Monday. March 28, 2005
Blue Ridge News

Reyes is dreaming. She is on an airplane with Doggett. Everything morphs into an external view of a flying disc. A set of lights on the bottom of the disc starts to spin and an annoying buzz comes from the floating ship. Doggett says, "Is that my cell?"

Reyes wakes up and realizes the buzz is her cell phone. She is totally disoriented and by the time she finds her phone it is quiet, the display reads: missed call 5:47am.

Reyes realizes she is in Dr. Tekalni's house. They had talked late into the night and then Pearle had insisted that Reyes stay there for the night. Reyes had agreed and had been glad to not have to face another hour of driving to reach her house in Virginia. Particularly since she would just have to drive back that distance Monday.

Reyes calls the phone number for the missed call and is connected to the FBI image analysis lab. "Monica Reyes, here. I just missed your call."

The FBI technician says, "Sorry to wake you up, but I thought you would want to be brought up to date."

Reyes notes that the technician does not sound a bit sorry. "Yes, of course. What do you have?"

"We were able to clean up both the North Carolina images and the Maryland webcam images. I'm 95 percent certain that the man who was in that lab two weeks ago is part of the gang that abducted Dana Scully. We pulled several other matches out of the image bank. One was from a security camera at Fort Detrick from a week ago. I've already passed that on to Doggett."

Reyes asks, "What are the other matches?"

The technician replies, "Nothing that we can fit into a pattern. There are about a dozen scattered images from around the mid-Atlantic states during the past month."

"Any near Baltimore?"

The technician pauses to look at the list, "There was another one in Maryland. Here it is. Some little town called Poplar Springs. Photo-radar speed enforcement image. The vehicle could match the vans used in Scully's abduction in North Carolina."

Reyes asks, "Where is Poplar Springs?" The technician pulls up a map of Maryland. Reyes says, "Is it anywhere near Frederick, Baltimore, Damascus or College Park?"

The technician finds Poplar Springs on his map and replies, "Its right between Damascus and I-70."

Reyes informs the technician, "Check the Scully file, she lives in Damascus. Fax that list of matches to my laptop."

"Yes, sir." The technician acknowledges. "Doggett already asked me to do that. One more thing. Director Skinner asked me to tell you that our satellite scan found the stooge-mobile in the Blue Ridge mountains. Skinner is on his way there."

Reyes asks, "The stooge-mobile?"

"That's what I asked when Skinner said it." The technician pauses. "He said you would understand, something about the lone ranger."

Reyes suggests, "The Lone Gunmen?"

"Ya, that was it," Confirms the technician.

"Are you saying that the Lone Gunmen's van was found abandoned in the mountains?"

"I have not seen the data. That's in another section. I can have them call you if you need more information."

"Have them fax me a report." Reyes cuts the connection and falls back against the pillow on the bed. She is tempted to head for the Blue Ridge mountains and join Skinner there. She suspects he will be leading a search of the area around the van.

She sits up and opens her laptop. She discovers that there is no wireless internet access point within range that she can connect through. There is a quiet knock at the door. Pearle asks, "Everything okay, Monica?"

Reyes opens the door. "Sorry to wake you. Just a call from Washington."

Pearle says, "I was not sleeping. Any word on Dana?"

"No. Nothing." Reyes wakes up enough to realize she is practically naked. She notices that Pearle is unconcerned like a battle hardened mom.

Pearle asks, "Are you ready for breakfast or are you going back to bed?"

Reyes replies, "I need to make some calls and read some faxes and I need a shower."

"Well, let me know when you are ready to eat. I'll be in the kitchen. Towels are in the hall closet."

Reyes asks, "Can you give me the password for your wireless router? Washington is trying to send me some files."

Pearle nods, "Its Nanoscope647A. All lower case except the first and the last letter. Want me to write it down?"

Reyes shakes her head. "Thanks, I got it. If I have any trouble with your firewall I'll let you know."

Pearle offers, "I could shut off the firewall while you are here."

"Don't bother, its almost certain that my computer can hack it, all I needed was your password to get past your encryption."

Reyes connects to the internet and reads files from Skinner, Doggett and the image processing sections. She calls Doggett.

Doggett is waiting for papers to be pushed to clear him into the labs at Fort Detrick and with nothing better to do, prescreens the incoming call and notes that it is Reyes calling. "Hello Agent Reyes," He says cheerily.

"Damn it, John, I thought I was up early. Are you on the road already?"

"I'm on military time today. Did you hear the Blue Ridge news?"

Reyes replies, "Yes. I'm afraid we now have five missing persons."

"Looks that way. I'm a bit worried about anyone connected to this case." Doggett asks, "Should we put protection on these civilian scientists Scully has been working with?"

Reyes describes the break-in at the Tekalni lab. "I doubt if the clone gang found anything in College Park to concern them."

Doggett agrees. "Everything seemed to get hot when Mulder started pushing this 'alien DNA' angle last week. Could be that the reason nothing interesting was found on either of Scully's computers is that they were sanitized before we could get there. By the way, I called the University of Maryland Medical Center and told them to impound their security videos. They are on a one week tape cycle so there is a chance we might spot one of these 'clones' on a visit to Westlake's lab during the past week. By the way, be careful with the 'clone' talk. The official position is that all these facial matches are due to the use of latex masks."

Reyes laughs. "Thanks for the warning. Well, I guess I'm just going to go back to Baltimore and wait for Westlake to show. Seems like it will be a waste of time. Apparently Scully was working independently from Westlake."

"Well, I'm getting that same story from this end. Scully was totally free to use these military bioagent detectors as she saw fit. According to the army, she had a knack for finding problems with the detectors and suggesting fixes. Given her steady contributions, she was given a lot of latitude." Doggett talks to someone at his location. "I have to go. Later."

Reyes puts away her phone and heads for the shower.