SEVEN

Prime Directive

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June 16th, 2000

9:36am

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Scully got out of the passenger side of the car, taking off her suit jacket and leaving it on the seat. Feeling the pleasant warmth breeze around her, she fished in the side pocket of the car door for a wad of plastic evidence bags and a pair of gloves.

Mulder was already out of his side of the vehicle. His jacket on the back seat, he had rolled up his sleeves; he waited by the bonnet for Scully to close the door.

"Ready," she said. "Where first?"

"I want to see where they broke the boundary line," he said. "What are you after?"

"Anything out of the ordinary." She elbowed the door shut and pulled on the gloves. He nodded to himself and wandered away as she carried the bags with her past the now righted digger.

Mulder went straight to the gaping wound in the earth. He crouched, adjusting the gun holster at the back of his belt, before putting his hands to the ground and peering over the edge. He shifted to sit on the edge and then slid off into the hole. Finding it only up to his waist as he had suspected, he crouched again to inspect the base of the dig. Dried soil met his interrogation and gave nothing away. A prod and a few stabs with a pen from his pocket did nothing to further his cause. He stood up again, looking around. Shaking his head, he backed up to think about how he would get out again. Something prodded him in the lower back.

He whirled quickly.

And then remembered he was up against a soil wall with a gun strapped to him. He sagged all over and just put his hands to the edge, hauling himself up and out of the hole. Dusting off his palms, he looked around. The slight wind played with his hair, pushed at his tie, tickled at his arm. He turned into the current and took a deep breath, appreciating the sun, and humidity, and relaxed atmosphere to the land, despite the dark cloud hanging over the whole situation.

"Mulder?"

He looked over at the call, and without thinking crossed the scratchy grass toward its source. His hand went to the door of the longhut and he opened it up, sticking his head inside. "What have you found?" he asked.

Scully was crouching in the corner of the room, a desk to her left, the wall to her right, her back to him. She didn't turn or move. "Come look at this," she said, pre-occupied.

He walked around to slither in between furniture. He stopped and towered over her from behind, trying to see. "What is it?"

"Look."

He was forced to crouch half behind her, half to her right. He had no trouble looking over her lower shoulder. His hand went up against the wall to keep him from falling into her. "What?"

"Scratches," she said, as if it should be obvious. "I don't remember these being in the sheriff's report."

"You're right." He let go of the wall to bring his hand down, aiming to touch at the deep gouges in the wood.

She grabbed his wrist. "I have a swab kit in my pocket."

"Aw, Scully. And I thought you were just happy to see me."

She let go of his arm so her left hand could go into her jacket pocket. "We need to check by the excavator too - there could be something left close to where Daniel Petrus was found."

"I'm on it." He got up and disappeared.

Scully pulled the plastic box from her pocket and opened it up, concentrating on filling the scratches with the provided liquid and soaking up the results.

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12:00 noon

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McGivers looked up from her notebook, checked her watch, and put down her pen. She turned to the black phone on her desk and picked it up to dial.

She listened to the tone. It clicked and she waited for the voice.

"Report."

She took a deep breath. "Subjects are responding as expected."

"Then we do not need them."

"However… this case is destroying indigenous wildlife. The subjects are necessary to protect it."

There was a long pause. "And how do you come by that conclusion?"

She let out her breath. "Local enforcement is not prepared. Without the two subjects specifically this matter will not be resolved."

"We hardly need them both. The female is not needed; from your report she is not furthering the investigation."

"I do not concur, with your assessment of my report nor her performance. She has provided facts and clues where the male could not," she said stiffly. "She is vital to this investigation. Without her, the other subject would not function."

"Are you sure of this?" came the surprised response.

"Unquestionably."

Another long pause. "Then… you may keep both subjects. Keep us apprised."

"Of course."

The line clicked. She put down the phone. She scowled.

And then Agent McGivers got up out of her chair, her notebook in her hand. She stalked to the door, and if she closed it rather too loudly behind her, there was no-one there to notice.

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12:43pm

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The door to the morgue's office opened and Scully looked up from her stool. Mulder strode in and threw down his suit jacket to lean back against the filing cabinet, folding his arms to the accompaniment of a good strong huff.

Scully raised her eyebrows at him. "What now?"

"No-one found anything around Daniel Petrus' body," he grumped. "No-one bothered to look."

"Well…" She swung the stool away from the work station, stopping it with a boot heel on the tiles. "I can confirm that residue of the same type as the black 'smudge' was in the scratches in Judge Lanoux's front door. And it was also in the scratches down by Shirley Duchamp's body. Neither of them have any signs of being painted on or marked." She paused to fold her arms. "I can't explain why the only thing in those scratches in both places was the black material that appears to be on their bodies. I can't tell you what it's made of and I can't tell you how it got there."

"We both saw the tape, Scully. The peluda overshot him as it tried to grab him and scraped giant scratches into the door. It probably did the same with Shirley Duchamp. But how it left black material in there and not DNA…"

"Like I said," she said calmly, "I can't explain it."

He huffed. "Well we'll never know if Daniel Petrus had the same phenomenon. And we still don't know what's causing this thing to choose its victims to mark them in the first place."

She let her arms drop. "Then we'll have to—"

The door flew open and both agents jumped and looked over. McGivers was holding onto the door handle as if for stability. "Agent Mulder, Agent Scully - there's been another one," she gasped.

"Another attack?" Scully asked. She got to her feet, peeling off the white lab coat and picking up her black jacket.

"Yes," McGivers managed. "It's Sylvie - Sylvania Morin. She was—"

"Lanoux's assistant," Scully interrupted. "I think we've found our link, Mulder - everyone connected to that land deal is being targeted."

"Then why the two construction workers?" he argued, even as he followed the two women out of the room. "They didn't decide anything, they just started digging."

"Maybe it's like you first theorised," McGivers said over her shoulder as she strode down the corridor. "The peluda is taking revenge. It started with the two workers, and is now tracking down people who have colluded to keep it trapped all these years."

"Colluded?" Scully echoed.

They reached the reception foyer of the police station to see people busying around, phones ringing off the hook, and Carson with her hands on her hips in the middle of it all.

"Alright, people!" she called. "Stop what you're doing and listen up!"

The deputies, all five of them, froze. The three FBI agents simply waited.

"Now," Carson went on in a booming voice, "we got another death. Yes, we knew Sylvie. Yes, we're all upset and we thought we'd have more to go on right now. But we will find out who's doing this, and we will stop them doing it again. Do you get me?" There were nods and muted 'yes'es around the room, and Carson nodded to herself. "Then we help these agents with anything they need, and we get this whole thing solved - today," Carson barked. This time everyone managed a firm 'yes', and Carson turned to look at the agents. "Anything at all," she said firmly.

Mulder looked at Scully. "Go look at the crime scene, do the usual. Take McGivers. I've got something I want to follow up on."

"What is it?" McGivers asked.

"I'll fill you in later," he said, already pushing politely through them and heading for Carson.

Scully looked at McGivers. "Let's get to the scene."

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5:02pm

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Scully took off her protective glasses and backed away from the autopsied form of Sylvie, now laying at rest under the white sheet. She turned away from her work and prepared the locker, then went about transferring the corpse to the gurney and slotting it into cold storage.

She gathered up her things, leaving the white coat on the back of the door, and stepped out slowly, pushing hair behind her ear as she walked up the corridor. She put her hand in her pocket and found her cell phone. Without looking her thumb went over the buttons and she put it to her ear. "Mulder? It's me. Where are you?"

Something dragged over the other end and then his voice was clearer. "I'm working on something. Can I call you back?"

"I've finished the autopsy. I'll have a report for you later."

"Thanks." The line went dead.

She shoved the phone back in her pocket and turned the slight corner in the corridor, coming out at the reception area. McGivers and Carson were deep in some kind of discussion. She approached warily, noting both people were somewhat angry.

"Everything… ok?" she asked slowly.

Carson stopped and turned, looking down at Scully. "What's going on here?"

"Uh… I just got here," Scully managed. "How do you mean?"

"I mean this is the first time I've had to get trank guns out of the store, Agent Scully."

"Oh-kay," she managed.

McGivers folded her arms. "I believe we should not kill this creature, Agent Scully. I believe we should trap it and study it."

Scully cleared her throat, shifting her weight in her high heels. "It's killed four people."

"It would be like shooting a tiger for getting free and eating someone," McGivers said quietly, but nevertheless firmly.

Scully's head titled. "I see your point. But in this case, I think the only option would be to put it down. We know tigers, we know how they react. We know nothing about this creature."

"Exactly my point," McGivers said. "We need to trap it and examine it, find out what it is, how it has survived, and how it thinks." She paused. "You're a scientist - why don't you agree?"

"I am a scientist, that's true," Scully said. "However, I've been doing this a while and sometimes you have to make a decision based on the likelihood that keeping specimens for research may be more dangerous than destroying that specimen."

McGivers frowned. "But this could be the only one in existence."

"So if we put it down, we prevent any further danger," Scully said.

"We also commit genocide."

"It's not genocide if it's one animal."

"It is if it's the only one of that animal left," McGivers shot back.

Scully folded her arms. She looked up at Carson, who was still quietly seething. Scully shook her head. "I understand your concerns, Agent McGivers, but—"

"You're a doctor, Agent Scully. You took an oath to protect life. Why are you so intent upon killing this one?" McGivers argued.

Scully let out a slow, cool breath. "It has killed four people. It will continue to kill people. If we trap it and have it shipped off to wherever we decide so it can be studied, how can we be sure it won't get free and kill more people? How do we know it will even survive in captivity?"

McGivers looked away, to the far wall. "I just… I just expected you to want it to live." She paused. "It's something's family, something's infant."

Scully felt her expression go very taut and very still. Her eyes felt raw and dry, the blood draining from her face, her limbs. She made herself straighten up. "What do you mean by that?" she demanded.

McGivers looked back at her, surprised. "I only meant… It's alive, and it's thinking, and it's obviously a feeling, sentient creature. I just… I expected you to recognise that and… act accordingly."

The feeling returned to Scully's face. "Yes," she managed. "Yes, I do. But I also recognise that every one of these deputies around us has a family, and is a living, breathing person, too. And I don't want to have to visit their family in the future to tell them that the deputy has been taken from them because we didn't want to kill one factually dangerous animal."

McGivers looked at her for a long moment. Eventually she nodded, and her eyes swept down. "I see. Yes, I see. I'm sorry. Thank you." She paused. "Excuse me."

She turned and walked away. Carson watched her go, shaking her head. Then she looked at Scully. "I don't get her. She's been working away in that office of hers for years. She seems to know most folks around here - most of them know who she is. And yet she wants to trap this thing for science, not just put it down and save those same folks."

"I think she just wants to know what it is," Scully mused, her eyes narrowing.

Carson scoffed. "Well it's a good job you talked her down, Agent Scully - I was on the verge of knocking some sense into her the old fashioned way."

Scully shook her head as if to clear it. "Well. I need to write up my notes. How's the operation going?"

"We're getting deputies out on the street right now. They're all carrying hunting rifles. I'm not going to apologise."

"No, it's the right response," she said, but something made her look across the room to where McGivers had just left. She rubbed her forehead and then looked up at Carson. "You have my number if you need me. Alert me the moment anyone sees anything."

"Oh I will, Agent Scully."

She nodded and went out of the exit, finding McGivers by her own car. Scully wandered up slowly, and McGivers looked up.

"Oh, hello," she said politely. "I don't see your rental car out here. Do you need a lift to the motel?"

"Agent McGivers… I'm sorry if I came down hard on you," she sighed.

"No no - it's not that," she said quickly. "I just… I guess I was putting my own need to see this creature, clearly and in provable terms, above everyone's safety."

"I know someone like that," Scully quipped. "And yes, I'd like a lift to the motel. If it's not too much trouble."

McGivers smiled and got in the car, Scully going around to the passenger side and climbing in. McGivers started it up and reversed around, before heading for the main road. "Can I tell you something?"

Scully looked at her. "If you feel you must."

"I like cars. And I like taking people places. It's time travel, isn't it?"

Scully smiled. "Time travel?"

"Yes. We're moving you into the past by driving and not making you walk."

"How do you figure?" Scully smiled.

"If you walk to the motel, it's about forty-five minutes. You would arrive there at…" She glanced at her watch. "Just about six pm. But by giving you a lift, you will be there about five twenty pm. So I've moved you back from six to five twenty. You've gone back in time forty minutes."

Scully let herself chuckle. "That's one way of looking at it."

"Is there another?"

Scully let out a long wheeze of thought. "I think… you and Mulder would be the last ones left at every party, talking about existential problems and time travel, and how the mundane in us all points to the remarkable in the universe."

"No we wouldn't," McGivers said confidently as she flipped the indicator and turned right. "He would already have left the party with you."

Scully's mouth opened but stalled. She looked back at the window, her eyes catching the safety mark on its surface. Suddenly it was the only thing she was sure of.

"Mulder is fascinating, isn't he?" McGivers went on. "He's self-destructive and yet he attempts to look after his health. He wants to know everything, and yet he doesn't want to know how it ends. It's intriguing."

"Really," Scully managed.

"Oh yes. Don't you think?"

"We have… worked together a long time," she allowed. "Sometimes you don't see someone as… Well, as anything more than what's in front of you. They're just… a constant thing in your life that you know will always be there, a friend you trust - maybe the only friend you trust - amongst all your work colleagues."

"And of course he adores you," McGivers went on.

Scully's eyebrows raised in bemusement. "I don't think so." Her gaze went back to the window mark.

"He watches you do autopsies because he knows they'll be correct," McGivers went on. "He goes through your notes about the case and he appreciates the straight forward way you do things, and your ability to put things in perspective. He relies on all these things. He trusts your judgement. —And he likes your perfume but he would never tell you."

Scully's mouth fell open. "What are you basing this on?" she asked, hearing her voice come out a little sharper than she had anticipated.

McGivers glanced at her. "Oh, I'm sorry. Sometimes my mouth runs away with me." Her hands gripped the wheel a little tighter. "But… I am right, Agent Scully. I have seen these things." She cleared her throat quietly. "It's what I do."

"Psych evaluations on fellow agents?" Scully asked, forcing the samba beat in her temples to slow.

"I do apologise if I have made you angry. Although… I do wonder what it was I said that made you angry."

"You didn't—." Scully sighed. "It's been a busy few days. And to be honest, I'm a little angry that we haven't caught this creature yet. I'm angry that Sylvie Morin was killed while we were still looking for clues. And that's all."

"I understand," McGivers nodded. "Oh." A slow smile spread across her face, but it was silent for the next few minutes. At last she flicked on the indicator again and turned across the road. "Ah, here we are - the motel." She turned the vehicle into the parking lot. As she smiled to herself.

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10:17pm

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Scully flipped the report shut, slipping off her glasses and closing the lid of her laptop. She gave a stretch and then pulled her strappy top straight. Picking up her phone from the bedside table, she squinted it at to find the battery was almost flat. She tutted and reached down the side of the bed to retrieve her charging cable. She plugged it in, waited for it to show life, and set it down.

She gathered up the autopsy files and the crime scene notes and placed them on the side table too, plugging in the laptop to charge and dumping it on top. Bouncing across the bed in her pyjama trousers caused her feet to hit the floor eventually. She got up and padded into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her.

A shrill bleating started up from the cell phone.

"Oh come on!" she called through the door.

By the time the toilet was flushed and her hands washed and dried, the phone had long since stopped. She crossed to the table but before she could pick it up, the black rotary phone next to it began haranguing the room with its unpleasant noise.

She picked it up. "Hello?"

"Scully? It's me."

"Where have you been, Mulder?" she sighed, sitting on the edge of her bed and pushing her hair round her ear.

"Alexandria."

"Who?"

"Alexandria - I had to check something out. You know I said the peluda is marking its victims, with the scent and the black smudge?"

"Yes," she said, shifting back on the bed to bring her legs up and cross them in front of her.

"Well I thought if we could find out how it follows it, maybe we could use the smell to try to draw it to us. We still haven't figured out how it's marking these people, or why, so how are we going to stop it doing it again?"

"All good points," she said. "So you want to make it come to us? How?"

"Well you have samples of the smell back at the sheriff's office, right? Can't we use that somehow?"

She paused. "What exactly did you find in Alexandria, Mulder?"

"Someone who knows a lot about peludas, and how to stop them chowing down on you when you don't want them to."

"Really," she smiled. "And would this someone be into voodoo?"

"Don't knock strong protection magic till you've had a chance to survive because of it," he replied with amusement in his voice.

"Fine. Show me proof that this someone has helped us solve this case and I can tell Sheriff Carson to recall all her deputies from animal attack duty."

"What?"

"She has all her deputies patrolling the parish, keeping an eye out for this creature," she said, seriously now. "They've got orders to shoot it."

"What? How will we know what it is if they kill it?" he demanded.

"From the corpse, Mulder," she said firmly. "We can't control it, and we can't stop it. But we can kill it and study it - document it for scientific record, like your jellyfish."

There was a long pause.

Then a small sigh. "You're right." He paused. "But they need to know what she's taught me about these creatures - normal bullets won't kill them. They have to be silver."

"Silver? Mulder, come on - they're not werewolves."

"Silver is toxic to them, Scully. Feel free to shoot it with the government-issue stuff but I'd rather you didn't - I don't want to have to explain that to your family at your funeral. Your brother hates me as it is."

She couldn't help a small smile. "Then we'll ask Sheriff Carson about silver bullets, too."

"And we need samples of the smell, to lay a trap for it."

"I'll get those ready in the morning. Then I guess well kill this thing and we can go home." She waited, but there didn't seem to be anything else forthcoming. "Mulder?"

"Yes, Scully?"

"Do you…" She paused. "Forget it. Go to sleep, Mulder."

"Yes, Scully."

The line clicked and she looked at her receiver. "Perfume," she tutted. Then she paused as there was another click on the line. She put it back to her ear and frowned. She opened her mouth to ask - but then froze.

Very slowly she put the receiver back down. She looked up, around the room, checking the corners of the ceiling. She stole away from the bed, picked up her room key, and slipped out of the door.

She went straight to the door marked 'Eight' in cursive letters and knocked softly.

Nothing.

She knocked again, louder.

Finally the door opened to Mulder, wearing only jersey basketball shorts and a puzzled frown. "Oh. Hey Scully," he began.

She reached up and slapped a hand over his mouth. He stumbled back and she pushed him in, closing the door with her foot. He grabbed her arm for balance but she pushed him back until the bed hit him in the back of the knees. He slumped to the blankets, staring up at her in confusion.

She hastily re-applied her hand to his mouth. He raised a single eyebrow.

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