Title: He Belongs to Me
Chapter: Eight – Deadly Relations
Summary: Post-Truth – Mulder claims to have found a way to save anyone who is willing to listen from the upcoming alien invasion – but things do not go according to plan. Light MSR, set mostly in England.
Note: I already have most of the last chapter written, because I 3 it, so there is probably going to be only one chapter after this…bring the total up to…nine chapters? Time shall tell – however, I am going on vacation to Canada/Alaska from May 29th-June 12th, so don't expect any updates. Sorry!!
Disclaimer: I disclaim ownership of the X-Files, London, King's Cross Station, time, AM/PM abbreviations, dates, mathematical equations, the English Language etc. etc. etc. but NOT my plot. So ha.
Archive: It'd be an honor. Truly. emotional Just contact me and I'll most likely give you permission.
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Scully stumbled into late afternoon sunlight, squinting her eyes. Her wrists were raw and bloodied, her hair disheveled, but she was out. She fumbled through her pockets out of habit, checking their contents. Her cell phone was gone, not that it'd make any difference – she didn't have GSM and even if she did she hadn't purchased a pay-to-go card upon arriving in London. A shame, really…if she ever got out of here she'd have to seriously consider doing that.
Where to now, Dana?
Well, she supposed she should probably find a way to get in touch with Mulder…not that she had any idea where he was. Knowing him, he was off hunting aliens in some ass-backwards attempt to find her. Which was good, because in his own way, that was how Mulder found anything that he considered important.
Thinking logically, she should probably try and find a pay phone and see if he answered his cell – at least then she'd know if he were in America or still in England, or anywhere else in the world.
He could be in Hong Kong for all I know…he's done it before.
Well, Dana, you have to start somewhere.
I suppose. And like Tolkein said – "Not all those who wander are lost."
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"Have you deployed the bounty hunter?" For once, the man standing in the shadows was not in the company of a lighted cigarette. The photographer gulped, wondering what implications that held, before daring to speak. He wasn't likely to come out of this ordeal alive anyway, he might as well know what the hell was going on.
"Sir, no impudence intended, but why are we sending an alien bounty hunter after a human you allowed to escape?"
The man removed a cigarette from a box in his shirt pocket, removing also from the pocket a lighter. He flicked it on and off several times, admiring the flame before extinguishing it and then creating another one before killing that, too. Finally, he lit the cigarette, took two deep puffs, and answered. With a question, of course. Never answer anything directly, that was one of the first things you learned if you wanted to survive here.
"You really don't know what those tests were, do you?" He returned the lighter to his pocket and took the cigarette in hand, examining the burning end with keen interest. Feigned interest.
"No, sir…I was not – I was never informed as to the nature of them."
Four puffs of smoke billowed from the shadows.
"And did it not cross your mind that there was a reason for your lack of information?"
The man simply swallowed and averted his eyes, waiting for the man to continue. Amazingly enough, he actually received an answer.
"You should know by now that all humans contain alien DNA that lies dormant inside of them."
"Yes…yes, sir, I have heard rumors about that tidbit of information." He raised his eyes from the floor, looking at the Cigarette Smoking Man's face but not into his eyes, oh no, never look him in the eyes. Not if you wanted to keep not only your job but your life, and your family's lives.
"And based on this what do you think the tests were doing?"
He took another deep puff of his cigarette before taking it in his fingers, twisting it methodically.
"Um…activating the alien DNA for the purpose…" he paused. What could be the reason? "For the purpose of seeing the reaction the black oil virus would produce in humans when trying to propagate? To see if, maybe if the two were similar enough, somehow it wouldn't be compatible with its host?"
The man in the shadows stubbed out his cigarette, watching the curls of smoke rise into the dim air of the office. No windows here, oh no, never any windows. People could see you, observe your actions, or even worse, have an opportunity to attack you from a distance.
"Send the bounty hunter, Mr.Stein."
"Yes, sir. Immediately."
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Mulder stumbled off the plane, running into the person in front of him and mumbling something he hoped was an apology before making his way into the waiting area with the leather chairs. Dropping his bag on the floor, he flopped down in one of them, and despite his firm resolution to make it to the city proper that night, he soon became deeply and soundly asleep.
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Scully stopped at a local Costa to use their toilet facilities. She managed to finger-comb her hair so that it looked halfway decent – now she only having a bad hair day rather than having stuck a wire hanger in an electrical socket that morning. Using her hands to scoop up the water she managed to wash her face moderately well and discovered she still had her wallet, buried deep in the recesses of her trench coat. Using what little money remained she purchased a Grande latté before leaving in search of a telephone. She'd try and phone Mulder, and if she couldn't get a hold of him she'd pay the ludicrous long distance fees to call someone in America. She experienced a pang of sadness at the deaths of the Lone Gunmen. Doggett might help her, if she could get a hold of him. Her best bet probably lay with her mother. She would pay the air fare to get her daughter back to America and would have the patience to wait for answers. But before she could do anything, she needed to find a phone.
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The photographer snapped a few quick shots of the prone ex-agent before heading off to the airport food court. He didn't get to eat a lot in his line of work, and when he did it was normally a bag of hastily grabbed (and often stolen) potato chips. The opportunity to have a real meal was too tempting to resist, and he looked forward to the tantalizing prospect of sinking his teeth into a slab of fried fish and stuffing his face with French fries, or "chips" as these people called them. A part of his mind idly wondered who the hell would call slabs of fried potato, stripped of any nutritional value, "chips". Well, he supposed they were similar to potato chips – potatoes sliced and boiled in grease until all dietary benefit was gone into a tub of oil.
Sinking into a chair with his newly acquired food, Mr. Stein set about the process of shoving as much food in as little time as possible into if mouth.
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Mrs. Scully sank into her bath tub, luxuriating in the steaming water and the foamy, white bubbles. There'd been to much going on lately, first her only daughter left going off to England on some wild goose chase to help the man she was too foolish to admit she loved, then finding out that her Dana had been taken by someone for some unknown purpose, probably an uncompassionate one at that. But how had she gotten that disc? And who had known that Mulder would come to her that very same day? According to Dana, all their contacts had been killed over the years and the most recent had never been replaced. So who was sending them information? And what information was being sent? And why?
Sinking to her ears in the water, Mrs. Scully gladly fell into the blessed oblivion the water presented her, drifting in a peaceful timelessness that lacked any senses except that of touch. Nothing to see, nothing to hear, nothing to taste or to smell, just to feel and exist. She never felt the bullet which penetrated her skull to pierce her brain, killing her instantly.
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Well, she'd found one her phone booth, and thankfully it hadn't been far from the Costa. It was the classic red box kind, with the long rectangular windows on the sides and the folding doors. Unfortunately, she didn't have long to enjoy it, because an all too familiar face soon found its way directly to her telephone box. And no, this was no mere coincidence, or someone who bore a striking resemblance to someone she once knew. No, this was the face. The face which she'd come to associate the words, "Alien Bounty Hunter". And he was here. In England. She heard the familiar swft as he the deadly point of his weapon slid out, and she managed to stumble out of the box and run ten feet before he began his hot pursuit.
-----------------------End Ch.6------------------------
So what'd ya think? I rather like this chapter, I wrote it all at once on a sudden inspiration. Besides, my parents were watching 24, so I had nothing better to do. =p Make it last, no updates until June 15th at the earliest!!
Word Count: 1,429