She's running, the familiar and comforting smell of ozone surrounding her as she narrowly avoids stepping into a shallow ravine, jumps a fence and finds herself in some sort of field, a city further off into the horizon.

A battered sign on the ground, rusted in places reads Welcome to Sector 5. Please enjoy your stay and present your show-me at the gate. We Thank you for your cooperation. As she gets to the top of the hill she is climbing her eyes widen in surprise at the sprawl in the distance, some semblance of a crumbling and dirty metropolitan area that doesn't look familiar to her blue eyes.

She thought she died, the last thing her mind remembers is a dark figure looming over her, sharp pain and lots of blood and then a flash of light. Her clothing is still bloody, torn in places, and her blonde hair is matted and dirty giving her a distinct feral air about her. Her thigh still hurts like a bitch, but she can put weight on it for the most part so it will have to do until she finds a way to patch it up herself.

Because she can already tell that this time she really is alone now, she's a stranger in a strange world and her vengeance is the only thing she has left to sustain her.

Quick on her feet, she slips easily into the shadows of downtown Sector 5 slums and avoids the thugs that patrol many of the crumbling, homeless corridors. Those that do decide to mess with her, she leaves only the smell of charred flesh and the crackling of blue sparks in her wake as she makes her way to the gleaming glass and chrome of Boston.

.

Peter finds Agent Lincoln two floors down in the morgue with Scully, casually flipping through a file while the red haired woman performs an autopsy on the latest creature they managed to catch wandering the outskirts of an anomaly. The anatomy doesn't look like anything Peter has seen before so he's guessing it's probably something that slipped through an anomaly from the future, some type of chimera by the looks of it.

"Agents Lincoln, Scully," Peter greets, gets a nod from both in reply. "How's life in the basement?"

The quip doesn't garner him any attention. Lincoln is busy studiously examining a file, and Scully is of course occupied as usual with some creature they've found and sent to her for examination.

"So, er…you hear about the lifting of your suspension, Linc? Lee said he was feeling magnanimous."

That gets both of their attention. Lincoln's head is instantly out from the file to stare at Peter, a question already playing on his lips as Peter smiles easy, striding over to lean casually on the table Lincoln is sitting behind, giving him a half-shrug before turning to Scully who just snorts. She arches a skeptical eyebrow at the lab's occupants before returning to her scalpelwork.

"Well," Lincoln clears his throat. "That is something, I suppose. And the catch?"

"You know as well as I do that everything with Lee has a catch. I'm sure we'll find out soon enough. Think of this as a good behavior… fieldtrip for now."

Lincoln rolls his eyes but Peter's reassurances are enough to assuage him until Lincoln realizes Peter is holding their assignment out in front of him, waiting for Lincoln to take it and confirmation that he's onboard for this mission. He takes the file, thumbing through it as Peter watches Scully weigh the vaguely distinguishable organs of the chimera one by one, dictating her notes and slopping mucus along the way with a grimace. The methodical nature of her work is oddly calming, the same way doing differential calculations calms Peter when he's feeling antsy. He idly wonders what this version of Lincoln does to relieve stress, but quashes the train of thought that leads to before it gets out of hand.

"This is all on ARC scientist Professor Cutter?" Lincoln says with a frown, snapping Peter out of his musings. "I know I've heard that name before…"

"You've found Cutter?" Scully asks, stopping in her tracks to peel off her gloves and toss them in the bin before approaching them, looking over Lincoln's shoulder at the grainy photographs supplied in the file. "Have you told Connor yet?"

"Not exactly," Peter begins. "Official record is that his trail went cold in Cairo when his show-me came up in the possession of another person. And yeah, Temple knows. Claims it was their old partner Stephen Hart with the show-me, though we can't find any intel on a Stephen Hart in Prime that matches his description or Connor's story of him."

"Another CO-victim then?" Lincoln finishes, closing the file and handing it to Scully who's resting a hand on his forearm, rather than handing the file back to Peter.

"I don't know. Probably. If you ask me… there's something a bit off about the both of them showing up. I mean, also that could just as well not be Prime's Cutter -"

"Which means we are going to Cairo and detaining an innocent man for treason," Lincoln finishes and Peter nods, absently scratching at his head, mussing his hair even further, giving him more of his trademark perpetually disheveled look.

"Most of the CO-victims we detain are innocent," Scully adds, and there's no denying that. Connor's data analysis programs have proven only roughly 5% of those who have crossed over are a threat to the inhabitants of Prime, even with taking into account occasional CO-mutations like power occurrence and power evolution in specials. Most people and specials alike given a second chance at life in Universe Prime seem to take it well, all things considering, the exceptions like the already psychopathic Sylar much more of a rarity than many would think.

"And how do you know the good professor anyway, Dana?" Peter finally asks, Scully giving him an appraising look for his deduction.

"Academic circles mostly, quite the same way I knew of your father's work. I think Professor Cutter also did a consult on an X-File once or twice for us, but those are the sorts of details Mulder was always better at remembering than me. I remember his accent mostly and reading about his work, nothing useful if that's what you are getting at."

"And you don't remember his assistant Mr. Hart?"

"No," she replies. "In fact, I thought his wife was his assistant. We had a file on her going Missing, I remember running teams to try find leads before it went cold case. "

"That's what I remember too, but Connor has distinct memories of this Hart guy." Peter shrugs before grinning affably at the two agents. "I guess crazier things than the universe rewriting itself to not include a person have happened in Prime; I shouldn't feel like the pleasure was only mine to have."

Lincoln rolls his eyes, but the smile tugging on his lips is noticeable enough to someone who knows him. He's looking more bright-eyed than usual, and Peter thinks it's not just him under a particularly well-lit part of the fluorescent lighting of the morgue, haloing his figure. They stand there for a moment, Scully still flipping through Cutter's file and Lincoln coughs discreetly in Peter's direction to get his attention. It's then that Peter finally remembers he's supposed to be getting a team ready and a strategy for the Cairo trip.

"Anyway, pack your bags soon, Linc. We leave for Cairo at 18:00," Peter says before tapping his comm cuff (and he's not sure he'll ever get used to them even though they are way cooler than cellphones), beginning to list off the items needed to the junior agent that answers.

.

"This is-" Scully begins the moment Peter clears the threshold, chatting animatedly on his comm cuff and doors swinging back into place and muffling their conversation.

Lincoln sighs and the look in his eyes is almost pleadingly, the frosty, guarded exterior he normally wears gone now that only she is the only one around to observe him. "Please don't say it."

"A terrible idea," Scully finishes while shaking her head. "It sounds like a set-up, taking you and wild card Bishop out there."

"We used to work teams before…" Lincoln trails off before catching himself thinking out loud about their glaringly missing link, the woman who grounded them both so well and was the catalyst for so much change in the dynamics at ATFP. Even three years later he can't put into words the ache he feels when he remembers his blonde haired partner before she was added to the lists of those who were gone, dead to the government, dead to the world save him and a few close others. "I want to believe this isn't a huge deal and I know Peter wouldn't screw me, being this close to a four -bagger, but you're right. I just don't trust him."

The him Lincoln is referring to goes without saying. "He's ruthless, Dana. And I know he's planning something, I just can't tell if Peter is onboard or not yet," Lincoln sighs, taking off his glasses to rub at the bridge of his nose.

"The shrinks here would have a field day about the both of your trust issues if either of you would ever go talk to them, or each other for that matter." Scully laughs, before placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. "I hope you are right about no ulterior motives. It would do you some good to get out of here for a change."

"Not that I mind the company, but in my experience at ATFP… things should rarely be taken just at face value," she adds hastily before dropping her hand and turning on her heel to fetch her recorder and autopsy notes at the other table.

"Trust no one?" Lincoln asks, and the look on her face is one he knows well enough when he's done something to reminding her of Mulder.

It still manages to bring a small smile to her lips though, as she puts on a pair of gloves to resume her autopsy of the predator, leaving Lincoln standing in the middle of the lab alone with his thoughts his only company.