Chapter Four

They had argued about the pizza, and wound up with two-one with everything on it except spinach and anchovies, and another that was strictly vegan. They collected in Scully's room, Anne poured Coke into Styrofoam cups, and with a cup in one hand and a slice of everything in the other, listened as they collected phone books and phones.

"I'll call the base."

Scully nodded. "I'll try and get a rep for the Air Force."

Anne gulped down a bite. "Didn't Mrs. Budahas already call these folks?"

"Procedure," Mulder rolled his eyes.

"And since we represent the government, they'll talk to us."

"They might," Mulder corrected as his call connected. "Hi, My name's Fox Mulder, I'm with the FBI. Can I speak to someone about Colonel Robert Budahas?"

Happily munching her pizza as Scully directed similar questions at her victim, Anne pulled out her notebook. Mulder had told her that keeping a journal might help her organize her thoughts. She suspected that the psychologist in him was at work, trying to help the same person he'd found on the Potomac-a lost, bruised girl.

The water had been liquid glass that night, easy enough to skate on, a mirror world that reflected everything upside down. She had seen herself in that water, a figurine of crystal. If she could reach down and pick up her other self, shatter it, and eat the shards-that had been what she was going to do, dive under and not come up until the other was eradicated. Somehow, killing that thing in the water would set her free.

Mulder had wandered along the Potomac that night, too, another chronic insomniac. He'd seen her, stopped, and sat beside her next to the water. Patient. He didn't even speak for awhile. Then he'd said it was cold. That was all.

She had wound up confessing to his reflection on the river's surface, about that she had resolved to die in the river, thank you very much, because no one would kill her but they would beat the hell out of her and then blame her for it. And the cold was nice because it didn't remind her that her collarbone still ached. And the river was colder then the air, so she'd be joining herself in the water directly.

He hadn't said a word to talk her down. But he had asked her name.

It was then that she renamed herself. She had called herself Anne Hadrian, a name she'd made up. It felt right.

Then he shook her hand, given her his name, and asked if she wanted at least one decent meal before she died. And in a late night Chinese fast-food place, they'd come up with a better escape plan then death for her, and Anne Hadrian, Fox Mulder's stepdaughter, left the building with him.

She scribbled notes about the case in her notebook, a nice leather one. And seeing Mulder and Scully together, she did a quick sketch-her on the bed, folded up like origami, and him pacing, the phone cord wrapped around his shoulders.

An hour later they were no closer to getting any answers.

"Someone named Colonel Kissel will meet with us," Scully announced. "A week from Friday."

Mulder nodded, let loose a stream of invective into the phone, looked at it, and then hung up.

From her post by the window, Anne held out her cup and waved it. "Dad, we need more crack in a can."

Even Mulder looked at her oddly.

She sighed. "Coke, cocaine, crack? Coke is crack in a can, duh."

Mulder raised one eyebrow in good imitation of Scully. "We need more Coke?"

"Por favor, padre," she agreed. "And quit with the eyebrow thing. You're a human, not a Vulcan, however much you want to be. A Vulcan, not a human."

He chuckled. "I've corrupted you, haven't I?"

Anne proceeded to snuggle deeper into the uncomfortable chair. "Dad, we're chasing a kidnapped pilot in the middle of a UFO hot zone. And I'm a willing participant."

"Do you know that-"

Anne interrupted him. "Yeah, yeah. Six pilots have gone missing from Ellen's Air Base since 1963. Coke, already! Don't make me wander down to the vending machine. I've always wanted to take one of those apart."

Mulder scattered, muttering about not paying for a new vending machine on top of a wall. It was her and Scully.

Scully spoke first. "Where were you when we were in Oregon?"

Anne leaned so that her head was pointed to the floor and her feet to the ceiling. "I stayed with his mom. We didn't get on. He was going to leave me with some anarchist friends of his, but since I'm on the fast track for juvenile delinquency I guess he decided to bring me. "

"I hope you realize I like you just fine. I just don't think that the inner workings of the FBI are appropriate things for you to have to deal with at your age."

"They're inappropriate at any age, I think. Pent-up rage spilling out like pus, bruise egos purpling into revenge like overripe fruit, thwarted passion turning on itself like a mad dog. It's enough to infect anyone."

She could see the little shanty outside Alexandria, where she'd seen her family's children left like gutted pigs, her brother and sister. And her parents calmly having lunch while the bodies stained the floor alizarin crimson, so potent it made her gag. And they had been drinking red wine.

"Does it frighten you?" Scully asked.

"I suppose it does. But not really, not to the core, because even you and I and Mulder are capable of those same acts. If you fear and hate yourself, any part, doesn't that sort of block that out? The ability to understand how and why people are capable of those acts, and therefore to stop them?"

Scully considered, head cocked. "I don't know. Because I never want to be like that. So I do block it off."

Kissel. The name niggled. "Can I see the phone book?"

"Sure."

Flipping through the residential listings, she alighted in the Ks. "Colonel Kissel's first name is what?"

"John."

Anne nodded. "John Kissel lives at 405 Whitewall Street. That's maybe nine miles away, middle of town," she looked up at Scully, twinkling. "We could either A, go and pay him a visit, or B, go and vandalize his place."

"Option A, definitely."

Mulder came back and handed Anne the Coke, which she took in one hand and her coat in the other. Scully was getting ready, too.

"What are we-" he began.

"Road trip," Anne informed him.

"Anne had an idea," Scully added.

Mulder grabbed his own coat. "I knew I shouldn't leave you two alone."