Part II

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Meriden, Arizona 9:30pm.

"Come on now, Betty! Gettyup!" Peter tried to move his horse to the barn but it was agitated and wouldn't move. The 40-year-old man with graying hair slapped her hindquarters and said, "Betty, the sun's almost settin' and I gotta get back to the lab. Now inta' the stable." An animal had raced past them and the horse reared up and threw him off her back.

He got up and dusted the dirt off his jean shirt and pants. "Hey! That wasn't nice now. We're getting ya' back to your stable. Come on!" He tugged on her reins. She stopped jumping. Whatever scared her wasn't around anymore. Stan led her into the barn and put her in the stall. "There ya' go. All nice and comfy." He reached for some hay and started feeding it to her. "Woah!" He thought he saw something race behind the stable next to him.

Naw... musta' been my imagination he thought. He went back to what he was doing. The horse started whinnying and moving around recklessly. "Settle down. Nothings around," he told her. But he didn't believe what he was saying.

The rafters above him started to creak. He looked up just as a red blur shot past him. I better get out of here he thought. Some buckets that he used to feed the animals crashed down from the loft. He started moving towards the barn door.

A KAAATHHH noise started up behind him. He turned around to see that his horse had fallen down. He went over to see what happened. She had claw marks on her side. He kneeled down to get a closer look. There wasn't blood leaking out from the area but you could still see inside it. It was as if something had removed the blood. "This is too weird for me. I'm going to call the police," he said to himself out loud. The thought of his hoarse living one minute and then dreadfully wounded terrified him.

He stood up and looked around the room. A vampire bat maybe... he thought. But it couldn't make those marks and the blood would still be running. Again the KAAATHHH noise sounded. He was frozen with fear. "What the-" He felt something land on his back. It bit into his neck then into his side. He wrestled with whatever was on him. The room started spinning, and he fell to the floor.

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"Talk about being psychic, eh, Scully?" Mulder said as he moved around the body and started taking pictures. "This'll be a body you will need to autopsy." Mulder went over to the police and started talking with the chief. "Can we get this sent over to the morgue and get an autopsy room ready so Agent Scully can get started?" The police chief nodded. He watched the chief get into his police car and radio the command in.

Mulder walked back and looked at the body again. "There are slashes around the back and neck. It could have been a knife attack but these four marks side by side indicate it to be a hand or a paw." Scully moved the man from lying on his stomach to his back. She let out a gasp.

He had more of those marks on his front. "Whatever did this might still be around," Scully whispered. A group of police who were marking the scene with crime tape started gathering around the back stall. She told Mulder to see if they could get an ID from the man as she walked to where the police were circled. The musty smell of death had settled into the barn. A little like a nursing home.

She opened the gate and saw the horse lying there. She knelt down to it. Everything was the same as the last few cases.

"This horse died the way its owner did.but what could have done this?"

She looked around the area for clues to what could have caused the misfortune. In the back of the stall, there were, what looked like, indentions in the ground. They were three little imprints that looked like they were moving towards the body.

"How about we get castings of these and then send them to Quantico and see if these match the others," she told the police chief.

She made her way back through the site to Mulder.

"Find anything?" she looked down at the body.

"Oh nothing really, just his wallet and his ID badge."

"ID badge. For what?" she took the badge from him.

"The body is Peter Baker's and he works, I mean, worked for the Rie-Del labs." Mulder watched her bag the badge.

"That's the same place Paul Smith worked, at right?" Scully questioned.

"Uh huh, looks like we got a new lead. I'll go to the labs to see if anyone knows anything and you can get to the autopsy. Unless. you need any help." He grinned.

"I'm fine, go ahead." They finished up, got into their cars, and then went their separate ways. ________________________________________________________________________

Meriden City Morgue 10:30pm.

Scully turned on the tape recorder and put her latex gloves on.

"X File case #1379. Name: Peter Baker. The body: Caucasian, male, 182 centimeters tall, which is about 6 feet, and one hundred seventy pounds. I'll begin with the outer analysis. Scratch marks about."

She took the tape measure off the table next to her.

"15 centimeters by 3 centimeters, moving down at a horizontal motion, there is no blood in the body. Now I will start with the Y incision."

The night passed on slowly for Scully, taking out organs, weighing, measuring, documenting. She wondered how Mulder was coming, hoping that he wasn't getting in trouble. But she knew that was wishful thinking. Whenever they separated, he was always into something.

Her cell phone started to ring. Must be Mulder. she thought. She took off the gloves and right as she answered it the battery went dead. "Damn it."

She started dozing off while she was finishing up and stumbled into the body. She heard a snap.

"What the. " She examined the left outer side of the body. There was something poking out. Scully reached for her tweezers and pulled it out. It was a brown, stick like thing, sharpened at one end. Could it be, she thought, could it be a fingernail?

"I have just found what could have been a weapon used to make these markings." She spoke clearly into the mike. "It's a nail-like form. Pointed like a razor. It would compare with what the markings looked like, one inch wide but only two inches long. I will get this down to the lab guys as soon as I finish."

Scully set the nail on the table and started sewing up the body. Mulder. she thought. Why aren't you here?

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Rei-Del Labs 12:00am

Mulder made his way up to the security gate of the lab. The drive from the barn and the labs had taken longer then he thought. He had a flat tire on the way out.

"Of all the places to get a flat. it just had to be in the middle of the desert," he mumbled.

He pulled up at the gate. A night guard came out of the booth and bent down to the car window. "Can I help you?" he said.

Mulder looked up at the burly man that was about a head taller than he was, then flashed his badge. "Yes, I'm looking for the owner of Rie-Del labs concerning a Mr. Baker and Mr. Smith. May I come in?"

"Oh. you're looking for Dr. Denise Mitchell. She isn't here right now. Anyway even if she was here you couldn't come in. This is a government- controlled area. Please remove yourself from the premises of this lab at once or I'll be forced to escort you," he said irritably.

"It's about a murder. I have to talk with her," Mulder said putting his badge away. "Do you at least have her number? Or some way I can talk with her?"

"Sorry, I'm not allowed to give out that information. Please leave now Sir." The guard turned around and went for the booth again.

"Yeah.thanks," Mulder said under his breath.

In his mind he thought, we'll see about not getting in. "

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Meriden City Crime Lab 12:30am

Scully was in the sitting in the waiting room ready to read the reports on what was in the nail, and then remembered to call Mulder. She dialed his cell number and listened to the ring. A voice from the other end said, "This is Fox Mulder, I can't answer my phone right now, but please leave your name and number and I will get back to you."

"Mulder, it's me."

She talked into the phone as a lab tech came up next to her. Scully put up one finger and he waited patiently.

"Call me back when you get the chance; I found a finger-nail in our body. Could help tell what did this."

She hung up the phone and turned when she saw a man walking towards her. Nothing seemed odd about him at the end of the hallway. But she had to do a double take to see that he was much shorter then she was. No taller then five-foot.

"I've got the details back on your nail. It's not human. But it's nothing that we've ever seen before. Where did you say you got this?" He looked excited.

"From one of our bodies, why? Could you tell what it's made out of?"

"Not from the tests we've run. But if you give us some more time."

"I'm in no rush. Here is my cell phone number." She wrote it down on a piece of paper. "Tell me when the reports come in."

She watched the tech-man race down the hallway with the papers flapping in the air.

She turned back towards the door, "Now. to find Mulder."

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Mulder drove around the city looking at the sites. He said to himself, "Not much here." I better get to finding Dr. Mitchell, he thought.

He picked up his cell phone and called the FBI database "This is Special Agent Fox Mulder, badge number JTTO4710111. I need you to find a phone number and address to a Dr. Denise Mitchell."

He pulled the car over to the side of the road and got out a pen and pencil. "Uh huh, 7323 Silver Moon Ave, what's the number? Uh huh, uh huh, thank you. You've been a great help."

Mulder started driving in the direction of the address. To his surprise it wasn't far from where he had been; it was only a 5-mile drive.

As he entered the neighborhood he looked around at all the big houses. "Whoa, talk about the life styles of the rich and famous. Everyone in here must be either a doctor or a scientist."

The first house on his left was where he pulled in. The trees must have been about 40 years old. The neighborhood may have been old, but the houses seemed new. He out of the corner of his eye he could see kids playing in the backyard swimming pool.

Mulder knocked at the door. No one was in there. They all must be outside he thought. He made his way around back and opened the gate. "Dr. Mitchell? Are you back here?"

The kids who were playing suddenly went quiet when they saw him. He gazed around the pool and saw a woman who was tanning get up and walk over.

"What can I do for you?" she said.

"Are you Dr. Denise Mitchell?"

"Yes, I am. Did you have any problems with our butler? He said he'd answer the door."

This woman, Mulder thought, couldn't be over 35. Not a wrinkle on her face, but she had 2 kids that looked around the ages of 14 and 12. Mulder shrugged off the feeling that she got married early.

"Um, no one answered the door so I came around. I'm here to ask you some questions." He pulled out his badge.

"Oh my," Her face lost all emotion. "What happened?"

"I'm investigating the death of one of your co-workers, and the attack of another co-workers dog. I have some questions. Something keeps attacking people that work for Rei-Del labs. So far what ever it is has worked down the job ladder. I was thinking about starting from the top and your name came up." He got his notebook and a pen out of his pocket.

"You don't think I have something to do with this?" she questioned.

"I haven't said anything. Are you or your staff working on anything that might cause you to have enemies?" he asked.

"Well, they are shutting down a project we're working on," she said,

"What type of project?"

"One that involves using parts of-" she cut herself off.

"Go ahead-continue."

"I can't tell you any more. It would break my confidentiality agreement. I need to ask you to leave now. I'm in a rush. You'll have to show yourself out. I'm sorry."

Mulder having graduated from the top in his class in criminology, could tell she was hiding something, but what it was, he couldn't tell.

"I'm gonna need some help on this one, though. And I think I know just who to talk to."

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Phoenix Airport 5:00am

"Hey! Mulder! Over here!" Three men dressed all in black came off the gateway. Mulder went over to them and shook each of their hands.

"Sorry we're so late; we had to make sure no one was following us so we had to switch airplanes three times." Richard Langly said.

Langly had a hippy sort of look- the tallest of the three with blonde hair down to the middle of his back and bottle cap glasses.

Melvin Frohike, the shortest of the bunch, pushed his way between the two and asked, "Where is the beautiful Agent Scully? She is here right?" He looked around for her while fixing what was left of the hair on his balding head.

Mulder started walking to the front of the airport. "Nope, but we need to find her. Last time I checked she was doing an autopsy. When I called, she wouldn't pick up her phone."

As they walked John Byers pulled a magazine out of his bag, "Mulder, have you read our latest edition of 'The Lone Gunmen'? We've got news on what really went on during the Watergate scandal and proof that Elvis is alive and well, living in Tulsa."

Jonathan Fitzgerald Byers got his namesake from J.F.K, although his appearance was nothing like the president, with his red hair and beard-line facial hair. He was, how you could put it, the most normal of the Lone Gunmen.

"Thanks. I'll read this while you guys get me some documents," Mulder said.

That comment surprised the threesome. "What do you need us to do?" Langly asked.

"Sounds like a hacking job," Frohike said as he got into Mulder's car.

Mulder put their suitcases in the back and got into the driver's seat. "Actually guys, it's more of a 'sneak into a high security laboratory' job."

Langly reached into his bag and got out his laptop. "I'm up for a challenge," he said as he tapped away at it.

"What is the lab called and where's it at?" Byers got a map out of the glove box.

"Rei-Del labs, it's off the road about 30 minutes from here. I need you to find a Dr. Mitchell's files, anything in there. They have to do with parts of-" Mulder stopped talking.

Langly looked up from his laptop, "Parts of what?"

"That's just it. Dr. Mitchell stopped talking after she said 'parts of'. So anything that has that in it, I want you to get."

"I get to bypass the security system." Frohike announced.

Langly closed his computer, "No way, you did it last time."

"Well, I'm not going undercover, I always do that," Byers complained.

Mulder didn't care which jobs they got, as long as they got the job done. So he just let them argue and kept his eyes to the road.

"Mulder watch out!" Byers yelled.

Mulder swerved the car just inches away from what looked like a small kangaroo with piercing red eyes jumping across the road. "What the hell was that?" he asked. There was a complete silence in the car the rest of the way to the lab.

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