Philadelphia Police Department
March 28, 2000
9:14 A.M.
"Long time, no see," Mulder quipped as he walked through
the station's large double doors and found Detective
Alvarez standing in the middle of the busy room.
"Yeah," she answered simply, attempting to decide whether or not to
embrace the man that she still loved but who no longer loved her in
return. After an awkward silence and some uneasy shuffling of the
shoulders on both his and her part, she decided against it. Instead,
she opted for the purely professional approach, so as to mask
her true feelings from him. He was always so good at figuring
out what she was thinking. She was sure that even now he was
sizing her up, examining her psyche, silently exploring her
feelings with his amazingly perceptive profiling abilities.
"So, where's the body?" Mulder asked abruptly. When she had
called to tell him of the murder, he had asked her to put the
body under heavy guard. He didn't want this body to disappear
like the other nine. Scully wanted hard evidence to present to
the Bureau heads and he was going to do everything in his power
to ensure that that would happen.
"That's one hell of an icebreaker, Fox," she muttered under her
breath, mildly surprised by how easily she had allowed it
to slip out. Embarrassed, she glanced quickly at his face
to see if he had heard. His eyes told her that he had.
"She's at the morgue," Alvarez hastily answered in an attempt to
divert attention from the previous comment, "under tight security,
just as you asked. We will not be losing this body, Fox, I can
personally assure you."
Alvarez couldn't help but notice that Agent Scully rolled her eyes at
her last statement. "What was the motivation," Lauren wondered,
"jealousy?"
"Is there something wrong, Agent Scully?" she asked innocently.
"Oh no, Detective Alvarez," she said calmly, "I was simply
thinking to myself that your personal assurance wasn't enough
to stop the bodies under your jurisdiction from being stolen
in the first place."
Alvarez smiled, the angry grin of a wife who has been scorned and
insulted by her husband's impetuous, young mistress. "And if I do
recall correctly, Agent Scully, one of the victim's bodies was stolen
out from right under your nose. In fact, the body-napping occurred
while you were working on her. Isn't that
right?"
Mulder frowned externally to show his disapproval, but in his mind he
could hear himself saying, "Please, ladies, don't fight over little
old me!" He wished that Frohike were there so that they could make
hissing noises and make witty references to catfights. Instead, he
heard himself say aloud, "Scully, why don't you go and conduct an
autopsy on the victim. We need solid proof if we're going to
find the murderer before he strikes again."
Scully complied, although she thought it better if they were to
interrogate Alvarez together. After shooting the detective a final,
noticeable glare, Scully took her leave. Mulder's gaze followed her
as she walked out of the room. Her glossy, red hair bobbed up and
down, in perfect sync with her gait, and her arms hung loosely at her
side. After she was out of sight, he turned his eyes back towards
Alvarez. "Lauren," he said solemnly, "we need to talk."
Lauren opened the door to her office as Mulder trailed behind. He
secured the door tightly behind him and she could tell that something
was terribly amiss. "If this is about my conduct at the restaurant
the other day," she began, but he stopped her in mid-sentence with
one nod of the head.
"I'm not here to talk about that, Lauren," he interrupted, "Or would
you prefer to be called by your true name?"
She shot him a quick sideways glance as she sat down in her desk
chair. "What are you talking about, Fox?" she asked, her eyes
askance.
"I think you know what I'm talking about, Maria."
Her mouth dropped. She felt as though she had been punched in the
stomach and was carrying out some fruitless effort to breathe the air
back into her lungs. Suddenly realizing her blatant reaction, she
attempted to regain composure, but it was too late. She knew that he
knew.
"Fox," she stammered, "how did you find out?"
"About what, Maria? About your hand in generating alien-human
hybrids whose very existence was held a closely guarded secret
by you, the other seven geneticists who created them, and the
governmental money-lenders that backed your research?"
She was stunned, visibly distraught. He knew everything. "How did
you find out, Fox?" she repeated.
"That's not important," he answered, "Right now I want to know why."
"Why what?" she asked.
"Why would you go along with something so diabolical? Why would you
not only mask the truth, but actively perpetuate a complete
falsehood, the one thing in life that I detest more than anything
else in this world?" He looked tired and his face fell to his
chest. He truly looked hurt. "I can only assume that after you
created these monstrosities, someone, most likely your same backer,
paid you to leave, not only Washington, but your former life as
well. None of the other scientists had to create a whole new
lifestyle because they were simply researches but you, you are the
one who created them, saw them grow from fetuses into full-grown
beings. That is why you had to leave town, that's why you were
made to find a new career, that's why you have to generate an
entirely new identity. Who's pulling your strings, Lauren, the
same men who paid you off to create these beings and then keep
them a secret? What are they're names? Who are they?"
Her large, brown eyes began to well up with tears. "I don't know,
Fox. I never saw them. They always sent some middleman in to do the
work for them. I swear to you, I have no idea who they are." Tears
were streaming freely down her face now. "It wasn't the money, Fox,"
she blurted out between intermittent sobbing, "They told me I was
advancing science. They told me that I was going to save the world.
They said the only way to protect against the oncoming invasion
was to create these beings who would be able to survive the
onslaught. They wouldn't just combat the aliens, they would be the
next step on the evolutionary ladder. Humanity is obsolete, Fox.
The only way to secure our future is to genetically alter our
offspring, to create men with the strength and wisdom of the alien
race."
"Then why were those women killed, Lauren?" he asked, "If those women
are our future, why kill them? Why cover up the work that has been
done?"
Lauren wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "They were only the
first, Fox," she said softly, "There were twelve of them, all
generated under the project named 'Saving Grace'. They were
genetically identical, but created to look different in their
appearance. They were to function in normal society. They were
given names, vocations, and homes. They were meant to find
families, reproduce, and go about their everyday lives. This
way no one would suspect that they were anything but human.
Their offspring would be immune to the attack of the aliens.
They would survive. But now something has gone wrong. For
whatever reason, the initiator of the project, whoever he is,
must have decided that they must not be allowed to survive.
I was unaware of the deaths of the other subjects until the
three turned up dead in my jurisdiction. Something must have
gone wrong, terribly, terribly wrong."
Mulder looked at her with a mixture of empathy and hatred. "It was
wrong from the beginning," he said. He stood from his chair, and
with a final look of disgust, he turned on his heels and walked
out of the door. Alvarez buried her face in her hands and sobbed
like a child.
Philadelphia City Morgue
11:12 A.M.
Dana Scully flipped off the iridescent bulb that lightly illuminated
the otherwise dark room. Even with the windows open, the examination
room seemed uncannily murky, as obtuse and pervasive as the foul
stench of death that permeated every corner. She pulled at the
blood-stained latex gloves that masked her hands and glanced at her
watch.
"Nearly quarter after," she said aloud, tossing the gloves
absent-mindedly in the waste container, "I wonder what Mulder's
doing." The autopsy had taken considerably less time than she had
anticipated. The reason for this was the curious nature of the
findings that she had gathered from the victim, named Haley Thaddeus
McKenzie. She was sure they would be of great interest to Mulder,
and in response to this thought, she pulled her cell phone from
the counter where she had securely placed it, just in case Mulder
needed to call her first. She dialed the number she had dialed so
many times in the past as she glanced at the body, still laying
peacefully on the table slab. The phone rang twice before Mulder
answered.
"Mulder," he said.
"Mulder, it's me," Scully replied, and then inquired, "Where
are you?"
Mulder was stooped down on a hardwood floor, removing scraps of hair
from the crime scene, lest this body be taken for evidence, as well.
"I'm at the victim's residence," he answered, "Where are you?"
"I'm at the morgue," she informed him.
"Scully," he asked playfully, "answer me truthfully. Do you see dead
people?"
"Listen, Mulder," she said, "There's something very odd about this
murder."
"Like what?" he asked.
"Like the fact that this victim, Haley Thaddeus McKenzie, was not, as
far as I can tell, killed by whatever it was that killed the other
nine women."
"What are you saying, Scully?" he asked, "That you don't think that
this murder is related to the others?"
"I'm not saying that at all," she replied, "What I'm trying to tell
you is that the increased amounts of alcohol found in the other
victims were not found in this girl. The tox-screen reported nothing
unusual, nothing in large enough amounts to do anything other than to
gradually destroy her kidneys, anyway."
"Well then, Dr. Scully, to what do you attribute the cause of death?"
"The cause of death appears to be due to the insertion of a sharp,
thin object into the base of the back of the neck, directly between
the second and third cervical vertebrae. I would associate this
stabbing with the large loss of blood as evidenced by the scene
of the crime.
Mulder stood up and gazed at the chalk outline on the floor,
surrounded in all directions by the bright, thick red blood which
seemed to be distributed to every corner of the bedroom. "Yeah," he
said, "I'm looking at it as we speak." He had seen a lot of
despicable, disgusting events in his history as an agent, but
this was unlike anything he had ever seen. Mulder began to feel
queasy upon looking at it. "Scully, it looks like a butcher set
up shop in here."
"I figured that would be the case," she answered, "It appears
that the murderer struck the neck with such force that it
perforated the internal carotid artery."
"Scully," he said, "serial killers aren't known to switch up their
murderous tendencies. They are incredibly methodical, creatures of
habit. The very definition of a serial killer is one who murders
in a set pattern. Nothing suggests that this victim is linked to
the others. The name isn't even Apostalic."
"That's not necessarily true, Mulder," she answered.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that her name is derived from the Twelve," she explained,
"There are two followers mentioned in the Bible with the name
'Judas'. One is surnamed 'Iscariot', the betrayer, and the other
is named 'Thaddeus,' the middle name of the woman who was killed.
In addition, the latest victim had something interesting carved
in her back, Rev. 1:3."
"I'm assuming that is a passage from the Gospel."
"From the Book of Revelations," she quoted, "Blessed is the one who
reads aloud and blessed are those who listen to this prophetic
message and heed what is written in it, for the appointed time
is near."
"If that's true, Scully," he said, "and if this woman is the tenth
victim in a series of twelve, then why would the murderer suddenly
switch the method by which he killed his victims?"
"I don't know, Mulder," she replied, "Maybe he ran out of whatever
chemical it was that he was using to generate the reaction, or maybe
this victim struggled more than the others and was able to defend
herself and attempt an escape. Maybe his only option was to stab her
from behind."
"I don't think so, Scully," he answered, "Before the murder of this
woman there were nine victims, all of which died in the span of
little over eight months. Suddenly, there is another murder
committed before the week is out, and not only that, but she is
killed differently from all of the others."
"What are you suggesting?"
"I'm saying that maybe the killer is becoming more desperate," he
answered, "that perhaps time is not on his side anymore and he needs
to kill the rest to usher about whatever act he hopes will befall
upon the death of the twelfth martyr."
"If that is so, Mulder," she said, "then we need to find the other
two test subjects before he strikes again."
Mulder agreed, nodding his head though Scully couldn't see the
gesture. Scully shifted uncomfortably at the absence of sound from
the other end of the line. "Mulder," she said suddenly, "Do you mind
if I ask you a question?"
"Yes, Scully," he answered, "I do have a rash there but the doctors
assured me that it would go away on its own."
"Mulder," she sighed, "Why do you think that Lauren called us in on
this case?"
The silence at the other end was deafening.
"What do you mean?" he finally managed to get out.
"I mean, how would Lauren know that this victim was connected to the
others? You didn't even know that they were linked at first glance,
yet she seemed assured that this woman was the tenth victim."
Mulder had thought of that, too. "I don't know," he said forcefully,
"but I intend to find out."
Liberty Bell Inn
March 29, 2000
10:13 A.M.
Scully looked up past the data in her hand through her golden-framed
glasses. She was sitting cross-legged on the motel bed wearing
cream-colored suit pants and a white blouse with mother-of-pearl
buttons down the center. Her golden cross hung limp across her
neck, exposed by the V-neck of her shirt.
"Scully, it's me," she heard Mulder's voice call, having had his very
three insistent knocks go unanswered.
Scully put the papers aside, throwing her glasses hastily on top of
them. She rushed to the door and threw it open, exposing Mulder
wearing the suit from the previous day, minus the jacket. The top
button of his Oxford-shirt had been unbuttoned and his tie was
undone, hanging loosely about his neck.
"Mulder," she said breathlessly, "where have you been? I've been
trying to get in contact with you all night but your phone
wasn't on."
"I know, Scully," he answered, "it didn't turn itself off." He
walked into the room and plopped down into the chair by the
window. He looked very tired. Scully seated herself back on
the bed and leaned back on the headboard. She folded her arms
crossly in front of her.
"So, why'd you turn it off, then?" she asked, "Where were you?"
He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. "I was trying to
hunt down the truth," he replied, "After our conversation, I went
back to the precinct to find Lauren. I wanted to make an attempt
to get her to divulge some more information, to see if she could
tell us the names of the other two subjects that she created."
"And?" Scully urged.
"And nothing."
Scully gazed at the figure of the emotionally and physically drained
man who sat before her. "Maybe he should remove himself from this
case," she thought, though she knew he would never stand for that.
Still, she could see that he was too closely connected to Detective
Alvarez, that whatever hold she held on him in the past still had
some influence today. He was taking this very hard.
"You mean she wouldn't tell you?" Scully asked.
"No, I mean she couldn't. At approximately 11:50 A.M. yesterday,
Lauren said she was going out to grab some lunch. She never
returned. No one has seen from her or heard from her since.
That was nearly twenty-three hours ago, and there's still no
word on her whereabouts."
Mulder opened his eyes and sat up. He could see in hers that her
heart went out to him. They always retained that soft, teary effect
whenever he was experiencing some traumatic event that carried the
possibility of destroying his determination and hope for the future.
He had seen that look in her eyes when his father was killed, and
when they watched as the hybrid that he thought was his sister went
over the bridge by the Potomac. And then again when they had
planted that "alien" in the Arctic, and managed to persuade him
that he was conned into playing the pawn in a game of
disinformation all those years, that Samantha was never really
abducted by aliens. She had stood by him, even with the cancer
racking her body, and had lied to the Bureau heads about his
supposed death, all to implicate Section Chief Blevins. And here
she was, three years later, still standing by his side. He could
only hope that he had provided her with some of the same comfort
that she had given him.
"I'm sorry, Mulder," she said, "I know this must be hard for you, and
it's not going to get any easier."
"What do you mean, Scully?" he asked, crossing one leg over the
other, now fully alert to what she was saying. She looked terribly
uneasy and he expected the worst.
"Before we left Washington, I put a call in to Byers. I asked him to
look up any information possible on Detective Alvarez, or her alias,
Dr. Maria Valesquez."
Mulder shook his head angrily. "Scully, I told you that I would take
care of it myself."
"I think you should hear me out," she interrupted him. He sat
back in the chair and folded his hands together.
"What did he find?" Mulder asked.
"It seems that Dr. Valesquez's career in medicine can be traced back
many decades. She graduated with honors from Yale in 1977.
Immediately following, she immersed herself in studies at Harvard,
graduating in 1981 after presenting a very impressive thesis to the
faculty regarding the possibilities of stem cell research twenty
years down the line. In 1982, she gained a position at Chimera
where she worked on and published several studies in reference to
the role of chromosomes and their effects on aging. In 1983,
private donors took control of Chimera and continuing with the
policy established by their secretive work, no more work of
Valesquez's was ever published. Late in 1990, Valesquez left
Chimera under odd circumstances. It seems that several fires
were reported earlier in the year and damage was done sequentially
to the facility. They were concluded to be the result of arson
and many suspected Valesquez, but only circumstantial evidence
could be found and the case was dismissed. By 1991, she had
changed her name and identity, probably in an effort to hide
from the men who had backed the project and suspected her. She
had moved to New York and was in training to become a member of
law enforcement when an internship moved her unexpectedly back to
D.C., where she began working at the Bureau and met you."
"That's all very interesting, Scully," he said while she paused to
take a breath, "but what does it have to do with these murders."
"Mulder, you've got to see the connection," she answered, "I
mean, the women who were created under her hand are now dying,
by her hand as well, I suspect. She was accused of starting
those fires in Washington, maybe she came across something for
which even she believed that humanity wasn't ready. I believe
that she is trying to destroy all of the evidence now, just like
she tried to destroy the evidence then."
"Then what about the Two-Face, Scully?" he asked, "If Lauren is
guilty, then why is a Yellow-Haired Man and a Black-Haired Man
running around stealing the bodies of dead women?"
"I think," she replied, "that the question you should be asking is if
she isn't guilty, then why did she run?"
Mulder looked deeply saddened. "I just can't believe that she's
capable of this," he said sorrowfully.
"There's more, Mulder," Scully replied, "I had those samples that you
sent from the scene analyzed. The DNA matched the DNA of the hair
samples that we gathered from the other two victims."
"So this woman is a clone of the others then?"
"It appears that way," she answered. "and if you are correct and the
murderer is becoming more desperate, then we have to find the killer
quickly, before she strikes again." Scully looked at Mulder, guilt
plastered across her face. "I've put out an A.P.B. on Detective
Alvarez," she said quietly.
Mulder looked at her hard and then stood up swiftly. "Let's get
going, Scully," he said, "I don't want you to miss all the action
when they pick her up." He departed quickly from the room. Scully
sat speechless for a moment, then stood, grabbed her coat, and
followed him. She closed the door silently and locked it, not
daring to look back.
Interstate 95
10:42 A.M.
"Thank you." Scully turned off the cell phone, closed it, and placed
it back into her coat pocket. She turned towards Mulder who was
expertly weaving in and out of traffic on the crowded highway. "Dr.
Sykes said that she does not know the names of the last two subjects,
nor can she provide us with any information regarding their present
whereabouts."
"That's as much as I expected, Scully," he answered, "She did say
that she was only responsible for the work on the Purity Control
genome."
"And you believe her?"
Mulder smirked and switched into first gear, turning his head to
glance at her as often as possible. "Don't you?" he asked.
"I don't know what to believe anymore," she told him truthfully,
"We've been jerked around so often that I don't who's telling the
truth and who's lying."
"You know, Scully," he said, "you should really have a little more
faith."
She turned from him and looked out the front window, expressing a
barely audible scoff so that he would be aware of her displeasure.
She crossed her arms over her chest and then turned towards him
again.
"Why stick shift, Mulder?" she asked.
"Hmm, what's that?"
"I said, why did you rent a car with stick shift?" she repeated,
"Does it make you feel like more of a man?"
"C'mon, Scully," he said, "you know you like a man who can handle his
stick." A broad smile was now quite visible on his lips.
She turned to the front of the car. Something was playing across her
mind, evidenced by a thin smile on her face. Her eyes danced merrily
as she chuckled softly.
Mulder looked at her. "What is it?" he asked her, smiling at her
present condition.
"Oh, it's nothing."
"No, really," he prodded, "you can tell me."
She appeared as though she was deciding whether or not to say what it
was she was thinking. She mulled it over a little while longer until
she finally complied. "Okay," she said. She leaned in close to him,
almost whispering, "Sometimes, at night, I lie awake."
She never got to complete the sentence. The cell phone buzzed in her
pocket.
"Excuse me, Mulder," she said, "I have to get this."
Mulder stared at her, a painstaking look coming over his face.
"Wha, wha, wait, Scully," he stammered, "let it ring. We don't
ever talk enough. Why don't you finish what you were saying?"
She shrugged her shoulders and put the phone against her ear.
"Scully," she said, and then, pointing forward, she directed
Mulder to "watch the road."
He turned his attention to the car in front of him in time to see the
driver slam on his brakes. Mulder narrowly missed destroying his
security deposit as he listened to Scully's end of the conversation,
"Uh huh, sure, okay, we'll be right there."
She put the phone away as she turned towards Mulder. "You better
turn the car around, Mulder," she instructed him, "there's just
been another murder."
Ben Franklin Drive
11:12 A.M.
"What was her name?" Mulder asked, pulling back the blue tarp that
covered the face of the newest victim. She was laying facedown
on the sidewalk of the busy street flanked by newspaper stands and
Mom-and-Pop stores.
"Elizabeth Peters," responded a nearby detective who was taking over
the investigation in Alvarez's unexpected absence, "She was
twenty-two years old, a receptionist at a legal firm four blocks
from here. According to the women she worked with, she was
well-liked and without any known enemies. They know of no one that
would wish to do any harm to her."
"Well they certainly hit the head on the nail there, didn't they?"
Mulder replied, and then crouched on the ground, he glanced up
towards his partner. "Scully, come look at this," he instructed,
and she instantly crouched beside him. He pulled the victim's
long, wavy, brown hair off her back with the swift movement of a
surgically-gloved hand.
"There," he said, pointing towards her neck. He was motioning
towards the same puncture wound that had been found on the
previous victim.
"Another stabbing," Scully said aloud.
Mulder replaced the hair and then stood up. Scully followed suit.
"What are you thinking?" she asked.
"Scully," he said, "I don't think it's an accident where the victims
were stabbed."
"Neither do I, Mulder," she answered, "It's well known that striking
the carotid artery in the neck will induce massive blood loss,
correlating in a relatively quick and easy death."
"Sure," Mulder replied sarcastically, "who wouldn't know that?"
Scully scowled. "What do you think the answer is, then?" she asked.
"We've seen this before, Scully," he reminded her, "Remember when we
first met Jeremiah Smith? The being who wanted to kill him carried
the same weapon that I found in my summer home up in Quanachataug.
The only way to kill Jeremiah was to strike a single blow to the base
of his neck."
Scully looked doubtful. "Let me save you the trouble, Mulder," she
said, "Even if these women are alien-human hybrids and can,
therefore, only be killed in the same manner as Jeremiah Smith,
only the last two victims have been murdered by a blow to the neck.
How do you account for the deaths of the other nine?"
Mulder had an answer for that, too. "I think that you were right,
Scully, that whoever created these hybrids wants to destroy the
evidence. Dr. Sykes told us that the mission of the hybrids was to
'go forth and multiply.' I believe that they are now being
systematically terminated. Perhaps there were found to carry 'faulty
wiring,' that the geneticists could not engineer them to behave
specifically as they wished. Whatever the motivation, I believe that
the same people who had the scientific knowledge to create them also
had the advanced knowledge to destroy them. At first, that person
was using a special chemical that he had synthetically produced.
It would be easy to do, considering he knew enough about putting
them together in the first place. The murders were committed using
the chemical because its presence would most likely go unnoticed and
the women would be buried before any connection would be made among
them and the other victims. But since our involvement in the case,
the murderer has become more desperate, because we are coming closer
to the truth everyday. He now knows that it has become a greater
liability to allow them to live rather then to cover up their
murders. An attempt to steal the last body hasn't even been made."
A frown marred Scully's otherwise striking features. "Mulder," she
said gently, "you keep saying 'he,' but if everything is as you say,
then you must allow for the possibility that Detective Alvarez is
both the alpha and omega, here, the creator and the destroyer, that
it is by her doing that these women are dying. She is still
missing."
"I can't talk about this right now," he replied defiantly, anger and
irritation at once arising in his voice. He turned and walked
fiercely towards their rental.
Scully turned towards the officer and hastily commanded, "If you find
out anything about the victim or of Detective Alvarez's whereabouts,
please call me on my cell phone." With that, she turned and raced
towards Mulder.
"Where are you going?" she called to him, but he had gained, by this
time, such a significant lead that he could not hear her words. He
paused at the car door only long enough to unlock it. "Where are you
going?" she asked again when she was close enough so that he might
hear.
"I'm going to go find that last name before another body turns
up," he replied.
"How exactly are you going to do that, Mulder?" she asked, "We've
been on this case all this time and we still have no idea of whom
we're looking for. She could be anyone. How are you going to
find her name?"
"I'm going to pay a visit to the Three Wise Men," he answered,
seating himself in the driver's seat. He started the car and
then suddenly turned it off again. He took the keys from the
ignition and alighted from the chair. He tossed them to Scully,
saying, "On second thought, you keep the car. You're going to
need it."
"Why?" she asked, "What is my assignment?"
"I need you to stay here in case the killer finds his next victim
before I do." He waved his hand and a yellow taxicab pulled up
alongside of him. He opened the door. While entering, he turned
towards her and quietly suggested that she "Get a warrant and search
Lauren's apartment." With that, he closed the door and the cab drove
quickly and haphazardly down the road.
March 28, 2000
9:14 A.M.
"Long time, no see," Mulder quipped as he walked through
the station's large double doors and found Detective
Alvarez standing in the middle of the busy room.
"Yeah," she answered simply, attempting to decide whether or not to
embrace the man that she still loved but who no longer loved her in
return. After an awkward silence and some uneasy shuffling of the
shoulders on both his and her part, she decided against it. Instead,
she opted for the purely professional approach, so as to mask
her true feelings from him. He was always so good at figuring
out what she was thinking. She was sure that even now he was
sizing her up, examining her psyche, silently exploring her
feelings with his amazingly perceptive profiling abilities.
"So, where's the body?" Mulder asked abruptly. When she had
called to tell him of the murder, he had asked her to put the
body under heavy guard. He didn't want this body to disappear
like the other nine. Scully wanted hard evidence to present to
the Bureau heads and he was going to do everything in his power
to ensure that that would happen.
"That's one hell of an icebreaker, Fox," she muttered under her
breath, mildly surprised by how easily she had allowed it
to slip out. Embarrassed, she glanced quickly at his face
to see if he had heard. His eyes told her that he had.
"She's at the morgue," Alvarez hastily answered in an attempt to
divert attention from the previous comment, "under tight security,
just as you asked. We will not be losing this body, Fox, I can
personally assure you."
Alvarez couldn't help but notice that Agent Scully rolled her eyes at
her last statement. "What was the motivation," Lauren wondered,
"jealousy?"
"Is there something wrong, Agent Scully?" she asked innocently.
"Oh no, Detective Alvarez," she said calmly, "I was simply
thinking to myself that your personal assurance wasn't enough
to stop the bodies under your jurisdiction from being stolen
in the first place."
Alvarez smiled, the angry grin of a wife who has been scorned and
insulted by her husband's impetuous, young mistress. "And if I do
recall correctly, Agent Scully, one of the victim's bodies was stolen
out from right under your nose. In fact, the body-napping occurred
while you were working on her. Isn't that
right?"
Mulder frowned externally to show his disapproval, but in his mind he
could hear himself saying, "Please, ladies, don't fight over little
old me!" He wished that Frohike were there so that they could make
hissing noises and make witty references to catfights. Instead, he
heard himself say aloud, "Scully, why don't you go and conduct an
autopsy on the victim. We need solid proof if we're going to
find the murderer before he strikes again."
Scully complied, although she thought it better if they were to
interrogate Alvarez together. After shooting the detective a final,
noticeable glare, Scully took her leave. Mulder's gaze followed her
as she walked out of the room. Her glossy, red hair bobbed up and
down, in perfect sync with her gait, and her arms hung loosely at her
side. After she was out of sight, he turned his eyes back towards
Alvarez. "Lauren," he said solemnly, "we need to talk."
Lauren opened the door to her office as Mulder trailed behind. He
secured the door tightly behind him and she could tell that something
was terribly amiss. "If this is about my conduct at the restaurant
the other day," she began, but he stopped her in mid-sentence with
one nod of the head.
"I'm not here to talk about that, Lauren," he interrupted, "Or would
you prefer to be called by your true name?"
She shot him a quick sideways glance as she sat down in her desk
chair. "What are you talking about, Fox?" she asked, her eyes
askance.
"I think you know what I'm talking about, Maria."
Her mouth dropped. She felt as though she had been punched in the
stomach and was carrying out some fruitless effort to breathe the air
back into her lungs. Suddenly realizing her blatant reaction, she
attempted to regain composure, but it was too late. She knew that he
knew.
"Fox," she stammered, "how did you find out?"
"About what, Maria? About your hand in generating alien-human
hybrids whose very existence was held a closely guarded secret
by you, the other seven geneticists who created them, and the
governmental money-lenders that backed your research?"
She was stunned, visibly distraught. He knew everything. "How did
you find out, Fox?" she repeated.
"That's not important," he answered, "Right now I want to know why."
"Why what?" she asked.
"Why would you go along with something so diabolical? Why would you
not only mask the truth, but actively perpetuate a complete
falsehood, the one thing in life that I detest more than anything
else in this world?" He looked tired and his face fell to his
chest. He truly looked hurt. "I can only assume that after you
created these monstrosities, someone, most likely your same backer,
paid you to leave, not only Washington, but your former life as
well. None of the other scientists had to create a whole new
lifestyle because they were simply researches but you, you are the
one who created them, saw them grow from fetuses into full-grown
beings. That is why you had to leave town, that's why you were
made to find a new career, that's why you have to generate an
entirely new identity. Who's pulling your strings, Lauren, the
same men who paid you off to create these beings and then keep
them a secret? What are they're names? Who are they?"
Her large, brown eyes began to well up with tears. "I don't know,
Fox. I never saw them. They always sent some middleman in to do the
work for them. I swear to you, I have no idea who they are." Tears
were streaming freely down her face now. "It wasn't the money, Fox,"
she blurted out between intermittent sobbing, "They told me I was
advancing science. They told me that I was going to save the world.
They said the only way to protect against the oncoming invasion
was to create these beings who would be able to survive the
onslaught. They wouldn't just combat the aliens, they would be the
next step on the evolutionary ladder. Humanity is obsolete, Fox.
The only way to secure our future is to genetically alter our
offspring, to create men with the strength and wisdom of the alien
race."
"Then why were those women killed, Lauren?" he asked, "If those women
are our future, why kill them? Why cover up the work that has been
done?"
Lauren wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "They were only the
first, Fox," she said softly, "There were twelve of them, all
generated under the project named 'Saving Grace'. They were
genetically identical, but created to look different in their
appearance. They were to function in normal society. They were
given names, vocations, and homes. They were meant to find
families, reproduce, and go about their everyday lives. This
way no one would suspect that they were anything but human.
Their offspring would be immune to the attack of the aliens.
They would survive. But now something has gone wrong. For
whatever reason, the initiator of the project, whoever he is,
must have decided that they must not be allowed to survive.
I was unaware of the deaths of the other subjects until the
three turned up dead in my jurisdiction. Something must have
gone wrong, terribly, terribly wrong."
Mulder looked at her with a mixture of empathy and hatred. "It was
wrong from the beginning," he said. He stood from his chair, and
with a final look of disgust, he turned on his heels and walked
out of the door. Alvarez buried her face in her hands and sobbed
like a child.
Philadelphia City Morgue
11:12 A.M.
Dana Scully flipped off the iridescent bulb that lightly illuminated
the otherwise dark room. Even with the windows open, the examination
room seemed uncannily murky, as obtuse and pervasive as the foul
stench of death that permeated every corner. She pulled at the
blood-stained latex gloves that masked her hands and glanced at her
watch.
"Nearly quarter after," she said aloud, tossing the gloves
absent-mindedly in the waste container, "I wonder what Mulder's
doing." The autopsy had taken considerably less time than she had
anticipated. The reason for this was the curious nature of the
findings that she had gathered from the victim, named Haley Thaddeus
McKenzie. She was sure they would be of great interest to Mulder,
and in response to this thought, she pulled her cell phone from
the counter where she had securely placed it, just in case Mulder
needed to call her first. She dialed the number she had dialed so
many times in the past as she glanced at the body, still laying
peacefully on the table slab. The phone rang twice before Mulder
answered.
"Mulder," he said.
"Mulder, it's me," Scully replied, and then inquired, "Where
are you?"
Mulder was stooped down on a hardwood floor, removing scraps of hair
from the crime scene, lest this body be taken for evidence, as well.
"I'm at the victim's residence," he answered, "Where are you?"
"I'm at the morgue," she informed him.
"Scully," he asked playfully, "answer me truthfully. Do you see dead
people?"
"Listen, Mulder," she said, "There's something very odd about this
murder."
"Like what?" he asked.
"Like the fact that this victim, Haley Thaddeus McKenzie, was not, as
far as I can tell, killed by whatever it was that killed the other
nine women."
"What are you saying, Scully?" he asked, "That you don't think that
this murder is related to the others?"
"I'm not saying that at all," she replied, "What I'm trying to tell
you is that the increased amounts of alcohol found in the other
victims were not found in this girl. The tox-screen reported nothing
unusual, nothing in large enough amounts to do anything other than to
gradually destroy her kidneys, anyway."
"Well then, Dr. Scully, to what do you attribute the cause of death?"
"The cause of death appears to be due to the insertion of a sharp,
thin object into the base of the back of the neck, directly between
the second and third cervical vertebrae. I would associate this
stabbing with the large loss of blood as evidenced by the scene
of the crime.
Mulder stood up and gazed at the chalk outline on the floor,
surrounded in all directions by the bright, thick red blood which
seemed to be distributed to every corner of the bedroom. "Yeah," he
said, "I'm looking at it as we speak." He had seen a lot of
despicable, disgusting events in his history as an agent, but
this was unlike anything he had ever seen. Mulder began to feel
queasy upon looking at it. "Scully, it looks like a butcher set
up shop in here."
"I figured that would be the case," she answered, "It appears
that the murderer struck the neck with such force that it
perforated the internal carotid artery."
"Scully," he said, "serial killers aren't known to switch up their
murderous tendencies. They are incredibly methodical, creatures of
habit. The very definition of a serial killer is one who murders
in a set pattern. Nothing suggests that this victim is linked to
the others. The name isn't even Apostalic."
"That's not necessarily true, Mulder," she answered.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that her name is derived from the Twelve," she explained,
"There are two followers mentioned in the Bible with the name
'Judas'. One is surnamed 'Iscariot', the betrayer, and the other
is named 'Thaddeus,' the middle name of the woman who was killed.
In addition, the latest victim had something interesting carved
in her back, Rev. 1:3."
"I'm assuming that is a passage from the Gospel."
"From the Book of Revelations," she quoted, "Blessed is the one who
reads aloud and blessed are those who listen to this prophetic
message and heed what is written in it, for the appointed time
is near."
"If that's true, Scully," he said, "and if this woman is the tenth
victim in a series of twelve, then why would the murderer suddenly
switch the method by which he killed his victims?"
"I don't know, Mulder," she replied, "Maybe he ran out of whatever
chemical it was that he was using to generate the reaction, or maybe
this victim struggled more than the others and was able to defend
herself and attempt an escape. Maybe his only option was to stab her
from behind."
"I don't think so, Scully," he answered, "Before the murder of this
woman there were nine victims, all of which died in the span of
little over eight months. Suddenly, there is another murder
committed before the week is out, and not only that, but she is
killed differently from all of the others."
"What are you suggesting?"
"I'm saying that maybe the killer is becoming more desperate," he
answered, "that perhaps time is not on his side anymore and he needs
to kill the rest to usher about whatever act he hopes will befall
upon the death of the twelfth martyr."
"If that is so, Mulder," she said, "then we need to find the other
two test subjects before he strikes again."
Mulder agreed, nodding his head though Scully couldn't see the
gesture. Scully shifted uncomfortably at the absence of sound from
the other end of the line. "Mulder," she said suddenly, "Do you mind
if I ask you a question?"
"Yes, Scully," he answered, "I do have a rash there but the doctors
assured me that it would go away on its own."
"Mulder," she sighed, "Why do you think that Lauren called us in on
this case?"
The silence at the other end was deafening.
"What do you mean?" he finally managed to get out.
"I mean, how would Lauren know that this victim was connected to the
others? You didn't even know that they were linked at first glance,
yet she seemed assured that this woman was the tenth victim."
Mulder had thought of that, too. "I don't know," he said forcefully,
"but I intend to find out."
Liberty Bell Inn
March 29, 2000
10:13 A.M.
Scully looked up past the data in her hand through her golden-framed
glasses. She was sitting cross-legged on the motel bed wearing
cream-colored suit pants and a white blouse with mother-of-pearl
buttons down the center. Her golden cross hung limp across her
neck, exposed by the V-neck of her shirt.
"Scully, it's me," she heard Mulder's voice call, having had his very
three insistent knocks go unanswered.
Scully put the papers aside, throwing her glasses hastily on top of
them. She rushed to the door and threw it open, exposing Mulder
wearing the suit from the previous day, minus the jacket. The top
button of his Oxford-shirt had been unbuttoned and his tie was
undone, hanging loosely about his neck.
"Mulder," she said breathlessly, "where have you been? I've been
trying to get in contact with you all night but your phone
wasn't on."
"I know, Scully," he answered, "it didn't turn itself off." He
walked into the room and plopped down into the chair by the
window. He looked very tired. Scully seated herself back on
the bed and leaned back on the headboard. She folded her arms
crossly in front of her.
"So, why'd you turn it off, then?" she asked, "Where were you?"
He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. "I was trying to
hunt down the truth," he replied, "After our conversation, I went
back to the precinct to find Lauren. I wanted to make an attempt
to get her to divulge some more information, to see if she could
tell us the names of the other two subjects that she created."
"And?" Scully urged.
"And nothing."
Scully gazed at the figure of the emotionally and physically drained
man who sat before her. "Maybe he should remove himself from this
case," she thought, though she knew he would never stand for that.
Still, she could see that he was too closely connected to Detective
Alvarez, that whatever hold she held on him in the past still had
some influence today. He was taking this very hard.
"You mean she wouldn't tell you?" Scully asked.
"No, I mean she couldn't. At approximately 11:50 A.M. yesterday,
Lauren said she was going out to grab some lunch. She never
returned. No one has seen from her or heard from her since.
That was nearly twenty-three hours ago, and there's still no
word on her whereabouts."
Mulder opened his eyes and sat up. He could see in hers that her
heart went out to him. They always retained that soft, teary effect
whenever he was experiencing some traumatic event that carried the
possibility of destroying his determination and hope for the future.
He had seen that look in her eyes when his father was killed, and
when they watched as the hybrid that he thought was his sister went
over the bridge by the Potomac. And then again when they had
planted that "alien" in the Arctic, and managed to persuade him
that he was conned into playing the pawn in a game of
disinformation all those years, that Samantha was never really
abducted by aliens. She had stood by him, even with the cancer
racking her body, and had lied to the Bureau heads about his
supposed death, all to implicate Section Chief Blevins. And here
she was, three years later, still standing by his side. He could
only hope that he had provided her with some of the same comfort
that she had given him.
"I'm sorry, Mulder," she said, "I know this must be hard for you, and
it's not going to get any easier."
"What do you mean, Scully?" he asked, crossing one leg over the
other, now fully alert to what she was saying. She looked terribly
uneasy and he expected the worst.
"Before we left Washington, I put a call in to Byers. I asked him to
look up any information possible on Detective Alvarez, or her alias,
Dr. Maria Valesquez."
Mulder shook his head angrily. "Scully, I told you that I would take
care of it myself."
"I think you should hear me out," she interrupted him. He sat
back in the chair and folded his hands together.
"What did he find?" Mulder asked.
"It seems that Dr. Valesquez's career in medicine can be traced back
many decades. She graduated with honors from Yale in 1977.
Immediately following, she immersed herself in studies at Harvard,
graduating in 1981 after presenting a very impressive thesis to the
faculty regarding the possibilities of stem cell research twenty
years down the line. In 1982, she gained a position at Chimera
where she worked on and published several studies in reference to
the role of chromosomes and their effects on aging. In 1983,
private donors took control of Chimera and continuing with the
policy established by their secretive work, no more work of
Valesquez's was ever published. Late in 1990, Valesquez left
Chimera under odd circumstances. It seems that several fires
were reported earlier in the year and damage was done sequentially
to the facility. They were concluded to be the result of arson
and many suspected Valesquez, but only circumstantial evidence
could be found and the case was dismissed. By 1991, she had
changed her name and identity, probably in an effort to hide
from the men who had backed the project and suspected her. She
had moved to New York and was in training to become a member of
law enforcement when an internship moved her unexpectedly back to
D.C., where she began working at the Bureau and met you."
"That's all very interesting, Scully," he said while she paused to
take a breath, "but what does it have to do with these murders."
"Mulder, you've got to see the connection," she answered, "I
mean, the women who were created under her hand are now dying,
by her hand as well, I suspect. She was accused of starting
those fires in Washington, maybe she came across something for
which even she believed that humanity wasn't ready. I believe
that she is trying to destroy all of the evidence now, just like
she tried to destroy the evidence then."
"Then what about the Two-Face, Scully?" he asked, "If Lauren is
guilty, then why is a Yellow-Haired Man and a Black-Haired Man
running around stealing the bodies of dead women?"
"I think," she replied, "that the question you should be asking is if
she isn't guilty, then why did she run?"
Mulder looked deeply saddened. "I just can't believe that she's
capable of this," he said sorrowfully.
"There's more, Mulder," Scully replied, "I had those samples that you
sent from the scene analyzed. The DNA matched the DNA of the hair
samples that we gathered from the other two victims."
"So this woman is a clone of the others then?"
"It appears that way," she answered. "and if you are correct and the
murderer is becoming more desperate, then we have to find the killer
quickly, before she strikes again." Scully looked at Mulder, guilt
plastered across her face. "I've put out an A.P.B. on Detective
Alvarez," she said quietly.
Mulder looked at her hard and then stood up swiftly. "Let's get
going, Scully," he said, "I don't want you to miss all the action
when they pick her up." He departed quickly from the room. Scully
sat speechless for a moment, then stood, grabbed her coat, and
followed him. She closed the door silently and locked it, not
daring to look back.
Interstate 95
10:42 A.M.
"Thank you." Scully turned off the cell phone, closed it, and placed
it back into her coat pocket. She turned towards Mulder who was
expertly weaving in and out of traffic on the crowded highway. "Dr.
Sykes said that she does not know the names of the last two subjects,
nor can she provide us with any information regarding their present
whereabouts."
"That's as much as I expected, Scully," he answered, "She did say
that she was only responsible for the work on the Purity Control
genome."
"And you believe her?"
Mulder smirked and switched into first gear, turning his head to
glance at her as often as possible. "Don't you?" he asked.
"I don't know what to believe anymore," she told him truthfully,
"We've been jerked around so often that I don't who's telling the
truth and who's lying."
"You know, Scully," he said, "you should really have a little more
faith."
She turned from him and looked out the front window, expressing a
barely audible scoff so that he would be aware of her displeasure.
She crossed her arms over her chest and then turned towards him
again.
"Why stick shift, Mulder?" she asked.
"Hmm, what's that?"
"I said, why did you rent a car with stick shift?" she repeated,
"Does it make you feel like more of a man?"
"C'mon, Scully," he said, "you know you like a man who can handle his
stick." A broad smile was now quite visible on his lips.
She turned to the front of the car. Something was playing across her
mind, evidenced by a thin smile on her face. Her eyes danced merrily
as she chuckled softly.
Mulder looked at her. "What is it?" he asked her, smiling at her
present condition.
"Oh, it's nothing."
"No, really," he prodded, "you can tell me."
She appeared as though she was deciding whether or not to say what it
was she was thinking. She mulled it over a little while longer until
she finally complied. "Okay," she said. She leaned in close to him,
almost whispering, "Sometimes, at night, I lie awake."
She never got to complete the sentence. The cell phone buzzed in her
pocket.
"Excuse me, Mulder," she said, "I have to get this."
Mulder stared at her, a painstaking look coming over his face.
"Wha, wha, wait, Scully," he stammered, "let it ring. We don't
ever talk enough. Why don't you finish what you were saying?"
She shrugged her shoulders and put the phone against her ear.
"Scully," she said, and then, pointing forward, she directed
Mulder to "watch the road."
He turned his attention to the car in front of him in time to see the
driver slam on his brakes. Mulder narrowly missed destroying his
security deposit as he listened to Scully's end of the conversation,
"Uh huh, sure, okay, we'll be right there."
She put the phone away as she turned towards Mulder. "You better
turn the car around, Mulder," she instructed him, "there's just
been another murder."
Ben Franklin Drive
11:12 A.M.
"What was her name?" Mulder asked, pulling back the blue tarp that
covered the face of the newest victim. She was laying facedown
on the sidewalk of the busy street flanked by newspaper stands and
Mom-and-Pop stores.
"Elizabeth Peters," responded a nearby detective who was taking over
the investigation in Alvarez's unexpected absence, "She was
twenty-two years old, a receptionist at a legal firm four blocks
from here. According to the women she worked with, she was
well-liked and without any known enemies. They know of no one that
would wish to do any harm to her."
"Well they certainly hit the head on the nail there, didn't they?"
Mulder replied, and then crouched on the ground, he glanced up
towards his partner. "Scully, come look at this," he instructed,
and she instantly crouched beside him. He pulled the victim's
long, wavy, brown hair off her back with the swift movement of a
surgically-gloved hand.
"There," he said, pointing towards her neck. He was motioning
towards the same puncture wound that had been found on the
previous victim.
"Another stabbing," Scully said aloud.
Mulder replaced the hair and then stood up. Scully followed suit.
"What are you thinking?" she asked.
"Scully," he said, "I don't think it's an accident where the victims
were stabbed."
"Neither do I, Mulder," she answered, "It's well known that striking
the carotid artery in the neck will induce massive blood loss,
correlating in a relatively quick and easy death."
"Sure," Mulder replied sarcastically, "who wouldn't know that?"
Scully scowled. "What do you think the answer is, then?" she asked.
"We've seen this before, Scully," he reminded her, "Remember when we
first met Jeremiah Smith? The being who wanted to kill him carried
the same weapon that I found in my summer home up in Quanachataug.
The only way to kill Jeremiah was to strike a single blow to the base
of his neck."
Scully looked doubtful. "Let me save you the trouble, Mulder," she
said, "Even if these women are alien-human hybrids and can,
therefore, only be killed in the same manner as Jeremiah Smith,
only the last two victims have been murdered by a blow to the neck.
How do you account for the deaths of the other nine?"
Mulder had an answer for that, too. "I think that you were right,
Scully, that whoever created these hybrids wants to destroy the
evidence. Dr. Sykes told us that the mission of the hybrids was to
'go forth and multiply.' I believe that they are now being
systematically terminated. Perhaps there were found to carry 'faulty
wiring,' that the geneticists could not engineer them to behave
specifically as they wished. Whatever the motivation, I believe that
the same people who had the scientific knowledge to create them also
had the advanced knowledge to destroy them. At first, that person
was using a special chemical that he had synthetically produced.
It would be easy to do, considering he knew enough about putting
them together in the first place. The murders were committed using
the chemical because its presence would most likely go unnoticed and
the women would be buried before any connection would be made among
them and the other victims. But since our involvement in the case,
the murderer has become more desperate, because we are coming closer
to the truth everyday. He now knows that it has become a greater
liability to allow them to live rather then to cover up their
murders. An attempt to steal the last body hasn't even been made."
A frown marred Scully's otherwise striking features. "Mulder," she
said gently, "you keep saying 'he,' but if everything is as you say,
then you must allow for the possibility that Detective Alvarez is
both the alpha and omega, here, the creator and the destroyer, that
it is by her doing that these women are dying. She is still
missing."
"I can't talk about this right now," he replied defiantly, anger and
irritation at once arising in his voice. He turned and walked
fiercely towards their rental.
Scully turned towards the officer and hastily commanded, "If you find
out anything about the victim or of Detective Alvarez's whereabouts,
please call me on my cell phone." With that, she turned and raced
towards Mulder.
"Where are you going?" she called to him, but he had gained, by this
time, such a significant lead that he could not hear her words. He
paused at the car door only long enough to unlock it. "Where are you
going?" she asked again when she was close enough so that he might
hear.
"I'm going to go find that last name before another body turns
up," he replied.
"How exactly are you going to do that, Mulder?" she asked, "We've
been on this case all this time and we still have no idea of whom
we're looking for. She could be anyone. How are you going to
find her name?"
"I'm going to pay a visit to the Three Wise Men," he answered,
seating himself in the driver's seat. He started the car and
then suddenly turned it off again. He took the keys from the
ignition and alighted from the chair. He tossed them to Scully,
saying, "On second thought, you keep the car. You're going to
need it."
"Why?" she asked, "What is my assignment?"
"I need you to stay here in case the killer finds his next victim
before I do." He waved his hand and a yellow taxicab pulled up
alongside of him. He opened the door. While entering, he turned
towards her and quietly suggested that she "Get a warrant and search
Lauren's apartment." With that, he closed the door and the cab drove
quickly and haphazardly down the road.