Mulder awoke shivering. His shallow breathing formed clouds of mist in the air around them. The heating must have been damaged by the tremors; either that or they were low on fuel.
He rolled off of the coach, careful not to disturb his sleeping partner. She needed the rest. He tossed a fleecy blanket over her small frame and stretched groggily. Everything hurt. He'd convince himself it came with the territory of getting older, but ultimately it was a lifetimes worth of abusing his body in the field.
Mulder closed the door softly behind him and made for the bathroom. With stiff and laboured movements he wrestled the shirt over his head. Damn, he thought. He'd bled through the cotton white material. Screwing up the tee, he threw it on the floor before Scully got a glimpse. She'd be fussing over him if she knew.
He turned the tap in the sink ready to refresh himself with a splash of water, hopefully even ease his rising temperature. It spluttered and spat, groaning uncooperatively.
Fuck sake. Mulder sighed.
He almost walked into Morgan as he exited the shower block.
"Sir" Morgan began, just as surprised.
"I told you, Morgan, call me Mulder" They both started moving down the corridor, "There's no need for hierarchy in this place… we all die together and what not…" He trailed as he pulled a clean shirt on.
"Hey, any idea why there's no water?"
It was superficial, given the current circumstances, but Mulder felt obliged to ask nonetheless.
"The maintenance team used to collect tonnes worth of snow and dump it into the melting tanks for processing and storage. We just don't have the man-power for it anymore…" Morgan explained.
"Right…" He nodded, feeling a little foolish that it was even on his list of priorities.
"Sir, I've just heard news from DC that they're issuing air strikes on the crafts. Is this true?"
Mulder stopped in his tracks. Intel hadn't mentioned anything about air strikes as yet.
"I'm sorry, I know it's none of my business, but my brother lives on the outskirts of DC. Dodging this virus is one thing, but a full blown aerial attack…?"
Mulder was speechless.
Morgan dropped his voice, "Is the world really going to shit?"
He couldn't lie, nor did he have the heart to speak the truth. Instead he placed an arm around his friend's shoulder and continued walking.
"Yes, and no. But right now our best chance is getting this vaccine developed and distributing it to large-scale manufacturing…" He paused, a little embarrassed that that was the extent of their plan thus far. "There's hope."
"Hope." Morgan repeated, "What can I do to help?"
"Continue doing what you're doing keeping this place alive and powered. Quartet off any expendable areas of the complex; we strip right back to the bare essentials. Keep the medical bay powered and the labs. Do what you can to keep everything running for as long as possible. We bleed everything dry to buy us enough time to develop the vaccine and then we leave, all of us"
Morgan nodded in understanding, "Yes, Sir" and turned on his heel eager to set to work.
"Where's Doggett?" Mulder announced, sauntering into the research hub.
To his surprise the place was deserted. Skinner and a female technician sat at one of the main desks feverishly assessing the computer data coming in.
"Mulder, we didn't expect you to be feeling better so quickly"
Skinner rose from the seat to greet his friend.
"Where is everyone?"
"Gone. They headed back to the main land a couple of days ago, moved operations entirely in order to distribute aid and co-ordinate relief efforts more effectively on the ground"
"Doggett?"
"Is heading up the operation. He's liaising with the military forces as we speak. Unfortunately the military is not often recognised for its ability to work in union. It's proving… difficult, to say the least"
Mulder suspected just as much.
"I heard they ordered an air strike in DC"
"Not just DC" Skinner pointed out, "Across a number of different states"
He bought up a map on the screen and Mulder cringed at the number of bright red crosses etched and widespread.
Mulder ran his hand through his hair, "I need to speak to the Head of State. Is that something our guys can organise?"
Skinner blew air through his lips, "I don't know, he's not a very easy man to get a hold of at the best of times"
"Okay, then the Secretary of Defence"
"They're not the kind of people you just phone up…"
"Make it happen, Skinner, I know you can. I need them online on a webchat by this evening, latest. We'll know if we have a suitable vaccine by then"
He knew they would have. He felt it in his bones. Scully had never let them down before, and she was strong, now more than ever.
….
Mulder was crawling under the projector adjusting cables right up to minutes before broadcast. They weren't entirely sure if the link would work but that was mainly due to the random power cuts and surges that kept plaguing the unit.
"We're on" one of the technicians announced as the screen came alive with static.
"Alright, get ready. We'll be live in five" Skinner warned.
Mulder straightened himself up, still ecstatic from earlier news. Things were finally taking a step in the right direction.
A large figure appeared in the weblink. Sat at a table and surrounded by a handful of other men in suits he looked wholly unimpressed.
"I don't know why I'm wasting my time here. I'm sure you're aware I'm a very busy man given the current global climate" The greying man sneered through the webcam.
"With all do respect, Sir, you just lost a third of your man power to a highly injudicious and ineffective airstrike. Unless you've got another senseless strategy I'd say you're shit out of luck, and might want to consider listening to the likes of this 'waste of time'… Sir"
The Secretary of Defence lent back in his chair, considering where the conversation was heading. He didn't like it.
"Who are you and what do you want?" He proceeded with caution.
"Agent Mulder, former Federal Bureau of Investigation. I believe a couple of your goons beside you know of me. They were assigned to kill me some ten years ago in their earlier roles. Luckily they failed. Begs the question how on earth they moved up in management…"
The men either side of the secretary shifted uncomfortably and the room fell silent.
"Alright Agent Mulder you've made your point. Please go on."
Mulder moved across the room to a large white board as Skinner tracked him with the camera. He grabbed a marker pen, drawing a sizable sphere on the board and turned to address the camera.
"Earth" Mulder explained, "…and in very basic terms, its atmospheric layers" he began drawing two sets of dotted lines around the diagram.
"The stratosphere runs to the altitude of about 50km, then above 85km we find the thermosphere" Mulder roughly shaded the area in between, "…but this space in between, the 'mesosphere' we know very little about, to the extent that it's often referred to as the 'ignorosphere'. Too high for planes or balloons, and too low to stick a satellite in orbit, it would de-orbit too rapidly to obtain any significant data…"
"If you have a point, Agent Mulder please feel free to come to it some time soon" The Secretary pressed.
"We've recorded these UFO's residing at a steady 70km in height. They hide in plain sight, hovering in inaccessible space. They can operate in this 'dead zone' where we cannot" He scribbled a large circle around the area to highlight, "In an area that is seemingly impossible for our aircraft to operate in. They will always have the upper ground. Any air base attack you engage in both provoked or as a counter, you will lose"
"So…" The Secretary cleared his throat; "You have a proposal for us, some sort of suggested plan of action"
"I do, Sir, but I can't help but feel you're not going to like what I have to say"
"Try us. About now we could use any ideas, however… Spooky"
"Both Russian and US states have satellites in orbit right now that carry nuclear warheads, put up there to out bid one another in a space-arms race that began in the late seventies"
"That information is classified…"
"Not to me" Mulder said a matter of factly. "Neither country would ever dare use this weaponry because it would destroy every satellite in orbit and create an electromagnetic pulse strong enough to wipe out all electronic equipment, rendering all our modern technologies completely useless. From GPS right down to the Rolex on your arm"
"Are you suggesting, Agent Mulder, that we are to deploy one of these weapons?"
"Yes Sir. We shoot ourselves in the foot; put ourselves into a check mate position, and then make our final move"
"Which is…?"
"Remove all technologies. Go back to basics and fight them on the ground"
"Destroy ourselves in order to destroy them" The Secretary questioned.
"Theoretically, but ultimately, yes"
The panel erupted into a chorus of argument and debate.
"Quiet. Enough." The Secretary warned, "The way I see it, there are two problems with this theory. What if this pulse destroys us and has no affect on the crafts?"
"We are not one hundred per cent sure the pulse will immobilise the crafts. But our scientists are very certain it will work"
"We're supposed to gamble the future of our planet on whether some lab coat in the arctic has done his math correctly…? My other concern is what happens next. Say, theoretically, we go along with this plan and wipe out our technologies and theirs, then what? How can we be sure we can beat them in hand to hand combat?"
"We can't be sure of that either. But with a cure, we would have a way of fighting back. We have to study them, capture the injured or deceased and find out their weaknesses…"
"You've seen this black oil virus, Agent Mulder, seen what it's capable of, how rapidly it spreads"
"True, Sir, I was exposed to it and infected and I recovered with an extensive course of antibiotics and a lot of temperature adjustment, a luxury that a lot of those infected just do not have. Time and resources are a limiting factor with an outbreak of this magnitude. And so, I have organised a team of scientists and medical doctors to search for a cure. This morning I received news from Agent Scully that the vaccine we have been working on so tiresomely for the last few years has finally been developed. This is our counter, this is our hope for survival" Mulder held a small vial to the screen, "This is the cure for the retrovirus, and we need to start large scale fabrication and distribution immediately"