The Y-files
Case: #12345
It was a world where fungus slew men by the score, and where pocket pagers ordered people to kill their friends. It was indeed a bizarre world.
The harsh red light atop the police cruiser spun rhythmically, covering the glistening walls of the alleyway with a soft, red blanket as it passed. The garbled babble of police CB's cawed mindlessly in the background, and mingled with the steady droning chatter of reporters arguing with local authorities.
Special Agent Mulder was crouched over a covered body in the middle of the dark alley.
After examining the concealed body for roughly thirty seconds, Mulder turned to the FBI agent next to him and rubbed his eyes. "It was the aliens; they did this," he stated with conviction. Mulder's quiet, confident monotone told the agent not to argue, although he wouldn't have disagreed with such a logical statement anyway.
Special Agent Scully pushed past the eager young reporters, a tired look of disgust and urgency drawn across her face. She flashed her badge at the police officer that tried to keep her back with the crowd, then strode past him to a sleepy Mulder. The other Mulder, stoned but quite awake, staggered past the media circus and on to the street, disappearing into the night.
"What happened here, Mulder?" she asked, slurring a bit and wiping sand from the corners of her eyes.
Mulder blinked, standing up. "Extra-terrestrials killed this man." He motioned to the covered form lying sprawled on the ground.
Special Agent Scully smirked and pulled back the bloodstained cloth. A dead woman lay underneath, the cloudy orbs in her eye sockets staring longingly at a dark corner at the end of the alleyway. Her throat was sliced cleanly through. Red illumination shot by, momentarily revealing a man shivering in the corner, butcher knife in hand.
"No, this is strictly a homicide, nothing paranormal. A nice, down to Earth strangulation... that's all."
"But Scully, you're missing the facts here!" Mulder took a moment to calm down, then resumed. "Put the pieces together. Why would someone strangle a man in a dark alley? Think about it." Mulder was patting the back of his hand against the palm of his other, "Aliens obviously used this man for some kind of torturous experiments. There's no other explanation."
"But Mulder," those brown puppy-dog eyes shone with untainted innocence, "doesn't what you're saying sound the least bit far-fetched? I mean, rationally--and scientifically--this man could have just simply died from the pollution content in the air..."
While the two went on and on, the FBI agent shook his head, stood up, melted into the shape of a small, electric-blue wombat, glowed green for a moment, and then ascended into the ring-shaped spaceship above.
"Who was that anyway?" Scully asked, cocking her head.
"I don't know," Mulder replied, "just a stock character, I think. Nobody important."
* * * *
He looked right. Safe. Then left. Good. Slowly, and carefully, the small furry rat unscrewed the ventilation grate. Careful to be quiet, the rodent booted down the grate and darted from the shaft in the wall.
His brown fur glistening with sweat, he ran across the old yellowing tile of the floor until he reached the base of the counter, where he produced a small black box with sixteen pounds of C-4 attached to it. Pulling out a large but empty cat food bag, he shook it once before concealing the box under it. Then, after affixing the device to the base of the counter, the rat slunk back toward the air shaft.
* * * *
The conga-line continued. Swaying right, then left, they danced on joyfully.
Keeping her distraught eyes locked on the round microscope lenses, Scully addressed Mulder as he stormed into the lab. "Mulder, there's something a little unusual about that girl's chromosomes."
"Yeah," Mulder grumbled, throwing down a thickly packed manila folder in front of her, "the boys at the lab confirmed it; she--" he glowered at Scully, "--had a strange mutation of Congo fever. They're still working on it."
He peeled off his trench coat, throwing it on the sofa beside him as he flopped down. He rubbed his eyes. "I just don't get it."
"Oh yeah... Mulder?"
"Yeah?"
"We're supposed to oversee the defusing of a terrorist set bomb down at the Seven-eleven on 5th and Main. The orders come down from the highest level of the Bureau."
"I heard those bombings are becoming a lot more frequent."
"Yes, they're pretty clever too; the bombs are almost impossible to diffuse before the timer goes off."
Mulder looked up, musing to himself and rubbing his eyes, "Why would the F.B.I. want us to be at the site of a bomb that will almost surely explode and kill everyone within a two block radius no matter what is done?"
* * * *
An ordinary, unmarked, four-door rental sedan pulled into the spacious blacktop parking-lot of Mr. Doughnut: downtown gathering place for the LA police department, and some twenty and one half miles from the nearest Seven-eleven. Fat raindrops beat on the windows, and thunder crackled in the distance.
Parking between a police cruiser and the Bomb Squad's van, the sedan's headlights switched off, as did the window wipers. There was a pause, as a lone bicycle rode by, and then the two front doors of the anonymous sedan swung open, denting both the black and white police cruiser and the black Bomb Squad van on the opposite side. Simultaneously, two shadowy figures--ominous as twin black towers looming in the night--stepped out of the car.
"Mulder, there's a metal sphere with blinking lights--" the trench-coated figure emerging from the passenger side began, glancing at the small curiosity she had just noticed floating above the sedan's roof.
The other figure, taller and wearing a darker trench coat, cut the other's sentence short, his quietly insistent tone again refuting any argument. "There's no time for any of that now, Scully. We have to get the Bomb Squad over to that Seven-eleven."
"But Mulder..."
A sweet sugary smell wafted through the Mr. Doughnut lobby, and the few actual customers present looked around uncomfortably at the myriad smiling faces of the LA police force, some of whom were dunking large doughnuts into mugs of coffee and then devouring them messily. The atmosphere inside was one of calmness and mild boredness, that is, until Mulder and Scully threw open the door.
Mulder went straight for the black jacketed men sitting at the counter, who were using their doughnuts as flying saucers and orchestrating small intergalactic wars with them. "Beeps" and "Boops" filled the air around them as they made the fierce sounds of space battle. The back of their jackets read, in huge yellow letters:
BOMB SQUAD
LAPD
Just as Mulder dropped his hand on the black vinyl covered shoulder, about to speak, the Earth passed through a rift in time—drawn to the solar system by a small black hole forming in the northeast section of the U.S.—altering the history of the planet. Fortunately, no one on Earth would ever know.
"Hi; Special Agent Mulder," he flashed his badge and ID past the man's eyes, "There's a bomb down at the Seven- eleven on Main Street and Fifth, so, don't you think you'd better be getting on the job here pretty quick?"
The man's eyes widened. "Oh," he exclaimed, half chewed doughnuts flying from his mouth, "let's go boys!"
And with that, the Bomb Squad jumped from their seats at the counter, barreled through the Mr. Doughnut lobby past the blue ten-speed bicycle ordering a drink, and out the door.
"We'll take the Champion Autobahn, it's the fastest way! You two follow us."
Mulder nodded in agreement, hitting his head against the metal orb floating just behind him. The sphere fell to the ground, it's lights unblinking. Mulder decided it was just a sudden migraine, so shook his head once to clear it, and jumped into the rental sedan, turning the key as he closed the door. Scully, having seen the orb fall, bent to pick it up.
"Scully, there's no time!" Mulder shouted, revving the car engine.
Remembering their current problem, Scully left the orb, turned, and ran to the car.
Utilizing the great stealth passed on to them by their ancestors, five rats scurried up from a drain in the street and took the currently unfunctioning orb back with them.
* * * *
The two vehicles raced at amazing speeds down the slick macadam of the Champion Autobahn, weaving through the sparse traffic when it was necessary.
Crashing through the trees in the park adjacent to the Autobahn, a sleek jet-black corvette smacked into a few men and their horses, running over one of the horses and throwing the other onto the highway. A strange cry pierced the air, and the car jumped over a large drainage ditch and landed spinning on the blacktop. Automobiles screeched as their drivers' panicked and their brakes locked, in attempts to avoid hitting the fallen horse on the pavement.
Mulder spun the wheel, cutting the anonymous rental sedan hard to the right and narrowly missing a catastrophic four-car collision. The Bomb Squad van was not so lucky, as it was hit on both left and right sides by tumbling cement trucks. The pileup exploded behind them and another semi lost control, rolling right over the already stunned horse, killing the fell beast. The semi's air-brakes whined the truck to a halt, crushing and mangling the horse's dead quadruped body all the more.
A despaired shriek rose from the tumult behind the speeding sedan, "Penelope! Oh, she is dead!" And then the scene was far behind the two FBI special agents.
"Mulder!" Scully gasped, out of breath from shock, "The van's gone... we're going to have to defuse the bomb at the Seven-eleven ourselves!"
Mulder cast her a grim stare, and then the car did a three-sixty as they slid off the Autobahn at 95 mph and slammed into a ditch. He even got a chance to curse himself for not paying attention to the road, right before he fell to unconsciousness in his driver's side airbag.
Somewhere far above, a wombat laughed...
* * * *
"Damn it all!" the blue-green wombat swore in its native alien tongue, which, by some immense coincidence, is precisely identical to English on Earth. "We've lost another probe!"
"Another? You're the one who's going to report it this time; I got frazzed for it last time."
The first, that is, the scarless and fully haired wombat cringed at the very mention of frazzing, a torture now widely used by the space faring races of the galaxy, which was developed by the loathsome smithering blazamorphs.
"Well... I'm sure that if I explain to the captain that a human disabled it by attacking it with his head... that he'll understand," The young, naive wombat finished nervously.
The other wombat in the scientific observatory station hobbled across the white carpeted spaceship floor and peered at his companion through his good eye, "Not likely," he rasped. "Soon you'll be seein' the bright end of a frazzing whip, boy! Next time I see you, you'll be limping through this station just like me!" The pitiful looking wombat laughed malignantly, hobbling away.
"I don't need your spiteful remarks," the naive wombat grumbled as he disappeared through the round portal in the wall, off to relate to his superior the report of his probe.
* * * *
Mulder awoke to the rumbling of the earth and the telltale sound of a violently exploding Seven-eleven. He'd heard that sound all too often in the past couple of months. He pulled the deflated airbag--which he'd been sucking on in his sleep--from his mouth and checked his wrist watch. It was 8:30 p.m., well over three hours since the crash.
"Fuck me! Scully-- uh I didn't mean... well, you know... We've experienced 'missing time!' We must've been abducted while... uh Scully?" Now fully noticing that the mangled passenger seat was unoccupied, Mulder did a double-take.
Is she dead? No, there's no body. Well then what happened to her?! Let's see, the roof is torn completely off the car. So?! What does that mean?! [Shut up, I'll get to it!] The roof could've been torn off by the low-hanging pine branches in the woods fifty yards to the right over there... and Scully could've been thrown from the car--or... ... What's that floating orb with blinking lights doing? The metal sphere, luminous now in the dark, was flying about erratically, as if controlled by an unstable and very indecisive schizophrenic having an embolism. It flew about, darting over all points of the street, as it zigzagged in the general direction of Mulder, who was still sitting in the wrecked, but still highly anonymous sedan.
That's it! She was captured by aliens, and is being held at their mercy even as this blinking marble flies--
Mulder's thought was interrupted by the orb, as it flew over where the roof should have been on the useless automobile, and fell like a heavy stone onto the agent's head.
* * * *
A soft tone sounded as the doorbell button beside the door of an average suburban house was depressed. A figure stood outside the door. About its shoulders was draped a hefty black coat that bore an obscure turquoise symbol on the sleeve. The face was largely in the shadows, so it remained invisible, but it's eyes glowed red in the night. It wore a black fedora with a white band, which held a colorful feather on the hat. Also, the dark figure wore black combat boots, black fatigue pants, and a brightly colored tie-dye T-shirt, from the bottom of which a rather large (and hairy) belly protruded.
After a few moments the porch-light switched on, and several strong latches, bolts, and locks clicked as the resident of the house carefully disengaged each one. The doorknob twisted, and the door swung inward. The resident, a boy of indeterminate ethnic background, and with a calm and friendly visage, looked out at the man, and then briefly glanced at the rainy weather outside before returning his gaze to the shady figure standing at his doorstep. For a moment, the resident reflected that he had just seen a solitary bicycle pedaling itself through the rain, but quickly dismissed it from his mind.
Damn occult neighbor kids, must've failed at squaring the circle again, or something. Told their parents they really shouldn't encourage that kind of thing anymore. Can't understand it. Their mother did have that thing with the seven legged donkey though...
"Who are you?" the boy asked slowly.
"Don't you know, Jay old buddy?" the figure mocked, gesturing toward the emblem on its sleeve.
The resident's eyes leapt to the symbol. His eyes went suddenly wide, and he fell to his knees.
"Not now, boy! On your feet!" The stranger ordered, a wry smirk drawn across his unseen face.
"Are you from the W--?"
The stranger stopped the resident's words with his fist. "We shall have a 'talk', Jason Ditler..." The stranger walked in, slamming the door behind him. The night was shut out, and the screams were locked in...
* * * *
He wasn't out for long this time, but when he awoke, the orb was powering up again and starting to rise into the air again form his lap. In a sudden rage, Mulder brought his fist down on the thing, breaking it cleanly in half. Inside, a single rat ran a small stone wheel, evidently powering the orb, and another little rodent was turning a piddling wooden crank in the other hemisphere.
Managing to look surprised, both rats bounded out of their respective halves of the orb, and scuttled into the wilderness at the side of the Autobahn. Unfortunately, that was not the last Mulder saw of them.
Sighing, and putting the broken orb into a plastic zip-loc bag, Mulder stepped out of the smashed sedan.
Wow, those pine trees really did a job on the roof, it looks like the jaws of life took that baby off, Mulder thought, slipping the zip-loc bag into his dark London Fog coat.
Starting off down the road looking to hitch a ride back to police headquarters, Mulder averted his thoughts from any torturous experiments the aliens might have in store for Scully, and wondered if he would ever see his partner again...
* * * *
She awoke, a red haired woman of her own singular beauty, stark naked, and lying prone on a flat, rectangular, yet not entirely uncomfortable table. Her wrists and ankles were bound near the corners by some sort of metal cuffs, which, oddly enough, were not discomforting either.
Her head swam in circles and she felt drugged, although she was returning to reality quickly, and now coherent enough to perceive her surroundings. She realized she had been staring at the soft white lighting above her, which seemed to be produced by the ceiling itself. The ceiling, she noted, was rather low. The room itself was colored sterile white, and probably about the size of a cheap hotel room.
Directly to her right, allowing for a small walkway space between it and the table, was a counter with trays and strange instruments of various shapes and sizes strewn across the bland surface.
She smiled. Ah, this was her good dream.
Relaxing and spreading out a little more on the soothingly smooth table, she let her gaze fall to the side once again, wandering over the many obscure looking objects. These were angular gadgets of cold, hard metal, she realized. Their shine reflected not the soft overhead lights, but shone with a harsh, menacing glare. The smoothness of the table no longer seemed soothing, it felt severe and surgical.
Her eyes widened, and she pulled in vain at her restraints. As the effects of whatever she had been drugged with were completely transpired now, Scully realized suddenly that it was no fantasy, indeed (at least not one of hers, as far as she could tell at the moment), it was a nightmare, and she became very afraid.
* * * *
Sitting rather calmly in the passenger seat of a large purple van, Mulder risked a furtive glance at the driver, a big hairy-backed man who gripped the purple steering wheel with fat, sweaty hands. His eyes protruded from his greasy head as prominently as a frog's, and were fixated stupidly on the road ahead. The man's gut stuck out to the wheel, and he belched or made some indecipherable flatulent noise regularly. The radio was on, playing Blister in the Sun softly.
The inside of the van was upholstered completely in artificial purple leather, and smelled strongly of hash and tobacco smoke. Several purple air fresheners shaped like trees hung from the roof, and one kept smacking Mulder in the back of the head as it swung, perturbing him moderately, though not visibly. A thin haze enveloped the driver, who was sweating profusely for no good reason.
Mulder had been trying to discourage eye contact, and thus conversation with the man, ever since he was picked up and given the ride. It was too late now, however; the man had noticed Mulder's glance.
"So, uh... what did you, um... say you did again?" The man asked.
"Oh, I work for the government," Mulder finished quickly, his head tilted slightly and resting on his right hand.
"I'm in a band," the man said, tonelessly.
Mulder cursed himself silently for glancing the man's way.
"We don't screw around man... This drummer for Violent Femmes, he's awesome..." he droned, turning up the volume of the radio. He was obviously a moron. "I'm a drummer. One day I'll play like that, man."
"Okay," Mulder favored the man with a response.
Without warning, a riderless blue bicycle appeared in the street, skidding to a halt just at the end of the van's headlights' range. After a second or two, the purple vehicle's driver took notice.
"Oh my Gul Dern! A raccoon!" he cried, turning the wheel sharply and slamming the brake pedal through the floor.
"Wha--!?" Mulder got a chance to say before the van toppled on its side.
The van rolled over several times, bouncing over the bicycle and sliding to a halt fourteen feet ahead, effectively blocking off the entire right side of the highway. Mulder kicked off the door, which spun into the dark night. Not even bothering to check the driver, he jumped from the cab and ran from the overturned vehicle, trench coat flapping in the wind behind him.
Reaching the bike, he stopped to catch his breath.
Suddenly, the bicycle spoke: "Mulder, I've come to have a word with you," it enunciated.
"Yeah, thanks for saving me from that idiot driver over there," he gestured toward the overturned vehicle with his thumb, gasping for air.
The van exploded spectacularly behind him, sending jagged fragments of metal flying through the air.
"I thought he'd never shut up."
"Mulder, we must go now. It is of the utmost urgency. Hop on my banana seat, for I must explain the entire plot to you, so you can solve this case."
"Okay, let's go," Mulder agreed easily with the bicycle, hopping on its lightly uncomfortable banana seat. They sped away, jumping the fiery van and continuing down the highway at an incredible speed.
"The city's rats have been bombing the Seven-elevens, and are preparing for an uprising. First it was just the city's Seven-elevens, but now they've gone on to bigger things. They've destroyed a post office."
There was a dramatic pause as Mulder assimilated the information, considering the implications and striving to face the bitter reality. The only sound was the whizzing of the bike's wheels, and the familiar cry of a lone wuss bird cutting through the night.
"Bastards..." his eyes were glistening with unshed tears, "Some of our best men have come from the postal service."
"Indeed. Now, also, the rats have been stealing alien technology, and plan to annihilate all of mankind with it."
"Yeah, I've seen what they can do with that technology. I--"
"There's also another problem."
Mulder remained quiet, his eyes locked solemnly on the colorful squeeze-horn adorning the bicycle's handlebars.
"There's a criminal going by the name of Ditler who is covertly amassing resources and working to become the tyrannical dictator of a small suburban high school in Ohio, thereby gaining political power; his first stage in a quest for world domination. It is possible that he is being controlled by aliens and we can safely assume from that assumption that the aliens too have plans to wipe humans from the face of the Earth."
Now Mulder spoke, his eyes shining with intensity, "I'm with you now. So, from what you've told me already, we can also assume that this Ditler guy has a deaf white cat he calls 'his fun machine', right?"
"Exactly. But don't worry about him now, a few of our best men are working on tracking him down."
The bicycle coasted down a hill, and stopped across the street from the police station.
"This is where I leave," the blue huffy told Mulder.
"But wait, I have more questions!" the human yelled after the bike, but it was pedaling away.
Mulder cast a disgusted sidelong look at the weird hippie-looking man who had just risen from the ground and screamed the question at the blue bicycle. Strange organ-like music floated to Mulder's ears as the long haired hippie--dressed in hip hugger bellbottoms and a tie-dyed T-shirt with a large red peace symbol on it--began to disco dance while chanting, "Make love, not war, man."
Opting not to join the hippie in his merrymaking, Mulder ran across the street and into the police headquarters.
* * * *
"How has she been doing?"
"Well, at first, she was surprisingly relaxed after regaining consciousness, and the pleasure centers of her primitive excuse for a brain were quite active."
"Is that so? Not quite what you'd expect from one of them."
Scully's mind was fading back into reality, albeit slowly, and she caught bits of the conversation going on above her as she fought to wake fully.
"Certainly, but after a few minutes she became excited and frightened, so she had to be sedated."
"Well then, we'd best begin while she's semi-conscious."
Murmurs of agreement.
"But... before we start, I have been ordered to inform this group that we are officially going to war with the Earthlings, and all our resources will be redirected toward that cause."
An appalled voice: "What about the cow mutilation funds?"
An awkward pause.
"Sorry," another voice sympathized. "The humans initiated the war with a hostile act. That is why we must destroy them."
What did they do?"
"Oh, one of them took out Probe 7 by attacking the thing with its head. It was an act of war and taken as such by our wise council."
Scully let out a moan. The depressants in her system were wearing off.
"Which brings us to this, fellow scientists, crewmen, and pilots..."
"By the way, how long does it take an unmanned spaceship such as ours to fall out of a low orbit and plummet to a fiery demise on the ground below?"
"Oh, I don't know, not very long."
"Okay, just wondering."
Scully opened her eyes, and saw several oddly colored wombats standing on the table around her, each with a cruel, twisted metallic instrument in its paw. The light shimmered off of their drool, and then the tickling began.
* * * *
In an average drainage pipe, a rat chittered. In an energetic and patriotic response, the army of rats gathered before the first rodent chittered loudly, for almost an entire minute. Following that display of loyalty, the lead rat again chittered, with the same chittering applause.
The time of the uprising was near. No more would the rats be repressed. They wanted the same rights as everyone else. They did not enjoy being driven underground by human society, so they were attempting to raze it and create a New World Order.
The chittering continued, and the army prepared to march in full force. The few alien orbs they had stolen were being powered up, and were ready to launch. The rats hoisted their sporks, putting their minds to the proper mindset for battle.
A wave of sewage abruptly flushed through the pipe, carrying the rats back toward their deep homes, but they would be back, oh yes. And soon.
* * * *
"Sir, with all due respect, you are not listening to the facts."
Mulder stood before Skinner's desk, which, in turn, stood in a large, wood-paneled office. On opposite sides of the room were mounted flags: one being the banner of the United States, and the other a simple white cloth depicting the seal of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Assistant Director Skinner himself sat behind the desk, his hands folded. He was looking up at Mulder through placating eyes.
"Mulder, you know I can't do a thing right now. Just have your report on my desk Monday morning."
"It may be too late by then! Don't you see--"
"Mulder," the man silenced his subordinate with a word. "Have a seat."
Mulder sat down slowly in one of the chairs in front of the desk.
"It's out of my hands. Besides, you've been taken off the case. Here's your new one," he threw a manila folder into Mulder's lap.
He let Mulder simmer for a moment, fully expecting a rebuke. Mulder simply looked down at the file, and then brought his stare back to the Asst. Director. The cover of the folder, although covered lightly with the words TOP SECRET stamped in red ink, read:
Case#12347
"You are to start on it immediately... and where is Agent Scully anyway?"
"Haven't you listened to a word I've said??" Mulder shot up from the seat. "The entire world is in danger, Scully has been kidnapped by the very same force of aliens which threaten our very existence, treachery brews beneath our feet, and you could help stop it!"
Mulder threw his hands upon Skinner's desk, his emotions riding high. He opened his mouth, as if about to speak, but then shut it again, his face changed in expression. He still looked a bit angry, but a sparkle had come to his eyes. Turning away with a dramatic furl of his long trench coat, Mulder stormed through the door, slamming it behind him. Skinner could only stare at the file folder lying on his desk.
When Mulder exited the building, he noticed that the hippie was still dancing quite horribly, and a few quarters and bits of change were strewn at his feet.
Also, and with some distaste, he noticed that the stoned Mulder had somehow found the hippie. He was dancing to Staying Alive, and no longer was he dressed in a dark and inconspicuous trench coat, oh no. Now he wore a tight fitting lime-green leisure suit. Except for stumbling into the brick wall of the police HQ every now and then, he was doing quite well. Still considerably stoned, he smiled dumbly through it all, until a brightly blinking metal ball flew up to him at some great velocity and then stopped dead two inches from his face.
Needless to say, he fell flat on his back, repeating over and over again the words, "Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow..."
Seeming to shrug, the orb flew on, this time slower. Mulder decided to follow it, for no better reason than to escape the enigmatic organ-ish music around the hippie. In the night sky, he caught a glimpse of a fallen star, and wished to someday actually solve a case, answering all questions about it.
But it would be nice to have Scully back too, he thought.
* * * *
It was gloaming in the City, and the dense layer of smog which hung perpetually over the city concealed the wispy white clouds above from the average passer-by on the street. Two beady red eyes focused upon one passer-by, although he was not quite an average one. He was exiting a large building, a hospital, and by the smile on his face and his jaunty gait, the brain behind the tiny torrid eyes assumed he'd had a wonderful visit. The brain of the onlooking wombat assumed correctly.
Just as the boy (and a boy he seemed) reached the bottom of the steps in front of the hospital, there was a sound of breaking glass, and several screams issuing from inside the building. The boy simply grinned a bit wider, pulled up the zipper on his jeans, and continued on toward the street corner he had been heading for in the first place.
"It's him alright," the wombat said, turning to face his fellows. "We shall march to the street corner, where we will secure dates for later tonight, and then make contact with our new commander. Move out!"
And so the rather small platoon of four thousand diversely colored wombats advanced into and across the busy metropolitan street, stopping briefly to converse with a few women wearing long boots. After a smidgen of money was exchanged, the wombats got down to other business.
"Scarves made of polymers may be substituted for DNA," the wombat captain said congenially to the boy at the corner.
The boy gave him a casual look and halted for a moment to listen to the increasing number of screams emanating from the hospital behind him. "Indeed, Polariods are easily erased by squirrel fur."
"Oh yes, and how's the weather today sir?" the wombat finished nervously, turning away as fast as could be. Breaking into a Russian accent, the boy began asking the wombat about jet-plane migs or bigfoots or something.
The wombat captain saw the boy he had been watching from across the street now, and--giving the signal for his minions to execute the Russian (thereby unknowingly saving many of America's Polaroids from being erased by one of the KGB's top squirrel strike forces)--repeated the first coded message to him. He took no notice, as he was licking his arms, so the green wombat repeated the sentence, more insistently this time.
"Damn T-cells," the boy was saying to himself, "They don't know when to quit." Quite apparently, the wombat captain noticed straight away, the boy's T-cells were burrowing up through his skin. Evidently they wished to escape the body and float about free in the atmosphere.
"Oh, yeah, uh, and walnuts ride horses because they are too short for mice."
"Ah, it is you Ditler. We are at your command," the green bare-butted animal bowed grandiosely, sending three nuns across the street into convulsive stroke induced spasms at the sight.
The last remaining scream in the hospital died away, and all was silent for a moment.
"And it is you! I did not see your army of four thousand strong march across the street and up to my very nose. It was good of us to arrange a code to recognize one another."
Just as the moderately infamous Ditler began his last sentence, the windows of the memorial building behind him exploded outward, their shattered remains ripping apart trees and not a few pedestrians. Clouds of minuscule air-bound organisms flooded out from the windows, and merged into one terrifically dense flock above the roof. They made not a sound as they flew away... away to plague the world with their malign presence, creating havoc wherever they would go. The hectopi were loosed upon the world that very day, although their further activities do not come into this tale.
"The time is past for nonchalance and inconspicuousness! Raise the banner of the Great Wombat Army!" cried the captain.
With the militant wombat multitude at his heels and his whim, the boy Ditler proceeded to the site he had been commanded to progress to for the coming battle. Checking his indiglo watch, he saw that he had a few minutes to spare, so he decided to walk down the boulevard browsing by the shops, window-shopping if you will.
* * * *
Behind a sewage grate near a popular Seven-eleven, the army waited. Their commander had given the order to hold, and that was what they would do, in spite of their aroused killing spirit. Each rat saw through a red veil that night, and only a miracle could stop them.
At the strike of twelve, the establishment's humble Arabic owner, Habib, closed his place of business for the night. Seventeen customers were shooed out with a broom, and the double doors locked behind them. Those seventeen people never made it home that night.
Pausing to wish on the rather large meteorite falling from the sky, the rats' commander let out a shrill squeal, loosing it's horde of viscous rodents upon the Earth, and the unsuspecting humans before them. Each spork gleamed dully in the moonlight, and each rat chittered victory.
* * * *
Between anguished shrieks, Scully heard the whining sound of an alarm. The wombats, however, were fixated on their gruesome work. Most held tickling devices of unspeakable horror, but one pulled a long probe from the counter, to which it's drawn-out tail was attached. At its tip, a large electronic eye blinked, no, winked. The wombat who held it, red in color, snickered.
Through the door to her left which was left ajar, a window was visible. Scully could see the planet rushing up to meet the spaceship. Scared, and most definitely out of options, her highly trained mind created a new one.
"Look! Is that Elvis?" she cried in last resort.
All faces turned, marked with utter fear.
Hmm, somehow they know him... I'll have to bring it up with Mulder...
In a burst of adrenaline borne strength, Scully tore free of her steel restraints, jumping from the table and flying toward the window. The wombats grabbed for her ankles, but all they caught was air. Scully, still nude but quite all right and uncut from the fragments of the breaking window, crashed through and fell from the ship.
* * * *
The two policemen exchanged tense glances. They were on the lookout for one of the latest killers in the city. The miscreant had killed a ninety-seven year old woman, after stealing her medicare card.
Down sixteen blocks they drove, passing an amassment of small weaponed mammals. The two policemen knew their jobs were on the line; their speeding ticket quotas were substantially low, and to top off their agitated mood, they had been gone from Mr. Doughnut for at least half an hour.
Suddenly, their searching eyes latched onto a figure standing in front of a bakery window. Slowing the car, they watched a little while longer, and when the figure did not move...
"O'Leary, I think that may be our ruffian!" spoke the policeman in the driver's seat through a thick Irish accent.
"Me stars, O'Harris!" returned the other in the same Emerald Isle dialect, "It sure be, I think."
The black-and-white came to a direct halt there in the street, and the two cops jumped hurriedly out. Running to the sidewalk, O'Leary pulled a large color glossy photograph from his belt. They reached the figure, and pulled him around by the shoulder. This revealed the strange ethnically mysterious face of one Jason Ditler, but the cops did not know his name.
Putting the picture of a black-haired man beside Ditler's face, the two policemen made comparisons. The man in the picture had quite a striking appearance, one hard to forget. His long raven black hair obscured one side of his face, and a bold scar shone on the other side. He was definitely Hispanic or Italian.
Looking at Ditler's paradoxically innocent, clean shaven and unscathed face, O'Harris said to his partner, "This him?" And after a second of indecision: "Mmm... close enough."
The cops came down hard on Ditler with their billy clubs, and the only known photo of the killer was thrown carelessly into the air. It floated into the street and was consumed by the brachiosaurus that was currently traveling through town on his way to the circus, which he loved to watch so… but neither does his tale come into this one.
After being beaten to a pulp by L.A.'s finest, Ditler managed to squeak one simple question: "Why... am I... being arrested?"
"For murder of the foulest sort!" O'Leary shouted.
"And loitering!"
At this the banner of the great wombat relief army fell. What were they to do, now that their leader was gone? Questions like that, and many others rippled through the ranks. Finally, they all simply broke apart and integrated into society, some as pets, and some as fully recognized American citizens.
* * * *
Mulder was close now, he could hear the tumult of a riot. Losing his patience, he swept past the metal orb and ran around a corner. Terrible carnage faced him. A platoon of rats were taking down some civilians.
Suddenly, Mulder remembered the idea that had hit him in Skinner's office. But that would have to wait until he found a nice cheap hotel room and a couple bottles of scotch.
Also, he would need Scully and
several other consent--but no time for that now, he thought, what I need is
a plan.
Keeping hidden behind a park bench, Mulder wracked his mind for a viable solution to the problem. The metal orb he had been following floated serenely through the action, not even slowing when it zapped a human with a fatal frazzing laser. It did stop; however, to face the two other alien spheres that were bashing themselves repeatedly into the humans' heads in efforts to slay them, oftentimes missing their marks and hurtling senseless into the ground or streaking free through the air.
A few glowing green missiles escaped the first--that is, the obviously better controlled--orb, impacting the others flawlessly. To the dismay of the spork wielding rats, their stolen mechanisms exploded in spectacular brilliance. Be that as it may, the area did not dim again when the explosions ceased, the light intensified, as if the sun itself was falling to the Earth. Mulder crouched, intent on finding a way to rescue the civilians, who were dropping like flies.
Then...
A blazing inferno of white hot metallic fury pounded (a great deal more than just soundly) first into the floating orb, knocking it to the ground with a 'plunk', then a millisecond later itself into the ground, trouncing the Seven-eleven and the battle flat, as they were all driven three miles underground into the new crater. Going that deep into the planet, the alien ship (now quite destroyed) broke through a thin part of the crust and landed smack in a river of magma. Rushing up through the path wrought by the crashing wombat ship, the lava spouted up onto the surface, soon cooling and hardening. That of course obliterated all but every piece of evidence pertaining to Mulder's entire case.
Scully, who had been rushing toward the Earth at terminal velocity for about nine thousand feet now, was luckily slowed by the amazingly strong updrafts of hot air. Below her, Mulder stood up, having struck upon insight.
I have it! he thought, a split second before Scully fell into his arms, having been slowed considerably enough not to break his bones. Looking at her lying semi-conscious and nude in his grasp, Mulder began having a few quite different thoughts. He noticed vaguely then what had just occurred, then ran off for the nearest hotel and liquor store...
* * * *
"You've got nothing here," Skinner grumbled, "these hemispheres made of strange alloys and materials with intricate unknown runes etched in them mean nothing. Neither does the complex unfathomable circuitry or the antimatter power source."
At this, the Asst. Director put the plastic bag containing both halves of the orb into his desk, and never spoke another word of it to the two special agents.
"And Scully, why are you smoking in my office anyway! Get out! You two are suspended--and I want your full reports on my desk tomorrow morning!"
Mulder stood up and strode out the door, not caring to look back. He had an immense hangover. Scully got up a little more slowly, and walked awkwardly after her partner. The wide smile decorating her glowing face had infuriated her superior just then.
Together, they walked to the door. They got stuck in the doorway and Scully fell down, but she gained her feet again, and they walked into the bright afternoon. As the air was somewhat chilly, their breath congealed in the air ahead of them.
After casting his usual somber and calculating glance about, Mulder stepped forward and hopped into an anonymous sedan that the FBI seemed to keep in stock. Scully followed in her half shambling, half limping sort of way, and reached the car in seven minutes flat. Mulder turned the ignition key, and spun the tires before rocketing away behind the wheel of the powerful V-6.
Whipping across the Champion Autobahn, they passed a black '57 Chevy all decked out in chrome. Mulder slipped on some shades, put an ominous brown leather hat on his head and tipped it for good measure. Then, with the countryside rushing toward them, and asphalt rolling by beneath them, Mulder put the pedal to the floor and sped boldly toward their destiny.
END
[[Just a note: I wrote this about… oh, 6 or 7 years ago, when I was a sophomore in high school. Still, I've always had a certain fondness for it. I love the X-files, and this story should not be viewed as being in any way depreciating.]]
The
most obvious thanks goes to the X-files TV series, and all the people who make
it the wonderful show that it is.
Surely, without them, the
Y-files would not exist.
Please don't sue me. :)
Special thanks to Jim, Ben, & Jason. Because inspiration often came from all of you in art class.