St. Anne's Cemetery
5:52 P.M.
Mulder stood by an open grave, patiently waiting for the enormous,
yellow crane to finish pulling the casket from the ground.
The gentle crescent moon shone brightly on the proceedings,
a misplaced light in the midst of the dark of dusk. He
looked much better now, even somewhat well-rested. The
wrinkled shirt and pants were replaced with his usual
working outfit: well-pressed shirt, gray pants, gray
jacket, monochrome tie. Over his suit was a long,
jet-black duster that flowed past his long legs to his
knees. His hair was neatly combed back and the only
sign of his drinking exploits were the remnants of barely
noticeable thin, red lines in his eyes. He reached into
his pocket and produced a handful of sunflower seeds as
Scully approached from the darkness.
The headlights from the crane illuminated the highlights in her
beautiful hair. She looked professional as always -elegantly bearing
a dark, form-fitting pants-suit- but damn good, he decided.
He popped a couple seeds in his mouth as she halted in front
of him.
"What'd she say?" he asked her.
"Alvarez said that she would work on getting permission for the
exhumation of the other two women that were killed in her
jurisdiction," she answered, grazing quickly over the name of the
esteemed detective, "The other five victims lie buried in various
locations throughout the east coast ranging from Maine to Maryland.
I have contacted Bureau agencies in each of those states and have
arranged for the exhumations. They will notify me as soon as they
have collected the samples."
She sighed a deep sigh of weariness. She was worn out after having
spent the day being bounced around from one government lackey to
another. But her day wasn't over yet. She knew what would come
next. She would spend hours working on the body and after that,
there would be the blood work of not just one dead girl, but nine
all together. He had been busy, too, of course. He spent the
entire afternoon attempting to get permission for the exhumation
of the only victim buried in D.C.. Still, she noticed with some
degree of bitterness that he had managed time to shower, shave,
and dress. She looked down at herself, still wearing the same
clothes from her meeting with Dr. Sykes. "I need a long, hot
bath," she thought to herself.
"Good," he replied simply, and "Ah...here we go, now the fun begins"
as the casket was lifted from the earth and placed on a waiting
gurney. Four medics placed the casket into the back of an ambulance,
secured it, and closed the doors behind it. "Let's go, Scully,"
Mulder commanded as he jumped into his government-issue automobile.
Scully complied and soon the two were following the ambulance
at close range, driving in deafening silence towards Quantico.
Quantico Medical Facility
6:13 P.M.
Scully pulled at the microphone that hung from the ceiling of the
frigid examining room, drawing it closer to her mouth. The room was
immaculate. The white-washed walls had recently been scrubbed
and the powerful stench of chlorine indicated the complete
absence of contamination. She had become so used to that smell
through the years of her intense training. It had become
second nature, a hollowed ground that made her feel secure
in her medical abilities. It was medicine that made her feel
in control whenever Mulder's paranoia seemed to suggest that
others within the government contained complete power over
her and all of the rest of the civilians on Earth.
"Victim is a twenty-seven year old Caucasian female," she began,
initiating the examination, "Extent of decomposition suggests
that she has been dead for well over two weeks. No signs of
sexual assault are implicit on the exterior of the body, no
bruising or other abuse. The removal of the right eye and a
single incisor is consistent with the supposed ritualistic
murders of the three victims in Philadelphia. Forty puncture
wounds on the body lend credence to this theory." She reached
for the charts containing the victim's information produced
from the initial autopsy after her death. They had been faxed
over from the D.C. morgue earlier that day and now lay on the
linoleum counter at her side. "Coroner's report states that
victim died of asphyxiation due to unknown circumstances.
Toxicology shows an abnormal presence of alcohol in her system
days after she was found dead." Scully picked up the tools
that lay on a cart beside the examination table and prepared
to make the first incision. "I will now reopen the stitches,"
she said into the microphone, and then under her breath, "Okay,
let's see what you're hiding." She leaned in to make the cut
when a voice from behind startled her into cognizance.
"Agent Scully?"
Tools in hand, Scully turned around and faced the young, light-haired
agent.
"Agent Scully," he repeated from behind his almost
too-neat-for-protocol suit, "there's a call for you on line one."
"Thank you," Scully called, "I'll be right there." She placed the
tools back on the cart and flipped the switch on the microphone
to the "Off" position as the agent departed into the hallway.
She placed her surgical gloves in the nearest trashcan and went
across the hall to pick up the line.
"Scully," she said, twirling the cord listlessly between her
fingers. No one responded. "Scully," she said again, this
time with more force. Once again, there was no answer.
"Is anyone there?" she asked and after gaining no response
for a third time, she slammed the phone back on the hook.
She was shaking her head as she re-entered the examining
room. Her anger quickly turned to shock as her brain began
to process exactly what she was viewing: nothing. The body
was gone.
"And then I came back and she was gone." Scully had just finished
telling Mulder of the strange phone call and the body-napping as tens
of agents scampered crazily throughout the hall. "Mulder," she asked
him, "How does a body simply disappear? I was gone for less than a
minute. I don't know how someone could manage sneaking a body out of
here in that short amount of time, nor do I know why anyone would
have the inclination."
"They're hiding something, Scully," he told her, "They're hiding
something and
I think you know why."
"Purity Control," she answered.
He nodded his head, "That's right, Purity Control. They're afraid of
exposing the truth, Scully."
"The truth about what, Mulder? We hardly know anything. All we know
is that a woman was murdered in Philadelphia with the genetic makeup
of Purity Control and that she may be connected to the murder of this
woman in Washington. But how do we know that for sure? We have no
proof now to make that connection. I was barely able to start the
autopsy. I didn't even get the opportunity to take a blood sample.
How are we going to perform a genetic comparison?"
Mulder brushed past her and crouched onto the floor near the head of
the examination table. "They didn't get everything, Scully," he told
her, picking up a piece of black hair between his thumb and
forefinger. He stood up as Scully appeared at his feat. "Looks like
you're going to get that scientific proof after all," he told her,
"now the question is are you ready to face the truth?"
6:32 P.M.
Scully pushed the "Fast Forward" button on the VCR as Mulder rejoined
her in the surveillance room. "How's it going, Scully?" he
asked her.
"I've almost found it, Mulder. I'm up to 5:40 now," she told
him, and then asked, "Did you get a trace on the phone number
of my mystery caller?"
"I couldn't, Scully," he replied, "your mystery caller doesn't
exist." She shot him a quizzical look. "What are you talking
about?" she asked him.
He pulled up a vinyl chair and sat down at her side. "The phone
records show no evidence of an incoming call," he said, "Whoever made
that call placed it internally, from somewhere in the same hall that
contains the examination rooms."
She gazed at him as he stared intently at the television screen.
"Push 'Play'," he commanded her, "we're up to 6:12. He should be
making an appearance right about...now." Mulder pointed at the male
figure with light hair as the camera caught him walking through the
door behind a crouched Scully. "Does anyone recognize this man?" he
asked the various agents and surveillance men that had congregated in
a semicircle behind the pair. Mulder turned around in time to see
every man shake his head "no." He turned back and faced Scully.
"Can you get me a printout of this guy," he asked her.
"Sure," she answered, "I'll take care of it, Mulder, but what good
will it do? He never once looks up at the camera. All we have to go
on is a Caucasian male of average height that has light, sandy hair.
That description could fit any number of men in the D.C. area, let
alone the eastern shore."
"Yeah, Scully," he countered, "but how many of those men are walking
around with a woman who has been dead for eight months?"
Scully's ears perked at this last remark. "Eight months," she asked,
not sure if she had heard him correctly, "Mulder, did you say
that she had been dead for eight months?"
"Yes," he said matter-of-factly, "eight months. The girl you were
performing the autopsy on was named Katrina Judas. She was the very
first victim, killed in D.C. eight months ago next week." He stared
at her with a look of mock dejectedness, "You can check her file if
you don't believe me."
"Mulder, there was no more than two weeks worth of decomposition
present on that girl," she said, her eyes widening with dismay and a
twinge of fear, "how is that possible?"
"I'm guessing good genes," he answered.
J. Edgar Hoover Building
March 27, 2000
12:20 A.M.
Scully contemplated the discussion she had had earlier that day with
Mulder in the surveillance room. What were the ramifications
of these tests, the fusion of unknown and human genomes? She
thought about all she had faced because of Purity Control,
because of the X-Files. There was the death of Deep Throat.
Although she hadn't known him as well as Mulder, his death
still affected her deeply. He had died in her arms, warning
her with his last dying breath to "Trust no one." Then there
was the terrible kidnapping by Duane Barry. She still couldn't
remember exactly what happened during her mental absence. It
was locked away somewhere deep in her memory. Maybe they
ordained it that way, or maybe she simply didn't want to
remember. She was so relieved to have been brought back from
an early death, brought back by the love of her mother,
Melissa...and Mulder...only to have discovered that damn chip
in the back of her neck. Then the terror started. She faced
death a second time upon the removal of the chip as she
developed the cancer. Then she found out that her eggs had
been removed, leaving her barren. Compared to everything else,
this was by far the worst blow. She had always held a special
place in her heart for children. She desired a baby more than
anything else, watching her god-child and her nephew grow up
with the slightest bit of envy. But eventually she was forced
to face the realization that her fondest dreams could never be
achieved. And then Emily appeared. Her precious child, born
from the experiments that had taken away her hopes of carrying
a little baby of her own. But those barbaric tests destroyed
her in the end, too, just like they destroyed everything else
in her life. Except Mulder. The Smoking Man had tried to
destroy him on several occasions, both physically and
emotionally, but he had never succeeded. Scully knew that
Mulder blamed himself for everything that happened in her life
since she was assigned to the X-Files, and sometimes she
couldn't help but wonder what would have happened if she had
never walked into that dingy basement.
But then she would have never met Mulder, and that was something most
unacceptable. He was at once the craziness and stability she needed
in her life. He was her constant, her touchstone when the world
seemed too difficult. And now he had told her that he loved her. "I
will talk to him," she decided, "after all of this is over, I will
tell him the truth, tell him how I really feel. I will tell him that
I cannot imagine my life without him in it, that as difficult as it
was going to be, not just for me, but for the both of us, that all I
really want is for him to take me in his strong arms and make me feel
safe."
"Agent Scully," the voice of Dr. Sykes startled her from her reverie,
"the tests are in. Would you mind following me into my office?"
Scully complied and advanced once more into the doctor's familiar
surroundings.
"What did the gel show?" Scully asked. Dr. Sykes simply handed her
the thin piece of paper that contained numerous numbers and
black bars representing the genetic code found in the hair
sample. Scully compared it to the second sheet that Sykes
handed her.
"They're the same," she said simply, "genetic matches," but the look
on her face betrayed the terror that she felt, not just because
of the genetic experimentation that was being conducted, but as
a religious woman whose faith in the certainty of the soul was
being tested the more she continued the investigation.
"Almost identical," Dr. Sykes said, "but mutations...err...rather
alterations have been made in the chromosomes that are
responsible for physical features, hair, eye color, et cetera."
"So," Scully said, processing what this information all meant, "the
two women are genetically the same person, clones, except for the way
they look." Dr. Sykes nodded her head.
"And that means," Scully finished the thought without realizing how
Mulder-like she was beginning to sound, "that someone wants them to
look differently, but why?"
9:48 A.M.
Scully took the keys from her purse and prepared to unlock the door
leading to her office, but it was already open. She deftly replaced
them in her already much-too-overcrowded handbag and turned the knob
to the basement room. She was quickly greeted by Mulder who
looked as if he had spent the entire night in that very room.
She remembered how after she had finally left the Microbiology
Department, she had settled into her bed, muscles aching from
weariness. But there was too much on her mind and getting to
sleep proved more difficult than anticipated. She tossed and
turned for what seemed an eternity until sweet sleep finally
overcame her.
She threw her belongings in a pile on his small desk. "What are you
doing here already, Mulder?" she asked, although she was pretty sure
that she knew what the answer would be.
"I've been going through all of the files of the victims,
tracking the movement of the killer through the eastern
coastal states. How did the tests go last night?"
She handed him the gel results. He placed one overtop of the other.
"They're the same," he said, and then asked, "What does that mean?"
"That means, Mulder, that the latest victim in Philadelphia and the
first victim in D.C. contain the exact same DNA, that they're genetic
clones of one another. No two humans have the same DNA in nature,
Mulder, excepting identical twins. Normally I would say that these
two women must be twins of one another but there was a discovery made
by Dr. Sykes that leads me to believe otherwise."
"And what is that, Scully?" he questioned.
"Dr. Sykes was able to analyze every section of the genetic code of
Purity Control over the past six years, Mulder, and with the
advancement of the Human Genome Project, she was able to
determine the sites of DNA that contain the chromosomes
responsible for physical features, eye color, hair color,
et cetera. The DNA analyzed in both of the victims shows,
like I said, the exact same genetic code except for the base
pairs that code for physical features."
"So what are you telling me, Scully?" he asked her, "That whoever,
what was it you said, fused Purity Control with humans has been able
to manipulate the genetic code to change physical features?"
Scully hesitated. "I don't know, Mulder," she finally said, "that
kind of technology is supposed to be at least a couple of
decades down the road, but I guess we'll know more once we
get the results of the tests from the other victims."
Mulder shook his head angrily, like one who was not about to be
defeated. "Not gonna happen, Scully," he said, doing his best Dana
Carvey impression of President George Bush. He changed his
voice back to his normal intonation in order to address the
severity of his next comment, "They bodies are missing, Scully,
every single one. They were all stolen last night."
Scully pulled out her chair from its normal position in front of his
desk and sat down. "Stolen," she repeated, her words a mixture
of disbelief and awe. Her eyes widened, amplifying the
azure-ocean quality of their hue. "Mulder, how do nine
bodies just disappear?" she asked him,"It's simply not
possible."
He opened his mouth and prepared to answer the question but Scully
held up her hands in a seeming gesture of defeat, preempting any
far-fetched theory that he might feel obliged to develop. "Even if
'someone' wanted to disappear nine bodies," she said, "how could they
possibly discover our intentions to exhume the bodies, and
furthermore, how could they pull off such a massive grave-robbery in
so many different states in one night? Without anyone
seeing a thing? It's simply not possible."
"Scully," he softly chided, a thin smile appearing vaguely on his
lips, "I thought that by now you'd be a little more open to extreme
possibilities."
She curled her mouth in a tight circle of disapproval as
he continued.
"At any rate, I finished reviewing the tapes from all of the
surveillance cameras in Quantico. After you left the room to answer
the phone, the Yellow-Headed Man made another appearance. He was
dressed in medical garb so it was relatively easy to bypass any
guardsmen. Apparently he fit in so well that nobody saw him come in
or go out, besides you and the cameras, of course. He covered the
body with a sheet and rolled it onto a gurney into an elevator."
Mulder stood up from his chair and pushed "Play" on the television
that sat conveniently ready for viewing in the corner of the room.
Scully viewed the Yellow-Haired Man on the elevator camera, and then
in some sort of garage as the image changed over. "The elevator led
to the basement floor, the parking lot, where an ambulance was
waiting to carry the body." He pointed to the time recorded by
the camera in the left corner of the screen. "6:14 P.M.," he
said matter-of-factly, "Just like you said, Scully, the
body-napping was executed in less than a minute."
A troubled look crossed her face. "There's something that bothers me
about this, Mulder," she told him.
"You mean other than the fact that there are nine missing dead clones
with the genetic makeup of extraterrestrial elements?"
"Yes," she replied with a sneer. Almost instantly her expression
became serious again, "The Yellow-Haired Man never once looks up at
the camera. It's almost like he knows that he's being watched."
"I thought of that," Mulder replied, "Coupled to the fact that he was
able to gain access to both Quantico and an ambulance, I'd say that
chances are pretty good that he's a worker there."
"But Mulder," she reminded him, "you just said that no one in that
facility remembers ever seeing him."
He had to smile. She never ceased to disappoint him. He began to
wonder if there would ever come a time when she would just accept
what he told her on blind faith alone. He chuckled to himself,
knowing full well that today would not be that day.
"Maybe it wasn't him that they were seeing," he said nonchalantly.
"Then who?" she asked, honestly confused.
"Maybe he changed his appearance, Scully."
"Changed his appearance," she said, "What do you mean, like put on a
wig."
"Not exactly, more like put on the semblance of a whole new person."
She arched her eyebrows with a genuine look of fanciful incredulity,
"and then I suppose he reversed time with one look from his 'magic
eyes of rotation,' making the other eight bodies vanish without a
trace before they were even buried."
He beamed, "Extreme possibilities, Scully, I'm not discounting
anything."
"Now that we're on the subject, Mulder, what did happen to the bodies
of the other victims?"
"They didn't even make it to the examination table," he
informed her, "The bodies were taken before permission for
exhumation was even granted."
"By who, Mulder?" she asked.
"I think, Scully," he answered, "the appropriate question
would be 'by what?'."
"What do you mean, 'by what,' Mulder?"
"Scully, how do you explain what is going on? Purity Control,
clones, body-snatchers, I mean, you can't possibly think that
it's all some big coincidence."
"Mulder," she scowled, "I'm still not entirely convinced that
they are clones, at least not until further evidence can be
provided in regards to the other seven women. As for the
missing bodies, it's possible that the murderer knows of
something on the victims that could potentially implicate
him. I'm sure he's just covering his tracks."
He scoffed. She was grasping at straws, now, "By sneaking into a
high-security medical complex? Even if that were true, how could he
steal nine different bodies in seven different states in one night?"
"Maybe he has accomplices." The faint impression of a frown could be
detected on her pretty face as her cheeks began to redden. Even she
didn't believe that explanation.
"Extremely doubtful, Scully. He's a serial murderer. They aren't
generally known to play well with others."
She could feel the discomfort like the gaze of a thousand eyes. The
discomfort turned to rising irritation. "Well, what are you
suggesting then? That not only can our Yellow-Haired friend morph but
he can be in seven different places at once, too?"
"Of course not, Scully, that's a little far-fetched, don't
you think?" He smiled at her. He savored the feeling of
challenging her beliefs as she did his. "No, that's not
what I'm suggesting at all. I think the reasonable
conclusion is that the nine victims are the product of
some scientific experiment headed by someone in the
government capable of controlling the technology to fuse
alien DNA with human DNA, someone who is able to pull off
nine murders when the subjects are no longer needed and
then can carry away nine bodies without anyone batting
an eyelash."
"You're right, Mulder," she said, putting a hand against
her cheek and granting him a gaze of false reverence,
"why didn't I see that before?"
He ignored the look that he had fully expected to see, "There's
something else, Scully."
"What's that?" she stated curtly.
"I was able to extract the license plate from the parking lot
surveillance tape. I put out an A.P.B. on the ambulance but it, like
the victims, has disappeared. I have a witness from Baxter's Brewery
across the street who reports seeing a forty year old with long, dark
hair and a scar over his right eyebrow driving away in an ambulance
at 6:14 P.M.. His description, and that of the Yellow-Haired Man,
is currently being sent to every agency on the east coast."
He stepped away from the television and grabbed the coat from his
desk. Putting it on, he turned to her, saying, "Why don't you
go over the tapes again and see if there's anything I missed."
"What are you going to do?" she asked.
"I'm going to go see if I can't track me down some dead bodies."
Washington, D.C.
Undisclosed Location
10:35 A.M.
Mulder rapped loudly on the heavy, steel door in front of his face.
He lowered his hand and stepped back into full view of the
omnipresent surveillance camera, waiting for approval and
admittance into the room.
"Who is it?" he heard a semi-deep male voice crackle through the
intercom.
"Avon calling," he responded blandly, "I'm here to refill your blush
samples."
From behind the frame he could hear the sound of numerous locks being
turned and chains being slid. Frohike opened the door wide and
greeted him by saying, "Maybe you should try using some on your
palely ass, Mulder." He was wearing his usual drab garb, a
grayish tee-shirt, jeans, and a red pullover vest that provided
the only color to the otherwise dreary ensemble.
"You know, Melvin," he said, gesturing with a thumb towards the six
locks on the inside of the door, "you are the most paranoid son of a
bitch that I have ever had the displeasure of meeting."
Frohike smiled, "Coming from you, Spooky, that's one hell of a
compliment."
Mulder glared at Frohike for the rebuttal and then proceeded into the
room which maintained the cozy decorum of a breeding zone for
computer geeks and mathematicians. Langly was seated in a
relaxed position, chair bent back and legs crossed over a
counter, reviewing a tape about the NASA conspiracy regarding
the staged lunar landing of Apollo 11, while Byers combed
quickly through the most recently reported crop circle
findings in Manchester, England.
"Hey, Mulder," Langly called to him, too engrossed to even look from
the television screen.
"Nice to see you, too," he muttered under his breath as Byers
approached, folders in hand. "Hey, Mulder," he said, "what
brings you to our neck of the woods? Working on something
interesting?"
"I don't know if you can handle it," Mulder baited them, "It looks
like you've got a lot on your plate as it is."
"Oh, this?" he asked, pointing to the reports, "just you're everyday
run-of-the-mill falsified alien landing sites, generated by the
government in order to deflect attention to the true crisis
that faces the American people."
Mulder nodded his head solemnly, "Boy bands."
"Worse," Byers said, "the generation of a microbe so lethal that it
could devastate the entire population of Tokyo in less than three
hours."
"A real bummer, Mulder," Langly chimed in, eyes still intent on the
T.V., "Make a mental note. Don't go visiting Toxyo anytime soon."
"Well," he antagonized, "if you're not up to the challenge, all you
had to do is say so."
Frohike plopped himself down on a chair. "Damn it, man, why don't you
just come out and tell us what it is that you've gotten
yourself into. What do we have to do to bail out your
ass this time?"
"Jesus, Frohike," Mulder said, "what the hell crawled up your ass and
died? Get up on the wrong side of the child's-size bed or what?"
"Don't mind him," Byers said.
"Yeah," Langly chimed in, "he's just pissed off that you didn't bring
Agent Scully with you."
"Speaking of Scully," Frohike said, his ears perked at the sound of
her name as his eyes gleamed with less-than-honorable intentions,
"where is your tasty little red-headed partner?"
"She's back at the Bureau," he told him, "I was afraid that if
we were in the same room together, she would never be able to
look at me the same way, that if we were on a stakeout together,
it would be the name of 'Melvin' instead of 'Mulder' that she
would cry out. And I just couldn't handle that kind of
blow to my ego."
"Since we're on the subject, Mulder," Langly asked, "how are
things in that department going?" Then he added, a toothy,
boyish grin appearing beneath his large, black, box-shaped
glasses, "Did you know that your initials spell out 'S&M'?"
Byers, shook his head, disregarding the last comment, "Yeah, Mulder,
have you told her how you feel yet?"
Mulder sighed. "I tried, boys," he told them, "I really tried, and I
thought that we were truly getting somewhere at one point." He
suddenly looked very tired. "Listen," he said, "I really don't feel
like talking about this right now. Besides, we have more important
things on our 'to do list' than Scully."
Frohike smiled, "She's number one on my 'to do list', Mulder."
"Easy there, big fella," Mulder responded with a smirk, "I've got
another project that I need you to saddle."
He thought anxiously of the discussion that he and Scully had had the
day earlier in the hotel room. Since then, the awkwardness had
dissipated and they had gone back to their regular working
relationship. But that was not what he wanted at all. "What do
I have to do to get on her 'to do list'?" he wondered to himself.
He pushed all thoughts of Scully from his mind for the time being
with a gentle shake of his head and proceeded to the matter at
hand.
"What do you have for us, Mulder?" Langly asked excitedly, finally
giving Mulder his full attention, "Government conspiracy?
Killer bees spreading alien viruses? Artificial intelligence
turned murderers?"
"Been there, done that, boys," he told them, "what I have is
much more interesting, and you won't even have to get dirty
doing it either."
"Aww," Frohike sneered, "and I was hoping that I'd have to get all
dressed up and purdy, too."
Mulder opened the left flap of his coat and removed several pictures
printed from a security surveillance system with his right hand. He
threw the pictures in a heap on the desk nearest to him and proceeded
to brief the trio: "These pictures were taken last night at Quantico
Medical Facility, approximately 6:13-6:14 P.M.. They captured a
Yellow-Haired Man in the process of stealing a body from an
examination room on the third level. He transported the body to the
basement parking lot where the victim was then transferred to a
waiting ambulance. A Black-Haired Man was seen driving away with the
body."
Byers picked up the photos and started strumming through
them lazily. The first several depicted Scully standing over
the body, apparently preparing to conduct an autopsy. The
next showed her leaving the room, followed by the entry of
the Yellow-Haired Man of which Mulder spoke. The next
picture was of the Yellow-Haired Man and the body in an
elevator, and the last were of an ambulance by driven away
by the Black-Haired Man.
"What exactly is so important about the body, Mulder?" Byers asked.
Mulder took numerous copies of files from his right pocket, handing
them to Byers. "Do you know this is?" Mulder questioned him.
"Of course," Byers said without the slightest hint of hesitation,
"It's a representation of DNA."
Langly peered over the shoulder of his friend, "Yeah," he said, "but
what kind? That doesn't look like anything I've ever seen before."
Byers agreed, "I've never seen it either, Mulder. Where did you
obtain this wellspring?"
"You don't happen to remember a little gem called 'Purity
Control,' do you boys?" he asked them.
"Purity Control...Purity Control?" Frohike placed a finger
aside his lips as he thought aloud, "Wasn't that the code
name of that bacteria you found in that flask...what was
it that you told us, that you thought it was alien?"
"Bingo, Frohike, you got it on the first try."
"Well, I'll take this as my prize then," he said, picking up one of
the first pictures of Scully and placing it in a pocket for
safe-keeping.
"You're a sick one, Melvin," he told him as Frohike licked his lips.
"Right back at you," he replied.
Mulder glanced toward Byers who asked, "What does Purity Control have
to do with this DNA sample, Mulder?"
"The DNA sample is a fusion product," he answered, "constructed from
the genomes of the alien bacteria found in Purity Control and the
human genome. That same sample was found in two separate women
in two separate locations, who were killed by the same murderer."
The room grew silent. Frohike, Langly, and Byers all glanced at each
other, the smiles on their faces lengthening until they could no
longer control themselves, bursting into spontaneous laughter.
"An alien based genome," Langly said, more of a statement than a
question, "right. Where do you come up with this stuff, Mulder?"
"Yeah," Byers chuckled, "not even we could come up with a theory
so...so..."
"...weird," Frohike finished for him.
"I was going to say farfetched," Byers replied, "but weird works,
too."
"OK," Mulder said, "we've all had our little laugh for the day. Now,
are you going to help me or not?"
"Sure," Langly answered for the three of them, "we wouldn't want to
pass up such a...monumental discovery."
"What do you want us to do?" Byers asked, stifling another bout of
laughter.
"I need you to go through all of the workers at Quantico," Mulder
commanded, "Get me a background check and see if anyone would
be smart enough to carry out this whole genetic fusion thing.
Cross-reference with anyone who might have come in contact
with any of the victims." He pointed to the last photocopy
that contained all of the names of the nine victims. "Then
see if you can find any information on either the
Yellow-Haired or Black-Haired Man."
"Anything else, 'O Great Leader'?" Frohike asked as Mulder turned his
back and started walking towards the door.
"Yeah, Frohike," he answered, turning back to face the
geniuses-in-geeks-garb, "be gentle with that picture, you don't want
to rush the first time." Then turning to leave, he called out an
"Adios, amigos," and with a wave of the hand, he was gone.
J. Edgar Hoover Building
11:01 A.M.
Scully was seated elegantly in a chair facing the television that was
propped against the wall opposite the office door. Even from behind
she appeared poised and in control. Her legs were tightly closed and
fell at a "ladylike" diagonal over her seat. Her arms were folded
neatly across her body and her elbows rested gently on the sides of
the chair. She was the very model of his ideal, total perfection, at
once the peak of professionalism and effeminate vulnerability. "Hell
if she couldn't hold her own, too, though," he thought
affectionately.
As if sensing his presence in the room, she swiveled in her chair,
turning to face him without even standing up. Her face carried a
dubious look of extreme boredom which wore away obstinately at her
beguiling features. "That was quick," she called to him,
propping her head by placing a fist against her temple.
"Apparently not quick enough, Scully," he answered, noting
her obvious distaste for her latest assignment.
"Mulder," she stated, the slightest touch of irritation in her voice,
"I've been through these tapes like you asked and I still have yet to
find anything relevant." She coupled the statement to an immediate
question, "Where were you?"
"I just went to visit Manny, Moe, and Jack," he said, "They're going
to try and dig up some information on our missing assailants."
He walked towards her and pulled his chair next to hers. She turned
around and faced the T.V. as he seated himself haphazardly on the
chair.
Scully sighed a deep sigh of resignation. "Mulder, I can't help
feeling like we're wasting time with this. I just don't know
what you expect me to find. We have little to no chance of
tracking down either the Yellow-Haired or the Black-Haired
Man and those bodies are long gone by now. If someone took
the trouble to steal nine bodies then I'm sure he disposed
of whatever trace evidence was left on them."
Mulder leaned in closer to the set as Scully continued her harangue.
"Not to mention the fact that..."
Mulder wasn't listening now. He held up his left hand without
removing his gaze from the surveillance view of the ambulance.
"Scully," he interrupted her, "push 'Rewind' on that tape for me."
She shot him a quizzical look. "Mulder, what do you see?"
He watched the tape for another few seconds as a look of excitement
crossed his face. "There," he said, "did you see it that time?"
Scully shook her head.
"Rewind it again, Scully," he said, "but this time watch the driver's
side mirror."
Scully did as Mulder commanded. A few seconds elapsed as
they watched the Yellow-Haired Man climb into the driver's
side of the ambulance. As soon as his door was closed,
Mulder hurriedly pushed "Pause."
"See it now?" he asked.
Scully saw, indeed. The mirror depicted a man sitting in
the driver's seat, or rather, what looked like two men fused
together down the center of the body. The left half of the
Yellow-Haired Man and the right half of the Black-Haired Man
stared back at her, a real-live "Two-Face" torn from the
pages of a Batman comic book.
"There must be some glitch in the camera," she said, "It's possible
that the light reflected off the mirror at such an angle that it
caused what appeared to be a fusion of the men sitting in the
driver's and passenger's sides."
Mulder shook his head. "Scully," he said, "we saw the Yellow-Haired
Man climb into the driver's seat."
"That doesn't mean that he didn't climb over to the passenger's
side."
"As soon as he climbed in, he disappeared and the Black-Haired Man
appeared. Now what does that suggest to you?" he asked.
"It suggests just what I said," she answered, "cheap lighting and
camera tricks, nothing more than mechanical chicanery - an accidental
parlor trick."
"I think it's more than that."
She braced herself. "Okay, Mulder, I'll bite. What do you think it
is?"
"I think that the Yellow-Haired Man is the Black-Haired Man,
that they are one and the same person. I believe this man,
whoever he is, has morphological capabilities not unlike
those that we've seen before. Remember the alien Bounty
Hunter had the ability to change his appearance, as did
Jeremiah Smith?"
"You know, Mulder," she said, "I was never fully convinced that those
men had the ability to change their physiology."
"Not men, Scully," he corrected her, "aliens."
"So what are you saying?" she asked, "That the man who stole
that body from Quantico wasn't human at all? That he was an
alien?"
"That's the logical explanation, Scully," he replied.
She shot him a sideways glance. "And I suppose," she
said with a tone teeming with disbelief and sarcasm,
"that next you're going to tell me that the connection
between kidnapper and the kidnapee is Purity Control."
Mulder opened his eyes wide with a look of surprise, and then settled
into an overtly calm demeanor. "Imagine, if you will," he said, a
thin smile crossing his face, "an F.B.I. agent not unlike any other.
Skeptical, cunning, beautiful, but determined not to believe
the truth until scientific proof is in her grasp. Today, she
has found herself on the opposing side, today she has found
herself in the position of believer, proponent of truth.
Today she has entered 'the Spooky Zone'."
"Mulder," she scolded, her face betraying a look of mild
entertainment, "I may be a proponent of the truth but I certainly
cannot endorse this highly irrational concept of yours. If you can
logically explain to me the scientific basis for what it is that you
are purporting, then perhaps I will consider it a possibility."
"Scully, what more scientific proof do you need?" he asked,
"Everything in that folder on your desk is screaming out the
truth but you obstinately refuse to take a leap of faith, and
it would not even be a large leap at that. Just look at the
evidence. Science has concluded that the composition of
Purity Control is identical to not just one dead woman, but
two who live hundreds of miles away from each other. Now
would it be such a leap to say that the other seven victims
contain the same genes as well?"
"Perhaps not, Mulder," she answered, "Maybe you are right and the
government is conducting cloning experiments that we should not even
have the technological capabilities to carry out. Now what? What is
our next course of action? It may not be such a outlandish
conjecture that nine clones exist, possibly twelve if the
Apostalic connection holds true, but I am simply not about
to believe that our killer is a morphing Two-Faced alien
based upon faith alone."
He looked her up and down, sizing her up coldly. "Maybe I
was wrong," he finally said, "maybe it was wrong of me to
think that you would believe me, just this once, simply
because my faith in this belief was so strong." He shook
his head sadly, "You once told me that you had the strength
of my beliefs, Scully. Why can't you just believe me now?"
Without saying another word, he stood and stormed abruptly out of the
room, leaving Scully sitting speechless in solitary contemplation.
5:52 P.M.
Mulder stood by an open grave, patiently waiting for the enormous,
yellow crane to finish pulling the casket from the ground.
The gentle crescent moon shone brightly on the proceedings,
a misplaced light in the midst of the dark of dusk. He
looked much better now, even somewhat well-rested. The
wrinkled shirt and pants were replaced with his usual
working outfit: well-pressed shirt, gray pants, gray
jacket, monochrome tie. Over his suit was a long,
jet-black duster that flowed past his long legs to his
knees. His hair was neatly combed back and the only
sign of his drinking exploits were the remnants of barely
noticeable thin, red lines in his eyes. He reached into
his pocket and produced a handful of sunflower seeds as
Scully approached from the darkness.
The headlights from the crane illuminated the highlights in her
beautiful hair. She looked professional as always -elegantly bearing
a dark, form-fitting pants-suit- but damn good, he decided.
He popped a couple seeds in his mouth as she halted in front
of him.
"What'd she say?" he asked her.
"Alvarez said that she would work on getting permission for the
exhumation of the other two women that were killed in her
jurisdiction," she answered, grazing quickly over the name of the
esteemed detective, "The other five victims lie buried in various
locations throughout the east coast ranging from Maine to Maryland.
I have contacted Bureau agencies in each of those states and have
arranged for the exhumations. They will notify me as soon as they
have collected the samples."
She sighed a deep sigh of weariness. She was worn out after having
spent the day being bounced around from one government lackey to
another. But her day wasn't over yet. She knew what would come
next. She would spend hours working on the body and after that,
there would be the blood work of not just one dead girl, but nine
all together. He had been busy, too, of course. He spent the
entire afternoon attempting to get permission for the exhumation
of the only victim buried in D.C.. Still, she noticed with some
degree of bitterness that he had managed time to shower, shave,
and dress. She looked down at herself, still wearing the same
clothes from her meeting with Dr. Sykes. "I need a long, hot
bath," she thought to herself.
"Good," he replied simply, and "Ah...here we go, now the fun begins"
as the casket was lifted from the earth and placed on a waiting
gurney. Four medics placed the casket into the back of an ambulance,
secured it, and closed the doors behind it. "Let's go, Scully,"
Mulder commanded as he jumped into his government-issue automobile.
Scully complied and soon the two were following the ambulance
at close range, driving in deafening silence towards Quantico.
Quantico Medical Facility
6:13 P.M.
Scully pulled at the microphone that hung from the ceiling of the
frigid examining room, drawing it closer to her mouth. The room was
immaculate. The white-washed walls had recently been scrubbed
and the powerful stench of chlorine indicated the complete
absence of contamination. She had become so used to that smell
through the years of her intense training. It had become
second nature, a hollowed ground that made her feel secure
in her medical abilities. It was medicine that made her feel
in control whenever Mulder's paranoia seemed to suggest that
others within the government contained complete power over
her and all of the rest of the civilians on Earth.
"Victim is a twenty-seven year old Caucasian female," she began,
initiating the examination, "Extent of decomposition suggests
that she has been dead for well over two weeks. No signs of
sexual assault are implicit on the exterior of the body, no
bruising or other abuse. The removal of the right eye and a
single incisor is consistent with the supposed ritualistic
murders of the three victims in Philadelphia. Forty puncture
wounds on the body lend credence to this theory." She reached
for the charts containing the victim's information produced
from the initial autopsy after her death. They had been faxed
over from the D.C. morgue earlier that day and now lay on the
linoleum counter at her side. "Coroner's report states that
victim died of asphyxiation due to unknown circumstances.
Toxicology shows an abnormal presence of alcohol in her system
days after she was found dead." Scully picked up the tools
that lay on a cart beside the examination table and prepared
to make the first incision. "I will now reopen the stitches,"
she said into the microphone, and then under her breath, "Okay,
let's see what you're hiding." She leaned in to make the cut
when a voice from behind startled her into cognizance.
"Agent Scully?"
Tools in hand, Scully turned around and faced the young, light-haired
agent.
"Agent Scully," he repeated from behind his almost
too-neat-for-protocol suit, "there's a call for you on line one."
"Thank you," Scully called, "I'll be right there." She placed the
tools back on the cart and flipped the switch on the microphone
to the "Off" position as the agent departed into the hallway.
She placed her surgical gloves in the nearest trashcan and went
across the hall to pick up the line.
"Scully," she said, twirling the cord listlessly between her
fingers. No one responded. "Scully," she said again, this
time with more force. Once again, there was no answer.
"Is anyone there?" she asked and after gaining no response
for a third time, she slammed the phone back on the hook.
She was shaking her head as she re-entered the examining
room. Her anger quickly turned to shock as her brain began
to process exactly what she was viewing: nothing. The body
was gone.
"And then I came back and she was gone." Scully had just finished
telling Mulder of the strange phone call and the body-napping as tens
of agents scampered crazily throughout the hall. "Mulder," she asked
him, "How does a body simply disappear? I was gone for less than a
minute. I don't know how someone could manage sneaking a body out of
here in that short amount of time, nor do I know why anyone would
have the inclination."
"They're hiding something, Scully," he told her, "They're hiding
something and
I think you know why."
"Purity Control," she answered.
He nodded his head, "That's right, Purity Control. They're afraid of
exposing the truth, Scully."
"The truth about what, Mulder? We hardly know anything. All we know
is that a woman was murdered in Philadelphia with the genetic makeup
of Purity Control and that she may be connected to the murder of this
woman in Washington. But how do we know that for sure? We have no
proof now to make that connection. I was barely able to start the
autopsy. I didn't even get the opportunity to take a blood sample.
How are we going to perform a genetic comparison?"
Mulder brushed past her and crouched onto the floor near the head of
the examination table. "They didn't get everything, Scully," he told
her, picking up a piece of black hair between his thumb and
forefinger. He stood up as Scully appeared at his feat. "Looks like
you're going to get that scientific proof after all," he told her,
"now the question is are you ready to face the truth?"
6:32 P.M.
Scully pushed the "Fast Forward" button on the VCR as Mulder rejoined
her in the surveillance room. "How's it going, Scully?" he
asked her.
"I've almost found it, Mulder. I'm up to 5:40 now," she told
him, and then asked, "Did you get a trace on the phone number
of my mystery caller?"
"I couldn't, Scully," he replied, "your mystery caller doesn't
exist." She shot him a quizzical look. "What are you talking
about?" she asked him.
He pulled up a vinyl chair and sat down at her side. "The phone
records show no evidence of an incoming call," he said, "Whoever made
that call placed it internally, from somewhere in the same hall that
contains the examination rooms."
She gazed at him as he stared intently at the television screen.
"Push 'Play'," he commanded her, "we're up to 6:12. He should be
making an appearance right about...now." Mulder pointed at the male
figure with light hair as the camera caught him walking through the
door behind a crouched Scully. "Does anyone recognize this man?" he
asked the various agents and surveillance men that had congregated in
a semicircle behind the pair. Mulder turned around in time to see
every man shake his head "no." He turned back and faced Scully.
"Can you get me a printout of this guy," he asked her.
"Sure," she answered, "I'll take care of it, Mulder, but what good
will it do? He never once looks up at the camera. All we have to go
on is a Caucasian male of average height that has light, sandy hair.
That description could fit any number of men in the D.C. area, let
alone the eastern shore."
"Yeah, Scully," he countered, "but how many of those men are walking
around with a woman who has been dead for eight months?"
Scully's ears perked at this last remark. "Eight months," she asked,
not sure if she had heard him correctly, "Mulder, did you say
that she had been dead for eight months?"
"Yes," he said matter-of-factly, "eight months. The girl you were
performing the autopsy on was named Katrina Judas. She was the very
first victim, killed in D.C. eight months ago next week." He stared
at her with a look of mock dejectedness, "You can check her file if
you don't believe me."
"Mulder, there was no more than two weeks worth of decomposition
present on that girl," she said, her eyes widening with dismay and a
twinge of fear, "how is that possible?"
"I'm guessing good genes," he answered.
J. Edgar Hoover Building
March 27, 2000
12:20 A.M.
Scully contemplated the discussion she had had earlier that day with
Mulder in the surveillance room. What were the ramifications
of these tests, the fusion of unknown and human genomes? She
thought about all she had faced because of Purity Control,
because of the X-Files. There was the death of Deep Throat.
Although she hadn't known him as well as Mulder, his death
still affected her deeply. He had died in her arms, warning
her with his last dying breath to "Trust no one." Then there
was the terrible kidnapping by Duane Barry. She still couldn't
remember exactly what happened during her mental absence. It
was locked away somewhere deep in her memory. Maybe they
ordained it that way, or maybe she simply didn't want to
remember. She was so relieved to have been brought back from
an early death, brought back by the love of her mother,
Melissa...and Mulder...only to have discovered that damn chip
in the back of her neck. Then the terror started. She faced
death a second time upon the removal of the chip as she
developed the cancer. Then she found out that her eggs had
been removed, leaving her barren. Compared to everything else,
this was by far the worst blow. She had always held a special
place in her heart for children. She desired a baby more than
anything else, watching her god-child and her nephew grow up
with the slightest bit of envy. But eventually she was forced
to face the realization that her fondest dreams could never be
achieved. And then Emily appeared. Her precious child, born
from the experiments that had taken away her hopes of carrying
a little baby of her own. But those barbaric tests destroyed
her in the end, too, just like they destroyed everything else
in her life. Except Mulder. The Smoking Man had tried to
destroy him on several occasions, both physically and
emotionally, but he had never succeeded. Scully knew that
Mulder blamed himself for everything that happened in her life
since she was assigned to the X-Files, and sometimes she
couldn't help but wonder what would have happened if she had
never walked into that dingy basement.
But then she would have never met Mulder, and that was something most
unacceptable. He was at once the craziness and stability she needed
in her life. He was her constant, her touchstone when the world
seemed too difficult. And now he had told her that he loved her. "I
will talk to him," she decided, "after all of this is over, I will
tell him the truth, tell him how I really feel. I will tell him that
I cannot imagine my life without him in it, that as difficult as it
was going to be, not just for me, but for the both of us, that all I
really want is for him to take me in his strong arms and make me feel
safe."
"Agent Scully," the voice of Dr. Sykes startled her from her reverie,
"the tests are in. Would you mind following me into my office?"
Scully complied and advanced once more into the doctor's familiar
surroundings.
"What did the gel show?" Scully asked. Dr. Sykes simply handed her
the thin piece of paper that contained numerous numbers and
black bars representing the genetic code found in the hair
sample. Scully compared it to the second sheet that Sykes
handed her.
"They're the same," she said simply, "genetic matches," but the look
on her face betrayed the terror that she felt, not just because
of the genetic experimentation that was being conducted, but as
a religious woman whose faith in the certainty of the soul was
being tested the more she continued the investigation.
"Almost identical," Dr. Sykes said, "but mutations...err...rather
alterations have been made in the chromosomes that are
responsible for physical features, hair, eye color, et cetera."
"So," Scully said, processing what this information all meant, "the
two women are genetically the same person, clones, except for the way
they look." Dr. Sykes nodded her head.
"And that means," Scully finished the thought without realizing how
Mulder-like she was beginning to sound, "that someone wants them to
look differently, but why?"
9:48 A.M.
Scully took the keys from her purse and prepared to unlock the door
leading to her office, but it was already open. She deftly replaced
them in her already much-too-overcrowded handbag and turned the knob
to the basement room. She was quickly greeted by Mulder who
looked as if he had spent the entire night in that very room.
She remembered how after she had finally left the Microbiology
Department, she had settled into her bed, muscles aching from
weariness. But there was too much on her mind and getting to
sleep proved more difficult than anticipated. She tossed and
turned for what seemed an eternity until sweet sleep finally
overcame her.
She threw her belongings in a pile on his small desk. "What are you
doing here already, Mulder?" she asked, although she was pretty sure
that she knew what the answer would be.
"I've been going through all of the files of the victims,
tracking the movement of the killer through the eastern
coastal states. How did the tests go last night?"
She handed him the gel results. He placed one overtop of the other.
"They're the same," he said, and then asked, "What does that mean?"
"That means, Mulder, that the latest victim in Philadelphia and the
first victim in D.C. contain the exact same DNA, that they're genetic
clones of one another. No two humans have the same DNA in nature,
Mulder, excepting identical twins. Normally I would say that these
two women must be twins of one another but there was a discovery made
by Dr. Sykes that leads me to believe otherwise."
"And what is that, Scully?" he questioned.
"Dr. Sykes was able to analyze every section of the genetic code of
Purity Control over the past six years, Mulder, and with the
advancement of the Human Genome Project, she was able to
determine the sites of DNA that contain the chromosomes
responsible for physical features, eye color, hair color,
et cetera. The DNA analyzed in both of the victims shows,
like I said, the exact same genetic code except for the base
pairs that code for physical features."
"So what are you telling me, Scully?" he asked her, "That whoever,
what was it you said, fused Purity Control with humans has been able
to manipulate the genetic code to change physical features?"
Scully hesitated. "I don't know, Mulder," she finally said, "that
kind of technology is supposed to be at least a couple of
decades down the road, but I guess we'll know more once we
get the results of the tests from the other victims."
Mulder shook his head angrily, like one who was not about to be
defeated. "Not gonna happen, Scully," he said, doing his best Dana
Carvey impression of President George Bush. He changed his
voice back to his normal intonation in order to address the
severity of his next comment, "They bodies are missing, Scully,
every single one. They were all stolen last night."
Scully pulled out her chair from its normal position in front of his
desk and sat down. "Stolen," she repeated, her words a mixture
of disbelief and awe. Her eyes widened, amplifying the
azure-ocean quality of their hue. "Mulder, how do nine
bodies just disappear?" she asked him,"It's simply not
possible."
He opened his mouth and prepared to answer the question but Scully
held up her hands in a seeming gesture of defeat, preempting any
far-fetched theory that he might feel obliged to develop. "Even if
'someone' wanted to disappear nine bodies," she said, "how could they
possibly discover our intentions to exhume the bodies, and
furthermore, how could they pull off such a massive grave-robbery in
so many different states in one night? Without anyone
seeing a thing? It's simply not possible."
"Scully," he softly chided, a thin smile appearing vaguely on his
lips, "I thought that by now you'd be a little more open to extreme
possibilities."
She curled her mouth in a tight circle of disapproval as
he continued.
"At any rate, I finished reviewing the tapes from all of the
surveillance cameras in Quantico. After you left the room to answer
the phone, the Yellow-Headed Man made another appearance. He was
dressed in medical garb so it was relatively easy to bypass any
guardsmen. Apparently he fit in so well that nobody saw him come in
or go out, besides you and the cameras, of course. He covered the
body with a sheet and rolled it onto a gurney into an elevator."
Mulder stood up from his chair and pushed "Play" on the television
that sat conveniently ready for viewing in the corner of the room.
Scully viewed the Yellow-Haired Man on the elevator camera, and then
in some sort of garage as the image changed over. "The elevator led
to the basement floor, the parking lot, where an ambulance was
waiting to carry the body." He pointed to the time recorded by
the camera in the left corner of the screen. "6:14 P.M.," he
said matter-of-factly, "Just like you said, Scully, the
body-napping was executed in less than a minute."
A troubled look crossed her face. "There's something that bothers me
about this, Mulder," she told him.
"You mean other than the fact that there are nine missing dead clones
with the genetic makeup of extraterrestrial elements?"
"Yes," she replied with a sneer. Almost instantly her expression
became serious again, "The Yellow-Haired Man never once looks up at
the camera. It's almost like he knows that he's being watched."
"I thought of that," Mulder replied, "Coupled to the fact that he was
able to gain access to both Quantico and an ambulance, I'd say that
chances are pretty good that he's a worker there."
"But Mulder," she reminded him, "you just said that no one in that
facility remembers ever seeing him."
He had to smile. She never ceased to disappoint him. He began to
wonder if there would ever come a time when she would just accept
what he told her on blind faith alone. He chuckled to himself,
knowing full well that today would not be that day.
"Maybe it wasn't him that they were seeing," he said nonchalantly.
"Then who?" she asked, honestly confused.
"Maybe he changed his appearance, Scully."
"Changed his appearance," she said, "What do you mean, like put on a
wig."
"Not exactly, more like put on the semblance of a whole new person."
She arched her eyebrows with a genuine look of fanciful incredulity,
"and then I suppose he reversed time with one look from his 'magic
eyes of rotation,' making the other eight bodies vanish without a
trace before they were even buried."
He beamed, "Extreme possibilities, Scully, I'm not discounting
anything."
"Now that we're on the subject, Mulder, what did happen to the bodies
of the other victims?"
"They didn't even make it to the examination table," he
informed her, "The bodies were taken before permission for
exhumation was even granted."
"By who, Mulder?" she asked.
"I think, Scully," he answered, "the appropriate question
would be 'by what?'."
"What do you mean, 'by what,' Mulder?"
"Scully, how do you explain what is going on? Purity Control,
clones, body-snatchers, I mean, you can't possibly think that
it's all some big coincidence."
"Mulder," she scowled, "I'm still not entirely convinced that
they are clones, at least not until further evidence can be
provided in regards to the other seven women. As for the
missing bodies, it's possible that the murderer knows of
something on the victims that could potentially implicate
him. I'm sure he's just covering his tracks."
He scoffed. She was grasping at straws, now, "By sneaking into a
high-security medical complex? Even if that were true, how could he
steal nine different bodies in seven different states in one night?"
"Maybe he has accomplices." The faint impression of a frown could be
detected on her pretty face as her cheeks began to redden. Even she
didn't believe that explanation.
"Extremely doubtful, Scully. He's a serial murderer. They aren't
generally known to play well with others."
She could feel the discomfort like the gaze of a thousand eyes. The
discomfort turned to rising irritation. "Well, what are you
suggesting then? That not only can our Yellow-Haired friend morph but
he can be in seven different places at once, too?"
"Of course not, Scully, that's a little far-fetched, don't
you think?" He smiled at her. He savored the feeling of
challenging her beliefs as she did his. "No, that's not
what I'm suggesting at all. I think the reasonable
conclusion is that the nine victims are the product of
some scientific experiment headed by someone in the
government capable of controlling the technology to fuse
alien DNA with human DNA, someone who is able to pull off
nine murders when the subjects are no longer needed and
then can carry away nine bodies without anyone batting
an eyelash."
"You're right, Mulder," she said, putting a hand against
her cheek and granting him a gaze of false reverence,
"why didn't I see that before?"
He ignored the look that he had fully expected to see, "There's
something else, Scully."
"What's that?" she stated curtly.
"I was able to extract the license plate from the parking lot
surveillance tape. I put out an A.P.B. on the ambulance but it, like
the victims, has disappeared. I have a witness from Baxter's Brewery
across the street who reports seeing a forty year old with long, dark
hair and a scar over his right eyebrow driving away in an ambulance
at 6:14 P.M.. His description, and that of the Yellow-Haired Man,
is currently being sent to every agency on the east coast."
He stepped away from the television and grabbed the coat from his
desk. Putting it on, he turned to her, saying, "Why don't you
go over the tapes again and see if there's anything I missed."
"What are you going to do?" she asked.
"I'm going to go see if I can't track me down some dead bodies."
Washington, D.C.
Undisclosed Location
10:35 A.M.
Mulder rapped loudly on the heavy, steel door in front of his face.
He lowered his hand and stepped back into full view of the
omnipresent surveillance camera, waiting for approval and
admittance into the room.
"Who is it?" he heard a semi-deep male voice crackle through the
intercom.
"Avon calling," he responded blandly, "I'm here to refill your blush
samples."
From behind the frame he could hear the sound of numerous locks being
turned and chains being slid. Frohike opened the door wide and
greeted him by saying, "Maybe you should try using some on your
palely ass, Mulder." He was wearing his usual drab garb, a
grayish tee-shirt, jeans, and a red pullover vest that provided
the only color to the otherwise dreary ensemble.
"You know, Melvin," he said, gesturing with a thumb towards the six
locks on the inside of the door, "you are the most paranoid son of a
bitch that I have ever had the displeasure of meeting."
Frohike smiled, "Coming from you, Spooky, that's one hell of a
compliment."
Mulder glared at Frohike for the rebuttal and then proceeded into the
room which maintained the cozy decorum of a breeding zone for
computer geeks and mathematicians. Langly was seated in a
relaxed position, chair bent back and legs crossed over a
counter, reviewing a tape about the NASA conspiracy regarding
the staged lunar landing of Apollo 11, while Byers combed
quickly through the most recently reported crop circle
findings in Manchester, England.
"Hey, Mulder," Langly called to him, too engrossed to even look from
the television screen.
"Nice to see you, too," he muttered under his breath as Byers
approached, folders in hand. "Hey, Mulder," he said, "what
brings you to our neck of the woods? Working on something
interesting?"
"I don't know if you can handle it," Mulder baited them, "It looks
like you've got a lot on your plate as it is."
"Oh, this?" he asked, pointing to the reports, "just you're everyday
run-of-the-mill falsified alien landing sites, generated by the
government in order to deflect attention to the true crisis
that faces the American people."
Mulder nodded his head solemnly, "Boy bands."
"Worse," Byers said, "the generation of a microbe so lethal that it
could devastate the entire population of Tokyo in less than three
hours."
"A real bummer, Mulder," Langly chimed in, eyes still intent on the
T.V., "Make a mental note. Don't go visiting Toxyo anytime soon."
"Well," he antagonized, "if you're not up to the challenge, all you
had to do is say so."
Frohike plopped himself down on a chair. "Damn it, man, why don't you
just come out and tell us what it is that you've gotten
yourself into. What do we have to do to bail out your
ass this time?"
"Jesus, Frohike," Mulder said, "what the hell crawled up your ass and
died? Get up on the wrong side of the child's-size bed or what?"
"Don't mind him," Byers said.
"Yeah," Langly chimed in, "he's just pissed off that you didn't bring
Agent Scully with you."
"Speaking of Scully," Frohike said, his ears perked at the sound of
her name as his eyes gleamed with less-than-honorable intentions,
"where is your tasty little red-headed partner?"
"She's back at the Bureau," he told him, "I was afraid that if
we were in the same room together, she would never be able to
look at me the same way, that if we were on a stakeout together,
it would be the name of 'Melvin' instead of 'Mulder' that she
would cry out. And I just couldn't handle that kind of
blow to my ego."
"Since we're on the subject, Mulder," Langly asked, "how are
things in that department going?" Then he added, a toothy,
boyish grin appearing beneath his large, black, box-shaped
glasses, "Did you know that your initials spell out 'S&M'?"
Byers, shook his head, disregarding the last comment, "Yeah, Mulder,
have you told her how you feel yet?"
Mulder sighed. "I tried, boys," he told them, "I really tried, and I
thought that we were truly getting somewhere at one point." He
suddenly looked very tired. "Listen," he said, "I really don't feel
like talking about this right now. Besides, we have more important
things on our 'to do list' than Scully."
Frohike smiled, "She's number one on my 'to do list', Mulder."
"Easy there, big fella," Mulder responded with a smirk, "I've got
another project that I need you to saddle."
He thought anxiously of the discussion that he and Scully had had the
day earlier in the hotel room. Since then, the awkwardness had
dissipated and they had gone back to their regular working
relationship. But that was not what he wanted at all. "What do
I have to do to get on her 'to do list'?" he wondered to himself.
He pushed all thoughts of Scully from his mind for the time being
with a gentle shake of his head and proceeded to the matter at
hand.
"What do you have for us, Mulder?" Langly asked excitedly, finally
giving Mulder his full attention, "Government conspiracy?
Killer bees spreading alien viruses? Artificial intelligence
turned murderers?"
"Been there, done that, boys," he told them, "what I have is
much more interesting, and you won't even have to get dirty
doing it either."
"Aww," Frohike sneered, "and I was hoping that I'd have to get all
dressed up and purdy, too."
Mulder opened the left flap of his coat and removed several pictures
printed from a security surveillance system with his right hand. He
threw the pictures in a heap on the desk nearest to him and proceeded
to brief the trio: "These pictures were taken last night at Quantico
Medical Facility, approximately 6:13-6:14 P.M.. They captured a
Yellow-Haired Man in the process of stealing a body from an
examination room on the third level. He transported the body to the
basement parking lot where the victim was then transferred to a
waiting ambulance. A Black-Haired Man was seen driving away with the
body."
Byers picked up the photos and started strumming through
them lazily. The first several depicted Scully standing over
the body, apparently preparing to conduct an autopsy. The
next showed her leaving the room, followed by the entry of
the Yellow-Haired Man of which Mulder spoke. The next
picture was of the Yellow-Haired Man and the body in an
elevator, and the last were of an ambulance by driven away
by the Black-Haired Man.
"What exactly is so important about the body, Mulder?" Byers asked.
Mulder took numerous copies of files from his right pocket, handing
them to Byers. "Do you know this is?" Mulder questioned him.
"Of course," Byers said without the slightest hint of hesitation,
"It's a representation of DNA."
Langly peered over the shoulder of his friend, "Yeah," he said, "but
what kind? That doesn't look like anything I've ever seen before."
Byers agreed, "I've never seen it either, Mulder. Where did you
obtain this wellspring?"
"You don't happen to remember a little gem called 'Purity
Control,' do you boys?" he asked them.
"Purity Control...Purity Control?" Frohike placed a finger
aside his lips as he thought aloud, "Wasn't that the code
name of that bacteria you found in that flask...what was
it that you told us, that you thought it was alien?"
"Bingo, Frohike, you got it on the first try."
"Well, I'll take this as my prize then," he said, picking up one of
the first pictures of Scully and placing it in a pocket for
safe-keeping.
"You're a sick one, Melvin," he told him as Frohike licked his lips.
"Right back at you," he replied.
Mulder glanced toward Byers who asked, "What does Purity Control have
to do with this DNA sample, Mulder?"
"The DNA sample is a fusion product," he answered, "constructed from
the genomes of the alien bacteria found in Purity Control and the
human genome. That same sample was found in two separate women
in two separate locations, who were killed by the same murderer."
The room grew silent. Frohike, Langly, and Byers all glanced at each
other, the smiles on their faces lengthening until they could no
longer control themselves, bursting into spontaneous laughter.
"An alien based genome," Langly said, more of a statement than a
question, "right. Where do you come up with this stuff, Mulder?"
"Yeah," Byers chuckled, "not even we could come up with a theory
so...so..."
"...weird," Frohike finished for him.
"I was going to say farfetched," Byers replied, "but weird works,
too."
"OK," Mulder said, "we've all had our little laugh for the day. Now,
are you going to help me or not?"
"Sure," Langly answered for the three of them, "we wouldn't want to
pass up such a...monumental discovery."
"What do you want us to do?" Byers asked, stifling another bout of
laughter.
"I need you to go through all of the workers at Quantico," Mulder
commanded, "Get me a background check and see if anyone would
be smart enough to carry out this whole genetic fusion thing.
Cross-reference with anyone who might have come in contact
with any of the victims." He pointed to the last photocopy
that contained all of the names of the nine victims. "Then
see if you can find any information on either the
Yellow-Haired or Black-Haired Man."
"Anything else, 'O Great Leader'?" Frohike asked as Mulder turned his
back and started walking towards the door.
"Yeah, Frohike," he answered, turning back to face the
geniuses-in-geeks-garb, "be gentle with that picture, you don't want
to rush the first time." Then turning to leave, he called out an
"Adios, amigos," and with a wave of the hand, he was gone.
J. Edgar Hoover Building
11:01 A.M.
Scully was seated elegantly in a chair facing the television that was
propped against the wall opposite the office door. Even from behind
she appeared poised and in control. Her legs were tightly closed and
fell at a "ladylike" diagonal over her seat. Her arms were folded
neatly across her body and her elbows rested gently on the sides of
the chair. She was the very model of his ideal, total perfection, at
once the peak of professionalism and effeminate vulnerability. "Hell
if she couldn't hold her own, too, though," he thought
affectionately.
As if sensing his presence in the room, she swiveled in her chair,
turning to face him without even standing up. Her face carried a
dubious look of extreme boredom which wore away obstinately at her
beguiling features. "That was quick," she called to him,
propping her head by placing a fist against her temple.
"Apparently not quick enough, Scully," he answered, noting
her obvious distaste for her latest assignment.
"Mulder," she stated, the slightest touch of irritation in her voice,
"I've been through these tapes like you asked and I still have yet to
find anything relevant." She coupled the statement to an immediate
question, "Where were you?"
"I just went to visit Manny, Moe, and Jack," he said, "They're going
to try and dig up some information on our missing assailants."
He walked towards her and pulled his chair next to hers. She turned
around and faced the T.V. as he seated himself haphazardly on the
chair.
Scully sighed a deep sigh of resignation. "Mulder, I can't help
feeling like we're wasting time with this. I just don't know
what you expect me to find. We have little to no chance of
tracking down either the Yellow-Haired or the Black-Haired
Man and those bodies are long gone by now. If someone took
the trouble to steal nine bodies then I'm sure he disposed
of whatever trace evidence was left on them."
Mulder leaned in closer to the set as Scully continued her harangue.
"Not to mention the fact that..."
Mulder wasn't listening now. He held up his left hand without
removing his gaze from the surveillance view of the ambulance.
"Scully," he interrupted her, "push 'Rewind' on that tape for me."
She shot him a quizzical look. "Mulder, what do you see?"
He watched the tape for another few seconds as a look of excitement
crossed his face. "There," he said, "did you see it that time?"
Scully shook her head.
"Rewind it again, Scully," he said, "but this time watch the driver's
side mirror."
Scully did as Mulder commanded. A few seconds elapsed as
they watched the Yellow-Haired Man climb into the driver's
side of the ambulance. As soon as his door was closed,
Mulder hurriedly pushed "Pause."
"See it now?" he asked.
Scully saw, indeed. The mirror depicted a man sitting in
the driver's seat, or rather, what looked like two men fused
together down the center of the body. The left half of the
Yellow-Haired Man and the right half of the Black-Haired Man
stared back at her, a real-live "Two-Face" torn from the
pages of a Batman comic book.
"There must be some glitch in the camera," she said, "It's possible
that the light reflected off the mirror at such an angle that it
caused what appeared to be a fusion of the men sitting in the
driver's and passenger's sides."
Mulder shook his head. "Scully," he said, "we saw the Yellow-Haired
Man climb into the driver's seat."
"That doesn't mean that he didn't climb over to the passenger's
side."
"As soon as he climbed in, he disappeared and the Black-Haired Man
appeared. Now what does that suggest to you?" he asked.
"It suggests just what I said," she answered, "cheap lighting and
camera tricks, nothing more than mechanical chicanery - an accidental
parlor trick."
"I think it's more than that."
She braced herself. "Okay, Mulder, I'll bite. What do you think it
is?"
"I think that the Yellow-Haired Man is the Black-Haired Man,
that they are one and the same person. I believe this man,
whoever he is, has morphological capabilities not unlike
those that we've seen before. Remember the alien Bounty
Hunter had the ability to change his appearance, as did
Jeremiah Smith?"
"You know, Mulder," she said, "I was never fully convinced that those
men had the ability to change their physiology."
"Not men, Scully," he corrected her, "aliens."
"So what are you saying?" she asked, "That the man who stole
that body from Quantico wasn't human at all? That he was an
alien?"
"That's the logical explanation, Scully," he replied.
She shot him a sideways glance. "And I suppose," she
said with a tone teeming with disbelief and sarcasm,
"that next you're going to tell me that the connection
between kidnapper and the kidnapee is Purity Control."
Mulder opened his eyes wide with a look of surprise, and then settled
into an overtly calm demeanor. "Imagine, if you will," he said, a
thin smile crossing his face, "an F.B.I. agent not unlike any other.
Skeptical, cunning, beautiful, but determined not to believe
the truth until scientific proof is in her grasp. Today, she
has found herself on the opposing side, today she has found
herself in the position of believer, proponent of truth.
Today she has entered 'the Spooky Zone'."
"Mulder," she scolded, her face betraying a look of mild
entertainment, "I may be a proponent of the truth but I certainly
cannot endorse this highly irrational concept of yours. If you can
logically explain to me the scientific basis for what it is that you
are purporting, then perhaps I will consider it a possibility."
"Scully, what more scientific proof do you need?" he asked,
"Everything in that folder on your desk is screaming out the
truth but you obstinately refuse to take a leap of faith, and
it would not even be a large leap at that. Just look at the
evidence. Science has concluded that the composition of
Purity Control is identical to not just one dead woman, but
two who live hundreds of miles away from each other. Now
would it be such a leap to say that the other seven victims
contain the same genes as well?"
"Perhaps not, Mulder," she answered, "Maybe you are right and the
government is conducting cloning experiments that we should not even
have the technological capabilities to carry out. Now what? What is
our next course of action? It may not be such a outlandish
conjecture that nine clones exist, possibly twelve if the
Apostalic connection holds true, but I am simply not about
to believe that our killer is a morphing Two-Faced alien
based upon faith alone."
He looked her up and down, sizing her up coldly. "Maybe I
was wrong," he finally said, "maybe it was wrong of me to
think that you would believe me, just this once, simply
because my faith in this belief was so strong." He shook
his head sadly, "You once told me that you had the strength
of my beliefs, Scully. Why can't you just believe me now?"
Without saying another word, he stood and stormed abruptly out of the
room, leaving Scully sitting speechless in solitary contemplation.