Crash, Splash

Scully kept her hand over head and her face in the snow. When the crashing and flapping noises had subsided she let her eyelids relax and peered between her eyelashes like a child pretending to sleep. The road was quiet again, the tire tracks in the snow disturbed only by big coniferous twigs and small branches. She lifted her face from the snow and opened her eyes fully, then directed by the flapping from above, stared up into the trees. Highlighted by moon light around the edges, the canvas of a giant parachute hung torn into long strips and swirled around the trees with the light wind winding it tighter and tighter until it was totally snared.

She stood up, brushing the snow from her coat and rubbing the soreness on her scuffed face. Following the direction of the hanging lines, she stepped up to the edge of the lake and looked down into the water. She could see a partly submerged metal canister that had obviously been attached to the parachute until a few moments earlier.

The canister was small, a bit like an early shiny chrome space capsule, like something Soviet Russia would have used to send a dog into space, but with more of an American design.

"A weather balloon?" she speculated. By what chance had a package of instruments crashed down into the trees above her and then into the lake beside her? It seemed incredible.

Holding onto some longer twigs she stepped down to the edge of the lake, fixing her boots in the mud. The canister was only a few feet into the water, so she tried to reach out to it without entering the water. It started to turn slowly in the water, which allowed her to lean forward and grab hold of the access plate on the side.

A faint tapping noise from within the capsule began as it floated onto the mud. Scully's forearm twitched reflexively and she let the capsule stop as she realized that it was not just a mechanical noise. There was something moving inside the capsule.

:::

After a few seconds pausing and thinking, Scully fetched out a small utility knife from her coat. She stepped into the water and grasped the top of the capsule then pried open the access plate. A little voice echoed out of the opening. "¿Socorro?"

:::

Scully could not look as Pérez pulled himself free of the capsule. After a bizarre and athletic fifteen minutes of contortion, Pérez stopped at the edge of the water and dusted himself off. "Where are we?" he asked.

"Carlos? We... we're about five minutes from the town. But what are you doing here?"

Pérez rubbed his arms. "That was frightening. And I'm bruised all over."

Scully helped him scramble up the muddy bank up into the relative shelter of the trees. "What are you doing here? Why did you come in that ridiculous capsule?"

Pérez caught his breath. He was shivering. "I had to take what I could. The people I took it from have some strange ideas on intellectual property and design."

Scully looked him over briefly. His eyes looked bloodshot and his skin tone was paler than she remembered, but he seemed far from shock. "We need to get you cleaned up. The guest house has a shower."

He shook his head vigorously, his breathing evening up. "No. There's no time for that. I have to get to the diving camp. Where are we in relation to that?" He looked around vaguely.

Scully shook her head amazed. "The diving compound? It's over there. I think that's it directly across the other side of the lake. You can just make out the lights." Her thoughts were confused. She wanted to answer his question, but she wanted him to answer hers first.

Pérez began to focus, thinking on his feet. "I have to get over there, quietly, but quickly," he concluded.

Scully was now suspicious. "But don't they know you? I thought you were well known here by everybody?"

Pérez turned to fix his gaze on Scully. "They knew me in a former life, Dana. I've had a few bad lunches since then. Made a few bad decisions. Last week is history to them."

"Is that why you arrived in such a dangerous way?"

"I didn't want to be seen. I couldn't let myself be seen. But I had no way of steering once I released the 'chutes."

"How far did you come in that thing? Look there's the edge of the town. It's only a block from there to Mrs. Chang's guest-house."

"It wasn't far. I was pushed out of a B-52 over Calgary. Trajectory did the rest. Mrs. Chang? Have you had lunch yet?"

Scully realized this was perhaps the one thing that could have kept him from jumping into the lake and swimming over there that very second. "No, not yet. I was on my way when you... dropped in."

He thought carefully about the prospect of lunch. "Did she say she was going to make dumplings? All I've had to eat since Galveston was a couple of MREs. Disgusting. Masquerading as 'Italian' and 'Mexican' meals. I'd almost rather have the poison soup from the Caribbean again."

"You're not making sense. Did someone try to poison you?"

"It was all a mistake. This could have worked out so much better for all of us."

"How did you find me? You didn't just drop within a hundred yards of me by coincidence."

"A lot of it was guesswork. As I said, steering after the 'chutes deployed was never going to be subtle."

"What did you do?" She looked up and down her winter-wear, looked up at the light canopy of trees. "Am I laser-painted? Tell me."

"You're the F.B.I. Agent, Dana." He was going to maintain the drama, but gave in quickly. "Someone in Norad found your cell-phone for me. I just aimed for the nearest bit of blue water beside you."

Scully opened her mouth to speak, then held her breath. "You could have landed on top of me with that capsule. I would have been killed. There were twenty people on the road beside me fifteen minutes ago, including a work friend. Any one of them could have been hit and killed."

"How long ago were they here? Could they have seen me?"

"Most of them were taking this darkness thing a little too seriously. They wouldn't have seen anything." She gestured around her at the greyness. "I can see just fine."

Pérez looked around him too, concern on his face. "That is the main thing that worries me."