THE CAPITOL BELTWAY,
WASHINGTON DC.
While Doggett drove, Reyes riffled through the X-file in her lap, eager to learn what she could about the medallion. The first item in the file was a summation of what was known about it:
The Medallion of Zulo - a primer
According to the most common of the legends concerning the Medallion of Zulo, it was created in Africa by a tribal witch doctor and used to transform the entire tribe into doppelgangers of their strongest warrior during times of conflict. Eventually, the medallion found its way to the New World. The earliest reports of it uncovered by the Bureau thus far, and documented in this X-File, date back to the Victorian period, but it may have been here even earlier. There have been reports of it from all over the country, right up to the present day. Arthur Dales started this X-File and I have updated it whenever new reports appearing to pertain to the medallion have come in from various field offices. These reports are usually accompanied by highly sceptical assessments from local agents. It is logical to assume that such reports represent only a fraction of the incidents involving the medallion.
From collating all the reports, the operation of the Medallion of Zulo appears to be as follows:
1) if two people touch it at the same time, it will transform each into a copy of the other;
2) if someone wearing it touches a piece of clothing worn by someone else to the medallion, they will be transformed into a copy of that person. (There have also been reports that touching a previously unworn garment to the medallion will transform someone into the size and age of person that garment is intended for. I am of the opinion this must be apocryphal since it makes no sense. It is easy to see that once a garment has been worn by someone it picks up some sort of physical or psychic residue of that person which the medallion could key into, but what could it possibly latch onto in new clothing? Psychically, this would be indistinguishable from any other piece of cloth.)
3) if, instead of being just touched to the medallion, an item of clothing is kept in contact with it for an extended period, then as well as being physically transformed into a copy of the garment's owner, the wearer of the medallion will also taken on aspects of that person's behavior and personality. The longer the contact the more the behavioral change.
4) being pregnant or menstruating blocks any change;
5)the time a complete transformation takes to occur varies, but around half an hour or so is the time most commonly reported;
6)once transformed, a person cannot be transformed again until twelve hours has elapsed.
The medallion is gold in color with the figure of some sort of angel or fairy on the face (it has been suggested this is a representation of Zulo himself, who was presumably some sort of local deity of those who created it), and an obverse which has been variously described as being blank or inscribed with what might be some form of lettering. So either there is more than one medallion out there (possible but unlikely) or what one person sees as writing another assumes to be merely the nicks and scratches produced by inevitable wear and tear.
The photos in this file are not of the real medallion but of a replica confiscated by me from someone using it as part of a scam (see report in file). Assuming it has not been removed by the time you read this, the replica itself should also be in the file.
Logically, someone who had the medallion could use it to make themselves rich and powerful, since they would be able to dispense youth and beauty at will. However, the medallion is a powerful instrument of fate and apparently almost impossible to hold on to for any length of time. It has been lost, stolen, and even deliberately discarded countless times throughout its existence.
If encountered, it is clear the Medallion of Zulo should be handled with extreme care, Avoid it coming into contact with your bare skin at all costs. - Fox Mulder.
""""""""""""
Reyes summarized this for Doggett as they drove. She found the replica medallion in an envelope in the file and, on impulse, slipped it into her jacket pocket. Beneath it in the file was a report.
"The last report in the file is from six years ago," she said, checking the top of the document in question. "Mulder and Scully were sent to the town of Conner Cove in Washington County, Maine, where... hello, what's this?"
A crumpled leaflet that had been clipped to the back of the report had fallen out. There was a photo of a dolphin on the front.
"It's a brochure for the town, whose main tourist attractions are, or were, Greg Prince, the famous horror writer who lives there, and a wild dolphin you could swim with."
"I wouldn't want to swim in the waters off Washington County even in the middle of summer," said Doggett, as he turned the car onto I-95. "It's way too cold."
"Well, people do," said Reyes, "I guess they're just made of sterner stuff than you, or maybe they wear dry-suits. Anyway, the case concerned Danner's wife, Lucy, and three mysterious doppelgangers of her that turned up, two of them dead."
"Hey, I remember that case. So you're saying this medallion was responsible?"
"Maybe, maybe not. At the end of their report Mulder and Scully wrote: 'While the Medallion of Zulo, if it indeed exists, would provide a plausible explanation for the appearance of the doppelgangers, we could find no concrete evidence of its presence. The only mention made of a medallion, by Sheriff John Nottingham, referred to one owned by his daughter. This turned out to be non-mystical in nature and entirely unremarkable. Neither Lucy Danner nor her husband knew who her doubles might be or where they could have come from. Having exhausted all avenues of investigation, it seems this will, for now, remain a mystery.'"
Reyes slid the report back in the file, then stared through the windshield thoughtfully.
"I read something in the Washington Post recently about Conner Cove," she said. "They're going to be filming a movie there soon, based on a Greg Prince novel and starring Tom Hudson. The story was right under the news that Nancy DeNiro and Coyote Dingo are now a couple."
"Who?" said Doggett.
"The international supermodel and the rock star. Don't you keep up with popular culture at all, John?"
"Not if I can help it," he replied. "By the way, did you mean what you said in Kersh's office, about you reading your way through all the X-files?"
"Of course," said Reyes. "Working on the X-files was my dream assignment, remember? And before we get to Baltimore, I want to have read everything in this one."
The next thing she plucked out of the file was a newspaper clipping, one of many, this one dating from the 1940s:
13 YEAR-OLD CLAIMS TO BE NOTED,
CHILD EXPERT.
"It was certainly one of the more unusual
childhood delusions I've encountered," said
Dr Clark Willows "Children view the world
in a very different way to you and me", he
went on to explain, "and their capacity for
fantasy is much greater than it would be in
an adult. Given the trauma this young girl
has recently suffered, a retreat into
fantasy is not entirely unheard of, however."
The trauma the Doctor is referring to is the
mysterious disappearance of 13 year-old
Loretta Smith's mother, Rose, and the newborn
baby found abandoned on the doorstep of the
family home. The infant was placed with foster
parents prior to being adopted, while Loretta
was sent to the children's home run by Dr
Willows, who had treated her in the past.
Loretta's current delusional episode began
during a private session with Dr Willows. She
started ranting that the two had switched
bodies via the medium of a magic medallion and
that she was in fact Dr Willows. Orderlies had
to be summoned to restrain her. Reluctantly,
Dr Willows concluded she posed a potential risk
to the other children at his home. She is now
incarcerated in an institution for disturbed
juveniles.
In a surprising move, Dr Willows today announced
his intention to retire to the country.
"I'm still a reasonably young man," he said,
during an interview, "and I think it's time I
stepped down and started enjoying my considerable
wealth. I also believe it's time to make way for
child care professionals with new ideas."
There were dozens more like this in the file, along with agent reports from FBI field offices around the country, and Reyes diligently read her way through all of them. Some she read out to her partner, but most not.
"So what do you think?" she asked Doggett, as they entered the outskirts of Baltimore.
"I think this whole thing is nuts, Monica. I mean, magic medallions? Come on! And that one report of that guy who was going to steal the Shroud of Turin and use it with the medallion to turn himself into Jesus Christ... how can you take that stuff seriously?"
"Well that was back in the sixties," she said. "The tests hadn't yet been done that proved the Shroud wasn't old enough to have been around in Christ's time."
"That's not what I meant, and you know it." said Doggett. "Unexplained phenomena are one thing, but this stuff belongs in fairy tales."
They traveled the rest of the way to the hotel in silence, neither of them aware of the van that had been following since they set out, its dark-suited occupants taping their every word.