EVOLUTION'S END
Alternate ending to 11x02 - This
This chapter includes lines taken directly from 11x02 (This). No copyright infringement intended. All duplication is strictly for the purpose of remaining canon with the X-Files mythology and overall storyline. Direct quotes can be found in bold. Credit: X-Files writers and FOX.
MULDER
"What do you think it all means?" she asks as we get into the car.
Considering all that has happened today it's a vague question.
"What do I think what means?"
"What's their end game? They've recruited some of the greatest minds of this century, but for what purpose?"
We didn't have much time to speak privately before backup arrived, so she doesn't know much about my impromptu meeting with Price other than the fact that it occurred.
"They claim they are saving mankind."
"Saving mankind?"
"Yeah, while you were wandering around bopping people on the head, Erika Price was schooling me on the finer points of evolution."
If I didn't have Scully's attention before, I certainly have it now.
"She's working with a guy who calls himself Y. The same guy I talked to in Spartanburg."
"The syndicate guy?"
"One in the same."
"What is Price's interest in a computer simulation? Last I heard she was still working for the DoD."
"I'm not sure who she's working for, but I get the distinct impression that she and Y are answering to someone else. Someone high up. Likely someone within the government."
"What did she want? I'm assuming there was more to this meeting than her schooling you on evolution."
"To tell me that the company had advised killing me — killing both of us."
I still haven't told her everything about Spartanburg. It's certainly no coincidence that a man on the syndicate's payroll made an attempt on her life mere hours after I offhandedly told Price and Y that I knew someone who could save us all, and that they knew her too. Scully was right. The Smoking Man didn't send the assassin. I did.
"So the man at the hospital and the men that came to the house … they were sent by the company? As in the CIA?"
"She wasn't kind enough to specify."
She ponders this for a moment before she responds.
"But why? Why tell you? Why not just kill you?"
"The deal Y offered me in Spartanburg … it's still on the table. Survival in exchange for killing Spender … they claim the virus he has bioengineered will change the world as we know it, killing every life form that doesn't possess immunity. The simulation exists to serve as the next phase of evolution … a way to carry on the human race if we are unable to stop him."
"We?"
"Y apparently made the argument that we are more valuable to the company alive, so assuming we stay out of their way and eliminate Spender, the assassins will stop coming, and we will be assimilated into modern evolution — that's the deal."
I'm not looking at her because I am driving in downtown traffic, but I don't need to see her face to translate her weighted silence. The idea that I could have possibly entertained the thought is enough to make her blood boil. We've both sacrificed too much to make deals with the devil.
"I didn't sign any papers or donate my brain to science Scully."
"Then what exactly did you agree to?" she asks.
"I told her that I wanted to see the simulation for myself to better understand how it worked."
I leave out the part where I asked if she could be uploaded into the simulation with me.
I do, at least on some level, value my life.
"So you didn't say no?"
"No, but I didn't say yes either."
"Well, that's comforting."
"I wasn't sure what your status was, and I wasn't going to be able to help you holed up in a conference room. I said what I needed to say to get myself out of the room and in a position to get to you."
Sighing, she unscrews the lid to her water bottle and takes a drink, knowing she can't argue with me on that point. My timing was impeccable — as usual.
"So what happens now?" she asks after a moment of silence.
It's the same question I have been asking myself for several hours now. The powers to be clearly had enough resources to remove any and all evidence of the simulation's existence from a highly secured building on lockdown without even breaking a sweat. Yet they needed my cooperation and guidance to track down Spender? It doesn't add up. That can't be the reason Scully, and I are still alive. The more troubling question I've been mulling over is why would an organization so hell bound on ensuring our silence would suddenly allow us to walk away unscathed?
Out of all of the potential reasons why, there is only one that makes any sense to me, and the mere thought of it makes my hair stand on end.
"There is something else you should know," I say.
I pause for a moment, briefly glancing in her direction before returning my eyes to the road.
"Price told me something else ... something that I'm not sure I believe, but if there is any truth to it all, it could be a game changer."
"Okay ..."
"When I started asking questions about the simulation and what the process of being uploaded entailed, she made the comment that they could take pieces of the mind through cellular technology."
"Mulder that's …"
"Insane. I know. But what if she's telling the truth … or a least a version of it?"
"Mulder, if that's true then they have unlimited access to the minds of millions including our own."
"Exactly. I know at the surface value it sounds like junk science, but let's operate under the assumption, even if only for a moment, that she's telling the truth. They had me and could have easily trapped and captured you as well, yet they let us both go. After numerous attempts on our lives, they capture us and then just let us go? Think about that Scully. It doesn't make any sense. These are powerful people with vast resources, and they need me to track down Spender? Me? Everything they have told me has been smoke and mirrors … partial truths. I think what they really want is William."
She takes a deep breath and starts to speak, but I cut her off.
"I think they know about your connection to him … about the visions … that is the only thing that I can think of that would make us more valuable to them alive."
She's quiet for a moment before she responds.
"We need to check the house for bugs," she says quietly.
"Scully …"
"I think there is a much more logical explanation than mind-copying cellular technology Mulder."
I can't argue with her there. I'm certainly not going to take Erika Price at her word.
For a few moments, neither of us speak.
The implications are devastating.
Scully gave our son up for adoption to protect him and to give him a chance at a normal life. A life where he wouldn't have to grow up in fear of losing his parents or being taken by a shadow government who had invested interests in his alien DNA.
Had it all been for nothing?
"It's also possible that they have access to my medical records, or perhaps … perhaps they even have some sort of access to my implant," she says. Her voice is low and void of emotion.
I cringe at the thought, but she isn't wrong.
The implant inserted into the base of her skull cured her cancer, and there is little doubt in either of our minds that the science used to create it was developed by the syndicate. We have always feared that it's application extended beyond the realms of medicine, but removing it has always posed far too many risks. Risks we weren't willing to take.
"Or they bugged the house," I offer to try to divert attention away from the more disturbing possibilities.
—
We enter with our guns drawn, going room to room to ensure that we are alone before we start searching.
After nearly two and a half hours, we've found nothing to indicate that we were being monitored, but it's also possible that the bugs were here and then removed by the team of Russians.
"Scully!?"
"Upstairs," she says in a voice just loud enough for me to hear.
I find her squatting down at the foot of our bed picking up pieces of shard glass. At first, I'm puzzled because I can't figure out where the glass came from, but then I see the frame. It's the same picture I caught her staring at the morning we arrived home from the hospital.
Having heard me come up the stairs, she looks in my direction giving me sidewards glance before resuming her task.
"Scully, we're both exhausted, this can wait."
When she doesn't stop, I sigh and squat down beside her.
We work together in silence until our hands meet over the last piece of glass. Brushing her hand aside, I collect the last bit and place it in the wastebasket.
"When did you have this made?" she asks me quietly.
I'm not really sure how to respond. I want to tell her how much I've missed her, and how heavily her absence has weighed on me, but I'm not sure if that is something that she is ready to hear.
"After," I say.
I won't elaborate, because I don't want it to come across as an accusation.
Yes. Scully left, but not for the typical reasons people leave. Our separation was not based on anger, finances, infidelity, or incompatibility. Any or all of the above would have been easier to accept. To love someone more than you crave your next breath only to realize that you are their daily reminder of all that they have lost is not a conundrum I wish on anyone.
"It's a good picture. I remember taking it," she says breaking our silence.
"There's another copy around here somewhere. Although, at this point, it might take hours to find."
The house is absolutely trashed. Downstairs took the brunt of physical damage but upstairs isn't much better. Every drawer has been emptied. Dozens of books removed from various shelving units have been flipped through and carelessly thrown into the floor. Every mattress stripped, flipped, and cut open. It's going to take more than a trip to IKEA to put this Humpty Dumpty back together again.
"I don't think I can deal with this tonight," she says as she waves her hand in a circular motion that encompasses the totality of destruction that surrounds us.
"This," I say, repeating her hand gesture, "is going to take days to sort out."
She takes a deep breath as we stand.
"Let's just go back to D.C. With any luck, the beds there haven't been slashed yet."
She's referring to her home in Bethesda, Maryland, and it's not a bad idea. Without doing some major cleaning, it would be nearly impossible to comfortably sleep here tonight. And even if the cleanup were to be more simplistic, I'm not sure that staying here tonight would be wise given the state of the exterior doors.
"We'll need to do a sweep," I tell her.
"I know," she says as she turns to gather a few of her things out of the bathroom before heading downstairs.
She waits for me in the car as I rummage around the house gathering clothes and turning off lights. As I exit the house, I can hear her SUV running. She's sitting in the passenger seat looking at something her phone.
"If my security system can be trusted, nobody has been in or out in the last 48 hours other than me," she says as I adjust the seat and mirrors to accommodate my height.
I've never driven her SUV. Usually, we would just take my car, but it's probably best that her SUV is the one parked outside of her home. She's driven very little since her wreck early last week and is still on light duty until cleared by her doctor. At least she's supposed to be.
"In the last 48 hours? Is there something I should know Scully?" I ask, teasing her.
She gives me a pointed glance, raising her brow.
"If you must know, I have a cleaning lady that comes every other Tuesday."
"A cleaning lady?"
"Yes, Mulder. A cleaning lady."
I can't help it, I laugh.
"What exactly does this woman clean Scully?"
Having lived with her off and on for over a decade, I can attest to the fact that Scully is a certified clean freak.
"I hate dusting."
"So you pay someone to come in and dust?"
"Yes, among other things."
I make a face of mock horror.
"Shut up Mulder."
—
"Why is your house so much nicer than mine?"
I ask the same question every time I come over, but she never answers me. The tone I take is playful, but on some level, I am curious. The decor and overall feel of her home are vastly different from any place she has ever lived before. If I didn't know with absolute certainty that she lived here, I wouldn't actually believe that she did.
"Why don't you start in the living room? I'll take the back," she says.
The scanning hardware we snagged from cyber has been useful for this purpose on more than one occasion. Given our history, we both have a healthy sense of paranoia when it comes to privacy and security.
Her place is a little smaller and far less cluttered than the house, so the search doesn't take as long. We scan each room looking for hidden cameras and microphones but find nothing.
When scanning the living room, I couldn't help but notice the fine layer of dust lining the top shelves of her cabinetry.
"Scully!?"
"Yeah," she replies as she makes her way down the hallway to join me in the living room.
"You need to fire your cleaning lady."
I turn to find her flopping down onto the sofa chair behind me.
"Either that or you are in desperate need of new filters," I say as I show off the dust I've collected on the tips of my fingers.
"The cleaning lady is an old friend of my mother's who needed work, and my filters are fine."
"Ah, well, I guess that solves that mystery then," I say as to join her.
"What mystery?"
"The mystery of why you would hire someone to clean a house that is already immaculately clean. The poor woman probably doesn't know what to do with herself when she comes over here."
"I think she drinks a lot of tea. The kettle is always empty on the days that she comes."
There is just enough playfulness in her voice that I can't quite tell if she's serious or just messing with me. I suspect that it might be a bit of both.
As I remove my shoes and settle into the chair next to her, she draws up her knees and shifts her weight to place her head against my shoulder. For a few moments, we sit in silence. Both of us too comfortable and too exhausted to move. I'm starting to drift off to sleep when she speaks again.
"How much time do you think we have Mulder?"
"Until what?"
"Until it starts."
"Well, considering the fact that it was supposed to start on December 22 of 2012, I would say that we've been living on borrowed time for quite some time now."
"What are we going to do?"
I'm quiet for a moment before I respond.
"Live our lives. Continue our work."
She sits up, shifting her position to face me.
"What about ... "
"Looking for William is what they want us to do Scully. I want to see him again just as badly as you do, but we are being maneuvered — Again."
"Mulder …"
"What you said at the hospital … The thing about The Smoking Man not being able to act without William. I think you might be right."
Silence fills the room as we gaze into each other's eyes.
"So we just live?"
"Yeah," I say with my face inches from hers.
I wait for her to pull back or turn her head, but she doesn't.
Just as my lips reach hers the phone in my pocket comes to life.
The reverberating sound of static startles us both, causing us to jump apart.
"… MULDER … THEY KNOW THAT WE KNOW … DESTROY THE BACKUP — Mulder, I'm afraid … Mulder —"
I get the phone out of my pocket just in time to see Langly's face before he is snatched away. As he disappears, another face comes into focus. The face of the curly haired assassin. He swirls his finger in mock silence for a moment before he too dissolves.
My heart hurts for Langly, but I can't follow him into modernized evolution. If the opportunity presents itself, I will destroy the simulation, but I can't continue to chase monsters with butterfly nets. My job now is to protect Scully and our son for as long as I can.