Character: Dana Scully
Fandom: The X-Files
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: Spock: Your illogical approach to chess does have its advantages on occasion, Captain. (Star Trek-Original) Vol 3. Week.28 on scifi_muses on LiveJournal
Setting: X-files: Fight The Future
Perhaps it was just Scully's opinion, but if the FBI wanted to conduct a search for a potentially deadly bomb in a federal building and keep it secret from the general public, they perhaps should run around with jackets emblazoned with the letters "F", "B", and "I" in yellow on the back. They likely also shouldn't have local, Dallas police standing around impressively, or a helicopter overhead to warn the locals something bad was going on.
"It sort of takes away from that whole, 'art of surprise' factor, doesn't it?" Mulder squinted up at the copter above them, the sound of its wings drumming off the surrounding buildings.
"Why haven't they closed off all the federal area around here," Scully wondered, shielding her eyes against the north Texas sun, white hot in the dead of July and glaring off the pavement. "It doesn't make sense."
"You are the one who keeps assuring me Michaud knows what he is doing," Mulder replied, as beyond them a team of bomb-sniffing dogs worked though a well-manicured flowerbed. "We are supposed to be checking out the parking garage?"
"Looking for any suspicious looking vehicles in the complex, yes," Scully glanced over at the sparsely populated concrete structure. Anyone who should have reported to the building that day was told to stay home. Only a few cars remained there, mostly fleet vehicles assigned to the federal departments who were stationed in that building. "We need to keep an eye out for unmarked or rented moving vans, particularly those that have no record of being hired out for use at this time."
"Because that's not tedious or time consuming," Mulder snorted, rubbing his palms against his jeans. In their vinyl, standard issue windbreakers they were both roasting. Scully's hair was already plastered to the back of her neck, and Mulder's gray t-shirt had a ring of sweat forming around it's collar.
"Mulder, this isn't just boring office work, lives are at stake here." His seeming bored lacksadaisicalness in the face of real danger was stunning Scully. Since their assignment, he had been dragging his feet with this case, and it worried her as she tugged at his windbreaker, trying to pull him with her to the parking area beyond. Perhaps there was no alien or psychic, no ghost or other paranormal phenomenon, but it was a terror threat on the American people, and that was real enough.
"Perhaps it's not checking up on a little, old lady's background, but come on, Scully, the parking garage?"
"What would you rather have, the air-conditioned building the bomb might be in?"
"At least I would be cool."
He couldn't be serious? "You act as if there isn't a threat to property and people here."
"There is, I just don't think that it is in the parking garage."
"Oklahoma City happened with a U-Haul filled with fertilizer, you don't believe that possibility is credible?"
"I do, but they have twenty agents combing that structure, another forty or so in the building, and we are standing here with our thumbs up our ass, being asked to looked for a suspicious looking vehicle. This is Texas, Scully, they drive with gun racks in the backs of their sedans for crying out loud." From out of the pocket of his windbreaker Mulder produced his ever-present bag of sunflower seeds, purchased at the airport the day before.
"I don't know how much luxury we have to be standing out here chatting about what does and does not constitute a suspicious looking car in Dallas. If the threat is accurate, then we only have three hours left to find the bomb."
"Convenient they gave us the time too, very thoughtful terrorists, that." The seed cracked between his teeth as he scanned the distance lazily, across the busy street and mall beyond to the other federal building close by. That one housed a variety of different federal offices, none of which had been cleared that day, despite the threat just across the street. How had no one thought to empty that office?
"You still believe that this whole thing was a sham, a way of embarrassing the FBI?" It was a long way to go for a laugh in Scully's opinion.
"I'm just saying that someone put a lot of effort to get us to come to this exact building, at this exact time, to make sure we could be here. Maybe I'm just your average, paranoid, anti-social, son-of-a-bitch, Scully, but if I were a terrorist out to send a message and cause the biggest ruckus I could, would I be so polite without a reason?"
"A reason? Such as?"
"The bomb is not in this building?" He lazily popped another seed in between his teeth, sucking at it as he began to move not towards the parking structure, but the building across the way. Scully watched him, blinking in confusion. After years of Mulder's wild theories and out-of-the-blue conjectures, she should be used to such strange pronouncements out of him. Mulder's mind worked at a level most other people didn't, making him brilliant as an investigator. But even she failed to see why he suspected this idea.
"Mulder, we can't simply wander off scene, our assignment is…"
"Our assignment is to find the bomb, Scully, and I have an idea."
"That the bomb is hiding where the caller said it wasn't?"
"I'm saying that we need to be creative here. Terrorists aren't big on giving the good guys a chance to save the day, but they are good at making as big of a spectacle as they possibly can. So what if this is all an elaborate set up for something different."
"Such as?"
"I don't know yet," he had already reached the crosswalk, punching the button as he waited for the walk sign to appear. "But it is worth at least checking out, don't you think?"
Scully wasn't so sure. "Mulder, we are on little more than probation here, we need to play this one straight."
"I'm taking this serious, Scully."
"If Michaud gets wind we went off sight on nothing more than a gut feeling?"
"Then I'll take the heat and tell him you were trying to stop me." The light changed, and Mulder's long legs began carrying him across the tarry asphalt, forcing Scully to practically run to catch up to him. "Besides, they have more people than they need covering the building over there, the two of us covering one, twelve story building by ourselves, that's a lot more work."
"Unnecessary work," she snapped, nearly tripping on the curb in her haste to follow.
"You won't say that if we find the bomb," he retorted, shoving his seeds back in his pocket. "You work your way up from the middle up, I'll go from the middle down, and if it is all clear, we will make our way back over."
"I have to go up the stairs?" She didn't like that idea at all.
"Hey, look at it this way, it's a chance to tone your legs and thighs." Mulder waved his cell over his shoulder at her. "Call me on this if you find anything suspicious, like a moving van or a gun rack."
"So much for you taking our work seriously," she sighed as he bounded into the marble lobby and towards the building's public stairs.