering who he was, paralyzed him.
He cradled his head in his hands. Back or forward. Face his fears or face a world of torment and questions. If he went back now, most likely they would recondition him, not punish him--he was far too valuable for that. They would eliminate the memories, erase the torment, make him into what he was.
Would he get to keep the girl, though? She was very pretty, and he enjoyed the prospect that maybe they had been friends or lovers in a past life...No. If they took the past life, they would have to take the girl, too. That made the decision even tougher.
The window disintegrated in the rush of traffic and a spray of cold rain. The Killer felt the bullet warm the back of his neck and thud in the passenger's side door. The Killer fell onto the passenger's seat and reached under it for the Beretta.
First pass was the hit.
Cold wind swirled around the cabin, blowing rain onto his back. He worked the gun's slide and clasped both hands around the plastic grips. He rolled onto his back, knowing he couldn't be seen through the car's windows.
Second pass was the clean up.
When he heard the rush of wheels coming closer, he tensed, drawing himself up, waiting to spring. The sound crescendoed, and when it reached its peak, the Killer sat up far enough for the pistol's barrel to clear the shattered-out window and began pulling the trigger as fast as he could. The gunshots got lost in the maelstrom outside--the sound of penetrated metal and safety glass and the pop of the phosphorous grenade they'd never gotten a chance to throw.
Standard highway elimination: the first car passed the target and fired into it. The second car, trailing a few miles behind, threw a white phosphorous grenade into the target-car's cabin and incinerated everything inside of it. The Killer knew what he'd see even before he got out of the car.
The follower was laying on its side by the side of the road, burning. The Killer watched it for a while, looked for patterns in the swirling clouds of smoke that carried bits of upholstery and Armani suit toward the slate-grey sky.
A car was approaching from the opposite direction. The Killer expected this as well. The plan had awry and the hit car was coming back to lend assistance. He opened the trunk and pulled out the Steyer AUG assault rifle, being careful to keep his movements concealed from their point of view. They were a few hundred yards away, and visibility was bad, but the Killer wasn't about to give up the only advantage he had.
He chambered a round, then knelt and braced the gun on the Taurus's back bumper and sighted through the rain, aiming at the approaching car's right left tire. When it was close enough, he fired a single shot. The tire exploded, sounding like a baseball bat hitting a body, and the car fishtailed, giving the killer a perfect profile view of the car. He spent half the clip into those windows. The car spun out and didn't move.
The Killer put the AUG back in the trunk, got in the Taurus, and drove between both wrecks into Ohio. His senses were hyper-acute, having slid into this mode after the first shot blasted out his window, and were now sliding back to normal. Still, the steering wheel felt extra rough and cold, and he could smell wet vegetation on the wind that rushed into the car's cabin.
He couldn't go back anymore.
And strangely enough, he didn't mind.
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base
Dayton, Ohio
"This isn't that bad!" Mulder shouted.
"What?"
Mulder rolled his eyes and squirmed in the webbed harness that held him secure in the fold-out chair. The C-130 cargo plane was empty except for the two of them, flying into Dayton to pick up a tank or something. Skinner had arranged this mode of transportation, and it left Mulder wondering just what the man was getting back at them for.
And the ride wasn't that bad. He and Scully were seated in molded plastic seats that at other times folded into the plane's bulkhead. The cargo compartment was empty and smelled of solvent and gas--a mixture that reminded Mulder of the way new cars smelled. If there was a point of contention, it had to be with the omni-present drone of the plane's turboprops which echoed through the plane until Mulder could feel the vibrations of it in his bone marrow. Aside from that, though, it had been a quick, efficient ride. Something he would have given his left arm for as a kid.
Scully, however, didn't seem quite as enamored with it, having spent most of the ride reading over the hastily compiled file they'd put together on the string of killings. He gave up talking to her until they landed.
"Well that wasn't to bad," Mulder tried again as they walked down the ramp from the cargo compartment.
"Something I never wanted to go through again," Scully said ruefully. "Every time the Navy transferred Dad, the whole family flew out in one of those. San Francisco, Pearl harbor, Guam..."
"Look on the bright side. Maybe we'll get to ride in a jeep to our hotel."
Scully squinted at the sky. "As long as it has a roof, Mulder. It looks like those clouds are going to burst any minute now."
"The hotel's not far."
"Mulder, what makes you think the killer's coming here?"
"A hunch. If he's not coming here, he'll most likely pass through. It's the only large city along I-70."
"Except for Cincinnati which is only about an hour away."
Mulder nodded. "True, but I think he's going to want to ditch his car and pick up another. Better to do that in a city where neither abandoned cars nor stolen ones are a terribly uncommon event. And the sooner the better."
They caught a cab into the city. Scully regarded it critically past her serious glasses. Mulder was accustomed to the look, but got the feeling that if the city could cringe under the gaze, it would have.
"Well it's not a metropolis," she said, "but it's big enough to make it difficult to find an individual who's just passing through."
"Already taken care of," Mulder said, then dug in his pocket for the faded Polaroid which he produced and showed to Scully.
Scully gave the picture the same look she'd just finished giving the city. "Mulder I see two kids--one of whom has a very familiar cow-lick--sitting on either side of a dog. What does this mean?"
Mulder took the picture back. "That was Charger, my black lab, and the other kid in the picture is Charles Banks. Charlie is now the Chief of Police for the city of Dayton, Ohio."
Scully nodded slowly. "So that's why we came to Dayton."
"One reason, yes. Charlie already has an all-points out on a tan Taurus sedan. He got the description from a buddy of his in Indiana just before some official-looking men in suits came in a blotted out all attempts at communication."
"When did you hear this?"
Mulder held up his cellular phone. "I called him on the flight while you were busy ignoring me."
"On the plane? How could you even hear him?"
Mulder shrugged. "I use that service where you can hear a pin drop. Anyway, We'll be able to do a little investigating of the city while we wait for somebody to spot the car."
Scully looked back out at the city, and then at Mulder. "What's fun to do in Dayton?"
"Well for starter's Wright-Patterson Air Force Base was one of the places wreckage from the '47 Roswell crash was sent."
"One at a time, Mulder."
The white building was like a beacon for him, and though the roads around the Great Miami River instantly gave up any logic or order, the Killer found that he could navigate them without even thinking. This place fit him like a second skin, like a coat of old leather. The memories weren't as intense as the feeling of familiarity. There was a rhythm to this place that he found himself falling back into. His past beckoned.
The Killer piloted the car through the brisk traffic until he reached the street bearing a sign of chiseled granite.
THE UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON. EST. 1850
So he was a student here when he died. The Killer's heart beat faster as he pulled into one of the parking lots. Increased heart rate was something relatively uncommon to him except in times of increased physical activity. He wasn't supposed to get excited by anything other than the incidents he'd encounter in an operation.
The Killer paused in front of his car and looked over the portion of the campus that he could see spread out below the high hill he was perched upon. Athletic fields, dingy student-housing, closed-in buildings of various architectural designs. Behind him was an archaic-looking dorm building. Running down the lighted hill was a long, elegant complex of suites.
Yes, he knew they were suites. He remembered.
The campus--what he could see of it and what was hidden--was like a foreign country, and he had no starting place, no point of entry. During operations he was given a secure place to hole-up, a hotel room usually. He was given maps of the area and information on the surroundings. When he took action, he plotted out all of his movements in advance and didn't deviate from that itinerary. It was part of his conditioning. Was it possible to simply walk into a new situation and improvise? Yes, he thought, it must. The rest of the world didn't, did they? No. The world was too chaotic for that. If they could do it, so could he.
The Killer took a breath, felt the moist, cool air fill his lungs, and began his walk down the hill.
To his past.
Dayton Mariott
Room 432
Mulder had tacked a map of the area on the wall between the double beds and was pushing different colored thumbtacks into it at the various places where there had been alleged incidents.
"I'm not paying the damages for that," Scully said dryly as she plugged in her laptop.
"Does this mean I can't steal the towels?" He paused to smirk over his shoulder at her. She gave him a patronizing smile in return. "Anyway, this is what we have so far: a series of crimes that have taken place along I-70 in the past ten hours or so, starting with the murder of a State Trooper here..." he touched a red thumbtack. "That was classified by the government, something to do with National Security. Then a cashier at a gas station was killed here--that investigation is still pending. Another police officer is killed here--in a small town just outside Ohio. Finally we have two wrecked cars about twenty miles inside the state. Initial police correspondence suggested the cars had been engaged in some kind of shootout--indications were found at the scene of incendiary devices. An hour later, the reports were amended to say that the two cars had collided."
Mulder turned and faced Scully, feeling a little like a professor expecting a classroom's response to a lecture. Scully sat at the small table, her chin cupped in her left hand. "They're not doing a very good job of covering these incidents up, are they? Considering the lengths they went to to cover the substation incident--a bombing, internal FBI whitewash--this is sloppy, amateurish."
"I agree. And the destruction of the two cars is disturbing also. Almost as if there's a renegade factor at work here."
Scully's brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"
"Well it's obvious that the killings that followed the bombing weren't part of the original plan, otherwise there'd be a more effective cover-up."
"I'm with you so far."
"But an incendiary device on the two cars? Why would our killer stop to blow up two cars?"
Scully shook her head. "I'm not following you anymore."
"I think this is a case of one of the operatives going renegade and those two cars probably contained other operatives out to stop him."
Scully took a deep breath and leaned back in the cheap hotel chair. "A good theory, Mulder. But that's all it is."
He shrugged. "It's better than nothing. which is what we technically have. Aside from Charlie's department."
"Sitting around waiting for your friend to call could get a bit nerve-wracking," Scully admitted.
"You were the one who didn't want to see Air Force Museum."
Scully took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. "It's the sort of place my dad would have liked. I'm not quite up to dealing with those peripheral feelings right now. Not so soon after Melissa."
Mulder nodded and didn't say anything. He just sat down opposite her at the table.
"We've both lost fathers and sisters now, Mulder, have you thought of that?"
"Yeah, I have."
"Do you blame yourself?" Her blue eyes were suddenly moist and intense.
"Sometimes."
"So do I."
"Scully, do you ever regret being partnered with me? You could have been assigned to a completely different section. You would have never seen what we've seen. Never had to face those truths. Your sister would still be alive..."
"And you'd be Spooky Mulder," she said with a half-smile. "Fox, I would have never agreed to work with you. I would have never respected you or believed in you or..." she reached out and tousselled his hair, "...or saved your job however many times."
Mulder found he could only nod.
"I really treasure your friendship. I've never been...as close to anyone as I am to you. Friendship for me has been redefined since meeting you. You're the standard I'm going to hold every new relationship up to."
"Maya would have something interesting to say about that."
"And what would the Bohemian say?"
"Why don't you like her?" Mulder asked, sitting back in his chair.
"Because she doesn't like me. How's that for an answer?"
"You don't have much in common," Mulder admitted.
"Do you love her, Mulder?" Scully cocked her head.
In spite of himself, Mulder recoiled, laughing self-consciously. "Jeez, I don't know, Scully. That's not really an area I'm very comfortable with."
"Sorry. It's not really my business."
Mulder sighed touched the mole on his jawline. Phoebe was fascinated with that mole. "I've just never been particularly good with women, that's all. I'm not very...observant. Most of the time I end up being used and hurt."
Scully nodded. "I have a hard time even understanding my own feelings. Usually I'm not even aware that I'm attracted to a man until he's gone. Comes from being a tomboy, I guess."
Mulder fiddled with the laptop. "We belong in a basement office chasing UFOs." Scully laughed.
Then Mulder's phone bleated. He opened it and answered. His face grew ashen. He thanked the person and hung up.
"Well," Scully asked.
"University police found the Taurus in a dorm parking lot at the University of Dayton. Ready?"
Scully nodded. "Let's go."
University of Dayton
Office of Public Safety
Campus Cops, Mulder thought, were poured out of the same mold as Security Guards. Both of them had an almost fanatic zeal about their jobs that was rivalled only by their respect and admiration for representatives of real law-enforcement. Given this, Mulder was slightly impressed that they hadn't dropped to their knees and genuflected.
They were being awfully accommodating, though.
John Delamer was a burly, muscular man with black hair and a weathered cop's face. Unlike his men, he wasn't given Mulder and Scully a berth the width of an aircraft carrier, but he was still more pleasant and agreeable than most cops they met along the way in their investigations.
"So far we got no reports of any stolen cars. Sounds like your boy is still on campus," he said, pacing the small, well-lit security office.
"I wonder why," Scully mused. Mulder looked over the numerous video monitors and alarm panels. Scully's question was resounding through his brain. Why? If not to change cars, why? What was so secret about this destination? What was here for their killer? A target? Mulder couldn't think of anyone on campus who could pose a threat to anyone? There was no important research being done here-not even the facilities for it on this small campus.
The question rolled around his frontal lobes until a flashing red light caught his eye. "Mr. Delamer," he said, "you've got an intruder in the library."
Delamer's face darkened. "Chances are that's your man, Agent Mulder. How do you want to play it?"
"Keep your men away from the building, but block off all access routes around that area," Scully said.
"Are you sure you want to go it alone?" Delamer said. "A little back up wouldn't hurt, might keep you alive a little longer."
"Thanks, but we'll go in alone," Mulder said.
"Suit yourself. We're not going to be responsible if they carry you out of that place in bags."
"We'll have larger concerns ourselves."
Like all private universities, U of Dayton was a mess of architectural styles. The library, for example, was a generic blend of alabaster stone and smoked glass nestled between an ivy-covered administrative building, and a circular, art deco physical activities center. It rose eight stories above a concrete apron that was harshly illuminated by high-intensity sodium lights. Mulder and Scully cast long, black shadows as they walked up to the building. The entrance consisted of wide, glass doors through which Mulder could see the check-out desk, a couple of elevators, a security station, and a spacious lounge.
No trace of a human being.
"Do you think he's still here?" Scully asked.
"Delamer said he'd phone me if any of the entrance alarms were tripped," Mulder said, looking over the white building, wedged in shadows from the safety lights. "I guess we go in." He produced the keys Delamer gave him and unlocked the first set of doors. They stepped into the grey antechamber. Mulder unlocked that door, too, but before they walked in they drew their newly-issued Smith&Wesson automatics. Scully cocked her flat, slim 9mm. Mulder flicked the safety off his larger, chunkier .40 caliber.
They stepped inside, Mulder looking past his Trijicon luminous sights at the murky interior, covering a 45-degree arc before him, while Scully, he knew, was doing the same. Only the emergency lights were on, carving sallow cones out of the darkness catching pieces of furniture, bookshelves, giving the place a macabre incomplete quality, like a half-finished painting.
"Mulder," the whisper came from about six inches above his right elbow, "he could be hiding anyplace..."
"That is if he's waiting for us," Mulder whispered back. "And I don't think he is."
"You hope."
Mulder's phone rang, It's owner very nearly shot through a computer terminal. He pulled it out of his pocket. "What?" he hissed.
"Where are you?" Delamer asked.
"In the lobby, why?"
"He's on the move. On the roof."
"What is it?" Scully asked.
"He's on the roof," Mulder told her. Scully sighed, and Mulder imagined he could feel the tension flee her body like expelled demons. "We might as well take the elevator. I think the prospect of an ambush is relatively low. He doesn't even know we're here."
Scully brought her gun up to point at the ceiling. "I wish I knew what was going on here, Mulder. A killer, a mass murderer, pulls into a liberal arts university, parks, and then walks around the library after it's closed? This doesn't make any sense at all. Not even in the context of what we consider normal."
Mulder shook his head. "When we get to roof we can ask him."
The elevator was so brightly lit, it almost hurt Mulder's eyes. Scully's eyes were sharp and focused, though, and her mouth had a familiar downward tug to it. Mulder could see the tension building up in her again. There was something built into her personality that generated it, that unplugged her emotions and strengthened her armor. He worried about her. "So, does this bring back any memories?" he asked, forcing pleasantness into his voice. "College, campus, dorms..."
"Oh yeah, chasing a serial killer through a darkened library. I did this all the time when I was twenty."
Mulder gave up on that track, and was thinking of another when the elevator stopped and the doors opened. They stepped into the dimness again, and Mulder felt a damp chill. To his right was a flight of concrete steps that led up to an open doorway that made a vertical rectangle of silver in the darkness. They didn't speak, but fell into a natural rhythm with Mulder taking the lead. He took the stairs quickly but cautiously, then stepped into the doorway and swung his gun in a long arc, covering as much of the roof as possible.
The killer was fifteen feet to his right, standing at the edge of the roof, looking out at the twinkling lights of the houses and buildings of the campus below. Mulder stepped out of the doorway, keeping his gun trained on the killer's back. The luminous dots of the sight twinkled like stars against the solid black shape of the man at the edge of the roof. "Federal Agent! I'm armed!" he shouted when Scully cleared the doorway and had her gun on him as well.
"Relax, I left my pistol in the car," the killer said blandly. He turned and in the residual light that seeped from the lamps below, Mulder could see one of the most unassuming-looking men he'd ever seen.
"Keep your hands where we can see them!" Scully shouted.
"How about if I put them on my head? Wouldn't that be better?" The killer did so and took a few steps toward them.
"Slowly," Mulder warned him. "No sudden moves." With his right hand, he pointed his gun at the man's head. With his left, he pulled his handcuffs off of his shoulder-rig. "Were you admiring the view? Thinking maybe the night air would clear your head?"
"Actually, yes," said the killer as he walked up to Mulder. "Do you want me to turn around so you can better put the cuffs on?" he asked politely.
"If you don't mind." The killer turned and Mulder clicked the cuffs around his left wrist. Suddenly Mulder seemed to loose all control of his right hand, felt it being twisted outward and downward in a fraction of a second. His hand convulsed spastically and the gun went off, deafening him and lighting up the night. Mulder expected to see the killer's head come apart from the impact of the .40 round, but instead Scully twisted away from them and fell into darkness. Mulder turned, trying to pull free, but the killer spun inside of him. Mulder felt the killer's elbow impact the side of his face and he hit the rough, marble chips that were scattered over the roof. His arm was pulled up and his wrist twisted until he lost his grip on the gun. A fraction of a second later he felt the muzzle kiss his temple. He didn't even have time to feel the fear before the thunderous report and blinding, burning flash robbed him of his senses. He slumped to the ground, feeling the skin on his cheek blister.
A second later his sight returned with the image of the killer standing above him, pressing the gun to his own temple. Blinking past the after-images left on his retina, he could see that the killer seemed to be in the midst of some soul-ripping personal agony. Then his features went peaceful and the gun came down in a silver blur that shorted everything out.
Consciousness returned for Mulder in the acrid fumes of a scent package. His head jerked back, eliciting some frightening noises from his neck and making his eyes water. He felt something cold and slimy on his cheek and reaching up, his fingers touched a large, gauze bandage.
"It's for the powder burns," the killer's voice said. All things considered, it was an awfully pleasant voice to wake up to. "It'll prevent blistering and discoloration. The skin will be a little red and very sore for a few days, so you might want to put off shaving for a week or so."
"Good," Mulder said, then moved his tongue around to improve his acoustics, "I can start that Marlboro Man beard I've been planning." He blinked a few times and took in his surroundings: a bare, cinderblock room with rows of computers on tables. He was seated in a comfortable office chair in front of one such system that had been activated and was now scrolling information. The killer sat next to him, the Smith & Wesson hanging limply in his right hand.
"You're in the computer lab," the killer said, anticipating his question. Then memories stabbed him like a broken bottle.
"Scully. What happened to Scully?"
"The bullet hit her in the leg. Last I saw she was being medievaced out in a Flight For Life chopper. There's a hospital a few blocks away and the choppers buzz this place all the time."
The killer spoke with a nostalgic certainty that threw Mulder for a loop. The side of his face beneath the bandage was starting to burn and his head throbbed. He was in no mood to fumble in the dark anymore. "Who the hell are you?" he asked, squinting against a lance of pain that flashed across his skull.
The Killer stood and fished a packet of Advil out of his pocket and dropped it on the table in front of Mulder. "Take those for your head. I'm afraid I don't have anything to wash it down with."
"I'll live," Mulder muttered and choked down the caplets. "So how about it? In James Bond movies the bad guys always spill their guts once Bond is captive."
The killer laughed and leaned against the table, nodding. "Who am I. Yeah, that's a powerful question. A lot of people have died because of that question."
"So what have you learned?"
"I was born in 1987. That makes me what? Eight?"
"You're mature for your age," Mulder said.
"I can't tell you how many ways I know of to kill a human being, but I'm fully versed in the body's vulnerable points. That's how I knew precisely which nerves in your hand would cause the gun to fire. I didn't learn these things, Agent Mulder. That action wasn't rationally planned. It was instinctive. I've been conditioned to be the best assassin possible. My physiology has been augmented in such a way to make me the ideal hunter. My adrenal glands will only produce adrenaline in times of combat, and my brain is designed to counter the effects of that and other chemicals that might evoke emotional responses that could interfere with my mission. I've been designed not to feel fear or remorse or pity or love. I do not exist as a human being except when I am activated for a mission. Aside from that...I don't know what happens to me. It's like waking up from a sound sleep."
"And you don't remember anything prior to 1987?" Mulder asked.
"Not until a day ago," the killer said. "Since then I've been remembering things that have brought me back here. A woman's face. Some lines of poetry. A love of reading. I can remember them, but not put them in context, like a familiar smell or a sense of deja vu."
"You were the one that bombed the substation, weren't you? You did it to cover the execution of two of the prisoners, didn't you?" It was almost an afterthought, but Scully would never forgive him if he didn't ask.
"Yes. Two men were arrested that my controllers couldn't afford to have talking to the authorities. Unfortunately, the State Police are hooked into the internet, so the destruction of evidence would have to be more thorough than simply blowing up the substation. I had to use their computers to get into the system and eradicate any evidence of their existence. For that I had to wipe out the population of substation."
"Jesus," Mulder gasped, remembering the number of bodies they'd pulled out of the chalky rubble.
"I told you, I'm the best assassin there is. Except something unusual happened tonight. After disarming you, the next natural action is to use your weapon against you. It's a rhythm. However, when I tried....well, you're still here, aren't you?"
Mulder touched the bandage on his cheek. "Something blocked the impulse, didn't it?"
The killer nodded. "That's when I decided you may have a larger role to play in this game than I originally anticipated. Observe..." he typed in a few commands on the computer. The screen flashed, changed color and red letters demanded ENTER PASSWORD:
"This is the database my controllers use--rather, it's an extension of it. I'm accessing a secured program in a roundabout way. That's why I need you."
Mulder blinked at the screen. The pain in his head was dimming, but things weren't making much sense. The killer and Scully must have gone to the same computer class. "I can get the flying toasters on the screen and that's about it."
The killer smiled tolerantly. "All I need from you is information. Personal information to open your bio-file and withdraw your DNA pattern."
"Squeeze me?" Mulder felt as if his eyes had fallen out of his head.
"The password that unlocks this program isn't simply a word--that's too easy to crack. More likely it's an alpha-numeric pattern. This could, in theory, be anything, but usually they're the code that a person's DNA makes when it's reduced to a mathematic logarithm. I know it's not mine, and since my conditioning precludes me from killing you...well, I put two and two together. In a moment we'll know if my hunch pays off."
"Well," Mulder said slowly, "I don't really have my alpha-numeric DNA code written down anyplace..."
"We have it on file. But to access the file I'll need some tidbit of personal data to unlock it."
"Like my birthday?"
"Something more...germane to your existence."
Mulder felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. "Try Samanatha," he whispered. The killer typed it in.
"Bingo," he said. "We've got a winner." The screen suddenly shifted in contrast, and a photo of man suddenly appeared. Mulder felt his chest turn to stone.
It was a picture of Deep Throat.
"My controller," the killer said. "At least until this mission. Someone else took over this time."
"He was killed," Mulder said. Suddenly the screen flashed quickly and intensely. Mulder closed his eyes, still seeing the light through his eyelids. After a few moments it stopped, and he heard a thud. Mulder opened his eyes to see the killer slumped on the floor, eyes glazed and staring off into nothing. "Hey," Mulder said, gently slapping the killer's cheek. "Hey...uh...guy."
"David." Clear grey eyes fixed on Mulder's. "My name is David Lawson. I was a student here a decade ago."
Mulder helped the man into a chair. "That strobe effect, it counteracted the conditioning, didn't it?"
"Rapid and subliminal stimulation to the cerebral cortex. It's how they do it." Suddenly the man's hand shot out and gripped Mulder's shoulders, his eyes were wide and frantic. "I remember, Agent Mulder. My God! I remember it all. I was a student here...the woman...Cynthia...we were engaged. She wrote the poem about stars...she was hit by car, killed instantly. Two weeks later I shot myself out of grief. I was declared brain-dead, and then they got to me. They reconstructed my brain and reconditioned my mind. I remember it, though! I was an English major..."
The plan began to take shape to Mulder, like an artifact being unearthed and exposed, the intricacy of it began to dawn on him. "He must have programmed a fail-safe into your mind to trigger the telltale memories if another controller ever activated you. He knew that that would mean he was dead, and the only people who would kill him would be..."
"Yes," the man's voice was flat an menacing. "It was all there. Including my final two directives."
"Which are?"
"Protect you," he said, "and avenge him."
Mulder felt a chill touch his spine. Above them, he could hear multiple sets of footsteps.
"Well," the man said, "it sounds like they've arrived." He handed Mulder the pistol.
"Won't you need it?"
"There are about twenty of their best men headed this way. As formidable as that gun is, it won't stop them all. But rest assured, if they are stopped, the controller's reach is sufficiently shortened. These men are like me, Agent Mulder. They are not common thugs and they are not easy to replace. They can't simply be recruited or hired. Now outside and down the hallway to your right. An alternative exit that takes you into a completely different building and then into a parking lot. From the outside, you can't even tell the buildings are connected. Go that way. Shoot anyone who gets in your way, no matter which colors they're flying. Agent Mulder, there are no campus police on duty tonight. They were all pulled off duty after Agent Scully was admitted to the hospital."
"A trap," Mulder said.
The footsteps trampled down a set of stairs.
"You don't have much time, Agent Mulder. Go!"
"What are you going to do?"
The man smiled wanly. "Settle all debts. Now get out of here."
Mulder did, running down the empty, darkened corridor until he found himself at a revolving door that led into a small parking lot. He got halfway out--stuck between the interior and exterior of the building when he heard a metallic buzz and loud click.
The door locked up, trapping him like a squirrel in a cage. In the empty parking lot, Mulder saw two portly campus cops lumbering out of their cruiser and walk toward him. The lead held his hand in a placating gesture and fumbled with a large set of keys. Mulder felt a whisper of relief, and then he noticed that the second cop's entire left arm was obscured behind the lead cop's body.
Mulder dropped into an Indian-style crouch just as the second cop brought up the automatic shotgun and blew out the door where Mulder was standing, showering him in silver shards of glass. Mulder lunged forward, exploding through the shattered glass of the lower portion of the door and fired the Smith & Wesson until both men fell to the glossy, reflective pavement. Mulder pulled himself up, hearing glass shrapnel tinkle as it slid off his coat. He kept his gun trained on the bodies until he crossed the pavement and stood above them and satisfied himself that they were dead.
He turned to face the building he had just exited in time to see the flash and felt the shockwave rip past him like a wind from hell.
Personal Log:
Agent F. Mulder
November 20th, 1995
The blast that gutted two buildings on the University of Dayton campus has been explained as an ignited gas leak. The identities of the twenty-two victims has not been established, and the investigation into their identities has been classified by the NSA. I do not know the fate of the man known as David Lawson. On the lighter side, Scully's gunshot wound penetrated the fatty part of the calf and complete recovery is expected within a week. She's already up and around with her leg in an immobilizer.
The identity and nature of the two men in custody in the Indiana substation is still unknown.
Scully has not, to date, made any sexual advances toward me. Although given my powers of perception in this area she could be sending me signals all day long and I wouldn't notice. For the sake of our working relationship, I try not to think about it.
Maya snuggled against him, resting her head in the crook of his shoulder. Mulder turned and kissed her forehead. She ran her fingers over his five-day stubble. "How long until you're healed enough to shave this?" she asked coquettishly.
"You don't like the Mountain Man look?"
She giggled. "It's giving me whisker-burn. Very uncomfortable."
"Sorry. Guess I'm just thinking of myself. Anyway, I'll probably be able to shave tomorrow. The application of aftershave will probably be excruciating, but for you, dear..."
"Don't think I don't appreciate it." She slid her fingers over his pecs, and then over his sternum. "Fox," she said quietly, "do you love me?"
Mulder took a deep breath and stare into the darkness inches from his eyes. "I don't know, Maya. I...I want to say that I do, but I don't want to lie to you, either."
"Fair enough," she said.
Mulder stroked her hair and continued staring at the darkness, thinking of Maya and Phoebe, and of Scully laying alone in bed, maybe awake, maybe not. Thinking of someone, or dreaming of him, a man she knew from long ago. Probably married now. As oblivious to her feelings toward him as she was to her own feelings on a day to day basis. The sad truth seemed to be that the person most self-aware was a killer who hadn't even known his name until a few days ago.
"Give me some time," he whispered in Maya's ear. "I promise, I won't use you. I just need some time to try and understand myself."
Maya held him a little closer. "As much time as you need."
From the University of Dayton Bulletin:
The English Department has a new chairman. The council unanimously elected to hire Darryl Lawton to replace James Farrelly as chair of the department. Lawton expressed "extreme delight" at being chosen for the position. "Though I haven't had a lot of time to settle in, I can tell that UD is a school with a very warm, friendly attitude toward both faculty and students. I've only been here a few weeks and already I feel as close to the school as if I'd graduated from here..."