A shaft of light pierced the darkness. Mulder squinted in an effort to see who was in the doorway, but all he could make our was a tall, shadowy figure. "Agent Mulder," it said, "Sorry to intrude, but Lady Montague needs to speak to you right away. I tried ringing you here, sir, but there wasn't an answer."
"That's alright, Geoffrey," Mulder replied.
Mulder turned on the lamp on the nightstand. He had been sitting on the edge of the bed in the dark, the thought of sleeping alone in the bed he'd so recently shared with Scully something he couldn't face. Geoffrey walked into the room, handed Mulder the cordless phone, and left. "Go ahead, Phoebe," he replied solemnly.
"Mulder, it appears that there's a break on the case," Phoebe replied.
At that instant, the spark of something he thought he had lost began to burn with intensity. It was hope.
"How much do you remember of your high school biology?" Phoebe asked.
"I don't remember much of anything right now, Phoebe," Mulder replied.
"Allow me to fill in the blanks, then," she replied. "Human DNA, as you may remember, is comprised of forty-six chromosomes, or twenty-three pairs. DNA - the building blocks that make us who we are..."
"I'm sorry, Phoebe, but unless there's recess and a pep rally at the end of this, I really don't wish to repeat high school," Mulder replied.
"Then let us move on to early twenty-first century history," Phoebe replied. "As you may recall, cloning began with a sheep towards the very end of the twentieth century, and sped along to the inevitable - the cloning of the first human in 2003. The medical community fought vehemently against it, due to the obvious ethical and moral issues; however it was done. As it was soon discovered, instability in the cloning process led to very disastrous results. Rapid cell mutation led to the growth of tumors in the clones, infection, and gross enlargement and mutations in the cardio-pulmonary systems of the clones that resulted in certain death. It was discovered the reason why this was happening was there was no room for expansion within the normal twenty-three pairs; sort of like stuffing a sausage casing with too much meat..."
"Let's wrap it up, Phoebe," Mulder anxiously replied.
"In 2005, a scientist here in Great Britain discovered he could control the mutations in the cloned DNA by manufacturing a synthetic pair of chromosomes, bringing the number of individual chromosomes to fifty rather than forty-six." Phoebe continued, "and thus creating the needed room. He managed to clone a successful pair of human clones, Eve Two and Adam Two...."
At the mention of these two names, Mulder suddenly began to realize where Phoebe was heading.
"But by then," Phoebe continued, "human cloning was banned throughout the world, the clones euthanized,"
"and the scientist imprisoned for crimes against humanity," Mulder finished.
"Precisely," Phoebe answered. "The technique, you may remember, was not named after the scientist, but rather after the town where he had his lab. Sternwood."
"Hence the name, `the Sternwood Experiment,'" Mulder answered.
Phoebe paused before she spoke again. "The Chief Medical Examiner came to me a while ago with some startling evidence, Mulder. She found four different samples of DNA in the wreckage of the car crash. Each sample had twenty-five pairs; fifty separate chromosomes. They were Sternwood clones, Mulder. Which means..."
"Which means Scully is still alive," finished Mulder.
"There's a distinct possibility, Mulder - yes." Phoebe answered.
"Mulder, I've called Interpol in on the case," Phoebe replied. "They will work in concert with the Yard to cover all points of entry in and out of the country and all over Europe. We will, of course, work with the Bureau to cover points of entry in the U.S. We have this case covered, Mulder"
"And Meena; what about Meena?" Mulder asked.
"She will have around the clock protection, starting immediately," Phoebe replied.
Mulder began to look for a fresh change of clothes. "I'm coming back there, Phoebe," he began.
"No, Mulder, you are to stay put," Phoebe ordered. "I'm sending guards to Brittlegate right now to ensure your safety. Until we know who's behind this..."
"I already have an idea," Mulder replied, but Phoebe never heard him. "Until we know for certain who is behind this," Phoebe continued "I do not need you wandering the English countryside. We will handle this Mulder. Promise me you will stay put." "I promise," Mulder finally replied.
Had Phoebe been standing behind Mulder at that moment, she would have seen that he had his fingers crossed behind his back.
******************************************************************
Phoebe hung up her cell phone, and made her way down the corridor to intensive care. As she walked, she passed two of her guards in the hallway. "You and you," she said, pointing to the guards. "You will post guard in intensive care in front of room 1013. No one goes in or out of that room without clearance; do you understand?" the guards nodded. "Follow me," Phoebe ordered.
They never realized that the effort would be in vain until they reached intensive care.
"Where's the patient that was in this room?" Phoebe asked when she arrived.
"She was released by doctor's orders," the night nurse replied.
"That is impossible," Phoebe snapped back. "The young woman in this room was catatonic; there was no way she could bloody well walk out of this hospital, and I sincerely doubt Dr. Fairchild..."
"But she was released under Dr. Fairchild's orders," the nurse replied. "He signed the order himself."
"Where is he?" Phoebe demanded.
A sudden, bone chilling scream answered her question.
Phoebe and the two guards rushed down the hallway to find a volunteer standing in front of an open supply closet. There on the ground was the body of Dr. Fairchild.
He had been murdered.
*********************************************************************
Phoebe waited until the sheet had been drawn over Dr. Fairchild's body before she called Mulder. She finally had to confess that she never really, truly believed any of what Mulder had said - that Scully was alive, that the young woman in intensive care was his and Scully's daughter- until she'd seen the forensic results and... until this moment. She had doubted Mulder, even though she knew his keen and insightful theories were seldom, if ever, wrong. And now that she knew, that she realized he had been right, she had to tell him his daughter was missing - again - and in serious danger. Again.
The phone rang for what seemed to be an eternity, yet there wasn't an answer. She finally called the kitchen, and reached the chef. She, in turn, found Geoffrey, her butler. After asking him if he had seen Agent Mulder, she asked him to go upstairs and tell Mulder again that she needed to speak to him. Geoffrey picked up the upstairs extension after five minutes.
"I'm sorry for the delay, Lady Montague, but Agent Mulder doesn't appear to be in the guest quarters. Or in the library. I don't know how to say this," Geoffrey continued, "but it seems that Agent Mulder has simply vanished...."
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".....What do you mean, `disappeared' Lieutenant?" Phoebe asked. She asked Geoffrey to head the search through Brittlegate, working in concert with the team she had sent to protect Mulder. She was now on the phone with the lieutenant and, quite frankly, didn't like what she had heard. "People don't simply disappear," she continued.
"Begging your pardon, Chief Inspector, but he did."
"And have you had the where-with-all, Lieutenant Quick, to search the premises?" Phoebe demanded.
"Every inch, Chief Inspector," replied the lieutenant. "We're questioning the staff now."
"Call me back as soon as you're done, Lieutenant. Oh, and Lieutenant," Phoebe continued. "I need to know - do you expect there was any foul play involved in the disappearance?"
The dead air on the other end of the line made Phoebe's heart stop mid-beat.
"We're not yet certain, Chief Inspector. But we'll let you know."
**************************************************************************
It was a long twenty minutes before the cel phone rang again, but Phoebe answered it on the first ring. "Chief Inspector Montague," she answered.
"Yes, Chief Inspector; this is Lieutenant Quick. I believe I have some answers for you."
"Go on," Phoebe replied.
She wasn't entirely certain she wanted to hear them, but she had to ask.
"We've located the whereabouts of Agent Mulder," the lieutenant continued. "We spoke with your driver, Darcy, who said that he borrowed one of your cars and a map. He asked him what was the quickest way to Sternwood Castle."
Phoebe cursed Mulder and thanked God he was alive in one breath.
"How long ago, lieutenant?"
"He left about twenty, thirty minutes ago," the lieutenant replied. Phoebe went into action. "Send all available units into surveillance at Sternwood Castle. I want a car waiting for me at the North Post Road between Brittlegate and Sternwood. I'll be there in thirty minutes."
She hung up the phone, and turned to one of her inspectors. "I'll need air transportation here to pick me up as soon as possible." Phoebe ordered. "It's still raining quite heavily, Chief Inspector; shall I have dispatch send the hydrocopter instead."
"Yes," she replied, "the sooner, the better. Tell them we'll be flying with instruments and radar. Sternwood is heavily wooded, so we'll have to land just outside of Brittlegate. That will be all."
Phoebe hung up her cel phone as she walked to the elevator. "You're bloody lucky Mulder we have hydrocopters," She thought. Her frustration level grew as she waited for the elevator, and she found herself poking the button in an effort to make it come faster.
"Damn you Mulder!" Phoebe said aloud. "You gave me your word!"
*****************************************************************************
"Sorry, Phoebe; I had my fingers crossed," Mulder thought.
The black Mercedes sped through the rain towards Sternwood castle as Mulder drove faster than he should have on a wet road. His mind raced past the events of the day and went back to earlier in the week. He remembered what Scully had said as they walked across the drawbridge into the great stone edifice...
"A person could have hidden all kinds of secrets here." Scully said.
Scully; the woman he loved. Scully; the mother of their child. Scully; the woman who was life itself to him.
She was alive, and he knew it in his heart.
That's why she came to him; that's why he heard her voice so clearly, calling to him in his despair. She was his constant, his touchstone. And he was hers.
And he would save her, no mater what the cost.
Mulder put the clog to the accelerator and the finely-tuned auto responded in the span of his next breath. He knew time wasn't on side, and anything he could do to make it bend to his will, he would do. As he came to a turn in the road, he slowed down a little to follow the bend.
He didn't see the fallen tree in the road until it was almost too late.
Mulder swerved to avoid hitting the tree, and the car shot like a missile into the brambles and underbrush. They did little to help the car slow down, and the seatbelt jerked Mulder back hard into the drivers seat. Mulder's arms flew up into his face as the airbag deployed and he screamed.
"SCULLY!"