Part III

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Meriden, Motel 9 6:00am

Scully had given up on Mulder at the morgue. So she went to the motel and slept for about 5 hours. When she woke up she realized that Mulder still wasn't there. "Where are you, Mulder?" she said as she looked in the mirror combing her hair.

She turned on the TV, picked up her cell phone and pushed the buttons. She listened to the ring as she watched parts of "Good Morning America."

"Hello?" said a male voice.

"Mulder? Whose phone is this?" Scully wondered if she had called the wrong number.

"Why if it isn't the wonderful Dana Scully," Frohike said.

"Frohike, give the phone to Mulder. I'm not in the mood to talk." There was some rumbling in the background.

"Mulder here," a familiar voice spoke.

"Mulder! Where are you? I waited for 2 hours for you to come to the morgue or at least pick up your cell phone. And what are the guys doing in Arizona?"

By the tone in her voice, he knew that she was on the edge. Anything he said could make her explode. "We're about 8 miles from the Rei-Del labs, and Um... Scully, remember when... uh. I mean how... well..." he mumbled.

"Spit it out."

"They're helping me get some documents from inside the lab. All right, talk to you later. Bye" He spoke so fast she couldn't really hear what he said.

Scully heard a beep and the line went dead. She said under her breath "Mulder, you're crazy. Don't do anything stupid 'till I get there."

She packed up her things, put them in the car, and drove to the lab.

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Rei-Del Labs

Mulder spoke into the hidden microphone. "Hey guys, you ready?" He looked out the window and saw a red car coming down the road.

Frohike checked the wires and said, "Everything's good. We just need Scully now." The car stopped and a lady got out. "Why speak of the devil."

"You guys can't break in there; we'd be breaking millions of rules at the FBI. This is a government-owned and controlled area," she said.

Mulder smiled, "We're the government, aren't we Scully?"

Byers came around from the front of the van. "The wires are all good and so is the camera. Now we need to wait until nighttime."

Langly was busy tapping on his computer. "Why didn't we bring another laptop. I'll need another one to be able to give you the floor plans and keep on eye out. um, Mulder? We need to tell Scully about what her job is."

"My what? I'm not having anything to do with this!" Her face was red with anger.

Mulder turned to look at Langly. "That was a small thing I managed to forget. Are you ready to be 'Secret Agent Scully?" He watched her raise an eyebrow. "We need you to help me distract the guard as Byers and Frohike sneak in."

Scully looked around the back of the van. She could have sworn she heard the "Mission Impossible" theme. "What's this going to prove?" she asked.

He came right out with; "That it was or was not a monster."

"Fine. I'll do it."

"Now we just got ta' wait." Mulder looked around the van,"Anyone have any cards or something?" Scully shook her head as Mulder searched for something to do.

"This is going to be a long wait," She muttered.

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Rei-Del Labs 10:00 pm.

"Everyone know their mission?" Byers asked.

Mulder was the first to talk. "Yeah, Scully and I distract the guard so Frohike and Byers can get in. Langly, you relay them the floor plan of the building. Then they get in and see what documents are in there. When they're safely out of the building, Scully and I will leave."

"Right, let's get this over with." Scully left the back of the van and made her way towards the lab.

"You know, I could distract the guard and you could sneak inside." Frohike winked. Mulder glared at him. Frohike shrugged. "Can't blame a guy for tryin'."

"Scully! Wait up." Mulder came out from the back of the van. "Forgot your ear-piece."

"Thanks," she said. "What are we going to talk about with the guard?"

"You know.the regular thing. Like the weather." He chuckled. "Come on and lighten up. You can really get quite talk-a-tive when you want to."

"I'll be a real chatter box tonight." She smiled.

"You guys!" Langly came over the microphone. Scully and Mulder froze in their tracks.

Mulder spoke softly, "What's wrong?"

"Just calm down. You look jumpy. I'm sending in Byers and Frohike now. Be ready to start." The mike fizzled out.

"Here we go." Scully walked up to the guardhouse, tapped on the glass, and showed her badge. "Sir, we need to talk with you." The same man Mulder had talked to earlier came out.

"I already talked to him and I've got nothing more to say," the guard said.

"Mr.-" Mulder looked at his nametag. "Mr. Kramer, never mind about what I said last time. We're out on a different case now. We are investigating the. " he turned to Scully.

"We're investigating employer abuse against night-help." Scully shrugged her shoulders at Mulder when Mr. Kramer wasn't looking.

"You know what? That has been happening around here lately. Why don't you come inside and I'll tell you about it." Mr. Kramer led them inside the small hut.

"All clear," Mulder whispered.

Langly was busy on his laptop. "I've almost got the security gate open. One more minute and. THERE!" The gates opened up and Byers and Frohike ran through.

"The cameras are off, right?" Byers questioned.

"Yes, give me a second on this last one."

Frohike looked up at the camera and a red light went off.

"Everything should be ok from here," Langly said. "Now I just need the floor plan." He worked a little more on the computer and a screen popped up with the blueprints. "Oh, what you can find on the internet these days."

Frohike ducked around the back of the building. "Come on Langly. Which way do we go now?"

"Go to your left and you'll see a door marked 'loading dock.' Go through that and you will find a green hallway. That's the zoology department."

"Thanks."

The guys crept down the back of the labs and saw a few guards outside. "We have company," Frohike said.

Langly came back on the mike, "No problem. Let me create a decoy. I'll just set off this alarm over at the other side of the lab."

An earsplitting noise arose and all the guards ran for the northern part of the building.

Byers whispered as he ran to the door. "Here's our chance." As they reached the door a sound picked up behind them. "We're done for," he said under his breath.

Frohike turned around and saw it was only a cat playing in the garbage can next to them. "Yeah, here's our threat," he joked. He bent down and scratched the cat behind the ear. "Let's go."

They opened the door and went inside. Byers felt his heart slow down from the fright outside. "Langly said to go down this way." Byers led the way down the hall, to the left, and to a door that read "Dr. Mitchell." On the left of the doorknob it had a number pad. "Use this." Byers pulled a device out of his bag. He set it on the door lock. It was about the size of a palm pilot that wrapped around the handle and part of the keypad. He messed with it for a second and on the screen numbers started moving. It looked like something from the Matrix. "It's a eight number code. It should only take about two minutes." There was a beep and the numbers moving in the first column stopped and a five showed up. The rest of the numbers continued spinning.

"You guys alright?" Langly questioned.

"Yeah it's almost done. But-" he was cut off by some voices coming from the end of the hallway.

"Quick, in here." Frohike pointed to the air vent in the side of the wall. "Langly, we need a map of the air ducts. Can you find on?"

"Way ahead of you," he sounded proud of himself. "Just go down till you get to your first left."

Byers took off his black hat and gloves. He whispered, "Is it me, or it getting really hot in here?"

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"So Mr. Kramer, what's being going on that you say is abuse?" Scully sat down in a folding chair. The small guard building looked like a disaster site. It had pieces of donuts lying in places around the room and a few magazines turned upside down on the table, the monitors overhead were of the lab's many rooms.

"Well. it started a few weeks ago. My boss, Dr. Mitchell wanted me to stay later a few nights a week. Now something has her upset and she wants me to stay here every night." He adjusted his belt and took a bite of a left over donut. "It gets boring down here so I like to watch a little TV or read magazines. But then last night she went berserk and started yelling and throwing things at me. If you ask me, something must have gone wrong with one of her experiments."

Mulder walked around the room and asked, "Has she done any of this today?"

"No. not in the last few hours." A light on one of the walls started flashing followed by a small beep. Mr. Kramer looked at the monitors. "Excuse me; the lab is getting a little hot. I need to turn up the air conditioning." He turned a few knobs and typed numbers into the system. "All done. the air ducts should start to work any time now."

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Byers climbed hand over hand through the small vent followed by Frohike. "Now I know what a termite feels like." Frohike joked. The air started picking up. "Uh. Byers, I think they just turned on the air. " A powerful burst of air came from behind them and blew them threw the small tube.

"Langly!" Byers yelled into his microphone. "Where are we going?" They came to the end of the vent and fell through the open space. "Oomph," he said as he hit the ground. He looked up and saw Frohike fall on top of him.

Frohike looked down at him. "You alright?"

"Yeah. my butt broke the fall." He stood up and checked for any damage. "Oh My Gosh. "

"Byers! Frohike! Where are you? What's wrong?" Byers could hear Langly speed typing on his keyboard through his ear piece.

"I wish you could see this." Frohike moved around the room looking into all the cages. There were animals in them. But something was wrong. A there was a monkey with, instead of an arm, had a wing, and instead of a tail, had a fin running down its back. He peered closer into the cage, the monkey saw Frohike looking at him and let out a roar. The roar startled him and he backed into the cage behind him. What ever was in there grabbed his shirt and pulled him closer.

"BYERS! HELP ME!" he yelled while wrestling the animal. Byers ran over and grabbed one of the hairy arms and started hitting it. It let go and slithered to the back of the cage. "Thanks. " he breathed heavily and turned around to his attacker. It was a giant python with arms of a gorilla. Frohike started heading for the door. "Come on, let's get out of here." He reached for the handle and tried to turn it.

"What?" Byers said.

"We're locked in. "

"Langly, get Mulder and Scully, we are locked in here and need their help." Byers said into the mike.

"I'm on it." He said. The guard voices that they heard before sounded louder. Hurry though. Byers thought.

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