Disclaimers: See part 1.
Episodes Referenced in THIS section: Dreamland, Excelcius Dei (?), Dod
Kalm. All others cover multiple episodes.
Oracle, Pt. 2
"There were other kids in different divisions at Danning?" I asked. I had talked to the
detective and called Michelle with the news that her fiancée had died from an experiment gone
wrong at the company. I felt a little guilty not mentioning the girl, but since we couldn't
prove that she killed the doctors on purpose or accidentally, I decided to just leave it out.
At least now she has a reason, some closure. That's what's important when someone you know
dies too soon. I walked past the door just in time to hear Oracle's birth history and
subsequent revelation.
"No, not at Danning. They gathered us up, and just passed us around to different projects that
were willing to pay the money to use us. Military, private contractors, you name it. When
they were done, they shipped us back to the warehouse."
"Where is this warehouse?" I asked.
"The desert? The guards just called it the Happy Valley Nut House."
"These other kids, were they..." Agent Scully's voice trailed off.
"Oh, no, nothing like that. We were born, not made or hybridized. Most people, if they have
mental powers at all, focus on one area, like healing or mind reading. Every once in a while,
though, one of us comes along that has talent in all areas of the mind. There are still
strengths and weaknesses in different areas, but since it's easier to make twenty strong
psychics disappear than 100 weaker ones, we're the ones they're interested in collecting. They
give us drugs to shorten our mental reach and influence enough to where they can control us,"
Oracle said.
Agent Scully was sitting there, lapping up every lie this girl was dishing out. I hadn't seen
anything concrete so far that would make me believe that she could spontaneously heal or
predict the future, as her name seemed to suggest. "Wouldn't the drugs cut down on your
effectiveness?" I asked, with a healthy dose of skepticism.
She looked at me with slight indignation and said, "They're more interested in making sure we
don't rebel than they are in getting 100% accurate results. Is your head still bothering you?"
It was, as a matter of fact. Another battle scar to add to my collection. "Can I see it?" she
asked.
I came closer, unwrapped the bandages, and let her look. It was a large welt, with
deeper scrapes around the edges, but at least it hadn't needed stitching. She gently took my
head in her hands, her long fingers just touching the edges of the wound, palms spread flat
against the side of my head. I was about to protest, but then I felt the warmth coming out of
her hands. It was a slight tingle spreading across my scalp, strange, but not unpleasant. The
heat and tingle intensified, then her palms cooled to a normal body temperature. She let her
hands drop, and I went and checked my reflection in the mirror in the adjoining bathroom. The
wound wasn't completely healed over, but it was definitely improved. I came back out of the
bathroom and stared.
She shrugged and said, "Healing isn't one of my better areas. I was only at Danning because
all ones with the real talent were already loaned out. Prediction's my forte."
I was curious, but not willing to buy just yet. "All right, predict something for us.
Something simple that will happen in the next few minutes."
She said with a grin, "Your boss will come flying through that door." "What on earth would he
be doing in Omega?" Agent Scully asked incredulously.
Just then, Skinner came bursting in. His trench coat actually did resemble wings, flapping
behind him like that.
"What are you doing here, Sir?" Agent Scully asked.
"The scandal is all over the news. I knew that you two would be mixed up in it somehow."
"Sir," I started.
"No need. You did request formal assignment, although Kersh has been breathing down my neck
about "publicity hounds" in my division. You've been recalled to Washington. Social services
can take it from here."
"They can't", Oracle said, sitting on the edge of the bed.
"I'm afraid they have to," Skinner said kindly.
She then asked, "But if they ship me off to some foster home, how am I supposed to help you
find Agent Mulder?"
"You told her about Agent Mulder?" I demanded of Agent Scully.
"No..." she started, but I cut her off.
"The investigation is still ongoing. It's against Bureau policy to discuss case details with
outsiders," I snapped.
"I've known Agent Scully for years, Agent Doggett, and she would never undermine the progress
of an investigation," Skinner interjected.
Oracle was watching the exchange with a mixture of curiosity and amusement. "She didn't tell
me, I just knew," she said. Her voice wasn't much louder than her normal speaking tone, but it
sliced through the air like a knife, and all three of us stopped talking at once.
Agent Scully pushed me out of the way and said with a no nonsense attitude, "If you're lying,
so help me God..."
"No, I want to help. I may not be able to tell you everything you want to know, but I can at
the very least provide a place to start, which is more than you had before. After all, you
helped me, it's only fair." The honesty in her face and determination in her eyes touched me.\
I said gently, "We were just doing our job."
Agent Scully's mouth was set in a straight line; she was silently pleading with me not to
dissuade Oracle. Even if the kid could help as much as Agent Scully seemed to think, I didn't
want her to feel obligated in any way.
"So am I," Oracle answered, with a broad smile. "After all," she continued, "what's the point
of having talent if you don't plan on using it? It might as well not be there."
I took a glance at Skinner, who nodded once and started out the door. "We'd like to have your
assistance on this, sir," Agent Scully called after him.
Skinner stopped and looked at me. I could see Agent Scully and Oracle watching me out of the
corner of my eye After all, it was my case, my assignment, I was the one filling out the
report, ... I nodded and said, "Sure, why not?"
I called the airline and made arrangements to fly out the next day, while Oracle used a little
of her power on Agent Scully's injured knees. Dunbar came by to meet Oracle while I was on the
phone. She greeted him as "Matthew Dunbar, reader of Spiderman comics." I didn't hear most of
the conversation, but she obviously said something that embarrassed him, because his face was
beet red when I peeked in on them a few minutes later. I questioned him, and he muttered
something about not knowing she was a mind reader.
"I just asked him about some of his hobbies. They're quite unusual," she said innocently.
Dunbar's face flushed even more brightly, and although I was curious, something told me that I
wasn't going to find out from either of them in this lifetime.
"Agent Doggett," Skinner motioned me out into the hall. "I've made arrangements for Oracle to
be transported to be transported to a safe house."
"A safe house? Sir, Agent Scully and I are more than capable..." I protested. "Of what? Of
defending her against an enemy that you haven't seen and know next to nothing about? If what
she says about secret facilities is true, someone's going to come look for her."
"The less attention we draw to ourselves, the better. The more she feels she can trust us, the
better our chances of finding Agent Mulder. Besides, I think she's capable of handling
herself," I said, indicating Dunbar as he emerged from the room and retreated quickly down the
hall. Skinner looked puzzled. I peeked in and asked with as much joviality as someone like me
can muster, "You doing okay in here?"
"Yeah. I complimented him on his looks. He didn't seem to like it," Oracle answered,
shoveling another scoop of lime jello into her mouth. Any part in particular? She grinned
devilishly and took another spoonful.
"Did I miss something?" Skinner asked.
"It's not important," I said. Skinner gave us both a "they're all mad" look, but didn't say
another word.
Agent Scully, Skinner and I spent the rest of the day entertaining Oracle and discussing
business. Dunbar dropped by a few more times to see Oracle, and he seemed to be more
comfortable each time. They had a lot in common, judging from their animated conversation, but
Dunbar was still a little wary of her gifts. She promised to call him from D.C. every once in
a while. Skinner agreed to drop the safe house idea as long as two of the three of us agents
were with Oracle at all times. I was surprised that Skinner wanted any part of this, but I
guess he was just as concerned for Agent Mulder's welfare as Agent Scully was.
Oracle had never been to the airport before, much less on a plane. Agent Scully bought her
some sort of cinnamon candy for her to suck on, and started reading a paperback she had brought
while I kept an eye out for anyone suspicious. I'll say one thing for the kid; she makes
friends fast. In the space of an hour, she met everyone sitting in the waiting area for the
plane, and was cradling a five year old kid in her lap while chatting animatedly about skeeball
with the girl and her grandmother. Everyone coming over and telling me and Agent Scully what a
fine daughter we had. We thanked everyone graciously, but I was having a hard time suppressing
my urge to laugh, both at the mistake and Agent Scully's obvious discomfort. I know if a
teenager is traveling with two adults, it's automatically assumed that the people are related
in some way, but I mean come on. The kid looks more like Agent Mulder than she does like
either of us. Even then, it's not a very close resemblance. When it was finally time for us
to board, both the 5 year old and her grandmother looked very disappointed.
We gave Oracle the window seat, I took the aisle to stretch my legs, which left Agent Scully
with the center seat. She stood up on her tiptoes, trying to shove her bag into the overhead
compartment. I stood back up and helped her push it in, leaving her a space to squeeze by and
get into her seat.
"Thank you," she said as I sat back down.
"You're welcome, Agent," I said.
Oracle was staring out the window. "Did you know that they squish the bags on both ends before
they throw them onto the ramp?" she asked us.
"Can you see them?" I asked, leaning over Agent Scully. "No," Oracle said.
I took a glance behind me down the aisle. Skinner was seated back by the restrooms, acting as
a backup. He gave me the all clear signal. I nodded and faced forward again. After we took
off, (putting a look of sheer delight on Oracle's face,) the first part of the flight was
pretty uneventful. Agent Scully used too much force on a bag of peanuts, spilling the shells
down the front and inside her blouse. I didn't bother to help, all I would receive for my
trouble would be a glare or a broken arm. Oracle crawled over us to go use the bathroom,
stepping on our feet and elbowing me in the ribs. After she had been gone a few minutes, I
started to get worried.
Then I heard the crash of the food cart and Skinner snarl, "Agents!" Agent Scully and I
hurried back, and Skinner said, "Left side," indicating a bathroom door. It was locked, so we
forced it open. Oracle was standing on the toilet, gasping, with finger marks on her neck.
There was a man at least three times her size slumped unconscious on the floor.
*******************************************************************************************
I checked the man's pulse, which was still beating strong. Skinner and Doggett dragged the man
back to the service station where they could keep an eye on him, and I took Oracle back to her
seat.
"Do you know him?" I asked. She shook her head. How on earth could a 110 pound girl take down
a man that big?
"We called it slamming. It works like a stun gun, disrupts brain waves for a second and knocks
them out cold. Kind of like what you call pushing, but instead of forcing the mind to react,
it forces the mind not to react." I looked around. If one of them had gotten the drop on her,
could there be more? "I don't think so, but it's kind of hard to tell. There's so much
static going on," she said. I kept my eyes wide open the rest of the trip.
Once we landed, we were at a loss for what to do. I felt as though there was something we
forgot to do, something we should have picked up... It was nagging me, but I couldn't remember
what it was. Skinner wanted to secure Oracle and get some sleep, I wanted to get us something
to eat, Doggett wanted to get started on tracking down Mulder, and Oracle was flipping through
a brochure on the Smithsonian that she had pulled from a rack along the way.
"Why don't we go to Mulder's apartment, then eat, then sleep?" she suggested.
We got our cars from the airport lot and drove down to Alexandria, checking for cars following
us all the way. It felt so odd, staring at that building. It seemed so soulless without him
there, so filled with ghosts. We took the elevator up, stopped in front of Number 42, and I
fumbled around in my purse for the key. In the back of my mind, I kept expecting to see Mulder
open the door, wipe the sleep from his eyes, and murmur, "Hey, come on in."
The door opened silently and banged against the wall. The air was dark and still, except for
the light over the fish tank. Oracle brushed gently past me and took a look around. She
peeked in the kitchen, ran her fingers over the counter "you cleaned out his fridge, good for
you," peeked in the bathroom, "head and shoulders," looked in the bedroom, "a mirrored waterbed.
Isn't that kind of tacky? Especially with no water in it," and finally came to the living room
and sat on the couch. She ran her fingers along the edge and lay down. I smiled. She
succeeded in finding the only item in the apartment I considered uniquely Mulder's. As Mulder
would say, "Perfect for sleeping, eating, thinking," ... and watching those videos that aren't
yours. "Touche." Skinner just waited. Doggett started to look impatient.
"If you're in such an all fired hurry, why don't you do it?" Oracle said, glancing up at
Doggett.
"Believe me, I would if I could," Doggett said.
"You can, but you won't," she retorted.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"You said it yourself. You're the only one who can find Agent Mulder. All I can do is help
point the way."
"All you've given us so far is bullshit."
"Don't you get it? You're the one Agent Mulder's in contact with, not me."
"Why would Mulder be in contact with Doggett?" Skinner asked.
"Maybe he's the only one who would answer the phone," Oracle replied.
"This is crazy," Doggett insisted.
"What about that dream you had that night at the hotel? The one you wouldn't tell me about," I
pressed.
"I had a nightmare," Doggett growled.
"What dream?" Skinner asked.
"Doggett was calling my name, I went to go check on him, and he punched me," I said.
"You punched her?" Skinner asked, grabbing Doggett's shirt.
"I was asleep when I did it. I don't remember anything about what I was dreaming. It's over,
done with, it means nothing," Doggett snapped, pushing Skinner away.
"It means everything," Oracle insisted.
"Did you ever stop to consider that you might be wrong about me?" Doggett said, looming over
her with a scowl.
"Did you ever stop to consider that I might be right?" She stood up, came over next to Doggett,
and put her hand on his shoulder. "I know it's tough to swallow, but I sincerely believe that
Mulder is feeding you information. If you can learn how to access it, then the information
will lead you right to him. You won't have to do it alone; I'll be here to help you every step
of the way," she said.
"So will I," I said firmly. Skinner nodded.
Doggett looked torn, finally he nodded and said, "Yeah, alright."
We picked up dinner at McDonald's on the way home, and discussed tomorrow's plans. Oracle
believed it would be best to start the place where Doggett was most comfortable, so we agreed
to meet at his house first thing in the morning.
I agreed to keep Oracle for the night. I meant to offer her the bed, but when I got out of the
bathroom she had already retrieved a blanket and pillow from the closet and was fast asleep,
her shoes resting on top of the coffee table with her socks protruding out of them. I tucked
the blanket a little tighter around her, then I changed into my pajamas and slipped into bed.
I began to feel a real glimmer of hope, something I hadn't felt in more than six months. If
her belief was correct, and if Doggett cooperated, Mulder could be home by the time the baby
was born. I wonder if Doggett will stay with the X Files after we find Mulder. I think they
could become good friends, if they don't kill each other first. But then, any relationship
that includes Mulder is like that. How he manages to be such a jerk and make you love him all
the same is beyond me. I rolled over and put my arms around my pillow. Well, I'll have plenty
of time to consider it when he comes back.
I started awake. Something was pressed over my face, smothering me. I clawed
frantically, connecting with the arms holding the pillow (?) over my face, but the force didn't
diminish. I heard Oracle yell, and then felt a charge lash through my body. The pillow fell
away, and I could see Oracle in the doorway out of the corner of my eye and a man in dark
clothing near the foot of the bed, wearing some sort of ski mask. The man dove for her, but
she managed to sidestep him and drive her knee into his gut. Then somehow, she tripped, and
the man fled out the door. Oracle jumped to her feet and helped me up to a sitting position.
"Are you all right? I didn't mean to slam you too," she said.
"I think so. Did you get a good look at him?"
"No. I woke up when I sensed a stranger in the house. He was expecting you to be alone, that
much I got. But he was able to block my efforts to read him, and he was able to shunt off the
energy from the slam. He had to be one of the others."
"From the warehouse?"
"Yeah, but... I didn't recognize the aura. It's... it's like someone tried to overwrite and
did a piss poor job of it."
"How do you mean?"
"He's sensitive, but he was programmed to be aggressive. Some sort of soldier program, maybe?
The two parts are colliding head on almost constantly, and it's painful so he keeps trying to
reconcile them, and that makes him act in weird ways."
"Do you remember anyone who you thought was particularly sensitive? Someplace we could start
looking?"
"We were all sensitive, that's what gives us are ability, our feelings for other people. And
everyone there was pretty messed up. Being a lab rat is bad enough, but when you have not only
your own suffering to deal with but also what everyone else is going through... There was one
guy, he must have been there for decades. The first time I felt him, I couldn't stop throwing
up, his mind was that sick." She stopped, and said, "I'm sorry. I have no right to burden you
with my problems, not when you have Mulder to find and the baby to worry about."
"The baby. He was after my baby?!?!" What's wrong with my baby? My God, is it a hybrid? Is
it not human? Are they doing this to just to hurt Mulder?
"It's not a for sure, just a best guess," she said, trying to soothe me.
She stood up, I grabbed my gun from the nightstand, and we went out into the living room, with
myself in the lead. Nothing appeared to have been touched except for the lock and chain on the
front door. The chain had snapped and the deadbolt was hanging loosely from its socket.
"Are we going over to Agent Doggett's?" Oracle asked.
"Well, we can't stay here," I said. I went over to the phone and called the police.
***************************************************************************************
I answered the phone about 90% still asleep. It took me a good ten minutes to understand what
Agent Scully was telling me, but once I got the gist I found some clothes and my car keys and
drove right over. The place was already crawling with cops plus Skinner, who seemed to be
everywhere at once. Agent Scully still seemed pretty upset, and Oracle was sitting beside her
on the couch with her knees tucked up under her chin, seemingly at a loss for what to do.
"Agent Doggett," Skinner motioned me over. "Definite signs of a forced entry, no fingerprints,
paramedics checked Scully out, she's going to be fine."
"And the kid?"
"She's pretty quiet, but doesn't seem to have any injuries."
"Is something bothering you, sir?"
"Agent Scully has again refused protection. Both she and the girl are walking targets, and
after two attacks in one day... I just don't see how getting one or both of them taken or
killed is going to do them or Agent Mulder any good."
"We're not doing anybody any good sitting in a jail cell either," Agent Scully said, coming up
behind me.
"No, we're not," Oracle agreed.
"You don't seem sure," Skinner said.
"I'm not even sure of my own name at 3 am. If you want to wait until tomorrow for the official
answer, that's fine, but I can tell you now that it will be the same," Oracle responded.
"Hotel room?" Skinner suggested resignedly.
"I have a spare bedroom, if..." I suggested. Agent Scully nodded, and Oracle looked as though
she would fall asleep standing up if I took any longer. They each grabbed a few things, and we
headed back to my place and fell asleep.
I woke up the next morning to the smell of eggs cooking. I was puzzled at first, then I
remembered last night. I found my shirt and went into the kitchen, expecting to find Agent
Scully. It was the kid.
"I didn't know you could cook," I said.
"Neither did I. I found a cookbook, and scrambled eggs didn't sound too hard. I guess we'll
know for sure after we try them."
"Great." Nothing like a case of food poisoning to start the day off right.
Agent Scully shuffled in, covering a yawn with her hand. She paused and said, "Isn't that
Mulder's shirt?"
"What, this?" Oracle asked, holding out the edge of a well worn maroon Georgetown T shirt. "I
guess it's his. I took it from his place last night."
"When?" Agent Scully said suspiciously.
"What, you didn't notice?" Oracle responded playfully, as she dished out a serving of eggs and
handed them to Agent Scully.
We finished breakfast without speaking (the eggs actually were pretty good,) and after I had
done the dishes I found myself sitting cross legged on my living room floor with Oracle
directly across from me.
"Now what?" I asked.
"Now we try to untangle the messages Mulder's been sending you from everything else you keep up
there. Close your eyes and concentrate on your breathing. Try to empty your mind." Oh, like
hypnosis. Maybe she should fish out my father's antique watch. "It's called meditation, not
hypnosis. And you're supposed to be emptying your head, not filling it with stimuli. Or in
your case, sarcasm."
I waited another few seconds, and said, "This isn't working."
"Not if you won't let it, it won't. What are you afraid of?"
"I'm not afraid of anything, I just don't want to waste my time with a bunch of hooey."
"Nothing's a waste of time if you expect to get out of it what you put into it." She crossed
her arms and looked at me intently. I could almost feel her willing me to try harder.
"What the hell are you doing?" I asked.
"Sorry. I'll try to help you a little more actively this time," she said, holding out her
hands. I held mine out as well, and she turned my hands palms up and placed hers on top of
mine palms down. I closed my eyes again. This won't work, but hey, at least she can't say I
didn't try...
It felt as though my brain had snapped in two. I could feel myself spinning around inside my
head like I was in a washing machine, or a back seat driver to a train wreak. I felt myself
hit a metal deck and crumple up.
"I have him." No, not metal. Concrete. But why would the spaceship...? No, not a spaceship.
A wormhole brought us here; they're capable of cutting across vast distances in only a few
minutes. The Philadelphia project succeeded! I didn't have much energy to reflect on that
discovery, because I was clutching my stomach, staring at the bounty hunter's shoes while I
retched up whatever remained of dinner and maybe part of a lung for dessert.
"Never thought you could be that stupid, Mulder. But you just keep right on surprising me," I
heard a voice behind me say. Krychek. I didn't even have to look up.
"Agent Mulder is not the only one who has exercised poor judgment," that smooth, oily voice
said behind me. Smoking Man Spender, looking at least twenty years younger. But I would know
that voice and that cloud of smoke anywhere.
Krychek laughed bitterly. "So that's how. You sold us out, in return for your life."
Spender took a long drag on his cigarette and smiled. "You had your chance, and you betrayed
me. You chose your own way, instead of what I had planned for you. If you'd only listened,
you would still have your freedom."
"And Mulder? What kind of deal are you making with him?"
"That's not for you to know. Enjoy what little time you have left." The bounty hunter took
Krychek out of the room. Spender pulled a chair over in front of me and sat down. He then
took a gun out of his coat and placed it on his lap, with the barrel pointed right at the top
of my head.
"Taking the honor yourself?" I said with a bitter laugh.
"That depends on you."
"You're giving me a choice?"
"That's right," he said with an oily smile.
"Since when did you become a believer in democracy?"
He smiled and took another drag from his cigarette. "I admire your courage, Agent Mulder.
However, I do have one question that needs answering before your fate is determined. Is it
worth sacrificing everything to save one life out of billions?"
"I guess that depends on the life..."
I came crashing back out of whatever I was in so hard that I got the wind knocked out of me. I
couldn't move.
"Agent Doggett!!" Agent Scully yelled, shaking me. I managed to wave her off, and I sat up,
coughing in spasms. Oracle came up with a glass of water.
"I'm sorry I had to pull you out so hard, but you stopped breathing, you were so far in."
"Into what?" I wheezed, taking the glass.
"Into a meditative state. I've never seen anyone fall in so easily and so deeply before."
"You never said it was dangerous," I said with a touch of worry.
"I've never seen anyone as susceptible as you before. That must be why Mulder can somehow
communicate with you and not someone he had a stronger connection with. How long have you been
having these dreams?"
"I don't know. Almost as soon as I started work on the X Files."
"You've been putting him off for months? No wonder you fell right in; he's getting desperate."
"Do you remember what happened while you were under?" Agent Scully asked me.
"Yeah," I said with a puzzled look.
"This isn't like hypnosis where I snap my fingers and he wakes up. We're trying to help him to
remember, not forget," Oracle said.
Agent Scully grabbed my shoulders and looked intently into my eyes. "Can you think of anything
at all that would help us?" she said forcefully, giving me a slight shake with each word.
"Concrete floor and walls. Rust, green mold all over everything."
"Anything else?" she insisted.
"No."
"Think... Hard."
"No, nothing more than what I told you."
"We have to put him under again," she insisted to Oracle.
"He needs time to recuperate."
"We've already lost too much time!!!" Agent Scully screamed, jumping to her feet.
"IF YOU PUT HIM UNDER AGAIN RIGHT NOW YOU'LL KILL HIM!!!!" Oracle said forcefully. I had never
seen anyone that angry, I swear you could see her emotion seething off of her in waves. For
five terrible seconds, I thought Agent Scully was going to press it and I was going to have to
pry the two of them apart, but instead Agent Scully turned, got her coat, and walked toward the
door.
"Fine. If you want to play nursemaid, be my guest. Give me a call when you want to get back
to finding Mulder." She slammed the door behind her.
"She doesn't have a car. Maybe I should offer to give her a ride," I said.
"She won't take a ride from anybody right now. She's too proud," said Oracle. The anger was
gone like someone had flicked a switch. "I just didn't want her hurting you, that's all. I
feel bad about losing my temper."
"Any idea where she's going?"
"Doesn't matter," she said softly.
****************************************************************************************
Who the hell does she think she is? She doesn't give a damn about finding Mulder. She's just
using us to stay out of social services. I bet she'll drag it out as long as possible. And
Doggett, my God, he doesn't even know Mulder! He's just another assignment, something to be
completed so it doesn't damage his beautiful record! Well, if I have to walk over every square
inch of this country to get to Mulder, then so be it. I was picking at the vinyl on the bus
seat in front of me, and I forced myself to stop. I had to switch buses a hundred times before
I finally got to headquarters.
I marched right up to the desk and requisitioned a car. I tapped on the desk impatiently as I
waited for the paper work and keys, then I marched purposefully down to the garage. I sat
inside the car, pulled the seat forward, and was about to shut the door when a hand caught it.
"Where are you going, Agent Scully?" Skinner snapped.
"To find Mulder," I retorted.
"Doggett came up with something?"
"They're just wasting their time. I'm going out on my own." I started the car, but Skinner
reached over, turned off the ignition, and took the keys. "Hey," I said, jumping up.
"Scully!!!" Skinner said, holding me by the shoulders and pushing me against the car. He
continued, "You are being irrational. You haven't any idea where to begin, and driving off by
yourself when people are trying to kill you is,... it's just crazy."
"But I do have an idea where to start looking." Skinner stepped back and appraised me
curiously. "Krychek was there. He was a prisoner..."
"Scully."
"...but I don't doubt that that sneaky bastard talked them into letting him go somehow. Find
him, and we find Mulder. Please help me, sir. You must have some idea where he is, where he
might be, a number I could call, anything!"
Skinner sighed, and said, "All right. I'll see what I can find. But until then, you are not
to go anywhere alone. If you really don't want to go back to Agent Doggett's, I'll have an
agent escort you home."
"Thank you, sir."
The agent who escorted me home was a younger agent, fresh out of the academy. We talked a
little bit about Quantico on the way home, and I managed to work up enough civility to thank
him for the ride. Someone had been nice enough to fix the door to my apartment. They even
managed to get the deadbolt back in. I reminded myself to change the lock as soon as I was
able. Although I was fairly certain that the man last night meant to kill me and not rob,
there were a few little knickknacks missing from around the house, like my paperweight, a
pencil with the FBI logo stamped on it, and the laces out of some old running shoes I had left
in the bathroom.
"Great. We're harboring a klepto," I said, tossing the shoes in my closet. The phone rang,
and I went to go answer it.
"It could be worse, I could take things with resale value, instead of just personal interest,"
Oracle said.
"What could possibly interest you about old frayed shoelaces?" I said.
"I've never had shoelaces."
"Are you calling because you're bored, or do you actually have something?"
"Doggett picked up another snippet from Mulder. We didn't even have to put him under. He said
Mulder got a quick glimpse while he was traveling, and saw trees."
"Trees? What kind of trees?"
"He didn't recognize them. It wasn't a forest, per se. They were too evenly spaced."
"A grove?"
"That's what he seemed to think."
"Any idea where?"
"Neither of us are tree experts. And he didn't get more than a glimpse. If Mulder really did
go through a wormhole, they could be anywhere."
"Damn." Come on, Mulder. Your clues suck. "Any insights from you?"
"Mulder's disappearance had something to do with the baby, I'm almost sure of it. Don't wait
around for Krychek, he's not a player in this stage of the game."
"Gee, do you think you could possibly be a little more vague?"
"Do you have any idea how many choices people make in one day? Compound that by multiple days
and billions of people and you have a probability table waiting to explode. You're lucky I can
predict anything with any kind of accuracy at all." I nodded. There was some muttering
between the two of them on the other end of the line. "Doggett's ready to try again, if you
want to come back over."
"What about all that talk about safety?"
"I don't like it, but Doggett's convinced we're close, and I'm tempted to agree with him."
"I'll be there." I smiled and hung up the phone.
I went down to my car, and noticed a figure sitting on the hood. I pulled my gun, and the man
spoke.
"You can come out, Scully. I'm not armed." Krychek.
I went over, cautiously. "Did Skinner call you?"
"I heard through the grapevine that you might be looking for me," he said, casually.
"Where's Mulder?"
"I don't know."
"WHERE IS HE?"
"I told you, I don't know! I saw him, briefly, but they took me out, beat me and dumped me for
dead."
"Where was this?"
"You're kidding, right? I was fucking delirious. It could have anywhere from Washington to
West Virginia and I wouldn't have known the difference. All I saw was miles and miles of the
same blurry shit. When I woke up, I was in the hospital here in D.C."
"You're lying," I said, cocking the hammer.
"I've got the lumps and the cracked ribs to prove it! I swear, I'm not lying." I glared at
him, and eased the hammer back into position. "That's not what I'm here about. It's about the
kid."
"How do you know about her?"
"What, are you kidding? The consortium created her. They found out about these kids with
talents, rounded them up and used them for spying, biological weapons, soldiers, you name it.
She was the evilest one there, I'm telling you. They kept her isolated, but still things kept
going wrong. Equipment was being sabotaged, people kept coming up with injuries that they
didn't remember getting, everyone was scared. I kept thinking, if she was so powerful, why
didn't she just take some guard's mind, force him to let her out and then make him forget that
he ever saw her? But when you looked into her eyes, you could see that she liked it. She
liked being around all that torture, and she liked causing it. Scully, she's just using you to
find the others, and when she does, she'll finish you off."
"The others in the project?"
"They're all loyal to her. For God sake, even the aliens were afraid of her. She had their
powers without any of their DNA; ruined their claim to superiority. But they couldn't kill
her, because without her DNA the hybridization couldn't work."
"They used her DNA to create hybrids?" "Not cloning, just patching. Alien DNA has 6 bases,
instead of just four. Her DNA was able to combine alien DNA with human DNA, fix up the base
pairs so that they matched." He moved around me, keeping one eye on my gun. "Stay away from
her, Scully. You're in enough trouble already." Then he slipped quickly into the shadows.
I got into my car and shut the door. I didn't know who to believe, but I promised myself I
would keep my eyes open.
Doggett answered the door when I arrived. His face was an awful shade of gray.
"Are you sure you're up to this?" I asked.
"Do I have much of a choice?" Doggett said, ushering me in.
Oracle was seated on the floor, eying me. I sat self consciously on the couch and crossed my
ankles. I met her cool, unblinking stare.
"Keep an eye on him. If he looks bad physically, let me know and I'll pull him back out," she
said. Doggett already looked bad physically. "You're sure," Oracle said.
Doggett nodded. "I'd better lie down," he said. Once he was comfortable, he looked at both of
us. "Watch my back," he said, before he licked his lips, swallowed, and closed his eyes.
Oracle sat near his feet, hands resting lightly on his ankles. I swallowed, trying to banish
my nervousness. How could I allow Doggett to be vulnerable, to trust her, if...
"If you don't trust him with anything else, how could you trust the 'rat bastard' on this?"
Oracle asked me. I felt guilty. "Good," Oracle said before turning back to Doggett and
shutting her eyes.
***************************************************************************************
I didn't feel the fall this time. I just closed my eyes, and was there. Spender took another
long breath, and blew the smoke out above my head.
"Agent Scully," he said. I glanced up. "She is vital to our friends, for various reasons.
However, they've agreed to let her live in exchange for you. If you agree to cooperate, Agent
Scully will live. If you don't, I end it now and she takes your place. It's a fair deal,
Agent Mulder. A life for a life."
"What guarantees do I have that you'll keep your word?"
He smiled and took a puff of his cigarette. "You have to have faith, Agent Mulder. Faith that
things will turn out for the best. Perhaps while they are searching, they'll find a cure. For
you, and others like you."
I laughed, bitterly and incredulously. "I'll never leave here alive. A life for a life, isn't
that what you said?"
"Never say never, Agent Mulder." I looked at my hands, bleeding and torn, while Cancer Man
took another puff. "So, do we have a deal?" he asked me.
"Yeah," I said, with a touch of defiance.
"Good. I'll make sure Agent Scully is well taken care of until your return." The bounty
hunter came back in and dragged me off to another room, where Krychek was strapped to a table.
The bounty hunter strapped me into the table next to him.
Krychek said mockingly, "So, what did they offer you? Money? Power? The chance to serve your
country?" I didn't say anything. After a long pause, he asked in a curious, almost innocent
tone. "Was it worth it?"
I stared up at the lights, the metal beams, the articulated arms that hung uselessly like
spiders from the ceiling. "I'll let you know."
I came falling back out with a start. It felt like I had put my tongue in a light socket.
Agent Scully was kissing me. I was startled, then I realized she was giving me mouth to mouth.
I sat up, pushing her off.
"Are you all right?" the two women said at once.
"Yeah," I said, trying to get the taste of Agent Scully out of my mouth. It wasn't bad,
necessarily, but the fact that she's my partner...
"Sorry about the shock. I couldn't think of anything else to do," Oracle said.
"It's all right," I said.
"Sorry," Agent Scully murmured. I nodded.
"Were there any more details this time?" Oracle asked.
"You were there, reading my mind," I said.
"I can't process that much info at once. It's like still pictures, with running commentary
filling in the gaps. You're the only one who has the whole thing."
I thought back through the images. "There was something painted on one of the walls in the
room with all the tables. Very faint."
"What did it look like?" Agent Scully asked me.
"It was green, lumpy, with a blue squiggle through the middle."
"A logo?"
"Yeah, that must have been it. There was some lettering around the outside too. A v,
something that looked like an l, another word that ended in ga, another word that had that
Spanish n with the little squiggle above it, and another word with ut in the middle."
"It was some sort of factory," Oracle said.
"Yeah, definitely a factory," I concurred.
"Anything else?" Agent Scully pressed.
"There were funnels hanging from the ceiling, I could see them out of the corner of my eye."
"For dumping liquid," Agent Scully said.
"Or grain," Oracle said.
"We'll start there. We're looking for defunct factories with a Spanish name that had some sort
of liquid associated or agricultural processing."
We hit the research. We called around to different state offices asking about old
corporate charters, called to find out if the logo we saw was trademarked, and called the
Commerce Commission and the FDA to see if there were any answers there. We kept compiling
lists of possible companies and passed them around to each other to double check. After 22
hours, I was beat. Agent Scully was irritable from all that coffee, and I could hear Oracle's
stomach growling from all the way across the room.
Agent Scully passed me a list and sighed. "I'm going for some more coffee," she said as she
shuffled out of the room. Great, just what we need.
"See if you can pull up logos on these, will you?" I said, passing the list off to Oracle. She
muttered something about a slacker, but I just thumbed through the list that Oracle had given
back to me. I flipped through the logos, and suddenly stopped.
"That's it," I announced, as Agent Scully returned with her giant mug o' coffee.
"What?" she said, as she hurried over.
"That's it. Valle Allegra Pinon nuts, located in New Mexico."
"Happy Valley Nut House. That's where the others are," Oracle said with a grin. We both
looked at her. "I knew there was a reason I should stick with you," she said, picking up her
things.
Oracle couldn't sit still the entire flight. At least she didn't try to pester us. I tried to
take a nap, but with the stewardess waking us up every hour to offer us another drink combined
with the passengers behind us who had already had more than enough to drink kept me awake most
of the flight. Agent Scully looked stressed out, probably the aftereffects of the coffee. I
felt happy, for both Agent Scully and the kid. They were finally getting their first real lead
in finding their friends.
We landed, got our baggage, rented a car, and checked into a motel, with the agreement to leave
as soon as the sun was up. Oracle was still wired; I didn't envy Agent Scully having to share
a room with her. Oracle had been humming snippets of different songs to herself after we got
off the plane, and was humming a bit from "Stairway to Heaven" as she tossed her bags on the
bed. Agent Scully was giving me the evil eye; they had been all out of the medium sized cars
so we had to squeeze into a compact, and she wasn't looking forward to spending all night with
a hyper teenager.
"Good night, Agent Scully," I said, going into my room.
"Good luck, you mean," Agent Scully said, as the sound of the TV came blasting out the open
door. I offered a consoling smile and shut my door. I heard Agent Scully through the wall
say, "Oracle, give it a rest."
********************************************************************************************
Oracle turned off the TV, but I don't think she slept at all because I could hear her rustling
around all night. She had circles under her eyes the next morning. I gave her an, "I told you
so" look, which she took with a good natured nod. Agent Doggett appeared freshly pressed,
dressed, and ready to go.
We picked up breakfast at a quick mart on the way out of town. I had my usual water and bagel,
but I almost choked when I saw Doggett and Oracle's ideas of breakfast. She was carrying a big
gulp and a package of twinkies, and he was carrying coffee and a serving of nachos.
"Are you sure you don't want me to drive?" I asked him.
"I'm fine," he said, setting the nachos in the console between our seats. The drive was longer
than I expected. Doggett managed to finish the nachos without spilling a drop of cheese on his
immaculately clean suit. I took a glance in the back seat. Even though Oracle had worked her
way through 32 ounces of caffeine and those crème sugar logs, she was sound asleep. I shook my
head and let out a small laugh.
Doggett glanced in the rear view mirror. "Caffeine puts her to sleep. Imagine that," he
commented. "This is it. I can feel it," Doggett said to me.
"Isn't that my line?" I asked him. He actually gave me an honest to goodness smile. I
actually felt comfortable with him for the first time. We actually had the same goal, the same
belief about the outcome. Is this what it was like for Mulder, when we finally saw eye to eye?
"That's our turnoff," I said, pointing to a dirt road.
We drove into a long abandoned stand of pinon trees. They stretched endlessly on both sides.
I started to feel a sense of foreboding. What if Mulder wasn't here? What if they moved him,
or worse yet... I couldn't bring myself to think it.
Doggett said, "It's going to be okay."
We bumped up to the end of the road and stopped the car in front of an abandoned warehouse. It
was made completely out of metal and wood, with all the windows broken along the top, the
frames left suspending the roof which groaned in the slight wind. I turned to wake up Oracle,
who had already gotten out of the car. She didn't seem the least bit perturbed by the
structure's ghostly look, but went right up to the rusted hangar door.
"Over here," Doggett said, indicating a human sized door around the side. The door wasn't
locked; Doggett managed to open it with a good tug and it flew open and banged back and forth
in the breeze. It was just as Doggett had described it. Metal roof, faded logo, funnels...
But there were no tables, no bodies, nothing to suggest that anyone had been here since the
factory had closed.
"No," I said, picking up the remains of an old leather strap off one of the tables and twining
it between my fingers.
"Scully, Doggett," Oracle called from a catwalk, motioning us upstairs. There was a manager's
office overlooking the plant. Doggett wrapped his hand in his suit jacket, broke the glass in
the door, and opened it. The floor groaned ominously as we entered the room. I stepped back
against the wall.
"Stick to the edges," Oracle said.
"Now what?" Doggett asked.
"Behind there," she said, indicating a filing cabinet pushed against the back wall.
Doggett came around one side, and I came around the other. We tried pushing it away from the
wall. It slid forward a few inches, then a few more, then crashed through a weak spot in the
floor. My arms circled wildly as I tried to keep myself from falling through the hole. Oracle
caught me by one arm and Doggett by the other as the floor gave way. Oracle quickly circled
the hole to Doggett, and they pulled me up and sat me on the narrow ledge they were standing
on.
"I'm fine," I said, looking at my feet hanging into the hole and the floor several dozen feet
below.
"Agent," Doggett said, pointing. There was a door behind where the cabinet used to be.
"That's it," Oracle said.
Doggett crept around the hole and tried the handle. It was unlocked, miraculously. We slipped
around the hole carefully, I with far more caution than Oracle, and we entered the door behind
Doggett.
The stairs were steel, not wood, thank God. They ended at a blank wall, with an opening to the
left. There were the remains of a guard station, and a door made of steel bars behind it, left
hanging open. There were halls of rooms, all left standing empty, with long abandoned medical
equipment that must have been state of the art thirty years ago or more.
"They left in a hurry," Doggett said.
Oracle was walking from room to room, touching various objects and fighting back tears. "I can
still feel them here," she said softly. "So much emotion..." She walked quietly down the
hall.
I followed her. "Do you sense Mulder?"
She didn't answer, but instead forced open the door to one room. She knelt, removed a brick
from the wall and pulled out a collection of old papers.
"I got people's names, as many as I could, and wrote them down on scraps I managed to pull from
the wastebaskets or cover sheets off of reports. So I could find them, or if someone found us
they would at least know what happened," Oracle said, handing me the stack of papers.
I could see the depth of despair in her eyes. I rifled through the sheets. So many names...
So many tortured souls... She reached in again and pulled out a photograph from the hiding
place. "I only got one group picture."
It was an old picture, taken in black and white, with individuals between 5 and 25, all
dressed in 1970's clothing. A girl who looked like Oracle was right in the middle of the
picture, standing between a young man about her age with dark hair and a young girl with dark
wavy hair. My breath caught, and I looked up at her questioningly. "Yes, that's me. That was
taken in 1973. I age well, don't I?" she said in a choked voice.
"How old are you?" I said in empathetic astonishment. I was finding it hard to breathe.
She shook her head slightly. "It doesn't matter." She pointed to the boy and said, "Xander.
He was in the cell next door. We were close enough to hear each other. We talked a lot. The
girl is Sammi. She was only here a few months before they took her away again. She didn't
remember anything about her family... they took it from her..." Her voice trailed off.
"I'm going to show these to Agent Doggett. Are you going to be okay?" She nodded.
"Scully," she called after me. I stopped. "Don't be hard on him. You're all he has left,"
she said. I nodded, uncertainly, and went down the hall.
I wandered through the maze of hallways, and found Doggett standing in a doorway, still as a
statue.
"Agent Doggett?" I said, approaching him.
He stepped out of the way with an unreadable expression on his face. I looked in. The room
was completely empty, except for a patch of cement that had been freshly poured. It had only
been setting a few days, if that.
"Help me," he said in a tight voice, handing me a sturdy metal bar.
"Doggett, we need to get a team in here. They may have buried evidence, papers, equipment..."
His gaze stilled my voice and riveted me to the spot. "Help me," he said again, and this time
the voice was a command.
The concrete hadn't set right, the structure was damp and water had kept it relatively soft.
Still, it was hard work. Doggett chipped away at it like a man possessed, with blow after blow
with an eerie machinelike precision. After what seemed like forever, we started to expose
something. Doggett worked with an increased fervor, choosing his blows more precisely and
chipping away more delicately, but still with that same persistence. I could see the object
taking shape. No, it can't be. It can't be. Oh, please dear God no. No, it can't be him.
It can't be.
"No!" I screamed, dropping the bar and collapsing to the floor.
A body, horribly mutilated, wearing Mulder's clothing... Oh, please God, don't let it be
true... Don't let it be true. I looked up at Agent Doggett for any sign, any hope. His face
was stunned, hopeless.
"They've killed him," he said in a horribly flat voice.
Episodes Referenced in THIS section: Dreamland, Excelcius Dei (?), Dod
Kalm. All others cover multiple episodes.
Oracle, Pt. 2
"There were other kids in different divisions at Danning?" I asked. I had talked to the
detective and called Michelle with the news that her fiancée had died from an experiment gone
wrong at the company. I felt a little guilty not mentioning the girl, but since we couldn't
prove that she killed the doctors on purpose or accidentally, I decided to just leave it out.
At least now she has a reason, some closure. That's what's important when someone you know
dies too soon. I walked past the door just in time to hear Oracle's birth history and
subsequent revelation.
"No, not at Danning. They gathered us up, and just passed us around to different projects that
were willing to pay the money to use us. Military, private contractors, you name it. When
they were done, they shipped us back to the warehouse."
"Where is this warehouse?" I asked.
"The desert? The guards just called it the Happy Valley Nut House."
"These other kids, were they..." Agent Scully's voice trailed off.
"Oh, no, nothing like that. We were born, not made or hybridized. Most people, if they have
mental powers at all, focus on one area, like healing or mind reading. Every once in a while,
though, one of us comes along that has talent in all areas of the mind. There are still
strengths and weaknesses in different areas, but since it's easier to make twenty strong
psychics disappear than 100 weaker ones, we're the ones they're interested in collecting. They
give us drugs to shorten our mental reach and influence enough to where they can control us,"
Oracle said.
Agent Scully was sitting there, lapping up every lie this girl was dishing out. I hadn't seen
anything concrete so far that would make me believe that she could spontaneously heal or
predict the future, as her name seemed to suggest. "Wouldn't the drugs cut down on your
effectiveness?" I asked, with a healthy dose of skepticism.
She looked at me with slight indignation and said, "They're more interested in making sure we
don't rebel than they are in getting 100% accurate results. Is your head still bothering you?"
It was, as a matter of fact. Another battle scar to add to my collection. "Can I see it?" she
asked.
I came closer, unwrapped the bandages, and let her look. It was a large welt, with
deeper scrapes around the edges, but at least it hadn't needed stitching. She gently took my
head in her hands, her long fingers just touching the edges of the wound, palms spread flat
against the side of my head. I was about to protest, but then I felt the warmth coming out of
her hands. It was a slight tingle spreading across my scalp, strange, but not unpleasant. The
heat and tingle intensified, then her palms cooled to a normal body temperature. She let her
hands drop, and I went and checked my reflection in the mirror in the adjoining bathroom. The
wound wasn't completely healed over, but it was definitely improved. I came back out of the
bathroom and stared.
She shrugged and said, "Healing isn't one of my better areas. I was only at Danning because
all ones with the real talent were already loaned out. Prediction's my forte."
I was curious, but not willing to buy just yet. "All right, predict something for us.
Something simple that will happen in the next few minutes."
She said with a grin, "Your boss will come flying through that door." "What on earth would he
be doing in Omega?" Agent Scully asked incredulously.
Just then, Skinner came bursting in. His trench coat actually did resemble wings, flapping
behind him like that.
"What are you doing here, Sir?" Agent Scully asked.
"The scandal is all over the news. I knew that you two would be mixed up in it somehow."
"Sir," I started.
"No need. You did request formal assignment, although Kersh has been breathing down my neck
about "publicity hounds" in my division. You've been recalled to Washington. Social services
can take it from here."
"They can't", Oracle said, sitting on the edge of the bed.
"I'm afraid they have to," Skinner said kindly.
She then asked, "But if they ship me off to some foster home, how am I supposed to help you
find Agent Mulder?"
"You told her about Agent Mulder?" I demanded of Agent Scully.
"No..." she started, but I cut her off.
"The investigation is still ongoing. It's against Bureau policy to discuss case details with
outsiders," I snapped.
"I've known Agent Scully for years, Agent Doggett, and she would never undermine the progress
of an investigation," Skinner interjected.
Oracle was watching the exchange with a mixture of curiosity and amusement. "She didn't tell
me, I just knew," she said. Her voice wasn't much louder than her normal speaking tone, but it
sliced through the air like a knife, and all three of us stopped talking at once.
Agent Scully pushed me out of the way and said with a no nonsense attitude, "If you're lying,
so help me God..."
"No, I want to help. I may not be able to tell you everything you want to know, but I can at
the very least provide a place to start, which is more than you had before. After all, you
helped me, it's only fair." The honesty in her face and determination in her eyes touched me.\
I said gently, "We were just doing our job."
Agent Scully's mouth was set in a straight line; she was silently pleading with me not to
dissuade Oracle. Even if the kid could help as much as Agent Scully seemed to think, I didn't
want her to feel obligated in any way.
"So am I," Oracle answered, with a broad smile. "After all," she continued, "what's the point
of having talent if you don't plan on using it? It might as well not be there."
I took a glance at Skinner, who nodded once and started out the door. "We'd like to have your
assistance on this, sir," Agent Scully called after him.
Skinner stopped and looked at me. I could see Agent Scully and Oracle watching me out of the
corner of my eye After all, it was my case, my assignment, I was the one filling out the
report, ... I nodded and said, "Sure, why not?"
I called the airline and made arrangements to fly out the next day, while Oracle used a little
of her power on Agent Scully's injured knees. Dunbar came by to meet Oracle while I was on the
phone. She greeted him as "Matthew Dunbar, reader of Spiderman comics." I didn't hear most of
the conversation, but she obviously said something that embarrassed him, because his face was
beet red when I peeked in on them a few minutes later. I questioned him, and he muttered
something about not knowing she was a mind reader.
"I just asked him about some of his hobbies. They're quite unusual," she said innocently.
Dunbar's face flushed even more brightly, and although I was curious, something told me that I
wasn't going to find out from either of them in this lifetime.
"Agent Doggett," Skinner motioned me out into the hall. "I've made arrangements for Oracle to
be transported to be transported to a safe house."
"A safe house? Sir, Agent Scully and I are more than capable..." I protested. "Of what? Of
defending her against an enemy that you haven't seen and know next to nothing about? If what
she says about secret facilities is true, someone's going to come look for her."
"The less attention we draw to ourselves, the better. The more she feels she can trust us, the
better our chances of finding Agent Mulder. Besides, I think she's capable of handling
herself," I said, indicating Dunbar as he emerged from the room and retreated quickly down the
hall. Skinner looked puzzled. I peeked in and asked with as much joviality as someone like me
can muster, "You doing okay in here?"
"Yeah. I complimented him on his looks. He didn't seem to like it," Oracle answered,
shoveling another scoop of lime jello into her mouth. Any part in particular? She grinned
devilishly and took another spoonful.
"Did I miss something?" Skinner asked.
"It's not important," I said. Skinner gave us both a "they're all mad" look, but didn't say
another word.
Agent Scully, Skinner and I spent the rest of the day entertaining Oracle and discussing
business. Dunbar dropped by a few more times to see Oracle, and he seemed to be more
comfortable each time. They had a lot in common, judging from their animated conversation, but
Dunbar was still a little wary of her gifts. She promised to call him from D.C. every once in
a while. Skinner agreed to drop the safe house idea as long as two of the three of us agents
were with Oracle at all times. I was surprised that Skinner wanted any part of this, but I
guess he was just as concerned for Agent Mulder's welfare as Agent Scully was.
Oracle had never been to the airport before, much less on a plane. Agent Scully bought her
some sort of cinnamon candy for her to suck on, and started reading a paperback she had brought
while I kept an eye out for anyone suspicious. I'll say one thing for the kid; she makes
friends fast. In the space of an hour, she met everyone sitting in the waiting area for the
plane, and was cradling a five year old kid in her lap while chatting animatedly about skeeball
with the girl and her grandmother. Everyone coming over and telling me and Agent Scully what a
fine daughter we had. We thanked everyone graciously, but I was having a hard time suppressing
my urge to laugh, both at the mistake and Agent Scully's obvious discomfort. I know if a
teenager is traveling with two adults, it's automatically assumed that the people are related
in some way, but I mean come on. The kid looks more like Agent Mulder than she does like
either of us. Even then, it's not a very close resemblance. When it was finally time for us
to board, both the 5 year old and her grandmother looked very disappointed.
We gave Oracle the window seat, I took the aisle to stretch my legs, which left Agent Scully
with the center seat. She stood up on her tiptoes, trying to shove her bag into the overhead
compartment. I stood back up and helped her push it in, leaving her a space to squeeze by and
get into her seat.
"Thank you," she said as I sat back down.
"You're welcome, Agent," I said.
Oracle was staring out the window. "Did you know that they squish the bags on both ends before
they throw them onto the ramp?" she asked us.
"Can you see them?" I asked, leaning over Agent Scully. "No," Oracle said.
I took a glance behind me down the aisle. Skinner was seated back by the restrooms, acting as
a backup. He gave me the all clear signal. I nodded and faced forward again. After we took
off, (putting a look of sheer delight on Oracle's face,) the first part of the flight was
pretty uneventful. Agent Scully used too much force on a bag of peanuts, spilling the shells
down the front and inside her blouse. I didn't bother to help, all I would receive for my
trouble would be a glare or a broken arm. Oracle crawled over us to go use the bathroom,
stepping on our feet and elbowing me in the ribs. After she had been gone a few minutes, I
started to get worried.
Then I heard the crash of the food cart and Skinner snarl, "Agents!" Agent Scully and I
hurried back, and Skinner said, "Left side," indicating a bathroom door. It was locked, so we
forced it open. Oracle was standing on the toilet, gasping, with finger marks on her neck.
There was a man at least three times her size slumped unconscious on the floor.
*******************************************************************************************
I checked the man's pulse, which was still beating strong. Skinner and Doggett dragged the man
back to the service station where they could keep an eye on him, and I took Oracle back to her
seat.
"Do you know him?" I asked. She shook her head. How on earth could a 110 pound girl take down
a man that big?
"We called it slamming. It works like a stun gun, disrupts brain waves for a second and knocks
them out cold. Kind of like what you call pushing, but instead of forcing the mind to react,
it forces the mind not to react." I looked around. If one of them had gotten the drop on her,
could there be more? "I don't think so, but it's kind of hard to tell. There's so much
static going on," she said. I kept my eyes wide open the rest of the trip.
Once we landed, we were at a loss for what to do. I felt as though there was something we
forgot to do, something we should have picked up... It was nagging me, but I couldn't remember
what it was. Skinner wanted to secure Oracle and get some sleep, I wanted to get us something
to eat, Doggett wanted to get started on tracking down Mulder, and Oracle was flipping through
a brochure on the Smithsonian that she had pulled from a rack along the way.
"Why don't we go to Mulder's apartment, then eat, then sleep?" she suggested.
We got our cars from the airport lot and drove down to Alexandria, checking for cars following
us all the way. It felt so odd, staring at that building. It seemed so soulless without him
there, so filled with ghosts. We took the elevator up, stopped in front of Number 42, and I
fumbled around in my purse for the key. In the back of my mind, I kept expecting to see Mulder
open the door, wipe the sleep from his eyes, and murmur, "Hey, come on in."
The door opened silently and banged against the wall. The air was dark and still, except for
the light over the fish tank. Oracle brushed gently past me and took a look around. She
peeked in the kitchen, ran her fingers over the counter "you cleaned out his fridge, good for
you," peeked in the bathroom, "head and shoulders," looked in the bedroom, "a mirrored waterbed.
Isn't that kind of tacky? Especially with no water in it," and finally came to the living room
and sat on the couch. She ran her fingers along the edge and lay down. I smiled. She
succeeded in finding the only item in the apartment I considered uniquely Mulder's. As Mulder
would say, "Perfect for sleeping, eating, thinking," ... and watching those videos that aren't
yours. "Touche." Skinner just waited. Doggett started to look impatient.
"If you're in such an all fired hurry, why don't you do it?" Oracle said, glancing up at
Doggett.
"Believe me, I would if I could," Doggett said.
"You can, but you won't," she retorted.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"You said it yourself. You're the only one who can find Agent Mulder. All I can do is help
point the way."
"All you've given us so far is bullshit."
"Don't you get it? You're the one Agent Mulder's in contact with, not me."
"Why would Mulder be in contact with Doggett?" Skinner asked.
"Maybe he's the only one who would answer the phone," Oracle replied.
"This is crazy," Doggett insisted.
"What about that dream you had that night at the hotel? The one you wouldn't tell me about," I
pressed.
"I had a nightmare," Doggett growled.
"What dream?" Skinner asked.
"Doggett was calling my name, I went to go check on him, and he punched me," I said.
"You punched her?" Skinner asked, grabbing Doggett's shirt.
"I was asleep when I did it. I don't remember anything about what I was dreaming. It's over,
done with, it means nothing," Doggett snapped, pushing Skinner away.
"It means everything," Oracle insisted.
"Did you ever stop to consider that you might be wrong about me?" Doggett said, looming over
her with a scowl.
"Did you ever stop to consider that I might be right?" She stood up, came over next to Doggett,
and put her hand on his shoulder. "I know it's tough to swallow, but I sincerely believe that
Mulder is feeding you information. If you can learn how to access it, then the information
will lead you right to him. You won't have to do it alone; I'll be here to help you every step
of the way," she said.
"So will I," I said firmly. Skinner nodded.
Doggett looked torn, finally he nodded and said, "Yeah, alright."
We picked up dinner at McDonald's on the way home, and discussed tomorrow's plans. Oracle
believed it would be best to start the place where Doggett was most comfortable, so we agreed
to meet at his house first thing in the morning.
I agreed to keep Oracle for the night. I meant to offer her the bed, but when I got out of the
bathroom she had already retrieved a blanket and pillow from the closet and was fast asleep,
her shoes resting on top of the coffee table with her socks protruding out of them. I tucked
the blanket a little tighter around her, then I changed into my pajamas and slipped into bed.
I began to feel a real glimmer of hope, something I hadn't felt in more than six months. If
her belief was correct, and if Doggett cooperated, Mulder could be home by the time the baby
was born. I wonder if Doggett will stay with the X Files after we find Mulder. I think they
could become good friends, if they don't kill each other first. But then, any relationship
that includes Mulder is like that. How he manages to be such a jerk and make you love him all
the same is beyond me. I rolled over and put my arms around my pillow. Well, I'll have plenty
of time to consider it when he comes back.
I started awake. Something was pressed over my face, smothering me. I clawed
frantically, connecting with the arms holding the pillow (?) over my face, but the force didn't
diminish. I heard Oracle yell, and then felt a charge lash through my body. The pillow fell
away, and I could see Oracle in the doorway out of the corner of my eye and a man in dark
clothing near the foot of the bed, wearing some sort of ski mask. The man dove for her, but
she managed to sidestep him and drive her knee into his gut. Then somehow, she tripped, and
the man fled out the door. Oracle jumped to her feet and helped me up to a sitting position.
"Are you all right? I didn't mean to slam you too," she said.
"I think so. Did you get a good look at him?"
"No. I woke up when I sensed a stranger in the house. He was expecting you to be alone, that
much I got. But he was able to block my efforts to read him, and he was able to shunt off the
energy from the slam. He had to be one of the others."
"From the warehouse?"
"Yeah, but... I didn't recognize the aura. It's... it's like someone tried to overwrite and
did a piss poor job of it."
"How do you mean?"
"He's sensitive, but he was programmed to be aggressive. Some sort of soldier program, maybe?
The two parts are colliding head on almost constantly, and it's painful so he keeps trying to
reconcile them, and that makes him act in weird ways."
"Do you remember anyone who you thought was particularly sensitive? Someplace we could start
looking?"
"We were all sensitive, that's what gives us are ability, our feelings for other people. And
everyone there was pretty messed up. Being a lab rat is bad enough, but when you have not only
your own suffering to deal with but also what everyone else is going through... There was one
guy, he must have been there for decades. The first time I felt him, I couldn't stop throwing
up, his mind was that sick." She stopped, and said, "I'm sorry. I have no right to burden you
with my problems, not when you have Mulder to find and the baby to worry about."
"The baby. He was after my baby?!?!" What's wrong with my baby? My God, is it a hybrid? Is
it not human? Are they doing this to just to hurt Mulder?
"It's not a for sure, just a best guess," she said, trying to soothe me.
She stood up, I grabbed my gun from the nightstand, and we went out into the living room, with
myself in the lead. Nothing appeared to have been touched except for the lock and chain on the
front door. The chain had snapped and the deadbolt was hanging loosely from its socket.
"Are we going over to Agent Doggett's?" Oracle asked.
"Well, we can't stay here," I said. I went over to the phone and called the police.
***************************************************************************************
I answered the phone about 90% still asleep. It took me a good ten minutes to understand what
Agent Scully was telling me, but once I got the gist I found some clothes and my car keys and
drove right over. The place was already crawling with cops plus Skinner, who seemed to be
everywhere at once. Agent Scully still seemed pretty upset, and Oracle was sitting beside her
on the couch with her knees tucked up under her chin, seemingly at a loss for what to do.
"Agent Doggett," Skinner motioned me over. "Definite signs of a forced entry, no fingerprints,
paramedics checked Scully out, she's going to be fine."
"And the kid?"
"She's pretty quiet, but doesn't seem to have any injuries."
"Is something bothering you, sir?"
"Agent Scully has again refused protection. Both she and the girl are walking targets, and
after two attacks in one day... I just don't see how getting one or both of them taken or
killed is going to do them or Agent Mulder any good."
"We're not doing anybody any good sitting in a jail cell either," Agent Scully said, coming up
behind me.
"No, we're not," Oracle agreed.
"You don't seem sure," Skinner said.
"I'm not even sure of my own name at 3 am. If you want to wait until tomorrow for the official
answer, that's fine, but I can tell you now that it will be the same," Oracle responded.
"Hotel room?" Skinner suggested resignedly.
"I have a spare bedroom, if..." I suggested. Agent Scully nodded, and Oracle looked as though
she would fall asleep standing up if I took any longer. They each grabbed a few things, and we
headed back to my place and fell asleep.
I woke up the next morning to the smell of eggs cooking. I was puzzled at first, then I
remembered last night. I found my shirt and went into the kitchen, expecting to find Agent
Scully. It was the kid.
"I didn't know you could cook," I said.
"Neither did I. I found a cookbook, and scrambled eggs didn't sound too hard. I guess we'll
know for sure after we try them."
"Great." Nothing like a case of food poisoning to start the day off right.
Agent Scully shuffled in, covering a yawn with her hand. She paused and said, "Isn't that
Mulder's shirt?"
"What, this?" Oracle asked, holding out the edge of a well worn maroon Georgetown T shirt. "I
guess it's his. I took it from his place last night."
"When?" Agent Scully said suspiciously.
"What, you didn't notice?" Oracle responded playfully, as she dished out a serving of eggs and
handed them to Agent Scully.
We finished breakfast without speaking (the eggs actually were pretty good,) and after I had
done the dishes I found myself sitting cross legged on my living room floor with Oracle
directly across from me.
"Now what?" I asked.
"Now we try to untangle the messages Mulder's been sending you from everything else you keep up
there. Close your eyes and concentrate on your breathing. Try to empty your mind." Oh, like
hypnosis. Maybe she should fish out my father's antique watch. "It's called meditation, not
hypnosis. And you're supposed to be emptying your head, not filling it with stimuli. Or in
your case, sarcasm."
I waited another few seconds, and said, "This isn't working."
"Not if you won't let it, it won't. What are you afraid of?"
"I'm not afraid of anything, I just don't want to waste my time with a bunch of hooey."
"Nothing's a waste of time if you expect to get out of it what you put into it." She crossed
her arms and looked at me intently. I could almost feel her willing me to try harder.
"What the hell are you doing?" I asked.
"Sorry. I'll try to help you a little more actively this time," she said, holding out her
hands. I held mine out as well, and she turned my hands palms up and placed hers on top of
mine palms down. I closed my eyes again. This won't work, but hey, at least she can't say I
didn't try...
It felt as though my brain had snapped in two. I could feel myself spinning around inside my
head like I was in a washing machine, or a back seat driver to a train wreak. I felt myself
hit a metal deck and crumple up.
"I have him." No, not metal. Concrete. But why would the spaceship...? No, not a spaceship.
A wormhole brought us here; they're capable of cutting across vast distances in only a few
minutes. The Philadelphia project succeeded! I didn't have much energy to reflect on that
discovery, because I was clutching my stomach, staring at the bounty hunter's shoes while I
retched up whatever remained of dinner and maybe part of a lung for dessert.
"Never thought you could be that stupid, Mulder. But you just keep right on surprising me," I
heard a voice behind me say. Krychek. I didn't even have to look up.
"Agent Mulder is not the only one who has exercised poor judgment," that smooth, oily voice
said behind me. Smoking Man Spender, looking at least twenty years younger. But I would know
that voice and that cloud of smoke anywhere.
Krychek laughed bitterly. "So that's how. You sold us out, in return for your life."
Spender took a long drag on his cigarette and smiled. "You had your chance, and you betrayed
me. You chose your own way, instead of what I had planned for you. If you'd only listened,
you would still have your freedom."
"And Mulder? What kind of deal are you making with him?"
"That's not for you to know. Enjoy what little time you have left." The bounty hunter took
Krychek out of the room. Spender pulled a chair over in front of me and sat down. He then
took a gun out of his coat and placed it on his lap, with the barrel pointed right at the top
of my head.
"Taking the honor yourself?" I said with a bitter laugh.
"That depends on you."
"You're giving me a choice?"
"That's right," he said with an oily smile.
"Since when did you become a believer in democracy?"
He smiled and took another drag from his cigarette. "I admire your courage, Agent Mulder.
However, I do have one question that needs answering before your fate is determined. Is it
worth sacrificing everything to save one life out of billions?"
"I guess that depends on the life..."
I came crashing back out of whatever I was in so hard that I got the wind knocked out of me. I
couldn't move.
"Agent Doggett!!" Agent Scully yelled, shaking me. I managed to wave her off, and I sat up,
coughing in spasms. Oracle came up with a glass of water.
"I'm sorry I had to pull you out so hard, but you stopped breathing, you were so far in."
"Into what?" I wheezed, taking the glass.
"Into a meditative state. I've never seen anyone fall in so easily and so deeply before."
"You never said it was dangerous," I said with a touch of worry.
"I've never seen anyone as susceptible as you before. That must be why Mulder can somehow
communicate with you and not someone he had a stronger connection with. How long have you been
having these dreams?"
"I don't know. Almost as soon as I started work on the X Files."
"You've been putting him off for months? No wonder you fell right in; he's getting desperate."
"Do you remember what happened while you were under?" Agent Scully asked me.
"Yeah," I said with a puzzled look.
"This isn't like hypnosis where I snap my fingers and he wakes up. We're trying to help him to
remember, not forget," Oracle said.
Agent Scully grabbed my shoulders and looked intently into my eyes. "Can you think of anything
at all that would help us?" she said forcefully, giving me a slight shake with each word.
"Concrete floor and walls. Rust, green mold all over everything."
"Anything else?" she insisted.
"No."
"Think... Hard."
"No, nothing more than what I told you."
"We have to put him under again," she insisted to Oracle.
"He needs time to recuperate."
"We've already lost too much time!!!" Agent Scully screamed, jumping to her feet.
"IF YOU PUT HIM UNDER AGAIN RIGHT NOW YOU'LL KILL HIM!!!!" Oracle said forcefully. I had never
seen anyone that angry, I swear you could see her emotion seething off of her in waves. For
five terrible seconds, I thought Agent Scully was going to press it and I was going to have to
pry the two of them apart, but instead Agent Scully turned, got her coat, and walked toward the
door.
"Fine. If you want to play nursemaid, be my guest. Give me a call when you want to get back
to finding Mulder." She slammed the door behind her.
"She doesn't have a car. Maybe I should offer to give her a ride," I said.
"She won't take a ride from anybody right now. She's too proud," said Oracle. The anger was
gone like someone had flicked a switch. "I just didn't want her hurting you, that's all. I
feel bad about losing my temper."
"Any idea where she's going?"
"Doesn't matter," she said softly.
****************************************************************************************
Who the hell does she think she is? She doesn't give a damn about finding Mulder. She's just
using us to stay out of social services. I bet she'll drag it out as long as possible. And
Doggett, my God, he doesn't even know Mulder! He's just another assignment, something to be
completed so it doesn't damage his beautiful record! Well, if I have to walk over every square
inch of this country to get to Mulder, then so be it. I was picking at the vinyl on the bus
seat in front of me, and I forced myself to stop. I had to switch buses a hundred times before
I finally got to headquarters.
I marched right up to the desk and requisitioned a car. I tapped on the desk impatiently as I
waited for the paper work and keys, then I marched purposefully down to the garage. I sat
inside the car, pulled the seat forward, and was about to shut the door when a hand caught it.
"Where are you going, Agent Scully?" Skinner snapped.
"To find Mulder," I retorted.
"Doggett came up with something?"
"They're just wasting their time. I'm going out on my own." I started the car, but Skinner
reached over, turned off the ignition, and took the keys. "Hey," I said, jumping up.
"Scully!!!" Skinner said, holding me by the shoulders and pushing me against the car. He
continued, "You are being irrational. You haven't any idea where to begin, and driving off by
yourself when people are trying to kill you is,... it's just crazy."
"But I do have an idea where to start looking." Skinner stepped back and appraised me
curiously. "Krychek was there. He was a prisoner..."
"Scully."
"...but I don't doubt that that sneaky bastard talked them into letting him go somehow. Find
him, and we find Mulder. Please help me, sir. You must have some idea where he is, where he
might be, a number I could call, anything!"
Skinner sighed, and said, "All right. I'll see what I can find. But until then, you are not
to go anywhere alone. If you really don't want to go back to Agent Doggett's, I'll have an
agent escort you home."
"Thank you, sir."
The agent who escorted me home was a younger agent, fresh out of the academy. We talked a
little bit about Quantico on the way home, and I managed to work up enough civility to thank
him for the ride. Someone had been nice enough to fix the door to my apartment. They even
managed to get the deadbolt back in. I reminded myself to change the lock as soon as I was
able. Although I was fairly certain that the man last night meant to kill me and not rob,
there were a few little knickknacks missing from around the house, like my paperweight, a
pencil with the FBI logo stamped on it, and the laces out of some old running shoes I had left
in the bathroom.
"Great. We're harboring a klepto," I said, tossing the shoes in my closet. The phone rang,
and I went to go answer it.
"It could be worse, I could take things with resale value, instead of just personal interest,"
Oracle said.
"What could possibly interest you about old frayed shoelaces?" I said.
"I've never had shoelaces."
"Are you calling because you're bored, or do you actually have something?"
"Doggett picked up another snippet from Mulder. We didn't even have to put him under. He said
Mulder got a quick glimpse while he was traveling, and saw trees."
"Trees? What kind of trees?"
"He didn't recognize them. It wasn't a forest, per se. They were too evenly spaced."
"A grove?"
"That's what he seemed to think."
"Any idea where?"
"Neither of us are tree experts. And he didn't get more than a glimpse. If Mulder really did
go through a wormhole, they could be anywhere."
"Damn." Come on, Mulder. Your clues suck. "Any insights from you?"
"Mulder's disappearance had something to do with the baby, I'm almost sure of it. Don't wait
around for Krychek, he's not a player in this stage of the game."
"Gee, do you think you could possibly be a little more vague?"
"Do you have any idea how many choices people make in one day? Compound that by multiple days
and billions of people and you have a probability table waiting to explode. You're lucky I can
predict anything with any kind of accuracy at all." I nodded. There was some muttering
between the two of them on the other end of the line. "Doggett's ready to try again, if you
want to come back over."
"What about all that talk about safety?"
"I don't like it, but Doggett's convinced we're close, and I'm tempted to agree with him."
"I'll be there." I smiled and hung up the phone.
I went down to my car, and noticed a figure sitting on the hood. I pulled my gun, and the man
spoke.
"You can come out, Scully. I'm not armed." Krychek.
I went over, cautiously. "Did Skinner call you?"
"I heard through the grapevine that you might be looking for me," he said, casually.
"Where's Mulder?"
"I don't know."
"WHERE IS HE?"
"I told you, I don't know! I saw him, briefly, but they took me out, beat me and dumped me for
dead."
"Where was this?"
"You're kidding, right? I was fucking delirious. It could have anywhere from Washington to
West Virginia and I wouldn't have known the difference. All I saw was miles and miles of the
same blurry shit. When I woke up, I was in the hospital here in D.C."
"You're lying," I said, cocking the hammer.
"I've got the lumps and the cracked ribs to prove it! I swear, I'm not lying." I glared at
him, and eased the hammer back into position. "That's not what I'm here about. It's about the
kid."
"How do you know about her?"
"What, are you kidding? The consortium created her. They found out about these kids with
talents, rounded them up and used them for spying, biological weapons, soldiers, you name it.
She was the evilest one there, I'm telling you. They kept her isolated, but still things kept
going wrong. Equipment was being sabotaged, people kept coming up with injuries that they
didn't remember getting, everyone was scared. I kept thinking, if she was so powerful, why
didn't she just take some guard's mind, force him to let her out and then make him forget that
he ever saw her? But when you looked into her eyes, you could see that she liked it. She
liked being around all that torture, and she liked causing it. Scully, she's just using you to
find the others, and when she does, she'll finish you off."
"The others in the project?"
"They're all loyal to her. For God sake, even the aliens were afraid of her. She had their
powers without any of their DNA; ruined their claim to superiority. But they couldn't kill
her, because without her DNA the hybridization couldn't work."
"They used her DNA to create hybrids?" "Not cloning, just patching. Alien DNA has 6 bases,
instead of just four. Her DNA was able to combine alien DNA with human DNA, fix up the base
pairs so that they matched." He moved around me, keeping one eye on my gun. "Stay away from
her, Scully. You're in enough trouble already." Then he slipped quickly into the shadows.
I got into my car and shut the door. I didn't know who to believe, but I promised myself I
would keep my eyes open.
Doggett answered the door when I arrived. His face was an awful shade of gray.
"Are you sure you're up to this?" I asked.
"Do I have much of a choice?" Doggett said, ushering me in.
Oracle was seated on the floor, eying me. I sat self consciously on the couch and crossed my
ankles. I met her cool, unblinking stare.
"Keep an eye on him. If he looks bad physically, let me know and I'll pull him back out," she
said. Doggett already looked bad physically. "You're sure," Oracle said.
Doggett nodded. "I'd better lie down," he said. Once he was comfortable, he looked at both of
us. "Watch my back," he said, before he licked his lips, swallowed, and closed his eyes.
Oracle sat near his feet, hands resting lightly on his ankles. I swallowed, trying to banish
my nervousness. How could I allow Doggett to be vulnerable, to trust her, if...
"If you don't trust him with anything else, how could you trust the 'rat bastard' on this?"
Oracle asked me. I felt guilty. "Good," Oracle said before turning back to Doggett and
shutting her eyes.
***************************************************************************************
I didn't feel the fall this time. I just closed my eyes, and was there. Spender took another
long breath, and blew the smoke out above my head.
"Agent Scully," he said. I glanced up. "She is vital to our friends, for various reasons.
However, they've agreed to let her live in exchange for you. If you agree to cooperate, Agent
Scully will live. If you don't, I end it now and she takes your place. It's a fair deal,
Agent Mulder. A life for a life."
"What guarantees do I have that you'll keep your word?"
He smiled and took a puff of his cigarette. "You have to have faith, Agent Mulder. Faith that
things will turn out for the best. Perhaps while they are searching, they'll find a cure. For
you, and others like you."
I laughed, bitterly and incredulously. "I'll never leave here alive. A life for a life, isn't
that what you said?"
"Never say never, Agent Mulder." I looked at my hands, bleeding and torn, while Cancer Man
took another puff. "So, do we have a deal?" he asked me.
"Yeah," I said, with a touch of defiance.
"Good. I'll make sure Agent Scully is well taken care of until your return." The bounty
hunter came back in and dragged me off to another room, where Krychek was strapped to a table.
The bounty hunter strapped me into the table next to him.
Krychek said mockingly, "So, what did they offer you? Money? Power? The chance to serve your
country?" I didn't say anything. After a long pause, he asked in a curious, almost innocent
tone. "Was it worth it?"
I stared up at the lights, the metal beams, the articulated arms that hung uselessly like
spiders from the ceiling. "I'll let you know."
I came falling back out with a start. It felt like I had put my tongue in a light socket.
Agent Scully was kissing me. I was startled, then I realized she was giving me mouth to mouth.
I sat up, pushing her off.
"Are you all right?" the two women said at once.
"Yeah," I said, trying to get the taste of Agent Scully out of my mouth. It wasn't bad,
necessarily, but the fact that she's my partner...
"Sorry about the shock. I couldn't think of anything else to do," Oracle said.
"It's all right," I said.
"Sorry," Agent Scully murmured. I nodded.
"Were there any more details this time?" Oracle asked.
"You were there, reading my mind," I said.
"I can't process that much info at once. It's like still pictures, with running commentary
filling in the gaps. You're the only one who has the whole thing."
I thought back through the images. "There was something painted on one of the walls in the
room with all the tables. Very faint."
"What did it look like?" Agent Scully asked me.
"It was green, lumpy, with a blue squiggle through the middle."
"A logo?"
"Yeah, that must have been it. There was some lettering around the outside too. A v,
something that looked like an l, another word that ended in ga, another word that had that
Spanish n with the little squiggle above it, and another word with ut in the middle."
"It was some sort of factory," Oracle said.
"Yeah, definitely a factory," I concurred.
"Anything else?" Agent Scully pressed.
"There were funnels hanging from the ceiling, I could see them out of the corner of my eye."
"For dumping liquid," Agent Scully said.
"Or grain," Oracle said.
"We'll start there. We're looking for defunct factories with a Spanish name that had some sort
of liquid associated or agricultural processing."
We hit the research. We called around to different state offices asking about old
corporate charters, called to find out if the logo we saw was trademarked, and called the
Commerce Commission and the FDA to see if there were any answers there. We kept compiling
lists of possible companies and passed them around to each other to double check. After 22
hours, I was beat. Agent Scully was irritable from all that coffee, and I could hear Oracle's
stomach growling from all the way across the room.
Agent Scully passed me a list and sighed. "I'm going for some more coffee," she said as she
shuffled out of the room. Great, just what we need.
"See if you can pull up logos on these, will you?" I said, passing the list off to Oracle. She
muttered something about a slacker, but I just thumbed through the list that Oracle had given
back to me. I flipped through the logos, and suddenly stopped.
"That's it," I announced, as Agent Scully returned with her giant mug o' coffee.
"What?" she said, as she hurried over.
"That's it. Valle Allegra Pinon nuts, located in New Mexico."
"Happy Valley Nut House. That's where the others are," Oracle said with a grin. We both
looked at her. "I knew there was a reason I should stick with you," she said, picking up her
things.
Oracle couldn't sit still the entire flight. At least she didn't try to pester us. I tried to
take a nap, but with the stewardess waking us up every hour to offer us another drink combined
with the passengers behind us who had already had more than enough to drink kept me awake most
of the flight. Agent Scully looked stressed out, probably the aftereffects of the coffee. I
felt happy, for both Agent Scully and the kid. They were finally getting their first real lead
in finding their friends.
We landed, got our baggage, rented a car, and checked into a motel, with the agreement to leave
as soon as the sun was up. Oracle was still wired; I didn't envy Agent Scully having to share
a room with her. Oracle had been humming snippets of different songs to herself after we got
off the plane, and was humming a bit from "Stairway to Heaven" as she tossed her bags on the
bed. Agent Scully was giving me the evil eye; they had been all out of the medium sized cars
so we had to squeeze into a compact, and she wasn't looking forward to spending all night with
a hyper teenager.
"Good night, Agent Scully," I said, going into my room.
"Good luck, you mean," Agent Scully said, as the sound of the TV came blasting out the open
door. I offered a consoling smile and shut my door. I heard Agent Scully through the wall
say, "Oracle, give it a rest."
********************************************************************************************
Oracle turned off the TV, but I don't think she slept at all because I could hear her rustling
around all night. She had circles under her eyes the next morning. I gave her an, "I told you
so" look, which she took with a good natured nod. Agent Doggett appeared freshly pressed,
dressed, and ready to go.
We picked up breakfast at a quick mart on the way out of town. I had my usual water and bagel,
but I almost choked when I saw Doggett and Oracle's ideas of breakfast. She was carrying a big
gulp and a package of twinkies, and he was carrying coffee and a serving of nachos.
"Are you sure you don't want me to drive?" I asked him.
"I'm fine," he said, setting the nachos in the console between our seats. The drive was longer
than I expected. Doggett managed to finish the nachos without spilling a drop of cheese on his
immaculately clean suit. I took a glance in the back seat. Even though Oracle had worked her
way through 32 ounces of caffeine and those crème sugar logs, she was sound asleep. I shook my
head and let out a small laugh.
Doggett glanced in the rear view mirror. "Caffeine puts her to sleep. Imagine that," he
commented. "This is it. I can feel it," Doggett said to me.
"Isn't that my line?" I asked him. He actually gave me an honest to goodness smile. I
actually felt comfortable with him for the first time. We actually had the same goal, the same
belief about the outcome. Is this what it was like for Mulder, when we finally saw eye to eye?
"That's our turnoff," I said, pointing to a dirt road.
We drove into a long abandoned stand of pinon trees. They stretched endlessly on both sides.
I started to feel a sense of foreboding. What if Mulder wasn't here? What if they moved him,
or worse yet... I couldn't bring myself to think it.
Doggett said, "It's going to be okay."
We bumped up to the end of the road and stopped the car in front of an abandoned warehouse. It
was made completely out of metal and wood, with all the windows broken along the top, the
frames left suspending the roof which groaned in the slight wind. I turned to wake up Oracle,
who had already gotten out of the car. She didn't seem the least bit perturbed by the
structure's ghostly look, but went right up to the rusted hangar door.
"Over here," Doggett said, indicating a human sized door around the side. The door wasn't
locked; Doggett managed to open it with a good tug and it flew open and banged back and forth
in the breeze. It was just as Doggett had described it. Metal roof, faded logo, funnels...
But there were no tables, no bodies, nothing to suggest that anyone had been here since the
factory had closed.
"No," I said, picking up the remains of an old leather strap off one of the tables and twining
it between my fingers.
"Scully, Doggett," Oracle called from a catwalk, motioning us upstairs. There was a manager's
office overlooking the plant. Doggett wrapped his hand in his suit jacket, broke the glass in
the door, and opened it. The floor groaned ominously as we entered the room. I stepped back
against the wall.
"Stick to the edges," Oracle said.
"Now what?" Doggett asked.
"Behind there," she said, indicating a filing cabinet pushed against the back wall.
Doggett came around one side, and I came around the other. We tried pushing it away from the
wall. It slid forward a few inches, then a few more, then crashed through a weak spot in the
floor. My arms circled wildly as I tried to keep myself from falling through the hole. Oracle
caught me by one arm and Doggett by the other as the floor gave way. Oracle quickly circled
the hole to Doggett, and they pulled me up and sat me on the narrow ledge they were standing
on.
"I'm fine," I said, looking at my feet hanging into the hole and the floor several dozen feet
below.
"Agent," Doggett said, pointing. There was a door behind where the cabinet used to be.
"That's it," Oracle said.
Doggett crept around the hole and tried the handle. It was unlocked, miraculously. We slipped
around the hole carefully, I with far more caution than Oracle, and we entered the door behind
Doggett.
The stairs were steel, not wood, thank God. They ended at a blank wall, with an opening to the
left. There were the remains of a guard station, and a door made of steel bars behind it, left
hanging open. There were halls of rooms, all left standing empty, with long abandoned medical
equipment that must have been state of the art thirty years ago or more.
"They left in a hurry," Doggett said.
Oracle was walking from room to room, touching various objects and fighting back tears. "I can
still feel them here," she said softly. "So much emotion..." She walked quietly down the
hall.
I followed her. "Do you sense Mulder?"
She didn't answer, but instead forced open the door to one room. She knelt, removed a brick
from the wall and pulled out a collection of old papers.
"I got people's names, as many as I could, and wrote them down on scraps I managed to pull from
the wastebaskets or cover sheets off of reports. So I could find them, or if someone found us
they would at least know what happened," Oracle said, handing me the stack of papers.
I could see the depth of despair in her eyes. I rifled through the sheets. So many names...
So many tortured souls... She reached in again and pulled out a photograph from the hiding
place. "I only got one group picture."
It was an old picture, taken in black and white, with individuals between 5 and 25, all
dressed in 1970's clothing. A girl who looked like Oracle was right in the middle of the
picture, standing between a young man about her age with dark hair and a young girl with dark
wavy hair. My breath caught, and I looked up at her questioningly. "Yes, that's me. That was
taken in 1973. I age well, don't I?" she said in a choked voice.
"How old are you?" I said in empathetic astonishment. I was finding it hard to breathe.
She shook her head slightly. "It doesn't matter." She pointed to the boy and said, "Xander.
He was in the cell next door. We were close enough to hear each other. We talked a lot. The
girl is Sammi. She was only here a few months before they took her away again. She didn't
remember anything about her family... they took it from her..." Her voice trailed off.
"I'm going to show these to Agent Doggett. Are you going to be okay?" She nodded.
"Scully," she called after me. I stopped. "Don't be hard on him. You're all he has left,"
she said. I nodded, uncertainly, and went down the hall.
I wandered through the maze of hallways, and found Doggett standing in a doorway, still as a
statue.
"Agent Doggett?" I said, approaching him.
He stepped out of the way with an unreadable expression on his face. I looked in. The room
was completely empty, except for a patch of cement that had been freshly poured. It had only
been setting a few days, if that.
"Help me," he said in a tight voice, handing me a sturdy metal bar.
"Doggett, we need to get a team in here. They may have buried evidence, papers, equipment..."
His gaze stilled my voice and riveted me to the spot. "Help me," he said again, and this time
the voice was a command.
The concrete hadn't set right, the structure was damp and water had kept it relatively soft.
Still, it was hard work. Doggett chipped away at it like a man possessed, with blow after blow
with an eerie machinelike precision. After what seemed like forever, we started to expose
something. Doggett worked with an increased fervor, choosing his blows more precisely and
chipping away more delicately, but still with that same persistence. I could see the object
taking shape. No, it can't be. It can't be. Oh, please dear God no. No, it can't be him.
It can't be.
"No!" I screamed, dropping the bar and collapsing to the floor.
A body, horribly mutilated, wearing Mulder's clothing... Oh, please God, don't let it be
true... Don't let it be true. I looked up at Agent Doggett for any sign, any hope. His face
was stunned, hopeless.
"They've killed him," he said in a horribly flat voice.