Title: The Answer Is Out There
Disclaimer: I have just three words for you guys and gals out there: THEY'RE
NOT MINE!!!!!!
Ch.6
Scully checked her watch for the third time in two minutes. It was still only about ten minutes to midnight. The stakeout had been a complete waste of time. When Mulder got back, she planned to give him the "I told you so" of a lifetime. For once, she was unconcerned about a case. The Anderson case was too much of a riddle, and it was a nonsense riddle. Scully had an idea that this enigma was on par with "why is a raven like a writing desk?" and that they were about just as likely to find the answer to it as Alice had been.1
To make matters worse, her brain had been drumming against her skull all evening. The steady pounding often synchronized itself to the heavy bass of the music pouring out from the club across the street. Every time she checked her watch, Scully took the opportunity to count backwards to determine when she could again take aspirin for her headache. In the back of her mind, the voice of her medical knowledge was piping up about the possibility of her cancer being responsible. Either that, or the pain was a sign of a major complication, perhaps even a new growth or tumor. For most of the evening, she had been able to repress that more depressing thought, but as the night wore on, and her headache made its presence felt, depression was easy to sink into.
This was the last club, at least. They had purposely saved this one for last. Mulder had suggested and she had agreed that they should visit the other bars and clubs before returning to the place where they had first met Neo and Trinity. Scully kept hoping Mulder would give up, come out, and then they could go. But no, he had stayed for an hour now, and she had yet to see his face appear in the doorway since it first disappeared from her line of sight.
Maybe they were going about this the wrong way. Scully was convinced that Neo had only shown because he was curious about them snooping around, not due to any real preference for this nightspot. The way to attract his attention, therefore, would be to interest him in what they might have to say. Not that Mulder had argued against her point, but instead he had only suggested that coming back would peak their subject's interest.
Now, all she wanted was to go back to the motel and sleep off her headache. Ever since arriving in Chicago, Scully had been battling against her own mind for dominance over her thoughts. When her headache was too great, she couldn't concentrate on the case, only the pain. Mostly, she had been cheating by ingesting the maximum number of aspirins she could safely have each day. Something about this case was just aggravating the pain. As best as Scully could figure, the dizzying contradictions of evidence and logic were at fault. She shut down that train of thought before it could run away with her conscious mind and only augment the spikes of pain.
Suddenly, Scully sat straight up. Neo was standing in the middle of the street, oblivious to the cars swirling around on either side as he stared fixedly at Scully in her car. He smiled and beckoned her with one finger. Scully pulled her weapon from its holster and opened the door. She kept the sleeve of her khaki coat covering the gun so as not to alarm any bystanders. Neo didn't move as she walked out where he stood.
"Hey there." Neo kept his rather dazzling smile as she made a point of clicking the safety off her weapon. "Figures," Neo sighed, amused by her weak attempt at taking charge. Scully was unfazed by his reaction and lifted her arm to keep the weapon trained on his knee.
"We've been looking for you, Mr. Anderson." He flinched at her words but remained silent, waiting for her to finish. "I believe you should come with me. I prefer you did so quietly, and you will only embarrass yourself if you make a scene." Neo mumbled something as he looked away, searching, perhaps, for some particular visage in the crowd. "What was that?"
"I said, 'it wouldn't have been me who would have been embarrassed.' And do you think you could drop the 'Anderson'? No living person calls me that," Neo turned away again as he muttered under his breath "any more." Scully barely caught the words.
"That's not important right now. You will come with me, or I will have to restrain you, is that clear?" Neo's smile brightened as he dropped his gaze to Scully's face. Considering her relatively diminutive stature, Neo was unimpressed by the threat, and it showed. Refusing to let his arrogant assurance sway her, Scully grabbed him by the arm and began to pull him to the car. Neo gave no resistance and followed her calmly across the street.
Scully took out the handcuffs under the front seat and proceeded to cuff Neo's wrist to the door of the car. No objection, physical or verbal, was offered in response. Satisfied that Neo wasn't going to run, Scully backed away to a safe distance and fished for her cell phone. It wasn't it any of her pockets. She double-checked and still came up empty.
"Looking for this?" Neo shook his arm and her phone dropped into his hand. Scully reached to take the proffered item, but Neo withdrew his hand a second before she had it. "Oops, too slow, Miss Scully." Bristling at the 'miss' instead of 'agent' and the stupid trick for which she had fallen, Scully, impatient and cranky, drew her weapon's sites on his chest.
"We don't have time for this. Give it to me." Neo shook his head, and in a shiver of his hand, the phone disappeared into the folds of his coat.
"If you want this, then you have to earn it, Miss Scully."
"That's 'Agent' Scully, and I do not play games with terrorists." A sneer of disgust crept onto Neo's handsome features.
"I won't call you what you aren't. Okay if I call you just Scully?" Sighing, she nodded. If it would make this go faster... "Fine then, but you still have to, what was that you said, 'play games with terrorists'?" Scully was about to lose it. She rubbed her head and fought the urge to shoot him. The pressure inside her head was building against the walls she had placed against it.
"That must be some headache." Scully snapped to attention at Neo's words. They had sounded distant and with good reason. Neo was now at the end of the block, fifty feet away from her rental car. His words hadn't been shouted, as far as she could tell, but they weren't those of a man standing next to her either. How had he escaped the cuffs? She glanced sideways to see the silver pair of restraints dangling on the door. Her attention returned to Neo, still standing on the corner. One more mischievous smile and he turned and began to run.
With no hesitation, Scully darted after him. He was fast, but she managed to keep up. Despite his healthy pace, Scully could tell that he was not going at his top speed. He wanted her to follow. That thought nearly stopped her in her tracks, making her suspicious of a trap, but the familiar drive to find the elusive answers, to catch that mysterious villain, drove her on. After about ten blocks, she saw Neo come to a slower jog and then stop.
"Freeze!" Scully pointed her gun at him as she caught up. Neo smiled, letting her approach. He didn't seem winded or tired. "I don't know what you were trying to prove with that stunt, but I've had enough. You are coming with me, now."
"No, I can't." Scully snorted at the comment.
"You can't? Pardon me for language unbecoming, but bullshit." Once more, she reached to grab him by the arm. This time, Neo shrugged off her hold, grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her back. The gun was in that hand, leaving her helpless to use it.
"Look at this building, Scully. What do you see?" Humoring her captor's whim seemed like the safest policy. Her eyes roamed over every detail, absorbing the address on the glass doors, the shabby exterior, and the dull light coming from an upstairs window. "Tell me what you see."
"115 Lake Avenue." Neo nodded and released her arm. Scully turned, depositing the gun into her other hand while she stretched the kinks out of her sore arm. "What is all this about?"
"This is where I am. You can come find me here later." If this man had ever had her at a loss before, Scully wouldn't have remembered it; this time was too puzzling for her to remember any others.
"What the hell are you talking about? I'm here now. Why don't I find you now?" Chuckling, Neo fished into his coat and retrieved a small silver box. Carefully, he opened it and revealed its contents to Scully by dumping them into his hand. There were blue liquid capsules, about six or so, resting in his hand now. They looked like the cold and flu pills some companies sold. "What are those?"
"Blue pills, and that's all I know. I'm still a little new at this myself." Neo gave her a sheepish smile, his cheeks tinting slightly at the admission of naïveté. "Basically, they're like sleeping pills, Scully, but you've already found that out." Scully could feel her windpipe contract with a sudden terror. Had she been drugged? "You can relax. The pill you took is perfectly harmless. How I managed to get it to you is irrelevant."
"I don't understand."
"You're asleep, Scully. I brought you here to show this place. I know that you want to talk to me, but there is no really secure way for us to do that at this time, not without risking both of our lives."
"Right now, I'm asleep?" Neo nodded and allowed time for the thought to sink in. "How do I wake up?" Neo gave her a reassuring and enigmatic smile.
"I can wake you up any time, not to worry. Besides, your partner is going to be looking for you. Just make sure you remember this, okay? It will save me a lot of trouble if I don't have to get you here again this way." Scully nodded, repeated the street address of the building as the picture began to swirl all around her. Neo faded away into a black nothingness.
It took her a moment to realize the blackness was only the inside of her eyelids. A knock on the window encouraged her to open them. It was Mulder.
"Great job you're doing there. Way to keep a keen eye out, Scully." Unconsciously, Scully moved to rub her forehead. She was in no mood for this banter, but at least she could attribute any snide remark to her headache. Then she realized that her head wasn't pounding any longer. She sat in silence as Mulder walked over to the passenger's side. Hopping in, he sighed and belted himself into the seat.
"No luck tonight, but there's always tomorrow...Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you tomorrow..." And for the rest of the car ride home, Scully was subjected to Mulder humming songs from Annie.
*******************
"And how did you say you got this address? And what is it, by the way?" Mulder crossed his arms and stared in awe of his newly secretive partner. Scully had woken up that morning, bright and early, and had forced him to do the same. Mulder had watched her packing and preparing the rental car while he ate breakfast. All she would tell him was that she had gotten an address on Neo and possibly his cohorts. Mulder hadn't asked questions until they were underway, but, as he was stuck in traffic once more, his curiosity had gotten the better of him.
"I was told not to tell...in a way. It seemed important that I didn't, so I won't. Period. New subject, Mulder." Scully leaned back and stretched, twisting to work out the stiffness in her back between various spurts of movement in the traffic. Mulder resigned himself to defeat and did as she suggested. He didn't want to talk about the case, but it was burdening his mind. Always one to find the humor in any circumstance, Mulder decided on an appropriately silly and possibly relevant question to pose to Scully.
"Do you think Neo and Trinity are in some kind of relationship?" Scully might have slammed on the breaks, so great was her surprise, if her foot hadn't been there already.
"What brought that up?" Mulder shrugged.
"I dunno, but do you?" Scully scratched her temple and sighed. She thought about the possibility for a moment. From their brief encounter with the pair, all Scully could hypothesize was that they were partners, part of a team. Beyond that, who knew?
"I didn't get that feeling, Mulder. They're professionals, and I don't think that real pros would encourage that kind of behavior between two people working together in close quarters. I really don't know. What do you think?" Mulder smiled and stared blankly out the window.
"I think they are."
"What makes you say that?"
"Well for one thing, most terrorists are extremely ugly. You've seen their pictures at the office in Washington, so you know what I'm talking about. It just seems to me that if I were a handsome terrorist that I would try to find one of the few pretty terrorists to fool around with."
"I see," Scully smiled, a sarcastic grin forming on her lips. "So you assume because Neo and Trinity are among that rare breed of good-looking terrorist that they must be an item. I'm sure that makes sense on your planet, Mulder." Mulder gave a good-natured guffaw at that.
"You don't think so?"
"Mulder, I won't deny that Neo is a very handsome man, and that Trinity is very pretty..."
"Pretty? Try gorgeous. If she wasn't a terrorist, she would be a model." Scully rolled her eyes largely for her partner's benefit.
"Alright, alright. So they both belong on the cover of magazines, big deal. The beautiful people don't always inbreed." Mulder continued to chuckle.
"Scully, you're in rare form today. I've never heard you be funnier than me." Scully laughed, flipping her hair. "Okay, okay, but it was a valid question." Scully threw him a look. "No, I'm serious. It helps us to analyze our subject." Mulder searched for the exact words from his criminal psychology textbook. "It is important to research your subject's relationships with his or her immediate family, significant others, and friends. Give or take a few words, that's about the long and short of it." Scully thought about it for a minute.
"Okay, so you've got a point. And while we're on the subject," Scully turned her head to maneuver into another lane, interrupting her train of thought. "Do you think that's how she pulled him into all this?" This time it was Mulder's turn to be introspective.
"Could be, but there are other reasons, Scully."
"Yes, but why might Trinity be so interested in Neo? If it has to be more than sex, that is."
"He's a computer criminal, a hacker. So's Trinity." Scully felt the urge to slap her partner across the forehead. She settled for knocking him on the side of the head.
"Hello, anyone there? Mulder, tell me, just estimate if you will, how many people have done the same things as Neo has or have done worse? What makes him so special?"
"Scully, I didn't think it was possible, but you have just asked yet another currently unanswerable question. Thanks a whole lot." Both of them started to laugh as Scully finally pulled off Lakeside Drive into the heart of the city. Once on Lake, she counted down the numbers until she reached 115. Mulder watched his partner freeze as she stared up at the shabby hotel. The strange terror on her face was not attributable to real fear, just paranoia...maybe. Scully whispered something barely audible. Mulder wasn't sure, but it sounded like "Déjà vu."
End of Chapter 6
Footnote #1: This riddle is taken from Alice In Wonderland, just in
case you didn't know.