Shaky fingers compared the lines in the now dog-eared text, as Nigel pored over the ramblings of the madman. Nothing was cut and dried; there were obscure references and riddles and the insinuations of things not directly addressed. The only absolute was the statement that failure was not an option, that the hostages' lives depended on completion of the quest.
Scully sat beside him, her face impassive except for the haunted shadow beneath her blue eyes. She'd made over a dozen trips between the hospital and the university, and between the hospital and Nigel's apartment, collecting the books and notes by half-remembered descriptions and directions. Sometimes she found what she was looking for on the first try, sometimes she had to make a second - or a third - trip. Nigel knew instinctively that she hadn't slept in the past 48 hours.
"It's difficult to know if I'm translating this right. Our Attila is using fifteenth century script to describe twenty-first century realities." Frustration wore heavily on him, aggravated by the omnipresent ache that gnawed at his breadbasket. The bullet tore through his body at an angle, puncturing a lung, glancing off of a rib and ricocheting to perforate his liver and nick his pancreas. He was pushing the limits of his anatomy, but so many lives were at stake that he couldn't live with himself if he didn't try.
"Do the best you can," Scully said softly, her voice hoarse with exhaustion and worry. "You should probably get some rest."
"I will if you do," the little Englishman replied with as much defiance as he could muster. They were all at the breaking point. "But I think I may have figured out the third line. It's not a direct translation, but I think he wrote it phonetically. If so, it is rather a distortion of the pronunciation." He held up the page, pointing to a segment roughly two thirds of the way through the text. "I believe he's saying computer. Sydney's computer. I know Sydney got a couple of weird emails right before all this happened, but I believe she deleted them."
Scully ran a hand over her eyes. "Thank you, Nigel. I'll get some of the techs on it. If she did delete them, they may still be retrievable."
A moment after she stepped out of sight, Nigel pushed himself up, wondering if he had the stamina to do what he had to do. The room swirled around him for a moment, but he found himself upright, standing barefoot on the ubiquitous, nondescript tile that covered the floor of every medical institution.
The narrow locker seemed a mile away, but he retrieved his jacket and reached into the pocket. Somehow he wasn't surprised to find a skeleton key of indeterminate age, its dark contours contrasting sharply with the pallor of his hand. He palmed the object and just managed to get back into bed when Scully returned.
Mulder's first concern was William and Mrs. Scully, then that Fox woman – it still seemed supremely weird to think of someone else with his name, even though in her case it was a surname. Fortunately, Doggett was a man who worked well on intuition and a couple of graphic gestures. The two men moved down the hallway, acting as an advance security detail.
Maggie Scully's concerns aside, both the current and former FBI agent understood just how dangerous a child could be, even unarmed. This army put guns, knives, and other deadly implements into the hands of babes. Some of the killers-in-training couldn't have been more than six or seven, yet they marched with the precision of a seasoned marine. Their youth made them more vulnerable to the machinations of the psycho who headed things up. These children were well acquainted with their weapons, too.
Mulder prayed it also would leave them better able to accommodate the reprogramming that would inevitably be their lot when the nightmare ended.
Just for a moment, he pictured his son in the ranks of this abominable battalion, and he shuddered. Something told him it was more than a daydream. Too many years of FBI profiling gave him insights into the depths of depravity, and whether he wanted it or not, he knew how Attila operated. The six and seven year olds were soldiers because they'd been snatched from their homes and families as infants or toddlers. There was no telling exactly how many missing children could be here. They were alive, but they were anything but well.
Stealthily, the three adults and one child wound their way through a maze of boxes, crates, and rusted machinery. Miraculously, William never woke, never cried or whimpered.
They reached the door and Mulder's hand was on the latch when blinding lights drowned them in illumination and a rasping voice shouted, "If you leave, Sydney dies."
A loading dock served as his dais. Attila's fingers flexed around a wicked-looking knife, its blade at least a foot long. Sydney's head lolled to one side, and Mulder wondered if she had been drugged. He couldn't get a clear look at her face, but bruises and welts marked what he could see.
"You see, my friends, I know what you are going to do before you do it. I can read your minds before you think. I can see your futures in two ways; one way, if you obey my every word, and another if you don't." Stubby fingers stroked Sydney's hair, and she automatically flinched away. Angered, Attila raised the machete and with a single, powerful stroke, slashed her throat.
Maggie cried out in anguish, William woke with a scream, and Doggett lunged forward, only to meet – hard – with a pipe to the midsection that dropped him instantly. Mulder, knowing that the ordeal was over for Sydney, stood in silence, tears dripping down his cheeks.
Reyes raked a hand through her hair as she sipped at the nuclear strength coffee. At 1am, she was still poring over the bits and pieces of Nigel's translation. He'd faithfully provided as much information as he could about the text itself, though he became taciturn when asked for any ideas as to whether there might be hidden messages within the message.
"A man wears his life like a robe," she read for the fiftieth time. "It bears witness to who he is and to his destiny. If he will find the key inside that destiny, it will open the door to the things he holds dear." Making a face, she muttered, "Yeah, sure, and your little dog, too."
Fatigue lined her face. They'd been searching now for 48 hours and were no closer to finding her missing partner, Mulder, Mrs. Scully, or the baby. About Sydney Fox, things were less ambiguous. The body of a dark-haired woman meeting Sydney's description had turned up along the banks of the Hudson, the face too badly mutilated for a positive ID, but identification in the woman's purse said it was her. Her mangled form was with forensics for formality only. They'd sent out for dental records and promised Reyes an official report within the hour.
"The key…" she read aloud again. "Is chocolate," she added, sitting up. "The hell with the diet. I need some good old fashioned junk food."
The courier met her in the hallway. She grabbed the manila envelope and scribbled her name beside the delivery acknowledgment before continuing on to the lounge. Two quarters and a dime dropped into the snack machine, prompting the fall of a candy bar. "Oh yeah," she crooned, collecting the prize. "Come to mama."
Returning to the basement office of the X-Files, she flipped the large envelope onto the desktop and peeled away the wrapper of the candy bar, letting the glorious flavor melt into her consciousness. "God, I needed that," she gushed to the walls. Finally, she figured she'd stalled long enough. It was time to read the confirmation of Sydney's death.
Sliding a nail under the seal, she opened the deep gold enclosure and pulled out the sheath of papers. With a sigh, she spread out the results and resigned herself to read.
The first paragraph brought her bolt upright in her seat. "Holy shit," she whispered, her eyes round. "It's not her."
Bleary-eyed, Scully stared at the digital display as the loud knock reverberated through her apartment. 3:45 am – extraordinary news, good or bad, she decided. Once upon a time, the only person who knocked at that hour was Mulder, thrown into insomnia by some aspect of an X-File. Now, she would dance a jig to know it was her former FBI partner, especially if he carried their son, both safe and sound.
She threw off the heirloom quilt and drew her oversized terry robe around her, padding barefoot to the door. One look through the peephole sent her heart racing. Just outside, Monica Reyes shifted her weight from one foot to the other, fingers drumming a light, nervous rhythm on the wall. Her lips poured out a silent litany, words Scully had herself repeated many a time before. Come on come on come on come on come on…
"What happened?" No frivolous words, not until her family was home. "Did you find them?"
Reyes matched her impatience. "Our body's a Jane Doe. It's not Sydney. But she just might tell us where Sydney is."
"And if we find Sydney – we also find William, my mom, Mulder and Doggett! Give me two minutes to get dressed."
In two minutes flat, Scully was dressed and dashing down the hallway, with Reyes hot on her heels.