The Mulder Files

by DrTaylor

I'm getting the impression that Firestarter was not a big hit in the U.K. - This story is currently being worked (again). In the intervening years, I've gotten married, had a baby, gone to college AGAIN, resulting in a new spate of student loans just in time for new episodes (worth every penny) and I'm hankering to give this another try. Wish me luck.

8. Ice

Thanks for waiting. I hate this ep, but it had to be done, so here it is. I think it sucks less than the ep does, at least.

BTW, I don't own the X-Files.

---

It's not easy living my life sometimes. Some days I just want to sit on the couch and watch TV. Those are the days I think about having a peg leg. But I don't have a peg leg, which means that on that Monday morning after a night full of less-than-inspiring Sunday night television involving the newest Superman and an episode of SeaQuest, I go in to work bright-eyed and bushy tailed and ready for action.

What I find are two messages. One from Scully, saying she's going to be at Quantico covering someone's class at the last minute. And one from Blevins – sort of a "call me when you get this" type of thing.

Last time I went to Blevins' office, he sent me on a case that ended with Scully locked up with a poltergeist. I'm not eager to repeat that.

But I go, anyway, because that's what we do, right? So I walk into his outer office until the Secretary of the Week (the man has a harder time finding secretaries who can hack it than Murphy Brown) decides to let me in. So once more unto the breach, I go.

Blevins kind of blinks at me when I walk in the door. "Agent Mulder. Good." He gestures to the chair. "Sit down."

I've never seen him stand up. Maybe he's the one with a peg leg.

"We received report of a very disturbing video from the Arctic Ice Core Project. Here's the case file and a copy of the video. You and Agent Scully should be prepared to fly to Nome this afternoon."

Nome? Nome has an air service? Do I even own mittens? I take the file. "Thank you, sir." Jackass.

"You'll be met at Doolittle Airfield by several specialists on the project who will help you to determine the extent of the problem. From there, you'll fly to Icy Cape, where you will have a three-day window before inclement weather forces your return. In that time, you will investigate and determine the cause of the... unpleasantness on the video."

Unpleasantness. Right.

"Dismissed, Agent Mulder."

I nod, stand up, and leave. I really hate that man.

XXXXX

The tape is one of the most terrifying things I've ever seen. It starts with a party – the Ice Core team, whose names I glean from the file folder, celebrating how deep they've managed to drill into an ice sheet.

And then the screen turns blue, and the tape is dated yesterday, which would make it the day before yesterday what with the time difference and all. Just shy of 36 hours, and a week after the last transmission.

"We're not... who.... we are."

Holy shit. It's the same guy. John Richter, team captain.

"We're not... who we are."

What the hell does that mean? He's snapped. "It goes no further than this. It stops... right here... right now."

And then someone rushes him and the transmission ends. Static.

I scan through the file. Physicals, psych evals, all normal. Everyone sane, everyone ready for the mission. Only not, I guess. The records of the ice core samples they sent back show progress in the work, that drilling was on schedule and that they were almost done, just had to analyze the last few samples they brought up. They were climatologists and geologists and geophysicists, looking into the history of Earth's climate.

What the hell happened up there?

I glance at the clock. It's nearly ten, and I have to drive to Quantico to tell Scully. This should be fun.

XXXXX

She is in between two classes when I find her in an empty classroom at Quantico, going through a lesson plan on forensic techniques for future FBI pathologists – in other words, teaching others what she actually does for me. She looks up when I come in, and for a second she tenses and I think she'll refuse to go, but instead she just says, "New case?"

"New case," I confirm, holding up the video. She pulls a TV out of the corner while I plug in the disc included in the file and print out all the documents they provided that were forwarded from the USGS while she plugs it in, and, and I put the tape into the VCR and hit play.

I've seen it already but I can't look away.

"Team Captain John Richter here. It's been a couple of frustrating months but after a great deal of stick-with-it-ness, we're very proud to report that as of a half-hour ago, we surpassed the previous record for drilling down into an ice sheet."

"All right!" yell the men. They are high-fiving each other and start shaking hands. I hit pause, because this need some kind of context. She has moved to leaning against the teacher's desk, and is now reading the file I left sitting there.

"This team of scientists made up the Arctic Ice Core Project. They were sent to Alaska by the government's Advanced Research Project Agency nearly a year ago to drill into the arctic ice," I tell her, which she's probably already read. The first paper prints out but it's nothing I haven't already seen. She sits down at the desk.

"The samples they removed contained trapped gases, dust, chemicals... evidence that could reveal the structure of the earth's climate back to the dawn of man. Their work was a success, nearly completed. No reports or indications of problems of any kind until only a week later, this next transmission was received." I push play again.

AICP
Arctic
Ice Core
Project
Transmission received:
November 5, 1993
8:30 AM AST"

Richter is sitting in front of the camera, much closer than last time. "We're not... who... we are. We're not... who we are. It goes no further than this. It stops... right here... right now." The man rushes him again. Static.

"What happened up there?"

My thoughts exactly. I hit stop and sit next to her where she's moved in front of the TV.

"So far nobody's been able to reach to reach the compound because of bad weather. Obviously, they either think we're either brilliant or expendable because we've pulled the assignment," I tell her, cursing Blevins.

"Is it severe isolation distress?"

The answer is no. "These were top geophysicists. They were trained and screened for this project in every way imaginable, including psychological makeup. We leave for Nome today."

There is a US map on the wall and I use it to show her Icy Cape. "We'll meet with three scientists familiar with the ice core project then head north up to the Icy Cape. I show her on the map in the file. The National Weather Service reports a three-day window to get in and out before the next arctic storm. Bring your mittens."

I leave her there, staring at the map. "Scully?"

She turns to face me. "I have one more class, Mulder, and then I'll pack. Do I have time?"

The answer is yes, she does.

"Good. I'll see you at Dulles, then, Mulder." She walks past me, down the hallway.

I suppose I could have brought worse news but I don't know how.

XXXXX

Learning the names of the people who are going to go with them to Icy Cape.

Mulder and Scully travel from Washington DC to Nome Alaska overnight flight. Arrive November 8.

XXXXX

The trip to Doolittle Airfield is conducted in a truck (otherwise known as the Nome, Alaska taxi service) driven by a nearly-silent man named Elmer who cannot seem to stay on the right side of the road. We arrive at Doolittle only to see a crowd of men loading a plane full of cargo and no pilot to be seen anywhere obvious. There is a pudgy guy sitting by the side of the hangar listening to his walkman.

As we approach the man, I can hear him shouting, "Fouts looks over the Raiders' defense... here's the snap. Raiders blitz! Fouts dumps it across the middle to Winslow! He's at the 15! The 10! Touchdown San Diego!"

Oh dear.

"Touchdown! Fouts... is... God!"

He spins around and sees us standing there, pulls off his headphones, and smiles at us. "Sorry. My team scored."

"There's no football on Wednesday," says Scully.

Yeah, and also... I set down my bag. "Fouts retired in '87, didn't he?"

"No, this is just some of my all-time favorite plays on tape." Oh dear Lord. "You two F.B.I.?"

At least he likes sports. "Agent Mulder and Agent Scully, you?" I shake his hand. Smile and nod, Mulder, just deal with the fact that you have a fellow geek.

"Danny Murphy, professor of geology at U. C. San Diego."

And you decide to go there to study ice why? "San Diego? You get much of a chance to study ice down there?"

"Just what's around the keg."

Can't be the first time he's heard that, or the first time he's said it, but it's funny anyway. A man and a woman approach us now, pushing their luggage. Scully, by process of elimination, asks, "Dr. DaSilva, Dr. Hodge?"

The man nods. "Yeah, sorry we're late."

We all shake hands again, and go through the introductions until, "Can I see some identification?" asks Hodge.

Really. "What for?"

"I just want to make sure we are who we say we are." He's seen the tape. That answers that question. He pulls out his own wallet and we all dutifully pull out ours, and a round of "That's mes" and "That's yous" follows.

"Thanks a lot," says Hodge. "Appreciate it." We put our wallets away. "Well, now that we know who we are, anybody care to take a guess as to why we're going?"

Danny pipes up, "Well, two federal agents, a geologist, a medical doctor and a toxicologist. That should give us some idea what they're thinking."

Yeah. "I assume you all took a look at the tape," adds Scully.

DaSilva and Hodge glance at each other. "Something wrong?" I ask.

"Come on, you're F.B.I. You have to know more than we do," DaSilva responds.

Long, long trip. Long.

At that moment, a tall thin man pulls up in a pickup truck and climbs out. "You folks the ones going up to Icy Cape?"

"Yeah."

"Then I'm the one flying you. My name's Bear. The plane's across the way, provisions are loaded. Grab your gear." He grabs his own bag and heads for the plane.

"Oh, could we see some credentials?" Thanks, Hodge.

Bear stops and chuckles, then walks back over to Hodge. "Credentials. The only credentials that I have is that I'm the only pilot willing to fly you up there. You don't like those credentials... walk."

Message received. Danny and I chuckle to ourselves but Scully and DaSilva remain quiet. Who cares. Let the Battle of the Sexes begin.

XXXXX

The flight itself

XXXXX

I pry open the door and they all file in behind me, walking into a murder scene. Richter and one of his men are lying on the ground with their guns by their hands.

Well that sucks. "Bear? See if you can get the power started."

"Anything to get out of here." He moves away. My sentiments exactly.

"Where do we start?" asks Scully. She knows the job.

"Body bags are on the plane," says Hodge. Although where we'll put all the bodies I don't know.

And don't forget the rules. "Before we touch anything, we have to thorougly document the site," I remind them. Scully pulls out her camera and we head into the room.

"Flashing," says Scully, as she snaps a picture. I open the freezer (Ice Cores 3,175 – 3,260) and find melting ice. Danny walks up behind me while I watch it melt away.

"That's what they were drilling for. Quarter of a million years melting away in a couple of days," I point out.

"I want to preserve some samples," he says, and takes out a container.

The generator bangs and DaSilva jumps. "It's the generator," I tell her.

"Oh."

We walk farther back and the lights come on. Something growls – not the generator. DaSilva turns - "Agent Mulder! Look out!"

It jumps on me, all teeth and claws and paws and angry muscle mass. Everyone comes running and I struggle to stand, to get my feet under me, but I can't. Bear grabs it and Scully comes running too.

"Hold on," says Bear, like I can do anything.

The dog bites him, then, and so I grab something – a coat – and wrap it around the dog's head when suddenly Hodge has a needle of something.

"Hold it down!" And suddenly he's shooting the dog full of something and the dog whimpers and goes into a doze. Danny and DaSilva help me lift it onto the table.

"You okay?" asks Scully.

Dear God.

"Yeah, he didn't break the skin. Bear, you okay?"

"He got me."

Shit.

"Take that jacket off," says Hodge.

"Just give me the stuff, I'll do it myself," Bear grouses.

"Is it rabies?" DaSilva asks.

That would suck. Hodge and Scully run over to check. "I don't see any indication of glodal spasm or tetany. If it is rabies, it's certainly not a strain I'm familiar with," he concludes. They manipulate a limb or two.

Scully speaks up. "Look at this. Black nodules. Swollen lymph nodes." I take a good look. Ew.

"Symptoms of the bubonic plague," DaSilva pipes up.

"I'll do a blood test, we'll take it from that," says Hodge.

Scully keeps looking at the dog. "This dog has got a skin irritation on it's neck," she says.

So it has lice. Great. I'll get lice.

Danny jumps in. "It looks like it's been scratching off it's own hair."

Can't be good.

"Look at this, look at this!" yells Scully. Hodge goes running over and I get the sense that I don't want to see this.

"What the hell was that?" asks Danny.

"What was what?" I ask.

Scully looks deadly serious. "Something was moving under it's skin."

Yeah. Didn't want to see.

XXXXX

Scully does autopsies

XXXXX

Two hours later, Scully has finished and comes at me with her notepad. "From the autopsies, it's clear that these men killed each other. There are contusions around the throat areas of three men, evidence of strangulation."

God. What the hell did they dig up?

"Richter and Campbell killed themselves. I also found tissue damage due to fever."

Killed themselves? Why?

"Did any of them have the black spots that the dog had?" Asks Bear.

"No. None of them had the black nodules."

"So, uh, those spots didn't have anything to do with those guys killing each other, right?"

Why is he asking?

"I wouldn't rule it out. I just reexamined the dog. The nodules are gone," Hodge says, re-entering the room.

"What could that mean?" I ask him.

"Well, it could mean that the spots are a symptom of some disease at an early stage." He leads us to his "lab" as Bear loads the plane with bodies. DaSilva begins shifting evidence bags, looking for her notes, I guess. I look around – clipboards everywhere in here – and find a file folder where someone has written, over and over, "We are not who we are."

Whatever the hell that means.

What is this thing? "Danny?"

He's listening to his walkman again.

"Danny." I wave my hand in front of his face and manage to startle him. He takes out his earphones.

"Sorry. The play-off game against Miami, '82. Helps to get my mind off stuff." Nerd.

"My interpretation of satellite remote sensing photos is a little rusty," I tell him, holding up the diagram on the clipboard.

"All right, this is the Icy Cape area. It approximates the depth of the ice sheet to be about 3,000 meters thick."

That's not what the other paper says. "I also found this data and if I'm reading it correctly, the team actually found the ice sheet to be twice that depth."

"That's very good. The numbers indicate the topography to be concave. Looks like they were drilling inside a meteor crater."

Okay. This is all making sense, but I wish it wasn't.

"No," Hodge says to Scully, "you're wrong. That's impossible."

Meteors come from outer space. Outer space is the home of some weird-ass shit.

What happened here definitely qualifies as weird-ass.

"I analyzed two samples," says Scully as I wander over to the desk they're working at, waiting to learn the definition of weird-ass as it applies to Icy Cape, Alaska.

"What'd you find?"

"There seems to be a presence of ammonium hydroxide in Richter's blood sample." Whatever that means, although my fledgling knowledge of biochemistry tells me it's not normal.

"It's not possible," says Hodge, as DaSilva comes over to join in. "Ammonia would vaporize at human body temperature."

Ah. Yes.

"I checked all the air filtration systems. I found no evidence of any such toxins."

Toxins. Vaporize at human body temperature. Check and check.

Murphy comes over with his two cents' worth. "I have." Weren't we just talking about meteor craters, I wonder, and now here we are. Wherever here is. "In the ice. And that's not all there is." Weird. Ass. Shit. He gestures to me and we all walk back to the desk he's set up at. Bear even listens from the door. "I found a high ratio of ammonia to water in the ice core. The earth's atmosphere could never have produced such high levels, not even a quarter of a million years ago. Look in the scope." So I do.

Now, I'm not a biologist.

Or a pathologist.

Or anything other than a psychologist who went to a really snooty school.

But...

This little worm thingy in the scope – well, I'd say it qualifies as weird.

"Unless a foreign object was introduced into that environment," I finish for Murphy.

Vaporizes in human body. Toxic. But whatever this is – it's not human, that's for damn sure.

Humans don't squirm that much.

"Tell me that's not a foreign object," says Murphy.

It just squirms, and I start getting scared. "Holy..." I can't even finish my Batman reference, "Scully." Scully has answers, I think. She has a plan. She always has an answer. Maybe not the answer, but an answer.

"That same thing is in Richter's blood."

Oh boy.

She walks back to her desk and looks in her microscope. "What if that single-celled organism is the larval stage of a larger animal?"

No more answers for Scully.

Hodge looks up. "That's kind of a leap, don't you think?"

Yes. I do. But...

"The evidence is there," she says as I look at Richter's blood.

"Maybe the organism in the ice core somehow got into the men," says Murphy.

DaSilva scowls. "Come on, nothing can survive in sub-zero temperatures for a quarter of a million years."

Unless. "Unless that's how it lives."

Bear joins in now. "Look-it, I don't see why you're squabbling over some bug. You said it yourself, Scully, your autopsy found those men killed each other. That's it. Now I say, let's just get the hell out of here."

"I agree," says Hodge. "We can have the bodies sent to a facility where they can make a definitive diagnosis in the event that something was missed, Agent Scully."

We can't. He knows we can't. "If those bodies are infected with an unknown organism, we can't take them back. We can't go back without proper quarantine procedures. We can't risk bringing back the next plague."

"Let's say you're right, they came down with something. We haven't and I ain't waiting around until we do."

He's scared. So am I. "I think it's safe to go back," says Hodge. "There's no reason why we'd be infected. We've taken all the necessary biological safeguards."

"The dog did bite Bear," says DaSilva.

"It jumped Mulder too!" He argues. He gets right in my face but DaSilva jumps in between us.

"It didn't break the skin -" I begin to argue, but Scully jumps in.

"Hey, look, there's only one way to proceed. A good doctor eliminates every possibility. We must determine if any of us is infected."

Okay.

Hodge chimes in next. "Alright, parasitic diagnostic procedure requires that each of us provide a blood and a stool sample."

"A stool sample?" asks Bear.

Danny is less than enthused. "Well, this kind of travel always makes that kind of tough... for me."

Scully gets some jars from somewhere.

"Okay, anyone got the morning sports section handy?" I ask.

"I ain't dropping my cargo for no one," says Bear, before smashing his against the wall. Nice. "What I'm doing is getting my gear, getting my plane and flying the hell out of here." And he starts to leave.

"You can't go, the dog bit you," I point out. Losing battle.

"I got hired to fly you up here and fly you back. No one said this might be part of the deal. So the deal is over."

"We can't let him leave without him being checked," says Scully.

"Who's going to stop him?" asks DaSilva.

"We have to. We can't risk infecting the population," I tell her, and I know I'm right. This sucks.

"He gets on that plane, I'm gonna be on it with him," she says, which I can't really blame her for.

"Well, we don't have time to argue about it," says Scully.

Okay, time to step in. "Take a vote. Whoever believes we should confine Bear until he agrees to an examination?" Scully, Murphy, and I raise our hands. That's that. "All right." I pull my gun and Bear returns with his bags. "Bear, we just want to check you out. If we don't find any trace of the parasite or the virus, we'll all go."

He stops, looks at me, and walks to the desk.

Guess he saw the gun.

"All right, give me the damn jar."

He takes it and I go to holster my gun, and then -

SMASH!!!!

The world spins a bit and I see a few stars at the edge o my vision and a lot of things are happening all at once. It takes me a minute to recover and by then Scully has tackled Bear so I run over and help her sit on him.

"Murphy," I call, "get a rope!"

"Right." He moves away.

I pick Bear up and push his head down on the counter to give myself more leverage. He was squirming too much on the ground. "Here!" calls Danny, handing me a rope. I tie Bear's hands and then he starts twitching and DaSilva starts screaming, "Oh my God... oh!"

Something is moving in Bear's neck.

Question answered.

"Get my bag!" yells Hodge.

"What are you gonna do?" asks Scully?

Danny holds Bear's head down as DaSilva grabs the bag.

"Scalpel, I'm cutting it out."

"We don't know enough about it!" I tell him.

"It's killing him!" yells Hodge, as Bear starts shaking harder. "Scully, help me hold the skin."

Point taken.

Ew ew ew. Scully reaches in with gloves and holds the skin apart. DaSilva sets out some tools. "Hold Still, Bear!" yells Hodge, as Bear screams. "Forceps!" DaSilva hands them over. "Hold still, Bear, just another second. You're gonna be okay." Ew ew ew. Hodge pulls a pale, gross looking thing out. It gets stuck and he has to pull harder. Ew ew ew ew ew. I run away and grab a jar, which they drop the worm into, and then I seal the lid and hand it to Murphy, then run to the radio.

We need to leave.

Now.

"This is the A.I.C.P. Investigative Team calling Doolittle Airfield, come in," I speak into the microphone.

"D.A.F. Responding."

"This is Agent Mulder, we have a serious biological hazard. Request air pick-up and quarantine procedures, over."

Nothing.

"Come in, Doolittle Airfield."

"We copy, Agent Mulder. This area is under a heavy storm and no aircraft can get out for the next day. Maybe the military base in Kotzebue can set up a quarantine. Advise immediate evacuation, the arctic storm is bearing in your direction, over."

Oh shit.

"We were told we would have three clear days of weather, over," I inform the unhelpful voice.

"Welcome to the top of the world, Agent Mulder. Over."

We need to leave. Now. I return to the group. "Is Bear in any condition to fly? We don't get out in an hour, we don't get out for days."

Scully looks at Hodge and I'm not gonna like this. Not at all. She looks back at me, and I know.

We're screwed.

"He's dead."

I walk back to the body, pick up the jar-o-worm.

This better be some meteor crater.

XXXXX

The worm stops squirming around eventually so after some debate, Scully fills the jar with liquid ammonia. It seemed to do fine in ammonia-filled ice, after all, for about a thousand years.

The worm starts swimming again.

We all end up staring at the thing, until finally Hodge says, "Well, it's similar to a tapeworm in that it has a scolex with suckers and hooks."

Okay. I don't want to hear the flip side of this and I don't like tapeworms. "So then it's familiar?" asks Danny. "Something you can deal with?"

And I'm betting no.

Hodge closes the freezer door.

Not good at all.

"What?" asks DaSilva.

"No. Very different from any organism, at least that I know of."

Yeah. Not good. He walks back over to me.

"Have you figured out how it's transmitted yet?" I ask him. He's gonna blame me.

"Exchange of fluids, touch, air, all of the above? I don't know."

Bloody hell.

"All of the other dead bodies had the creature," Scully says, holding another jar, as she comes back into the room. "This is the only one that's still alive."

Kills the host, then dies itself. Check.

We all walk over to her work area to get a closer look, even though we've seen it already.

"Were they all in the spine?" I ask her.

"No. It appears that they were in the hypothalmus gland deep in the brain."

Lovely. She sets down the jar and fills it up with ammonia.

"Hypothalmus... what was that again?" asks Murphy.

"It's a gland that secretes hormones - although I don't know why a parasite would want to attach to it," Scully tells him. She pops the jar in the freezer.

Hodge starts talking now, wasting my time by educating Danny. "Hypothalmus releases acetlycholine, which produces violent, aggresive behavior. That might be a connection. Everybody that's been infected certainly seems to act aggresively." He's pacing like a lecturing professor now. "Maybe the worm feeds on the acetlycholine, which floods our capacity to control violent behavior."

"Well, a parasite shouldn't want to kill it's host," points out Scully.

"It doesn't kill you... until it's extracted. Then it releases a poison."

Huh. This means we have a cause of death. "You're saying it's possible that the worm makes you want to kill other people, which is maybe what happened to the first team."

I let them chew on that for a minute.

"Or what could happen to us," says DaSilva.

"Well, it's just a theory. We don't have any definite proof," says Hodge.

"Except five dead men," Murphy points out.

Scully chimes in now. "If the worm makes people violently aggressive then why did Richter and Campbell kill themselves?"

There's only one reason I can think of. "Maybe they did it to save us," I tell them. And here we are, not being saved, or safe.

I leave that bombshell firmly dropped and wander away, into the living quarters. I end up in Richter's room. What could he have been thinking, I wonder, and how did he know what was happening? How did they manage to get the willpower to kill themselves and not each other? How did they do it?

Didn't they know we'd come for them?

And what the hell are we gonna do anyway, huh? How are we going to get out of here? Back to our lives, our jobs, away from this madness. The top of the world. Yeah, I'm on top of the fucking world. I'm cohabiting with worms out of a meteor crater in an ice core drilling station full of sleep deprived -

Worms out of a meteor crater.

Why didn't I see it before?

We can't do a genetic workup here, but what the hell would we find if we could? Maybe that they didn't come from Earth at all? It would make sense, after all, in a way. If something microbial was going to come to Earth, it would be in an asteroid. My mind even sees it swimming around, eating all the Earth microbes and gaining their abilities. Like the scolex. Or maybe scolexes/scolexi/sco-whatevers are just that useful that alien worlds have them too?

So we have to get out of here, get back, and get a team of scientists to come study the alien tapeworms.

Check.

Step one: convince Scully.

I find her in the shed, where we stored the bodies. She is finishing another exam as I walk in, but I can tell she's preoccupied. "I'm just, uh... double-checking. Making sure I didn't miss anything," she tells me.

"Just some sleep, huh?" I reply. God, I'm exhausted. What time is it in D.C, anyway?

"Sleep. I'm so tired I can't sleep."

Yeah, time to go to bed then. "We're all wired and hypersensitive, it'll be good to get a fresh start in the morning," I reply, but there's no fresh to start.

"Mulder, I don't want to waste a second trying to find a way to kill this thing." She goes to leave the room.

She can't.

She won't.

She wouldn't.

She would.

She shouldn't.

Should she?

"I don't know if we should kill it."

She stops midstride and looks back at me. No going back now. "This area of the ice sheet was formed over a meteor crater. The worm lived in ammonia. It survived sub-zero temperatures. Theorists in alternative life-designs believe in ammonia-supported life systems on planets with freezing temperatures."

Here we go.

"No."

Keep going, Mulder. "The meteor that crashed here a quarter of a million years ago may have carried that type of life to earth."

And... impact. "Mulder, that pilot developed surface symptoms within a few minutes. Within a few hours, that parasite had total control. What would happen if this got into the population? A city the size of New York could be infected within a few days."

Yeah, been there and thought that. "Exactly. But what do we know about it? This organism might be lying dormant in another crater." The odds are miniscule, but so were the odds of life developing on Earth.

"Mulder, if we don't kill it now, we run the risk of becoming Richter and Campbell with guns to our heads."

Yes, indeed. "But if we do kill it now, we may never know how to stop it or anything like it in the future."

She stops talking, just for a moment, but then she starts up again. "Future? Mulder, how can you talk about the future when right now, there's a station full of dead bodies? Who says you or anyone else has the right to -"

Someone has to and I'm here. "Do we have the right to destroy an organism which can provide knowledge about extraterrestrial life if it means we run the risk of being destroyed by that life?"

"Mulder, that's ridiculous! This is all supposition, there's not a shred of proof."

Now I'm just mad. "Scully, it's a risk either way, I just want to end this knowing as much as we can."

"No, Mulder, you just don't care about them posing a biological hazard!"

Of course I care. "We can contain a hazard, Scully. They need to be studied."

"I don't know that it can be contained, Mulder," she admits. "You could be sacrificing the entire world to study these things!"

We have to try, can't she see that? Anyway, the jars seem to be working pretty well. "How do you know it can't be contained?" I ask her.

"It can! By extermination, we should take those bodies, worms and all, outside and incinerate them!"

And then the others walk in. "Something going on we should know about?" Asks Hodge, and then to Scully, "Agent Scully, you all right?"

"Yes, I'm fine. It's nothing," she replies, distractedly.

"You seem a little bit stressed out."

Oh, Lord.

She nods along for a second until she gets it, then rounds on him. "What the hell are you trying to say?"

She gets up in his face, too. Scary little woman when she's riled. I have to get in between them before they come to blows. "Let's all just settle down, it's been a long hard day. We're all tired and scared. Let's not all turn on one another."

Good words, Fox. Good words.

Now I just have to live by them.

"At least not without a good reason," says Hodge.

He's making it too easy. "Maybe we should all get some sleep."

"You kidding? You think any of us could sleep right now? Guys, let's face it, we've got to check for spots. Any person or persons who has them should be confined. Are we agreed on that?"

Yeah. Agreed.

"Are you going to do the exams?" asks DaSilva.

"No. We do them in front of each other. No secrets," says Scully.

I'm gonna have to take my clothes off in public.

XXXXX

We end up splitting up. Men in one room, women in the other. Gotta be PC, after all.

Danny, Hodge, and I end up standing in the lab, facing each other.

Time to strip. "Before anyone passes judgement, may I remind you we are in the Arctic," I tell them, because smartass remarks come along with the nose and the bad attitude. Thanks for that, Dad.

XXXXX

After that's over, Danny mutters, "Well, I wanna get some sleep."

I agree.

Surprisingly, as long as it's not my idea, Hodge seems to think it's a good one. "Okay, we can use the team's bedrooms for now." He grabs his gear as the women come back in.

"We're clean," says DaSilva.

"We're gonna turn in," Danny replies, grabbing his gear. The others follow us into the sleeping quarters.

"Sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite," Hodge says as he picks a room and walks in, shutting the door behind him.

Lovely.

Bedbugs.

Bed worms, more like.

"Yeah," says DaSilva, "good night."

Wonderful. She goes into a room and so does Danny, leaving me and Scully alone. "Good night, Mulder."

"Good night, Scully," I tell her.

"At least everyone's okay," she says.

For now. "Don't forget, the spots on the dog went away." Her face falls and I hate myself, so I go into my room and sit on the bed.

I'm not going to be able to sleep. I know this.

Someone else could be infected. I take my gun and hold it. It comforts me.

What if I'm infected and I don't know it?

What if I hurt someone? Should I have a gun, then? What if someone comes after me – what if' they're infected? What if Hodge decides to do away with all of us because we could be infected? What if he's extra paranoid because he is infected?

What if Scully's infected?

The thoughts rattle in my head until I drift off into the dreamless sleep I've exhausted myself into.

XXXXX

When I wake, it's quiet, and I don't know why I woke. My gun is still there, and I decide to check on the others. A door closes.

Someone is moving around.

I go into the hall, and find that Danny's door is open.

Is Danny infected?

No one's there. He left his walkman on his bed and this worries me. I head for the lab – really the only other place he could have gone. It's where the bathrooms are. The dog is growling and it startles me in the darkness, but it's still locked up.

No one's here.

Something clicks. No, drips. From the freezer.

At first I think it's more water, but it's too dark. It's red. Some piece of my brain refuses to acknowledge what it is but I can smell the coppery smell and my work brain opens the door on autopilot.

Danny is inside, and he is dead. In fact, he falls out of the freezer and knocks me over. One look tells me there's no saving him – his throat is cut.

The others walk in then. "Mulder," asks Scully, "What are you doing?"

"Murphy's dead," I tell her. Which should be obvious.

"You killed him," says Hodge. Nice.

"I found him like this. I heard one of the doors close, I came out to check it out. It's one of you." But he won't believe that.

"He's lying."

"You could have done it and not even known," says DaSilva.

"No, he said he didn't do it," says Scully.

Thank you. "I don't have any of the symptoms," I point out.

"You checked him yourself, Hodge," says Scully.

"Yeah, six hours ago."

No no no no no. "It was one of you!" I head for Hodge, trying to make him see reason.

Scully jumps in between us. "Stop it! Just stop it, shut up!" Throttling the guy probably wouldn't have helped my case. We settle for glaring at each other. "Mulder, just put the gun down and let Hodge give you a blood test."

I don't trust that bastard. "What, so he can doctor the results? I'm not gonna let him stick a needle in me! He could be infected!" He's never trusted us and now he probably has a worm in his his brain. I don't think so!

"He has to be confined now!" yells Hodge.

"Then just turn around and let us take a look at your neck!" says Scully.

They're all reacting too strongly. I can't tell who is on my side. "I'm not turning my back on anyone! As far as I'm concerned, you're all infected!" Not Scully. She's as reasonable as ever. Hodge, though, and DaSilva? No idea. I back away.

"Hodge is right, we oughta lock him up!" cries DaSilva, which doesn't earn her any sanity points.

He grabs a crowbar and starts toward me, but I point my gun at him. Scully points hers at me. "Mulder!"

I get it, I do. He's just so inflammatory, I can't tell. DaSilva's still quiet. Scully is reasonable. Part of me recognizes that I'm acting paranoid too. With reason. "Scully, get that gun off me!"

"Mulder, you have to understand!"

I do. I understand. I really really do. I point my gun back at her anyway. She understands too. "Put it down!"

"You put it down first!"

This is rapidly getting absurd. "Scully! For God sakes, it's me!"

"Mulder... you may not be who you are."

We're not who we are.

Jesus.

What effect could it have on memory?

I was asleep – and then I wasn't.

I haven't slept that well in ages.

It could be.

Could.

I lower my gun.

XXXXX

Scully leads me to a storage room and I step inside. I'm not infected, my brain keeps telling me. And even if I am, there may be more worms.

She goes to shut the door.

"In here, I'll be safer than you," I tell her. The door closes.

XXXXX

What if she doesn't come back?

What will happen? Will they come? To kill me?

To save me if I'm infected?

I'm not, of course. My mind says no. But there's that fear that maybe I am. Maybe I'm not who I am and don't know it.

Only Richter knew it. How long was he infected?

And Scully – aside from intending to come back, is she safe out there? I know she isn't safe.

Hell, I'm not safe in here, despite what I said. Eventually someone will come for me. Eventually they will kill me.

Hell, they might convince Scully to kill me.

Which I know is crazy because, guess what, she doesn't do things without a calm, rational, logical reason. Unless there's a parasite in her brain, of course.

Shit. I'm screwed.

And she's not coming back. Even if she does, I can't trust her. I mean, I can – if she is who she is. And if I am who I am. Would I be pounding on doors now, If I wasn't? How would I tell, really? If I'm not who I am?

Would I even be able to tell?

I hate this. I hate being locked in here. I hate Scully and I hate Hodge and I hate DaSilva too just on principle. I hate Alaska and I hate snow and I hate meteors and I hate football and Danny Murphy's obsession with said football and I hate ice worms.

Maybe there's one in my brain. It would explain the hating.

Scully won't be back, I realize. Like always, I'm going to die alone.

How pathetic is that? My conviction about the end of my own life, reduced to a William Shatner – inspired line from one of the worst. Movies. Ever. "I've always known I'll die alone." Doesn't matter when or where, in a storage room in Alaska or in the middle of some field in the middle of nowhere or even in bed an old old man, I'm gonna be alone when I go. I just haven't had that much of an effect on anyone.

XXXXX

She comes back eventually, of course. I was stupid to think she wouldn't. Stupid.

Stupid.

Right.

And I quickly discover she's alone. "It's just you?" I ask, even though I know it is.

"Yes." The door shuts and she turns on the light..

"It's one of them," I tell her. I have proof now. Sort of. It's not me. Not not not.

"No one's been killed since you've been in here."

It's not under stress. Not under pressure. "So?"

"We found a way to kill it. Two worms in one host will kill each other."

This will not end well. "You give me one worm, you'll infect me." Not good not good not good notgood notgood notgood.

"If that's true, then why didn't you let us inspect you?" she whispers.

"I would have but you pulled a gun on me. Now I don't trust them. I wanted to trust you," I whisper back. I wanted to trust her.

I still do.

But only her.

"Okay. But now they're not here."

So I turn around. She looks at my nteck and says nothing. She would tell me if it was me.

She heads for the door but I have to know. I have to. So I grab her arm and she gasps. I try to be gentle and not scare her, and then I look at her neck.

Nothing.

Nothing.

I let myself relax.

"You're clear," I tell her just as she says the same thing. We chuckle, and we leave the freezer together.

"He's clean," says Scully. "I just examined him. He's... uninfected."

"So is she," I tell them, before they can start.

"Which means that it must be one of you," she finishes.

"All right," says Hodge. "Go over to the main building. I'd like to check him myself. Then he can examine both of us. Wanna lead the way?"

Trust. It has to start somewhere.

Just have to be careful.

I take the lead, and then suddenly someone grabs me from behind. Hodge, I think. DaSilva grabs Scully and then there's the sound of a slamming door. Hodge puts his arm around my neck in a chokehold and then there's a needle coming at me so I shove Hodge into DaSilva and they go down. He comes at me again and I shove him again. He grabs me, pulls me down, and I'm stuck with no leverage. "Get the worm!"

"Bastards! No!"

I can see something out of the corner of my eye.

"Stop... no!"

But they don't stop.

And then suddenly they do. "Oh my God!" yells Hodge. He lets me up, and I get to my feet. DaSilva is standing up too. "Mulder! It's her!"

She tries to run, she tries to escape, she knocks me over even, but then there's Scully in the door right behind me and we both run and let her out. "Scully! It's DaSilva!"

And she grabs the forceps lying on the floor, with the worm swinging from the end – the worm meant for me – and runs into the other room, where DaSilva is trashing the lab and screaming like a lunatic. I get there just as she's grabbing a gun out of the evidence bag and I tackle her to the ground. Hodge helps me and we hold her down and she's squirming and it feels so wrong. So so wrong but we have to and she's screaming and then Scully looks at me. "Mulder! After this, there won't be any left!"

The last one. If Hodge is infected we're screwed.

"Do it!" We have to.

Even though she's screaming.

The coughing and choking is worse than the screaming, I soon decide.

And then even that stops.

But she's breathing.

"It's all right." says Scully. "It's all over. It all stops right here. Right now."

And we are who we are.

XXXXX

DaSilva sleeps under armed guard for two days before the plane arrives full of people in HazMat suits. After hours of debate, they decide to go with what Scully wanted to do when they first showed up, so DaSilva is moved out in the plane with us, and we're all examined by doctors in containment suits back at Doolittle. Hodge, Scully, and I are given clean bills of health. DaSilva is too, but they decide to quarantine her and the dog to make sure it's really gone.

But I know it is.

That's how it works.

Sometimes I hate aliens.

Back in Nome, though, wating for permission to get on with it, I spend the time in quarantine making plans to go back. With the CDC.

Eventually the red tape clears and they pack DaSilva into an ambulance and drive her away.

Hodge approaches me. "She's being put in quarantine along with the dog. We'll keep her there until we're sure she won't infect the rest of the population. Meanwhile, our tests came back normal so we've been released. Plane ready. Take you as far from the ice as you want to go."

I know all this of course.

"I'm going back to the site," I tell him. "This time, I'm going fully prepared with proper equipment. There's still a lot of research to be done on it's genetic structure, on it's origin..."

He cuts me off. "Wait, Mulder. Don't you know?"

Go figure. "Know what?" Why am I not surprised?

"Forty-five minutes after they evacuated us, they torched the place. There's nothing left."

Lovely.

"Who did that?" asks Scully.

"The military, centers for disease control... you oughta know. They're your people." He walks away.

I turn to Scully. "It's still there, Scully. 200,000 years down in the ice."

"Leave it there."

She takes her bag and walks away.

She's right, I think.

But I wish I could know what's under there.

Just for once.