Author's note: This chapter took a bit – had to track down scripts for RD and SoTL on the web.
The room at Quantico was dark, and the atmosphere was tense. Three people sat in the room, staring at the blue glow of a TV screen mounted atop an AV cart. In the air were wafts of determination and grief. They had failed and set a killer free; now they would make up for it.
Earlier that day, a package had arrived at Quantico. All mail to the FBI was routinely fluoroscoped. In this case, the package had been completely harmless; there was nothing explosive therein. It had contained a simple VHS cassette and a note.
The package had been addressed to Behavioral Sciences, and so it had been sent down into the subterranean depths of Jack Crawford's realm. He took one look at the note and called in the two profilers attached to the case. Clarice Starling had been released from the hospital, given appropriate painkillers, and sent on her way. She wasn't clear for the field yet, but she could work in the office. Joshua Graham, however, had no such problem. But the desire to set right what had gone so catastrophically wrong in a psychiatric hospital's parking lot burned in both of them.
The note had been turned over to the lab, where it was scanned, analyzed, and copied. There was little to find. The note was written on plain old white notepaper, available in any office supply store. No impressions, no hairs, no latent prints. The writing had been tentatively identified as Alice Pierpont's. Given the wording of the letter, both profilers believed that it was the case.
Clarice glanced down at her copy of the letter. She was feeling better physically, but seeing the letter made her burn with anger. The letter wasn't overtly hostile, but it was a stark reminder. She'd been the weak sister, feeling sorry for Alice, and she had gotten colossally suckered in return.
Dear Reesey and Joshie,
It feels good to call you that. In fact, it feels good to be able to write you at all, without Barney the friendly nurse telling me, "I'm sorry, Alice, you know you're not allowed to write them." But I am out and I am feeling GREAT!
I hope you're doing all right there, Reesey. I didn't want my friend to shoot you, actually. I'm glad you survived and I hope you're all right. I hope you're not mad at me but I know you are. Forgive me dear Reesey. I implore and plead for your forgiveness. I am but a sad little girl all alone in the world. I'll even choke back a few sobs if it'll do any good.
Josh—well hey Josh, what can I say? I still remember our time together, quite fondly. I don't know if you do or not. It was great, Josh, but I'm afraid I can't have you shooting me again. That sort of thing usually says 'unhealthy relationship'.
Anyways, please enjoy the attached movie. It's our very first attempt at homicidal productions. Our second one is already in the can, but we'll start off with this one. Sort of a documentary, you might say…
Sincerely,
Alice Pierpont
Clarice felt flames of rage in her stomach. When you wanted something from me, it was 'Agent Starling', she thought, glaring at the letter. Her hand clamped into a fist.
"Okay," Crawford said. "Everyone ready? Let's watch the movie."
Clarice nodded. Across from her, Josh nodded silently as well. Crawford reached across and pressed PLAY on the VCR. The screen flickered for a bit and then faded to black. The word GRAHAM appeared on the screen in white block letters. The image resolved into Alice Pierpont wearing a man's white shirt and black trousers padding to what looked like her front door. She opened it to admit a man that they did not recognize. Her lips curled up in a grin.
"Special Agent Graham," she said. "What an unexpected pleasure."
The man they didn't recognize leaned in. Young guy. Next to Clarice, Josh tensed. Clarice found herself sympathetic; she knew what this was about.
"I'm sorry to bother you, Doctor," the young man on the tape said. "I know it's late."
"No bother," Alice assured him. "We're both night owls, I think. Come in, please. Let me take your coat."
She conducted the unfortunate man into an office and sat him down.
"We've been on the wrong track this whole time, doctor," the young man said. "Our whole profile is wrong. We've been looking for someone with a crazy grudge. Some kind of anatomical knowledge – decertified doctors, med school dropouts, laid-off mortuary workers…,"
Alice nodded. Clarice found herself realizing that Alice did have a strong resemblance to her father. The same pale coloring. The same maroon eyes. The same habit of engaging in recreational murder.
"From the precision of the cuts, yes. And his choice of souvenirs," Alice agreed.
"But that's where we're off target," the faux Will Graham argued. "He's not collecting body parts."
"Then why keep them?" Alice asked, tilting her head and reminding Clarice quite strongly of her father.
"He's not keeping them. He's eating them."
Josh Graham shifted next to her in his seat, turning towards her. In the light of the flickering screen, she saw his face contorted with repressed anger and horror. This was something that had affected him from a young age, and to see it mocked on the screen infuriated him.
"Josh," she said gently, "it's all right." Oddly she found herself wondering what would happen if Alice filmed the murder of her father. Thinking about that made her understand better why he was so angry.
Josh's eyes were hot as he stared fixedly at the floor. He said nothing for several moments. Then he steeled himself and looked back at the screen. Clarice thought he was forcing himself to.
"I'm going to get her for this," he muttered.
On the screen, Alice had just returned to the office and begun to happily stab the poor schmuck they had playing Will Graham. Josh's hands jittered and clamped into fists. He knew what came next. But here, things began to deviate from the script. In lieu of Dr. Lecter's calm and silky tones, Alice laughed merrily, as if she was having a great time. The actor playing Will Graham began to scream. This was not in the script.
"Remarkable boy," Alice said. "I think I'll eat your heart. After all…your son broke mine."
The stabbing continued. The camera lovingly recorded the wet sounds of the blade punching through flesh. Unlike reality, the actor playing Will Graham did not stab Alice with arrows. Instead, he simply died.
The scene then cut to Alice sitting at a kitchen table. She stared directly into the camera with a smirk. A piece of bloody meat speared on her fork waved at the camera as if she was greeting it. Then she popped it in her mouth with relish.
"I just love leftovers," she said thoughtfully.
The screen faded to black. Clarice swallowed and leaned over to Josh. He was trembling, staring at the screen. Yes, this had gotten through to him. He clenched his hand into a fist. Clarice reached across to pat his shoulder calmingly. Then the scene flickered to black again and the word STARLING appeared on the screen.
It then dissolved to Alice Pierpont walking into a room in what appeared to be her basement. She wore a skirt suit and carried a bag. She stopped and spoke briefly with a young black man dressed in a white uniform. Clarice scowled. She knew Alice's basement all too well.
"Hi," the young man said. "I'm Barney. He told you, don't get near the bars?"
Alice nodded. "Clarice Starling," she said. "Yes, he did."
Smartass, Clarice Starling thought, and scowled in the darkness again. She glanced again. That wasn't Barney; it was too small. It looked like a girl with short hair, now that she looked at it. The same girl who had shot her, when you came down to it.
"Okay," the faux Barney said. "Past the others, it's the last cell. Stay to the middle. I put the chair out for you. I'll be watching. You'll do fine."
The scene cut to Alice walking down a hall. Clarice suspected it was edited, since there wasn't a hallway in her basement that was as long as the asylum she remembered. There were a few barred cell fronts. Just as Clarice remembered, a man playing Miggs told Alice he could smell her cunt. Alice simply glared at him and went on her way.
She stopped. The camera cut to a tall, bluff man standing in the cell. Clarice thought he looked like Dr. Lecter about as much as a machine-gun looked like a shillelagh. He did look like the orderly who had killed Agent Hemd. Only now his hair was slicked back to look like the good psychiatrist.
When Alice spoke, her voice held an exaggerated Southern accent.
"Dr. Lecter…mah name is Clarice Starlin'," she said. "May Ah tawk with yew?"
I do not talk like that, Clarice Starling thought, and gritted her teeth.
The man simply eyed her. "Good morning," he said in a reserved tone.
"Doctor," Alice said, "we have a hard problem in psychological profiling. I want to ask for your help with a questionnaire."
"'We' being the Behavioral Science Unit, at Quantico," the young man observed. "You're one of Jack Crawford's, I expect."
The rest of the conversation ran true to how it had gone when it had been real, and Clarice doing it too. That didn't surprise the profilers watching the merry little video. Dr. Fred Chilton's last gift to the world had been the tapes from the bugged conversations he had intercepted. Her conversations with Dr. Lecter were on a thousand different websites, transcribed lovingly in every detail.
The conversation ran its course, and Alice began to walk away. Miggs caught her as he had before. This time, things were different. Instead of groping in her purse for tissues as Clarice herself had done, Alice turned and faced the cell face on. A cruel grin flickered over her face, making her resemble her father much more than she had ever resembled Clarice. From under her jacket she produced a pistol.
That's not right, they made me leave my pistol at the front desk, Clarice had time to think, and then Alice shot the fake Miggs twice. An agonized scream came from Miggs's cell.
The young man gamely pounded on the plexiglass, yelling for her. Alice strolled back to the cell calmly, looking in at him.
"I would not have had that happen to you," he said. Pained moans from 'Miggs's' cell counterpointed his words. "Discourtesy is unspeakably ugly to me."
"Oh, that's just faaaaahn," Alice said, and blew imaginary smoke from the barrel of her pistol. "I gut-shot the bastard. Now you get to listen to him die." She crossed back to the other cell, where Miggs lay moaning on the floor. She opened the door and stood proudly in the cell, one pump atop Migg's body as if taking credit for her work. Her eyes bored directly into the camera as she spoke to it.
"Face it, Reesey," she said. "This is what you wanted to do, isn't it?"
Then the scene faded again. The fake Graham from the first scene and the fake Miggs from the second were both lying on a basement floor. They were moaning and clearly in pain. Blood leaked from their wounds. Calmly, the camera cut over them, making sure to get faces, expressions, last jerky motions. Like a lover it caressed their contorted expressions, zooming in closely so that no scrap of their pain was lost. For several minutes this went on. The figures did not make any last words, only pained moans and grunts. When they were not entertaining enough for their captors, a foot entered the frame and trod on their wounds so they would scream.
Clarice felt sick. Suddenly, the same pistol entered the frame. It was quite close up and looked like a goddam cannon hovering over the faces of the two victims. Two spurts of flame spat from the barrel, and a small hole appeared in the middle of each victim's forehead. The camera swung away from them and up to Alice Pierpont, still wearing the suit, still holding her gun.
"This has been a Homicidal Production," she said lightly. "It's our first, so don't judge us too harshly. There will be many, many more. And we'll make sure you get copies." Her strange left hand fluttered up and waved to the profilers.
"I'd say 'see you soon', but that wouldn't work out," Alice said. "But do take care of yourselves. Reesey, I'm glad you're OK. Joshie…what can I say? I still do care." Her eyes flashed. "Break a leg," she said calmly.
Then her visage disappeared, replaced by white lettering that read THIS HAS BEEN A HOMICIDAL PRODUCTION. COPYRIGHT 2004.
The lights came back up. Clarice closed her eyes and thought for a moment. Crawford's voice was dry.
"So," he said. "Now we know what we're dealing with."