Soda Bomb
(Scene from Fight The Future) - Federal Building, Dallas, Texas
"Scully."
"Scully, I found the bomb."
"You're funny. Where are you, Mulder?"
"I'm in the vending room."
"Is that you pounding?"
"Yeah, you gotta get somebody to open that door."
"Nice try, Mulder."
"Look, Scully, it's in the soda machine, you've got about fourteen minutes to evacuate this building."
"Come on, Mulder…"
"Thirteen fifty-six, thirteen fifty-four, thirteen fifty-two, thirteen fifty. You see a pattern emerging here, Scully?"
"Hold on, Mulder, I'm gonna get you out of there."
13:37
And now, what?
What are you supposed to do when you're stuck in a vending room that contains a bomb meant to destroy an entire building? Maybe there's hope, maybe not the entire building, he's not an expert. Whatever, it will destroy this entire fucking vending room. And if he's in, it won't be good for him. Spooky Mulder would end up badly, very badly.
Fate had him big time. His own cursed fate. His damned guts that give him hunches. Big hunches leading him straight into trouble.
What's the crap he's said to Scully minutes ago?
'If we fail to anticipate the unforeseen or expect the unexpected in a universe of infinite possibilities, we may find ourselves at the mercy of anyone or anything that cannot be programmed, categorized or easily referenced.'
And then? He hasn't foreseen being at the mercy of a programmed bomb. He has failed to categorize the guy he ran into minutes ago as a bad guy.
That's all, folks. Always jumping happily in the big hole full of crap, and digging even deeper with a golden shovel.
'Well, maybe not a shovel. Maybe a backhoe.' Mulder smiles, remembering Scully's words. Always telling the truth, his truth.
He realizes that he's standing against the door, forehead and palms resting on the panel. He's unconsciously trying to escape, to leave this doomed room. He's trying to reach Scully through this damn closed door.
For a second he's tempted to yell, to call her name out. Loud and clear. For her to know he's still here. It's just a reflex. A selfish and stupid one. Scully is nearby, doing whatever she has to do, perfectly aware he's locked in the room. He can't distract her from her duty.
He just has to wait. And to let his mind wander. Not sure it's good, but what else he can do?
12:35
One minute already gone. He has quickly checked the timer, stepping toward the machine and stretching his neck. Then he has moved backwards, far away from the bomb, the closest he can to Scully.
He's now sitting on the floor, his back against the door.
He can hear movements in the building. Evacuation of hundreds -thousands?- of people. At least, they are saving lives. At least, Scully is currently saving lives.
That's always her first concern. Saving lives, if not finding the truth.
If the bomb explodes on him, Scully will continue to save lives. She will even be able to settle down, have a life, quit the basement, practice medicine and save even more lives. Meet a surgeon that would love her, and then have kids, a bunch of normal human kids -his or adopted, she would take any and love them equally.
He hopes the lucky guy would make her laugh. Often. More than he's been able to do. Because her laugh is pure and delight and heaven. And she would make pranks in return and she would have the guy big time. Because when darkness is not surrounding her, she's just pure delight and bright heaven.
He hopes the lucky guy would know how to argue and stimulate her intellect. That he would feed her with theories. Keep her alive. Breathe sane challenges into her brain.
Mulder closes his eyes. Scully's face pops up. Wrong, her face has been there since he's almost cried her name. Only shadowed by the plain light of the room.
Breathe his heart into her mouth. Keep her alive under his touch. Feed her with his love. Stimulate her perfect petite body.
It's not the lucky guy who acts like that as he closes his eyes. It's himself. Like when he's on his couch and indulge in reveries involving Scully.
Is it bad to think of her like that? In a moment like that?
He stands up, checks the timer.
11:36
Pacing the room, Mulder wipes sweat from his front with one hand.
It's hot, too hot in here, and it's getting hotter and hotter as seconds are passing.
A sense of déjà vu makes him squeeze his neck. Definitely no worm here but he wouldn't mind Scully being here with him, checking his neck and state of mind with her sweet hands and her expert eyes.
Back then in the Arctic, he had felt safe in the closet, only worrying about Scully out with the others. Now, he's feeling scared as hell, but he's so glad she's out and not stuck with him. She will do what she's good at. Watching his back and eventually taking care of him.
How many times has she saved his ass? A thousand times over. He owes her so much.
Tick-Tick. Stuck in a train with a timer and a bomb and a syndicate pawn. Then Scully making a hell of a use of his dumb alien VHS.
Tick-Tick. Stuck and tied in the den of an AI ready to launch a missile from space and burn his brain. Then Scully kicking asses of pervy nurses and extracting him from the hellish virtual world.
Tick-Tick. One single bullet tickling in the magazine, his brain tied and mesmerized by the pusher. Then Scully pulling the alarm and breaking the fucking spell.
Tick-Tick. Sound of clawed legs sticking on the ceiling while being stuck and strapped in a bed hospital. Then Scully rushing into the room and firing his gun into the brain zombifier.
Scully believing him and willing to see. His one in five billion.
Tick-Tick. His one fighting the timer to save him.
Tick-Tick. This timer sucks. And he's still stuck in the hotter vending room.
10:40
He has to forget about the timer. It's not good for him.
He picks up his phone, checks the screen. No news from Scully. Should he call her? No, it wouldn't be good for her. She ought to remain focused on her task.
Diving his hands in his side pockets, he finds some sunflower seeds.
At least he can find comfort in his comfort seeds. Surely, it's not reasonable, he's now so thirsty and cannot even have a soda. There's a coffee machine, though. Coffee wouldn't be a good idea. He's already too edgy. He has to keep his panic face down.
Mulder leans against one of the circular counter-height tables in the back, then drops all the seeds he finds in his pockets. That's not much, but he can do with that for a while.
There's another vending machine. On the right side of the soda bomb. Full of pastries. Big, colored, creamy, fatty pastries. Maybe he should indulge in sweetness. Level up his blood sugar till enter in a sugary comatose.
No, he's not a straight sweet tooth. He likes simplicity and subtlety. Salty, nutty tastes. Rolling, cracking, toying with the item and not wolfing it. Sunflower seeds are what he needs.
He puts one in his mouth and closes his eyes.
Scully's face is still there, close-up on her lips. Simple, subtle, salty. Rolling, toying, licking. Her lips, her mouth.
He reopens his eyes and spills out an emptied shell at his feet.
Goddammit, where's the water in this room? He won't survive without water.
Don't close your eyes, that's all.
Eat your sunflower seeds, and wait.
9:52
No more sunflower seeds.
He looks down at his feet, observes the abandoned shells on the floor.
Scully would roll her eyes if she were there. He knows he can be gross. But there's a bomb in that room, so, who cares?
Maybe he could empty his mind, and wait.
.
.
.
.
He's not good at this game.
Maybe he could count out loud.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one…
Really? No. He can't do that either.
He stretches his neck, narrows his sight. Nine minutes or so left on this damn timer?
Why he can't just lose nine minutes? Be abducted by an alien ship right now?
Has he really had to endure those nine minutes, seconds by seconds, knowing he will explode in the end?
8:52
Where should he stand when it explodes? Just facing the bomb a feet away? Could he hide behind the coffee machine and be preserved? In the far corner?
No way to escape death and destruction. No way to be preserved. He will be blown up in hundreds of pieces.
Not that it would matter for him. In one piece or hundreds, he will be dead. And the quicker, the better.
It would matter for his mom, though. She would want to bury her remaining children in one single piece. She would want to grieve over a body and a face she recognizes. She won't bear another loss of a child without a body to grasp one last time.
Images of the Flight 549 crash site resurface. He remembers the painstaking task he and Scully have participated in, spotting and flagging body parts amidst debris and chaos. Searching traces of Max. A heartbreaking nightmare.
What would Scully do? Painstakingly looking for every bit of his flesh among the vestiges of the vending room. Flagging teeth and fingers, putting them in labeled plastic bags. Instead of slicing and dicing his corpse, she would reconstruct a vague shape, a Frankenstein-like monster. He'd become Spooky Mulder for good.
He hopes she won't do that. Even so, she would be affected too, like mom. As if mourning Emily hasn't been hard enough for her. As if burying a sandy chimera hasn't left an open wound in her heart.
Maggie will be there to comfort her and hug her. To wipe her tears, to make her let it go.
He also counts on Skinner to take the sense of survivor-guilt off her, and to make her leave the basement office. And on The Lone Gunmen to bring fun and craziness to her life for a while.
He hopes they will be fine. All of them.
7:42
Mulder stands still, facing now the open soda machine displaying the monster within. Trying not to be frightened by the timer. Nor the bomb.
He can face monsters and death. He already has.
Of course, he's scared. But he's not panicking. He can be brave. Die with dignity.
Not long ago, death was just behind him, a gun pointed to the back of his head as he was on his knees. He was certain to be executed. He didn't beg for his life. He didn't flinch.
Inside, he was just angry. Disappointed. Almost amused by the irony of the situation. His obsession and reputation as a conspiracist digger hadn't led him to an alien ship and CSM's pawns, but straight into a terrorist militia. Far from a bread and butter X-File.
Though, if he had died then, he would be a hero now. He would have received the Memorial FBI Star. Mom would have had a corpse to grab one last time and a medal to help her grieve. Finally, not too bad an end.
But it isn't the best memory of his near-death experiences.
There's better ways to die. For instance, slowly drowning into a cold lethal sleep, peacefully, quietly, on board of a rotting USS Ardent. Dying within and because of an X-File phenomenon. That makes so much sense.
And, above all, dying alongside Scully who's taking care of him till the end. Not that he wants her to die. Obviously. But the idea of aging to death -even artificially- by her side, that's a comfortable thought. Nothing really bad or frightening can happen if she's there, by his side.
By his side as a partner, as a friend, as a medical doctor. As whatever she wants to be.
He takes it all. Always.
6:39
He doesn't have faith, nor believe in God. He doesn't believe in a paradise waiting for him. Nor Hell.
But he wants to believe he will meet Scully again in a new lifetime. If he dies today it's because their souls have still to learn. He's ready to learn more. Again and again. As long as they come back together. As long as they remain friends. As long as they evolve together. As long as their souls mate.
And there would be Samantha, too, in those other lives. He hopes. Catching up the time they lost. Taking time to know each other better. Having a chance to grow up together.
Meanwhile, while waiting for Scully to join him, he wouldn't mind his soul traveling through space and time as starlight. And on starry nights, Scully would stare at the sky and he would blink at her. She would know and recognize him, finding comfort and strength in that glimmering light.
He wonders if he could be as brave as Esther-Invisigoth who dared get rid of her corporeal being, making a huge leap of faith when she entered a complete virtual life. Living only through consciousness. Rejoining her beloved David, already gone.
Has she succeeded? Was it worth it?
He loves playing mind to mind with Scully, confronting their point of views, challenging each other's theories. But, hell, he's not sure he's ready to get rid of his body. Yet.
He needs Scully's stare, he needs her touch, he needs to hear the tip of her heels in the corridor, he needs to feel and smell her breath when she's close to him. He needs all his senses when it comes to her.
Maybe later. Maybe if they're old and their bodies begin to become useless, he would be able to jump happily into an AI. On condition that they both jump in sync, hands in hands.
5:42
Mulder squats down and keeps facing the monster. And the incorruptible timer. He wipes drops of sweat from his forehead and neck.
At some point he will have to call Scully. He will need fresh news. He will need to talk to her. He still doesn't want to call first. He knows he has to wait for her. Damn, it's so hard to resist.
How many more minutes can he let go like that? Torturing his mind with morbid thoughts?
At some point he will have to leave a message for Scully. If he has to die, he will have to tell her all the things he hasn't been able to tell her. Yet.
She deserves to know he's nothing without her. That he cannot continue without her by his side. That she has changed him for a better self. That he's dying without her.
He has experienced the loss of her for months. He has nearly lost her because of her cancer. He knows the weight of her absence, he knows what happens to him when he's alone. When she's not here to watch his back and to care for him, he ends up badly.
When and how can he tell her all of that? Now on a cell phone?
It's not fair. It has to be said face to face, eyes in the eyes.
It has to have the weight of his whole person. To be as honest and true as his soul. He's not sure it can be conveyed through a device.
If he could write down words, maybe it could work. He remembers the beautiful words Scully had written for him in her diary, when fighting her cancer. He had only read bits of them, but it had been sufficient to be connected with her heart.
He wishes he could do the same, right now. Write down on a sheet of paper his deeper thoughts about them. So she would know.
4:42
Mulder's phone rings, startling him.
He closes his eyes, exhales, then picks up his phone.
"Scully, you know that face I just showed you? I'm making it again," he says.
"Mulder, move away from the door, we're coming through it," she replies.