Chapter 7: The Make Up of Gold.
Scully walked into the office early the following morning to find Mulder still pouring over the video footage from the ally dump site.
"Have you been here all night?" Scully asked handing Mulder a cup of Starbucks coffee that she had picked up for him.
"Yes," Mulder sighed, "but I didn't watch just this, I did some research into Lakeview Video as well," he added with a wink.
Scully rolled her eyes.
"Did you find anything in the surveillance footage?" she asked.
"A blurry person and a car with a partial plate," Mulder stated, "I've sent it off to forensics to see if they can pull anything off it or sharpen the image at all, but I can't be certain if that is the actually time of the body drop. It might be, but I can't say for sure cause you can't seen anything past the car." He added as he sat back in his chair. "Did you come up with anything?"
"I managed to score us a meeting at the university with the head of the geology. We're going to get a lesson on gold," Scully stated, "so pick up your coat, straighten your tie and let's go."
"Can't you go and I'll stay here and deal with my videos?" he asked with a sigh. "You're the scientist."
"Get off your ass and get doing," Scully stated. "You are the one obsessed with gold."
"Man, when I am a Millionaire, I'll buy myself a new partner," Mulder hissed as he pulled on his coat and walked out of the office in front of her.
"I'm more likely to become a millionaire with my medical background," Scully hissed as she walked out behind him. "I just have to get out of this basement and back into the lab." She added angrily and moved on.
After a short jaunt through the city and onto the main campus of the university, Mulder and Scully found themselves walking though the halls and labs of the geology department. Suddenly a lab coat clad young man stepped out of an office right in front of them and smiled brightly at Scully.
"Well Doctor, it's good to finally see you again," the smart looking man stated as he reached out to shake her hand.
"It's good to see you too, professor," Scully smiled and blushed, "this is my partner, Special Agent Fox Mulder," she added noticing Mulder's uneasiness.
"Nice to meet you, Agent Mulder." the young man smiled. "I'm Doctor Doug McMillan, dean of environmental sciences here at the university. I am under the impression that you have some questions about a very precious metal."
"This is true," Mulder stated, still unimpressed to be back in an academic facility, "I want to know how to make gold so that I can become a millionaire and retire young. What would you suggest?"
"Well gold forms rather simply, but that will not help you if you are not the one to stumble upon it and I have to warn you there are companies out there with the technology looking for it all the time. You would be more likely to find the answers to time travel than you are to finding gold out in its raw and natural forms." Dr. McMillan stated smiling at Scully, "You would be better off sending the good doctor into a private practice and hoping that she has the goodness to share the wealth." He added flirtatiously.
Scully blushed and shook her head, "not likely to happen in the near future," she stated still feeling embarrassed, "I am very content with my current career."
"Tragic," Doug laughed, "so very, very tragic that a brilliant scientist and medical professional, such as your self, would not join in the excitement of the science based world. It is the wave of the future, and all the answers to our past and present are within it, you know?" He smiled.
"I'm still involved in science, Doug," Scully stated feeling a little offended, "I just use it now to save peoples lives, and for now we need answers regarding a case we are currently working on."
"Anything to save a life," Doug stated and ushered them into a lab, "so the formation of gold, or was that a rhetoric comment made by your dashing partner?" Doug asked and eyed Mulder with increased intrigue.
"We do need to know some basic principles of gold. How it forms, what it is soluble in," Scully started.
"Can it be formed in the human body," Mulder stated interrupting Scully's train of thought.
"He's kidding right?" Doug laughed at the idea that Mulder present.
"No, he's not," Scully said seriously.
"No, it can't be formed in the human body, it would be utterly impossible," Doug stated, now very skeptic of the conversation. "Gold forms when heated water, extremely heated water, carrying the minerals in the ground cools. The water is heated by its relative geography to the magma within the earth and the high pressure that can be found within the thermal layers of the earth's core. It's simple enough really. When the water moves through the earths crust and find cracks and crevasse to settle in, it cools and the mineral are deposited forming the element or triggering the minerals that may already be present within the earth. They react with the pressure and the gold is formed. The beautiful thing about gold, however is that it isn't soluble like most metals. It takes a combination of concentrated hydrochloric acid and nitric acid. It's a highly toxic solution when the gold is introduced into the mixture releasing chlorine gas, and other toxins, but you can eat gold and be perfectly fine. It's an amazing material."
"Hypothetically speaking, is there any way that you could stop the formation process?" Scully asked.
"I suppose you could by changing the chemical compound that the gold minerals were being carried by, something like ammonium or peroxide would be acid enough but under the circumstances, I don't see why that would be relevant. When the earth is doing her job she isn't going to be stopped." Dr. McMillan stated, "How is this relevant to the case you are working on?" he asked feel like he wasn't being taken seriously.
"We can't discuss the case," Scully stated, "but I assure you it is relevant."
"Well, unless you are dealing with a Murder right out of a James Bond film, I don't see how the formation of gold will help with your case. It is utterly impossible for gold to form out side of the ideal conditions." McMillan added sounding annoyed.
"Actually it's more of a Midas kind of connection that I've been making," Mulder stated as he shook hands with the professor, "but I like your reference. That was good." he added and walked out of the lab.
"Is he serious?" McMillan asked un-amused by the abrupt end to the conversation.
"He is," Scully shrugged and departed with her partner.
Mulder walked quickly through the research building and back out to the car. He was sure that they had wasted valuable time talking to the flirtatious Doctor and he wanted to get back to the case he had been building in his head.
"I hope you learned something," he stated as Scully caught up to him at the car, "cause all I leaned was that he isn't open to the possibly of the unexplained, and that he was a gigantic flirt."
"Were you jealous?" Scully laughed.
"Yes, and a little uncomfortable, I think he would have come onto me had you not been there," he added with a sarcastic wink and fell into the driver seat. "But seriously, did that tell you anything about our case?"
"Not really," Scully sighed.
"Can I go back to my surveillance now?" he asked.
"No, I think we should check out the girl's apartment." Scully stated, "And possibly the porn shop."
"Oh, can we go there first?" Mulder asked playfully as Scully's cell rang.
Scully answered the phone, ignoring Mulder, and fell silent as she listened, then as suddenly as the phone rang it was snapped shut and she turned to face her partner as he drove. "Sorry Mulder," she stated, "porn will have to come next cause the license plate that you came across in the surveillance came back to the victim. We had better check out her apartment."
"Sounds good to me," Mulder said.
"And the Bureau is going to put out and APB on the car," Scully added, "hopefully we can find it before our killer is on to us."
Mulder nodded his agreement and picked up the cars pace as Scully flipped through the file for the address that would take them to the one location that had been overlooked by the police.