A NEW SEUSS. . .
Prologue:
I've changed my name, I've moved three times
yet Fox's lawyers seem to find
me, there's nowhere left to hide
where Fooberman, they cannot find.
Please hear, I mean no disrespect
The show, you've left in some neglect
The re-runs? It's just not the same.
The way you ended things? For shame!
I've no connection to your show
(at least not so far as I know).
This is a tribute, nothing more
to something now beyond death's door
Now much to my abiding shame
to this I have returned again.
This thing, I should have let remain
In peace, within a shallow grave.
Seuss Files in the rear-view mirror
Never, EVER growing nearer.
So I should have let things stay
The story falling, page by page.
But this, alas, I cannot do
I wish I could write something new.
But be creative? Not my thing.
A goal that I can not attain.
And so, like every other hack
A sequel seems the perfect tack
to take when I still wish to write
though no ideas are in sight.
So if you pass this story by
I do not blame you; how could I
When I, as you, are quite aware
We've all done this, we've all been here.
Chapter 1: The Darkness Inside
Down the steps into the basement
went Scully for the day's abasement.
Fox had called, quite animated
she knew the steps, the dance she hated.
'What is it now?' she almost said
before he lifted up his head.
He set his papers on his desk:
his clothes and hair were quite a mess.
'How long have you been standing there?'
he said. "Not long, I just got here",
said Scully back, "But you're here early,
not all cleaned up, you must have hurried."
"Late, not early, actually",
said Fox (she was stunned, naturally).
"So then, you stayed here through the night?"
"I don't need sleep, I have no life"
"Can't fault the logic there", she offered,
Now get some rest, that's doctor's orders"
"I'll catch a few hours on the plane",
he said, to her intense dismay.
"I guess you think I'm going, too",
she said, though she already knew
the answer; he confirmed her fears.
"Our flight's at nine, I'll meet you there"
"And where, O Mulder, are we going?
You know how much I hate not knowing!"
"Baton Rouge, at first, at least.
From there? Who knows? I guess we'll see."
"I'll tell you more at DCA",
said Mulder as he walked away.
"You always tell me less, not more",
said Scully to the now-closed door.
She drove home, grumbling without stopping:
packed her clothes (the F-Bomb dropping
at a frequency, they say,
the Navy's still yet to attain)
The agents, in another hour
met up at the ticket counter
she saw the bags beneath his eyes
he looked (she thought) but half-alive.
He showed her what had kept him rapt
All night and now had left him tapped.
The photos, only three in number
would not let his eyes find slumber.
A boat, some water, something else
She couldn't tell, he offered help.
An off-shore platform in the Gulf
A satellite surveillance shot.
The call to board their flight then came,
they trudged their way on to the plane.
She meant to ask a few more things.
He drifted off; she let him sleep.
Chapter 1: The Darkness Inside (Continued)
Mulder woke, the plane touched down
They grabbed their bags and hit the town.
The hotel wasn't hard to find
The coon-ass food was mighty fine.
Mulder, once again himself
told her of the shots he held.
Told her what the photos meant
and of the boat's significance.
The Gunmen hacked the DOD
And grabbed the pictures in RT
They thought they'd wasted half a day
Then saw it right before their face.
The boat? That's not a tanker there!
But what would they be hiding here?
Most anything, they realized
10 miles out, no prying eyes!
A friend let Fox enhance the shot
It took 4 hours (its time he's got).
He bounced the pic back to his friends.
Like him, they were up late again.
Enhanced, enlarged they saw for sure
the details that had been obscure.
The boat, they felt, they could ID
and track down the conspiracy.
It disappeared right off the earth
The stories said it was reworked
for what, though, no one claimed to know,
they offered guesses, nothing more.
Wicked things, for such expense
to hide one's work would not make sense
unless it was such as to be
destroyed by notoriety.
They passed along what they had found
To Fox, to help him sort things out
They went to bed, he stayed awake;
He'd learned some more when morning came.
The boat had been, a decade back.
Decommissioned, sold for scrap -
or so they said, but clearly not:
the paperwork, they said, was 'lost'
A few years back into the past
the ship was seen again (at last)
To most eyes without a change
But to the wise, 'twas not the same.
The cargo region, now much smaller
was made, for leaks to start, much harder.
As if, more deadly, now to all
its cargo was than mere crude oil.
Its records named Sir Caspian's Sea
As the start of its delivery
It made no claim of destination:
the platform seemed a prime location
At least for a next place to stop
once more before the crude is dropped
off at a refinery
to be distilled to many things.
By why bring Caspian oil here?
There are refineries much more near!
There's cheaper oil we can buy
Fox could see no reason why
Unless it was a redirection
to give the hidden some protection
from enquiring, meddling eyes
who would not believe the lies!
To Kazakhstan returned his mind
He remembered: not good times.
He felt it moving in his eyes
He raged, "Krycek's still alive!"
But this, more precious than mere oil
Or gold or any fruit of toil.
I say, without exaggeration
it is man's end or his salvation.
If the boat, as it would seem,
has joined our Uncle Samuel's team,
How did they come to own the plague?
What was the bargain, with whom made?
The Gunmen wished to see more pictures
Hoping to so find some answers.
The hacking part was little toil
The pictures, though were hidden well.
The photos they'd first found were not
The first time that the tanker'd stopped:
But several times in several weeks
did the ship and platform meet.
A helicopter also came
once per week, to them it seemed.
That workers, on it, came and went:
Week on, week off, week on again.
All this Fox said: Scully nodded
(disbelief long past suspended)
It all made sense in some strange way
(best not to think too much, they say).
"So this is what we're doing here",
said Fox to Scully standing near.
"Who is it going to and fro?
Can't you see, we need to know!"
Fox now finished, she replied
(her pessimism would not hide)
"We'll need much more to find the truth,
But hey, what else have I to do?"