John Doggett was awoken by the urgent hammering on his
hotel room door.
"John, it's me," came Reyes' voice, "You have to let me
in!"
Pulling his pants on, Doggett opened the door to a teary-
eyed Reyes.
"Monica?" he said, as she pushed past him into the room,
"What the heck's going on?"
"Oh, John," she sobbed, "please hold me."
Awkwardly, Doggett did as she asked, putting his arms
around her and stroking her hair.
"Monica," he said to the sobbing woman, "you have to tell
me what's wrong."
"I...I will," she sniffled, "only could you get me a drink
first?"
"Sure, " he said, turning away from her. As he did so,
something heavy crashed down on the back of his skull and
he toppled to the floor.
"Monica?" he said, looking up groggily to see her looming
over him, gun in hand. Then he lost consciousness.
Kevin Clay was pleased. Doggett had been totally fooled by
her performance. She removed the medallion and the bracelet
from her pockets, placing them side-by-side on the bed. It
was time for John Doggett to disappear. She smiled. He was
going to make a lovely baby.
It was at that point the door burst open. Clay just had
time to whirl around and register that it was Reyes, a
miraculously unchanged Reyes, before the other woman threw
herself at her. Clay brought her gun up, but she was too
slow. Before she could fire, Reyes had torn the gun from
her grasp and hurled it behind her, where it bounced
twice before ending up out in the corridor. Then the two of
them were rolling on the floor, fighting each other with
surprising viciousness. Wrong-footed by the attack, Clay
was slow to react when Reyes grabbed the medallion and the
bracelet and slammed them both against her bare neck.
"NO!" she screamed, but it was too late. What had been a
fight between two physically-identical women turned into a
rout as she started to shrink and was easily overpowered by
the now much larger Reyes. She cried and struggled in Reyes
grasp, as if breaking free would somehow also free her from
her fate, but there was no escape to be had here. She
continued to shrink, getting smaller and younger until
Reyes held a child in her arms, a newborn baby who started
to bawl as her adult memories began to slip inexorably
away.
When it was over, Reyes put the baby down carefully on the
bed then shook her unconscious partner. He groaned and
opened his eyes, staring up blearily at her.
"Monica?" he croaked. He would be coming to fully in a
minute or two and when he did she knew she would have a lot
of explaining to do. Sighing, she picked up the medallion
then headed out to the corridor to retrieve Clay's gun.
"Agent Reyes?" said a voice as she picked the gun up. She
turned to see men in black suits and mirror shades standing
there. One of them was holding an attaché case, which he
now opened.
"Please place the medallion in the case, ma'am," he said.
"Who the hell are you guys?" said Reyes, standing with her
back against the wall.
The second man pulled out a government ID. It identified
him as working for military intelligence, and included a
security clearance far higher than her own.
"What's going on here?" demanded Doggett, appearing in the
doorway, and causing the men in black to glance his way.
That he was holding onto the frame for support showed he
was still groggy.
"It's OK, John," said Reyes, pulling the medallion from her
pocket and holding it out. "These gentlemen work for the
government."
She dropped the medallion into the attaché case, whereupon
it was snapped shut, and the men in black nodded once and
then turned and left without a further word.
"What the hell just happened?" said Doggett.
"I'll tell you later," said Reyes, helping him back into
his room, "I'll tell you later."
FBI TRAINING FACILITY,
QUANTICO, VIRGINIA
"He didn't believe me, of course," said Reyes, idly turning
a small padded envelope over and over in her hands. "He
never saw the medallion work its magic and so figured I
must've imagined it."
"That's Agent Doggett for you" said Dana Scully.
"Yes," said Reyes "yes, it is. And without his testimony or
the medallion itself to corroborate what happened, my official
report can do no more than make note of the claims and that
there's still a doppelganger of me out there. Fortunately a
hotel corridor camera did at least catch the two of us
going into John's room half a minute apart. The report will
have to say we were unable to apprehend her. Given all this
I'm guessing the report by you and Agent Mulder on what
happened in Conner Cove didn't tell the whole story either."
"No, it didn't."
"Dana," she said, looking at Scully levelly, "what made you
give us the X-file on the Medallion of Zulo before we set
out?"
"Kersh suggested the case could be an X-file. "He said it
reminded him of when those doppelgangers had turned up in
Conner Cove a few years earlier."
"Interesting," said Reyes, "So Kersh actually steered you
to that specific X-file. But he wasn't involved with the X-
files when you and Mulder investigated that case so how did
he know it had been an X-file? Unlike me, Kersh isn't
someone who would have read his way through them. No, I
think he was told to steer you towards that case."
"But why?"
"Haven't you ever wondered about the possible military
applications of some of the stuff we deal with?" she said.
"In the case of the medallion you could turn out thousands
of copies of our finest soldiers. Hell, according to legend
that's why the thing was created in the first place.
Someone high up in the military obviously knows about the
medallion, and they want it. They heard about this case,
decided the medallion could be involved, and got Kersh to
steer you to the file so we'd be primed to look for it. And
given how those guys turned up in the hotel when they did
they had to have been tailing us and listening in on our
conversations. That would all be a lot easier if Kersh was
co-operating with them, maybe even up to and including
allowing our cars and hotel rooms to be bugged."
"And now they have the medallion," sighed Scully.
"No, said Reyes, "no they haven't. I had my back to the
laundry chute when John staggered out of his room and
momentarily distracted them. I used that moment to drop the
real medallion down the chute. What I handed them was the
replica I'd put in my pocket on the drive to Baltimore."
"You know, I'm not sure whether to be relieved or
disappointed." said Scully. "On the one hand we need all
the edge we can gain given the threats America currently
faces..."
"But on the other hand," said Reyes, "should the power the
medallion represents be put in the hands of anyone who has
such big plans for it, whether they want to make soldiers
or babies."
"Exactly," said Scully, "What happened to David Reiner?"
"I led the team that went to arrest him and secure the
clinic while John stayed behind and got medical treatment
for that blow to the head," said Reyes. "He denied
everything, of course, said he had always been David Reiner
and that talk of a magic medallion was absurd. We had the
clothing of the missing people, but when we tried to access
the computer it fried the hard drive so we'll never know
who all the babies were. Not that there's much we could
do for them now. It's probably best if we leave them with
their new parents, to grow up and hopefully become useful
members of society.
Questioning Reiner was really strange. I kept trying to
find some trace of the man I'd known there, of Chuck
Boudreaux, but I couldn't. I could kind of see how he might
have gone along with what was done to the Ameches and maybe
even to the original Reiner, having their lives torn from
them and being turned into babies, but how could he justify
doing it to innocents like Reiner's secretary and Darryl
Johnson? Having run out of criminals, I guess they needed
to turn to random members of the public if they were to
continue with their lucrative racket. And Chuck - Reiner -
went along with this. I guess that's why I couldn't find
any trace of the sweet man I thought I'd known. He didn't
exist anymore. I almost managed to convince myself Clay had
been lying about him being Chuck. But before I left, Reiner
gave me this envelope. I opened it outside in the car
park."
She handed Scully the envelope she had been playing with.
Inside was a green silk scarf.
"So, all we actually have against Reiner is circumstantial
evidence," said Reyes. "With a half decent lawyer, he's
going to get off."
"There's one thing you haven't explained," said Scully.
"What's that?"
"Why the medallion didn't transform you into a baby."
"Bad timing," said Reyes. "Just bad timing."
"'Bad timing'?" said Scully, puzzled. "I don't get it."
"Oh, come on," laughed Reyes. "You're a woman; I thought
you'd figure it out right away. What did Mulder say
prevents the medallion from working on someone?"
"If that person is pregnant or menstr...oh!" said Scully,
realization dawning.
"For once 'the curse' was anything but." said Reyes. This
time, they both laughed.
"Fortunately," she continued, "the medallion still tries to
transform you. Before those changes reversed themselves
they were just enough to convince Clay I was turning into a
baby, and to reduce the size of my wrists enough for me to
slip my bonds. Good news for me, not so good for Clay"
"What happened to the baby?" asked Scully.
"Child services took custody of her," said Reyes. "Kevin
Clay has been given a second chance. Let's hope she grows
up to be a nicer person this time around. Somehow, I think
she will."
"And the medallion?"
"Gone. No-one in the laundry room had seen it, which means
it could be anywhere. The thing is very good at not staying
too long in any one place.