Chapter 10
STAR LABS
11:45 PM
"All the stuff that happened over the last twenty years, you're seriously telling me that you never considered the part of the Syndicate behind the Iron Curtain?" Diggle asked.
"You don't know half the stuff I've heard over the years," Mulder reminded Diggle. "I was once told that the Cold War was itself just a cover story for another conspiracy."
"I'm having trouble keeping track, but didn't you get that story from the same man who told you that alien abductions were part of that same cover story," Cisco countered.
"True," Mulder acknowledged. "But based on my own studies of Agency and Bureau files, there was a certain amount of truth to the first theory."
"Can we save the political science discourse for another day?" Felicity sounded exasperated for her. "We're in Russia right now, and right now it sounds like some part of the Syndicate is responsible for carrying on their work."
"And right now, the leader of that particular branch happens to be another daughter of the League of Assassins," Scully said slowly. "The sister of the current leader, who happens to be Sara Lance's former lover and who helped train Oliver into a killing machine. I know that it was always hard to keep track of who our enemies were, but I'm not sure in our wildest dreams ever envisioned a soap opera."
A very small part of Felicity wanted to mention the story of Scully's mysterious pregnancy, but even she knew better than to let that slip out. Besides, this was getting hard for her to keep track of.
"Well, if you're looking for coordinates and checkpoints I don't have them," Mulder was focused again.
"We know you never kept maps. What we're hoping is that you might have something that could help us."
Mulder was about to answer in the negative, when he thought for a moment. "How much work would it take you connect me with Oliver and the others?"
"I have bare bones technology, next to no reception and little satellite access," Felicity reminded him. "I may need five minutes."
"What are you thinking?" Scully asked.
"Remember how I never did fill in the details about how I managed to get back to DC from Russia?" Mulder reminded her. "Part of that story may end up helping our friends."
RUSSIA
"So you want us to walk away from where they're holding one of our friends?" Oliver said skeptically.
"I could always send in the full rescue party four days early," Mulder countered.
"I might not refuse at this point," Oliver admitted.
Sara came back from her reconnaissance. "There is a fair amount of forestry not that far out," she told Oliver. "Five, maybe six miles away."
"And the terrain?" Oliver asked.
"Honestly, it would be trickier with vehicles at this point," Sara told them.
"Now when I was there, at least some of the villagers were fluent in English," Mulder told him. "Obviously you can't count on that now, but I understand the three of you have more than conversational Russian."
"That doesn't necessarily mean they'll be friendly," Sara reminded them. "East-West relations haven't exactly improved the last twenty years."
"This is a very isolated community. These people cared just for surviving rather than geo-politics. In that sense, I suspect your allies might be able to get on their good side."
Both Oliver and Sara looked at Nyssa. "Nyssa Al Ghul is skilled at many things. Public relations was never the League's strong suit," Oliver reminded them.
"Plus we can't rule out the possibility that Talia might have beat us that regard," Sara added. "Are you sure this is our best approach?"
There was a pause on the other end. "You weren't asking me for permission or my blessing when Felicity told you about this," Mulder said. "You were going to do this come hell or high water, both of which may seem luxurious in comparison to what you'll actually face."
There was no point in denying this. "That's right."
"The fact that one of your friends is there isn't the reason you're doing this either. It's just an excuse," Mulder continued bluntly. "You are laser focused on the mission at the expense of all else."
Oliver had to keep reminding himself that Mulder had done a very effective profile on him some years back. "How much has Felicity told you about me?"
"This will either give you comfort or make you feel bad, but I see a fair amount of myself in you, Oliver," Mulder told them. "And trust me when I tell that's not a compliment. I bent the rules of my profession in service of a greater good when I was at the Bureau. A lot of people died as a result. I'd like to say I learned from my mistakes as I got older, but something happened just a couple of days ago that convinced me I haven't improved with age. "
"Are you trying to talk me out of this or not?" Oliver asked.
"I suspect Felicity bent your ear on the subject and that she's had even less success than Scully had with me," Mulder pointed out. "To answer your question I barely escaped from Russia with my life and both arms. You're a great fighter Oliver, but I'm pretty sure your alter ego needs two working arms to live up to his name. So if you insist on going on along with this mission, the only chance your team has of getting through this alive is to go into that village and convince them that what you're doing has a noble purpose."
"And these people will go along with that?" Sara asked.
"They've been living in fear for decades," Mulder reminded them. "They will grab on to any rope from the most unlikely ship that comes, no matter how much of a wreck the vessel is. You're supposed to be a symbol of hope, Oliver Queen. You've been promising a better tomorrow for Star City for four years. Convincing these people to follow you for a few days should be a cakewalk."
There was more cynicism than usual in Mulder's voice. Oliver knew he should probably leave it alone, but he couldn't help it. "Are you pissed we're doing this?"
"Only some of this is directed at you," Mulder admitted. "A lot of my enemies constantly told me that my cause was wrong over the years. Let's just say I'm having maybe my third or fourth dark night of the soul."
"I've had my share of them over the years," Oliver told him. "Ironically, most of them have come on bright sunny days."
"Those are the worst, aren't they?" These two stoic men both exchanged a chuckle.
"Any parting words of advice?"
"Try not to get yourselves killed again," Mulder said. "Coming back to life leads to a bitch of paperwork every time."
STAR LABS
2:57 AM
"So now it seems that another part of the conspiracy is involved with people even worse than the Nazis," Cat Grant was saying. "This might just be how they lured Hoover into this."
There were a lot of raised eyebrows at this. "And you left this part out of the files because…?" Joe West asked.
"If half the stuff I have is based on rumor and innuendo, at least its innuendo that I've personally witnessed," Mulder told them. "This part, the Russian involvement, I have it on some authority that at least some part of the Bureau's involvement in the Syndicate used the Red Scare as cover."
"You're telling us men like McCarthy and Cohn were using loyalty oaths and HUAC as a cover for an alien conspiracy," Stein said slowly. "Almost makes The Manchurian Candidate seem even more plausible."
"Arthur Dales told me about when I first heard about The X-Files," Mulder told them. He briefly recounted Dales' recounting, the story of Edward Skurr and how he was used as a tool for something far worse by men like Cohn and Hoover. He didn't pretty it up, relaying his father's involvement.
"You think that's how he got lured in?" West asked. "An appeal to patriotism."
"He worked for the State Department starting just after Nagasaki," Mulder didn't like talking about William Mulder, but he knew it was important. "I'm certain that's how he got involved with Roswell and everything that happened afterwards. But no one I ever talked to, informant or Syndicate ever said anything about Soviet involvement. The only time I ever heard anything about it was in 1996 and the only man who I know who had any connection to it was Krycek."
"I admire your patience, Agent Mulder," Snart said with a surprising lack of snark. "Mick and I knew him for all of five minutes, and that was long enough for us to know how dangerous and untrustworthy the man was, and that's coming from us."
"Why did you let him live so long?" Mick asked with less bluntness than curiosity. "He might have killed Scully's sister; he definitely killed your father. There are people with badges who would have taken out a guy like that for far less."
"That's a question I asked myself every time Mulder and I came in contact with him," Scully said slowly. "Sometimes I wonder all those years back if things would have been different if I'd just let you shoot him when you had the chance."
"I've thought about that, too," Mulder acknowledged. "And not just because you shot me instead. The thing is, for better or worse, we're not those kinds of people. We really believed that if we listened to him spin his lies long enough, we might get to some version of the truth. All we ever got was a different set of lies. Whatever truth he might have had died with him."
There was another exchange of glances around the room. Mulder and Scully knew that look; they'd had that form of silent communication mastered for decades. They were on the outside looking in about something. Both of them had the feeling if they pressed the question they might get an answer - everybody had been surprisingly forthcoming, given the level of secrets that they shared. They shared their own silent communication. It was just two words: Not yet.
"In any case," Scully said. "Things have changed. According to Oliver Queen, Talia Al Ghul is collaborating with the new Syndicate in a way that involves the Russians. Twenty years ago, it seemed like the Russians were acting in opposition to the Syndicate. We're relatively certain of it because the only reason we have access to the vaccine in the first place is because it was stolen from the Russians by Krycek."
"Was he switching sides again?" Cisco asked.
"He was only loyal to one person. He wanted to be the one with all the power. He didn't know that Marita Covarrubias was going to betray him," Mulder said. "Though given that she ended up getting infected with the virus herself because of it, he obviously was prepared."
"You know, you are leaving out someone who could answer the questions we have," Caitlin said reluctantly.
Now there was another shared exchange of glances; this time by everybody. "You really want us to go to that well?" Scully asked.
"Why? Because you don't know where it's been?" Snart asked.
"We do know. That's exactly why we don't want to go to it," Cat Grant answered, shuddering.
Less than a month ago Marita Covarrubias had been 'liberated' from the Syndicate by Malcolm Merlyn in what would be the Magician's Last Act. The plan to develop the new vaccine was based on the combination of what was currently in Mulder, Scully and Marita's blood. She was currently being held in the Star Labs 'Supermax' but aside from running tests on her every few days, nobody wanted to exchange more than a couple words with her at a time. Even if they hadn't been taking their lead from Mulder and Scully, the fact was nobody on any of the various teams trusted her to tell them the sky was blue.
"She had a thing with this Krycek guy?" Mick asked. "I know some chicks dig bad boys, but wasn't she afraid of getting rabies?"
"Maybe there was test app called Traitr and both swiped the wrong direction," Mulder said. "Even when she was my informant I was smart enough to never completely trust her. "
"You still haven't asked?" Snart was pondering something.
Stein and Jefferson knew that tone. "What are you thinking, Leonard?" Jefferson asked.
Snart turned to Cisco and Caitlin. "Other than these two, has anybody tried to interview her?"
Cisco, who did have a better sense of Snart then the rest of them, nodded. "Kara made a pass a few weeks back; otherwise no."
"And I take it she still doesn't know of myself or any of the other new arrivals?"
Mulder had an inkling of what was going on. "The Bureau's policy on enhanced interrogation is well known, but I'm prepared to overlook that in this particular case."
"That's very kind of you, but that's not what I had in mind," Snart said softly. "I think after everything she's been through, Miss Covarrubias needs to see some friendly faces."
The smirks on everybody' else expressions must have been simultaneously because even Mick reacted. "What? We can be friendly. To the right people, anyway."
3:15 PM
OUTSIDE COVARRUBIAS' CELL
"I never like wearing these monkey suits."
"I think even a criminal less qualified than her would be suspicious if we came in street clothes," Snart said. "Be grateful they found one that fit you, old friend."
The plan was simple, by Snart's standards. The question was how long would be before it went off the rails. Mulder and Scully had been more than willing to share everything they knew about her, while freely admitted there was a lot about her they didn't know.
"The best thing I can tell you going is keep the fake bureaucratic double talk to a minimum," Mulder said. "She's spent years manipulating the bureaucracy; that will tip her off immediately."
"We were never big on bureaucracy to begin with," Snart said as he had put on his tie.
"What buttons would be the most effective with her?" Mick asked.
Scully looked at Mick. "I know both of you pride yourselves on being direct, so this may be the hardest part," she told them. "When you make your threats be as vague as possible. The less you tell her, the more unnerved she'll be."
"I know you always had more of a way with words," Mick told his friend. "You think it would be better if I just stood there and looked menacing? Mulder and Scully said that wasn't uncommon for a lot of the meetings they had."
"The thought did cross my mind, I'll admit," Leonard said. "But you never gave yourself enough credit on that score. Throw in the fact you've been on the other side of these as often as I have, and I think you might actually have a good idea what to say in these situations."
"Yeah, but we never had to deal with the Feds."
"Feds have more power than the cops; doesn't mean they're always smarter." Snart put his hand on the door. "Ready?"
"You forgot your last prop."
"Right." Snart reached into his pocket and put on a pair of thick glasses.
"Miss Covarrubias!" Barry Allen wouldn't have recognized Snart's voice; it was simultaneously more nasal and lower-pitched than his usual tone.
The former informant maintained her poker face. Neither man was surprised; they'd spent their entire lives doing the same.
"My name is Frost. This is my partner, Burns. We were informed that a person of your stature was being held without trial and we felt it incumbent on ourselves to have a conversation with you."
Marita looked at them. "You think I'm a fool? I don't know who you're pretending to be, but I know that none of these people, much less Mulder and Scully would dare let anyone know that they were holding me."
"You assume that they told us in the first place, or that your absence hasn't been noted by certain agencies over the past month."
"And which agencies would those be?"
Mick spoke for the first times. "The kind of club where everybody knows each other but no one admits they're a member of."
Snart had held his breath when Mick had opened his mouth. Judging from the blond falling back a little, it was clear his friend had said the right thing for once.
"Are you them?" she asked.
"We know the club you belong to, Miss Covarrubias," Snart let the tiniest breath of danger enter it. "We know that you've missed a lot of meetings. Extended absences are usually considered a sign that the members want to leave. Which is against the rules."
"I didn't exactly have a choice in the matter."
"You've had a choice in the matter before. The previous leadership was very… remiss in some of the choices you've made while still a member. "
"Especially when it came to trying to, let's say," Mick paused deliberately, "unseat one of the former heads."
Mulder and Scully had known Krycek and Covarrubias had tried to kill the Smoking Man, but they hadn't known how. Mick had plucked the exact right word out of thin air, and it clearly had an effect on her. "So you work for him?"
Both men saw the opening they'd been given. Snart took the offensive. "A man hears a rumor about a gang of international car thieves and becomes worried about his precious Porsche. He locks in his garage. He installs the most up to date security system. He spends thousands of dollars on increasingly more elaborate method despite his friends thinking he's losing his mind. Finally, he encases the car in cement. Then one day, he comes in to look at his Porsche, and he finds that the car is still encased in cement but now it's facing the opposite direction. He chips it free and finds a note in the windshield. On that note are just seven words: 'If we want it, we'll take it.'"
"So I'm the owner in this scenario?"
"Actually, you're the Porsche." Mick had heard this story before and knew the lesson. "We're just here to leave the note."
"But you know the other one about thieves. There's supposed to be honor among them." Snart said. "And as anyone who has worked for this particular man knows, he doesn't have a stitch of it. He sends men to die without a thought. He assumes that because they work for him, they will be loyal without him having to repay it. I think you know better than most that he never does."
Marita kept a blank expression. "I've been given this opportunity before. It didn't end well for me."
"That was a different scenario."
"I fail to see how."
"You weren't in a cage then." Mick reminded her.
"And what? I take your offer; you just walk me out the front door?"
"There's nothing you could give us that would allow you to get out of here." Snart said bluntly. "I think you know that and that's why you're still here."
Marita indicated her surroundings. "Don't let my modest trappings fool you. Metahumans can't break down the doors."
"We also know who you work with." Snart said. "They have access to means that could have liberated you within hours of your capture. They could also have killed you whenever they pleased. The fact that they have chosen to do neither, especially considering how quickly they acted when they first knew where you were…"
Snart trailed off.
"I know there are security cameras everywhere," Covarrubias countered. "If you actually think I'm going to say something that will seal my doom one way or the other, then you're either naïve or stupid."
"Neither of us is." Mick said. "And we're not going to lie and say they're turned off, because you wouldn't believe that either."
"Then tell me, Frost and Burns, why should I have any reason to believe anything you've said?"
Snart gave a smile that was very different from the ones that Team Flash had come to know him for. "Because you want to play on the winning team. You're here because right now you think this one has a better chance than the one you were on before. That's how you've made your choices in the past. We're betting that you'll do so again."
Covarrubias looked at them. "And what team are you on?"
"The one that can walk out the door," Mick said. "Wanna join?"
LXLXLX
"That bitch is colder than I am," Snart said calmly not ten minutes later.
"We told you that going in," Scully reminded them. "Anything else you took away?"
"If she's as smart as you told us, she didn't believe a word we said," Mick told them. "But you spend long enough in a cage, desperate trumps smart."
Mulder and Scully exchanged glances. "She spent nearly a year after being given the vaccine as a prisoner of the Syndicate," Mulder told them. "I don't know how she got out or how she managed to earn their trust back after just another year."
"Weren't most of them burned to a crisp not long after she got out?" Cisco reminded them. "They may not have been looking too closely at resumes at that point."
The thought had crossed the agents' minds more than once. "Do you intend to go back in there?" Scully asked.
"Give her a couple of days to mull it over," Snart said. "But one of you might want to pay her a visit in the meanwhile. Fuck with her head a little."
"Can't deny it would add some fun to the job," Mulder looked at Scully. "All the time we knew her, she never played straight with us about what she knew. Don't you think it would be nice for the shoe to be on the other foot for a change?"
Scully considered this. "I never did thank her for the role she played in you getting taken," she said with a scary smile.
RUSSIA
7:13 pm
"To quote a movie I watched way too often growing up, it's quiet. Too quiet." Oliver said to Sara.
Nyssa agreed. "Whoever's watching us aren't nearly as good as the last people who were. Lots of trails and there's definitely movement around us."
"Are they scared of us or are they trying to take us prisoner?" Sara asked.
"I'm pretty sure it's the former, especially given who they've been dealing with all these years," Nyssa hesitated. "Are you sure about this? The last time it didn't work out very well for us."
"Which is why this time we're not going to ask politely," Oliver told them.
"You sure Ollie? These people aren't nearly as dangerous as the last group."
"It doesn't change the fact there are going to be far more of them then there are of us," Oliver reminded them.
"They're not the Russian Army. My guess is they're not even the Lost Platoon," Sara seemed a little concerned now. "My guess is an unprovoked assault isn't going to win the hearts and minds your hoping."
"If you've got a better idea, I'm more than open to it."
"Actually I do." Nyssa pointed ahead to where she was some lights in the distance. "We parlay."
There were three fires about half a mile down the distance. Around them were twenty men and women, all wearing clothes that would have been clichés from a film about Russian serfs.
When Nyssa and Sara approached, none of them rose in violence but they were not welcoming either. Someone infinitely less skilled in reading people would have picked up in a moment the terror that was in all of their eyes. They could also tell that it wasn't strict personal. They were the actions of people who lived their lives with uncertainty beyond the coming day, under terms of servitude to masters whose motives they had no comprehension of.
"Do you mind?" Team Arrow would not have recognized Nyssa's tone; it was infinitely softer and tenderer than any of them were used to from her. Only the Lance siblings, under vastly different circumstances, had heard variations on it before.
"When I was much younger, my father and I would often spend the night in places much like this," Nyssa said kindly. "He would build a fire, and it would be something for us to have, to remind us that at least we had that. I suspect you have spent your lives with even less than we ever did."
"Who are you?" one of the women asked, terror barely concealed in her voice.
"You have no reason to believe anyone who comes into your woods," Sara said in a similarly soft tone. "Especially people you have never met before. I suspect in your experience those same people offer hope with one hand only to tear it away with the other."
"There is no hope here," one of the men said in Russian. "Only death and suffering. It has gone on since before we were born, and it shall never end."
This was a vague enough that it could have referred just life in this area in general or that they were talking about the situation at hand but were afraid to speak of it in more than generalities.
"What makes that different from life anywhere?" Nyssa had changed from English to Russian. She was no doubt trying to gain trust but neither she nor Sara could tell if it had actually made things worse.
There was a silence from everybody for a long moment. Finally another woman stepped forward. "The tests."
Nyssa barely flicked her pupils at Sara to acknowledge they had found the right people. "What tests?" Nyssa asked.
"They come for us all the time," she said. "Many of them never come back. The ones that do are sick and ailing. Only the ones who are useful in other ways never get taken."
"Where did you come from?" one of the men asked.
"The east," Sara said. Time to gamble. "Before that, America."
That did create some rumblings. They weren't exactly hopeful, but they weren't trying to form a mob either. "Are you lost?" the man asked.
"Not really," Sara said in English. "You have no reason to believe us, but we came here to ask for help."
Now there were rumblings and laughter mixed in. Not cheerful laughter – it was mockery mixed with pain. "Why would we help you?"
"Because if you do, there is a chance we might be able to help stop what has been going on for so long," Nyssa asked.
The looks among the peasants were those who were no doubt considering whether they were looking at escapees from an institution. "These are men who the law will not touch," one woman said scornfully. "The two of you honestly expect that you can do something to stop them?"
"The three of us." Oliver emerged from the shadows, speaking in perfect Russian.
More scornful laughter. Understandable, given the circumstances. Oliver did not intend to reveal either of his identities to these peasants because he was fairly certain it would mean nothing to them. He did, however, think knowing who one of them was might be enough to tell them to gain their trust.
"The three of you think that you stop the army that has done their work for decades?" one of the men said. "And what difference would it make? Even if you were to kill these men, in a matter of weeks they would be replaced by more."
None of them could argue with this logic.
"We couldn't stop their work even if we had more men," Nyssa acknowledged. "Even if all of you were to join us, slaughter would be inevitable. But that is not our intention. A friend of ours is being held prisoner by these men."
"Then he is already dead," one of them said in a tone so flat it unnerved Oliver a little.
"Even if that is so, he deserves to die looking out at the sky, not in a cage," Oliver countered. "And I know this man. He will fight against whatever tests are done to him to his last breath."
The people around them were beginning to get the idea that these strangers were serious. "So you plan to liberate this man," the woman who had been doing the majority of speaking asked. "If you are so daring, why do you need our help?"
"We don't know where exactly our friend is or how to get in," Sara told them. "All we want is for a few of you to help us get inside. Once we are there, the three of us can do the rest."
"What could you possibly promise any of us to go along with this insane plan?" the woman demanded. She was as scornful as ever, but all three of them could see the slightest sense of hope coming from her.
"Escape from here if you wish it," Nyssa said. "For those of you who wish to stay, I will guarantee that no harm will come to any of you in this village ever again."
The certainty in Nyssa's tone was clearly hard to deny. "You know who they work for?"
"I represent people who are infinitely more powerful than any of them," Nyssa said solemnly. "And when we make an arrangement, our word is our bond."
If Ras or Talia had said this, Oliver knew that if the peasant were to agree, they would merely have exchanged one devil for another – probably a worse one. It was only because of what he had seen of Nyssa now that he was certain if they got out of this alive – a very big if – they would have security in a way none of them had ever known.
As it was there was a long pause as they all contemplated the offer. Finally, a middle-aged man – or perhaps he was younger, Oliver could imagine the testing or just living here adding ten years to their appearances – walked up to Nyssa. "There might be a way to get two of you in."
That was still better than they hoped. "What would we have to do?" Sara asked.
"Mikhail!" A slightly younger man approached. "He has one of the only trucks that they do not own. He is able to make deliveries to and from the prison. They know him well enough that they only do a preliminary search of truck each time. You will still have to conceal yourself very well."
"We're very good at that," Talia said.
"That will only get you to the front gate," Mikhail said. "Getting inside the prison will up to you."
"And getting out?"
There was a long silence. "No one ever has. Alive."
Perhaps enough time had gone by so that none of them remembered that Mulder and Krycek once had. And that was twenty years ago. They had to have improved security since then. Still, that was a problem for later.
"When do you make your next run?" Sara asked.
"At dawn."
The three of them exchanged glances. "More time than we usually get," Oliver admitted. "Get our friends on the horn."
STAR LABS
ONE HOUR LATER
"Seriously?" Scully asked Snart. "You have no ideas."
"What man goes out of his way to break in to prison?" Snart asked. "Can you imagine the kind of maps I'd need just to get started?"
"Fair point," Barry conceded. "Do we have any idea of where this gulag is?"
"I'm nowhere," Cisco told them. "I'm in the middle of a long chain of texts with ARGUS right now for anything in Russia that might be close to what we're looking for, but it's been four hours and we're still nowhere."
"I don't know why I'm surprised; I'd be shocked if half of those places ever made it to whatever passes for the World Wide Web in Russia," Mulder asked. "Besides, given how the Syndicate used to operate, I'm not even sure they were even designed to be hacked in the first place."
"Did any of our new allies have a clue where the place even was?" Caitlin asked Oliver.
"According to them, roughly ten miles due northwest," Oliver told them. "But Felicity's been doing scans for the last five hours, and according to their satellites there's nothing there."
"I think someone might have some kind of internal dampeners around the area. Basically the modern equivalent of a force field." Felicity said. "I was about to send Ray down there…."
"No!" Mulder and Scully both shouted.
"Your objections are noted. May I ask why?"
"Call it a very bad case of déjà vu," Mulder said. "When Scully and I made our return trip to Oregon in 2000, when we tried to find the UFO in the forest, we were within a few feet of it. Scully literally walked in to an energy field and got knocked senseless."
Most of them knew the rest. Mick didn't. "And when you walked into it…"
"I was in a coffin three months later," Mulder said bluntly.
"Wait a minute," Cisco said slowly. "You're telling me that the Russians, who couldn't build a fully functional nuclear reactor in the 1970s, somehow have managed to get an alien force field around a prison."
"It's been thirty years since Chernobyl, Mr. Ramone," Stein told them. "A lot has changed since then."
"Besides, considering who's on their side now, maybe they subcontracted," Mulder said dryly. "In any case, there may be a way to work around this. Start checking in with the DAO. Sixteen years ago, the Lone Gunmen were able to find this kind of thing with far more primitive technology; I find it impossible to believe an agency that deals with aliens on a regular basis won't be able to find it a whole lot quicker."
"Are we saying there's just an energy field or a UFO itself?" Barry asked.
Mulder thought for a moment. "Something crashed into Tunguska over a century ago. We can't rule out the possibility that it's still there."
Scully looked at Mulder. "Are you saying the prison is on top of the UFO?"
"I think they might have built the prison around it," Mulder said slowly.
"That is a very realistic possibility," Everyone looked at Caitlin. "As logical as anything else we're dealing with."
"How much time do we have before dawn in Russia?" Kara asked.
"Six hours, give or take," Caitlin said.
"Then I think it's time we stopped screwing around and did this right." Kara sounded more like herself than she had since she had returned from Canada.
No one needed her to translate what she said. "I realize I'm the last person you want to hear from right now," Mulder told her. "But speaking as the person who asked you to do the last prison break, you sure that's the best idea?"
"I know perfectly well what I'm suggesting," Kara said with her old confidence. "I also know things will get very messy if I show up in Russia. But we all know that Oliver's plan will go haywire at some point. I think it's a good idea for help to be there when he inevitably needs it. Besides, if there really is alien technology there, who better than your alien in residence to be able to deal with it?"
"I don't think any of us can argue with that logic," Barry said. "That said you'll understand how none of us intend for you to go alone this time."
"I had no plans too." Kara said with a smile. "This is going to be a coordinated plan of attack. Felicity, can you get in touch with Ray? Give him a set of coordinates for Barry and I to meet him as off the beaten path as you can find."
"This whole part of the map is already off the beaten path," Felicity reminded her friends. "You guys will stick out even more like sore thumbs that you usually do."
"I know," Barry said. "We're going to have to be in street clothes – or peasant clothes, I guess – until the very last minute. " He looked at Snart and Rory. "You've got that go-bag you travel with."
"Are we coming or not?" Mick asked.
"How badly do you guys want to be going to a Russian prison?" Barry asked.
"Not on my bucket list."
Snart thought for a moment. "Why don't you want us there?"
"Given the amount of experience you have in prison, I have a feeling you can talk Sara and Nyssa through the ways around when they get in," Barry said. "This is as much your field of expertise as crime is."
Snart looked at Barry. "I take it you have a way to get around the fact you don't even have blueprints yet."
"I think so." Kara told them. "Besides, I think you'd agree that putting all our heroes in one basket for one assault would be moronic at this stage of the game."
"If he doesn't, I would," Scully replied. "Then again, I think one of my main duties on the X-Files was to rescue Mulder when his plans got him in trouble."
"You should have asked for a yearly bonus for that," Mulder said sheepishly.
"I could've retired by the end of my first year if I had," Scully said sweetly. "Granted I didn't have any superpowers. Except, of course, for being immortal."
The Legends who were still there did a double take. "Is she joking?" Stein asked uncertainly.
"Do you really want an answer to that question?" Jefferson countered.
"Let's concentrate on this mission first," Barry said quickly. "Then your questions will be answered."
Mulder shook his head. "Silly metahuman," he said with a smile. "Don't you know the first rule of the X-Files? The only answers you ever you get to your questions are more questions."
AUTHOR'S NOTES
For those of you who don't know the X-Files part of this:
In the end of Season 4 episode Gethsemane, Mulder was told by a DOD officer named Michael Kritschgau that the alien conspiracy he believed in was a cover story as part of the military industrial complex. It was later relayed that the Cold War was designed the same way. Considered one of the weakest parts of the belabored mytharc, I'm not sure which part of it was worse: that Mulder threw away his lifetime of belief basing on hearing one person tell him this or that he spent much of Season 5 convinced of this until he did another 180 back to where he always was. Boy, Fight the Future really screwed up any clarity the mythology hoped to have.
The story about the Cold War comes from 'Travelers' one of the most maligned episodes of the series because it didn't have Mulder and Scully in it. I consider it a minor masterpiece which honestly did play into the paranoia of the series. Roy Cohn and J. Edgar Hoover appeared in cameos not much different from how they were in real life. That they themselves might have been tools of the Syndicate has been suggested in other episodes.
Snart and Mick as FBI agents. I couldn't resist (Frost and Burns was a slight Supernatural homage). I will continue this arc for a bit, but maybe not in this particular story (this series will probably be seven or eight stories minimum)
The Russian townspeople are related to the ones that helped Mulder escape the camp in 'Terma'. We never did learn how Mulder did escape from Russia with both his arms; maybe we'll get an answer here.
Yes, it's another Prison Break joke; two for the price of one, in fact. Seriously, I couldn't help myself.
The energy field around a UFO was a critical part of 'Requiem' the season seven finale and was used in connection with quite a few of the UFO stories in Season 8. I'm trying to come up with a conceivable explanation for why they can't get a signal in Russia; this seems plausible, considering the Lone Gunmen's difficulty in tracking the UFO that took Mulder.
Is Scully joking? X-Files fans have been asking that question ever since Clyde Bruckman told Scully that she wouldn't die. (I can't tell you the amount of Highlander crossovers involving Scully I saw in the years afterwards because of it.) I can tell you this much, Mulder sure as hell isn't in the last line.
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