Despite how exhausted she had been the night before, Scully came awake easily at seven in the morning, just as gray light was starting to filter through the thick motel blinds. Immediately, her thoughts turned towards what she had read the previous night, and she felt the same sense of awe begin to overtake her again. The scientists' postulations would have been exciting enough, but coupled with the facts of the case (the killer and kids seeming to disappear into thin air!) it was phenomenal, because it pointed to actual success. She could hear Mulder bustling about in his adjoining room, and was grateful that he had let her sleep some before getting a start on the day. As soon as that thought had entered her head though, a rapid-fire knock came at her door, one which she instantly recognized.
She opened the door and he lifted up two Styrofoam cups of oily-looking coffee by way of greeting, and she stood aside yawning and let him come in.
"I just got off the phone with Montes," he told her without preamble, and set down the coffee on a small table beneath the room's window. "SFPD reports they've had no success with talking to Zydek's staff for his location: either they actually don't know, or they're protecting him. Also, no hit on the APB, but he says that they're following up some other leads and he'll let me know as soon as anything happens." Following the coffee, he whipped out a continental breakfast Danish, and Scully pulled a face at the sight of the thick white pastry bread with its heavily sugared frosting smeared against the inside of its plastic wrapping. But then, grinning, Mulder also procured a container of low-fat vanilla custard yogurt, and placed it next to her coffee with a flourish.
Scully smiled appreciatively and sat down at the table, then wrapped her hands around the overly hot brew, breathing in the caffeine as if to absorb it by osmosis before it cooled enough for her to take a sip.
"Have you checked in with the crime lab too?" she asked him, thinking about the strange substance that had been in that one bindle.
"Yeah," he confirmed, and started to unwrap the Danish, while she scrunched her nose at it. "I just left a message on the supervisor's voicemail, so hopefully I'll hear back from him. Meanwhile, I thought we could maybe drive down to Cupertino in Silicon Valley and talk to the employees of P-Works, to see if Love's lawyers were telling the truth that he'd already had this idea."
"They may have other insights as well," Scully agreed, taking a tiny test sip of the coffee and peeling off the seal of the yogurt, "on the relationship between Zydeknologie and P-Works, and the respective brains behind both, and how the employee Larry Mitfuhlend fits into all of it."
"Yeah, he's at the top of my list for questioning," Mulder agreed, then took a huge bite of the pastry. Halfway through chewing, he reached for his coffee and swigged some of it, then sputtered at its hot temperature. "Bi' dry," he explained through a mouth full of food, and Scully just watched him with one eyebrow up, but he ignored her and took another bite.
"Okay, I'll just go shower and get dressed. . ." She might have woken up easily, but she still felt a little groggy, and could use something invigorating. Though they had been carrying this type of caseload for seven years, she still had trouble with time changes on mornings following a flight.
"Want company?" he asked after another swallow, a suggestive glint in his eye, and Scully wanted to look stern, but couldn't help it when the edges of his lips twitched up. "I think in the interest of time, I better make this one solo," she said, and made her way towards the bathroom. Mulder feigned a deeply wounded sigh, but caught her hand as she passed by.
"So I'll just call and tell them we'll be there around 9, then? Catch them as they're getting into work?"
Scully looked at their fingers, and intertwined them more tightly, "Don't give them any warning," she said. "Who knows who might 'call in sick' if they caught word of the FBI coming back again? Let's just surprise them."
"Everybody loves a surprise, Scully," Mulder agreed, also watching their entangled fingers.
She gave him a gentle smile, then dropped her hand and crossed the rest of the way to the bathroom. After closing the door behind her, she adjusted the dial until she got a hot, revitalizing temperature, then pulled her pajama top over her head, and stepped out of her bottoms into the tub. The tiny points of wet heated pressure instantly took her back to the previous afternoon, and for a moment she was deeply tempted to call Mulder in after all, but she bit back his name at the last moment. She needed to focus on the case, and that would be the last way to start off a productive day.
But several minutes later, just as she was rinsing the conditioner from her hair, he knocked quickly on the door then barged in anyway. He yanked the curtain to the side and ignoring her shocked expression, exclaimed, "They found Zydek! They're bringing him in for questioning right now, and the SFPD has given us first crack."
At eight o'clock, after Scully had finished dressing and drying her hair, and the two of them had checked in on any other overnight developments with Montes, they got into the rental car and made their way over to the Hall of Justice, and Mulder filled Scully in on what he had learned. Apparently Agent O'Brien had been looking through Hans Zydek's tax returns, when he noticed the recent purchase of a Cessna private jet. Agents had then searched registration to see what jet he owned, and had followed this up by looking at the flight plans at local airports to see if he had any recent activity. Sure enough, he was coming in from Pebble Beach that very morning.
Again Montes rendezvoused with them in the lobby, and jabbed at the button for the fifth floor of the building, though Scully was tempted to drop in on the crime lab to see what, if any, developments there might be with their evidence. After they talked to Zydek, though. He was definitely the top priority now. She suddenly felt tingly and breathless—was she about to discover that a science-based method of teleportation, or 'Replacement Transference' really existed? She grabbed Mulder's wrist and as soon as glanced at her, he could gauge her feelings and grinned. "Could be part of history here, huh?" he murmured, and she nodded wide-eyed.
The door slid open into Central Booking, where Montes led them past the desk sergeant with the flash of a badge, and they entered a large room with a similar layout as the FBI office, except that it teemed with a much more chaotic, loud, and haphazard energy. As soon as they were several feet inside, a stocky man with thick black hair held up his hand in greeting, then picked his way through the desks towards them.
"Chief Fred Lau," Montes said, clasping hands with the man before turning aside and gesturing at Mulder and Scully. "These are my colleagues from DC that you heard about."
The chief leaned over and shook both of their hands as well, a grim expression on his face. "Agents Mulder and Scully, yes. I've heard a lot, and I'm sure most of it should be taken with a grain of salt—" Scully couldn't help but inwardly smirk at that; if anything, their reputation was understated compared with what they actually dealt with in their cases "—but regardless," Chief Lau continued, "if you've got insight into this one, I'd appreciate it. So far we've been able to keep the media out of the loop, but now that we've brought in Zydek it won't stay that way. So the sooner we can get this solved, the better."
"He hasn't asked for his lawyer yet has he?" Scully wanted to know. She wouldn't be surprised if that were the first thing out of his mouth, especially considering his sensitive position with the court case.
"No, actually," the chief responded, and indicated that they walk with him. "He says he'll answer any question that we have for him, and that we should note that he's being fully cooperative."
Mulder and Scully exchanged looks and nodded thoughtfully, then followed Lau into a darkened hallway, with a series of doors lining either side. He stood aside at one marked 'H,' where several other officers were already grouped. Mulder and Scully were introduced to the lead detectives on the homicide, Inspectors Terca and McNabb, and the chief explained on all their behalf that the FBI agents could take the first crack at Zydek, and he, Terca, and McNabb would observe. "And we've got his flight crew in the other rooms, where we have other detectives questioning his alibi," he finished.
"Thank you," Scully said, and peered through the pane of one-sided glass in the door to take a look at the scientist. He was in his late forties and tall and angular, with short, neat dark blonde hair, a trimmed goatee, and thin, titanium-framed glasses. He was sitting stock-still, just staring at his hands on the table in front of him.
"Go ahead," he nodded at Inspector Terca, who punched in a code to unlock the door for the agents. Before heading in, Mulder turned to Montes.
"You coming?"
The other agents smirked and shook his head. "No, I'm going to let the great Spooky Mulder do his thing. I'll watch from out here."
Scully couldn't tell if the use of the 'Spooky' moniker had annoyed her partner; he just nodded without expression before entering the room, and Scully followed him.
Immediately, Hans Zydek stood and lifted up his palms up towards them. "Like I told the others, I will answer any and all questions you have, without representation," he told them in almost impeccable American English, colored with only the slightest trace of his original accent. "I want to make it clear I had nothing to do with this tragedy."
"Have a seat, Dr. Zydek," Mulder told him, and he took a chair opposite the scientist, while Scully took up a position against the wall to survey the scene.
Mulder reached into his case and pulled out the casefile and a pad of paper, then lifted his face back up to the detainee. "So Dr. Zydek, you stand to gain a lot from the death of Geoffrey Love. Your lawsuit wasn't quite going the way you wanted, and so—"
"The lawsuit was going just fine, actually," he contradicted.
"Huh. Not according to Love's lawyers or investors," Mulder parried back, "who say he could have proven that he'd already had the idea prior to taking on Mitfuhlend."
"Because they aren't at all biased. . ." Zydek said softly. "But anyway," he continued, "it's all moot because I have an alibi."
"Yes, you say you were in Pebble Beach," Mulder said, and he nodded.
"Pebble Beach is an easily driven distance, though," Scully broke in for the first time. "It's possible that you had your jet go ahead of you to arrange an alibi, and you joined them later."
Zydek shook his head vehemently at that. "I was on that flight both ways. Check with my pilot and flight crew!"
"We're doing that now," Scully answered.
"But they're your employees," Mulder went on. "So it might not be good enough."
"Look, I was using the courts to hash out my issue with Love. I'm not a violent man, I'm a scientist."
"Would you be willing to provide us with a DNA sample and fingerprints then?" Scully asked.
He looked sullen for a moment, then relented. "Yes, on the condition that they're destroyed once I'm cleared."
"That's standard operating procedure."
"Then okay, because I know it'll prove what I'm saying. I had nothing to do with this. . . butchery. Though I was skeptical over how he first got his ideas on Replacement Transferrence—I'm assuming you're aware of my work—I deeply respected him as a peer. There was no denying that he was brilliant, and the competition we fostered made me into a better scientist myself. I didn't want him dead, and I'd never, ever involve his family in our professional disputes."
"Do you have any idea who would, then?" Mulder asked.
Immediately, Zydek's expression darkened. "I do, but you might think that I'm saying so out of some sort of long-held grudge. I'm not, though."
"Who?" Mulder prompted, poising his pen over the pad of paper on the table.
"Larry Mitfuhlend, my former assistant."
Mulder and Scully exchanged expressions. That name just kept coming up. Zydek saw and seemed to interpret it as skepticism.
"No, listen," he insisted. "He's proven he has no loyalty or professional principles—he left me the moment Love got that substantial investment, wouldn't even discuss it, despite the fact we'd been working together as a team for nearly eight years. It was devastating to my progress. It probably set me back almost a year, which can be a lifetime in high-stakes technology research like this. He knew it would, too, but he didn't care. He just went for the money."
Scully thought about how she'd feel if Mulder just left her like that, and found herself sympathizing with the scientist, although she supposed that in this case Mulder was Zydek, and she'd be Mitfuhlend. Well, Mulder had nothing to worry about with that. She gave him the hint of a smile, and he seemed to know exactly why, and acknowledged it with a softened expression and a slow blink.
"So you suggest that we look into Mr. Mitfuhlend's whereabouts that night?" he asked, turning back to the man across from him.
"And question him, yes."
Mulder nodded thoughtfully. "On the other hand, you have to admit that it would be the perfect crime," he said. "You get rid of your rival, and take revenge against your former assistant by framing him for the murder, in one fell swoop."
Zydek looked pained. "Yes, I know that it could be seen as that way. But you have to believe me, I am not capable of that sort of scheming."
"Dr. Zydek, if you're closing in on a way to teleport, I'd say you're probably capable of almost anything," Scully replied.
He shook his head again. "Not that level of violence. I really insist."
"Well speaking of teleportation, the evidence 'insists' that something strange happened that night," Mulder told him. "I'm not sure if you know any details, but the house was locked from within when the murders occurred, and the children vanished from a closed-off room. It's almost as if someone 'transferred' in, killed the adults, then repeated the process in the children's room, and grabbed them then left by the same means."
Zydek already pale face completely drained of all remaining color. "What? No. . .no it's not possible. There must be some sort of other explanation."
"That's what Agent Scully said," Mulder answered. "But we inspected the house from top to bottom, and so far we haven't come up with any. And then, lo and behold, who should be conducting a lawsuit against our victim, but someone who might have discovered a way to teleport."
"No, no, no," Zydek repeated fervently. "You don't understand. . .we were still years away from any sort of true breakthrough. Years and years. And even if we had finally broken in on the technology, there would be another several years of testing and perfecting, starting with rats and moving upward. We were nowhere near that. Nowhere near." He paused, an expression of total disbelief on his face. "But. . ."
"But what?" Scully prompted.
"I know I'm going back to Larry again, but. . .he was practically a partner in Love's research. If they were at that point, he would've had full access. . .but I can't believe. . ." Zydek broke off again, apparently overcome by awe.
"Do you think it's possible?" Mulder asked.
"I wouldn't have thought so, no! It seemed as though we were roughly at the same place in our research, and hitting the same roadblocks. But if the crime scene was as you describe. . . Look, Larry's in a position to gain everything. Now that Dr. Love is out of the picture, he stands to take over the company and the investment. It could all go to him—the glory, the honors, the money. Money seems to bring out the worst in him, as he's already demonstrated." Zydek was on a roll now. "And if they had indeed discovered how to conduct Replacement Transference, what was to stop him from killing Love before P-works got the chance to reveal their monumental discovery to the world? He wouldn't need Dr. Love's mind and vision anymore to achieve the dream, so he could get rid of him and take all the credit. And everything else." Zydek sat back in his chair after finishing, and started to shake his head again. "I can't believe they did it. . . how did they beat me?" he muttered to himself.
Mulder flipped the file open to some of the crime scene photographs of Geoffrey Love, and rotated it to show Zydek.
"So you think your former assistant is capable of this level of violence? This looks personal to me, Doctor, I don't know about you. . ."
Zydek stared at the photo in mute horror, and his eyes started to tear up. "I didn't need to see that," he said thickly. "I don't want to think of Geoff like that."
"Please answer the question," Mulder said, tapping on the picture.
"I didn't think Larry was capable of selling out our partnership, but he did. So yes, I guess I wouldn't really put anything past him, now. I don't know why the attack was so personal, but maybe Geoff did something to catalyze this. Maybe he wasn't going to give Larry as much of a split of the profits as he felt entitled to, or he wasn't going to share any potential prizes with him."
"But that's purely speculation," Scully clarified.
"It is," Zydek admitted. "But regardless, if I were you I'd want to take a good, hard look at Larry. He's proven that he's got no scruples, and he stands to take the prime spot in history with Geoff out of the way."
Mulder turned to look at Scully, and she raised her eyebrows back at him. Did she have anything else to ask? his expression said, and she gave a slight shake of the head.
"Okay, Dr. Zydek, thank you for answering our questions. You've given us something to think about."
"Can I go then?" he asked, slowly making as if to stand up.
"That's SFPD's call," Mulder answered as he gathered up the file and notebook. "And they'll want to take you to the lab downstairs for processing, as well. I hope you didn't have any pressing engagements?"
Zydek still looked as if he were shell-shocked from seeing the crime scene photos of his former professional rival—or perhaps the idea that Love might have beaten him to the punch by years. "No. . .no," he murmured softly, slumping back into the chair.
Scully turned to the door and knocked on it, and she heard a click and tried the knob. As she opened it Mulder sidled up next to her and murmured into her ear, "Well now Mitfuhlend is really on the top of my list, Scully,"
"Yeah," she agreed. "Talk about motives. . ."
"And means. . ."
"Maybe," she added quickly, and they looked at each other with smiles, appreciating their classic exchange.
"YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME," an angry shout broke in through their private moment, and they both looked up, startled, to see Chief Lau, red in the face and furious. His two detectives were gawking as well. "I gave you first crack for that?!"
"Sir. . ." Mulder started, in an assuaging tone, but the older man cut him off.
"I gave you the benefit of the doubt, agents, but now I'm wondering why! Through your absolutely ludicrous teleport theory, you gave him a clear out, and now there's no way he's going to take anything we say seriously. His lawyers can make us look like total fools by raising this interrogation in the court room. We'd look completely incompetent, thanks to you two!"
"Dr. Zydek had a point though, Chief Lau," Scully cut in, not wanting to let him bulldoze them. "Larry Mitfuhlend has a pattern of betraying his superiors in the past, and he does stand to gain everything if Love was out of the picture."
"That's neither here nor there, Agent Scully. We already wanted to talk to Dr. Mitfuhlend. It was the way you presented yourself in my interrogation room, when he was in my custody, that I cannot believe, or tolerate."
"I don't think we risked the SFPD's credulity with him," Mulder said softly but insistently. "You may not buy that teleportation is a possibility, but these people are real scientists, with serious investment behind them, closing in on this technology. And it's Zydek's life work. He took it very seriously."
Chief Lau just stood there staring at them intensely, obviously seething. "Well if that's where you're going with your case, if that's the cop-out you want to take—that it was just someone who teleported in and out like the god-damned Jetsons—I don't think it's a good idea for us to be conducting a joint investigation anymore," he spat out.
"So you wanted our 'insights,'" Mulder retorted, "but only if they fit into your own perceptions of the case?"
Chief Lau's face grew even redder at that, and he seemed to swell. "I'm sure you can understand that if I were to go to the Chronicle and Examiner with this, the SFPD would be crucified. My career would be over. So we need to go separate directions at this point. You can continue to use the lab since you've already got evidence processing, but you need to use your own facilities for everything else from now on. Good day, agents."
He turned on his heal and stalked away, and as he retreated, Scully heard him growl to his detectives, "Grain of salt my ass, what a couple of wackjobs. What the fuck am I going to say to the press?!"
Montes, who had been standing there through the entire exchange somewhat wide-eyed, gave them a grimace. "I better call Park ASAP to do damage control," he said, and also turned and followed Lau down the hall, leaving the two agents on their own.
Scully turned to Mulder, and opened her mouth to say something, but he beat her to it:
"Hey Scully, the Jetsons had those elevator things right? They didn't teleport, did they?"
Word of their interrogation must have preceded them at lightening-fast speed, because on the way back through the bullpen, they were met with dozens of open stares. It was significantly quieter than it had been on their way in, as well. Scully had gotten fairly used to it, though, and held her head up high. Mulder, on the other hand, just seemed oblivious. Chief Lau and Montes were nowhere to be seen, and so they went straight for the elevators and Mulder jabbed at the down button.
"I'm sorry that wasn't exactly the life-changing meeting you'd hoped for," he suddenly spoke, and Scully lifted her lifted her eyebrosw in acknowledgment.
"I'm not really surprised," she responded a moment later. "I have been somewhat out of touch, but I'm not so out of touch with what's going on in the scientific community that I wouldn't have heard about a team that was conducting trials for teleportation."
"It may be that we just talked to the wrong team: if Zydek didn't even know how potentially close P-Works was, they're obviously jealously guarding their progress. So no way would you have heard through the grapevine."
"And if the P-Works team denies that they're any closer than Zydeknologie?"
"Then we go to the investors; they might be less tight-lipped about it. I just do not believe that this research subject has nothing to do with our case. Two crimes were committed within locked rooms, and one of the victims was pioneering teleportation technology, I mean come on! It's just too close of a fit, Scully. It has to be related somehow."
"Now I should be saying that it's actually someone with the congenital ability to walk through solid matter like walls, and take people back with him. . ." she answered with a small smirk, then followed him into the open elevator.
He cocked his head to the side and gave her a look of curiosity.
"I just take it we've switched places since you're the one championing for the scientific explanation here," she answered teasingly.
"Ah, but it is about teleporting, so it's still 'just weird enough' for me to endorse it."
The doors slid open to deposit them on the ground floor. Though she had wanted to drop into the lab on the floor below Central Booking, they had more pressing matters to attend, namely beating SFPD to the punch of talking to Mitfuhlend, since they were no longer in cooperation. Besides, the lab was the one area Lau said that they were still allowed full access, so with any luck, the supervisor would give them a call as soon as there were any new developments.
She hoped that they were close to a breakthrough with the physical evidence, since it had already been forty hours since the children had disappeared. That was never a good number, no matter what the circumstances were, and Park, Montes, O'Brien, and Jamie had already exhausted all the orthodox leads they could before she and Mulder had even arrived from Washington. What had happened to the Love children? Scully fell into a silence, and throughout the long drive to Cupertino, she continued to mull over it.
So far, the evidence had really only seemed to illuminate the murder case, and that wasn't even their official reason for being in California. And now that Lau had cut them off from that case's resources, it would prove even more of a challenge to try to make sense of the kidnapping (or abduction, or disappearance, or whatever). But even the scant leads they did have in the murder didn't at all help to explain children's disappearance.
Unless. . .unless Mulder had been onto something with Starlight. . . But that was too hard to believe. That would mean that there were two X-Files—with the exact same characteristics—in one case. Her mind had become a lot more open since starting on this journey with Mulder years ago, but she just couldn't force it that wide. No, Mulder was right the second time around. The teleportation research had to be the key. But why the kids? Where were they? Why were the wife and babysitter murdered too, unless it was simply because they were witnesses? But then, why such a level of violence and depravity? It really had looked personal. . .
"Penny for 'em?" Mulder finally asked after almost an hour of silence and questioning glances in Scully's direction.
"Hmm?" she asked, coming out of her reverie. "Oh. Just thinking about the kids. So far we have nothing, Mulder. Nothing. . ."
He nodded with a grim expression. "They literally did vanish into thin air, which makes it somewhat challenging."
She leaned back against the headrest, with the smiling school photos of Winnie, Jon, and Mikey jumping into her mind's eye. She had almost let her excitement at a potentially epochal scientific discovery distract her from the real reason they were there, but it was now packing a serious emotional punch. Suddenly, she felt Mulder's warm hand taking hers.
"Dr. Mitfuhlend seems like a promising lead," he told her encouragingly. "And if he has nothing to do with this and we can't get anything from that angle, maybe he can tell us of a place the kids could've hidden. He's probably the closest thing to extended family they have, from the amount of time he and their dad would've had to spend together."
"I don't know, Mulder," she answered skeptically, looking out the window. "I feel like they would have shown up by now if they were simply hiding. They'd be hungry and thirsty, and getting over their shock. But as of two hours ago, Montes told us that no shelters in the entire Bay Area have seen any groups of kids matching the Loves' description."
Mulder pursed his lips thoughtfully, but had nothing to say, and Scully just sighed heavily and continued to look out on the gray skies. Would they be able to do justice to the kidnapping case without full and unadulterated access to the murder case developments? If those kids died because SFPD Chief Lau had a temper tantrum about their unorthodox methods of investigation. . .she felt her pulse quicken at the thought. But who knew, maybe they were already dead. Maybe they had been dead for forty hours, killed at the same time as their parents and babysitter, but actually disposed-of, for some reason.
She closed her eyes and tried to think more positively, because recently she'd had too many thoughts of dead children—or children that had never come to live at all—running through her mind . She didn't need to confront the idea of more until she knew it was a reality. . .
But God, she hoped it wasn't. . .she needed a miracle.