(Good Vibrations--Chapter Two)

Just Another Nice Trip. . . .

SIX MONTHS EARLIER

A HIGHWAY IN RURAL PENNSYLVANIA

She wasn't talking to him.

Sure, she knew it wasn't his fault they got the assignment. Sure, a few days or so had passed since they'd gotten the darn thing to begin with. And sure, she'd had a few hours on the highway to think over the whole situation so far, just in case she hadn't had long enough to consider things already. But she still wasn't talking to him.

Agent Fox Mulder glanced over in irritation at this fact and finally noticed that his partner was actually asleep, which might have had something to do with her not talking to him. His counterpart -- Agent Dana Scully -- had gone limp in the passenger seat, drooling lightly on the side of the car. He moved his attention back to the road in time to safely navigate the next turn of the highway.

It's not my fault, he thought, conscious that he'd recently heard that line before in some movie or another. It's not my fault. Oh, yeah. "Star Wars." Spoken by Han Solo -- after bits and pieces of his ship start malfunctioning -- to the beautiful princess he's trying to help rescue. Well. At least that was one thing Mulder had over on Solo -- the car wasn't falling apart. Yet. And he had Scully instead of a feisty space princess with a cinnamon bun-like hairdo, which had to be good, except that Scully could also have a heck of a temper at times. Like the princess. Like now. It's not my fault, he internally repeated, feeling much-maligned.

He stole another glance at her. Whoops, she was awake now. And looking at him. Was she also going to be talking to him?

"Good morning, Sunshine," said Mulder, and mentally kicked himself. Well, Mulder, no one can ever say you tried to make things too easy for yourself. It wasn't even morning anymore.

"Shut up," she said, which had to be better than not talking at all, and reached over to fiddle around with the radio tuner. Several barely-audible stations faded in and out of static, and then she turned the radio back off. Scully sank back into her seat, looking depressed.

A few moments passed. Fairly uncomfortable ones, at least for Mulder. It's not my fault.

"I think I've made my feelings on this assignment clear to you by now," she finally said.

"Yes." Queen of understatement.

"I also realize that, at this point, there is nothing that either of us can do to remedy our being sent off on this wild-goose chase." Scully shifted in her seat, trying to get her skirt into a more comfortable position. Another few seconds elapsed. "And, uh . . . I know this is usually your line, but . . ." She watched Mulder's face brighten, possibly in anticipation of some parascientific or credulous revelation, and felt guilty that she was complaining over something like this. She considered stopping her line of thought, maybe going back to not talking to him, but gave up and went on anyway. ". . . How is this an X-File, exactly?" she finished.

"Well, Scully, you're right. That is my line, and whether you know it or not, it's also the one I asked Skinner the other day." Mulder sighed. "Well, now we're at least on the same page," he accidentally said aloud, then hoped she wouldn't take offense. "I mean, Skinner knows we're both opposed to going, but . . . who knows, maybe we'll actually discover something. . . ." His face darkened as his voice trailed off. Sure, what are the chances of that? he wondered.

Scully rolled her eyes. "Right. Since, by all accounts, this 'missing person,' this FBI bureaucrat errant, has merely run off with his latest girlfriend and was last seen heading in this direction. Especially since, also by all accounts, we even have the name of the town he was supposed to be aiming for. What's wrong with calling the local police to keep an eye out for him, then leaving them to do the routine work on their own?"

"I guess Skinner thinks it's a sensitive matter. Well, ten to one we'll find him in some cheap motel, nursing a hangover and ready to come back home," said Mulder bitterly. "Which is a waste of our time, but at least it won't be a waste of much time. Considering we know his probable destination, we'll be . . . in and out of there. Chances are, we'll be back to work in no time."

Scully yawned. "Why he wanted to elope to western Pennsylvania is beyond me." She slouched down in her seat and idly watched the green scenery move by.

Mulder considered asking her ideal elopement destination, but decided that that might not be so diplomatic considering she'd only resumed speaking to him several minutes ago. "Maybe he's converting to Amish. But, seriously, our finding the guy will make Skinner happy, make the other bureaucrats happy, maybe make it easier for us to get serious work done in the future. There are worse assignments out there than a nice trip into the woods."

She threw him a glance. "You do remember what happened the last few times we took a nice trip into the woods?"

"Sorry. Bad choice of words."

"We are going to be in and out of there, aren't we, Mulder?" murmured Scully, lying her head back down against the back of her seat. "In and out," and within seconds, she had fallen back asleep. He listened to her steady breathing as the sedan continued along the western road.

Until she woke back up again upon reaching Yellow Barn, Pennsylvania. She and Mulder both kept a diligent lookout, but there were no yellow barns anywhere in sight. This was somewhat of a disappointment, since the only other things to look at were the greens and browns and yellows of the forests and fields they drove through and past. Which were nice, too, in a pastoral sort of way, but they also got boring after a while. Not even very much of a while, to tell you the truth. But into rural Pennsylvania they continued to drive, increasingly on the lookout for anything resembling a motel of some sort. Somewhere a philandering bureaucrat would hide.

"Yellow barn alert," said Scully, sitting upright for the first time in half an hour to point out the direction of the town's namesake.

Mulder jerked out of a reverie. "That's more of an . . . an off-white shade."

"It's been weathered."

"I'll say. It has two and a half walls."

"Still." She felt a faintly absurd sense of accomplishment at having located the yellow -- okay, almost off-white -- barn. "Oh."

"Yeah?"

"What's that sign say?"

They both squinted out at the road ahead. "What do you know. There's a motel coming up off the next exit. Which is a relief, since it's getting dark and I didn't think you really wanted to go camping under the stars with me tonight," said Mulder. Maybe if it rains sleeping bags?

Scully smiled. "You know I did."

Whoa. "Especially since we have no camping equipment," he ventured.

"It's June," she pointed out.

"Why, Scully, are you propositioning me?"

"You're about to miss the turn-off."

"Are you -- whoops. Here we go."

"I told you so."

"So I guess that's a 'no.' "

"Look, they have neon technology in Yellow Barn," said Scully, pointing to a garish blinking signpost.

" 'Billy's Shangri-La #2,' " read out Mulder. "Well. Just the place we were looking for."

"I don't suppose this could also be the place our missing bureaucrat was looking for," started a hopeful Scully, and then she broke off as the agents' car turned off into the motel parking lot.

Somehow -- even more oddly than the initial fact of the existence of an urban-type trashy motel in rural Pennsylvania -- the parking lot was full of a wide assortment of unlikely-looking vehicles. Including a black-painted schoolbus with stenciled chrome flames racing down the side. A squadron of vintage 1960s VW buses, all re-done in psychedelic tones. A fleet of decrepit old lemons, one with the muffler several feet behind its hindmost flat tires. One dark gray Mercedes-Benz, a deep scarlet Jaguar, and a white stretch limousine.

And, now, a sedan with two confused FBI agents wondering if they had inadvertently stumbled upon an auto-body shop belonging to the Witness Protection Program.

Scully stepped uncertainly out of the now-parked car. "Mulder, this . . . this is . . . certainly strange," she finished, still fishing for better adjectives.

"I know," Mulder said, glancing around. "Usually you only get variety like this at UFO conventions." Slowly, oh-so-dangerously, Scully's head turned forty-five degrees on her neck to regard Mulder. "No, no, I swear I know nothing about it," he continued, holding out his hands palms-front to convey innocence. "It wasn't in my newsletter."

Scully rolled her eyes and turned back to regard the pink-painted motel. "So you think this is an impromptu thing, or what?"

"Well, it could turn out to be interesting, and who knows -- with such a wide range of people, maybe one of them's seen Agent Lowell." Mulder opened the car trunk.

"Maybe one of them is Agent Lowell."

"Here you go." Mulder handed her her bag.

"Thanks. So, shall we check in to this lovely -- oh. Mulder, would you look at that . . ." Scully pointed to a field behind the motel. A large, colorful tent had been set up in the middle of it, and there appeared to be a man meditating underneath it. Near the man were several other people, who from a distance appeared to be dressed in colorful, flowing clothes and smoking suspicious-looking objects.

"New Agers?" ventured Mulder.

"Whatever. We don't have to talk to them right away." The agents headed towards the motel, baggage in hand.

"You're in luck--one room left!"

Scully closed her eyes. Not again. This joke of an investigation was doomed from the start. The last thing I need at this point is to end up trying to figure out which side of the bed to sleep on, hoping I won't jump Mulder in my sleep-

"It's a double, though," continued the receptionist. "Hope you don't mind."

"That's fine," chorused both agents at once, then glanced suspiciously at one another. What was that supposed to mean? each wondered, on the lookout for a tacit snub.

The receptionist shrugged. These guys are a little weird, she thought. "Right. Well, anyhow, how many nights do you want?"

"Well . . ." Mulder stalled, looking out the lobby windows at the parking lot. There was really no way to tell how long it would take to find Lowell and convince him to return to society before an aggravated Skinner sent an assassination squad out instead of just a few disgruntled X-Files agents. Still, he didn't want to overbook, end up buying more nights than they really needed. Still yet, he really didn't want to underestimate their stay and end up finding out just how much Agent Scully really did, or didn't, want to camp out under the wide blue yonder with him. Losing their room to whatever bunch of people had invaded the parking lot was probably unlikely to thrill her, especially seeing as how they were currently sans sleeping bags.

"Do you expect many more people coming in for this, uh, convention?" asked Scully, evidently thinking along similar lines.

The receptionist shrugged. "I . . . I really couldn't tell you much about this convention thing," she confessed, looking a little nervous. She rolled her office chair back a few inches. "I don't think Uncle Billy really . . . look, how about you just book a few days if you don't know how long you're going to be staying here," she offered, "and if we get more people coming in who want your room after that, I'll ask you first before giving it to them."

"That would be helpful," said Mulder brightly, resolving to seek out Grandfather Billy and interrogate him about the reason behind the tent, the people, and the impromptu convention. The receptionist handed a grubby set of keys across the Formica desk, and Scully accepted them as Mulder took a receipt for reimbursement purposes.

The receptionist, a rising senior in her high school, looked after the departing agents with a slightly worried expression on her face. She swiveled around in her chair, observed the smokers in the field, and made a face. I don't like this too much, she thought, and turned back around. Still, I guess it's good for business. She shuddered slightly, biting her lower lip. So why do I feel so weird about it?