Character: Dana Scully
Fandom: The X-files
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1828
Prompt: Picture of a straight jacket Wk 46
Setting: Second Season Episode: "Duane Berry"
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Duane Barry had proven more difficult to check up on than even Mulder had anticipated.
Scully had spent an hour tearing through the electronic FBI records on Barry, finding very little of any substantive use for Mulder down in Marion, Virginia. He had been former special agent in the 70's, with exemplary work, commendations and recommendations overflowing his files. He looked as if he were quickly on his way to a Field Office head, perhaps a Section Chief. But something had gone wrong, horribly wrong, and had derailed a career once so promising.
Sounded like someone else she knew, she though sadly as she tried to piece together the files from what she had. Sometime in 1982 there was an incident, it wasn't detailed in his file, and no one thought to elaborate on it. Shortly after the FBI had released Barry with his full pension, something having to do with mental stresses due to work. Then where was nothing till a missing persons report showed up in his file from 1985, from Pulaski, Virginia. It had been placed and signed off by Barry's wife, when he had gone missing for three weeks without a word.
Ex-wife, she amended, as she perused through court records. Barry's wife divorced him later that year, sighting "irreconcilable differences", and Scully could only surmise it stemmed from the one psychotic episode she had managed to discover. In the files of the Pulaski police she found the incident referred to so off handedly by the news reporters, Barry kidnapping his next-door-neighbor in an effort to take him somewhere. It never panned out, whatever the plan, as Barry had been captured, the neighbor released, and Barry sent to the Davis County facility from which he had escaped. End of story, nothing about it smacked of any of the alien abduction cases Mulder had collected over the years, the ones that Scully had so assiduously read over in there spare moments in the basement office.
Her hand stretched to her phone as she continued perusing the files, her fingers dialing a number that she hated to admit had become very familiar to her. There wasn't even a ring at the other end of the line, only a click as Frohike answered with a jovial, "Agent Scully, to what do I owe this surprise, personal call?"
She knew that Frohike was deliberately trying to taunt Langley, but for once the blonde man was silent.
"Not a social call, Frohike, its another favor."
"It's never a favor for you, Agent Scully," Frohike practically purred. Scully rolled her eyes and felt her mouth tug up in a smirk, despite herself.
"I need some information on a former FBI agent, Duane Barry."
"Barry…he's the guy they are talking about on TV right now," Frohike was intrigued.
"That's the one."
"He's ex-FBI is he? TV isn't mentioning that."
"No, Mulder found that out," Scully admitted glancing back to the television in the corner, still flickering with Duane Barry and his hostages. "He's down there in Marion with the negotiation team."
"Shit," Frohike breathed. "Why would they call Mulder in?"
"Why would you think," Scully replied. "Listen, I need to see if you an access any psychological evaluation records, anything that might indicate why it is this guy think he's an alien abductee."
"They don't have that in his FBI file?"
"They've taken it out," Scully frowned at Barry's incomplete records, scrolling through them quickly. "Someone didn't want anyone to know about them." That way, she realized, if Barry ever did do something like he pulled in Marion, the FBI had plausible deniability about what would prompt such and action from one of there former own.
"I got something," Frohike mumbled. "Says here that Barry was discharged from the Bureau in '82."
"Yeah, all I got is that he failed a psych evaluation," Scully flipped to the record about his discharge.
"Worse than that," Frohike whistled low under his breath. "In '82 he was shot while on a case, drug stake out. Shot by his own gun. Caused severe brain damage, cut through his bilateral frontal lobes. Does not sound like a good day at the office."
Scully stopped, perfectly still in front of her computer, as her mouth went suddenly very dry. "What did you say?"
"Man was shot in the line of duty, and it damaged his brain. Hell of a way for the FBI to treat a guy who gave up so much," Frohike grumbled.
"Can you fax me a copy of those medical reports," Scully reached slowly over to her fax machine, turning it on. "As soon as you can. I want to see what his medical file says."
"Sure thing," she could hear him clicking buttons as her fax machine beeped into life beside her. The modem it was connected to chirped and chattered under her desk.
"Thanks, Frohike," she replied absently as the first paper slowly crept out of the printer.
"Mulder hasn't gotten himself into something he doesn't understand again, has he," Frohike sounded vaguely worried.
"I'm afraid he might have, but not by his own fault this time." Someone wasn't telling the whole story, even to the FBI agents on the ground, and Scully couldn't figure out why.
"Listen, I'll let you go for now, Frohike, I'll get back to you later." She clicked off the phone absently as she reached for the sheets, hot out of the machine, her eyes scanning through the blurry facsimiles as she finally realized just how uninformed the team on the ground in Marion was.
"Damn it," she breathed, reaching for the phone to call Mulder, staring at the diagnosis report. As it had when she tried to call earlier, it went straight to his voice mail. Damn it all to hell, she breathed as she slammed her receiver back down, why in the hell did the man carry a cell phone if he never had it on. Swearing loudly, she stared at the television screen, which happened to have panned on the car that Mulder and Krycek arrived in earlier that evening.
She reached for the receiver again and dialed for the switchboard operator, waiting for the woman's professional voice to come on the other line. "This is Agent Scully, I have information for the team down in Marion, Virginia, on the Duane Barry case. Is there a way you can patch me through to them."
"One moment, Agent Scully," the woman murmured, as for several heartbeats she waited till a new voice sounded on the end of the line.
"This is Branson." It was a masculine voice, but neither it, nor the name he mentioned sounded in the least way familiar to Scully.
"This is Agent Dana Scully up in Quantico. I was asked by Agent Mulder to look up information on the mental history of Duane Barry. I need to speak to someone in charge right now about this case."
"Excuse me," the man asked, irritable.
Holy hell, she bit her lip, now she had to deal with idiots as well. "This is the FBI negotiation team in Marion, correct?" She could feel her voice take on the quality of hardening steel as the man at the other end babbled for a moment.
"Yeah, just a moment," she could hear him remove the phone receiver from his ear and call into the general room, wherever it was. "Who here can talk to an Agent Scully?"
She counted to ten as there was a general shuffling in the room, and someone else took the receiver.
"Agent Scully, it's Alex Krycek."
"Where's Mulder," she demanded. Why wasn't he answering his own phone?
Krycek hesitated for the briefest of seconds. "He traded himself for one of the hostages."
She was stunned in that moment her heart didn't explode. "What," she barked, staring wildly back at the television as if looking towards it for an explanation.
"He's in with Duane Barry," Krycek offered feebly.
Of course, she wanted to spit out, because Mulder believes the madman was an alien abudctee. He would move heaven and earth to get Duane Barry out of that situation alive and in one piece so he could interview him, extract his information on his experiences. Mulder, and for that matter the entire team in Marion, had no way of knowing the truth about what was really wrong with Duane Barry, because someone had gone to great lengths to disguise it.
"You've got to get him out of there," she ordered, as in her email a message from Frohike popped up. She clicked it open to find an attachment to it, a file with 3-D images of Barry's brain. She swallowed hard against the fear that rose in her throat as the images confirmed what she already knew. Damn it all.
"Well, they're working on it," Krycek tried to assure her reasonably. But Scully was in no mood for platitudes, reasonable or not.
"No, you've got to get him out of there now, or he's going to be killed!" She stared in fascination at the bullet wound that entered through one frontal lobe of Barry's brain, and exited through the other.
"How can you be sure?"
Why was it Krycek needed her to convince him, she wondered angrily, resisting the urge to bite the younger agents head off. "Because Duane Barry is not what Mulder thinks he is." He isn't the man any of you think he is. "Look, who's in charge on the ground there?"
"Agent Kazdin, but she's busy with Mulder at the moment."
"Never mind I'll fly down there. I'll catch a flight down to Roanoke and will be there within two hours."
"Agent Scully, I don't know if that's necessary."
"How much medical training do you have, Agent Krycek," she retorted, already turning off her television and grabbing her things. "This man suffers from a rare condition brought on by an accident. He has no concept of right or wrong now, no moral center what so ever. He will lie, create delusions, perhaps even believe those delusions. But they aren't real." And Mulder would have no way of knowing that.
Krycek was silent on his end of the line for a long moment. "Look, I can have Kazdin call you about this, you don't need to…"
"To late," she clicked off her computer. "I'll see you in an hour, Krycek."
"Scully, listen," he began, but she cut him off, clicking the phone into it's cradle, and staring at the 3D image on the screen in front of her.
"Mulder, just what the hell have you gotten yourself into this time," she frowned, at the 3D image, as frightening thoughts of Mulder trying to reason with Duane Barry's damaged mind floated through her mind. Without a word, she gathered the paperwork Frohike had sent her, her purse, and her keys and hurried out of the door.