Disclaimer: I don't own FMA or TXF… If I did, Mulder and Scully would have a REAL happy ending and Roy and Riza would be together. Well, the manga is not over yet, so let's hope Arakawa has a nice ending for them. Meanwhile, I'll keep the gun in my wardrobe... haha
Ssadropout: Yes, I always said that, too!! Hahaha! Thanks for your review!
RR Forever: Thanks for the review, I hope you'll like this chapter too!
Chapter 2
Colonel Roy Mustang walked into the apartment of the victim, followed by Second Lieutenant Havoc. They heard voices coming from the bathroom and headed that way.
"Good morning, sir." Said the old man, looking at the Colonel for a second, and then turning his attention back to the corpse.
The medical examiner tried to close the eyelids of the dead man to make him look less spooked, but didn't really succeed. His frozen expression suggested he hadn't had an easy death. Sergeant Tom Carter's face and T-shirt were soaked. There was some water in the bathtub and a towel hanging on the bathroom door.
"How did he die?" Roy asked.
"I can't say for sure until the autopsy, but I think he drowned."
"How does a man drown in his own bathtub?"
"Drunk, I guess. He was found on the floor with his head and arms in the tub, under water. There was no sign of forced entry. The landlord had the key to this apartment, but there were some extra locks that we had to break in order to get in." The medical examiner explained.
"What about the windows?" Roy asked again, trying to take all the possibilities into consideration.
"All locked from inside. No one was here."
"Did you find any alcoholic drinks in the apartment?"
"We didn't look for that yet." The man admitted.
"Start looking. I want a full report on my desk as soon as possible."
"Aye, sir."
The Colonel went back to the living room looking for anything that seemed out of place. He didn't know Sergeant Carter personally, but had heard he was a clever hardworking man, who pretty much enjoyed living alone and had never called anyone's attention, until one week ago, when he called in sick and didn't go to work anymore. He was still lost in his thoughts when a blond serious-looking woman came in. She had a worried look on her face and Roy knew why.
"Good morning, Lieutenant."
"Good morning, sir. Do you think this man's death is related to the other cases?"
"Seems like it's too soon to tell, but I don't think it was an accident."
First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye agreed. There had been some weird deaths in the last few months. All of them soldiers, who had done their jobs as they were told and never had any complaints about them. As there was not a single lead to follow in any of the murders, the people responsible for the case decided to give it to somebody else and let them get to explain their own lack of progress to the higher-ups. Colonel Mustang was now stuck with it. And both he and Lieutenant Hawkeye knew the real reason he had gotten that case. Somebody wanted to see him fail.
Two soldiers walked in with a gurney to take the dead man to the morgue. The Colonel was examining the locks on the windows when Lt. Havoc, who had left the scene to talk to other soldiers, came back.
"Two people were arrested near here, sir. They broke into an abandoned house on the block and were caught just after leaving."
"Do you have any reason to believe they're involved?"
"I don't know, but you should come see this. The house they broke into, there are some weird symbols on the walls in the basement."
"Alchemy?"
"It might be."
"Let's go." The Colonel said to Lt. Havoc and Lt. Hawkeye.
Any lead now was important. The case seemed just impossible to solve. No evidence, nothing. Seven other people had died under mysterious circumstances inside their own homes, without any witnesses. The only evidence they had, suggested these people had either been murdered, or had been extremely unlucky, like Tom Carter, who apparently had drowned in his own bathtub.
Roy thought that the arrest and the symbols Lt. Havoc told him about would give him an idea of what to do next, but he could now see he was wrong. After seeing the so called symbols, which actually resembled alchemy but weren't really related to it, he was now sitting in a room, with Lt. Hawkeye and the two suspects of a break-in. Both Roy and Riza stared at each other, before staring again at those two weird people sitting in front of them.
"So you say you traveled through time?" Colonel Mustang asked, unwilling to believe that man was actually serious about it.
"We don't know what exactly happened. All we recall is being in a commercial flight to Atlanta." Scully explained in her professional tone, like she was lecturing her students.
"Commercial what?"
"Commercial flight. Airplane. To Atlanta."
"There's no use Scully… They have no idea what an airplane is." Mulder said.
"Then perhaps you wouldn't mind telling me." Roy said, impatiently.
That was the weirdest interrogatory ever. They had interrogated strange suspects before, but those two had just raised the bar when it came to weird people.
"You know what a train is, right?" Mulder asked.
"Do you think I'm stupid?"
"No, sir. An airplane is like a train… that flies. Simple as that."
Scully rolled her eyes, thinking that there had to be a thousand better definitions for the word 'airplane'.
"You're telling me you were in a flying train… in the future… and all of a sudden you ended up in the basement of that house, without any recollection of how you got there whatsoever?"
"I know it sounds strange, but w-"
"Lock them up, Lieutenant. Maybe some rest in a cell will teach them not to play games."
"Yes, sir." Lt. Hawkeye answered right away.
"We've had our share of weirdness, already. If it taught us anything it was to keep our minds open." Mulder still shouted, while Lt. Hawkeye ordered them to stand up and walk.
"If you had seen half the stuff we've seen, you would at least listen to us."
Roy was about to leave, but stopped at the door.
"I've never liked the military anyway…" Mulder was now muttering under his breath.
"You say you had your share of weirdness, is that so?" Roy turned around and asked.
That man was interesting, to say the least. There was something of a madman's spark in his eyes, but he seemed perfectly lucid.
"We work for the FBI, more specifically in the X-Files." Scully said this time. "I'm usually a little more resistant to believing in paranormal phenomena than my partner here, but this time I can't find a scientific explanation for what happened. I believe agent Mulder is right."
"You traveled through time…"
"Yes."
"You gotta be kidding…"
"Then how do you explain the weird symbols in that basement?" Mulder asked.
"Somebody's idea of a joke?"
"Maybe somebody wanted us to come here."
"Why would anyone want you to come here?" He asked with a hint of sarcasm.
Before Mulder could answer, something in the Colonel's pocket made a ringing noise. The man probably wasn't expecting that, because he suddenly grabbed the object and dropped it on the floor. The object vibrated, moving to the side as though it had a life of its own, while the Colonel and the Lieutenant watched it completely puzzled.
"It's just the alarm clock of my cell phone. I programmed it to ring in the morning." Mulder said.
Roy was still staring at that strange object he had taken from Mulder, like it was something potentially dangerous. He had taken one from Scully as well, but that one didn't ring or anything.
"What the hell is that?"
"It's a cell phone. It vibrates when it rings, but it won't explode or burst into flames… May I turn it off?"
"Go ahead." The Colonel said dismissively.
"Here." Mulder said, handing Roy the cell phone. "Have you seen this kind of technology before?"
"What's this thing?"
"It's a kind of portable phone. It won't work now, because there's no signal."
Somebody knocked on the door and the Colonel ordered them to come in. Lt. Havoc walked into the room, smoking a cigarette.
"Anything on that house?"
"It's abandoned. Nobody saw them get in, though the neighbors say they saw an old man walking around the house yesterday."
"That thing causes cancer, you know." Mulder said, pointing at Havoc's cigarette.
"Cancer?"
"Scully, as the medical doctor in the room would you delight us with a little health lecture?" Mulder said.
"We know what cancer is…" Roy said, sounding a bit bored.
"Do you know smoking dramatically increases your chances of having lung cancer?" Mulder continued talking.
"Does it?" Lt. Havoc asked, looking kind of worried.
"Have you heard of all the respiratory problems you can have? Not a nice way to die… And passive smokers can be affected, too."
"Havoc, put that out." The Colonel ordered.
Lt. Havoc obeyed and then stared at the two FBI agents, with a questioning look on his face. He knew smoking was said to be bad for their health, but had never heard of it being related to something like cancer. *
"Who are you?" Roy asked once more.
"I believe you have our credentials." Scully said, crossing her arms.
The Colonel got their FBI credentials once more, along with all the other documents they were carrying.
"That's my flight ticket." Scully added, when she noticed Roy was reading the plane ticket she had bought.
"October 26, 1996…"
"That's the date where we were."
"And your country has the technology to build portable phones and flying trains?" The Colonel asked.
"Yes, you saw my cell phone. It's the same as agent Scully's."
"All that thing did was ring. Even my alarm clock does that."
"Can I have it for a second?" Mulder asked. "My cell phone? Or Agent Scully's cell phone."
Colonel Mustang handed him one of the cell phones, wondering what the man would do this time and Mulder turned it on.
"What are you doing?" Scully asked.
"Showing him that our technology is way too advanced to be from this world."
"You can't call anyone if there's no signal, Mulder."
"I'm not calling anyone. Here. See the buttons, you can control which direction this thing goes by pressing them."
Mulder handed Roy the cell phone again and pointed at the buttons. Music started playing from the electronic device, as Roy pressed the buttons he was told to press and watched the little screen, really amazed. Lt. Havoc and Lt. Hawkeye couldn't help but looking over his shoulders at what he was doing.
"Mulder…" Scully called, pulling on her partner's jacket.
"What?"
"Please tell me you didn't have him play that snake game on my cell phone…"
"So what?" Mulder asked in a low voice and Scully could see he actually found the situation funny. Of course it wouldn't be so funny if the Colonel thought they weren't taking him seriously.
The music coming from the cell phone changed and stopped. The Colonel stared at the object with a puzzled expression, as trying to figure out what had happened. Mulder took a couple of steps forward and pointed at the screen again.
"You made the snake eat either the brick wall or its own tail. You should move it towards the black dots that keep showing up." The agent explained.
"What's the purpose of this thing?" Mustang asked.
"It's merely entertainment. Just a game."
"I thought this was a phone."
"It is. It has other functions, though. Have you seen anything like it before? A picture on a screen that moves according to your control?"
"No." Roy admitted.
"So now you believe we're from the future?"
"We'll see."
The Colonel turned around and left the room, ordering Lt. Havoc to take them to a cell. Even though the electronic device seemed to be something futuristic, the idea of someone traveling through time was quite hard to believe.
A/N: Okay, second chapter was a lot more interesting for the FMA fans! Just like I promised! Again, if you find anything wrong in the text, please correct me… You know… English is my second language…
* I did some research and found out that the first scientific article that made a connection between smoking and cancer came out in 1925 (if I'm not mistaken…). I don't know if they already suspected smoking to cause cancer at the time the FMA story takes place, but I decided that in this story they wouldn't know about it.
