March 6, 1999
Lone Gunman Headquarters
2:13am
* * * * * *
You can justify, rationalize, and excuse yourself until the day
you die. Or you can face the truth. That the decisions you have
made have brought you to where you are. And if you don't like
where you are, you can make a new decision. --Unknown
* * * * * *
Something was digging a small hole into the middle of Mulder's back. He
felt a sharp edge digging into that small area between the shoulder
blades and directly on the spines of his vertebra that was absolutely
impossible to reach. Yes, that was what roused him from his blessed
sleep. What was it? Still not opening his eyes, he shifted on the bed.
At least that is what he thought he was on. It felt like a bed. Not his
bed. Someone else's bed. His thoughts were still fragmented as he tried
to shrug off sleep's fog that blanketed his mind.
He rolled onto his stomach, and in the process entangled himself within
his overcoat. He cursed under his breath as he yanked on one corner,
releasing it from under him. His eyes still closed, still unwilling to
leave the blessed world of sleep, he passed his hand over the top of the
blanket.
With a satisfied cry of success, he came up with what had so rudely
woken him. He slowly cracked one eye open, then the other.
The room was dark, lit only by the faint sliver of light that slid under
the door. He sat up quickly in alarm. Where the hell was he? The alarm
was mostly concerning how he had gotten here, not necessarily about
danger to himself. He knew he was safe here, as safe as he could be, at
least.
How did he know that? He shook his head in confusion, his head still not
wanting to work. The synapses were firing, but no connections were being
achieved. Ok, back to were he was. How did he know where he was...he
closed his eyes and tried to concentrate; tried to remember.
Stale pizza... Stale pizza...and, what was that? It was burnt electrical
equipment. The Gunmen. He was at the Gunmen's. His pleased smile faded
rapidly, however, as the circumstances of how he had ended up here began
to fill in. A gunshot, fired by him...dark, oh so dark blood... blood
pooling, seeping into the rug at his feet...
He stood, slightly swaying, and found the door. The light tumbled in as
he opening it, and he squinted at the startling brightness of it. The
light seemed to pierce his eyes, boring a hole that lead directly into
his brain. He looked down at the object that he found he was still
gripping in his hand, the thing that had woken him up moments before. He
had no idea what the hell it was. Without a second thought, Mulder
causally tossed the object, likely a part to one of the many half built
computers that littered the Gunmen's residence, back on the bed. Let one
of them discover it in his sleep.
Snatches of conversation floated to Mulder as he walked down the short
hallway between the bedroom and the slightly larger front room. Their
talking was punctuated by the occasional rapid flurry of typing on the
keyboard.
It was Byres voice that he picked out first. "--anything?" The door
closed.
"No. Thank God." Was the relived reply. Frohike. He was locking the door
now; Mulder could hear the bolts sliding into place.
"The only thing that was different was his rug. Not there anymore."
Langly added.
The next words were muffled and Mulder didn't hear it all. "--more?"
"Yes, right after you left--" Bryes' words were lost amongst a rustling
of papers. "--Baldwin at Los Alamos. He's looking into it for us." More
rustling. "-- initial findings seem to agree with ours, but I haven't
yet finished reading the results from GenBank."
"Hey." Mulder stepped out into the room.
The Gunmen looked up, surprised. Langly glanced at his watch. "Awake
already? Didn't think that you would be up for hours."
Mulder shrugged his shoulders and sat down on a stool and leaned heavily
on the desk. "I guess I wasn't as tired as you thought." He nodded his
head in the direction of the papers Byres held. "The report. Have you
gone through it yet?"
Byres glanced down to his hand. He had forgotten that he still held
them. "Yes. Yes, we have. Um...but we haven't yet completed the final
analysis. There seemed to be some conflicting readings, so we contacted
an old friend of ours to see what he could make of it."
Mulder nodded silently. "How much longer until he gets back to you?"
"He just sent it actually. But I wanted to look it over first before I
discuss it with you." Byres glanced at his companions as he spoke again.
"Maybe while you wait you guys can talk with him about what you found at
his apartment." The two men nodded and Byres headed to the other side of
the room.
Mulder looked surprised. "How did..." He trailed off, not quite sure how
to finish.
"You woke up for a moment, earlier. You mentioned your place..." Langly
shrugged his shoulders. "The rest was easy enough to figure out."
"And what did you find?"
"Nothing. We found nothing." Frohike answered, and it was obvious that
he was relived by his news.
"Just your rug. That was the only thing that was different. They took
it. I guess whoever couldn't get the stains out." Langly finished.
"That rug was always a bitch to clean." Mulder said flatly. The only
thing that could be heard was Byres in his corner, cautiously typing
away. Mulder glanced over to the quiet man, and back to the others.
"What did you find?"
Frohike's voice was pained. "Experiments that were done." He practically
choked on the next words. "Experiments that were planned."
"What kind of tests?" He asked quietly, the words escaping from him
before he can call them back.
Frohike wouldn't, or couldn't answer. The two shared a look and Langly
answered. "Genetic."
"Tell me what you found out."
"Byres would be the best person to do that. But we should wait to see
what Baldwin has to say." Hope briefly flared in Langly's voice. "We
could be wrong."
"You guys aren't wrong." Mulder walked across the room to look over
Byres shoulder as he sat, alternatingly typing and shifting through a
shack of papers." Tell me what you found."
Byres sighed and looked up at the man towering above him. "Baldwin seems
to agree with us, although that still doesn't explain just what all this
means. When we were looking through this, it became clear that the
majority of the tests dealt with the manipulation of genes." He paused
as he shuffled through the papers.
"There is a manipulation of genes, but the thing that we couldn't seem
to understand was *why* there was manipulation. When you manipulate
genes, something is changed or introduced into the sequence, but as far
as we were able to determine, nothing was introduced nor deleted.
Playing with genetics is a very long and immensely complicated at times,
and to go to all of this trouble for not..."
Byres paused and Frohike interjected. "Let's just say, I seriously doubt
that these people are not in it just for the knowledge, for the
betterment of scientific research."
Mulder nodded. "What did your friend have to say? What did he make of
all of this?"
Byres glanced to the computer screen before him. "He works at the Los
Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and much of what he does deals
with working with GenBank."
Mulder looked confused. "GenBank?"
"The world's major computer repository for DNA sequence information."
Langly answered.
Byres continued. "He's done quite a bit of work on the human genome
project and is familiar with a great range of tests and analysis's done
to genes. From what he has said, it seems that what these experiments
entail...well he has never seen them before."
He glanced up to Mulder's worried face, and spoke again, trying to ease
his worries before they became full blown. "But that doesn't mean he
doesn't know what was done. The reason he has never seen it before is
because there doesn't seem to be any point to it. There would be nothing
to gain, at least that is what he thinks."
"So what exactly were these experiments? Why...I mean what were they
actually doing?" Mulder asked.
"You know how DNA is made up of exons and introns, right? The exons are
what actually make the proteins, what actually carry the genetic
information; while the introns are those noncoding stretches of DNA that
get removed before it is translated into protein." Byres looked to
Mulder, making sure he was following.
"Yes, that is one of the fundamental components of genetics." Mulder
nodded in understanding.
Byres continued. "These introns make up the majority, while the exons,
the areas that actually do the work, make up only a small percentage of
genes. This has been one of those scientific mysteries. It is not clear
why most genes of higher organisms should be broken up into short exons
separated by these huge stretches of seemingly useless DNA. What makes
it particularly puzzling is that introns are all painfully transcribed
into RNA only to be snipped out and thrown away almost immediately
after. These segments of introns have been largely ignored by the
scientific community because of their seemingly lack of importance.
However, recently there have been studies that have found that some of
these introns contain genes of their own, although what the function of
these genes might be and why there would be such genes within genes
still remain to be discovered."
"Anyway, the point of this is that the treatments that were to be done
on Scully did not deal with inserting new code, or sequences, or even
really changing what was already there--" Langly broke Byres off. "That
isn't exactly correct."
Bryes looked at Langly and nodded slightly, acknowledging that he may
have misspoke. "Well, I don't mean that exactly. Nothing new has been
added per say, nothing new as in from an outside source, but it may have
as well been."
"What are you saying exactly? It seems that that statement contradicts
itself. How can something be added, yet not?" But even as he spoke, a
glimmer of comprehension was beginning. Mulder met Byres' eyes and Byres
nodded his head, confirming what Mulder had realized.
Mulder spoke, giving voice to his thought, and finally making real what
had really happened. "They didn't add anything, they just stopped those
introns, those genes that always get cut out, from being removed."
* * * * * *
Department of Defense
2:52pm
"I'm sorry, I don't understand what you are asking me to do..." The
doctor's voice faltered in confusion.
Diana stared down at the diminutive doctor, her irritation growing. "I
think that I explained myself well enough. I said prepare her for
transport."
"But the procedures haven't been completed. And we haven't yet
determined how well she is responding to the treatment--"
"I have the results here." She held up several papers in front of the
man. She moved them before he had the opportunity to get a good look.
"The results came back and showed that the tests are going as planned."
"Not all of the tests..." His voice lacked force.
"We have already demonstrated that we have the technology. It is not
necessary for all of the tests to be conducted. We have already found
out what we need to know." She responded in a no-nonsense voice.
"Are you sure? My orders here clearly indicate-"
Her voice was sharp, abrasive. "I am now leading this project, and your
orders have changed." Diana studied the man before her, trying to
determine the best way to approach him. She didn't have the time to
negotiate with him all night. Perhaps a touch of the truth would help.
She glanced around the room, noted that the others were occupied, and
pulled the man closer to her. Speaking in a hushed tone, she began
again. "Look, the man who began this, the one that told you to start
this project, he has been killed."
The doctor's eyes widen with surprise. "Killed? How?"
"The details of his death have not as of yet been determined. However,
this has dramatically altered the plans. He was the liaison between the
aliens and us. It is very important that his death is kept from them. We
are at a very delicate time, and anything could upset the balance. We
need to hand her over before they discover that anything has changed."
The doctor' head bobbed in enthusiasm, pleased that he was privy to this
information. "I understand. We will get her ready for transport." He
turned away from Diana and walked to the others of the room and began
speaking the new orders in a short clipped tone.
Diana watched, removed, as Scully was prepared for transport.
Step one was now completed.
* * * * * *
South I-95
Virginia
5:25pm
Traffic was light and well behaved, demanding only the edge of Diana's
attention. For that she was thankful. She carefully steered the car with
one hand as she placed a call on her cell phone with another, all the
while keeping a close eye on the big rig ahead of her that was caring
the 'cargo.' Multitasking at it's best. The other end of the line was
picked up immediately. He had been waiting for her call.
"Yes." There was no need for introductions. She knew Krycek's voice
well.
Her words were clipped. "It's begun."
"Time?"
She glanced at the clock displayed on the dashboard. "Less than an hour,
plus the time it will take to get to your location."
"Good. We will be waiting."
There was a long pause as she considered the next question. "Did you
locate him?" She was distressed to hear a tremor in her voice, instead
of the cool indifference she'd hoped to project.
"Does that really matter?"
Silence. He was just trying to provoke her. Another moment passed and he
gave into the silence. "He left his buddies and went to her place. He
has been there most of the day, pining away for her."
"That wasn't so difficult, was it?" She smiled grimly.
Krycek knew where this was leading. They had already discussed this
before, and he tried to head off her next comment. "We don't have time
to deal with him. You know how he likes to interfere."
"Have we determined if he is infected?"
"No. It would be a hell of a lot easier if you let me kill him."
"Not an option." A little shrill, that. "Not an option," she said again,
to take the edge off it.
He waited a second or two before responding, and she could almost see
his satisfied smile. Damn him. "We can't take him with us. Things are
cut close enough as it is."
"There will be time." The words sounded weak even to her own ears.
His voice was firm. He would not give in on this issue. "Look, you do
your part on your end, and I'll do mine. And that means when I say we
can't, we can't. Understand?"
She had regained discipline of her voice, and when she spoke, her words
were devoid of emotion. "Fine. You know best." She hung up and threw the
phone in the empty seat next to her. Damn him. Him and his cock-sure
attitude. She hated working with him on this, hated giving up some of
her limited trust to him. No time? "No time my ass." She muttered under
her breath as she pressed against the gas petal. She closed the distance
between her and the truck that she had lost during the conversation.
The drivers knew that she was following, so she didn't have to deal with
stealth yet. Giving the men her most authoritative stare, she had fed
them a line about needed to personally supervise the transfer. They
hadn't even questioned it.
She ran through the plan in her head for the hundredth time in as many
hours. One driver, two men in the back with Scully, monitoring her
condition. Three total. She could handle that. The men thought that they
were simply transferring her to another facility, which was correct, but
what they didn't realize was that this particular one had long ago been
deserted. There would be no one to welcome them when they arrived. She
would need to act fast before they suspected.
* * * * *
Stevenson Labs,
North Ashland, Virginia
8:01pm
Scully awoke. She knew nothing, remembered nothing, and felt neither the
desire nor the will to activate cognition. She lay unmoving and might
have so continued for an indefinite period of time had not a physical
sensation finally forced itself upon her consciousness. Someone was
speaking to her. No...make that yelling at her. And tugging on her arm.
"What the...?", was her half thought. She was not yet ready for full
thoughts.
She opened her eyes, trying to make out the dark shape above her, but
the person was half hidden in the faint light. Finally, after several
more moments, the words began to penetrate into her mind, along with
voice of the woman who spoke them.
"Agent Scully, wake up. Dana, you need to wake up, we don't have much
time."
Scully widened her eyes as she recognized the person from which the
voice originated. She felt the sharp needle of a syringe withdraw from
her forearm. "Wha...What is going on here?" She looked around in
groggily, the haze of narcotics still swimming within her blood stream.
"Where am I? What are we doing
here?"
Diana didn't pause in her effort to free Scully from the bindings.
"Look, we don't have time to really discuss this. Both of our lives are
in danger. We have to get you out of here.".
Scully was alert enough to laugh bitterly into the dark face above her.
"And should I believe you?" She asked with incredulity. "You've given me
no reason to trust your motives."
Diana paused. Her efforts of unfastening the remaining straps forgotten
as she stared Scully straight in the eye. "Look, you probably can't read
my thoughts yet, but you should at least be able to get a sense of my
emotions. Am I here to harm you? Am I telling you the truth when I say
that I'm your only chance you have of getting out of here alive?" Diana
reached her right hand up to Scully's face and cupped her cheek.
Scully's eyes slowly blinked in confusion. "Read her thoughts? What
the--"
-Flash-
She saw herself, on a table, eyes closed, unconscious, with a room
filled with machines, each hooked up to her. And she felt a grief and a
helplessness that didn't belong to her. Before she could absorb more,
the vision switched.
-Flash-
A wave of disgust filled Scully as the next scene presented itself. She
saw a man as if she were looking through a haze of smoke, and then his
face was clear. Scully's own disgust joined Diana's as the Cigarette
Smoking Man's pasty face reveled itself and his face cracked into a grim
smile. She heard his voice in her ear. "Excellent..." Scully
shivered.
-Flash-
Mulder! She saw Mulder. He was towering above her, his posture rigid
with incredulity, rage and betrayal. "How long?" His voice was
sharp, biting. Harsher that she had ever heard from him. She felt fear,
and anguish, and regret, and... and...love? Diana loved him? She could
be capable of such an emotion?
Scully could not dwell on that for long. She was hit by an on slot of
images. Fragmented, disjointed. Diana's thoughts.
-Flash-
"...time... no time have to go now, have to get out of here damn it,
just trust-- but how can she? no one can trust me get out of here save
her, save me (but what about mulder? can't save him... no, no time, have
to go) have to go now... come on scully, believe me, believe me... save
the world, save us all... danger... are they coming? have they found
out? no, not yet, couldn't have, but soon... save us scully... can any
of us be saved? krycek said...damn him...trust him? why? no better
than...but yes, has to be... dagen is good... he said plan will work...
will it? has to... has to... come on scully... now, have to go now..."
-Flash-
It ended abruptly when Diana disengaged her hand from Scully's face. She
undid the last of the straps as Scully lay in a stupor, trying to
frantically to categorize and explain what had taken place. But she
didn't have time. At that moment Diana pulled her into a sitting
position. Scully immediately felt the blood leave her head and black
spots began to waver before her eyes. For a moment she was certain that
she would faint. She firmly clutched the bed with both hands in an
effort maintain her equilibrium.
Diana noticed and spoke again, this time with a softer voice. "Try to
take it easy. You haven't been up for awhile."
Scully reopened her eyes, already feeling her physical lightheadedness
dissipating. She still felt a psychic vertigo, however. "How long?" She
asked softly.
Diana hesitated. "Just over two weeks." She tossed her a pair of scrubs.
"Here, put these on."
Scully tried to digest all the information that was coming so quickly as
she pulled on the clothing offered to her. Where was she? How did she
get here? What was the last thing that she remembered? Mulder and her
standing on the side of the road. Her back had been turned away from
him. He had reached with his hand and had begun to turn to face him
when-- Her memory came to an abrupt end. "...and then I now I'm
here." A dawning realization swept over her. "I've been taken
again." That fact had barely seeped through her thought processes,
before the next one followed. Mulder was there too. Had he been taken as
well?
"Mulder! Is he ok?" The alarm was evident in her voice.
"Mulder is...well, Mulder." Diana paused as she tried to come up with
the right words. "They didn't take him, if that is what you are asking."
She paused again. "But he isn't ok. I don't think he believes that you
are coming back to him."
"Am I coming back to him?" Scully asked pointedly.
Diana avoided the question as she helped Scully dress. "We need to get
out of here. Our window of opportunity is limited. The others will soon
discover that you are not where you are supposed to be. You have to
follow me now." She held out her hand for Scully to grasp.
As they approached the door, Scully realized that they were in the back
of what looked to be a big rig, or another truck of that type. The
'room' was filled with medical equipment. She recognized a few: heart
monitor, IV stand securely fashioned in one corner, meds and saline
attached, and crash cart type cabinet filled with a defibrillator and
resuscitation equipment. There was numerous other equipment that she did
not recognize immediately. Scully wasn't able to look too closely before
Diana's demanding pull on her hand grew too great to ignore.
They stepped out onto the flat concrete slab that made up the loading
area and Scully was met by two massive double doors that led into the
building. Diana turned her around and helped Scully step down onto the
gravel of the ground. Once outside they were surrounded by near
darkness. The only source of light was the half open door and the dying
moon overhead, pale and thin as a fishhook. Scully had only taken a step
or two when she tripped over a fallen form. Only Diana's quick reflexes
and strong arm saved her from stumbling to the ground. "Careful," was
the only thing Diana said before urging her on.
Scully's eyes slowly adjusted to the low light. She was just able to
make out the form lying prone. It was a man, dead. And from the dark
shadow that surrounded him that could only be blood, Scully guessed that
the cause of death was a gunshot wound. She was interrupted from her
thoughts as Diana jerked urgently on her hand.
By necessity, or perhaps courtesy, Diana walked slowly. Scully followed
her through the dark night, holding her hand as a guide, and following
close. Head still foggy, the night began to take on a surreal quality.
How had she ended up in this place? Not just this physical here and now,
but this situation. Surely she had not planned this, nor could she have
imagined it. How had her life events directed her to this specific
moment in time? A place where she would find herself the subject of
surely hideous experiments, (this much was obvious, the what, the why,
and the how would come later) getting rescued by Fowley of all people,
and to top it off, she had the additional power to read minds.
"Don't be silly Dana, surely it was a mistake, a hallucination left
over from the drugs given to you. That's it. There is no such thing as
mind reading. Yes, hang on to that thought Dana, you may come out sane
after all." Her rational side argued irrationally. But even as she
argued, thoughts not quite her own entered her head. "come on... is
she ok? i think that she must, she can walk... no time, hurry... scully,
you have to hurry and follow me..." Lord, what a twisted dream this
was.
If only it was a dream... But it was far too real for that. The taste of
garlic bread lingered in the back of her throat, a by-product from the
anesthesia used to put her under, and made her want to gag. The feel of
the gravel wearing away the cheap, thin-soled shoes she wore. The sound
of the crushed rocks grinding beneath their feet was the only thing she
heard besides her own breathing.
The cool night air cut through the thin cotton of the scrubs she had
donned. Crossing her arms, she rubbed the gooseflesh that pimpled her
skin and half consciously began to assess her physical situation. She
ran her hands over the length of her exposed skin and moved to her head.
No lesions, new scars, or bruising; at least from her cursory exam. Her
mind continued its natural checklist. It had become so well ingrained
within her that conscious thought was not necessary.
She was walking fine; there was no pain on movement and she had full
range of motion to all extremities so she knew that nothing was broken.
There was no pain, numbness or tingling anywhere else. She found nothing
wrong. Except for her momentary light-headedness, she felt no different.
In fact, she felt better. A marked difference over last time.
The night was soaking with tension. They moved away from the building
and now walked parallel to it. The deserted building about 50 yards
away. Scully estimated that it's prime would have been in the mid-60s
from the degree of damage to the exterior, but it was still an
impressive facility. There were several outlying buildings surrounding
the main complex, and they headed toward one of them. There seemed to be
no living thing around them, but Scully was still extremely wary.
Uneasy, Scully followed Diana as they approached a car half-hidden
behind one of the removed buildings.
Diana opened the passenger door. "Get in."
* * * * * *