[present - April 20th, 1996 - the Sixth]
It was louder.
Louder.
It was unbearable, and she wanted to cover her ears with her hands to make the sound stop, to make it go away.
But it was louder.
It was louder…...
Monica's entire body felt like it had been ran over by a thousand Erumpents as she regained conscience.
The previous occasion her body tried to wake up - and gods only knows when that had happened, she thought, -, her right arm, chest and back seemed like they were raw on fire. She was so weak and the pain was so scorching it knocked her out again after only a few seconds.
But this time, her arm felt good and there was no chest or back pain. She was even able to move her fingers of her right hand, something that would definitely be impossible before.
When her hazel eyes opened, she saw a very high white ceiling above her, and stone walls.
Seems I'm not dead after all , she thought. But that was close.
She was able to Portkey away and Apparate at Skinner's house, and he probably had taken her somewhere else to be treated, she quickly processed, looking down at her right arm tightly wrapped in a splint.
That's when she realized she wasn't alone in that room.
Reyes turned her head sideways and saw a child by her bed. It wasn't a Vision, but there was something odd in the air nonetheless, not bad or menacing, just… strange.
Warm and dream-like, as if she was not fully awaken yet. She shrugged it off - it was probably just her mind the one thing behaving strange. She was unconscious for the longest time, and her body was still healing. Behind the boy, she saw Dana Scully sitting on a comfortable-looking armchair, her eyes closed, looking like she was dozing off.
"Are you feeling well, miss?", the boy asked her. He then explained. "My mum fell asleep, so I thought I should keep an eye on you for her."
That was one polite child, she thought. Then Reyes realized how much she had missed in the life of her old friend and former school sweetheart since they all went separate ways - and after she had assumed her place as a double agent. It seemed like it had been in another life when Scully, Mulder and herself wandered through school walls playing pranks on each other and having no greater worries other than delivering their homework in time.
"Hm… I'm good, I think.", she finally answered.
The boy smiled at her and went to Scully, kneeling by her side and patting her arm gently to wake her up.
"Mum, mum… the lady is up."
She opened her eyes, looking a little surprised she had fallen asleep like that. She also quickly looked at Monica's direction, as if expecting something had happened to her.
"Oh.. Alright. Thanks, Kevin…", she said, still looking a little sleepy and slightly relieved. She then looked at him, as if noticing what was really happening for the first time. "You aren't supposed to be in here, young man. You know that."
The boy shrugged, not really knowing what to say, but not seeming apologetic either.
"Go outside with the others. We will talk later.", the Healer said calmly, standing up.
The boy looked at Monica with a big mischievous grin as if he knew something she didn't and ran out, closing the door behind him. The former double-agent smiled a little, amused - the first real smile in the longest time. She looked at Scully when the Healer talked to her, coming closer.
"I'm glad to see you back, Monica.", she paused for a moment, as if she was going to say something but changed her mind in the end. "How are you feeling now?"
"I'm... very good, actually. No pains. Only the feeling I was dragged around and chewed by a dragon, but other than that I am okay." she said, her young girl-like voice a little hoarse.
Scully examined Reyes' eyes under the light of her wand and then looked at her wounds - or where they should have been, for there was nothing more than some very faint lines on her skin; the burnt marks from other offensive spells were the first to disappear, a day before.
The Healer's expression was odd, one Reyes couldn't precise for certain.
"Is anything wrong?"
"Hm? Oh, no. Everything is fine… very fine, actually... Hm. Your wounds healed very quickly, your reflexes are good.", she added, her voice coming out as if she was thinking about the things she listed as she spoke. "You are feeling so tired because you were laid down for a long time. But take it easy for now, let's stay on the safe side."
"Good." Monica said, sitting up immediately, but slowly, as her body seemed unaccustomed to movements. Seeing she showed a little hesitation when moving her right arm, Scully conjured her a sling that held her arm close to her body, just in case.
"How long have I been out?"
"Four days."
The Auror let out a worried sigh, feeling the weight of the precious time running away between her fingers.
"Dana, I need to tell you all about the facility, as soon as possible. I have some disturbing news about that place."
The Healer heard the urgency in Reyes' words. That was bad, very bad - as if things weren't already bad enough.
"I will gather the others. Wait here, I don't think you should walk around yet."
With Scully, the Mulder siblings and the Lone Wanderers surrounding her bed, Reyes started to tell them her mission from the very beginning.
"After I left our meeting that night, I knew I should take advantage of my desertion and disappearance for something and I knew what I could do about it. Mr Skinner and I went to the hideout place we set for me seven years ago before I had even entered the Purity Control, and I told him what I wanted to do. The plan was very clear in my head: with Spender's Floo Call on the night Samantha here showed up in their radars for the first time in months, I knew Ostlehoff was someone important in the inner circles of the Purity Control, I just had to find out what exactly was his role in it. That's why I asked Mr Skinner to find him for me - I would do that myself, but I was already compromised. I would take this huge mistake Spender committed to another level. Skinner found him, and I immediately went after Ostlehoff in his home."
She spoke as if she was merely talking about the weather, as if taking people hostage was just another day in her life - which possibly had actually been up to that moment, the others had thought. But no one said anything and just let Reyes tell her story.
"I made him speak up with Veritaserum." and then, as if guessing everyone's thoughts a moment before, she added. "I still have some ounce of decency in me, I wouldn't Cruciatus the man for that, even if he actually deserves it. Not that time, not anyone, ever again."
Reyes paused for a second, a second where Sam looked at the woman with mixed feelings.
People who tortured and made other people do things against their will would always have a special place in her mind to be hated with all the force of her being. But the youngest Mulder could see and feel Reyes clearly had no pride at all of any of that. Sam decided she would just watch and wait to see what her own conclusions about the former double-agent would be in the end.
"I made him talk: about his role in the Purity Control, about his work, about himself, his own life and ways. I had to learn how to be him the best I could and I had so little time on me, so I did my best to listen. I asked him about the facility's exact location, how to get there, and I asked more and where he kept his secrets every night I returned to the hideout. After a couple of days of questioning, I thought it would be enough to set my plan in motion, also because Ostlehoff couldn't just stay out of the perimeters any longer, it would be highly suspicious and I wanted everything but attract attention to him. I took Polyjuice Potion with strands of his hair, taking some of it with me. Then, I Apparated to the facility."
"Wait, wait. Did you just said you Apparated to the facility?", Frohike asked.
"You have to Apparate inside a specific location, on the exact coordinates. If you show up an inch away, you will just end up in some random mountain in Russia."
"... That's it ?" Mulder inquired, shocked.
"It is uncannily simple, yes, but very effective because of the place the labs are located. That wouldn't work in the middle of a city or somewhere else with a lot of people passing by all and every day, there would always be someone stepping in by accident. Not to mention, the entrance is very well-guarded. If someone that shouldn't be there Apparates in, they are killed on the spot."
The group just looked at her, trying to process the information that they literally just had to know where to Apparate and how to neutralize the P.C. Agents and all of this would be finished. Sam felt an adrenaline rush under such thought.
"But how was Ostlehoff able to even tell you that?", Langly asked, coming a step closer to Monica, gesturing in an inquisitive manner. "I am sure the facility is also protected by magic secrecy restrictions, he wouldn't be able to even mention it to anyone else, even under torture or Veritaserum. The Fidelius or whatever is being used to hide the place wouldn't let him tell you how to get there."
Monica smirked a little before answering.
"Because he had told me about it before, remember? Through the Floo Call. It wasn't his intention, of course, but he did it nonetheless, and he did it on his own free will. I was sure the Veritaserum would be enough, because of that."
"And how did you escape?", Sam inquired.
The Auror looked at Sam for a moment and just like Skinner, realized that in front of her was Samantha Mulder, the girl who everyone thought was dead for over two decades. She was glad Sam looked so alert and so much healthier than her pictures in her Abductee files.
"I actually did the same thing you did when you escaped, Samantha.", she started, taking Sam aback with what she said. Reyes then told all the details about her flight, from the facility to the base of the mountain. "I just made sure to learn that place by heart. Apparating though the building and down the mountain gave me some advantage, but not much. They hit me with the Sectusempra a moment before the Portkey took me to Skinner's house."
"Sectusempra?", Scully asked, leaning forward. "Is that the weird Curse that hit you?"
"Yes. It came from Death Eater circles." Monica paused for a minute, the group holding grim expressions on their faces. She continued her story. "I was able to wear Ostlehoff's face for a week, but it was enough for me to discover… even more disturbing things about that place - like, how they capture people. I finally had access to that information, both in documentation and seeing it right in front of me. They use Star Elf magic to perform all the illusion of white light, the star-vessels and star-beings to their victims. It is all a big staging to diverge the attention towards the wrong places and to hide the captors - the Abduction Agents, as they are called in there. Their faces are hidden under Illusions so that's the last thing an Abductee see before losing their conscience. Most victims forget it altogether, but some might be able to remember some flashes from before and during the abduction and that's what is all for, a way of the P.C. to protect their people and the real nature of these experiments."
"Well, that's the confirmation and an explanation of something we were already sure of - that this is some sick experience made by men from the very start.", Byers added, placing his hand over the bed frame near Monica's feet.
"Exactly.", Monica confirmed. "The original Tunguska ship really is stored in there since its fall, that's how they keep gathering Alien magic even after all these years, the Star Elf resources are unlimited with that ship, artifacts and many other smaller ships that were captured throughout the years and brought over with the financial help of rich Blood-Purist families, such as the Malfoys, the Blacks and specially, the Kryceks."
"Of course that sewer rat have something to do with it, right", Mulder said.
Monica looked at him with a strange face Sam couldn't really read, but that made her brother's face darken with some kind of realization.
"Wait, you are saying there are civilians involved in this project?", Frohike asked in disbelief, almost as if he was guessing Mulder's thoughts.
"Sort of. For example, Walburga Black would more than gladly give generous donations to Spender so he could go on with his… research . Everyone knows how fond of the Dark Arts and how a Blood Purist she used to be, and she left a lot of money for the P.C. after her death to continue to fund their experiments. Evidently, Walburga Black and other patrons aren't given details of what is being done in the labs of Tunguska, they only knew that 'experiments were being done to improve Muggles' conditions'. Not that these funders would care anyway about all those Muggle children and innocent people being used as testing animals."
"May she be resting in hell.", Scully said, somber. The Healer never used her beliefs to condemn people, but that was an exception no one in that room would ever judge her for.
"However, the Krycek family, they are a different matter.", Monica continued. "They aren't just civilians, they are involved with the Purity Control since the very start of it. It was Alyosha Krycek, Alex's grandfather, who retrieved the vessel back in 1947 and made some kind of partnership with Spender to study it. Alyosha had the money and Spender had the power and the contacts to make it happen. And… that's pretty much how the Purity Control itself was born. Hell, it was the fucking portrait of Alyosha that snitched me. That's why Alex is involved, why he is a high rank in the P.C., and just one of many reasons why I wish I could kill him with my bare hands."
"You will have to get in the line.", Scully added, bitter.
"Anyway. I diverge." Monica said. "Speaking of horrible things, I was also present during the... tests they performed. It was worse than anything I've ever witnessed and I've seen really bad things. But there was something else that disturbed me even more, if that's even possible."
The entire group leaned forward a little, not wanting to miss any of her words.
"As Dana and Fox here know it already, I sometimes have Visions."
"Visions…?", Sam asked, not really sure of what that meant. She didn't remember reading or hearing about it anywhere.
"It is a much more complicated thing,", Monica explained, forgetting Sam probably didn't know a lot of things yet. "but it is basically the ability of seeing things other people can't. Messages from spirits, glimpses of the past, the future, or the present in other locations than the one we have access to. Sometimes, I just have feelingsabout something in particular, and rarely, I have full Visions about something, and that's what happened to me while I was there in the facility, two days before my escape."
"What was it, Reyes?", Mulder asked her.
"A strange person... it was a child. I couldn't tell their gender. I just know it was a someone looking up straight at me, who knew I wasn't who I seemed to be, and that was trying to warn me of something going on in that place. You see, Visions aren't clear most of the time, it is up to the seer to interpret them. But there is no way I cannot think that maybe…"
"That they are taking children in again.", Scully completed her sentence, her expression dark with the possibility.
"Yes. That was probably the soul of a child, already dead or almost, that was trying to warn me of it. But that's when it gets even stranger: Scott Westlehoff was the administrator of the Purity Control Facility, which means he knows everything that goes on in that place. Everything . I've never seen a child Abductee in there, and I made sure to watch all the tests, to see all the Abductees coming in, to look through the names and basic informations of all the people being held in there at this moment - the youngest one was around twenty two years old. And that's not all, Ostlehoff was under Veritaserum, he couldn't simply forget about telling me that. Unless…"
"Unless he couldn't tell you about it.", Mulder said, looking at her with bright eyes as his mind worked at full steam. He paced a little through the room, thinking of what Langly had asked her earlier. "Whatever is happening in there that might involve children is being protected by some kind of Secrecy Spell, separately ."
"Exactly.", Reyes confirmed her own line of thought. "My Vision featured a child Abductee in a long, dark corridor that seemed to have no end, almost like a tunnel. And it is not all. There was another odd thing, when I was on the run - I was supposed to blow up the South Wing wall and run straight down. But when I asked my location, my wand told me I was going southeast."
"Maybe you just ran to the wrong direction for a couple of steps.", suggested Byers, trying to look at the more obvious, simple explanation.
"No…. No, I don't think so.", Monica answered. "I think what I broke was actually the southeast wall of the Facility."
Sam looked at her, confused.
"What does that mean?"
"It means that the Facility has some sort of secret wing that messed up all the directions, a hidden section probably next to what I know as "South Wing" that cannot be seen or accessed by those who are not involved in the Secrecy Spell. The dark corridor behind the child I saw could be telling me precisely that. It all fits perfectly. Visions are a little vague as I said, but they are never lies. The child's presence was strong and full of sorrow - like dreams, the feelings we experience in a Vision are usually the key to its correct interpretation."
Scully shifted her weight from one foot to another after hearing that last sentence, feeling restless about her own dreams she couldn't interpret for the life of her. Maybe Monica would be able to help her on that later, she thought.
"But they had already got to the conclusion that testing on children is not working.", Langly said.
Frohike made a sound of disbelief.
"As if they care about kil… Abducting kids.", he added, correcting his sentence mid-way with a glance at Sam. "They only care about reaching their goal."
"I am afraid he is correct.", Monica said. "Based on what I've seen there, on what Ostlehoff told me, based on everything… My theory is that they are gathering children again, but doing something else to them. Another project, maybe, different from the called Ganymede Project, or the 'Abductees project'."
"What they could possibly be doing in there now…?", Scully asked, alarmed.
"I have no idea. We will only discover when we actually get there, I think, now that we know what to look for.", Reyes answered her.
"But this… new experiment is still hidden.", Mulder said, worried. "We will never find it, even if we vaguely know where to look for it. We aren't part of the secret."
Reyes turned to Scully, gesturing for Mulder to hold that thought for a moment.
"How long do you think I will need until I am fully recovered, or close to that?"
"Oh." the Healer said, uncrossing her arms, surprised by the other Auror's sudden question. "Your wounds have healed faster than I was predicting. Maybe a week, at the most, with the potions you are taking."
"A week will have to do.", the former double-agent said. And then turning to Mulder, she finally answered to his question, her hazel eyes shining with the light of a new plan. "I think I know exactly how to go around that."