Boston

School of Martial Arts

He watched the new student. She had only been at the school a little over a week, yet she was already knocking down the top students in the class. These guys weren't pushovers either. When she had first signed up, she had said that she had not trained for almost five years and had wanted to brush up, yet watching her, it was as if she had never stopped. It would only take her but a few moves to knock the other students down. It had only taken a few more moves to knock him down, and he was the instructor. He had even won a few martial arts championships. Her training showed through to its fullest.

The kind of skill that she had acquired could only have come from years of training, and based on the age she had given, she must have started when she was just a child. He had only know some Asian cultures to encourage such precise skill and dedication in their young, but he was sure she was not Asian.

She was a mystery to him. An enigma in her own right. He had tried starting conversations with her but had failed to keep her still long enough to gain any kind of information from her. She had this way of getting out of conversations without seeming rude. He had, however, been able to figure out one thing about her: something had to have happen to her, and it had to have been recent too. He saw it in those moments that she thought no one was watching. It was like a deep sadness had overtaken her, yet at the same time there was a hardness about her. A rage inside that she kept firmly in check. Whatever had happened to her, whoever had done it, he'd hate to be in that person's shoes when the time comes to deal.

**

He's watching me again. I don't like being watched. I suppose that it's for the best that it's time for me to move on to the next step. I've already located one of the facilities. It wasn't really hard. That cigarette smoking son of a bitch was having me watched. It was simply a matter of getting the poor guy's attention and persuading him to share the information that I needed. He was most obliging with what he could provide me before he died. Too bad he was sent merely to watch me. All I received was the location of the local Syndicate stomping ground and a few access codes. He'll see just how well he trained me.

Picking up her bag, she made her way to the door. Master Morris was waiting in his usual spot. It was not enough that she would catch him watching her, but he would always try to engage her in conversation. If he hadn't always asked her about things that They already knew about, she would have had to have dealt with the red-headed man and moved on. She knew that he meant well, but it was becoming tiresome. She had eventually blown it off as just a part of his nature when she had learned that he used to be a Texas Ranger. If you can't trust a Texas Ranger whom can you trust?

She was thinking of what she had planned to do when she found herself driving by what was left of her home. She hadn't realized that she was heading in this direction until she had stopped at the corner of where it used to be. It was just as well that she had continued to drive by it, because standing in the rubble were two people in trench coats. By their look, they were most definitely government. The tall one was a nice looking man with brown hair that brushed against his forehead. He was dressed in a blue suit and had the oddest-looking tie, it wasn't ugly but it was not what she would presume a government agent would wear. The other was a woman dressed fashionably in black dress pants, matching single button jacket and close fitting blouse. She had auburn hair that framed her face and was short, made slightly taller by the heels that she wore. The pair of them seemed odd at a glance, yet they complimented each other. She was light to his dark. She could sense a strong bond between these two. Not the type of people that she expected to find working for Them. No. They were here for another reason.

Stopping the car, she decided that the best way to gauge who they were, and what their objective was, was to approach them. It was good that, whenever she altered her appearance, she was always able to assume a form significantly different from her normal state, certainly different enough that she would never be recognized. She had arched her brows where as before she had never bothered to pluck them. She had also discovered early on that she could change her coloring by increasing her pigmentation, giving herself a more olive color. She had also begun stimulating the cell reproduction necessary to her to stimulate hair growth, causing it to become twice it's length and darker in color. Just a few days ago it was shoulder length and an almost blonde-brown, now it was nearly jet-black. She appeared as if she could almost be part Asian or Native American.

Approaching the two she had formulated a cover. She was just another lost pedestrian looking for directions to a house in the area. The closer that she got to them, the stronger the impressions that she received. The bond that she had sensed before was stronger than she had thought. The two of them must have shared much for them to become so close. To emit such energy. They had to be more than just partners. She was sure of it.

What she had also sensed from the man was an eagerness to believe the unbelievable. Strangely enough, the woman emitted a sense of tight control, and didn't seem to be the type that would believe in anything too easily even if openly faced with the unbelievable. However, even with such skepticism, buried deep was a desire to believe as freely as her partner did. The woman's walls were built too strong for such complete faith to take root at the moment, but she sensed that those walls would one day come down.

They watched as she approached, halting whatever conversation they had been having. It was the man that approached her first. He had a charming lopsided grin that made him seem more attractive. Almost familiar. She surprised herself by changing approach strategies. "Excuse me. Are you investigating the Granger fire?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes we are. I'm Special Agent Fox Mulder, and this is Special Agent Dana Scully," he replied. "Did you know the Grangers?"

"Yes, I did. I dealt mostly with Mrs. Granger though. She had something of an at-home craft business." The best lies are those close to the truth, she thought. "I thought that the investigation had been closed, though. The news papers had said that the cause was electrical."

"Actually," replied Agent Scully, "there are still a few questions that remained to be answered. Have you had any contact with Mrs. Granger since the fire?"

Looking at the determined agent, she paused for a short moment before answering, "No, I haven't seen her since the fire and neither have any of our associates. I haven't had much luck finding her. I suppose that's to be expected though, considering she lost her husband and stepson. I don't think that I would be very social myself if the same had occurred to me."

"Do you know of any place that she may have gone?" continued Scully. "Close friends or relatives?"

"Like I said I've been trying to find her myself, I can't think of any place that she may have gone. I don't know of any relatives that she may have had. I don't believe she even had any. As for friends, I don't know of any besides a couple of business associates and myself, she never seemed to try and maintain any kind of associations that I'm aware of. I was probably the closest thing that she had to a best friend, and I wasn't even that close to her." Glancing at the two agents, she placed a surprised look upon her face, "You don't think that she could be responsible for the fire, do you?"

"No, we don't," replied Mulder. Something about this woman seems familiar, he thought. "We just need to ask her a few routine questions."

She could tell that they were buying everything that she had told them. If the woman weren't such a skeptic, she might have been able to detect something from her. She had sensed a latent potential in Agent Scully that, if explored, would have proved enough to see through her guise.

"Listen, if you can think of anything else that can help, no matter how obscure, give me a call." Mulder took out a card and a pen he used to write down the name and number of the hotel they were staying at and circling his cell phone number before handing it to her.

"I'll do that, thank you." She replied, taking the card from him. She felt a strong sense of him from the card. Again, the sense of familiarity that she was connected to him in some way. It was as if they had met before, yet she knew they hadn't. She wasn't sure what it was, but she would find out all she could. Placing the card in her pocket, she then turned and left the agents where she had found them.