Chapter 3

SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO

8:47 PM

Present Day

"I'm beginning to think this may just be a snipe hunt," Cat Grant said.

"Considering both the man you're tracking and how you reached out, can you really blame him for making you jump through hoops?" Felicity said into her earpiece.

"For all I know he may have sent me out here with the intention of a gang of skinheads to shoot me dead."

"The thought did cross my mind."

Felicity had done exactly what the head of CatCo had asked her to do: she had sent a message to Tad O'Malley that appeared to have to come from one of her servers. The message had been basic: Grant had wanted to set up a meeting to discuss the recent broadcast.

Honestly Felicity had expected one of two reactions: no response at all or O'Malley sending one equipped with a virus as a blunt refusal. After twelve hours she had expected the former when a response had popped up at the address.

The message had been a series of numbers that Felicity quickly realized were geographic coordinates along with a three hour window in two days' time. She'd realized where they were, which wasn't quite far removed from the middle of nowhere.

Technically Cat Grant was still in Santa Fe and only five miles from civilization. But in New Mexico, civilization is never that far from the desert sands and the coordinates that were given to her were just far enough away from the city limits that a few steps in the wrong direction could send you into the desert. To add to the onus the window was going to extend well into the night and anyone who spent even a few hours in this part of the world knew that you could freeze to death without shelter if you didn't die of dehydration first.

There had been some debate whether this was a trick, something that all concerned knew was a real possibility. No one knew much about O'Malley besides his on-air persona, which could be snarky rather than the callous cruelty that was the nature of so many of his fellow broadcasters. Nevertheless O'Malley did scorn mainstream media just enough that the temptation to let one of the most powerful moguls die in the desert on a blind hunch might be too much for him not to give in to.

There was also a more realistic possibility that O'Malley could think that this was a joke, send these very coordinates, figure that the person who interpreted them might also think their chain was being pulled and not show up at all. Considering all of the invective he had thrown at Cat Grant over the years, he might very well think his leg was being pulled. He might feel guilty if she ended up dying in the desert but he could argue – justifiably – he never thought it was a serious request.

Eventually Cat herself had made the argument that they had to at least consider the that O'Malley was being genuine and using this as a test of Grant's seriousness. "This guy isn't Howard Stern or the Jerky Boys," she told them. "Practical jokes are not his style. We have to assume he's testing my bona fides and he wants to know if I'm serious about this."

"Even if you're right, there's no guarantee he'll show up," Quentin had reminded her. "Given everything you've told us, he may think that this some kind of trap. And given everything that we've seen over the last couple of years – "

"Coupled with what Mulder and Scully have told us," Felicity added.

"…he'd be more than justified thinking so," Quentin finished.

"All valid points," Cat conceded. "That said, I still think we have to at least play this out a little further. I'll leave whatever security measures you and your friends want to design up to you, at least as far as getting me there and relative safety. But once I'm there you have to be out of sight."

"Not exactly an easy suggestion considering that there will be nothing as far as the average person can see," Felicity said. "But I've had to deal with far worse over the last four years."

Quentin had faith in Felicity and Cat Grant was willing to show her the same courtesy. So she'd made her way to the coordinates had Quentin drive her to the point in question and told him to go back to the city limits. He wasn't entirely thrilled about that part but he understood the rules.

That had been more than an hour and a half earlier. The sun had set just a few minutes ago and the chill desert winds had begun to start biting. And aside from a bird, there had been no movement.

"What do you think will happen first? I freeze to death or the coyotes come for me?" Cat Grant joked.

"How serious a question was that?" Quentin asked.

"The third option is he shows up just to see it happen," Cat Grant said.

"I wouldn't count so much on that part," Felicity said. "I'm picking up movement on the outside of the radius."

"Gang of Harleys or an RV?" Cat asked.

"Hard to tell. I'm using patching one of the satellites now." Felicity paused. "Um, it's…."

"…one of mine, I thought as much," Cat Grant said kindly. "It's all right."

"I'm glad you're being understanding," Felicity said.

"Where should I send the invoice too? Queen Industries or STAR Labs?" Cat said casually.

Felicity blinked. "Um, invoice?"

"I mean, obviously you've chosen to lease the use of my satellite to do this task," Cat said sweetly. "Because if you weren't, some might consider this is an advanced type of computer trespass punishable by a $600,000 fine and up to 18 months in prison."

"You're enjoying this far too much," Quentin said.

"No, no, CatCo has always been willing to help promising minds develop, particularly young women," Cat Grant continued. "I have always believed in empowering women as well as being firmed to their principles. But as always we must stand squarely behind the rule of law."

"Okay, I do get the point," Felicity said. "By the way while you were talking I completely lost track of the vehicle."

"No you didn't," Quentin said.

"Can't you let me have this one?" Felicity sighed. "It's about three miles out. Whatever it was left the highway and is heading in your direction."

"When is it going to be visible?"

"That depends. How large a bill is CatCo going to be sending me?" Felicity asked coquettishly.

"Don't bother," Cat said. "Whoever it is has turned the blinkers on."

"You don't think it's a trap?" Quentin asked.

"Hard to say. Depends who gets out of the car."

"If it's two identical Latino men with shaved heads, run," Felicity told them.

"Don't joke. He might have hired lookalikes just to mess with me," Cat responded. She frowned. "I'm still not sure whether he isn't."

Cat could now see the car approaching her. It was slowing down, so she had no doubt this was either O'Malley or someone representing him. That said, there was a good chance this was still a set up. Either that or O'Malley wasn't spending the money he got for being the star he was.

The car stopped but the headlights remained on. Cat remained silent. She knew the ball was in O'Malley's court, she'd put it there.

There was a pause. The driver's door opened. A young man stepped forward. "Come with me."

"You'll forgive me if I'm hesitant," Cat Grant's fearsomeness returned.

"If you want to see O'Malley, you have to trust me."

"And why on Earth would I do that? For all I know, the moment I step in the car will be the last time I'm seen alive."

"This coming from the woman who had no problem asking Al-Ashad if he was a dictator, Rumsfeld if he was a war criminal and what possessed John Travolta to make Battlefield Earth?"

Cat gave a small smile. "I had to jump through the most hoops to talk to Travolta."

"Those scientologists always did strike me as the craziest. "

Tad O'Malley had gotten out of the car.

"You'll forgive my wariness. When a person you've devoted no less than eleven episodes calling tantamount to Satan requests an interview, I expected to see a process server here."

"I've been called worse names by my own board of directors." Cat Grant said. "And rarely with such imaginative language." She paused. "Was this out of paranoia or theatricality?"

"A little of each," O'Malley said. "I've called a lot of people fairly unpleasant things over the years and I've received many reactions, all of which could be filed under the cost of doing business. I think you're the first person to even try this hard to reach out."

"You don't seem that surprised I was able to find you."

O'Malley waved it off. " Given the security measures I take to protect myself I knew only someone with the right combination of wealth, power and nerve was eventually go to pull it off. I just thought Zuckerberg or Bezos would be the ones to pull it off."

"Those frat boys are still too concerned with measuring contests with each other to bother. Besides from what I understand they'd probably only do it to offer you a job."

"And that's not why you're here?" Cat Grant had thought she'd kept a straight face. "Come on, you're as much a player as any of them and I know damn well you've got a bigger set than all of them."

"Is that a note of admiration I hear in the cynical voice of Tad O'Malley?"

"You did bother to show up in the desert at sunset alone and with no apparent way of getting back." O'Malley said. "I assume."

"I had a ride coming to pick me up."

"Your car service could find you out here?"

"Yours did." Cat Grant looked at him. "Speaking of which, I hope you paid your assistant better than you did for the car he's driving."

"That cars mine."

Now Grant's eyebrow did twitch.

"I have no designs of being one of the corporate elite." O'Malley said. "I wouldn't blame you for being skeptical given the wealth of so many of my fellow broadcasters who claim to be one of the people while looking down on them but I've made it very clear in my contract that I have a set salary that's never to exceed more than $1 million per year. Most of my budget goes to pay my staff who have to do far more work under far more difficult conditions than even the mobile units at CNN. And to be honest, it's only because my overhead is so low that the channels that pick me up tolerate the way I broadcast."

"That and your six million daily listeners." Cat Grant pointed out.

"You know as well as I do that you can only push the powers that be before they decide you're more trouble than you're worth," O'Malley said. "It's also the reason we're here in the first place."

"Because I was on the front lines before I became one of them," Cat Grant guessed.

"I wouldn't be here if one of your rivals had set this up," O'Malley assented. "That still doesn't explain why you expended so much time and effort to track me down. I'm assuming it's not to hand me a cease and desist order."

"On the contrary," Cat said. "It's because I need your help."

"And why would I give it to you?" O'Malley asked. "You might be better than most of the corporate overlords that run the media-industrial complex but you are still part of a swamp that desperately needs to be drained."

"And you don't consider yourself part of that same mire?" Cat asked. "I could say the exact same thing about you and just insert 'talk radio'. I agree there's too much noise out there; it's as big a problem the world has with all the other bigger ones."

"You really think you're in a position to throw stones?"

"I'm not going to debate the problems of the soup we're in," Cat Grant said. "I am, however, going to simply point out there are bigger ones. Ones that neither of us on our own have the capacity to do anything to solve. No, I'm not offering you a job," she said holding up a hand. "I am reminding you that we spend too much time talking at each other instead of bothering to listen. And right now, listening is what we need to do."

O'Malley was quiet for a moment. "I didn't bring my coat," he said finally. "Get in the car and we can continue this conversation in a more convivial setting."

Cat Grant stepped forward.

"Once you remove the radio you're carrying and give it to Nick."

Cat Grant was no longer young enough to give into impulse and she was very aware that O'Malley could be trying to set her up. That was assuming this was really O'Malley and not some version of the Syndicate. In any case, doing this was the kind of move that was akin to the stupidity of the heroines of horror films she'd wasted too much time watching growing up.

But she had done more dangerous things when she'd been in Bosnia and Kabul and she'd dealt with enough people to know that sometimes you have to do truly dangerous things to get your source to trust you.

So even as Felicity was screaming in her ear she took the earpiece out and handed it to O'Malley's assistant.

"I saw a chicken place as I drove out here. Can we stop for a bite to eat before we talk?" she asked.

SILVER SPRINGS

February 9th 1999

1:17 AM

"You have to love these gated communities," Ray said as he looked at the remnants of the vehicle. "A man gets essentially baked alive in his own home, and not only does no one apparently hear anything they don't seem to have blinked that the remnants of the taxicab he showed up in is marked in the garage."

"To be fair, you could fit a small charter company inside," Snart said. "I knew there was money in world domination; I didn't think it paid nearly as well to sell it out."

Mulder had given them two sets of instructions once they had found the burned body of the man who had been replaced at the Syndicate's meeting. First, find any information that this man had that would give a clue to his name and position in the world. Second, see if they could find any sign of how the rebel had managed to replace him at all.

"I thought these aliens had the ability to shapeshift," Ray had pointed out.

"We have no idea if these resistance fighters are part of the same species," Mulder told them. "All I know for certain about them is what I've heard from Cassandra Spender nearly twenty years ago and I'm not sure how reliable a source she is."

"She knew the role her husband played in the scientific experiments on her," Scully reminded him.

"I trust her about what her husband did to her. Not necessarily the aliens. Need I remind you until she was taken in Philadelphia she was convinced she was an emissary and that the aliens were a force for good?"

"And she recanted that." Scully countered.

"We never found out how she found out," Mulder reminded her. "Besides do you really trust anything an alien from that era would tell us?"

Scully couldn't argue with that.

"How long do you think we have until the alien formally known as an Elder shows up?" Ray asked.

"According to Sara, he got on a private plane heading back to Maryland," Scully said. "You've got two hours, maybe a little more before you have to get out of there."

"Do you want me to tidy up after myself?" Snart said.

"Try not to make too big a mess," Mulder had told them. "I don't know what's going to happen to this rebel but the last thing we want to do is mess with the timeline more than we have too. One way or another, he's going to be gone in a few days. Besides, we're here about the human element not the alien part."

That part Snart had managed to find more than his fair share of. Whatever this alien's plans had been it clearly didn't intend to be playing the role for long. His cleaning job had been solid but it wouldn't have stood up to the presence of law enforcement. This was a creature on a mission and it was clearly short-term.

It was clear the alien had taken some basic ID and clothing but little more to maintain the masquerade. It had taken no opportunity to search the home of one of the conspirators it had gone to such efforts to replace. Snart found what he was looking for in five minutes.

"Give him credit for some security, there's a wall safe here that's pretty secure. For 1999." Snart had grown up learning safecracking on models like this. He opened in less than two minutes.

"All right, global syndicate leader what do you keep here?" Snart looked through the papers. "All right FBI man, I've got a name for you."

WAVERIDER

"Gordon Hunt. Born August 2, 1929. Based on what you've told me, he either came to the conspiracy when he wasn't out of high school or he's a relatively late recruit."

"The latter's just as likely," Mulder said. "These guys may not have fully assembled until the mid-1950s in their current form. Smokey and my father may well have been the elder statesmen."

"I'm guessing this is more personal effects than anything else. Social security card, passport…."

There was a pause.

"Last will and testament."

Mulder and Scully looked at each other. "When's it dated?"

Snart looked at it. "It's been notarized for January of this year."

"You have any ethical qualms about taking it with you?"

"Not really." Snart said. "Considering if what you're telling us is accurate, in a few days all of the people he'd have anything to leave things too will be as dead as he is."

Mulder tried not to wince at this but he couldn't help it. It was a reminder that it wasn't just the Syndicate and its helpers that were going to be incinerated at El Rico in a few days. Somewhere between forty and fifty other people were going to die horribly for no crime other than having been married to or the children of a group of old men who had decided decades ago to sell out the human race. The exact number of dead had been impossible to determine but they had found several small skeletons.

One of the hardest details for Mulder to process had been the fact that the small skeletons had been found behind all of the bigger ones. The last things the Syndicate had done before perishing was make one final, doomed attempt to save their families. Mulder still wasn't sure whether it had been an act of nobility or guilt.

"Who did he leave his estate too?"

"It's not a will," Snart told them, leafing through it. "It's a set of instructions. And it's also a confession."

LXLXLXL

"I can't figure what the hell this alien did any of this," Ray said. "From what we know these aliens have the same aspects of the colonists, at least in terms of biological makeup?"

"I'm basing it on what I remember from a few scattered memories but aside from the fact that they seem to have no faces, let's operate on that assumption." Scully said.

"So why come in a taxi at all?" Ray asked. "I do understand you want to assume a masquerade but they could just have easily come on foot. Somehow I doubt the security gates would be much of an obstacle."

"Maybe so no one would be suspicious," Scully said. "I think it would be noticed if an alien leaped over the front door."

Ray paused. "Maybe he didn't do that at all."

He saw something on the floor of the passenger side. "What the hell?"

"Be careful touching whatever you find," Scully said. "Whatever the biology of these aliens, there's a good chance it might be lethal."

"That's not what I'm looking at," Ray Palmer held up a small piece of a substance. "I know these aliens are supposed to be advanced. But whatever this, it doesn't seem to be held together by anything stronger than spirit gum."

What he was holding looked very much like part of a mask or the equivalent of the kind of makeup you saw used in Hollywood before CGI had become prominent. That in itself seemed odd. These species were incredibly advanced so why would they use what seemed to be such primitive makeup?"

"Maybe these aliens don't shape-shift the way the colonists due," he said over the earpiece. "I think this is supposed to be some kind of disguise."

Scully considered this. "Cassandra said that the resistance had mutilated their faces so that they couldn't be infected by the alien virus. I remember that the rebels didn't seem to have any facial features at all; maybe the mutilations were more than cosmetic."

Ray opened the glove compartment. "That might explain what I'm looking at here."

He held up the picture of a driver's license. "I guess even the Syndicate has to go the DMV occasionally."

LXLXLX

"Well, I'm guessing Jeffrey Spender isn't the only son who was about to have a hell of burden placed on him," Leonard Snart said. "Based on what I'm looking at Hunt – assuming that's his real name…"

"Probably isn't. These men dealt with multiple aliases," Mulder said. "My guess this is the one he used in conjunction with his family."

"Anyway, he's clearly had this for a while," Snart said. "It basically gives a variation on what you told us was in the files already. He was part of this project when he was working at the State Department. He's vague on the dates but he does acknowledge that in 1973 he handed over his wife to the colonists as part of a project to forestall an alien invasion." Snart shook his head. "I'm only used to this level of hypocrisy from televangelists and parole officers."

"They probably have better morals," Mulder said wryly. "Anything you see here that stands out as different?"

"Not much, I recognize most of the military bases and companies from my go-through from the files," Snart said. "Except one thing. There's a mention of an international organization in Tunis."

There was a pause. "The conspiracy may have had connections in Tunisia," Mulder said slowly.

"I was never good at African geography but isn't that area almost all desert?" Snart said. "What the hell would the Syndicate want in the middle of the Sahara?"

"I don't know," Mulder said. "But we've got someone locked up in STAR Labs who made more than her share of trips out there over the years."

"Speaking of which where is the Uni-Blonde right now?"

Mulder winced. "As of this moment she's in Fort Marlene, still recovering from being infected with the black oil. I'm going to run into her in a few days and then she's going to disappear for another year and a half."

"Just in time to set you up with a rendezvous with a flying saucer." Snart said. "Out of curiosity how messed up was she when you meet here?"

"She looked near death," Mulder said. "They'd been treating her like a pincushion for the past year."

"And yet she went back to working for the Smoking Man just a few months later," Snart said. "I really can't tell if the members of your Syndicate are pragmatic or just stupid."

"I've been at this for twenty-five years," Mulder admitted. "That's a question I still don't have an answer for. It's definitely not something I see in the new breed."

"How much more dangerous does that make them?" Snart asked.

"Much more. They seem capable of learning from their mistakes. Kind of why we're here."

LAGUARDIA AIRPORT

"You really don't think there's anything gained by taking this thing?" Mick asked.

Sara Lance could see the logic in it as well as Mick could. In all the years that Mulder and Scully had dealt with the colonists they had only gotten this close to a member of the resistance once. Mulder had followed a lead that Krycek had given him to a military base in West Virginia where the Syndicate was holding one of the rebels prisoner. There had been some debate about handing the rebel over to the colonists and Krycek had implied in no uncertain terms that if that happened the resistance would be doomed and so would the Earth.

Mulder and Scully had gone out there and Mulder had found himself in a truck with that same rebel. Before he could move the door to the truck had opened – and Mulder had no recollection of what happened next. All he knew was that he had regained consciousness to find the truck empty and the signs of some kind of a struggle. He'd assumed that based on what happened the following year the Colonists had never learned of the resistance's existence.

"That's my career in the Bureau in a nutshell," he'd told the Legends. "History is changed and I'm one step behind of it happening."

"You ever try undergoing hypnosis afterwards?" Stein had asked. "It seemed to do something for Scully in her encounter."

"Try convincing her of that," Mulder said wryly. "I thought about it but at that point I was dealing with the fact that not only had I been wrong about everything I'd been doing the last several months I might even have less time to do anything to stop it."

"After everything you'd heard, you really thought that you and Scully alone could still do enough?" Snart shook his head. "Even Allen didn't have that much of a savior complex when we first met."

"Need I remind you no one was listening to us at the time?" Scully said with her eyebrow raised in a position they were already becoming familiar with. "Hell I wasn't even willing to fully commit for another two years. By the time I did whatever was happening with the resistance didn't seem to be a factor anymore."

Understandably given the opportunity to actually take prisoner or at least talk with a member of the resistance was a huge temptation for Mulder. He admitted his first impulse had been for Mick and Sara to run the man off the road and interrogate it. What stopped him was his near certainty that Smokey was well aware that the Syndicate had been infiltrated and his knowledge of just how the Syndicate dealt with leaks.

Sure enough Mick had realized that they weren't the only people following the 'Elder'. Another car was slightly further behind and doing what Mick considered a 'half-ass job' of tailing him.

They knew that it didn't matter if whoever it was spotted them. What mattered was that they were going to be just as committed to following the spy until they learned how much he knew and what he told them. Then they would terminate the creature: something that they definitely had the means to do more effectively that Mick and Sara could.

And since that kind of intervention definitely fell within the scope of 'interfering with the timeline' the Legends had reluctantly agreed they had to leave this creature alone. Snart and Palmer were going to the Elder's house in Silver Springs where hopefully they could find something that would help them in their original mission.

Sara and Mick's job was now secondary though Mulder did make clear it was of some importance. He wanted them to perform 'countersurveillance' and figure out who the Syndicate was going to send to follow this rebel. Once they did, they would get his identification and bring it back to the Waverider.

"Seems like a lot of effort just to catch one lousy fish," Mick grumbled.

"I don't entirely disagree," Sara admitted. "But that is why we're on this little mission in the first place: intelligence gathering."

"Hey, I didn't mind what we were doing back in Manhattan. We got stuff on the men behind the curtain. I'm just not sure what good it'll do to have something on someone in the rank-and-file."

"These aren't messengers and caterers," Scully reminded them in their ear. "These are assassins. And while they may not be trying to run the world, it doesn't make them any less insidious."

Mick, oddly enough, grew sober. "Sorry about that," he said with genuine sincerity. "I keep forgetting how much its cost the two of you over the years. "

"Mulder tried to tell me once that the personal costs were too high," Scully said sadly. "I keep reminding myself I signed up for this. Almost everyone else in the world didn't."

Sara, who like Scully had lost a sister to the battle, just nodded.

"How are we going to know who they send?" she asked instead. "Need I remind you these men are built to blend into the background? I seriously doubt they're wearing jackets with 'Syndicate' on the back."

"Not always. But some of them do stand out."

Something in Scully's tenor had changed. And when she looked up she saw why. She recognized the man the Syndicate was sending to follow the leak."

"Makes sense, if you think about it," Scully said detached. "The best way to catch one rat is with another."

Alex Krycek was standing less that fifty yards away.

"Do I have your permission to beat the shit out of him?" Mick asked.

"Isn't that messing with the timeline?" Scully asked.

"I'm not gonna kill him. But there's nothing that says I can't mess him up a little."

There was a long pause where Scully seemed to be considering the option. "Wait until he makes his report to the powers that be," she said. "Then there is something I want you to do."

2:12 AM

"According to our sources there's no sign of any change in his flight plan." Alex Krycek said into the phone. "He's heading back to Maryland in an hour. How should we proceed?"

"My source in the Bureau's heading to his home now to ascertain how much of our plan the rebels might know," Smoking Man said. "Once we've received confirmation we'll eliminate the threat."

"The rest of the group is panicked. Once they learn of this…"

"We still have a chance to contain this."

Krycek paused. "We're well past the point of damage control, old man. The ship is beginning to sink and you're rearranging deck chairs."

"Your position with our council is tenuous right now, Alex. " The Smoking Man said calmly. "But if you truly feel the way you do, you're welcome to take your chances without our protection."

Krycek was silent.

"I know very well what you think of me, Alex. I know of your skills for survival as well as your capacity for betrayal. So I'm going to ask you right now: what do you think your chances are on your own?"

Alex knew when he didn't have a move to make – at least not yet. "We can't use any of our usual people."

"I have a man in mind for the job. Someone who needs to prove his commitment to the cause. In the meantime get on the next flight to Maryland. "

Before he could answer the Smoking Man terminated the call. Alex uttered a Russian curse and headed back inside.

His rage at the old man was such that he didn't pick up on the fact that there was someone behind him until it was too late. It wouldn't have mattered much; this person's reaction time was swifter than he could ever be.

He saw stars and momentarily lost consciousness.

2:32 am

"Rise and shine, you little prick."

Alex Krycek had a quick ability to assess his surroundings and this person had made no effort to hide them. They were clearly in the airport hangar.

"Forgive the squalid surrounding. I considered the men's room but I understand that would be triggering for you, Comrade."

He focused to see a tall woman in her late twenties. But that wasn't what got his attention. She was speaking in perfect Russian.

"I realize I have much to answer for," he said slowly.

It was a scoff. "We offered you sanctuary after multiple blunders. Many of us were opposed, saying you couldn't trust a scorpion who'd already bitten the frog." She switched over to English. "Clearly they were correct in their judgment."

She took out a dagger and held it to his throat. "I would be doing the world a service if I removed you from it," she told Alex. "But unfortunately we have bigger problems than your cowardice to deal with at the moment. As you are all too aware."

"I was trying to save us."

The woman kicked his legs out from under him and his head hit the floor. "You were trying to save yourself. You stole the only witness to the massacre in Kazakhstan to sell him to the Americans. You took our vaccine and demanded that they trade theirs in exchange for the boy who you infected with the black cancer. Selling us out is bad enough. That you were willing to sell out the human race to put yourself in a position of power is lower than even we would go. There's no punishment on this world or any other that's fitting even if I had the time to inflict it."

Krycek was beginning to worry now. "They'll be looking for me."

"Not very hard. And they won't question whatever injuries you suffer. But you needn't worry, my little canary because I have every intention of letting you go."

"In exchange for?"

The woman laughed. "You think we're stupid enough to ask for anything from you with the hope of getting it? We've been burned by you twice. And we're tempted to just let you suffer that exact fate. I'm here to give you a message. And I'll use small words to make sure your twisted mind understands it."

"We intend to survive the next few days and beyond. That was our plan, something you quickly forgot. And as punishment for your betrayal from this point you are exiled. If you ever appear in Russia or any of our former lands there will be someone waiting to find you. There's going to be a bounty on your head for anyone who brings proof of your death." She smiled. "Considering you rejected Mother Russia it's fitting that capitalism as a way to make sure judgment is carried out."

"So whatever allegiances you've made in the West, those are the only ones you have left. I can't imagine how shaky you've made the ground under you already but it's infinitely safer than what you're standing on now."

The woman unlocked the cuffs. "We're done now. This meeting did not take place. Should you try to tell your current employers that it did or what we know you will regret this kindness. "

Krycek looked stunned but didn't hesitate to move. "Who do you work for?"

"You wouldn't understand if I told you."

"Try me."

The woman smiled. "We predict the future. And the best way to do that is by already knowing it. Now hurry up, you have a plane to catch."

LXLXLX

"I won't lie; that was fun to watch." Scully said.

"It was more fun to do. You're sure this won't change anything?"

"Nothing that happens here. Krycek won't be found among the dead in El Rico."

"You don't think this'll change his mind about his loyalty?"

"If you were you could see that my eyebrow practically left my forehead when you suggested that" Scully said. "Krycek only cares about his own survival. He made sure he wasn't among the dead in the original timeline; nothing that we can do to him will make him any less of a coward."

"What's our next step?" Mick asked.

"Right now, get to the rendezvous point," Scully told them. "With the information you gathered and what the others found in DC I think we've gotten as much out of this period as we can."

There was a pause. "And you're okay with that?" Sara asked.

"Believe me, neither Mulder nor myself are particularly thrilled about what we're about to do" Scully said. "But you're the ones who said we can't interfere with the timeline. And in order for us to get back on The X-Files, events have to play out the way they're supposed to."

She paused. "I keep telling myself that if we do interfere, there's a very good chance all of this will be for nothing. Colonization begins and the human race is exterminated. This isn't even a close question: the sacrifice of several dozen people, no matter how innocent or the entire human race. I'm not the kind of person who does moral arithmetic but it's not even a close question."

"It's the exact reverse of the equation these bastards were willing to do in the first place," Sara reminded her. "Doesn't make it any easier when you've seen the results."

"I know." Scully paused. "But even that's not why I don't want to intervene. It's because had things gone another away, Mulder and I would have been among the ones whose bodies would have been among those burned beyond recognition."

They knew this part of the story. The Legends wondered how much that particular tidbit had kept the two agents up at night over the years.

"You have to keep your eye on the prize," Mick said. "Only way you're going to keep yourselves sane."

This was the kind of insight not even Mick thought he was capable of but every so often would.

"And as for everybody who dies?" Scully asked.

"It's like your partner said. They burned themselves." Mick said. "And as someone whose good at playing with fire these amateurs got what they deserved. I'll be damned if I'm going out that way, let alone the human race."

Then just to make sure he wasn't being too sappy he added: "You know, before I rob it blind."

AUTHOR'S NOTES

As you can probably guess the section in the desert with Cat Grant has a lot of Breaking Bad references. I'll leave them for the fans to count the Easter eggs there.

The O'Malley-Cat Grant scene is going to be followed up in the next chapter; most of what happens in the present in this story is going to involve everything involving those two. O'Malley was front and center at helping expose the conspiracy during the revival seasons; I thought it would make sense to use him in a similar way this time out. (Plus as someone who has his issues with today's media, I figured I'd use fanfic to work through them. Forgive me if I get heavy handed; I'll try to avoid it.)

I'm still not sure how the resistance plays into the mythology; just after the storyline that plays out here Chris Carter basically decided to junk everything involving the mythology so far for the remainder of the series. That might have worked had the show ended at the seventh season, but when it didn't it was one of just so many loose ends the series never tied up.

As a result it was never clear just what kind of aliens the rebels even were. It was inconsistent even in the two part storyline here. In Two Fathers, the aliens have to wear disguises in order to infiltrate the conspiracy. But in the climax of One Son one of the aliens who just a few minutes ago used a mask morphs his face into that of a rebel without explanation. (I think Carter just thought it looked cool.) I don't know how much of this I'm going to visit in this particular story but I might come back to it in a future one.

The Elder in question was murdered before the Syndicate met. The Smoking Man knows who he is and will eventually send Jeffrey Spender to kill him in order to prove his worth to his father. In this story he's sent Krycek there so that he'll be on hand to observe – and as plays out, carry out his mission when Jeffrey fails. Krycek reveals the truth of everything to Jeffrey including how it refers to his mother and it is this knowledge that will lead Jeffrey to betray his father, causing the chain of events that leads to the massacre at El Rico. Depending on how you look at this I've changed nothing or hardened Krycek's determination to survive, leading to his actions in One Son. Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey.

I will never understand either Covarrubias's motives or the Syndicate's. In Patient X, she betrays Krycek and the Syndicate to give Mulder information about the conspiracy and ends up infected with the black oil. She's injected with the vaccine which saves her life but the next time we see her in One Son, she is haggard, emaciated and near death. She seems more than willing to help expose the Syndicate before escaping with Krycek, who she betrayed. The next time we see her, it's in Requiem; she's working with the Smoking Man again, betrays both Mulder and him, leading the former to being abducted and helping push the latter to his death (or so we think) I'm going to make an effort to see if there's more to it in this story; lord knows Carter never bothered to explain.

After everything he put them through over the years I couldn't resist having the legends mess with Krycek's head. Think of the scene between Sara and Krycek as if one of the men in black was abducted by an actual alien and heard all of his messages played back to him. I'm not going to break down all the in-jokes here; if you're a fan of the show, you'll know them and if you're not I won't explain them. Besides I thought it would be funny to have a rat be torn apart by a canary.

The fact that people will die, even horrible people, will play with Scully and Mulder's consciences because that's who they are. I figured it would be best for the pragmatic Mick to do it. And he doesn't want to be sentimental so he added the last line.

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