Chapter Four

Robert stepped surely and quickly toward the open end of the alley. Adrian gathered herself together and jogged for a moment to catch up. Adrian was shocked. Beyond shocked. Shocked was the understatement of the year. She had expected….well she hadn't quite known what to expect but it wasn't this. Everything was still standing. Roads, buildings, lampposts, street signs, all still intact. It was as if they had stepped onto an empty movie set.

"It's so…clean." She observed.

Robert laughed, short and hard. "Yeah well, they're nothing if not clean." Robert kept walking swiftly. He had been this route many times before. "They're pretty vigilant about keeping it like this. Afraid of disease, bacteria, that sort of thing. That's when you gotta really watch out, during the Sweeps."

"That's ironic," Adrian scoffed "seeing as that's what they used to wipe us out. I mean, Dana says that they are actually…well, that they themselves…are the virus."

Robert looked over at her. "All I know is, they're the enemy. That's all I need to know."

Adrian nodded and looked at the ground. It was hot. Hot and dry. Hot, dry and painfully silent. She took her jacket off and tied it around her waist. She couldn't believe Robert still had his coat on. She felt like the sun was burning straight through her skin. She could see no sign of the others who had exited with them. She wasn't quite sure of what they were doing. Should they be hiding? They were just walking openly on the street. Adrian placed her trust in Robert's experience and she strode on lost in thought.

It was apparent that time was a lot more subjective a concept to the aliens than to the Survivors. It had been 10 years since they had unleashed the viral apocalypse. Yet, as far as anyone could tell, they had not begun to colonize the planet. In the first days following the viral invasion, the country had been swarming with them. They had come to annihilate any they found who had survived the virus, and to collect the unnatural result of the infection-the alien life forms that the human race had become incubators for. But now, they remained just outside the atmosphere hovering in their ships. Planning, plotting, pro-creating. Mulder said they were overconfident, and that was their greatest weakness.

This lack of haste had also allowed the survivors to do some planning of their own. In the past 10 years they had developed a way of living underground, safe from the bees and the Alien Hunters who carried the virus. They grew fruit and vegetables under hot house lamps, bread livestock and perfected the vaccine. They continued on, waiting for the day when they would be able to reclaim the planet.

Adrian knew that the aliens still dispatched their Bounty Hunters to do the dirty work of taking out survivors wherever they found them. Especially if those survivors had anything to do with Mulder and Scully. They were the center of everything it seemed. Them and their son. At this thought she dug her hand into her pack. She swished around until she felt the cool steel of it. She gripped the pen shaped object in her fingers, the act of holding it giving her reassurance that if the situation arose, she would be ready. One stab. Base of the neck. Cover your eyes and run.

Adrian noted that they were headed eastbound on New York Avenue.

"We'll be turning on Capitol Street." Robert said. "We're heading for the bridge to Virginia."

Adrian nodded. They would go past the capital building. She only wished she could remember the address of her old apartment. It seemed odd to her that, try as she might, she couldn't remember that address. But it was 10 years of a different life that she had spent there. A life without fear. Her parents had protected her from what they knew. She wasn't sure if she was grateful for that or not. She supposed her mother had wanted her to enjoy her childhood. Probably thought those years would be the only years she'd ever live. Adrian often wondered why they had brought her into this world…a world with an expiration date. She imagined that she had been unexpected. Dana and Mulder hadn't even known of her existence until they found her that day.

They made the turn onto Capitol Street heading toward the Southwest Freeway. Adrian could see the gleaming white dome of the capital building through a sky that seemed almost unnaturally clear. She couldn't put words to what she was feeling right now. If she had walked onto a street with crumbling buildings and a charred landscape it would somehow have been more bearable. But this, this city frozen in time and in silence, perfectly intact as if it had only been a few moments since the human race had been all but wiped off the planet. This was more terrifying than she could've ever anticipated.

They had been walking for almost 3 hours now. Robert suggested they take a break for some water and a snack. The first Route Station was another 4 hours away, on I-395 a little ways into Virginia.

Adrian and Robert plopped to the ground, she leaning against the wall of some federal building and him sitting on his pack. She dug out her water jug and watched as Robert sipped gingerly at his canteen. Adrian was about ready to chug her whole 32 oz of water but she paced herself.

"I have some fruit. Would you like an apple or something?" She held out the small apple to Robert.

"No thanks," he smiled at the gesture. "Never much cared for the hot house apples. They're mealy you know? Not crisp, like from the tree."

"I know exactly what you mean. I hate mealy apples. I guess I just eat them because they're there." She stuffed the apple back in her bag and instead reached for a package of sunflower seeds.

"So Mr. Howard," Adrian began.

"Call me Robert."

"Ok. Robert." She half-smiled "How is it you came to owe Mulder so many favors?"

Robert laughed and took another swig from his canteen.

"He saved my life."

"He saved a lot of people's lives."

"Yeah. Yeah he did." Robert sighed. "This was different."

"I'm all ears." Adrian smiled. She felt warmth for this gruff, weather beaten warrior.

"He didn't save me from the virus. I'm an immune. Watched my wife and two daughters turn to Jell-O though. When I realized that…that something was…growing, inside them…that's when I left the apartment."

Adrian looked at him intently. He was staring ahead at nothing.

"The world I stepped out into…I mean…you remember it. It was chaos. I blundered around, dead bodies everywhere…some with their chests hanging wide open like some awful science fiction movie. I was heading for the FBI building. Had an agent friend, we had used to be cops in the same precinct, up in New York. Maybe you knew him?"

Robert looked at her and smiled sadly. Adrian new he was talking about her father.

"You knew my dad?" She asked quietly.

"I did. Not real well. But well enough to know that he kept his head in a bad situation. I thought maybe he'd know what to do…you know have some inside information or something since he worked for the government."

Adrian looked at her shoes as a picture of her father's face forced itself into her mind's eye. She felt a tightness in her chest. But it passed quickly. It always did.

"I can't even tell you how I managed to make it there, what with all that was going on." Robert continued. "I mean there must've been those…things…running around all over the place. Not to mention the Bounty Hunters. Didn't even know what one of them was at the time."

He took another sip of water and screwed the cap back shoving the canteen back into his jacket pocket.

"Anyway, I'm walking into the main entrance of the building and the place is empty. I mean totally empty. I'm running through the lobby yelling like a mad man. 'John! John Doggett! Anyone!' you know…I'm crazy with fear. Then I hear this voice asking me if I need help. Well, it was Mulder and Scully, the both of them are just loaded with boxes…files. They were coming from inside the building somewhere."

Adrian felt like she was hearing another of Mulder's best bedtime stories.

"I run toward them, you know just grateful to see someone alive, when all the sudden Scully's face just goes white. Mulder and I turn to see what she sees and there is this big guy just coming right for us."

"A Bounty Hunter?" Adrian said breathlessly.

Robert nodded. "Oh yeah. He picked me up by the neck and threw me into the wall. Next thing I see he's got Scully by the throat and tosses her about 6 feet in the air and she comes crashing down on the floor next to me and she's out."

Robert was lost in his own re-telling now. His voice was elevated and he was talking fast and heatedly.

"Mulder's running to get behind the security desk and the Bounty Hunter just heads right back toward me and Scully, wanting to finish her off…or me…who knows. And I mean, I'm totally helpless, I have no idea what to do. Then all the sudden I hear Mulder yelling. 'Hey!' he says 'base of the neck! Cover your eyes!' I have no idea what in the hell he's talking about, but he slides this silver needle thing along the lobby floor and I catch it. Now the Bounty Hunter has heard Mulder yelling so that turns onto him and I just jump up and jab that thing into the back of its neck."

Adrian was wide-eyed and enthralled.

"Well, needless to say my eyes burned like crazy. I must've passed out. Next thing I remember after that I'm lying in a tub of ice in Camp DC Metro with an I.V. in my arm."

They were silent for a moment.

"Wow." Adrian finally exhaled. "That's a good story."

Robert laughed deeply and Adrian let out a silvery giggle and stuffed the wrapper from her sunflower seeds back into her pack.

"It would be a shame to dirty the place up." She quipped.