Chapter 3

DOI HEADQUARTERS

"I gotta say, I've heard a lot of strange stories over the past year," Winn said. "And James has told me more than his share. But this one, it takes the cake."

After hearing everything that Cat Grant had told her, Kara had called Alex and told her that she needed to have a private meeting at the DOI with her, Jonn, and Winn, the only ones there who knew Supergirl's true identity. Kara had managed to do a good job keeping her two lives apart the year she had been working with Alex. But the moment she heard this story, she knew that she was going to have to walk a fine line because this was something that exists within the Venn diagram of the two sides of her identity. She also had an intuition that this was going to involve a problem that, for a change, would require Kara rather than Supergirl. So while Supergirl had a meeting on the books that featured critical information about an alien invasion, it was Kara who laid out everything she had heard about Mulder, Scully and The X-Files to her friends.

"Did either of you know anything about this?" she asked Jonn and Alex. "Did the real Hank Henshaw know something like this was afloat?"\

Jonn considered this for a moment. "There's nothing in the DOI's entire database about any of this," he said slowly. "And believe me, if Henshaw had known any details about even a rumored alien invasion, he'd have an entire section of the DOI working on it."

"There any chance at all he might have been a conspirator?" Alex asked.

"Not the Hank Henshaw I've been playing for the last ten years," Jonn said assuredly. "Ironically, he'd probably be the first one to try and recruit Mulder and Scully."

Kara looked at her sister. "You get any of this when you were pretending to be working with the FBI?"

"A couple of the mouth-breathers may have mentioned them," Alex admitted. "More like a cautionary tale. Tow the Bureau line, or you'll end up in a storage closet chasing little gray men. Since I didn't bother to tell them that was what I was actually doing, I wrote them off. Now I'm beginning to wish I hadn't."

Jonn looked at Winn. "Is there anything in our database that might verify any of this?" Winn had started work on it the second Kara had come to him with the information Cat Grant had given her.

"It's a good news-bad news thing. The good news is, because Cat Grant was so meticulous in her research, I have dates and places for every event she gave us. And there is independent verification of just about everything. The Duane Barry incident, of course, is part of practice. And Scully was kidnapped by Barry, disappeared for three months afterwards, and was returned to a Georgetown hospital in November of 1994. William Mulder was murdered in May of 1995, and Melissa Scully was killed by Luis Cardinal a week later." Winn looked up. "I don't know if Miss Grant knew this, but the main reason they caught Cardinal was that less than a year later, he was caught trying to murder Walter Skinner."

"I'm guessing he didn't do a good job," Kara said.

"Shot him at point blank range, but only wounded him. They caught him two days later when he tried to finish the job. And yes, he was found dead in his cell a little after that. But not before he tried to place the blame on an accomplice, an Alex Krycek."

Kara frowned. "I don't think Miss Grant mentioned him."

"She probably didn't know about him, but his fingerprints are over a lot of suspicious activity. He and Mulder worked together during the Barry hostage crisis, but he was later suspected of murdering a tram operator near Skyland Mountain, and has connections to the diplomatic courier whose death Scully was trying to raise at the Congressional hearing before she was jailed for contempt."

"Is there any information about the rest of it?" Alex asked.

"Everything that Scully mentioned in that hearing happened. Except the rock that contained some that resembled a black-oily substance was suspected by the late Dr. Sachs of originating from Mars." Winn looked at Jonn. "There isn't chance there could be some truth to that?"

"I'd have to see the files, but my first instinct is no. The universe is a vast place. I know of a dozen planets that have had similar toxins." Jonn looked at him. "Now, I remember the mass incinerations in '98, but there's no record in our files of an aliens being on Earth at that time capable of those kinds of attacks."

"There aren't any. What we do have is the name of one of the abductees from Pennsylvania, the one who was at the conference Mulder participated in." Winn punched a few buttons. "Her name was Cassandra Spender. She was not found among the dead in Pennsylvania, but less than a year later, her body was found at the site of a similar mass incineration at El Rico Air Force Base in Maryland."

"How many dead there?" Alex asked.

"Sixty five, many of them women and children. No one even tried to link it to what had happened in Pennsylvania." Winn told them. "Now I'm the kind of person who can make these connection, but even the most foolish of men would be blind not to see a cover-up here. More proof that Mulder and Scully were right."

"All right, so what's the bad news?"

"I have been through every inch of the FBI's recorded files. There are references to Mulder and Scully in more than a few places, none of them favorable. There's the reference to them being censured by the Bureau in '98, around the time Cat Grant says they made the displeasure of the Attorney General. " Winn looked grimly. "What I can't in any database is any record of the actual X-Files. No case reports, no superior reports, not even expense reports."

Both Alex and Jonn looked hostile. "The government must have gotten to them after Mulder and Scully were drummed out of the Bureau," Alex said. "Did a full purge. Made it like they never existed."

"That certainly would make sense, but if that's the case, why are Mulder and Scully still alive?" Jonn put forth.

"Actually, Miss Grant thinks they're might be a more mundane explanation," Cat told her. "See, she hired a couple of computer experts to try and get a look at the files a couple of weeks ago, and they came up with nothing."

"You think the government may have cleaned up its tracks here?" Kara had asked.

"That is my first, and more obvious explanation," Cat told her. "But the thing is, you have to remember, this is the government. They're the last people to follow the wave of change. I know personally that the big technological upgrade that you are familiar with, didn't start until after the attacks on 9/11. I also know that Mulder and Scully were out of the Bureau by then, and while the X-Files may have been open, they sure as hell weren't getting much of a budget – and that's assuming they were getting anything during the years they were working there."

"I don't think I'm following you," Kara admitted.

"Mulder said he found the X-Files in a file cabinet in a storage closet. He also said the only he was allowed to keep investigating them was because he had allies in Congress," Cat paused. "What if they gave him just enough leeway to keep investigating, but not enough money to do much else? Now that wouldn't have deterred the Fox Mulder I knew – the guy did a lot of his files in handwritten journals. He had patience."

Kara had heard some implausible things in the last few hours, but this took the cake. "You're telling me that the information of perhaps one of the biggest conspiracies in government history could be in a storage locker somewhere?"

"Taking up space with the Ark of the Covenant," Cat agreed. "That does sound like the bureaucracy at work. Now, I've got some members of my legal team working on drafting a subpoena, but to be honest, I don't want to use that weapon unless I have to."

"You think they might destroy the files?"

"If they haven't already, they definitely would now."

"But if Mulder and Scully's enemies find out anybody from the press is asking questions, they might do the same thing."

"That's the real reason I want your sister to look into this." Cat told her. "Much as I want to read every word Mulder and Scully spent nearly a decade writing, it is far more important that somehow who is in the government who is trustworthy gets to those files. Even now, I can count the number of people in government I trust on one hand, and based on what happened a few months ago – the thing I'm not supposed to know about – your sister is one of those people. Mulder believed that lies couldn't survive the light of day. In that sense, he was a bit naïve. But I agree with him that the truth will out. And if we're going to go forward, we need to make sure these files come out into the light."

Alex actually needed a minute to recover from these words, even if they were delivered second hand. "I'm glad she trusts me," she told her sister honestly. "Did she have any idea where to look?"

"One person who might be able to help," Kara told her. "Mulder and Scully reported to Assistant Director Walter Skinner all the time they were at the Bureau. She made it very clear that he might have been the only ally they really had the entire time they worked there. And according to her research, while Mulder and Scully may have been thrown into exile, as of last week, Skinner was still working at the FBI."

"And according to these files, he is still there," Winn told them.

Jonn turned to Alex. "Make contact with him. Don't mention the DOI by name, but tell him that you're interested in the work Mulder and Scully have done. We'll settle just for copies of the files, even if you have to move the entire file cabinet to get them."

"What about Miss Grant?" Kara asked. "If she's right about this, she deserves the story."

"If she's right about this, she deserves a medal," Jonn said.

This was strong talk. Alex in particular was stunned. "You sure about this?"

"Agent Danvers, if even a fraction of what Mulder and Scully have been investigating is true, it means that vital intelligence to the DOI's mission statement has been withheld from us for years, maybe decades." Jonn said grimly. "And based on the bits and pieces we've gotten so far, it is deliberate malfeasance. Miss Grant has provided us a vital service. To deny her this information would be ungrateful."

"Even if she decides to go public with it?" Kara asked.

"Step by step, Kara." Jonn said. "First we need to know what were dealing with. Then we'll figure what to do next."

HOOVER BUILDING

OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT

AD Walter Skinner was not your typical bureaucrat. Granted, he was balding with wire-rimmed glasses, and his hair was closer to grizzled. But his file said that he had been a man of action – he'd survived a tour in Vietnam, and he still had a military bearing – Alex recognized it even more than forty years after the fact. He had a fringe of a gray beard. And there was a look in his eyes that could only be described as haunted. Still, Alex knew she'd have to tread to carefully. Even though he'd supervised the X-Files for the entirety of their existence, that didn't me he believed in aliens himself. And after seeing his most loyal supporters – she knew that he'd nearly lost his job in 1996, and Mulder and Scully had been the only ones to back him – run out of the Bureau, and had a death sentence put on their heads, there was no particular reason for him to put his head on the chopping block.

"Why do you want to see the X-Files?" he'd demanded after hearing Alex's story.

Alex picked her words carefully. "There are people in the government who have reason believe in the validity of the Bureau's work in this field."

"Well, you're about fifteen years too late to do anybody any good," Skinner snapped. "Least of all, the people who would've been willing to help."

Alex decided to throw away the script. "Mr. Skinner, you do know what's going on in the world today? Hell, you saw what's been coming out of Metropolis the last few years."

"I don't read tabloid journalism," Skinner was practically snarling now. "And even if I did, I would believe that men from outer space necessarily come in peace."

She was going to have play a couple of other cards. "This isn't the same world it was when you started supervising the X-Files. Hell, it's not the same world it was a year ago. Now, even if you don't want to believe the evidence –"

"You know why Mulder left the Bureau?"

Alex decided to plead ignorance. "I assumed it was because he kept telling people things they didn't want to hear."

"He'd been doing that for years, and no one gave a crap." Skinner paused. "The last assignment he did as head of the X-Files, he was given reason to believe that there was a UFO in Oregon and that it was going to disappear if it wasn't recovered. He dragged my ass out there into the forest. And then, he was gone. I shouted his name into the void. And then, there was this ship. Huge, triangular, with gleaming lights all around it. It looked like it went on forever. And then it was gone." Skinner looked even more haunted. "For all the things they'd told me, for everything that had happened for seven years, I had compartmentalized and pushed down and tried to claim it was just more FBI business. I never believed. Until that moment."

Even though she had known of this for years, it was still startling to hear it come from the mouth of this man. "That must have been…traumatizing."

"No. It was humbling. What was traumatizing was when I went before my superiors two days later, and they basically told me that if I breathed a word of it in any official report, I would be censured, and taken off the manhunt for a missing agent." Now he looked furious. "I was prepared to torch my career. Scully had to talk me out of it. And you have no idea how difficult that must have been considering…"

He trailed off. Alex had a feeling there were decades of unsaid fury in that. "Things have changed, Mr. Skinner. You need only check the TV to see that."

"I've heard that so many times the past few years. Oh, people will believe in them, now that aliens are part of 24-hour news cycle. But why do you think Mulder hasn't popped anywhere, even to take a bow?"

It was a question that neither she nor her sister had been able to come up with a legitimate answer too. "I couldn't begin to guess."

"He knows that there are dangerous people out there, who will do anything in their power to destroy them." Skinner looked even harder now. "There were men who spent their entire lives trying to destroy Mulder, men who didn't even have names. They didn't need them to walk the corridors of power. Now they don't even have to walk them. With a few choice words tapped over a phone, they can eviscerate a person. Mulder spent a decade with a target on his back, and the only reason he and Scully don't have one now is because they've kept silent. So convince me, Miss Danvers, why you're any different."

It was pretty clear that the truth – or at least a piece of it – was the only thing that was going to get her a glimpse at the files. "I work with aliens," Alex finally said.

Skinner considered for a long moment. "I've known people who work with them," he said. "They haven't exactly been trustworthy."

"Not for them, Mr. Skinner. With them." She wasn't going to give up Kara or Jonn, but she could give some details. "Turns out they're like everybody else. Some of them are good. Some of them are evil. Most of them are just trying to survive in a complicate world. And its taken a huge amount of effort to convince other people that we're to be trusted because we don't automatically consider all of them threats."

Skinner's veneer of anger dissipated for a moment. "Then you know more about the threat these people pose than I ever could tell you," he said.

"That's just it. We don't. Until a colleague of ours mentioned this, we had no idea the X-Files even existed, much less that there was some kind of government conspiracy plotting to invade. When we found out what we did, we were nearly as angry as you are." Alex admitted. "I've been through some horrible things in the past couple of years. I won't say they were nearly as traumatic or as horrific as what happen to your agents, but I nearly lost my life more than once. And I have lost people I cared about."

She considered this for a moment. "I don't want to risk hurting your friends – because they clearly are your friends. But in order for us to our job – and yes, to use that hoary cliché, protect the planet – we need to know what they know. Now, its been a while, and maybe the threat has been neutralized by other forces. But if this threat has merely been lying dormant, biding its time, then my people need to know about it. And if there's anything you can do that could help us, we need to see what's in those files."

Skinner sat silent for a long time. Alex was pretty sure that he was going to refuse them anyway. "Mulder was put on trial before he was chased out of the country," he said carefully.

"I think I knew that," Alex said.

"Did you know I was his counsel?" Skinner asked. "I laid the entire conspiracy before them, knowing that they'd probably laugh me out of the courtroom. But Mulder kept hindering his own case. He refused to let witnesses who might help him testify. And he wouldn't testify in his own behalf."

"Why not?"

"He never told us what he was doing in Mount Weather in the first place. Even though it was considered one of the places where the so-called shadow government operates." Skinner frowned. "He never told us what it was he learned there. But it had to be something pretty horrific for him not to save his own life. I still have no idea what it was. But I knew that something dangerous was going to come down the pike. Maybe it already has."

He reached into his desk drawer, and took out a lockbox. "I knew that just trying to help Mulder might lead to the consequences, something that might only start with shutting the X-Files down. The day before I flew down to Colorado for his trial, I went to the basement, and made copies of every single file in Mulder's cabinet. Then I made sure they were in a secure location. The day after we came back, they shut down the X-Files and took everything out of that office. I've had this in my desk drawer ever since. I told myself I was waiting for the day Mulder and Scully came back to the Bureau. But when they were given the opportunity, they turned it down."

He opened the lockbox. In it was a small silver key. "This key opens the door to a small apartment in DC. The former tenants died in 2002, but I've kept the rent ever since. That's where the files are. They're not in an obvious place because that's not what the people there would've wanted. But if you look beyond the grassy knoll, you'll know where to find them."

Alex wasn't used to dealing in riddles, but she figured this was as much as Skinner was prepared to reveal. She held out her hand.

Skinner stopped short of putting the key in it. "I do watch the news, Miss Danvers, and I'm a smart man. I know that after this you're going to reach out to Mulder and Scully. And dedicated as they are, they'll come in out of the cold. If anything to do so much as harms a hair on their heads, I will find you and I will make you pay. I don't care what government agency you work for, what kind of skills you learned to work there, or how protected you are. I. Will. Burn You. Do we understand each other?"

Alex had faced threats from people who had destroyed entire civilizations. It said a lot that this old, balding man unnerved her a bit. Perhaps it was his utmost certainty. "Believe me, I don't leave men behind either."

Skinner put the key in her hand. "If you find the people responsible for this, no matter how harmless they look, burn them to the ground," he said intensely. "They don't deserve any mercy."

Alex hadn't needed that much help deciphering the code that Skinner had left her. He was clearly been referring to the Kennedy Assassination in his reference, and while there had been no record of Mulder and Scully in the FBI database, they had come up in a couple of other locations. The most common was a fringe conspiracy newsletter that been published from 1990 until 2001 that made multiple reference to Mulder and Scully before it had mysteriously shut down just a few weeks prior to 9/11.

The newsletter had been called The Lone Gunmen. And though it had stopped publishing on paper, every so often there would come a blast online using an ancient tag that almost went back to when the Internet had been part of DARPA. The signature bore a resemblance to one that one of the founding members – John Fitzgerald Byers – had used in his brief time with the DOD. Which was very odd, considering that Byers had supposedly died in an attempted terrorist attack in 2002. Then again, considering some of the things Alex had seen at the DOI, this barely registered as a blip on the weird shit-o-meter.

Winn had managed to track down the last known address The Lone Gunmen had ever used. It was little more than a rat-trap apartment in the basement of an old building. One that should have been condemned years ago, but mysterious checks kept getting paid to the landlord.

Alex made certain she could feel the outline of her gun when she rapped on the door that night. It took a long time between the knock on the door and some kind of response.

"We're paid through next month," a voice on the other end send.

"I'm trying to get in touch with the Lone Gunmen," Alex knew just how ridiculous she sounded.

"Never heard of them. Get out before I shoot you through the door." This voice was clearly female.

Alex was tempted to just kick the door down, but something told her that subtlety might be the only approach that would work here. "Walter Skinner sent me. It's about the X-Files."

There appeared to be a long whispered conversation on the other end. There was another endless pause as what seemed to be the most elaborate set of locks being opened and unhinged. Finally, the door opened a crack. An attractive, tanned brunette in her mid-thirties was looking out. Her glance was unforgiving, and she did appear to have a .22 trained on her. "Why did you go to see Skinner?" she demanded.

Alex could've kicked the door open, pulled her gun, disarmed the woman, and demanded answer in ten seconds flat. But she had a feeling that if these people really had known Mulder and Scully, the only thing that was going to get her what she wanted was the simple, unvarnished truth.

"I work for the government," she said slowly. "And apparently, our organization has been deprived of vital information by that same government that makes it impossible to do our job. The only way we can figure out what we're missing is to see what's in the X-Files."

Another endless pause. The woman closed the door. A minute later, she opened it again, this time with no gun. "Come in quickly."

Alex needed no second bidding.

"I never knew Mulder or Scully," she told her. "But the men who used to run this paper did. They were amateurs, but their hearts were in the right place, which is more than most of them are."

Alex barely heard this as she was looking around. There was a lot of tech in the apartment. She was willing to bet that none of it was government sanctioned or even remotely legal. This really didn't bother her, but she wondered just want kind of activity these people were up to.

"Are you a Man in Black?" The question came from a disheveled, looking man who seemed to be about her age, but was probably quite a bit older.

"Sort of," she admitted. "but there's no such thing as a neuralyzer. "

"The name's Bond. Jimmy Bond." The young man said this with no apparent shame or self-awareness. "I only met Scully once." He swallowed. "At the funeral."

Alex had suspected as much. "So they're dead."

"No good thing ever dies." Jimmy shook his head. "But as far as I know, the three of them are. And they wouldn't have wanted anybody to see what was in those files."

"From what I understand, they were like Mulder. They wanted the truth to come out."

"They were more concerned that these files never fall into the wrong hands," the woman said. "And so far, we're not convinced that your hands are the right ones."

"Look, miss—"

"Harlow. Yves Harlow."

"Yves," Alex said slowly. "If I was in your position, I would believe me either. I could show you my ID, but my guess is you'd think it was counterfeit, and considering that I've used more than my share of fakes, you'd be right not to trust me. But the fact is, I found this place. Now, I could have a team here in twenty minutes to tear this place until I found what I was looking for, but it would be a huge headache on both our parts, and there's a good chance I probably would still leave her with nothing. So I'm going to tell you the same thing I told Skinner. I only learned about the X-Files yesterday. Now, I'm in a very high position in the government, so you can imagine how royally pissed I was to learn that the people that are supposed to be on my side didn't bother to give me information that might have made doing my job easier, and possibly could've saved thousands, maybe millions of lives. So, it comes down to this. Mulder and Scully were right. We need their help. I was told by Skinner that the information in these files will vindicate them, and maybe help stave off an apocalypse. Maybe more than one."

Yves considered this for a few moments. Then she looked at Jimmy. "She's telling the truth."

Yves' expression didn't change. "Just before Mulder was put through that kangaroo court, Skinner came to us with copies of everything in the X-Files." She started walking to the back of the room. "His agents were old school – a lot of what they did was in handwritten articles. We're not going to give you the originals – they've been in danger before and it would be the height of foolishness to make sure they were lost. What I will give you is this."

She punched a key on a computer, and removed a flash drive. She paused for a minute. "The job you do… does it involve contact with Supergirl?"

Alex covered her shock very well. "She's a critical part of our work."

"So I imagine you're aware that there are forces in this universe that don't mean well and will destroy us without a thought? " Yves spoke casually. "And those are supposedly the good guys."

"You can't pick who your allies are." Alex said slowly

"The only reason we're giving you these files, Miss Danvers," Yves said calmly, "is because you work with Supergirl. She gets to see what's on these files. She will understand the magnitude of what's coming. Maybe she can even prevent it."

Alex's lip quirked. "Would it make you feel better if I told you that the only reason I'm here is because of Supergirl?"

Yves looked her over, then at Jimmy who nodded again. "You have twenty-four hours."

"You don't need to threaten us," Alex said. "I realize you feel it necessary, but trust me, our goal is the same."

"Protecting these files?"

"Exposing the truth to the whole world." And even though it wasn't her intended goal, at that moment Alex Danvers meant it 100 percent."