I do not own The X-Files, recurring characters therein, or anything else attached to it. This is not for profit.
FBI Headquarters
October 23, 2012
9:14 a.m.
Everything about Maddie Wright's entrance was unceremonious: the slamming of her boss's door behind her, the lackadaisical gait, the dropping down and slouching in the chair across the desk. Leona Ellis, twenty years older than Wright and (fortunately) somewhat more patient, regarded the agent with irritation. Truth was, Wright was lucky that this meeting was of an importance beyond conduct and proper address.
"You're late, Agent Wright," Ellis noted. Maddie pushed her short black hair back behind her ears, pursing her thin lips. Ellis found it made her look harsh in combination with her thin nose.
"Sorry, ma'am. I was busy with, you know, the case you assigned me to that I've been working on for seven months and am yay close to reeling in."
The response was curt, inappropriate, and tested Ellis again. She pressed on.
"I called you in today to let you know that you've been reassigned."
This sat Wright up straight in her chair. "What?"
"We're re-opening one of our defunct divisions-"
"Uh, what?" Wright was incredulous. "Violent Crimes is my life! I've spent all four of my years in the FBI-"
"This is your concern now," Ellis interjected. She slid a case file across the table. Maddie snatched it up without taking her glaring light green eyes off of the assistant director. She opened the file and skimmed it.
"A missing persons case?" the agent observed. "You're putting me in Missing Persons?"
"No," Ellis corrected. She leaned back in her chair (her back was killing her today, but she kept the fact off her face). "As I said, we're opening a division that has been closed. Pay attention, agent."
Maddie knew she threw the last part in out of tried patience. She attempted to moderate her own infamous temperament.
"I don't understand..." Wright voiced. "Why re-open an entire division for a missing persons case?"
AD Ellis parsed her words carefully. "Because of the...nature of the missing subject."
Wright skimmed for a name beneath the picture of a young boy. "What's so special about this William Van de Kamp? Senator's kid?"
"Van de Kamp is his adoptive name," Ellis informed her.
"Couldn't get the real name released from Adoptive Services?"
"No, we have the real name. But due to its...sensitive nature, it's been struck from the official record." Ellis shifted her weight in her chair again.
"Well what's this Van de Kamp kid's real sensitive name, then?" Wright inquired.
"William Scully."
She had never taken the elevator to the basement before-why would anyone?-so when the doors parted to reveal a dimly lit hallway and the quiet background hum of machinery, Maddie took her time stepping into the still unknown. According to the schematic, she was supposed to turn right here, take another right, and the entrance to the X-Files division would be at the end of a short hallway. Agent Wright's heels (she never wore the cumbersome things for field work) clicked loudly in the empty hall.
When she came to hang a right around the corner, she stopped. There was someone else down here. She pressed her back against the wall and pivoted her head around the corner. Yeah, it was definitely a male, cursing to himself. Wright slipped off the heels, laid them down, and drew her sidearm from the hip holster sheathed by her slate grey jacket. She proceeded carefully towards the shuffling.
Her left side flush against the wall, Maddie peeked around another corner. There was a male, young, African-American, on his knees and facing a wall (Maddie could still size him up for about 5'10"). His head was tightly kempt, down at the moment, focusing on something in front of him. He wore a cheap light blue button-down tucked into black slacks. Just enough dress not to be questioned. Maddie swung in, gun pointed forward.
"Drop it!"
The young man shrieked. A boxy device fell shortly from his grasp to the floor. He scrambled to his feet as he faced the woman with the gun.
"Hands up and in sight, pal," she demanded. "Agent Wright, obviously FBI in case you missed the big signs on your way in. Who are you?"
"Hey, I'm on the same team!" the kid cried. "Check the tag, Sally!"
There was indeed an FBI ID clipped (improperly) to his waist pocket. Maddie lowered her gun.
"It's Agent Wright, dipshit," she corrected. "What the hell are you doing down..." Maddie trailed off, trying to place his face.
"Oh, I see," he said. "Young black man all alone in the basement. He must be stealin' him some X-Files! Chuh."
"Wait," she said, pointing a finger repeatedly at him, "I know you. I see you from time to time. You're a desk jockey, one of those data management guys."
"T. J. Hopkins," came a welcoming smile to his face. Maddie looked at his outstretched hand with suspicion. He sighed, pulled it back, and pushed the glasses back up on his nose.
"What are you doing down here? You didn't answer me, Mr. Hopkins."
"Well," he inhaled, exhaled, "I was assigned to the X-Files recently, but-"
"Wait," Maddie interjected. "What?"
"I...I said I was assigned to the X-Files. Is that why you're down here?"
"Oh, are you fucking kidding me?" Wright cried. "A desk jockey? She pulls me out of the division that is my life and she pairs me with a desk jockey? Is this a joke?"
"Okay, I can see we're going to have some issues with rapport here-"
"Ugh, shut up. Just answer my question," Wright snapped.
"Right, okay, um," Hopkins stumbled, "I came down here to relocate my things to the new office, but as you can see..." Hopkins presented the beige-yellow wall behind him with his best Vana White impersonation. "Yeah. No door."
Maddie shook her head with a confused glare. "What?" She unfolded the schematic from her jacket pocket. She glanced behind her, to the wall behind Hopkins, then back to the creased paper.
"You're right," she noted lowly.
"Yeah, so," Hopkins continued, "that's where my friend Mr. Sonar came in." He bent down and picked up the small box. There was some sort of detection limb attached to it.
"You...think there's actually a room behind that wall? That the schematic isn't just wrong?"
"No, actually. Um, there's nothing hollow beyond this wall," he told her.
She nodded. "So you're wasting your time. And taxpayer time. And, oh, my time!"
Wright began to walk back down the corridor. Hopkins followed closely.
"No, what I'm saying, Agent Wright, is that there was a room behind that wall. Anyone who's worked here long enough can tell you that," the young man argued. "But it's been sealed off. I think they filled it with concrete."
"Why?" asked Wright, who wasn't even partially interested as she put her heels back on.
"Why?" Hopkins asked with some wide-eyed incredulity. "Oh, I don't know, the same reason they've paired us with a shrink? A lot of weird, questionable reports come for years from the reclusive agents stowed away down here? Thousands of taxpayer dollars spent on chasing goat-suckers and alien-human hybrids with receipts ending in a basement? Or could it most likely be that an agent with the passion and forethought of Fox Mulder would have hidden away some clue, some evidence of something mind-blowingly paranormal in-"
Hopkins' fervent speculation was cut short by Wright's upheld pointer finger.
"I'm sorry," she said, "but did you just tell me that we're going to be working with a shrink?"
Had he not been trained in emotion regulation years ago, Jim Patterson would have at the very least spilled some of the stoking-hot coffee he had just poured himself from its flimsy styrofoam cup when Maddie Wright practically shoved a finger in his face from nowhere. He didn't though. He was good like that.
"Who do you think you are?" she spat in an acidic tone to the tall, pale-skinned older gentleman sporting a silvering red horseshoe of hair. "I've been in Violent Crimes for four years and I've never needed a shrink! I sure as hell don't need one now!"
"Clearly," Jim Patterson mused. He sipped his coffee as the young black agent who had followed her into the break room chimed in.
"I think what Agent Wright is trying to uh, relay, is that we-"
"Did you request this assignment?" Wright cut off. Patterson lowered his head with a wry smile.
"I'm going to assume you're Madison Wright, which makes your friend Tiberius Jordan Hopkins. Correct?"
"I-" Maddie started, then slung a wayward glance over her shoulder at Hopkins. "Tiberius? Really?"
"T. J., just, just T. J.," Hopkins insisted.
"I was assigned to the newly reinvigorated X-Files just as you two were, Madison." Patterson calmly kept at his coffee.
"Why?" she followed up.
"Well, probably the nature of the beast," he stated. "If you're going to be delving into subject matter that's usually fodder for psychotic rants on late-night radio programs, you should probably keep a clinical psychologist in your back pocket. At least, that's my speculation."
"But..." Wright sighed as she shook her head, "why us? This doesn't make sense to me."
"Oh, well most likely Mr. Hopkins' father got him the position thanks to his solid roots on capitol hill," Patterson offered. Wright locked a glare on the young guy behind her.
"So you're the senator's kid," she accused.
"Hey!" he stepped in. "Representative, thank you. And I didn't know the X-Files were being resurrected, as it were, until two days ago."
"But I thought it was being re-opened because of the Van de Kamp-Scully-kid...why wait that long to bring us in on a missing persons if it's so damn important?"
"Couldn't tell you," Patterson said. "I can tell you that you're on the X-Files now, Madison, because someone with pull above AD Ellis vetted you for the job."
"I didn't want to be vetted," Wright hissed. "Violent Crimes is who I am. And if I can't be that, then I'm done here."
Maddie began to storm away when Patterson called to her.
"Madison! I know you identify very strongly with your division because of your history. But just because-"
Wright was quickly back in the psychologist's placid face. "What do you know about my history? Huh?"
"Enough," he answered flatly. "I've looked over both your personnel records. It's my job, Madison."
"Call me Madison one more time, old man! It's Agent Wright. And I've learned enough about this situation myself, so I'm through."
Wright inadvertently bumped Hopkins as she walked away, who looked like a pensive child having just witnessed his parents fight.
"So..." he started, attempting to make small talk. "How about this X-Files stuff, huh?"
"Have you ever been prescribed an antipsychotic, Mr. Hopkins?"
T. J.'s eyes bugged out. "What? Why? Why are you asking me that? No, no, but...what, you think I should?"
Patterson laughed, and slapped Hopkins' back as he brought his coffee toward the elevator.
"She'll be on board," he called back. "I know her profile."
11:29 a.m.
Maddie marched through the FBI parking garage with heels and tag in hand. She never saw this day coming-not in Quantico, not at Chicago PD before that-where she would walking off the job. This day in of itself read like an X-File: random, unforeseen, and without doubt insane. Maddie worked her keys from her slate dress pants as she shook her head. She clicked the unlock button, and located the her burgundy Accord in the still shadows of the complex. At least she didn't have to park in this dimly-lit structure anymore...
A figure was seated on her hood. In the accursed lighting, Maddie could only make out the person as male, somewhat tall and somewhat well-built. The pants she could make out...it looked like he was wearing fatigues. She froze. Her hand loitered near her gun.
"Can I help you?" she asked forcefully.
"At ease, Agent Wright," the man said. He held up his empty silhouetted hands. He stepped away from the hood. Light illuminated his buzz-cut blonde hair and square jaw. He reached for something on the hood, and Maddie cupped the butt of her piece. When he held up a folder, she let her hand slip away.
"I need you to turn your phone off before we continue," he told her.
She chuckled. "Right. What do you want?"
"I'm afraid I'm serious, Agent Wright. I can walk away if you won't do it, and then you'll never know why you were merged with the X-Files."
Maddie tilted her short hair with a slanted grin.
"Have it your way, ma'am." The man in fatigues turned and walked. "Good day."
She sighed. "Wait..."
He stopped. She dug her phone from her other pocket, and killed the power.
"There. Off. See?"
He walked briskly up to her, took the phone, examined it, and gave it back.
"Thank you," he said.
"Paranoid much, soldier?" She slid her phone back down her pocket. "Who are you?"
"How about you call me Delta?" he suggested. There were, oddly enough, no identifying patches on his uniform.
"And who are you to me, Delta?"
"Someone with an interest in solving murders. Like you." Delta, as he had monikered himself, handed the folder to Wright. She squinted at the files inside under the terrible lighting.
"These are FBI records..." Maddie noted.
"Paper. I know, old school, since the bureau finally completed its electronic records project in July. Only took twelve years," he pointed out.
"That's just eight months in government time," she remarked. "These are autopsy findings. And they're inconclusive. You think these three individuals were murdered?"
"With horrific efficiency," he added.
"So your grand plan was to toss this on top of my X-Files to-solve list? Because I hate to break it to you, buddy, but I'm quitting the bureau."
"This has everything to do with the Van de Kamp kid. Big wheels are turning overhead, Agent Wright. Don't you at least want to know why this is happening to you?"
Maddie's icy eyes held fast to Delta's hardened military face. She glanced down at the folder.
"I'm turning my phone back on now," she stated. She dropped everything in her hands to the concrete, and started wrestling hers hoes back on one more time.
"Fair enough," Delta nodded. He smiled, and began walking back into the veiling darkness of the garage.
"How do I get a hold of you?" Maddie yelled after him.
"The wheels will bring me back around," he shouted back.
Groaning, Madison reattached her ID tag to her jacket, and began scanning the files as she walked back toward the entrance.