The video was grainy, flickering with the low resolution that CCTV tended to have, but it was clear enough to show the events as they played out. The camera was trained on a random, tiled hallway, nothing spectacular. The dim lights reflected off the high polish, the white walls broken only by a gray painted steel door with the simple plaque stating "employees only". It was a janitor's closet, nothing spectacular, locked from the outside and opened only with a magnetic swipe card, located to the side of the door.
For long moments, there was nothing. And then the door opened from the inside.
A tall man, scrawny, in some sort of pinstriped suit and hair that defied all known hair gels, poked his head and shoulders around the door, glancing up and down the hallway carefully. Seeing that no security were about, he opened the door wide, exiting, followed by a young woman, blonde, dressed in nothing more spectacular than jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. While she gazed about nervously, even doubtfully, the man with her seemed hardly bothered as to what he was up to. The pair moved out of the frame. Other video from other cameras had them wandering about, into the large room devoted to the Star Trek exhibit, but when the returned to the camera in the hallway, they ran, straight for the door. The tall man had in hand a flashlight of some sort. He held it to the magnetic strip reader, yanked open the door, and urged his young companion inside, before whipping in himself. No sooner were they in there than Smithsonian police followed, rapping on the door. Cards were pulled out, efforts to open the door made, but before they had any luck, light flashed from under the crack between steel door and tile floor. A breeze appeared to blow from around the edges of the door itself, and when the door finally was opened, it showed the interior of the closet, containing only cleaning supplies, a polisher, and a mop and bucket. No man. No woman. Nothing.
The video paused there, flickering. "And that's the great mystery. Two people go in and out of a closet that no one should have access to, and are able to escape without leaving so much as a trace. Not even a missing ceiling tile."
"Was there a hole? Maybe a cut somewhere in the tile?" Dana Scully sat perched on the edge of her desk, arms crossed over her severe, black suit. Beside her in his office chair her partner, Fox Mulder, stared at the screen thoughtfully.
"We searched, nothing of the sort." Owen Jeffries, popped the video out of Mulder's ancient and nearly dilapidated VCR. "I had my best people check, we got nada. The room is clear, no holes, there are no ceiling tiles, not even air vents. By all accounts, it looks more like someone simply just appeared in there, out of thin air, and then disappeared again."
"Like teleportation?" A sly smile crept up Fox Mulder's full mouth, earning a soft sigh from Scully and a chuckle from the man who had come to them. Jeffries had the severe demeanor that seemed to come with many in law enforcement, but he at least seemed to be taking the entire situation with a grain of salt and a large sense of humor.
"Yeah, that got around the office on my end, and the irony that they were trying to steal from the Star Trek exhibit wasn't lost on me. Of all the things to steal, they'd want a tri-corder or something?"
"Poor taste in pop culture aside, why is it you are visiting the pair of us?" Scully couldn't help but wonder. Since Mulder had called that morning telling her that an old, Academy buddy of his had inquired regarding a situation, she'd been apprehensive. The X-files weren't run of the mill cases by anyone's stretch of the imagination. Mostly made up of the unexplained and unsolvable amongst the many cases assigned to the FBI every year, the X-files division was known for handling strange cases; UFO's, the supernatural, all manner of unusual and weird events dug out of the mire of rural and suburban folk tales and fears. It was hardly the place where one would find a sort of white collar crime like a little bit of museum robbery.
And Jeffries clearly knew it too. He glanced at Mulder. "Look, not to make of joke of it, but you know, I know what sort of work you guys are into. I went into white collar crimes while Mulder here he did the psychological wammy. I mean, back in the day, we called him 'Spooky' cause he was so brilliant. Man could read people's mind almost, it was scary. Best profiler to come through the Academy since Frank Black, and that's saying something."
"Flattery will get you everywhere, Owen," Mulder snorted, pushing back in his chair, regarding his old friend in mild amusement. "Let's cut to the chase. You are here because you don't know how this guy got in, you don't know how he got out, you have no idea why he's hitting up Star Trek memorabilia, but it all rolled up makes the Smithsonian and you look bad, right?"
Jeffries at least had the grace not to deny it. He flushed only slightly, shrugging in his gray suit jacket. "You think I'm going to deny that it's embarrassing? Already, the board is screaming for review of security measures, and I'm trying to spin it in the media as some sort of Trekkie fans getting carried away."
"And who is to say they weren't," Scully offered mildly, still wondering why in the world this was coming to them. "I mean, honestly, outside of comic book collectors, who would care about any of this stuff?"
"The point isn't how expensive it is, the bigger issue is that this person got in." Jeffries grimaced as he glanced between the two. "Doesn't matter if he was trying to steal toilet paper or a Faberge egg, whoever this person is, they are good. They got past one of the best systems in the world, and no one does that. No one! And we need to figure out how."
"Which means you need to figure out why he was there and if he's coming back," Mulder offered blithely. "Which is why you are here. The 'Spooky Mulder' line, you want me to see if your cat burglar is coming back? Profile for free?"
"Think of it as a favor to an old buddy." Jeffries offered, grinning as he held up the tape. "I'll leave this with you. Let me know what you come up with."
Mulder's green eyes narrowed as he studied the tape for long, considerate moments, before holding out his hand. Jeffries placed the tape in his palm, nodding happily. "I'll see myself out. Thanks for at least listening to my goose chase."
"Sure," Mulder replied, watching the other man wander out of the basement office. Scully waited till she heard the sound of the elevator doors down the hall open and close. Only then did she glance sidelong at Mulder through a curtain of her bobbed, red hair.
"I think he got the goose chase part right. You are seriously going to do this?"
"What can it hurt?" Mulder flipped the tape around in his long fingers, considering it airily. "Seriously, I've had more useless viewing of late."
"Yeah, I saw what was in the VCR before he got here. Vivacious Vixens of Venus?"
"Considered a classic in some circles," Mulder mildly protested.
"If by circle, you mean you and Frohike, sure," she snorted, edging off his desk. "Face it, Mulder, every time an old, Academy buddy or girlfriend from your misspent youth shows up and asks for help, it usually ends up being more trouble than it's worth."
"It's a white collar burglary case, Scully, not a big deal. And besides, all he wants is a profile, nothing more or less."
"Right. And I'll remember that when you are hip deep in it and convinced that it was Reticulans, or liver-eating mutants, or whatever monster you haven't thought up yet." She crossed to her own desk, ignoring the shiver of horror at the still vivid memory of Eugene Tooms crawling through her ventilation space in her bathroom as he attempted to remove her liver from her with his bare hands. "Face it, it's likely going to be some pair of nerdy kids from the college on a dare. I mean, you saw that thing in the guy's hand? Probably the local, Georgetown branch of the Tri-Lambs."
"The fact you even made that reference, Scully, makes you unbelievably desirable now."
Scully's only response was the roll her eyes at his teasing smirk. "You wait and see. I think your old Academy pal is trying to cover his ass, and he's using you to do it."
"No sense of adventure, Scully? No desire to boldly go where no man has gone before?"
"To a Star Trek display? No."
"Talk like that and see if you get invited to the next Lambda Lambda Lambda toga party."
"And I'm sure I'll be so disappointed," she shot back, turning to her email, leaving Mulder to play with his security video in peace.