Tintabulation
Authors: VS 13 Producers (Donnaj, Martin Ross, Traveler, and Vickie Moseley 
Artists:  Donnaj, Martin Ross, Truthwebothknow1 (Lisa) 
Videographer:  XSketch 
Rating:  Mature Audiences for violence and torture. 
Category:  Movie 
Spoilers:  Relies heavily on Televised Seasons 1 - 7 and Virtual Seasons 8 - 13 
(read 'Previously on VS 13
Disclaimer: This is a labor of love.  Absolutely no profit is being made.  No 
copyright infringement intended. 
Archive:  This production is exclusive to the Virtual Season 13 for two weeks, 
then anywhere. 
All comments, feedback, etc should be addressed to virtualseasonx@gmail.com
URL: http://virtualseasonx.com/ 


Teaser
Place: Unknown
Time: 2321 hours
Seventy-nine hours earlier

They were shrouded in black fabric. These men, part of the "Ghosting team", if 
not for their mission and the secrecy that surrounded their duties might have 
looked comical. Dressed head to toe in black, all wearing black ninja-masks to 
cover their identities and all wearing double-gloved surgical gloves to protect 
themselves and their detainees from contamination. Team X had just received the 
fifth and hopefully final ghost detainee to be processed. The white male 
strapped to a backboard and was semi-conscious; vomit coated his suit and had 
ruined his tie. One of the team has noticed that the suit was not cheap. It was 
a quick thought, as this information didn't matter to the Team's objective.

The detainee took in the surroundings as much as he could; a dazed and confused 
expression and the sense of power surrounding this unknown place made his blood 
turn cold. Finally getting a grip on his senses, he tried to question his 
captors.

"Look. What's going on here? Who are you?" He felt his stomach clinch but tried 
to ignore it. The situation reminded him of another time another place.

Working with quick hands, one of the team members hit the detainee cutting off 
the detainee's inquiries and making him gasp in pain and surprise. Moving 
quickly the detainee was removed from the backboard and unceremoniously thrust 
into a straight back chair, his hands wrenched behind the chair's back and 
bound. 

"Now what fu--" Adrenaline coursed through his veins, the detainee tried to 
break free from his captors. Struggling and becoming more lucid and panicked, he 
was placed in a secure headlock. Stepping forward before the detainee could 
voice more obscenities, a huge amount of duct tape was placed over the 
detainee's mouth and almost covered his nose, causing the man to struggle for 
breath. 

Satisfied, two of the team members held the detainee's neck and shoulders still 
while the third member turned and retrieved a pair of shears from the table. 
Without much care for fashion, the man's hair is crudely trimmed down to an 
uneven stubble, his hair falling in great amounts onto the floor. Powerless to 
move or raise protest, the only sound was from the shear's scissoring sounds and 
the man's muffled cries, his eyes pleading for explanation. 

Once the team member had finished cutting the detainee's hair, the man's muffled 
cries stopped, his breathing harsh, his chest rising and falling as if he had 
run a marathon. His panic increased and his heart pounded harder in his chest 
when he heard the sounds of an electric shaver and jumped involuntarily as his 
head was now shorn by the quick-handed skill of his captors. 

The manual of detainee processing stated that prior to interrogation, it was 
important to keep the detainee in optimum health. According to protocol, skilled 
medical personnel would identify any health problems present through the 
administration of frequent, routine, hands-on medical examinations. The 
identification of skin infections, however, was made increasingly difficult as 
the quantity of hair increased. Conversely, non-medical detainee staff could 
more easily identify questions as to an inmate's possible skin disorder if said 
inmate was bare faced and with short hair.

Bald now, the detainee was administered several attention grabs, two dozen 
'attention slaps' and given three hard open handed belly slaps to the stomach 
which caused pain and triggered an immediate submission response in the 
detainee. 

Finally subdued, the detainee was returned to the gurney where his clothing was 
cut away using stainless steel trauma shears. Now completely nude, the attention 
grabs and slaps were inflicted upon the subject's body, reinforcing the 
submission response and leaving his face streaked with tears. 

Resurrection Cemetery
Clinton, MD
11:21 am

The black hearse led the single file of cars into the cemetery. It parked along 
the road in a section of older graves, most of the stones still looking timeless 
in their settings. A funeral home attendant opened the back door of the 
limousine directly behind the hearse, helping Margaret and Tara Scully out onto 
the pavement. Matty and Claire, both wide-eyed and silent, came next, followed 
by their Uncle Charles. 

Six agents, including Walter Skinner, carried the casket, a simple polished 
cherry box now draped with the stars and stripes, to its final resting place. 
Skinner had picked the 4 men and one woman personally, knowing them to be among 
the handful of agents who respected Fox Mulder and his work. Mel Bocks was one, 
Kenny Andrews another. Agents Stonecypher and Kinsley both looked grim faced 
determined, but there were tears on the female agent's cheeks. Danny from 
research made the sixth pallbearer as they moved their burden closer to the 
gravesite. 

Skinner looked out over the gathered attendees with an unbearable feeling of 
dread. He didn't want to have to face Maggie Scully and any of Dana's close 
family. Not while Scully herself sat in a padded room, restrained to her bed, 
incoherent. She wasn't injured, aside from the now healing cuts on her arms. Not 
physically, at least. But emotionally, he was afraid his agent would never come 
back from this most horrible attack on her psyche. 

She should be here, his mind kept repeating. She should be witness to the life 
and the quest that was Agent Fox Mulder. She would want to stand next to the 
grave, he could see her composed in her grief, but grieving nonetheless. Mulder 
deserved to have her here. Scully deserved to be in this place of honor -- to be 
handed the flag now draping the coffin for the service. But she wasn't here and 
nothing seemed right or proper because of her absence.

Maggie Scully spotted him and waved him over next to her. There were chairs in 
place for the family and some of the mourners. He was relieved to note that many 
of the Bureau agents had come to pay their respects, at least in death Mulder 
held their favor. 

The man to Maggie's immediate right caught Skinner's gaze and nodded. Lt. 
Commander Charles Scully was decked out in his Naval Dress Blues, the epitome of 
a faithful son and now head of the family. It had been grating on the Assistant 
Director's nerves, this man's sudden appearance at such a tragic moment. He 
couldn't shake the feeling that something was very, very wrong but continued to 
push the thought to the back of his mind. Everything seemed out of place since 
Agent Clark had called him in the middle of the night just days ago.

Maggie reached out and took Skinner's hand for just a quick touch. Their eyes 
met and he saw her struggling to compose herself. "I don't know what we're going 
to do without him," she admitted brokenly, barely whispering the words. She 
glanced over past Charles to where Tara and the children were sitting. Matty sat 
unnaturally straight and refused to look at the coffin. Little Claire sat on 
Tara's lap and clung to her mother fiercely, as if Tara might be taken away, 
too. 

Maggie touched his hand again, lightly. "Will you please say a few words -- for 
Dana. I know she would want you . . . " Her words trailed off, her second grief 
coming fast on the heels of her first. 

"Of course," he said, wishing with all his heart he could refuse her.

Place: Unknown
Time: 23:31

Completely nude, the detainee was lifted and placed onto a gurney that had a 
waterproof pad under the detainee's buttocks. Rolled to a left side-lying 
position, the detainee's right knee was flexed and draped with a cloth, his anus 
exposed so that the team member in charge of administering the hallucinogenic 
enema could clearly see. The other members of the team now held the detainee 
prone and watched the team leader lubricate 2 inches of the rectal tube with 
water-soluble lubricant. The team leader approached the prone detainee and 
lifted the patient's upper buttock to now clearly see the anus. Directing the 
tube toward the detainee's umbilicus, the team leader inserted the it slowly and 
smoothly 3 to 4 inches, and released the clamp flooding the detainee with a rich 
cocktail of THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), kratom extract, indigenous to the rain 
forests of South East Asia, and the major tranquilizer clozaril. 

Place: Resurrection Cemetery
Time: 11:45 am

Father McCue had been pressed into service, leading the assembled mourners in a 
brief prayer. He looked over at Maggie, who in turn, nodded toward Skinner. The 
priest smiled warmly at Skinner and motioned him to come to the head of the 
coffin to deliver the eulogy.

Walter Skinner had always hated public speaking. It had been one of the many 
reasons he stayed out of the limelight in all his years at the Bureau. However, 
of all the briefings he'd led, all the panels he'd participated on, nothing had 
prepared him to speak at the gravesite of a fellow agent and friend. 

Straightening his suit coat as he walked to the spot near the head of the 
casket, it felt like time stood still. The cemetery was suddenly silent. He 
couldn't hear the birds in the trees or the cars on the road nearby. He couldn't 
hear the mourners, although many of the female agents and both Scully women were 
now openly crying. He shook his head to try and clear his thoughts and suddenly, 
everything fell back into place, the sounds, the people. 
Drawing in a breath, he allowed his gaze to fall on the flag-draped casket. He 
honestly never thought he would see this day. He had watched Fox Mulder cheat 
death more times than Skinner cared to count. With Dana Scully, it seemed the X 
Files Division was impervious to death. But now Death had finally won, the price 
of constantly seeking the Truth had been paid.
"I first met Fox Mulder when he arrived at the Academy, over 15 years ago. I was 
waiting for my assignment in the DC Bureau and had been tapped to help out with 
some classes. I was working on the firing range." Skinner's lips curled into a 
grim smile. "Of all the recruits, Fox Mulder couldn't hit the broad side of a 
barn." There were appreciative chuckles through the crowd.

"We practiced and practiced that week. Each day Mulder would be the first one on 
the range and usually the last one to leave. All the other recruits eventually 
got the hang of the 9 mm and passed their certifications. Mulder, however, was 
still a long way from hitting the target sheet, much less the designated target 
areas on the sheet." 

"It was the day before the last day to be certified for his class and I was 
walking across the complex. I heard someone out on the range. It wasn't unusual 
-- anyone was allowed range time. But it was getting late, almost a half hour 
past dark. I went over to see who might be out there."

"I'm sure I don't have to tell you what I found. There was Fox Mulder. He had 
the flood lights on, and he was firing clip after clip. As I stood there, I 
could see the determination in his stance, in the way he ejected one clip and 
shoved another into its place. I was a Marine and I can tell you not since my 
days in boot had a seen a man more set on hitting a target."

"I was about to go over and try to give him some more pointers when I noticed 
something. He was hitting the target. Not just the target, he was hitting square 
on the bull's-eye. But he kept going. I stood there watching him for at least an 
hour, clip after clip and it was always the same. He'd found his aim, he was 
hitting the target -- and yet he refused to call it quits."

"Eventually, he ran out of clips. He was taking off his gear when he turned and 
saw me standing there. I had to say something. I asked him why he'd wasted all 
those clips when he was finally hitting the target. He shrugged and told me 'I 
got so used to being bad at it, I didn't want to give up once I got good.' 
Skinner smiled at the memory and the crowd again rippled with respectful mirth.

"Fox Mulder never gave up on anything in his life. Not his sister, definitely 
not his partner, not on finding the Truth. Every day, no matter how few the 
leads or how cold the trail, he went out and kept searching."

"We're here today to honor not just the man, but his quest for the truth. We're 
here to honor the partnership he held so sacred. We're here to remember a man 
that many reviled in jealousy, some considered insane, but no one dismissed out 
of hand. If he left us nothing else, he left us an example of how to live, how 
to love and how to never, ever give up. I'm a better agent for having worked 
with him and a better man for having known him. There is not a single doubt in 
my mind -- he will be missed." 

Location: Unknown
Time: 23:47

The virtue of delivering drugs by enema was that they bypassed the small 
intestine's private line to the liver and offered the blood and brain the full 
effect of the narcotics in less than half a minute. Any resistance from any 
ghost detainee after being treated with the standard enema was 100% futile. With 
satisfaction the team members observed the detainee's eyes widen and then slowly 
roll back into his head, the detainee's respiration evened out. Now the team 
members rolled the detainee onto his back where he was quickly dressed in adult 
diapers and clothed in white cotton underwear, t-shirt, drawstring pants and 
shirt. His feet were placed in cotton tube socks and white deck shoes. The 
detainee's wrists were wrapped in cotton gauze and restrained in tight fitting 
handcuffs. 

All of team X except for the team leader left the holding room. The team leader 
than gathered the man's clothing into a garbage bag. As he was retrieving the 
clothing that was around the gurney, a wallet fell from the destroyed pair of 
pants. The team leader indulged himself and flipped open the wallet. Reading the 
name quickly and then flipping the wallet closed, he placed the identification 
back in the black bag, along with his gloves, sealed it and headed toward the 
incinerator with its contents. 
Within seconds the team leader completely forgot the name of the person. 

As of 0001 hours, he noted on his watch, the subject had entered a class under a 
residential directive allowing the CIA to capture and hold specific classes of 
suspects without accounting for them to the public, or revealing the conditions 
they faced in a prison on foreign soil. Guilty or not he was now heading for 
Flight N44982, a Private Lear Jet operated by the CIA, heading for a Black Site 
where he would most likely be interrogated, tortured and hopefully die quickly 
after the information he held was extracted.

Fox W. Mulder, recently of the FBI, was now officially and unofficially 
'ghosted'. 

Act 1 Scene 1
Weathersbury, Vermont
7:06 p.m.

"The man who arrested you," Dr. Conrad began carefully, studying his patient's 
face. 
His eyes flicked down to the open folder in his lap. "Mulder."

Robbie Briese seemed at that moment to disappear into himself, his eyes 
retreating to the ornate Kashan rug on the psychotherapist's floor. In moments 
of discomfort or silence, "Robbie" often explored the dusty red Persian carpet, 
seemingly finding some sort of meaning or even solace in its organized chaos of 
flowers, knots, and amoeba-like patterns. His permanent state of amnesia and the 
simplicity it had brought to Robbie's life had opened him to a world of new 
perception.

"Robbie?" Dr. Conrad murmured gently. "Adam?"

Robbie's eyes returned to the older man with the mention of the name he had 
taken years ago, following his rebirth. The first man, the last innocent in a 
world of pain, his foster "father" had informed him during a lull between the 
lunch crowd and the late afternoon crush. That innocence had disappeared when 
that man, Mulder, yielded up a glimpse into Hell itself. Robbie had refused to 
see his smiling, soft-spoken tormentor, and until now, Dr. Conrad had not spoken 
his name.

What Robbie had assumed to be an act of compassion in fact was Dr. Conrad's 
recognition that he must tread cautiously. Robbie had come to look forward to 
his long sessions with the patient old European, even if he felt no connection 
to Conrad's revelations about Robbie's abusive parents, dark acts of childhood 
malevolence, and resurrection on a New York highway. It was almost as if Conrad 
were some benevolent djinn sharing 1,001 tales over a sea of elaborately woven 
silk.

"I don't want to talk about him," Robbie grunted in a tremulous voice. "Please."

"Fox Mulder is an FBI agent," Dr. Conrad continued. "He lives in Washington, 
enjoys old movies and baseball, and, like you, he is tormented by loss. His 
sister disappeared when he was but a boy, and this has driven his quest for 
order and his compassion particularly for the young. Agent Mulder has been very 
concerned about you. He is just a man -- from everything I have been able to 
gauge, a very decent and gentle man."

Robbie's eyes were fevered with terror. "He wants to know what I saw. He 
murdered 
John."

"Your friend was ready to kill Agent Mulder," Conrad softly reminded him. "Agent 
Mulder is concerned by your fear of him, afraid that somehow it may reflect on 
his own emotional state. But he intends you no harm. This I promise. Do you 
think you could help him?"

"Keep him away from me."

Conrad nodded. "As you wish. However, we need to deal with your fear, Robbie. We 
need to banish the monsters, exorcise these demons you associate with Agent 
Mulder."

Robbie's red head began to twitch vigorously from side to side. "No."

The boy was about to run, Dr. Conrad could see it. Not from the facility, of 
course -- an individual of Robbie's unique skills had to be contained. Not that 
he had shown any propensity to use his talents after opening the Pandora's box 
in Mulder's head. 
"Adam" had abandoned his zeal to wipe clean the collective conscious of society, 
and subsequently, his "victims" had regained their memory -- including their 
memory of the fresh-faced boy in the Manhattan deli. He had no past to which to 
return, no present that would accept him.

No, Dr. Conrad could see Robbie retreat to the comforting den of his clean, 
simple, uncluttered mind. He had invested weeks just to reach this point -- 
there was ample time, and ample reward in patience.

"Robbie," he drawled, templing his fingers beneath his chin, "I wonder if it 
might not help if you were to begin a journal -- a private journal of your own 
thoughts and fears. Begin with Agent Mulder, if you wish. Perhaps if you commit 
your anxieties to paper, if you can study them in cold black and white, they 
won't seem as terrifying."

Robbie blinked warily at this man he had come to trust. Dr. Conrad reminded him 
somewhat of his friend Mr. Marxmann -- weary of the world's pain and wise to its 
evil. As if the two had forged some kind of psychic link. His sole remaining 
regret about relinquishing his talent had been returning Mr. Marxmann to his 
painful memories of the Nazi camps.

"Private," Robbie finally savored. "No one would see them."

"Not even myself," Conrad assured him with a fatherly smile. "Staff will be 
instructed not to so much as touch it, under penalty of unemployment. Perhaps we 
can find you a lockbox -- you would be the sole key holder."

Robbie relaxed in his chair. Dr. Conrad nodded contentedly.

**
"I would have had him begging to tell us," Charlie proclaimed, flopping into the 
chair, vacated moments before by the young amnesiac. "He'd remember things he 
never knew in the first place."

Conrad Strughold chuckled sadly. "Always with the sledgehammer approach, yes, my 
brash young friend?"

Charlie was merely bragging, too cocky to realize the magnitude of his 
impertinence. 
Men had died for questioning Strughold's prerogatives, and those who hadn't 
often would ultimately have welcomed death into their parlor. However, these 
were different days. Reliable colleagues were growing harder to find -- or to 
keep -- and those willing to pay the price for the greater good even rarer. 
Charlie substituted foolhardiness for courage, acted in his own interests, which 
fortunately coincided with that greater good. 

A blast from the past, young Scully might have called it. Strughold had been 
notified following Mulder's trace on the old gypsy's camp tattoo -- staying 
ahead of the Israelis alone required extensive global networking – and had been 
amused to learn that his psychic "protégé" had cultivated his own successor. In 
this case, the sorcerer's apprentice possessed a wizardry far more potent -- and 
dangerous -- than his master's. To Strughold, Adam's unique ability amounted to 
an amusing parlor trick, something of interest perhaps to the preening 
adolescents in the CIA or the NSA. There was far more at stake for Strughold and 
his colleagues than some mere reshuffling of geopolitical power.

What captured his attention was the name at the head of the boy's criminal case 
file -- Fox Mulder. Adam refused to discuss the events leading to his 
apprehension, and clearly was terrified by the inquisitive Agent Mulder. Given 
Adam's reported talent, the implication was obvious. The boy had peered into 
Pandora's box.

Strughold had had him transferred to this rural facility in Vermont to unlock 
what Adam had secured deeply inside his own psyche. The documentation had been 
flawless, and few questions had been asked -- the staff and administration had 
seemed only too eager to be rid of their haunted, and haunting, young charge.

**

The man in the Sunkist VW van smiled grimly with satisfaction as the red LED 
bleeped to life. The range was incredible -- although dosing the target had been 
a dicey proposition, involving split-second timing and an encyclopedic knowledge 
of electronics, he now was ensconced safely in the parking lot of a Brit-themed 
pub a quarter-mile away. The vehicle's day-glo gaudiness in fact provided a 
perfect camouflage -- he was one more unreconstructed hippie tripping through 
the Wal-Mart-free land of maple syrup and organic zealots.

Of course, he could easily have terminated the subject. The facility was 
reasonably fortified, but the kind of system necessary to keep him out would 
have attracted every hidden federal eye and ear out here in the Vermont 
wilderness, especially in this post-9/11 world.

If you only knew what wolves were slavering at the threshold, he mused.

No, even he had to fly under the radar: For the time, he had to keep his deal 
with the devils, although he could sense their suspicion each time he entered 
the room. 
And why not, he conceded? Placing himself in the camp of the angels was a 
precarious proposition, to say the least, especially considering tonight's task.

Killing the boy outright would have been merciful. The man in the van was able 
to separate the import of his task from the enormity of its cruelty, but he was 
perhaps an unfeeling man, not an unthinking drone. It was the only way, 
whichever outcome resulted. The old Nazi was making progress, though not enough 
for his idiot "protégé" Charlie. Briese was growing to trust Strughold, and it 
was only a matter of time before the boy opened up about whatever they'd put in 
Mulder's head. He'd been told only that it was of "cataclysmic" significance, 
and Briese would have no idea what to make of it, but for Strughold, it would be 
a defining piece of the jigsaw. 
The old Nazi already possessed the adjoining piece, although he did not realize 
it. 

He cranked the heat up a notch and manipulated the keys and toggles of the small 
device he'd brought for the job. Better living through atrocity, he grinned 
mirthlessly. 
He was convinced that only an outmoded sense of honor had prevented the Japanese 
from claiming global primacy decades ago -- the technology in his hand had been 
nurtured for nearly a half-century, and was capable of so much more than the 
most fertile sci-fi hack could imagine. It was a biomedical miracle, but one 
that would never cure a dying child or mend a diseased mind. It was the stuff of 
dreams, in the hands of some of the most vile monsters ever to inhabit a 
paranoiac's nightmare.

Six days earlier, an orderly in the employ of "Dr. Conrad" had unwittingly 
delivered a payload of nearly 50,000 nanobots into Robbie Briese's bloodstream 
along with the thorazine used to suppress his "powers." Not that the sedative 
was necessary -- the kid had lost his appetite for mind-gobbling. The nanobots, 
assembled by yet other machines of confounding complexity, had been built for 
one simple task: To repair what a catastrophe on a New York interstate and 
Robbie Briese's suppressed guilt had torn asunder.

Even assuming Briese's amnesia was psychogenic -- produced by the subconscious 
rather than the grill of a Peterbilt -- his associate was confident the nanobots 
would do their job, repairing pathways and synapses, rebooting circuits the 
boy's own pain had shorted out, defragging scraps of memory scattered but not 
lost. At roughly 0.01 micrometer -- half the size of the smallest nanobots known 
to the outside world -- these miraculous machines would be virtually 
undetectable in any reasonably rigorous medical exam.

Under ordinary circumstances, Robbie Briese, AKA Adam, would have exhibited an 
earthshaking recovery, would have been restored whole to the world and his 
family. However, in this case, the cure would kill, or at least chase Mulder's 
demons back into a black hole where Strughold would be unable to extricate them. 
The monster we know often is infinitely more frightening than the lurker in the 
dark.

Although the boy had attempted to deflect Strughold with small talk and 
innocuous insights during their last few sessions, his very dissembling revealed 
his newly rebooted terror. 

The man in the tangerine van recalled the cautionary wisdom of Pogo Possum, the 
marsupial philosopher of the cartoon pages who had been a staple of his 
childhood.

"'We have seen the enemy, and he is us,'" Alex Krycek murmured.

**

"Leave me alone," Adam growled, rocking on his bed. He glanced again about the 
ceiling, searching for the cameras that indeed were not there. Strughold had 
insisted complete trust was tantamount to extracting the young man's suppressed 
intelligence, and the discovery of unnecessary surveillance equipment would 
destroy that faith. 

Indeed, Adam had come to implicitly trust Strughold, the closest thing to a 
father figure he'd encountered since that day in the deli with the alien. The 
alien had murmured and empathized and promised, but in the end had revealed 
himself. The things he had seen in "Mulder's" mind were real, somewhere -- Adam 
knew his imagination had fled long ago with his memory. 

A memory which now had returned to haunt Adam. Initially, he'd rationalized 
"Robbie" away as some unwelcome, malevolent houseguest, rather than the true 
psyche of the shell Adam had come to inhabit. Robbie whispered in Adam's ears, 
taunted his resistant host with dark notions and fevered dares and invitations. 
He'd shared stories of cruelty and violence inflicted by and upon him -- them; 
of the fear he'd -- they'd -- visited upon Ron and Sharon Briese, his neighbors, 
his classmates, his teachers.

Before he'd grown content with his life with Max and Betty Stein and the 
comforting clamor of the deli, Adam had exhaustively researched the topic of 
amnesia. He was an intelligent young man, and he recognized that, somewhere, he 
had known another existence. But these stories "Robbie" had spun -- they 
couldn't conceivably be true. The dark evil Robbie described couldn't possibly 
be a part of him.

But, slowly, instinctively, Adam had recognized the ring of truth. Why do you 
think they didn't come looking for you? Robbie sneered. Probably afraid you'd 
come back someday, their bad seed. Now they know, they probably wish that semi 
had sent you to hell instead of the looney bin.

It was a truth too staggering to accept, that this soulless, sadistic thing 
was…him. 

Then it came to Adam in a crushing wave of relief and horror.

The alien. He knew its secrets, its plans, its nature, and "Mulder" was aware he 
knew. It couldn't afford to raise suspicion by killing or taking him -- his 
human colleagues at the FBI knew what he and Mr. Marxmann had done. Mulder had 
created Robbie, planted these lies in his head, made him question his sanity and 
distrust his perceptions. 

His first thought was to share his insights with Dr. Conrad. Certainly he'd know 
who to tell, some way to deal with the threat "Mulder" posed. However, Adam was 
reluctant to expose the kind old man to such danger -- Dr. Conrad reminded him 
in many ways of Mr. Marxmann. And what if the psychiatrist didn't believe Adam's 
theory? What if, instead, Dr. Conrad believed Adam's story about this 
psychically invasive alien to be merely a delusion he'd concocted to discount 
the vicious acts "Robbie" had fabricated? He was a shrink, and Adam had learned 
from his stints at Bellevue that they tended to think in such twisted ways.

No, drastic action was required here, something dramatic to convince Dr. Conrad 
of the Truth.

**

Krycek started at the insistent thumping. Depositing the device in the driver's 
door pocket, he grinned sheepishly at the pudgy face in the window and feigned a 
yawn.

"This ain't a KOA campground, friend," the middle-aged man stated as the window 
rolled past his hawk-like nose. Krycek was prepared at any given moment to deal 
with any impediments to his mission (via the Tokarev tucked into the waistband 
of his jeans) but the man's tragic comb-over and the windbreaker hawking The Ale 
and Steer signaled only a minor annoyance.

"Hey, sorry, man."

"Yeah, well," the pub owner grunted eloquently. "This is a private lot, and you 
don't look like you got the price of a Pepsi on you. So why don't you find 
another place to flop? Maybe Kerrigan's down the road -- it'd serve the son-of-
a-bitch right."

"Ah, yeah, sure," Krycek mumbled, portraying embarrassment and twisting the key 
from accessory to ignition. As the pistons popped noisily to life, the owner 
stepped away, then planted his feet and crossed his arms in an expectant, 
authoritative gesture. For a spilt second, Krycek considered the Tokarev. He 
waggled his fingers and smiled weakly as he backed out of the spot and belched 
black smoke into the street.

Five miles down the highway, Krycek discovered a far more raucous and chaotic 
setting for his surveillance: A faux-cowboy bar nestled incongruously in a 
clearing of firs. The lot was largely full, but a Vermont wrangler in an S-10 
yanked out of a spot in the fifth row, spitting gravel.

Krycek settled in and retrieved the device. Red flashed through the cab of the 
van -- the second LED flared angrily.

There were two possibilities. The first, system failure or malfunction, was not 
an option, at least according to Krycek's associates in the Pacific Rim. The 
nanobots were self-repairing and, when necessary, self-replicating.

The nanobots also were designed to cease function and degrade with the failure 
of their host. The second alternative. Krycek knew the microscopic machines had 
done their job.

A nanosecond of weariness washed through him. Then he locked the device in the 
glove compartment, wrenched the VW's door open, and headed for the noise…

**

Charlie's moment of petty vindication regarding the cameras was wiped clean as 
he dashed for Adam's toilet. Strughold ignored the retching sounds from within 
the restroom, containing his nearly homicidal fury.

"And you are positive this was a self-inflicted act?" he asked the security 
chief in low tones laden with menace as he glared at Adam.

"Door was locked," the chief noted as calmly as possible. He, too, had 
recommended surveillance cameras, but the scary old kraut would scarcely 
appreciate that nuance. 
"We kept him on suicide watch, just as a matter of routine. No belt, no laces, 
no pipes or rafters, no weight-bearing shelves, nothing sharp."

Strughold's glacial eyes met the guard's. "I'm not interested in procedure. Was 
this young man murdered?"

"No." It came out cracked and weak. "Although I have to say, it takes an awful 
strong desire to off yourself to do it this way."

"Hmm…" Strughold stared again at the pulped horror that was Adam/Robbie's head, 
at the damaged bed frame and the blood-soaked mattress on the floor beside the 
corpse. Nothing in their last "session" would have indicated Adam capable of 
repeatedly bashing his skull against the corner of the frame until his diseased 
brain splattered into gelatinous meat. Strughold's only guess was that the boy 
somehow had regained the memory of his sociopathic deeds and had managed to fool 
him. 
Trust had backfired: Adam had chosen death over the potential loss of "Dr. 
Conrad's" friendship.

Strughold chuckled sadly, despite himself. Had the boy only known what dark 
deeds his "therapist" perpetrated over the past 60 years. He sobered; his 
conduit into Mulder's mind was irrevocably sealed.

A spot of black-and-white in Strughold's peripheral vision ended his black 
ruminations. The journal was placed squarely in the center of Adam's writing 
desk, as if on exhibit. The book anchored a folded sheet of ruled paper.

Strughold waved the security chief aside as Charlie emerged from the toilet. The 
younger man glanced at the ceiling tiles as he sidestepped Briese's shattered 
shell, halting instantly as a soft, chilling chuckle filled the room.

"Yes, Adam," Strughold whispered almost warmly as he scanned the brief note his 
charge had left him. "That's my boy." He was smiling as he turned to Charlie. 
Strughold handed him the note and left the room briskly, journal under his arm.

"Dr. Conrad -- I thought you should know what Agent Mulder really is. I put 
everything in Mulder's brain into the journal -- I hope it helps. You need to 
tell the government or something, unless they're in on it with him. Sorry I'm 
doing things this way, but he'd find me one way or another, sooner or later. If 
I'm dead, maybe he'll think he's in the clear. You have to catch him. Adam"
Charlie grinned. "Don't worry, you sick little fuck," he murmured.

Georgetown Memorial Medical Center
the next day
10:00 am

Charlie tried to appear interested as the nurse chatted merrily. It seemed that 
opening the door to his sister's room was an occasion to update him on her care 
and condition -- as if he truly gave a tinker's dam.

"Dr. Leonard thinks this fugue state is merely temporary," the nurse 
continued. "Please don't let her condition stop you or your mother from 
visiting. She needs all the love she can get right now."

Charlie shot her a disarming smile. "She's my big sister. I want her well and 
out of here as soon as humanly possible."

The nurse returned his smile with an adoring one of hers. "With family like you, 
I'm sure that will be quite soon." The key turned in the lock and the door 
opened. "I'll be right at the desk, if you need anything. As you can see, she's 
still, uh, restrained -- for her own protection, of course," she added hastily.

"Yes, I understand," Charlie said mournfully. "I just hope it won't be necessary 
that much longer. It's so painful for my mother to see her like this."

"Well, if you need anything, just push the call button. Have a nice visit," the 
nurse said and left the room, closing the door behind her.

"Dana," Charlie drawled. "Hey, big Sis. How're you doin', huh? Feelin' a little 
under the weather? Oh, don't bother to get up -- I can find my own seat," he 
said glibly. He grabbed a ladder back chair from the corner of the room and 
turned it so that he could rest his arms on the back. "So, you'll never guess 
where I've been," he prattled. "Remember that plot in Resurrection Cemetery -- 
the one next to Grams and Gramps? Well that's where Mom dumped your old pal 
Mulder. Yup, right there with her own mom and dad. Bet Gramps would be rollin' 
in his grave if he knew the bastard had been screwin' you for years without the 
benefit of marriage. But then, little chance they'll be meeting up -- since I 
know your boyfriend is probably deep-fried by now," he chuckled. 

"Yessirree, it was some funeral. That bald guy -- Skinner, your boss? He gave a 
great eulogy. Of course, everyone tap danced around your whereabouts. Mom is 
still a little sensitive that one of us ended up in the Looney bin, you know," 
he said with casual shrug. "Boy, I wonder if Tara had a thing for Mulder. Maybe 
they were doing it on the side -- when you weren't watching. Anyway, she did a 
great job playing the mourner. She was bawling her eyes out. But then I didn't 
get a chance to see you bury dear brother Billy, so maybe she gets that way at 
funerals. Some women are just natural caterwaulers."

"Anyway, I just wanted to let you know we planted him -- so I guess that means 
you're on your own. C'mon, Sis. Now that he's gone you have to see some reason. 
I could get you a great job on the inside, Sis. We could work together. Wouldn't 
that be swell?" he sneered. He didn't wait long for an answer when she continued 
to stare into space, totally without expression. "No, you're right. You probably 
won't let bygones be bygones. So I guess you're going to end up here -- or 
someplace like it. Oh, don't worry. I have every intention of keeping you alive. 
See, as long as you're around, Mom won't be wondering what I'm up to and that 
gives me the leeway I've come to enjoy. Sometimes being the forgotten Scully is 
a good thing."

He stood and put the chair back against the wall and then walked over to place 
his hand on her cheek. "I really am sorry it came to this, Dana. But now that 
he's dead -- well, it's for the best." He patted her cheek twice and then pushed 
the button on the rail.

"Yes, Mr. Scully?"

"I don't want to tire my sister. I think I should go and come back tomorrow," he 
said quietly. When the nurse came to unlock the door and let him out, he turned 
to Dana and brushed an imaginary tear from his eye. "Get better, Sis. Please. We 
need you," he said, clearing his throat as he bit his lip. The nurse squeezed 
his shoulder comfortingly. 

The sedatives were strong, but not strong enough to protect her from her 
brother's taunts. The thought of Charlie at Mulder's funeral when she was 
viciously kept at bay hurt her worse than anything he could have said or done.

Dana let the fog of drugs surround her and drifted off to sleep. When she opened 
her eyes, she knew she was dreaming. She was in the old cemetery, dressed in her 
best black suit. The sun was shining but it held no warmth. Her mother came 
over, her arms reached out and embraced her, but Scully couldn't feel the hug. 
She was back to the numbness she'd felt before she'd gone to the basement. 

She didn't want to look at the grave. She knew the casket was there, she could 
see it just outside her field of vision. It was too much, too real. She bit her 
lip to stop the vision, but she couldn't taste the blood. She choked out a sob.

Before, when he was in danger or injured, she'd been terrified of this day. That 
fear was a living thing, deep in her soul, threatening to break free, to rip her 
to shreds. She looked down and saw blood on her fingers. It took her a moment to 
realize the blood was coming from a tiny cut, caused by a thorn from the white 
rose she held in her hand. She tore a few of the petals from the flower and 
dropped to her knees. With tender purpose, she placed the petals on the casket, 
over the name Fox Mulder.

A hand landed on her shoulder and she looked up. It was Bill, dressed in his 
dark navy uniform.

"He's not here," Bill said before she could speak.

"Bill, what are you talking about? What do you mean?" she begged, hope trying to 
conquer her fear.

"He's not with us. He's not here."

Her face crumbled as the sobs broke through. "He's not in hell," she ground out 
angrily.

"No, he's not here," Bill repeated, pointing to the casket at his feet. "He's 
still alive."

If not for the drugs, she would have jolted awake. As it was, the dream ended 
and 
she slept but no longer dreamed.

Act 1 Scene 2 Location Unknown
Time Unknown

Consciousness returned through a hazy cloud of pain. His whole body ached. He 
could feel the tenderness in his belly with every breath he took. Mulder closed 
his eyes as the recollection of the treatment he'd been given earlier came 
flooding back. The Black Ops soldiers rough treatment and relentless beatings, 
the feel of cold concrete against his skin. Good Lord, what had he gotten 
himself into this time? His face felt tight, causing him to reach up and touch 
the tender flesh around his right eye. Pain shot through his shoulders with the 
movement. His right eye was swollen nearly shut and he strained with his left 
eye to view the nylon band that bound his wrist far too tightly. How long had he 
been bound like this? 

He felt sluggish and foggy from being drugged. His ears had that plugged up 
feeling you get at high altitudes making him feel like he existed in a vacuum. 
He tried swallowing several times but it had no effect other than to remind him 
he was extremely thirsty, hunger pains gripped his empty stomach. Where the hell 
was he? 

Flashes of memory of his abduction and brutal treatment suddenly came back to 
him. He closed his eyes for a moment willing the apprehension that suddenly 
washed over him to subside. As his awareness became clearer he opened his eyes 
again to take stock of his surroundings. 

He was lying on a bed, not much more than a cot actually, with a thin mattress 
covered in rough hopsack. His hands were bound, though at least this time they 
were in front of him and his feet were unrestrained. He appeared to be in a cell 
of some kind. Three walls were whitewashed concrete block, the forth looked like 
anchor fencing reaching from floor to ceiling with a gated entrance. It felt 
hotter than hell. A single fluorescent fixture was attached to the ceiling. A 
commode was the only other furnishing. As thirsty as he was, he was damned if 
he'd drink from the commode.

Feeling the need to relieve himself, he struggled to sit up.
The movement brought with it a wave of dizziness and he reached out to his right 
with his bound hands to steady himself. Nausea soon followed and he fought the 
urge to retch. Staggering to his feet, the room swam before him. He estimated 
the commode was about eight feet away. He'd either make it or end up flat on his 
face.

Using the wall for support, he made his way across the room to the commode, the 
vertigo becoming more severe as he inched his way along. Barely making it in 
time to prop himself against the wall and dry heave into it. Sweat beaded his 
forehead and trickled down his left temple. He reached up to wipe it away and 
was met with the shock of his bare scalp. More memories flooded back -- the 
Black Ops stripping him naked, shaving his head, the. . . His stomach rolled 
again, bile rose in his throat and he leaned back over the commode to empty the 
vile spit into thin air. His body shook with a sudden fear as he stood there 
propping himself against the wall with his bound hands. How the fuck had he 
ended up in this situation?

When the urge that had brought him to this side of the room returned, he reached 
down to free himself and found he'd been handed yet another undignified 
circumstance; a diaper. "Christ!" he shouted to no one in particular and rolled 
back against the wall. One way or the other he'd get himself out of this.

He'd ended up on the floor, unable to combat the dizziness and nausea while he 
fought with his clothing with bound hands. He pulled the diaper off with disgust 
and wadded it into a ball, stuffing it in the corner behind the commode. 
Exhausted and sweaty, he lay there against the concrete wall. It was eerily 
quiet; the sound of his own voice had even been foreign to him. He stretched his 
jaw again, but it did little to alleviate the vacuum in his head. Something warm 
was trickling down the left side of his throat. That something turned out to be 
blood, coming from his left ear. He needed medical attention and water. Someone 
had put him in here; it was about time he found out who it was. 

Rolling over on to all fours, he pulled himself back up the wall. The vertigo 
came back almost instantly and he staggered, leaning his forehead against it for 
support as he tried to ride it out. A moment of clarity hit him and he did his 
best to piss into the toilet leaning there against the wall. 

The small relief was short lived. The dizziness returned with the slightest 
movement and another painful spasm wracked his body. He gasped for air in the 
sweltering heat. Breathing hard he propped himself, willing himself to relax. 
"Get a hold of yourself, get a hold of yourself," he whispered to no one. These 
were torture tactics, tactics he was well aware of as a government official. 
Someone was trying to break him. The question was why?

Still fighting the dizziness he palmed his way to the anchor fencing and looked 
through it. The cells or cages extended up both sides of the hall. None of them 
appeared to be occupied.

"Hey!" he yelled. It was a weird felling, not being able to hear ones own voice. 
"Hey, anybody here? Dammit! Why am I here?" He yanked heavily on the fencing. "I 
need some help here! Can you fuckin' bastards get me some water!" Silence. He 
leaned heavily against the fencing then, the wire pressing into the flesh of his 
abused arms. 

**

"Go tell Mr. Strughold his patient is awake," the guard said as he watched the 
video as Mulder staggered his way around. He and several other guards had had a 
good laugh as they'd watched the prisoner wrestle himself out of the undignified 
diaper and piss into the toilet. Now he was just making a lot of racket. 

There was a muffled banging sound from somewhere. Lights came on overhead in 
the hallway and Mulder teetered back from the wire. More Black Ops soldiers came 
into view and he shuddered at the thought of more beatings. Behind the guards 
strode a heavy set man with graying hair and a thick mustache. 

Mulder guessed him to be in his seventies. Standing there in the center of the 
cell, his legs splayed in an effort to prop himself up, Mulder watched as one of 
the soldiers unlocked the gate allowing the group to enter the cell. Two of the 
soldiers came to stand on either side of him, one walked around behind him. He 
wasn't sure, but the insignias on their uniforms looked vaguely familiar. "So, I 
finally get to meet you, Mr. Mulder," the heavyset man said with a thick German 
accent.

"If you just wanted to meet me you could have called the office. We wouldn't 
have had to go through all this," Mulder couldn't help but keep the sarcasm out 
of his voice as he motioned around the cell.

"This is no joke Mr. Mulder. You have caused my organization a lot of 
displeasure recently and I intend to find out why."

"And what organization is that? This doesn't appear to be a top notch health 
club I'm in."

The guard who had been standing behind him grabbed him roughly by the 
shoulders. For a moment Mulder welcomed the support until it became clear that 
his actions were not intended as a gesture of concern.

"Your health is the least of my concerns, Mr. Mulder," the old German assured 
him. "I believe we can obtain the information we are looking for from you 
whether you want to cooperate or not."

It occurred to Mulder then that what these men wanted from him might not be just 
information. The thought made his stomach roll again and he fought the urge to 
gag. The German approached him; standing barely inches from him he leaned into 
his face. "You have some artifacts in your possession that are of value to my 
party. I want to know where you obtained them and where they are now. It is also 
my understanding that your exposure to them has affected your brain chemistry," 
the German's tone was icy as his eyes scanned Mulder from head to toe. "You have 
developed a connection to their originators, an ability, clairvoyance, humans 
just aren't capable of."

They'd given him hell, Mulder thought but his fuzzy brain processed the 
reference to himself as "human" and thought it odd. "I don't know what you're 
talking about," Mulder replied, feeling suddenly defiant. "I don't know who the 
fuck you are but from the sound of things you're even crazier than I am . . ."

It was a foolish move on his part. He caught the slight nod from the older man 
as the soldier behind him yanked him backwards and spun him around to face the 
wall. One big hand grabbed the back of his skull and thrust him roughly forward 
and down on his knees. Even with his hands bound in front of him, he was unable 
to prevent the guard from submerging his head into the toilet. He bucked, trying 
to find purchase for his hands, gain leverage and force the guard off of him. 
Unprepared for the assault, he had little breath in his lungs. He closed his 
eyes and fought the urge to inhale the putrid water mixed with his own urine. As 
the bubbles left his mouth, his lungs ached for air. He felt lightheaded, 
certain he was about to drown.

Suddenly he was being pulled from the toilet, pain shot through his chest as he 
gasped for air. He opened his eyes only to find the rim of the commode coming 
back at him. His head went under in mid breath, the foul water invading his 
nostrils and mouth; he gagged instantly forcing the air out of his lungs. He 
gagged several more times before he was lifted out of the toilet. He spit water 
and gasped violently for air. His eyes burned. 

The soldier hauled him up on his feet; another spun him back to face the German 
forcing him to take several unsteady steps as he fought to suck in air. The cell 
and everyone in it spun around him, his stomach muscles clenched with pain as he 
gagged again, forcing more of the putrid water from his stomach. His eyes filled 
with tears and he closed them for a moment, willing himself to get through this. 
Scully was out there somewhere, she'd always found him before.

"Are you ready to tell me what I need to know?" the old German asked as the two 
soldiers released their grip on him and stepped back. Mulder teetered before the 
man. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the soldier to his right pull a baton 
from his belt.

"I don't know -- what you're ask -- ing of me," Mulder gasped out still trying 
to catch his breath. He tasted the putrid water and was unable to prevent 
himself from gagging again.

"You have made a career of interfering with our program," the German began, 
stepping forward into Mulder's space once again. "It has begun to affect our 
timetable for acquisition. I want to know how you knew about the Milford Bridge 
incident? What you knew know of our plans in Arizona?" the old German asked with 
unnerving calm. "You have a connection, a connection to something more powerful 
than yourself. I think you've known that for some time even though you've hidden 
it well. It is that connection we must understand, Mr. Mulder."

Milford Bridge? For a few moments Mulder had no idea what this man was referring 
to and then it hit him, the bridge in Pennsylvania, the one he'd been drawn to 
along with hundreds of others. His foresight had saved almost all of them from 
certain death. He really didn't know how he'd come to be there at just the right 
time but this man was right. There was a connection, between himself, the 
artifacts, and the Anasazi man, all of it. Something he wasn't able to 
understand just yet but knew enough about to try and protect. He'd use a tactic 
his enemies had always used, deny everything. "Maybe I'm just smarter than you."

Mulder caught the slight nod from his captor once again and knew he'd just made 
another mistake. The heavy baton connected with the back of both his knees. 

"AHHHHHHHH," he cried as pain shot instantly up and down his legs. He went down 
in a heap on the concrete floor, desperately throwing his bound hands out in 
front of him at the last minute to break the fall. He lay there for only a 
moment, trying once again to catch his breath before he was yanked violently 
onto his knees. "Who the fuck are you?" he demanded, pulling himself from the 
guards grasp and looking up at the German. "I'm an American citizen! You can't 
do this! I have rights!"

"Dead men have no rights, Mr. Mulder," the German's voice was cold. "Your 
remains were buried in Arlington just yesterday."

A sudden fear hit him as he realized the meaning of the man's comment. "What the 
fuck are you talking about?"

"You burned to death in a building explosion. Your funeral was befitting anyone 
who has died in the line of duty," the old German finished, tossing several 
glossy eight by ten photographs on the floor in front of Mulder. "You're a 
ghost, Mr. Mulder, though I'm sorry we didn't get you out of there sooner. I'm 
afraid this dizziness you're experiencing may be caused by some damage to your 
inner ear."

Fuck, he was probably partially deaf. Mulder crawled closer to the photos and 
sifted through them. The burned out shell of a building, and several photos of 
burned corpses. His mind scanned the images for a memory. He'd tracked the kids 
to that warehouse; he'd been talking to Scully on his cell when a shockwave from 
something had knocked him off his feet. "You killed those kids to get me?" he 
frowned, his lips curled in disgust.

"It was the perfect opportunity, Mr. Mulder."

Shit, he thought as he sifted through the rest of the photos,: a flag draped 
casket, Skinner, Tara and Mrs. Scully seated next to Charles Scully and Tara's 
kids, a smattering of his fellow F.B.I. alumni. They all thought he was dead, 
very, truly dead. Nobody would be out there looking for him if they all thought 
he'd been killed. 

Nobody except one. 

It occurred to him then that something was missing. He searched the photos 
again; Scully was nowhere to be found.

"Where's Scully?" Why isn't she in these photos?" He looked up again. "Answer 
me, Dammit!. Where is she?" Mulder struggled to his feet, staggering to his left 
and almost falling again until one of the soldiers mercifully reached out to 
steady him. He wrenched himself away and staggered towards the German until they 
were almost face to face. "I want to know what you've done with her! I want to 
know now!"

"Dana Scully is quite safe, Mr. Mulder," the German's voice held an edge of 
satisfaction to it, "In the psychiatric ward at Georgetown Memorial Hospital."

"You son of a bitch!" Mulder said, lunging at the man without thinking. He got 
off one blow to the man's chest with his bound fists before he was wrestled to 
the ground by the guardsmen. One of the men bound his legs as he struggled. "You 
can't do this!" he shouted as he fought them. Blood now seeped from underneath 
the plastic ties that shackled his wrists. A cloth was placed in his mouth, bile 
rose in his throat again and he gagged. The four men picked him up, carrying him 
out of the cell and placing him on a gurney attended by two men in white scrubs. 
One of them was testing a syringe. Even though he still fought them, it only 
took a minute for them to secure him on the gurney, rolling him momentarily onto 
his side while the man with the syringe plunged it into his left hip. "That will 
only take a few minutes to take effect, Mr. Strughold," he said.

"It appears, Mr. Mulder, that we will have to obtain the information we require 
another way," the German's voice was the last thing Mulder remembered.

Act 1 Scene 3
Lab 
Location Unknown

The steady muffled beep of a heart monitor was somehow calmly reassuring, Mulder 
thought as consciousness returned and the world materialized around him. Somehow 
between the time he'd zoned out and now someone had come to his rescue, 
snatching him from the gates of hell once again.

Hospitals had always been on his list of least favorite places, associating them 
always with pain, that acrid smell of disinfectant and heartache. Right now, as 
he fought to open his eyes, he was certain all that would change, especially if 
Scully was sitting by his bedside.

He'd learned over years of searching for truths that one often didn't like what 
they found when they got to the end of their search. This was one of those 
moments. The sight that greeted him now wasn't a hospital room, nor was Scully 
by his bedside. Nobody was. He was alone, shackled by his wrists and ankles to a 
surgical table. Another restraint crossed his chest and a fourth held his head 
tight against the table's unforgiving surface. His lower back ached for support. 
He'd been stripped to the waist, from his vantage point he could barely see the 
tabs from the heart monitor stuck to his chest. Other wires tickled his scalp 
and forehead. At least the dry gag had been removed.

Unable to move his head more than a few inches either way, he strained to get a 
glimpse of his surroundings. At the moment the room was dark. He could make out 
a large surgical lamp directly above him and cabinets lining three of the four 
walls. In the shadows he could see other monitors, tanks and equipment you might 
find in a standard operating room. No, not an operating room he thought, it 
looked more like your standard morgue. The thought made him shudder 
involuntarily. He was most certainly alive, wasn't he? What would he be doing in 
a morgue, shackled like this? He suddenly understood how a bug felt awaiting 
dissection. He tugged uselessly at the restraints, the nylon pulling taut 
against his skin.

The inside of his stomach felt raw from hunger, how long had it been since he'd 
eaten anything? Laying here flat on his back, the dizziness had subsided. The 
horrible thirst he'd experienced back in the cell returned. He licked his dry 
lips and swallowed what little saliva he had. Fear had a way of drying you up. 
He had a sudden flash of Richard Dreyfus trying to spit into his scuba mask in 
JAWS, "I ain't got no spit," he'd said; frightened by the thought of the 
monstrous fish that lurked below him. Right now Mulder was ready to admit he 
knew how he felt.

"The MRI results. . . yesterday . . . negative. . ." Muffled voices, male from 
the tone, drifted just out of his range. With his damaged hearing, he couldn't 
hear more than snippets of conversation. 

". . . not looking at anything that can be surgically removed." Mulder swallowed 
hard. Cancer Man's surgeons had already removed 'something' from his head. He'd 
been drugged into oblivion that time too, fighting his way back to consciousness 
to fix Diana with a look of betrayal. 
Footsteps on linoleum, the conversation moved closer. "His EEG and PET scans are 
remarkable though."

"But they're not comparable with those Dr. Leonard obtained last year."

Dr. Leonard, Mulder thought, Scully's med school alumni friend. The doctor she'd 
confided in to treat him last year. He'd had an uneasy feeling about the man 
from the beginning. It's why he'd walked out of the hospital against her advice. 

"Leonard estimated his neural electric output and thought processes at almost 
50% above normal human range at the time. Something's occurred since that time 
to knock it down to more tolerable levels. He's obviously been able to manage 
it."

"But we're still looking at activity way beyond normal human parameters. His 
temporal lobe is lit up like a Christmas tree. It's just like the boy's."

"The scans are similar but there's something different in this patient."

At this point both men were standing on either side of him. Suddenly the light 
over Mulder's head came on. He flinched; his eyes snapping shut as the intensity 
almost blinded him. Gibson? "What boy?" Mulder asked through gritted teeth.

"Mr. Mulder," the man on his right said in a most appreciative tone. His accent 
was foreign but Mulder couldn't place it. His black hair and dark skin gave him 
a Middle Eastern appearance. The stethoscope that hung from around his neck was 
anything but reassuring. "You've come a long way to present us with a very 
unique opportunity."

"What boy?" Mulder demanded again pulling fitfully once again on his 
restraints. "Gibson Praise? Is he here too?"

Ignoring his question, the man on his left reached out to place his hand on 
Mulder's arm. He flinched at the contact. "Relax Mr. Mulder. You'll find this a 
lot less invasive if you cooperate."

"I want to know where Gibson is!" The demand was weak even to Mulder's ears.

The muffled beeping of the heart monitor grew more rapid as he became more 
agitated.

"We're going to have to sedate him again," the dark man said looking over at his 
companion.

"No, we're not getting the desired results with him sedated," the man to his 
left was taller than the other, with a lighter complexion and that same German 
accent as the man from the cell. He turned away from the table and pulled out a 
drawer. "Humans normally use a very small percentage of their brain power until 
faced with an emotionally charged situation. At which point neurons start firing 
like crazy resulting in enhanced mental clarity. We need to access this enhanced 
activity if we're going to get the information Strughold needs. We have to gain 
access to his higher consciousness."

Tying the elastic above Mulder's elbow, he poked at the skin just below it. 
"He's extremely dehydrated; I can't even find a vein."

Mulder thrashed about, the darker man came around to the other side of the 
gurney and held his arm fast to the table while he watched the German insert a 
large bore needle into the already purple flesh of the inside of his elbow. His 
eyes slammed shut again, he couldn't help but cry out with the pain. 

"This is just saline solution, Mr. Mulder, the German said. "Mr. Strughold would 
be extremely upset if we let you die from dehydration."

"You tell that son of a bitch. . ."

The hollow sound of a heavy door, footsteps drawing closer again, "I understand 
you have some results for me?" 

Even through the fog in his head, Mulder recognized the man's voice from earlier 
in the cell. The German doctor almost snapped to attention. "Mr. Strughold, 
Sir."

So this was Strughold. Controller and head honcho of this God forsaken place. 
When he spoke everyone listened and obeyed. Somewhere in the back of his mind 
the name clicked. "He is a man to be feared." Words written in his mother's 
flowing script in a diary he stumbled onto not all that long ago. A warning it 
now appeared that he would soon understand the meaning of.

"Is Mr. Mulder ready to give up his secrets yet?" he asked coming to stand next 
to the two men and leaning into Mulder's space as if to emphasize his dominance, 
and making sure Mulder could hear. Another man with a terribly disfigured face 
stood just behind him.

"I don't have any secrets and even if I did you're the last person I'd give them 
to." 
Mulder tried desperately to sneer at the man. His apprehension about Strughold's 
intentions was growing by the minute. It was a feeling, hovering just beyond his 
consciousness as if it had existed within him forever. He met Strughold's eyes. 
They stared at each other; Strughold's gaze was almost penetrating. In Mulder's 
mind the old German's face began to morph, he didn't understand it, but 
recognition began to dawn. Recognition from another time, another place. 
Strughold sensed it and smiled.

"You know who I am, don't you? And you know what I want from you," Strughold's 
voice was hushed.

"I know what you are," Mulder whispered.

"Dr. Rhinehart, you've had several days, what did you get from your imaging 
scans?" Strughold turned away to address the other German.

"Results consistent with Jason Leonard's," he answered, stepping away to snap on 
a light box that hung on the far wall. "As with the boy, the activity in his 
temporal lobe is excessive to that found normally in the human brain," Rhinehart 
continued, sliding the images into the clip on the top of the box. "However this 
patient is different. The results of these scans suggest some type of neuro 
networking throughout his brain. This is beyond our technology; Leonard wouldn't 
have been able to detect it with the equipment he had."
"What would be the purpose of this network?" Strughold seemed perplexed as he 
turned back to Mulder. 

"Based on the information you've given us about this patient and the results of 
the EEG they appear to enhance the Beta and Gamma waves in his brain. The 
frequency ranges we obtained are far above normal levels. The Beta and Gamma 
waves in the human brain are associated with active concentration, perception 
and problem solving. Results in the levels we obtained from this patient would 
allow for even higher mental thought processes. This would explain some of the 
events you have relayed to me. Why you feel he's always been a step ahead of 
you."

"See, I told you I was just smarter than you." It slipped out before Mulder 
could stop himself. Scully always hated when he used a flippant comment to cover 
his emotions. Right now as he listened to these men talk around him, his heart 
began to pound faster in apprehension. Krycek had told him some far out tale 
about just this same thing in a dark hallway of a crummy motel; about something 
that had been done to him that had gone undetected until now.

"Evidently not smart enough Mr. Mulder," the Scarred Man commented 
sarcastically. "Look where you are."

Mulder didn't want to look. He closed his eyes and tried to turn away from the 
conversation.

"You're saying his mental thought processes have been enhanced in some way, 
technologically?"

"Yes."

"Then it is possible this network is the key to the information we desire," the 
words rolled off Strughold's tongue as he reached out to caress Mulder's scalp. 
"I want to know how we gain access to it?"

"I'm not sure we can, Sir. Even if we opened his skull. . ." the dark man 
answered giving Rhinehart a confused look.

Strughold continued to caress Mulder's scalp. It was a scare tactic. God, no, 
Mulder thought to himself. Shame welled within him as tears filled his eyes once 
again. He closed them tight but not before a tear escaped and rolled slowly down 
his left cheek. Strughold wiped it away. 

"I'm not sure you understand my NEED to access it," Strughold's voice turned 
demanding. "For millennia my people have followed men like him. Yours have too 
but you confuse the search with your quest to understand the divine. The 
knowledge he possesses, the unspeakable power it would bring forth is beyond the 
comprehension of even your most gifted scientists. It is the power of creation 
itself."

Strughold looked over at the two dumbstruck doctors and then back down at 
Mulder. He reached out, grabbing the top of Mulder's skull with one big hand, 
forcing him to turn his head. "Look at me Mr. Mulder," he demanded.

Mulder opened his eyes and swallowed hard, his head ached with the intensity 
with which Strughold held him. It felt as if any moment the man could crush his 
skull with his bare hand. "You have Gibson too, don't you?" he choked out. "If 
you let him go, I'll help you."

It was a pathetic attempt on his part and he knew it.

"You are in no position to bargain with me, Mr. Mulder. Not Gibson Praise' life 
nor that of anyone else on this planet is worth enough. Gibson, though a unique 
individual does not possess your ability nor your knowledge. You understand your 
position and it frightens you doesn't it? I don't need your help Mr. Mulder. I 
WILL GET what I need from you."

"It is possible that through proper stimulation we can activate this network," 
Strughold turned back to the two doctors. "Dr. Kambatta, I require only your 
assistance to monitor him," he said, addressing the darker man.

Four other men appeared as if from nowhere at the foot of the surgical table, 
four identical men, clones Mulder realized. Strughold released his grip on 
Mulder's skull and turned to them.

"Prepare him." 

Act 2 scene 1
Georgetown Medical Center
June 12, 2006
10:15 pm

Melvin Frohike pulled at the collar of his pinstriped three-piece suit with one 
hand as he pushed the elevator button. The flowers, daisies and babies' breath, 
in a plastic vase gave him the appearance of a suitor from days long gone. In 
reality, he was on a mission, possibly a search and rescue mission.

From the minute they had heard of Mulder's untimely death, the Gunmen were 
suspicious. Sure, Mulder had done enough fool-hearty stunts in his time to meet 
his maker a dozen times over. But always, he slipped the noose, ducked the grim 
reaper. Maybe this time his luck had simply run out.

The three compadres would have simply mourned the passing of a dear friend, had 
not the second 'mishap' occurred. There wasn't a man who'd met her that didn't 
think Dana Scully had more balls than they had. More determination, more 
resilience. The woman had faced all the monsters imaginable and her own 
impending death and had looked it all square in the eye, ready to spit in it's 
face. The woman was titanium in a velvet jacket. When word arrived from Skinner 
that she'd lost it, the three assumed he meant some poor sap had come a hair's 
breath from being 'Swiss cheesed' by the fireball agent in a moment of grief-
stricken anger.

But the summary of events given to them was far worse. Skinner had gone on to 
explain that Dana Scully, the strongest woman, hell, person, anyone knew had -- 
in her grief over the death of her partner for life -- allegedly attempted 
suicide after trashing their office. To make an already horrible situation far 
worse, she had been brought to the hospital and was still under heavy sedation.

At that moment, Melvin Frohike knew something was definitely amiss. 

Langly and Byers tried to make him see reason. Yes, Scully was strong, but who 
could expect her to take the strain of losing half of herself? Wasn't it 
possible that her strength came in part from that very man they now all mourned? 
Maybe losing Mulder was the straw that finally broke the camel's back. Wasn't it 
unreasonable to assume that just because she was strong she was indestructible?

All through the discussion, Frohike listened sullenly. Yes, he agreed, it was 
possible. Yes, she'd been through so much, but always, always, Mulder was there 
to provide her with back up, comfort -- a safe place to let her emotions take 
the wheel for a while. Now that he was gone --

It was so hard to imagine not having Mulder around. Frohike kept hoping it was 
all a bad dream. It was too much that the 'rat bastards' had won the greatest of 
victories. Not only had the eliminated Mulder, they'd effectively eliminated 
Scully at the same time. Who was left to fight the impending crisis? Who would 
carry the torch now?

He almost bumped into a nurse at the desk he was so deep in thought. She turned 
and smiled at him. "May I help you?"

"I'm here to see Dana Scully," he said formally, tacking on what he hoped was a 
charming smile.

The nurse smiled back until she processed the name he'd given. Then the smile 
grew more businesslike. "I'll have to check the orders left by her doctor." She 
moved around the desk and typed a few keystrokes on the computer. After a 
minute, she looked up, her expression one of pasted on sympathy. "I'm sorry, Dr. 
Leonard has restricted all visitors except immediate family."

"Immediate family?" Frohike repeated, running through a possible list of whom he 
could reasonably impersonate. "I'm her father's brother -- "

"Immediate family. Specifically, Ms. Scully's mother and brother," the nurse 
interrupted.

"What about her sister-in-law?" Frohike asked peevishly. "Or her boss?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. uh -- "

"Hornswagle. Gavin Hornswagle," the little man supplied. 

"I'm sorry Mr. . . Hornswagle. But the doctor left very explicit orders. Ms. 
Scully is at a very tenuous stage of treatment right now and it's imperative her 
doctor's orders be followed to the letter. If you'd like to leave those flowers, 
I'll make sure they're taken to her room -- once her doctor approves."

"He won't even let her have flowers?" Frohike asked incredulously.

The nurse gave him another tight-lipped smile and plucked the bouquet out of his 
hands. She then cast her gaze toward the bank of elevators down the hall before 
turning her glare upon him once again. Taking the hint, Frohike turned on his 
heel and stormed off toward the car that was just starting to close its doors.

Once on the elevator, his mind started to churn. No one was allowed to see 
Scully? What was up with that? She was being isolated and Frohike had a bad 
feeling about that. All too soon the doors of the elevator opened at the lobby 
level. He was thinking so hard he almost missed it. A bulletin board with job 
openings at the hospital posted. A quick call to Langly and Byers and he made a 
right turn down a long hallway. There had to be a way to get to Scully -- by 
hook or by crook.

5:35 pm

Melvin Frohike, or as his application read -- James Dean III, newest employee of 
the hospital cafeteria staff, pushed the car onto the service elevator and 
pushed the button for the fifth floor. Amazing how a few well-placed comments on 
records from other hospitals employment managed to land him a job serving meals. 
Sometimes it was all just too easy. 

Fortunately for him, the nurse who had shooed him away earlier had left work at 
3 when the shift changed. The 3 to midnight shift nurses barely gave him a 
second glance as he pushed the cart carrying meals down the hallway, 
distributing the trays along the way. Finally he reached the door marked 
'Scully, D.' One of the nurses saw him try the doorknob and quickly walked over 
to assist.

"I'll take that one in," said the tall brunette as she fumbled with the key to 
the door.

"Aw, shucks, pretty lady, this tray is heavy. I think they used real stones in 
the stone soup today," Frohike crooned, layering on the charisma.

She gave him a raised-eyebrow look, but unlocked the door and held it while he 
entered with the tray.

It was a very good thing he had gotten the hang of handling the food trays 
because the sight before him almost caused him to drop the one in his hands to 
the floor. Some poor creature with drab orange hair falling in clumps around her 
face sat on the bed. Her arms were tied to the bedrails, but she was sitting up. 
Her sunken eyes roamed the room, searching for something but seeing nothing. Her 
forearms were bandaged to her elbows and her lips were chapped and swollen where 
she kept chewing on them. He winced just looking at her. 

As he put the tray on the table and adjusted it over the bed, he noticed that 
she'd have to be released or someone would have to feed her. He looked over at 
the nurse.

"Can you unfasten her hands, so she can eat?" he asked, trying to sound 
businesslike when he felt anything but.

"No can do. She's a suicide. She'd use the sheets to hang herself if we let her 
up. I'll get one of the aides to come in and feed her when they get back from 
dinner break. Shouldn't be more than 45 minutes."

"But her dinner will be cold by then," he objected, schooling his voice and 
expression so he didn't sound as pissed off as he felt at the woman's attitude.

The nurse just snorted. "Like she'll notice. She's completely 'round the bend' 
if you catch my drift. It'll be fine." She motioned for Frohike to come back out 
of the room, but he stood fast.

"You know, this is my last tray and I'm on dinner break now myself -- how about 
if I feed her?" he offered. He chewed on his own lip, hoping he hadn't sounded 
too desperate.

The brunette tilted her head as she considered his suggestion. He smiled at her 
and looked as non-threatening as possible. Finally she shrugged. "Hey, it's your 
dinner hour you'll be missing. Knock yourself out. I'll be out at the desk, when 
you're ready to leave just hit the call button on the rail there." She started 
to close the door, but stopped suddenly. She pointed to a security camera 
mounted in the corner of the room. "We'll be able to see anything you do -- so 
don't try anything . . . lover boy," she warned.

He swallowed and nodded hurriedly. As the door closed, he let go the breath he'd 
been holding. He made a quick glance over at the camera -- it was just video, he 
didn't think it had sound. If he was quiet, he shouldn't raise any suspicions at 
the desk.

"Agent Scully? Dana, can you hear me?" he called softly. Now that he was close 
enough to her, he could hear her mumbling just under her breath. He called to 
her again. She just stared around the room, not seeing him, and continued to 
mumble. He leaned in closer to hear her.

"For God made not death, neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the 
living. For he created all things that they might be: and he made the nations of 
the earth for health: and there is no poison of destruction in them, nor the 
kingdom of hell upon the earth. For justice is perpetual and immortal . . .*" 
Whatever else she was saying was lost in her mumbling.

"Scully," he tried to catch her attention with a spoonful of applesauce. 
"Scully, it's me, Frohike. Scully, please, look at me," he pleaded. 

She did look at him then, but it was only to open her mouth, childlike, waiting 
for the food as he spooned it to her lips. She licked a bit of the applesauce 
from her bottom lip and opened her mouth again expectantly.

"Scully, what's goin' on here?" he asked, this time spooning up some of the 
mashed potatoes and gravy. She accepted the food, but didn't respond to his 
questions.

"Scully, I think something very weird is going on here. I'm going to get to the 
bottom of this. You just hang in there, OK? I'm going to see what I can find 
out. We'll get you out of this."

"Mulder's not dead," she said suddenly, her voice dreamlike. "Billy came to me 
last night and told me he wasn't there."

Frohike was so startled he almost dropped the forkful of meatloaf on her lap. 
"Billy who? Your brother Bill? Your dead brother Bill?"

"He said Mulder wasn't there. In heaven. I don't think Mulder would go to hell. 
I've prayed for his soul so many times -- he's the first one on my list for 
plenary indulgence on All Soul's Day. If he's not in hell and he's not in heaven 
with Bill, he has to be somewhere here." She said all this in a singsong voice 
that sent shivers up Frohike's spine.

"Just hang on, Scully. We'll figure all this out. Just hang on," he begged. 
They'd made it all the way to the ice cream and Scully seemed calmer than when 
he'd first walked in the room. "I'll be back tomorrow, Scully. I'll be back. I 
promise."

June 13, 2006
5:06 pm

After detailing what he'd seen at the hospital, the three conspiracy theorists 
worked their kung fu 'magic' on Scully's records. It didn't take them long to 
discover that Scully was not under the care of a licensed psychiatrist, but was 
being attended by a neurologist -- the same neurologist who had treated Mulder 
for his recent 'episodes' or visions. Only Scully's insistence that she knew and 
could vouch for the guy had eased their suspicious of the doctor in question.

After checking bank records, it was revealed that Dr. Jason Leonard made sizable 
deposits to his Bank of America accounts on the dates just preceding Mulder's 
stays in the hospital. There was another deposit, this for $100,000 in a new 
account set up in his name in the Grand Caymans. No longer alone in his fear 
that Scully was being held against her will and not for her own good, Frohike 
was more determined than ever to get to the bottom of this mystery.

The service elevator seemed to take forever as he watched the floor indicator 
lights blink toward the fifth floor. This time Frohike was wired, eyes and ears, 
to ensure they had evidence -- evidence they would need to convince a certain 
FBI Assistant Director that something was rotten in Georgetown. 

When the elevator reached number Five, it didn't stop exactly on the mark. This 
forced Frohike to get behind the sizable food cart and push it over the quarter-
inch gap. After some manhandling and being careful not to jerk the cart too much 
and spill the numerous cups of hospital coffee and tea, he started down the 
narrow hallway that led from the service elevator. He glanced in an open doorway 
into an office and saw two men in a heated discussion.

"Look, Commander Scully, I've done all I can. The hospital board is on my ass. 
You have to take your sister to a more permanent facility. They're questioning 
why a neuro patient is being kept on sedatives on the psych ward and they won't 
let me keep her here in her present state indefinitely."

At the name Scully, Frohike pulled up short. Thinking fast, he pressed himself 
against the wall so as to present a smaller visible target and inched closer to 
the open door.

"I don't give a flying fuck what the hospital board wants," another voice 
growled. "I'm paying you to keep her here."
"She's suicidal. If she's that much of a problem, we could arrange for her to 
get out of her restraints. That would solve everyone's problems," said the first 
voice. 
Frohike heard a jarring thump against the other side of the wall directly behind 
him and a pained gasp. "You little fucker, you make sure she stays alive, you 
hear me! If anything, ANYTHING happens to her, the board will be the least of 
your problems. I'll cut you up into little pieces and feed you to the fish off 
the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, you got that?"

Frohike heard another gasp and then a strangled cough. "I understand," said the 
first voice. "I'll look into other facilities. I have a friend who has a clinic 
in Maine -- "

"Find someplace closer."

"I'll see what I can do. For now, should I just continue with the present course 
of treatment?"

"No. She's mumbling all kinds of nonsense in there; it's bothering my mother. 
Can't you put her in some kind of coma or something?"

"I suppose that's possible. It will take some time; I don't want the nursing 
staff to start questioning my orders. Give me until tomorrow to see what I can 
do. I assume there will be a suitable increase in my allotment, since this is 
outside our agreement?"

"You're a real humanitarian, aren't you, Leonard? Yes, a regular Dr. 
Schweitzer," the second voice answered with an oily chuckle. "I'll talk to my 
associates. You'll see the increase in the next deposit."

"Thank you, Commander."

Frohike realized the meeting was over and needed to get out of the way before 
being seen. Pushing the cart around the corner and into the busy hospital 
hallway, he was pulling a tray off the bottom shelf when a man who could have 
been Scully's clone strolled past him and entered Scully's room with his own 
key. After a few minutes, the man left her room and headed for the visitor's 
elevators.

After distributing the trays, and again feeding Scully -- a fantasy far better 
than the present reality -- Frohike finished his shift and headed back to the 
office. It was time to plan Scully's rescue, but first they had to convince the 
'cavalry'. The recording Dr. Leonard's meeting with Commander Scully was 
downloaded to the computer and a call was made to Assistant Director Walter 
Skinner. 

*The Holy Bible, Douay Version (Catholic), Book of Wisdom, 1:13-15 

Act 2 Scene 2
Starbucks
Georgetown Galleria
11:12 p.m.

Charlie placed his Grande Ethiopia Sidamo on a corner table away from the late-
night crowd of hormonal yuppies, de-pressurizing wage slaves, and fashionably 
unfashionable college kids.

Charlie was drawn to the very banality of Starbucks -- the Kenny G-sus muzak, 
the hyper-caffeinated animation of the hip patrons, the cordial boredom of the 
minimalist wage counter staff serving Third World coffee to Type A assholes. The 
mundo-mundane surroundings recharged his sense of power and magnitude, which 
always ebbed in the supernoval presence of Strughold and the Frenchman.

Charlie sipped his Sidamo contentedly, his nostrils flaring as they took in its 
earthy essence. His nemesis was vanquished; precious, misguided Dana had been 
taken down a notch. Poor, late, bull-headed Bill had always been the take-charge 
guy, the alpha wolf, the erstwhile bully. But Dana, now, her bullying was far 
more subtle -- quietly "rational," self-righteously "virtuous," coyly 
manipulative with her parents. 
She'd always had Dad wrapped around her fingers. Bill was Dad's legacy, Dana his 
treasure. 

He and Melissa had been afterthoughts, superfluous, which had been all right 
with his crystal-hazing, air-headed sister. But Dad had never grasped Charlie's 
cunning intelligent and instinct, his potential for greatness. Dana had 
discarded their father's dream for her to become a badge-carrying bureaucrat, 
but Dad's love for her and barely-concealed disdain for him never faded.

Now, the tables were turned. The decisions of the planet's most powerful men 
turned on his discretion -- these coffee-swilling protozoans would blow a 
circuit if they knew who was sharing their oxygen and what secrets he held. 
Charlie smiled indulgently at the blathering late-night crowd and flipped open 
his razor-thin phone.

"Yes?" The voice on the other end was composed, barely expectant.

"Yeah," Charlie laughed warmly. "Just wanted to let you know I got those 
packages in the mail."

"Excellent." The irony in Strughold's tone eluded his young protégé. The NSA had 
developed the security that had gone into securing their line, and such 
theatrics thus were wholly unnecessary.

"Oh, and hey, that new medication's working great," Charlie added, hooking an 
arm over the back of his chair with artful casualness. "The rash has totally 
cleared up."

"I'm pleased, though I might remind you that a rash can resurface easily with 
inattention. If you recall, our last patient did not fare so well."

Charlie flushed. More than ever, he wished he'd been allowed to get the truth 
out of that freak kid his way. "That was hardly my fault. You were the one -- " 
he instinctively choked off the potentially lethal accusation. 

"Of course, you are correct," Strughold murmured. "I ordered the removal of the 
surveillance cameras, and failed to ensure that compensatory steps were taken to 
monitor our 'patient's condition."

His implication was clear. "Hey, how could I predict what some whacko kid -- 
some seriously ill patient -- would do?"

Strughold was silent for a moment. "Again, you are correct -- I am the doctor. 
Which is why I have asked Pelzer to conduct a post-mortem on our young friend. 
His descent into suicidal mania was rather sudden -- uncharacteristically 
sudden. Do you suppose someone intervened in Adam's treatment?"
Charlie pulled upright, freon pumping through his chest.

"The notion is no doubt ludicrous," Strughold chuckled dismissively. "The boy 
was under the tightest security, was he not?"

"Absolutely." The reply came from Charlie's compressed trachea. "Nobody could 
have got to him."

"I am sure that is true. I nonetheless shall be interested to peruse Pelzer's 
report. Good night, Charles."

The line went dead before a response could travel from Charlie's brain.

He leaned back, heart pounding and something alive and sharp wriggling in his 
gut. 
He fumbled for his Grande. Charlie reviewed the security protocols he'd set up 
in Vermont. Of course, there had been little reason to believe there would be 
any real interest in an insane boy with no memory. No one could know -- or at 
least believe -- what was inside Briese's head. And even if someone had, how 
could they circumvent the kind of security he'd --

Coffee sloshed onto the table as it hit him.

Krycek. Could he somehow have slipped something into the kid's scrambled eggs, 
scrambled Adam's brains from outside the compound? It sounded like bad science 
fiction, but as Charlie had learned working with the enigmatic Strughold, 
brilliant and unscrupulous men could create nearly anything the most imaginative 
writer could concoct.

If Strughold was right, Charlie could not contemplate the consequences. Even if 
the old man were wrong, it was clear now that his faith in Charlie had been 
deeply compromised.

Suddenly, the room expanded around him. Couples in love, no doubt pondering -- 
perhaps even snickering over -- the barren soul in the corner. Friends 
chattering about life and its meaning, oblivious to Charlie.

He suddenly felt insignificant, ridiculous. 

"Hey!" Charlie snapped at a passing busboy, raising every eye in the house. 
"This shit is fucking ice cold!" 

Act 2 scene 3
Capitol Mall
Vietnam War Memorial (The Wall)
June 13, 2006
10:15 pm

Walter Skinner nodded to a group of Japanese tourists as they made their way 
back toward their tour bus. Finally, he was alone with the black granite 
monolith to the fallen in one of America's most distressing wars. From the 
shadows, he could almost hear the dead whispering.

But it wasn't a shadow. It was Melvin Frohike. Frohike stepped forward from his 
hiding place and nodded to the Assistant Director. "Thanks for comin', man," 
Frohike said, his hands stuffed deep in his pockets.

"You said it was urgent," Skinner said, foregoing formalities. "What is it you 
want?"

"Have you seen Scully?" Frohike said, also cutting to the chase. 

Skinner swallowed and looked off to the dwindling traffic on Independence 
Avenue. "No one is allowed to see her. Her mother told me -- "

"They have her tied up to her bed, man," Frohike spit out abruptly. "And she 
looks like no one has bothered to take care of her personal hygiene since she 
got in the place."

"You saw her?" Skinner asked, his voice skeptical.

"When they wouldn't let me in to see her, I smelled a rat. I took a job in the 
kitchen -- I deliver meals. I've seen her twice. I had to feed her dinner both 
nights -- they won't even let her out of the restraints to eat."

Skinner licked dry lips and closed his eyes. "How . . . how is she?"

Frohike sought the other man's eyes and held his gaze. "She's not real co-
herent. I'm pretty sure she's being drugged."

"She's probably on sedatives. She was suicidal -- "

"No, it's a set up," Frohike protested.

"You can't know that," Skinner countered through gritted teeth.

Frohike pulled out the small digital recorder out of the pocket of his vest. "Oh 
yes I can," he said. He handed the recorder and some earplugs over to Skinner 
with the play button pushed. He watched the Assistant Director as he listened to 
Dr. Leonard and Charles Scully's voices tell their version of recent events. It 
was plain that the doctor and Scully's brother did not have Dana's best interest 
at heart. 

"My god, this is -- " Skinner was shocked, pulling the earplug from his ear.

"That's not all," Frohike interjected as Skinner handed him the tape player. 
"Scully told me something last night. She said that Bill, her brother Bill, had 
come to her in a dream. He told her that Mulder 'wasn't there'. Scully took that 
to mean that Mulder isn't dead."

Skinner started shaking his head before Frohike had a chance to finish the 
sentence. "She identified the body herself. The dental records -- "

"Has the DNA test come back?" Frohike cut him off impatiently. "Dental records 
can be switched. If they wanted to take Mulder, there are plenty of ways of 
making it look like we had the right body."

"Be that as it may," Skinner said firmly, "what's most important here is Scully. 
If what was said on this tape is any indication, she's going to be moved out of 
Georgetown soon -- very soon. And then we'll lose all track of her."

"So, what do we do?" Frohike asked innocently.

Skinner looked away again and chewed on his lip. "I think we need to make sure 
Scully doesn't disappear -- from us."

"Well, now that you mention it -- you don't have any plans for the evening, do 
you, Assistant Director?"

Georgetown Medical Center
June 14, 2006
7:45 am

The bearded orderly walked up to the nurses' station and smiled 
professionally. "Hello, I'm here for a patient transport." He handed over a set 
of papers and smiled again.

The nurse sitting at the computer terminal took the page and read it, then typed 
in a few keys on the computer keyboard. "Scully, Dana K., being transported to 
Rivercrest Village upon orders from Dr. Leonard," she repeated from the screen. 
"Ms. Scully is in room 513." She stood and looked over the desk down the hall. 
"Where's the gurney?"

"Right here," said a tall blond man with slicked back hair. He pushed a standard 
transport gurney into view. 

"Well, at least you'll get her there before breakfast. We've had to feed her, 
doctor's orders are explicit that she remain sedated and restrained at all times 
-- " The nurse looked around and leaned in conspiratorially. "Suicide, you 
know," she said in a whisper.

"I'll sit with her in the back, keep an eye on things," the blond said in a 
voice that spoke to a businesslike manner. 

"Great. To be honest, I can't wait to get rid of her -- her brother gives me the 
creeps," the nurse replied. "That's just between us, of course," she added 
hastily. 

"Hey, it goes in one ear and out the other," the bearded man assured her. "The 
only way to deal with, well, you know -- " He nodded toward Scully's room with a 
roll of his eyes.

"Got that right," the nurse agreed. "I used to work surgical ward, much quieter. 
But this was the only night shift available and I needed the extra cash." She 
opened the door to Scully's room with her key. "Well, there she is, Sleeping 
Beauty. I packed her things last vitals check, not that she had much -- that bag 
on the chair. She's all yours."

Langly glanced over at Byers as the nurse left them. He started to say something 
but Byers made a point of looking up at the room's camera. Langly caught on 
quickly and got to work, untying Scully's arms and legs and the two men lifted 
her effortlessly to the waiting gurney. Byers winced as he helped Langly secure 
her arms and wrists to the gurney but soon they were on their way. 

They had just reached the elevators when the nurse called out. "Hey, wait a 
minute!" Byers glanced over to Langly nervously and Langly hit the call button 
again several times, hoping the elevator doors would open.

"Wait a minute," the nurse called again and came running toward them. "You 
forgot to sign this," she said, holding out the very professional, but entirely 
fake documents that Byers had presented to her earlier. "Got dot them 'i's and 
cross them 't's, you know," she said with a playful wink.

"Job's not finished till the paperwork is done," Byers said with a weak smile as 
he jotted a fictitious name on the line. "There you go, oh, and this is your 
pen, isn't it, um, Mary?" he asked coyly after a quick glance at her nametag. 

Mary smiled sweetly back. "Why yes it is . . . Henry," she said after a look at 
his name on the paper. "Ford? Are you any relation to the car people?"

"Distant, distant," Byers said quickly as they loaded Scully's gurney on the 
elevator. "Not close enough to even get a car loan," he added as the doors shut 
and the car started its descent to the ambulance bay.

The last ambulance in the line was a little older, but had all the proper 
registrations. Byers knocked twice in the back and Frohike opened the doors from 
the inside, helping the other two load the gurney. As the doors slammed, the 
driver, a seriously looked man in a Baltimore Orioles baseball cap and wire-
rimmed glasses, pulled out of the parking spot and headed off down the road. 

And all the while, Dana Scully slept, completely unaware. 

Act 3
Lab, 
Location Unknown 

Charles Scully stood at the back of the lab. It had taken him over twenty hours 
to get from D.C. to Cairo where Strughold's chopper had picked him up and 
brought him the rest of the way to this secret installation beneath the Abydos 
desert. Mysteries of the ancient world had been buried here for centuries, how 
ironic it was that the mysteries of the future were hidden here as well. Despite 
his fatigue, Charlie felt mildly euphoric.

For some time now Mulder had been his archrival. Seeing him here, finally 
subdued was the culmination of a year's worth of planning. It had been worth 
every minute of it. 

As he listened to the steady beep of Mulder's heart on the monitor he realized 
that in reality he had no ill feelings for the man himself. To an extent he even 
admired Mulder's tenacity, character and heart. The problem was he'd become a 
plague, infecting not only his family, but every aspect of the program Charlie 
had been employed to protect. Something had to be done about it. 

"This will inhibit much of his voluntary movement," Rhinehart was saying as 
Charlie watched him inject something into Mulder's IV line. Mulder's heart rate 
and respiration slowed but his eyes remained open. From his vantage point 
Charlie could see the bruises that marred the man's chest and abdomen. His 
wrists were raw from fighting the restraints. His often offensive voice had been 
silenced with a gag. He likened the scene to that of a wild horse that had 
finally been broken. All the fire had been taken from him. 

Kambatta wrapped Mulder's left arm with a BP cuff and compressed it. "BP 131 
over 80, we're good."

Strughold was standing at the head of the table shadowed by The Scarred Man and 
the four technicians. The identical nature of the four men made Charlie pause. 

"Now Mr. Mulder, we will see what your mind has been hiding from us," Strughold 
leaned over Mulder, his tone was almost rhythmic. 

Charlie stepped closer as he watched Rhinehart open a metallic silver case that 
one of the clones had placed on the table behind him. Slipping on a pair of 
heavy 
synthetic gloves he reached into the box and lifted the contents into the air. 
Draped 
across his fingers was a fine silver mesh that almost sparkled in the light from 
the 
overhead lamp. One of the technicians stepped forward and quickly released the 
strap that had held Mulder's head tightly to the table's surface. Sliding his 
hands 
underneath his head, he gently raised it from the surface while another 
technician 
stepped in and began to apply a blue gel to Mulder's bare scalp. He heard Mulder 
drawn in a shaky breath and shiver as if the substance was cold to the touch. 

Rhinehart turned and stepped closer to the table still holding the fine mesh 
with the 
greatest of care. Leaning over Mulder he gently laid the mesh against his scalp. 
With 
a life of its own the mesh began to move, forming itself tightly against the 
contours 
of his skull. Mulder's eyes flew open wide, he screamed against the gag. Charlie 
watched as the cords in his neck rose against the strain, his fists curling into 
tight 
balls. 

"What the hell is this?" Kambatta demanded knowing full well that this was 
technology far beyond anything he'd seen. The heart monitor began to beep 
rapidly. "BP's going up fast!" he warned. 

Charlie had never seen anything like it; he stood transfixed at both the 
amazement 
and horror of what he was watching. Torture had never bothered him. In some 
respects he was a hired killer but even this made his stomach uneasy.

Mulder could barely breathe. It had felt like a thousand tiny needles had 
penetrated 
through his skull into his brain with a prickling fire. Sweat made his body 
glisten 
even though he shivered. At the moment he felt like he would welcome death.

The heart monitor beeped faster, surpassing 90 beats per minute. "Mr. Strughold, 
this man's going to go into cardiac arrest," Kambatta said turning to warn his 
superior. "It is unfortunate that the human body is even frailer than it appears 
to 
be. You're the physician, stabilize him!"

Rhinehart turned around, grabbed a bottle and syringe from the counter behind 
him 
while Kambatta place an oxygen mask over Mulder's face. Rhinehart drew the 
syringe almost full before turning to the table and injecting the liquid into 
the IV 
line. The monitor continued to beep at an alarming rate.

"What is this procedure?" Kambatta questioned looking disgustedly at Strughold.

"With this device we are able to penetrate the visual cortex of the brain," 
Strughold 
answered him. "It enables us to gain access to long term memory. The visual 
images 
of a lifetime are stored there. If as you suggest this man's brain has been 
technologically enhanced beyond human capability it is obvious that humans were 
not responsible. I am hoping that by penetrating this man's psyche we will also 
be 
able to tap into that technology."

"How is that possible? " Kambatta demanded.

Strughold didn't answer. The Scarred Man handed him a small hand held device. As 
the old German's fingers danced over its keyboard images began to appear in the 
air 
above it. On the table Mulder was beginning to shake visibly, his vitals were 
still all 
over the board.

Unable to look anywhere else, Mulder watched as moments of his life literally 
passed 
before his eyes over Strughold's device in vivid holographic images. Childhood 
memories long forgotten, back to times when his family had been close and whole, 
fleeting images of hospital stays and medical tests, his mother, crying freely 
and 
holding him possessively as they both watched his sister carried from their home 
by 
his father. Mulder closed his eyes at the truth of what he was seeing. This 
wasn't 
possible, not by any earthly means. The implications were frightening. 

Waves of prickling sensations rippled through his head, each one feeling as if 
it were 
penetrating deeper into his thoughts. Despite the perspiration that coated his 
torso, 
he was freezing as uncontrollable shivers wracked his body. He sucked hard at 
the 
oxygen that flowed from the mask. His thoughts turned to Scully, and he longed 
for 
her gentle warmth. 

Charlie watched the whole scene unfold before him. As Strughold continued his 
rape 
of Mulder's mind, images of Dana began to appear. The vulgarity of it actually 
began 
to sicken him. It also began to frighten him. Nothing he knew of current 
technology 
suggested anything like this was possible. Something was terribly wrong here. 

"BP's 170 over 100, Sir," Kambatta warned again. "This isn't good."

"His consciousness is strong, they're using his mind to block me," Strughold 
said in 
disgust. 

"They?" Charlie asked in disbelief. "What the hell are you talking about?"

The images suddenly disappeared as Strughold's hand once again passed over the 
keypad of the device. "Charles, you can be so naïve. You remember of course the 
story I told you several months ago about the Black Oil virus?"

Charlie's nod was almost imperceptible but Strughold accepted it and continued. 
"Only part of that story was true. The virus was not brought here by some 
extraterrestrial force as I had told you. It is a part of the evolutional 
history of this 
planet and has indeed existed here for millennia. It lies dormant now awaiting 
another extinction of life when it can once again insert itself. Hitler was 
fooled into 
thinking his alliance with his extraterrestrial allies would provide the genetic 
material 
he needed to produce his superior race and dominate the world. He had no clue to 
the power he could have created." The old German's voice trailed of as he looked 
across the table to the four identical technicians standing across from them. He 
nodded to them. 

"What do you mean, insert itself?" Charlie was beginning to find this whole tale 
more 
then troubling.

"The ugly truth, Charles, is this," Strughold continued to speak as one of the 
technicians produced a smaller metallic box from the same one Rhinehart had 
extracted the mesh from. "The DNA testing the aliens initiated was designed to 
detect the virus not eradicate any resistance to it. The genes for the most part 
lie 
dormant in the DNA of every living thing on this planet. Almost every living 
thing," 
he finished looking down at Mulder.

Strughold reached across the table, gripping Mulder's chin and turning his head 
slightly, forcing him to make eye contact. "The results of all those decades of 
testing 
have finally produced a candidate in which those genes no longer lie dormant. We 
need only to access them."

"You talk as if they're some sort of living thing in and among themselves?"

"Ah, but they are, Charles."

Drugged and unable to mount any resistance, Mulder could only stare back into 
Strughold's eyes. He hated the submissive feeling that was washing over him. He 
feared his body would betray him and there was nothing he could do about it.

"Everything is in place now. It is time to introduce the Essence into his 
system. His 
previous exposure to the virus has been activated by the artifacts and enhanced 
by 
the neuro technology. Once the Essence becomes the dominant force within his 
being his own consciousness will no longer be able to shield it." 

"What is this Essence?" Charlie suddenly questioned.

"The virus, Charles," Strughold answered turning to one of the clones. "Hand me 
one 
of the vials." 

Charlie watched one of the four look-alike men handed Strughold a large clear 
vial 
with a silver cap. Inside the vial was a black substance, much the consistency 
of 
heavy oil. He'd read reports on a similar substance and the lethal consequences 
of 
exposure to it but he'd never actually seen it. He watched as Mulder's eyes 
widened, 
his head jerked hard to the right, dislodging the oxygen mask. Whatever this 
substance was, Charlie was certain Mulder recognized it. The old German accepted 
the vial. "Charles, Doctors, I suggest you step away from the table. You have no 
immunity to this substance."

Strughold held the vial over Mulder's chest and unscrewed the cap. Despite the 
drugs Mulder's body tensed, pulling violently against the binding on his wrists 
until 
he drew blood. His muffled cry of "NO!" could be heard even through the gag.

"What is this?" Charlie asked.

"Oil, Charles, the active virus," Strughold replied, turning to meet his eyes. 
"The life 
blood of this planet. Within its composition lies a life force as old as the 
universe 
itself and you fools have burned it for decades as fuel."

"A life force?"

"Yes," Strughold looked about the room, catching the eyes of both the doctors 
and 
Charlie as well. "An intelligence far greater than either you or I. To 
understand it, to 
hold its power within your hand would make you one with your God."

The three men watched Strughold gently tip the vial, its contents sliding slowly 
from 
the container onto Mulder's bare chest. He began to shake violently with the 
frigid 
intensity of the substance. Blood was now flowing freely from both his wrists 
and the 
corner of his mouth. Despite the Digoxin that Rhinehart had administered only 
minutes before, his heart rate and respiration climbed again. 

As the substance spread across his chest, inching its way up his throat, the 
horror of 
the Russian gulag came rushing back to him, he began to hyperventilate. One of 
the 
clones stepped forward to replace the oxygen mask over his nose and mouth. His 
eyes fixed Charles Scully with a look of desperation as he gasped violently for 
air. His 
lungs burned.

"I don't understand, I thought this substance was lethal," Charlie was confused 
by 
Strughold's actions. Surely he didn't want to kill this man.

The slithering oily substance had reached Mulder's face, sliding beneath the 
oxygen 
mask and creeping slowly across his cheeks to his nostrils and eyes. As it 
entered his 
mouth and nose it burned with freezing intensity. He cried out through the gag 
as it 
penetrated his nasal passages and coated his throat. Finally seeping into his 
eyes the 
burning sensation became unbearable. He could now feel it penetrating down 
though 
his chest cavity wrapping its icy grip around his heart and lungs, freezing 
them. Suddenly the alarm blared to life on the heart monitor; Charlie watched as 
Mulder's his eyes rolled back his head. 

"He's coding! He's going into cardiac arrest!" Kambatta shouted stepping 
forward.

"NO!" Strughold shouted. "Leave him alone!"

Within seconds the alarm stopped. His respiration slowed and the heart monitor 
returned to a steady 85 beats per minute. Kambatta stepped forward to check his 
blood pressure and remove the oxygen mask. Pulling a pen light from his pocket 
he 
leaned over Mulder and slowly pulled back the lid of his left eye. "Dear God!" 
he 
gasped almost jumping back from the table in alarm. Mulder opened both his 
eyes. Instead of their familiar hazel color, both his eyes now swam with the 
inky 
black of night.

Act 4 scene 1
Rockbridge Baths, VA
June 22, 2006
7:30 am

Mulder stood in the doorway of their office, a wistful smile on his face. He was 
mouthing words, but she couldn't hear a sound. She walked over and reached out 
to 
grasp his shoulder. His arms encircled her waist as he drew her nearer. He laid 
his 
head atop hers and then kissed her lovingly on the forehead. Finally, he spoke 
aloud, 
one word, full of longing and commitment -- "Scully."

"Scully? Scully, can you hear me? It's me, Walter Skinner? Can you hear me?" 

She blinked lazily and then tried to focus on the face just inches above her. 

"Scully?"

"Mmm, yeah?" she replied. Her mouth felt like a mud puddle after a sudden 
downpour, dry dust suddenly turned to mush. She could almost taste an earthworm 
at the back of her throat and the thought made her gag. 

"Frohike, grab the bucket," she heard Skinner demand and suddenly there was 
something to vomit into, but there was nothing to come up. After a few more dry 
heaves, her stomach decided to maintain its current residence and she dropped 
back 
to the pillows.

Sights, sounds and smells gradually came to her. She was in a room, shiny wood 
walls and a ceiling with a fan in the middle. The bed she was on was soft and 
comfortable, the pillows downy but with an overlying scent of disuse. A window 
next 
to the bed looked out on a sylvan landscape that gave way to the towering pines 
she 
thought reminded her of the Blue Ridge Mountains. She could smell the pine and 
the 
fresh mountain air as it wafted in through the open window, billowing the red-
checked curtains.

"Where am I?" she asked, and from the reaction of the man sitting next to her on 
the bed, she had just given an Academy Award Winning performance.

"You're in a cabin in the Shenandoah Valley. You're safe," Skinner assured her.

She put her hand up to her head and looked in dismay at the bandages on her left 
arm. Worriedly, she inspected the other bandaged arm, too. "What happened? How 
did I get here?" she asked, her voice growing stronger, her eyes clearer with 
each 
passing moment.

Skinner looked over his shoulder and Scully noticed that he wasn't alone. The 
Gunmen were in attendance as well. Frohike stepped forward, stopping at the end 
of 
the bed. "You were drugged, Scully," he said, his face set in barely contained 
anger.

"For how long? Do we know what they used?" she asked, lying back on the pillows. 

This time Byers fielded her inquiry. "As near as we can tell, you've been 
drugged for 
the last week, since Mulder's . . . " The usually taciturn ex-Federal employee 
chewed 
on his bottom lip before continuing. "For a while," he amended. "It appears to 
have 
been a psychotropic compound, possibly one of the newer antidepressants. You 
were 
given unusually high doses. Aggression is one of the side effects, as well as 
suicidal 
thoughts. Once in the hospital, after your, um, episode in the office, they 
scaled back 
the psychotropic but layered on a strong sedative. It wasn't a very beneficial 
combination," he concluded.
"How much do you remember?" Skinner asked, his tone thickly laced with worry.

"Everything," she answered. "But really nothing that makes any sense." She 
looked 
around her again, regaining her bearings. "Mulder," she said aloud, as if 
summoning 
her partner.

"Scully, maybe you need to take a little time today to rest," Frohike advised, 
stopping her actions as she attempted to get out of the bed.

"He's not dead," she said evenly. "He's alive. We have to find him."

All four men exchanged worried glances. 

"I'm not hallucinating, I'm not psychotic," she said flatly.

"You said your brother told you Mulder wasn't there, in heaven," Frohike 
volunteered. "You told me that when you were drugged."

She nodded and drew in a breath. "Look, I know it sounds crazy," she said, and 
chuckled softly at her joke. "He's alive. I would know if he weren't."

"Scully, you identified the body," Skinner interjected, his expression 
sorrowful.

"Yes, I did. But I had faulty information," she said plainly. "Now, unless one 
of you 
wants to change the sheets, I suggest you tell me where the nearest bathroom is 
located." 

Skinner got up and let her sit on the side of the bed. When she stood, her legs 
would 
barely hold her. Skinner was immediately on one side, Frohike on the other. 
After 
gaining her equilibrium, she nodded to let them know she was steady. 

"Bathroom's right through that door," Frohike directed. 

In the bathroom, with the door shut, she had a chance to look at herself in the 
mirror. Drowned rat. Those were the only words that described her. Slowly she 
unwound the bandages from her arms and winced. Neat stitches lined both 
forearms, 
healing nicely from the looks of them. She closed her eyes for a moment, 
remembering images from the office. How much damage had she done? Not nearly 
as much as she could have. But what she did was lose time, time they could have 
used searching for Mulder.

After attending to pressing business, she opened the door to the medicine 
cabinet 
and found sterile gauze and medical tape. She took a moment and applied new 
bandages.

When she went back to the room she was alone, but a fresh set of clothes were on 
the bed. Smiling, she changed out of the hospital gown she was wearing. She 
listened closely and finally heard voices coming from below her. She realized 
she was 
in a loft of a cabin. She looked over the rail and saw her four rescuers 
drinking coffee 
at a dining room table, set off from a small living room with a fireplace. She 
went 
over to the stairs and soon joined them. 

"That smells heavenly," she said, nodding at Skinner's cup. 
Byers shot up as if on a spring to get her a mug of the steaming elixir. 
"Scully, would 
you like something to eat?" he offered.

"Yes, thank you, Jon. I'm starving." Her words caused all four men to break out 
into 
bright grins. In minutes a full-scale production was going on in the galley 
kitchen, 
each gunman working diligently on his own special recipe. Skinner continued to 
sit 
with her at the table.

"I take it I'm 'missing'," she said, looking out the windows by the dining area. 
They 
appeared to be in the middle of nowhere.

"As far as your family knows, yes," Skinner admitted. "I'm officially on 
vacation. I 
took some time after the funeral." He wouldn't raise his eyes from the silk 
flower 
centerpiece to look at her.

Scully sipped her coffee and nodded. "Logical, given the circumstances. But if 
you 
took your leave at the same time I disappeared -- "

"Actually, I didn't. I've spent the last three days in DC. I came down here late 
last 
night when Frohike called me to say that you appeared to be coming out of it. 
You've 
had a pretty rough time."

"I need you to go to Los Angeles. There has to be some trail they left," Scully 
said, 
ignoring his worried expression and any talk of her recent ordeal. "I can't go, 
I'd be 
spotted immediately. But as soon as you find something, I want a call. I need to 
find 
him." 

"I'll leave after breakfast," Skinner agreed.

The guys had gone all out and Scully surprised herself with the amount of food 
she 
tucked away. Frohike's huevos rancheros were delightful, as well as Langly's 
home 
fried potatoes and Byers biscuits and gravy. After cleaning up the table and 
starting 
the dishwasher, Skinner gathered his things and Scully escorted him out to his 
car. 

"So how was the funeral?" she asked casually.

He immediately looked uncomfortable. "Scully, you don't want to go into this," 
he 
advised.

"Yes, sir, I do. You and I both know that often times a killer will show up at 
the 
funeral, just to get a second chance at the thrill. Tell me about the funeral, 
sir. Please."

Skinner's jaw stiffened and he looked out into the pine trees. "Your mother has 
a plot 
for the both of you, did you know that?"

"Yes, at Resurrection Cemetery. My grandparents are buried there."

"Did . . . does Mulder know?"

It was her turn to look into the pines. "He doesn't know the particulars. After 
his 
mother's funeral we talked about it and he did say he wanted the two of us 
buried 
together. He left the details up to me."

Skinner nodded, obviously the answer satisfied him. "It was just a little 
jarring, a 
Catholic service for Mulder."

Scully shrugged, but a small upturn of her mouth proved she understood the 
irony. "We always assumed it would be for both of us. Pre-planning our funeral 
wasn't one of those things either of us thought of as a good time, but he 
insisted we 
do it for Mom's sake. So, aside from the actual service, who was there?"

"Your mother, of course. Tara and the children. Oh, your brother Charles."

At the mention of Charles, Scully jerked. "Charles was there? At the funeral?"

"Yes," Skinner said, his expression turning to concern and surprise. "I didn't 
really 
think about it. He was there for your mother, and Tara, I'm sure. He and your 
mother dealt with your hospitalization. Surely you knew that, you said you 
remember -- "

"The bastard came to see me, but I thought it was a dream," Scully spat out. 
"More 
like a nightmare, really. Well, at least we know which rat is responsible."

"Scully -- "

"Sir, we don't have time to get into this right now, but I know that my brother 
is 
working for them. I haven't been able to get solid proof of that, but you know 
how 
these things work. I might never get solid proof. But in my heart, I know the 
truth. My brother is behind Mulder's faked death and his disappearance. I'm 
certain 
of it." 

Skinner shot a glance over to Frohike who kept his face expressionless. Scully 
caught 
the exchange.

"You know, don't you?"

Skinner nodded. "We have evidence this time," he said. "But you're out now and 
we 
have other things to attend to. Revenge can wait."

"Until we get Mulder back, yes, it can wait. After that, I make no promises," 
she said 
evenly.

Act 4 scene 2

Skinner left immediately and Scully went back into the cabin. Frohike showed her 
a 
family room in the walk out basement that held enough computer equipment to 
launch the latest NASA shuttle. Together, the gunmen went over everything they'd 
dug up during her recovery. As the forest around them darkened into a moonless 
night, Byers spoke up.

"It's after 11 already. Maybe we should throw together dinner. We haven't had 
anything to eat since breakfast and Agent Scully is still recovering."

"You guys go on up. I want to look some of this over again," Scully encouraged.

"Hey, we were thinking something simple -- I make a mean doctored up frozen 
pizza," Langly suggested. 

"Sounds wonderful," she answered, smiling. "And iced tea?"

"Sure," he affirmed. "We'll call you when it's ready."

Scully leafed through the pages of her medical report that the guys had hacked 
from 
the hospital records. Jason Leonard's name was on all the orders. She shuddered 
as 
she thought of her old classmate and the number of times in the recent past 
she'd 
left her partner's care up to this man. He had betrayed them, that much was 
obvious. But she still wondered how she'd been drugged in the first place. It 
would 
have happened in LA, not long after the explosion, but when and who?

A tap at the glass doors leading out to the patio startled her. At first she 
thought it 
was a June bug or some other insect attracted to the light. Upon closer in-
spection of 
the world outdoors, her face turned grim. It wasn't a bug . . . it was a rat.

She slid the glass open and stepped out, instinctively searching her back for a 
weapon she wasn't carrying. "Krycek, come out of the shadows, you bastard!" she 
called forcefully.

"Good to see you again, too, Scully," Alex Krycek greeted her. "Glad you're back 
among the sane, relatively speaking, of course."

"What do you know about that?" she demanded. "Oh, wait, don't bother. You'll 
feed 
me a line of crap about how you had nothing to do with any of this, right?"

Krycek shook his head in annoyance. "Scully, I always figured you for the brains 
of 
the partnership. Stop thinking like Mulder and think with your head. You know I 
didn't have anything to do with your recent bout of insanity. You can place the 
blame 
for all that right at the feet of your loving brother."

"I know this already," she spat out. "I want to know where Mulder is!"

An expression of momentary shock passed quickly over Krycek's face. "You know 
he's alive," he said with admiration.

"I know a staged murder when I see one," she replied. "At least when I'm not 
four 
sheets to the wind."

"I need to tell you a little story, but the mosquitoes out here are killing me."

"No, that would be too much to hope for," she sneered, but motioned for him to 
enter the cabin and she closed the door after them. "Now, you have five minutes 
to 
tell me who has Mulder and where he is."

"Five minutes? You want the TV Guide version?" Krycek snarled. "Let's start with 
your loving brother -- "

"Stop calling him that," Scully snapped.

"OK, Charles then, joined forces long ago with one of the members of the 
consortium 
-- "

"All but the one who holds your leash were murdered at El Rico 7 years ago," she 
interrupted.

Krycek laughed bitterly. "Just like a wild fire clears out dead wood, Scully. Or 
maybe 
a better illustration is the Hydra. They cut off a few heads but more sprang up. 
Now 
there is a division between the consortium -- a struggle for control between the 
man 
you know as Spender and another -- his name is Strughold."

Scully recognized the name immediately from Teena Mulder's journals. "Strughold 
escaped El Rico?" she asked.

"He was never there. I would expect he helped plan the whole show."

"And you're telling me that Charlie is working with this Strughold?"

"See, I knew there were brains behind that beauty," Krycek leered.

"And you're here to tell me this Strughold has Mulder," she accused with a 
disbelieving raised eyebrow.

"You really do have Mulder pussy whipped if he put up with you all these years," 
Krycek said with an answering roll of his eyes. "Yes, I'm here to tell you that 
Strughold has Mulder. And to assure you that if you don't work fast, your 
boyfriend 
is toast -- for real this time."

"Prove it," she demanded.

Krycek smiled prettily. "I thought you'd never ask." Slipping his one good hand 
into 
his pants pocket, he withdrew a CD disk. When she lunged for it anxiously, he 
pulled 
it back out of her reach. "Mind you, this is a pirated copy. No special 
features."

It had taken several minutes to convince the Lone Gun Men not to beat Krycek 
senseless and even with the disk in evidence, they had reservations. But being 
the 
true friends they were, they took Scully's word for the man's actions.

Scully schooled her features to bland detachment as she watched the video of her 
partner's brutal 'ghosting'. Aside from closing her eyes for a heartbeat longer 
than 
necessary once or twice, no one would have guessed the anguish she felt at the 
scenes playing on the computer in grainy surveillance video black and white.

"How do we know that was really Mulder?" Frohike asked, his arms crossed and 
disbelief firmly in his features.

"The scars," Scully said evenly. "One on his shoulder, one on his thigh and the 
one 
on his scalp from his surgery a few years back. I saw it as they shaved his 
head."

"Where did you get this?" Langly demanded, his face a pale shade of green as the 
20 
minute long video came to a welcome close.

"Training tape," Krycek provided with a shrug. "Gotta keep the boys on their 
toes."

"Jezus," Byers muttered, shaking his head. When the monitor went black and 
resumed the media player icons, all four men looked to the one woman in the 
room.

"Where was he taken?" she asked, after clearing her throat.

"Egypt," Krycek said, handing her a piece of paper with coordinates. "Look, 
Scully, 
this isn't just a grab and dash. You're going to need help and you don't have a 
lot of 
choice in the matter."

She stared him down. "You're suggesting that your 'associate' wants to help _me_ 
get Mulder?" she asked coolly.

"Let's just say he's never wanted Mulder to fall into the wrong hands. But for 
what 
you want, there can't be any traces back to him."

She nodded, arms crossed. "What are we talking here? Money, equipment?"

"I have a few connections outside my current employer. I can get you a plane, a 
pilot, equipment. But it's gonna take an assful of cash," Krycek replied, 
meeting her 
stare.

"Money's not a problem," she said ducking her head to break their locked gaze.

Krycek smiled. "That's a phrase I never tire of hearing," he said. "You're going 
to 
need at least a million, with more available at a moment's notice."

"Give me till tomorrow night," she said, avoiding the Gunmen's stares. 

"Always a pleasure doing business with you, Agent Scully. You are by far the 
better 
half of the partnership," Krycek said with an oily smile. "Tomorrow night." And 
with 
that he slipped out of the sliding doors and into the darkness of the 
surrounding 
forest.

Act 4 scene 3

Craddock Marine Bank Washington DC
3:45 pm

"Dana, it's a pleasure to see you again," John McKinley said with a smile from 
across 
his dark cherry desk in the private office. "I was surprised when I got your 
call, but I 
have made all the arrangements." He picked up a briefcase from the credenza 
behind him and opened it on the desk. "One million dollars. Two million have 
been 
moved into a money market account that is accessible from any ATM in the 
world." He handed her a debit card and she put it in her purse.

"Thank you, Mr. McKinley, for arranging all of this on such short notice," 
Scully said 
with a relieved sigh.

McKinley smiled. "It's all a part of the service. I've come to expect such 
urgent 
requests from your fiancé," the banker said with a shrug.

Scully started to correct the man's description of what her partner was to her, 
but 
remembered back to the last time she'd been in that very bank, and all that had 
transpired. An image of Mulder wearing a dark brown fedora caused her heart to 
skip 
a beat. No, let people think what they wanted to think. It didn't change what 
they 
meant to each other. 

"As I remember, the last time Fox withdrew such a large sum, I also had to help 
him 
with travel arrangements. Something about Antarctica," McKinley reminisced. "I 
must say, the two of you take . . . shall we say 'unique' vacations?"

"Yes, yes we do," Scully said holding back a bitter chuckle. Unique. Not quite 
the 
word she would have used, but it seemed to fit, nonetheless. "Well, I really 
must be 
going. Thank you again for all your help." She held out her hand and John shook 
it 
firmly.

"I'm your banker, too, Ms. Scully. Fox made that quite clear the last time you 
were 
here. The Mulder accounts are in both your names now. Call me anytime you think 
we can help." 

Act 5
Lab 
Unknown Location

Undecipherable images began to appear as Strughold once again activated his 
device. Mulder was still restrained but Strughold had ordered the oxygen mask 
and 
gag removed. He needed information from this man. Sweat still beaded Mulder's 
forehead and chest. The inky blackness of his eyes had slowly washed away to 
reveal 
their normal color. He stared blankly at the images above him.

"BP's 140 over 90, we're still a little high," Kambatta advised with a shaky 
voice.

Strughold observed the native doctor. Rhinehart had brought him on because of 
his 
expertise in cardiology but his nervousness and questionable attitude was 
beginning 
to become a hindrance to this procedure. "Dr. Kambatta, I don't believe we will 
need 
your services any longer," Strughold replied. "Why don't you escort the good 
Doctor 
back to his quarters," he ordered, turning to look at The Scarred Man.

"Sir?" Kambatta questioned as The Scarred Man stepped forward. "If you don't 
keep 
this patient stabilized he may not live long enough for you to complete your 
tests…" 
Before he could finish, The Scarred Man had grabbed him by the bicep and was 
pulling him towards the door. "I can still be of assistance to you!" Kambatta 
pleaded.

"Once I obtain the information from this patient, there will be no need to keep 
him 
stable," Strughold then advised the rest of the group as the door to the lab 
banged 
shut behind them.

Mulder sucked in a large shaky breath at the same moment, startling them all. 
"You 
have neither the means to obtain it nor the intelligence to use it," he stated, 
his 
voice deep and resonating. 

Strughold's eyes widened at the sudden comment from the man on the table. Both 
Charlie and Rhinehart stepped back cautiously, disturbed by the threatening 
candor 
of Mulder's voice.

The old German tapped more codes into the keypad he held before him. Mulder's 
head jerked but he made no sound. More images appeared. Hideous images of 
inhuman faces that seemed to be crying out in agony hovered before them. 

"Dear God, what is that?" Rhinehart asked astonished by what he was witnessing.

"History," Strughold answered. "The ancient history of this planet, the 
extinction of 
an unknown race, advanced far beyond your current standards. Your predecessors, 
Doctor. Within their history lies the wisdom and power of the universe."

"Like many others you seek the knowledge for your own gain. That is why it will 
forever be kept from you," Mulder spoke again, the deepness of his voice echoing 
about the room. He inhaled deeply once again his chest expanding against the 
restraint. "Your dominating nature prevents you from seeing the whole picture," 
he 
continued focusing on Charlie now. "Only when you understand that in unification 
lies 
the truth…"

"Oh give it up, Mulder!" Charlie interrupted. His patience with Mulder's cryptic 
comments was wearing thin. "I know what you're trying to do. It's not going to 
work 
this time, nobody will come for you. It's over, Dana thinks your dead. She 
identified 
your body herself. You're in Africa for God's sake!"

"Charles," Strughold warned. "You do not want to agitate him."

"Why? It's not like he can do anything about it," Charlie snapped back. "Why 
don't 
you just get this over with?" he questioned, turning to address Strughold 
directly. "Mulder's been a thorn in your side from the beginning. We have Dana 
put 
away, now take care of him!" 

Charlie's false bravado was getting the better of him. Truth was, Mulder's 
actions 
were making him nervous. While the younger Scully'd been spouting off to 
Strughold, Mulder had continued to breathe deeply. Filling his lungs to expand 
his 
chest, he pulled tightly against the restraints that held his wrists, the sweat 
that 
covered his body now acting to enhance his musculature. Something was happening 
here, something Charlie sensed that Strughold was also aware of. 

The snap of metal and the crack of bone made Charlie flinch. "Don't let him 
touch 
you!" Strughold warned, jumping back from the table. Unfortunately for Charlie, 
his 
reactions weren't fast enough. 

* "Xaonoano paolisa!" * 1 The words boomed from Mulder as his hand came up to 
grip the side of Charlie's face. Charlie felt a sudden jolt pass through him 
with the 
contact and gasped. A moment of euphoria overcame him; he met Mulder's eyes. He 
felt an understanding dawn between them and then it was gone along with Mulder's 
grip. He staggered back and slumped to the floor.

Visions passed through Mulder's brain with the contact, dancing moments later 
over 
the device Strughold still held before him. The explosion in the warehouse; 
Charlie 
ordering troops into action to kidnap him as he lay unconscious on the ground, 
Charlie's orders for Dana's disposal, the vision through Charlie's eyes of 
Scully 
throwing herself against a padded wall. An anger he both welcomed and didn't 
understand grew within him. 

Another snap of metal and Mulder sat up turning his upper torso to face 
Strughold. 

* "Oai ali-i ti-i xai-iaxaisati opa alili sali-iatiolisa opa xaiapaino anoti 
ialiti, no-oliti-ili 
opa xaonoano paoti-i-isa anoti saopapali-i-ili opa ti-i sapaili-iti, pai ti-i 
kaononoanotinoinotisa opa ti-i kali-iatioli oai asati tilio-oiaxa ti-i sao-olisa 
opa ti-i 
anokaisatiolisa anoti tilianosanoiti onoli-i tio ti-i io-onokaisati." * 2 
Charlie gathered 
himself from the floor and staggered to his feet watching as Strughold stepped 
back 
from the table almost as if in fear. What Mulder was saying made no sense.

* "Ti-i pao-oaili opa kali-iati-iono isa inoinoiontili-iti-isatiliosati-ipal, 
ti-I 
anokaisatiolisa kanoioa ti-isa, io-o oailili tio!" * 3

Mulder's voice echoed about the room. In one swift movement Mulder was off the 
table, his action ripping the IV line from his right arm. Blood trickled freely 
from the 
open wound, down his forearm onto his hand. With a bloody hand he yanked off the 
BP cuff and reached up to pull viciously at the mesh that covered his head. 
Charlie 
winced at the tiny popping sound each contact made as Mulder peeled the mesh 
from his scalp and tossed it onto the floor where it undulated for a moment and 
then 
curled in on itself. He turned to Strughold, fixing him with a penetrating gaze 
as tiny 
rivulets of blood began to appear across his scalp. 

*"Io-o oaxao sai-ika ti-isa oaoliliti paoli io-oli o-oano liasai ka-ano no-oti 
sai-i tiati iti 
isa alili-iati-i tionoiti. ti-i kano-o-oali-itikai io-o xaopai tio ka-aino 
xaili-i isa no-oti 
noianoti paoli io-o. ti-I pao-oaili oao-oliti pai opa no-o osai tio io-o. ti-i 
kaoti-isa, 
paliokalianonoiti inotio ti-isa palianoiti paliono itisa kali-iati-iono li-
iliati-i onoli-i tio 
itisa paosaiti-iono oaiti-ino ti-i kaosano-osa. Onoli-i ti-i io-onokaisati 
onoisa oaili-i 
noianoti tio onoti-ilisatianoti ti-ino. io-o pali-isaonoi tio tioi oaiti a pao-
oaili kali-iati-ili 
tiano io-olisailipa, iti oailili onoli-i ti-isatilioi io-o!" * 4

Charlie couldn't tell if Strughold had any comprehension of what Mulder was 
saying. At first dazed by the situation, the old German suddenly came to life. 
"Sedate him!" he yelled to Rhinehart who had been huddled against the cabinets 
at 
the far side of the lab. 

Mulder turned to Rhinehart, as the German doctor fumbled with a bottle of 
Haloperidol and a new hypodermic. He watched him draw almost the entire contents 
from the bottle into the syringe. Mulder advanced on him, shoving the surgical 
table 
across the room with incredible force, pinning several of Strughold's 
technicians 
against the far wall before they could jump out of the way. With a full syringe 
Rhinehart turned towards Mulder and attempted to jab him in the upper arm but 
Mulder was too fast. Even though the doctor outweighed him Mulder grabbed him by 
the shoulders, turning him around and thrusting him hard against the nearest 
wall. 
The jolt made Rhinehart drop the syringe. Charlie and one of the technicians 
scrambled for it as it rolled across the floor. Strughold ran for the door and 
hit the 
alarm. 

Rhinehart shoved Mulder back, the two men staggered across the lab knocking over 
several utility carts and sending the silver box Rhinehart had pulled the mesh 
from 
crashing to the floor. More of the tiny silver cylinders rolled out across the 
floor. 

"Get back!" Strughold exclaimed.

Rhinehart grappled with Mulder, trying to dislodge the intense grip the man had 
on 
him. Another one of Strughold's technicians was on them. In an instant, Mulder 
had 
let go of Rhinehart with one hand and used it to throw the technician cross the 
room 
before finally shoving Rhinehart hard against the cabinets behind them, one hand 
clenched tightly around his throat. 

Bent backwards over the counter behind him, Rhinehart continued to struggle with 
Mulder but before the doctor could free himself Mulder threw his own weight 
against 
him, letting go of his throat and grabbing the man's head with both hands, his 
fingers splayed out across his scalp from his temples to the crown of his head. 

*"Paixaoliti-ti-oliti-ili opa ti -i xai-iaxaisati opa alili!" * 5 

The power of Mulder's voice made everyone freeze momentarily. Rhinehart winced 
and cried out as Mulder began to apply pressure to both side of his skull.

The technician had come up with the syringe, he skittered across the floor 
behind 
Mulder and jabbed it into his right hip, depressing the plunger while Charlie 
staggered to his feet, standing transfixed as he watched Rhinehart's body began 
to 
shake violently in Mulder's grasp. Charlie could see Mulder's muscles straining 
to 
apply the pressure against Rhinehart's skull; the drug appeared to have no 
effect. Rhinehart continued to convulse. Blood trickled from his ears, his eyes 
rolled 
back and then his body went slack. 

Mulder released his grip on Rhinehart; the doctor's body slid from his hands and 
slumped to the floor, his eyes blank and dull. "Jesus," Charlie whispered as 
Mulder 
turned to face them the irises of his eyes now a disturbing, deep glowing gold. 

* "Io-o li-ialino no-oti-inoia paliono ti-i pa-asati. ti-i xaolilioli opa ka-
atiasatiliopaxaika-ali ti-isa-asati-ili oailili noakai iti inopaosasaipali-I 
paoli ti-i 
paopaoliati-ionosa tio saolipaipai. li-ipai no-osati paikaino aka-aino oaxaino 
ti-i io-
onokaisati onoisa xa-apai pao-onoti ti-i-ili sao-olisa aka-aino anoti ti-i 
saiksati ialiti 
isa paolino aka-aino!" * 6 

The sound of the alarm blaring outside across the compound finally penetrated 
the 
haze in Charlie's skull. The doors to the lab flew open. Black ops soldiers 
entered, 
guns drawn. "NO"! Strughold shouted, stepping between them and Mulder. Mulder 
was still standing over Rhinehart's body, his respiration deep and heavy but he 
made 
no attempt to move. Charlie watched his face; he almost appeared to be at 
conflict 
with himself. 

* "Io-o xa-apai i-i-isa paoti io-o tio no-oti sai-i. ti-i pao-oaili opa kali-
iati-iono isa alili 
alio-onoti io-o. xaititi-ino oaiti-ino ti-i noatioliali oliti-ili opa alili ti-
inoiasa tiati io-o no-
o lionokaili pai-ili inopaolitianoti. oa-asati-iti pai io-oli oa-anoti io-o ali-
i ti-isatilioi-
inoia tiati oaxaikaxa!" * 7

"What the hell is he saying?" Charlie demanded.

"It's the language of the ancients," the old German replied, turning to face 
him. "The 
language we must find a way to understand." Strughold then turned away from 
Charlie, taking several steps towards Mulder. "It is you that are the fool. You 
will 
soon see I do have the means to obtain the knowledge you're so vainly trying to 
protect. Bring the boy in here!" 

Mulder stood paralyzed, looking down at his hands, hands he had just used to 
kill a 
man in cold blood. What the hell was happening to him? Moments before he'd been 
lashed prone on a table, starving, dehydrated and in pain. Now he was overcome 
with a sensation of euphoria. His mind, despite his body's deplorable condition, 
was 
electrified with the energy of the Cosmos. Voices, the spiritual entities of 
thousands, 
called out in a language he could barely comprehend, speaking through him of the 
power of creation and a code of survival written into the history of the planet. 
They 
were overwhelming and he fought to retain his own consciousness. 

The door to the lab opened again. Two more black ops soldiers entered followed 
by 
the Scarred Man escorting a boy, only he wasn't a boy, he was a young man whose 
hands and legs were bound with chains. He had dark hair and a rounded face that 
looked remarkably familiar to Mulder. When their eyes met, he knew, 'Gibson?'

"Bring him here!" Strughold ordered, reaching out to grab Gibson by the shoulder 
and thrust him forward towards Mulder. "You know this boy, you know what he's 
capable of. Now that we have awakened the consciousness of the ancients he can 
obtain their knowledge from your mind!"

* "Xai ka-ano no-oti li-iati a noinoti xai tioisa no-oti onoti-ilisatianoti." * 
8

Gibson stood transfixed, his eyes large with fear from the sound of the man's 
resonating voice. The man before him looked like Mulder, he'd just heard his 
voice in 
his head and yet this language he spoke was foreign to him, his physical 
presence 
overpowering. 

"Tell us what he's saying!" Strughold ordered.

Gibson looked from Strughold to Mulder, 'Don't tell him.' It was Mulder's voice 
again; 
he heard it in his head.

'Mulder? What's happened to you?' 

Mulder reached towards Gibson, his palm upturned in an act of supplication, a 
plea 
for understanding. 

'I don't understand it either, but it's me, Gibson, please don't be afraid of 
me, I won't 
hurt you.'

'You won't but there's something else here, I can sense it. An alien presence 
within 
you, more powerful than the beings I've experienced before, I can't reach it. I 
don't 
understand.'

"You will read his mind!" Charlie stepped forward then, grabbing Gibson by the 
shoulders, shoving him at Mulder again in frustration. 

"Ti-i kaoti-isa ali-i oali-ititi-ino ino ti-i tionopa opa li-ikaolitisa liaiti 
tio-oano paliono ti-
i oli-ikainosa opa kaipaili-isa-ati-iono itisailipa. ti-i ti-inoi opa ti-i 
pailisati ti-inoi. a 
xaiapainoli-i oliti-ili ti-iti-ilinoinoiti onoli-i ati ti-i ti-inoi opa kali-
iati-iono, anoti saiti 
paoliti onoli-i paoli ti-i io-onokaisati onoisa io-o oailili no-oti kano-o-oa 
iti!" *9 

The words Mulder spoke sounded foreign to the boy but he was able to pick out 
pieces of it, a "Tomb of Records" from and earlier time in a "land now lost" 
meant 
only for a chosen few. But what if the unchosen were to gain access to them? He 
looked back at his friend. Despite his threatening demeanor, Mulder looked 
exhausted. He stood before them all supported only by the rigorous position of 
his 
legs.

Mulder inhaled deeply, stepping over Rhinehart's body. He felt suddenly light 
headed. Whatever was happening to him mentally was having adverse affects on him 
physically. The huge dose of Haloperidol was making his heart race. He felt 
flushed; 
it was hard to catch his breath. He should have been in a barbiturate coma by 
now, 
instead he felt enraged by those around him. He looked desperately at Gibson 
again.

'I don't know what I've become but I believe what's in me is a good thing 
Gibson. Help me.'

'No, Mulder, it's not a good thing. You can't see what it's doing to you.'

'It's a power Gibson, greater than ourselves, I feel it within me."

'It's dangerous, Mulder, it's not meant for us.'

'But it is Gibson, these men will use it to harm and that's not what I feel its 
true 
purpose is. We need to understand it ourselves. Please, you know I can't take 
much 
more of this.'

The old German watched as Mulder turned away from Gibson and stepped towards 
him. 

* "Io-o oaxao tiliaoa noi o-oti ino ano atiti-inopati tio ka-aino a xai-iaxaili 
kano-o-
oali-itikai, xa-apai ti-ipaiati-iti io-olisailipa ti-isa paoti-i ka-anono-oti 
saosatiaino noi." 
* 10

It was then Gibson understood the power within Mulder also knew their presence 
was killing him. "Look, can't you see what you're doing to him! He won't be any 
help 
to you if you let him die!" Gibson exclaimed. 

"Tell me!" Strughold demanded, stepping into the boy's space. The old German was 
frantic, obviously underestimating the effect prolonged exposure to the black 
oil had 
on the human body. "You will tell me what you know! I need the information and I 
need it now!" Strughold grabbed Gibson shaking him violently.

"I -- I don't understand it! I can't help you!" Gibson shouted back, sensing the 
man's 
desperation, and in an instant sensing something more. He looked at Mulder wide 
eyed.

'He's …'

'I know.' Gibson had no trouble picking out Mulder's voice in the cacophony of 
voices 
in his head. He also understood that Mulder was in trouble. His body glistened 
with 
sweat, his breathing now labored. Mulder turned to Charlie.

* "Xaisatioli-i sapaiakasa tio io-o. io-o oaxao xa-apai paolikaotiti-ino xao-oa 
tio li-
isati-ino oailili noipaili kano-o-oa ti-i noiliakali-i opa ti-i noisati-ili-i. 
ti-isa isa ti-i oailili 
opa ti-i xai-iaxaisati opa alili!" * 11

Somewhere in the message Gibson sensed a finality and yet a clue that the 
mystery 
of it all lay within the history of this planet. Whether it was Mulder or the 
power 
within him, one of them was willing to take his secrets to the grave. 

'Mulder no! Tell me how to help you!'

Gibson never got an answer. Mulder lunged at Strughold knocking him back against 
the wall. Their eyes met and once again Mulder was filled with a moment of 
recognition; the presences of another who knew of the time before the First 
Time. 

Strughold gasped, watching as Mulder's eyes glowed gold again before him. But 
then 
his soldiers were on him, wrestling Mulder away from their superior. Mulder 
fought 
back, determined to put an end to the Old German. 

*"Paolisa! Paolisa!" *12

Despite the strength within him his efforts were now hindered by the pain and 
swelling that now encompassed his left wrist, his lungs ached for air. Suddenly 
from 
somewhere outside the lab a huge rumbling erupted, the shock wave that followed 
soon after shaking everything around them. As the soldiers wrestled Mulder off 
Strughold the door burst open again. "Sir! We're being attacked!" another 
soldier 
yelled, stepping through the doorway. 

One of the technicians filled another syringe and stepped over Mulder who now 
lay 
pinned to the floor by several soldiers.

"No, don't!" Gibson pleaded to no avail as he watched the man plunge the needle 
into Mulder's right hip again and pressed the plunger down.

Another explosion wracked the facility, alarms continued to blare. 

The soldiers released their grip as Mulder's body began to go slack. Gibson 
watched 
a satisfying sneer spread across Strughold's face as they all stood back and 
watched 
the amber glow dim in Mulder's eyes.

"Leave them!" Strughold instructed, gathering himself from the floor. "Report to 
your 
defense positions now! We will come back for them later!"

Gibson struggled to kneel down next to Mulder. The chains that bound him were 
making it hard for him to keep his balance. Reaching across Mulder's body he 
pulled 
hard, rolling his friend over onto his back as Strughold and his men fled the 
lab. Charlie stopped momentarily as he passed through the door, turning back to 
catch Gibson's eye but said nothing and then disappeared down the hallway with 
the 
others.

"Mulder?" Gibson questioned, reaching out to touch his friend trying to feel his 
carotid artery for a pulse. Mulder's eyes were glassy, the pulse under Gibson's 
finger 
raced. His mind seemed void of thought until it to erupted in an explosion of 
its 
own. Mulder began to convulse, his body wracked by terrible tremors. Recognizing 
it 
as some sort of seizure Gibson did his best to pull his friend over onto his 
side as the 
tremors continued. Still glistening with sweat, Mulder's body felt chilled to 
the touch. 
He was going into shock. 

Act 6
Cairo, Egypt
2:34 p.m.

"There it is," Langly announced, wheeling around to the rest of the "crew."

Scully leaned in, studying the high-res aerial image on the Gunman's screen. A 
low, 
flat, sprawling structure loomed across the scrubby desert landscape, flanked by 
several dozen cars, trucks, and vans.

Krycek had invested Mulder's cash in the "pre-owned" military craft Langly now 
was 
piloting and the blissful ignorance of several key Egyptian officials. He'd been 
largely 
silent since they'd left Turkey, except for a few highly technical consultations 
with 
the Gunmen. Now he stepped out of the shadows of the eerily lit compartment. 

"Allied Textiles," Krycek reported. "Egypt's fifth largest cotton mill, and a 
subsidiary 
of a holding company owned by a shadow corporation recently acquired by 
Strughold 
Mining. Plant had a major retooling six months ago, but the company made some 
rather odd purchases that didn't have a lot to do with making high-thread count 
pillowcases. Medical diagnostic equipment, lotta pharmaceuticals the FDA has 
never 
heard of. This is it. Hey, Spicoli, you ready to fire up the spy scope?"

Langley turned back to his keyboard, extending a middle finger toward Krycek, 
and 
rapped out a series of commands. A monitor to his right flickered on, revealing 
the 
skeletal frame of the textile plant filled with dozens of milling spots -- the 
heat 
signatures of every human currently inhabiting the facility.

"Thar she blows," Frohike declared, tapping the screen. "That cluster's the mill 
--" 
The diminutive Gunman's finger moved upward, " -- and this must be the lab, at 
the 
opposite end. Underground -- you can see the signatures there are a little 
fainter. 
Those moving ants are Dr. Evil's minions and that stationary figure. . ."

He trailed off, glancing anxiously at Scully. Her fingers moved toward the 
monitor, 
then stopped as she frowned. "Who's this other signature? It's stationary, too."

Krycek stared silently at the screen. Scully turned to him.

"What aren't you telling us?" she demanded.

Krycek smiled mirthlessly. "I told you what you needed to know to get your 
boyfriend back. We may just have an extra passenger for the trip home." He 
nudged 
Frohike aside and tapped the cluster of mill workers. "Here's Ground Zero."

"No."

He turned to Scully with a sigh.

"We're not mass murderers," the agent said tersely.

"We want total chaos," Krycek frowned. "This is our best bang for your boy-
friend's 
buck."

"No." Scully's nail clicked on the monitor. "Here -- the warehouse. I guarantee 
you'll 
get the chaos you want without the body count. We take out bricks and mortar and 
inventory, Strughold gets out the spackle and nails. We take out a few dozen 
Egyptian nationals, we're on CNN, and every antiterrorist unit on the planet is 
gunning for us. That's a lot of bang for our buck?"

Krycek smirked. "You're the Eagle Scout." He turned back to the monitor.

Scully regarded Krycek silently, then shook her head and retreated to the back 
of the 
compartment, where Byers was rapping away on a laptop.

"That was too easy," she whispered to the bearded former bureaucrat. "Watch 
him."

"On it," Byers murmured, eyes locked on the keyboard.

**

"Lock and load," Krycek ordered about 10 minutes later.

Langly looked to Scully, who inhaled slowly and nodded. The Gunman cracked his 
knuckles and attacked the keyboard. A minute later, he turned with a grave 
expression.

"We're going down, dudes," he announced.

**

Charlie's initial shock at the attack, at Strughold and the Frenchman's abrupt 
departure, at the sudden responsibility thrust upon him, segued rapidly into 
rage at 
the incompetence of his underlings in allowing the aircraft to crash into the 
warehouse. Then rage turned into hope.

Only Krycek could have mustered this kind of firepower, could have unearthed 
Mulder's location, would have mounted this grand a "rescue" operation, Charlie 
mused as he stood outside the pulverized outer wall, eyeing the conglomeration 
of 
twisted pipes, conduits, tanks, and huge black shards that once had been part of 
a 
high-tech military jet. A grand and unsuccessful rescue operation, Charlie 
realized 
with a spark of excitement.

"Find the body," he barked at his security force -- a team of former CIA, 
Mossad, and 
KGB agents, salted with Special Forces pros. "I want a positive identification. 
Alex 
Krycek."

"Could've been a military misfire," a swarthy, uniformed sentry grunted. The 
Security 
staff only barely restrained its disdain for their soft, brash young 'boss'.

"It's Krycek," Charlie insisted, stumbling slightly as he strutted out. "Find 
the body."

**

By the time Commander Barouk and his men -- what passed for the local law -- 
showed up on their doorstep, Charlie had fully recovered his oily composure. 
Strughold – who had not yet been notified of the incident at the cotton mill -- 
had 
greased the palms of every police official in the district, and Barouk went 
through the 
motions of inspecting the crash scene. 

"The military, of course, will rely on my findings," the preening, mustached 
policeman announced, marveling at the destruction. "I suggest you and your 
workers 
have been the victims of an abortive terrorist raid, an unfortunate 
miscalculation by 
fanatical fools. I assume you are well insured?"

"Home office has already been notified," Charlie smiled, shrugging. The lab was 
powered by a separate generator, Strughold had instructed him to handle the 
repairs 
and the local authorities in a low-key manner, and he'd calmed considerably in 
preparation for his meeting with the corrupt and obsequious Barouk. "We'd be 
very 
grateful if you could help with the military authorities."

Charlie knew Barouk knew well what form that appreciation would take, and that 
to 
cover an event of this magnitude would require a far grander gesture of 
appreciation 
than the payoff he'd received when Strughold acquired and refitted the 'mill'.

The policeman beamed. "Please, do not worry. By the way, my cousin Fasid, he is 
a 
contractor and builder. He and his workers could make this as new within a few 
weeks."

Charlie nodded, forcing congeniality. "I'm certain Mr. Strughold will want to 
use local 
labor. Thank you."

Barouk's smile brightened. He turned to his men, who were taking turns at a 
bottle 
of some amber liquid with Charlie's security force while Strughold's men were 
politely passing around a second bottle Barouk's men had extended as a gift to 
their 
brothers in arms. Barouk might be a bureaucratic buffoon, but his men were 
largely 
ex-military or Egyptian Central Security Forces, and they bonded instantly with 
the 
thugs and assassins on Strughold's security staff.

Barouk shouted in Egyptian, and his men mustered reluctantly. Charlie waved 
regally 
as the group departed, then turned to his security chief.

"Find the body," he repeated. 

**

The maiden voyage of the RQ-3 DarkStar was on March 29, 1996, but its second 
flight on April 22, 1996, ended in a crash shortly after takeoff. The Department 
of 
Defense terminated DarkStar in January 1999 after determining the craft was 
neither 
aerodynamically stable nor cost-effective.

However, the RQ-3 DarkStar incorporates stealth technology that makes it 
difficult to 
detect. It can take off, arrive at its target, operate sensors, transmit 
information, 
return, and land without human intervention. The RQ-3 can send digital 
information 
to a satellite while still in flight. Aviation Week & Space Technology reported 
in April 
2003 that a modified RQ-3 was still in development as a "black" project, and 
alleged 
that the first such example had been used in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The newer models were well beyond Krycek's -- that is, Mulder's -- means. 
However, 
the pre-owned DarkStar Alex secured from a former Russian Mafiya lieutenant and 
arms entrepreneur offered a considerable bang for his -- Mulder's -- buck. 
Sergei 
would have marveled at Krycek's blatant abuse of a perfectly functional, gently 
handled unmanned aerial vehicle, but as the vicious Russian frequently 
commented, 
"The customer's money is always right."

"We're in," Krycek nodded, eyeing the satellite image of the damaged plant that 
had 
beamed down to the heavily equipped, artfully battered van.

Scully stood behind his shoulders, arms crossed. "We are? Krycek, I've given you 
a 
lot of leeway here…"

"You didn't have a choice," he countered, eyes on the screen. "You and the 
Stooges 
here could never have gotten this far, and, as I promised, no civilian 
casualties."

"Civilian?" Frohike squeaked, jumping from his seat at the rear of the imported 
Econoline. "Just what are you up to, Ratboy?"

Krycek smiled cryptically. "Saving your geek buddy's ass, Sneezy. Step off." He 
snagged the canvas bag he'd had Fed-Exed to Cairo, unzipped it, and withdrew a 
small, battleship-gray case. Krycek pulled his keys from his khakis and slipped 
a thin 
strip of metal into a slot in the case. The top slid away, and he removed a slim 
device.

"What you got there, dude?" Langly craned, a toy store gleam in his eyes.

"Like I said," Krycek mumbled, punching buttons. "We're in. About 300,000 of 
us."

"What did you do?" Scully demanded, gripping the monitor console. "Krycek, what 
did you do?"

"More bang, Scully. More bang."

**
Charlie closed his eyes as he sipped a somewhat bitter wine he'd had shipped in 
from 
Luxor and pored over every word Strughold and the Frenchman had said before 
fleeing the scene, leaving him to clean up and prepare Mulder and Gibson for 
transport. Certainly, they couldn't hold him responsible for this latest fiasco, 
or they 
wouldn't have relegated this great responsibility to him. 

Charlie had never possessed a literary bent, but he had realized early on that 
both 
Strughold and the Frenchman valued the deep thoughts and high words of dead men 
and women. His reading interests were confined largely to his favorite topic: 
The 
accumulation of power and riches.

When he first traveled to Strughold's facility, Charlie had been particularly 
taken with 
tales of the Egyptian demigod Sesmu, the deity of wine and winemaking. At the 
height of the Egyptian empire, red wine was strongly identified with blood, and 
thus 
Sesmu was identified as "lord of blood." Since the ancients viewed wine as a 
good 
thing, Sesmu was considered a righteous god, an executioner of the unworthy and 
slaughterer of souls. Much as Charlie viewed himself.

Later, the Egyptians would adapt the winepress for the production of oils and 
balms, 
and the fierce and righteous Sesmu came to be associated with beauty and 
health. Pussy, Charlie had snorted, choosing to discard this bit of mythological 
chaff. 

As he rested on his pillows, soothed by a warm Nile Valley breeze and quaffing 
the 
nectar of the desert, he imagined himself a modern-day Sesmu, wringing the 
secrets 
of humanity, indeed life itself, from Mulder and Praise, to benefit the 
righteous few 
worthy of earthly salvation. 

His moments of self-doubt at the Starbucks, after the abortive attack, were 
forgotten; Charlie soon would take his place as one of the demigods of Man's 
future.

**
Moshe Tsudik nudged aside another chunk of metal, in search of something, 
anything organic. The tight-assed little goy was obsessed with finding the 
likely 
vaporized remains of this man Krycek for the old Nazi Strughold, and he'd been 
at it 
ever since they sent the millworkers home.

Moshe had no idea whether Strughold actually was a Nazi, or even political at 
all. On 
his infrequent visits, he was oblivious to everyone who wasn't wearing a lab 
coat -- 
Israeli, American, Russian, everyone. But he sensed something in the old 
German's 
bearing, in his coldly clinical evaluation of every problem and situation. He 
actually 
preferred the inscrutable Kraut to the slick little goniff who'd coming marching 
in a 
week ago as if he were the second coming of Khadafi.

"Yo, Hymie."

Moshe glanced across the wreckage at the massive African-American, who was 
holding what appeared to be a piece of tail section. Tyler was an ex-Marine 
who'd 
been raised in poverty in some urban U.S. ghetto. The first time he spotted 
Moshe's 
yarmulke -- admittedly, a somewhat incongruous fixture for an ex-Mossad assassin 
who'd killed some two dozen men -- he'd dubbed him Hymie after some past slur by 
the American Jesse Jackson. Tyler was a child, culturally, and so Moshe wasn't 
offended. They had become friends -- Moshe had even taught him the rudiments of 
chess and classic literature.

"This is some shit, man," Tyler breathed. "There's no body here. Know what I 
think?"

Moshe smiled dryly. "Tell me, my friend."

"You know that story you told me while back? 'Bout that big horse?"

"You will have to help me. . ."

"Man, you know, they snuck those dudes inside the big horse."

"Ah, yes. The Trojan horse. What are you thinking?"

Tyler crunched through the rubble. "They ain't no body -- been looking for 
hours, 
right? Look, I was in the Gulf, I saw something. Wasn't supposed to. Some guys, 
CIA 
or something, they were testing some kinda stealth jet, you know, 'cept no 
pilot."

Moshe was silent, considering. "Wait. Unmanned? A drone?"

"Yeah. What if this wasn't no accident? What if somebody crashed one of those 
drone 
things in here like a, you know, like a Trojan horse? Maybe they want whatever 
shit's 
going on in the lab."

"But, my friend, there were no Trojan soldiers inside our high-tech horse, no 
barbarians outside the gate."

Tyler shook his head incredulously, then broke into a smile. "Shit, man, just 
love the 
way you talk. All the same, what we gonna tell Scullllllllll -- "

Moshe looked up sharply and gasped. His colleague had begun to shake 
uncontrollably, and spittle sprayed from his lips. His face was segmented by 
pulsing 
blue veins, and Tyler's eyes bulged from their sockets.

"They. . ."

Moshe scrambled for his radio. "Please do not speak. I'll call the lab."

"It's . . .inside. . .me," Tyler choked, staring in horror at the ropy veins on 
his 
powerful hands. "The . . . horsssse."

Moshe's finger froze on the send button as he heard a juicy 'pop' and something 
small and wet hurtled past his head. He staggered back as he watched blood erupt 
from the black hole where Tyler's left eye had been. The huge American dropped 
to 
his knees as his palms began to bleed.

Moshe dropped the radio, his own eyes wide. Then, they narrowed as it came to 
him. 
The aircraft, the drone -- it was not the Trojan horse.

He winced as knives sliced into his temples. Strughold and Scully had paid well 
for 
Commander Barouk's cooperation, but had underestimated his greed. The bottle his 
men had so freely shared -- had it contained some toxin, some biological agent? 
Moshe had taken a single slug of the cheap liquor, no doubt enough, he reflected 
as 
he glanced down at the backs of his own hands. . .

**

Dr. Kambatta wiped his brow for perhaps the fifth time in three minutes and 
struggled to focus on Mulder's erratic brainwaves. As a cardiologist he was at a 
loss 
to comprehend the deviations. Once again strapped to the surface of a lab table 
and 
pumped full of drugs, EEG leads affixed to his skull, Mulder appeared catatonic 
-- his 
eyes, though open, were glassy and unfocused, and he seemed unresponsive to any 
forms of stimulation. Kambatta's attempts to get vitals on the man had been met 
with resistance from the young man, Gibson. "You don't want to touch him," the 
boy 
had warned. 

The lab assistant Mr. Scully had called to the floor with him had been gone 
nearly a 
half-hour. Scully had babbled about some sort of bio-terrorism attack, about a 
mounting death count. Kambatta had heard what he thought to be shots about 10 
minutes before, but no one would answer his calls. Kambatta had returned to 
Mulder 
and the boy not out of scientific dedication, but to divert himself from the 
apocalyptic 
events seemingly transpiring beyond the laboratory.

However, his diversion had served merely to deepen his sense of foreboding. 
Despite 
heavy sedation, Mulder had been babbling softly, speaking in a tongue that 
Kambatta – a master of five African, three Middle eastern, and three European 
languages -- could not comprehend. He knew something had happened -- something 
disastrous that had left Rhinehart dead, but after the blast, he had been told 
little. 

Mr. Scully's instructions had been to keep these two alive at any cost. With the 
exception of some abrasions from the chains, the boy seemed to be unharmed. He 
refused to leave the man's side and watched Kambatta warily. However, without 
physical contact to evaluate Mulder's condition he could do little but watch as 
Mulder 
continued his one-sided conversation.

"What is he saying? Kambatta finally asked.

Gibson looked up as if noticing the doctor for the first time. 

"I think it's an ancient dialect, I can only understand a word or two," he 
whispered.

"Does he know what he's talking about?" Kambatta asked, nodding towards Mulder's 
prone form.

"I don't know," Gibson answered, turning to face the doctor with, his eyes 
bright 
with concern. "He knows he's dying, though. We have to help him."

Kambatta took a moment to observe the destruction of the lab. Rhinehart's body 
had 
been removed but the evidence of the chaos that had occurred was still very 
evident.

"What happened here?" he finally asked.

"Reverse evolution, I think," Gibson replied, looking down at his friend, 
reaching out 
once again with his bound hands to comfort him. 

There was no response from Mulder but as Kambatta watched them Mulder's 
monologue became increasingly complex and animated, almost as if he and Gibson 
were channeling something together. The flickering of the EEG monitor caught 
their 
eye, the graphs and arcs that had previously covered it's surface were gone, in 
their 
place undecipherable text had appeared, racing across the screen as Mulder 
continued to babble. He and the boy starred at each other Only fear of the 
unknown 
chaos unfolding outside prevented Kambatta from fleeing the lab.

The metallic buzz and flashing green light came to Kambatta as a portent of 
salvation. Even Mr. Scully would be a welcome presence at this point.

"Thank goodness you have --" Kambatta stopped, dead. In the lab doorway stood an 
odd and incongruous quintet: A petite and lovely redhead; an intelligent, clear-
eyed 
young man with neatly trimmed hair and a van dyke; a compact, middle-aged man 
who might have been a derelict of the streets; a thin, bespectacled colleague 
with 
long hair, a black T-shirt, and a sleek device wired to a metallic security 
card; and a 
good-looking, rugged younger man whose automatic weapon was trained at his 
head.

"Gibson," the redhead gasped, as she stared incredulously at the young man 
standing next to the native doctor.

"Hey, doc," the man with the gun smiled crookedly. "Feel like dying in the name 
of 
science?"

Kambatta stared into the gun's sights, then at the unnervingly calm Mulder. The 
doctor squared his shoulders and addressed his comments to the man with the gun 
and the redheaded woman. "I believe I will choose not to." 

**
Within a mere hour, Strughold's facility had turned into some little-known 
suburb of 
Hell. Charlie had responded to Tsudik's incoherent call to find the corridors 
littered 
with the barely recognizable corpses of his security crew. Some had seemingly 
melted within their uniforms. A few had used a bullet to release whatever had 
possessed them; one man's fingers were covered with blood and brains, and 
Charlie 
realized he had torn his own face away.

He'd ordered Kambatta's assistant to the floor in a vain effort to diagnose the 
agent 
that had ravaged most of his men. The scientist had freaked at the carnage, and 
refused to touch any of the bodies. Then he'd begun ranting about Pandora's Box 
and God and some other crap, and tried to run for it. The crazed scientist made 
it 
about 20 feet before Charlie sealed the potential leak with an AK-74.

What had Krycek hoped to achieve? Charlie already had decided that the aircraft 
that 
had destroyed Strughold's warehouse had been a distraction. But a distraction 
for 
what? Nothing could have survived the crash, and the site and the facility's 
perimeter had been quickly sealed. The only people on the premises after the 
crash 
had been. . .

Charlie's heart nearly stopped. Barouk? That idiot? Had he and his men slipped 
something into the facility? A vial, a canister? But the policemen hadn't worn 
any 
protection, had hung around for nearly a half-hour, laughing and drinking with 
his 
own men. 

A blinding flash of clarity pierced Charlie's growing sense of terror. Two 
bottles. 
Barouk's men had drunk from one bottle, his own from another. But his guys were 
pros -- most had taken a mere sip, a gesture of diplomacy. Whatever they'd been 
slipped was potent, and slow-acting -- it had been more than an hour since 
Barouk 
had departed. And sudden and simultaneously effective in two dozen men of 
varying 
metabolism and genetics. No toxin worked that way. It was almost as if something 
had been abruptly turned on inside them. . .

Charlie stumbled to a bench near the lab assistant's body. About 10 years ago, 
Spender and some Japanese scientists had gotten all psyched about a possible 
cure 
for the oil -- nanobots, microscopic machines that theoretically could repair 
organs or 
even cells. One of the researchers suggested the next generation might be able 
to 
transfer genetic material between chromosomes. But these micro-machines had met 
their match in the alien virus, and Spender quickly moved on. His shadow, 
Krycek, 
had seemed uncharacteristically fascinated in the technology -- maybe he'd found 
a 
use for it.

Or more than one. Adam -- the sudden shift from mindless innocent to violent, 
self-
destructive psychopath. Krycek had gotten to him. And now he'd evened the odds 
here.

Or so he thought, Charlie nodded grimly, heading for the lab.

**

AK poised, Charlie slashed his card through the reader. He'd rejected a retinal 
scanner as being too conspicuous to the outsourced wage labor, and now was 
concerned that decision would prove just one more nail Strughold would pound 
into 
his coffin.

"Thank goodness you have come," Kambatta breathed as Charlie rushed into the 
lab, 
his eyes darting. "I have some astounding new findings regarding -- My God, Mr. 
Scully! Are you all right?"

"We've had a mishap," Charlie panted, punching a new set of codes into the 
security 
console. "We gotta get these two ready for travel. I assume the chop-per's still 
operable."

"What has happened?"

"All you need to know right now is that we have to get the fuck out of here. 
God, 
what do we need to take? You got all the data on these two? Jesus, what am I, 
shit . 
. ."

"Mr. Scully," Kambatta interrupted soothingly. "You must calm down." The 
scientist 
walked quickly to a drug cabinet and located a vial and a needle.

"I don't need any shit," Charlie squeaked, running his hand through his hair.

"This is very mild," Kambatta said, his back to him. He turned around and 
proffered 
the needle. "It will relax you enough to focus your thoughts. Please."

Charlie sighed and ripped his sleeve over his forearm. "Make it quick. Krycek 
could 
be here any time."

Kambatta efficiently injected Charlie, warily eyeing the weapon gripped in his 
employer's fingers. "I will take everything needed to keep Mulder and Praise, 
um, 
under control."

"Yeah, whatever, just get your fucking ass moving."

"Jesus, Scully, you got some shitty management style."

Charlie whirled as Krycek and his own sister emerged from Kambatta's adjoining 
office, the Lone Gunmen in tow. His gun came up quickly, and Krycek laughed. His 
hand appeared from his jeans, holding a small rectangular object.

"Gotta learn to relate to your people, Chuck. The doc here wasn't exactly ready 
to 
take a bullet for you."

Charlie turned to Kambatta, who held his eye steadily. "What the fuck did you 
tell 
them?"

Kambatta was silent, and the gun wheeled around.

"Whoa, Chuck," Krycek called. He held the square device up, thumb poised above a 
large button in the center. "You get a good look at your support staff out 
there? Doc 
just gave you a hot shot of the same medicine. Right now, there are a few 
hundred 
thousand little bugs crawling in your brain, waiting for marching orders."

"Put that fucking thing on the table, or you're dead," Charlie screamed.

Krycek's thumb descended. "Amazing technology, Chuck. Your heart beginning to 
pound yet. Feel like somebody's cranking up the thermostat?"

"Turn it off! God, turn it off!!"

Krycek displayed the array of controls on the "remote." "Only I know the 
commands. 
Why don't you slide the weapon over to Sis, huh? Before your skull splits."

Charlie's free hand went to his temple -- he could feel it now, a sharp 
throbbing, and 
sensation as if something live and warm were slithering through his cerebral 
cortex. 
His chest was expanding, his heart beating a furious tattoo as sweat broke out 
on his 
body.

"No!!" he shrieked, dropping the AK with a clatter and kicking it across the 
tile. 
Scully fielded it, her arm straightening at her brother. Her face was stone, her 
eyes 
chips of mineral fire.

"Hey, Curly -- get the kid." Krycek punched a series of keys, and Charlie 
staggered 
back against a lab table.

"Krycek. . ." Langly snapped, heading for Gibson.

"I know -- fuck me. Charlie, you take care of Mulder's restraints."

"What're you going to do, kill me?" Charlie croaked. "Sis. . ."

Scully's nostril's flared, and she tightened her grip on the automatic weapon. 
"You let 
him loose, or so help me God. . ."

Charlie swallowed, and worked at Mulder's straps. After being witness to what 
had 
transpired here earlier Charlie warily stepped back from the table. Scully 
thrust the 
gun into Krycek's hands and rushed forward, her hand reaching out to carefully 
remove the electronic leads from Mulder's head before Gibson could stop her.

"Agent Scully, wait . . ."

Mulder continued to discourse in a tongue she'd never heard. Scully grabbed his 
face 
and stared wetly into his eyes.

"Mulder, Mulder. What did they do?" Mulder's eyes fixed on hers', benevolent but 
uncomprehending.

Scully's eyes appeared crazed as she spun toward Krycek. "Kill him. Blow his 
fucking 
brains to hell."

For once, Krycek was speechless. He appraised Scully anew, then inspected the 
cowering, disheveled man before them. Charlie's jaw hung open, his eyes 
pleading.

"No," he whispered.

"Now, Krycek. Alex, please."

Krycek advanced on Charlie, prodding him to his knees with his weapon. Charlie 
squeezed his eyes shut, then heard a click. His eyes popped open as Krycek 
secured 
the other cuff to Charlie's wrist.

"That should keep you for a while," Krycek grinned. Scully was stationary, eyes 
afire. 
He jerked his head toward the lab door. "C'mon. A hypodermic full of saline 
nearly 
made him piss his pants. What the Old Nazi and the Frenchman will do to him is 
more fitting than anything your bureaucratic mind could cook up."

Scully turned to Charlie, whose eyes widened in terror. Finally, she exhaled 
slowly, 
looked at Krycek, and took Gibson by the arm.

"We need to get them out of here, now!" she ordered, pulling Gibson along with 
her 
as she motioned towards Mulder. 

"We'll never get him out of here like this," Krycek announced, stepping forward 
to 
halt their progress by yanking Gibson around to face him. Two swift clicks and 
the 
locks that held the young man's chains dropped away. Scully finished pulling 
them 
off as Krycek made for the door.

"Agent Scully, you need to be careful, Mulder's not. . ." Gibson tried to 
explain but 
Byer's had already hoisted Mulder's limp body over his right shoulder, he 
staggered 
from the weight.

"Move it now!" Krycek ordered.

"Agent Scully, wait, the laptop, we have to take it, it's Mulder's proof!" 
Gibson 
touched her hand, motioning to the device still blinking on the counter behind 
them.

Act 7
En route to United States via North Africa

The trip out of the desert had done little to elevate the group's exhaustion. In 
less 
than two days they'd flown half way across the globe, mounted an offensive the 
likes 
of which the military could only dream of and secreted themselves and their 
precious 
cargo back into friendly territory. 

As the plane buffeted over the desert sands below them Scully kept a close watch 
on 
her partner. With Byers' help she had done a brief triage assessment of Mulder's 
condition. Equipped with an air cast on his left arm, a nasal cannula and IV 
fluids 
flowing full bore to both re-hydrate him and hopefully flush the drugs from his 
system he was oblivious to the turbulence the desert air created. 

Scully was still a bit in awe of the medical equipment, not to mention the full 
emergency pharmacy, the plane contained. An electrocardiogram, an automated 
blood pressure cuff, an IV pump to regulate the fluids and electrolytes going 
into his 
veins, the only things missing were a portable X ray machine and a CT scan to 
show 
her exactly what was going on in Mulder's head. 

His body temperature and blood pressure had been dangerously high when they'd 
first arrived at the plane, but the fluids and a beta-blocker to relieve the 
stress on his 
heart had at least brought the pressure down somewhat. It was all stopgap 
measures at best, and each passing moment caused her more worry. She wouldn't 
rest until they were in a real medical facility and Mulder was being attended to 
by 
people who could better diagnose and deal with whatever was affecting him.

Despite her bone deep weariness, she'd been at Mulder's side the entire time. 
She 
now sat next to the gurney in the small rear compartment of the plane gently 
swabbed his face and chest with a cool cloth; Gibson sat warily by her side.

The boy, perhaps 'young man' was more appropriate now, had woven a tale that at 
the moment Scully was finding hard to believe. A story that involved Mulder's 
evolution into something more than human, a being that had inhabited this world 
before recorded history and whose records could be found in a 'land now lost'.

"He's referring to Atlantis," Frohike piped in from behind them. 

"Melvin, that's ridiculous, Atlantis is nothing but a myth," Scully replied 
exasperatedly, turning from the observation of her partner to meet his eyes. "No 
one 
has ever proven that the continent ever existed, let alone was ever populated. 
Plato 
made it all up."

"Oh ye of little faith. Mulder would believe it. He's even talking about it - 
right here. I 
can't make sense of any of the text except this," Frohike tapped at a point on 
the 
screen of the laptop they had brought from the lab. "These are coordinates for 
Wilkes Land, Antarctica. I believe you've even been there."

Scully shuddered at the memory of her and Mulder's rescue from that frozen 
wasteland several years ago.

"What does Antarctica have to do with Atlantis?"

"There's a very popular theory that Antarctica IS Atlantis," Byers chimed in. 
"Plato's 
story of Atlantis's destruction could very well be a mythical account of 
something 
called 'crust displacement', the continual shifting of the earth's crust."

"A map of the continent which supposedly originated in Egypt was actually 
published 
in 1665," Frohike added. "The amazing thing about it today is that current 
geographical maps of the continent of Antarctica are remarkably similar."

"Mulder knows," Gibson murmured from beside her.

"What do you mean?" Scully asked, turning back to look at the boy in 
astonishment. "What does he know?"

"He knows what he's become, he doesn't understand it just yet but he told me he 
felt it was important, that this power he'd been given had a purpose."

"Power? What kind of power?" All this cryptic mumbo jumbo was beginning to 
irritate 
her.

Gibson didn't have time to answer her. Suddenly the plane hit an air pocket 
causing 
them all to grab for something solid to hold on to. Scully's immediate reaction 
was to 
reach out to protect her partner; grabbing his right arm she felt a sudden 
tingle like 
an electric shock, lance up her own arm and gasped.

"Agent Scully, don't touch him!" 

Hearing her distress, Gibson reached out to break the contact when Mulder's eyes 
snapped open. "I tried to tell you, he's not only Mulder, he can kill you with 
his 
touch!"

"Gibson, let go of me!" Scully demanded, wrenching her arm free from his grip.

"You don't understand, none of you do! Something exists within him, I can sense 
it. Agent Scully, I know you denied it before, but you know what I can do."

"io-o oaxao li-ipaosai tio akakaipati tiati oaxaikaxa io-o ka-ano no-oti 
paliopai isa 
ipaiti-inosai opa io-oli liakaka opa oaisationo ino alili ti-inoiasa" * 13 

She and Gibson froze at the sound of Mulder's voice, deep and resonating about 
the 
compartment. "Mulder?" Scully asked in disbelief, turning from Gibson to 
observer 
her partner rising to a seated position. She stepped towards him, worried by the 
increases in his vitals she saw on the monitor. 

"Mulder, please, you need to rest," she pleaded, reaching out to him.

"Agent Scully -- be careful," Gibson warned again, remembering the body of Dr. 
Rhinehart sprawled at Mulder's feet in the lab. "He killed a man with his bare 
hands."

"What?" Scully asked, her eyes going wide when she turned back to Gibson.

Mulder felt light headed as he sat up. He breathed deeply, sucking in the oxygen 
that 
flowed through the cannula before pulling if off and tossing it aside. Sitting 
on the 
edge of the gurney, he looked down at himself, his left arm was encased in 
plastic, 
and IV ran from his right. He ripped out the IV without a flinch, tore off the 
blood 
pressure cuff, rendering it useless. The slight weightless feeling he was 
experiencing 
led him to believe they were airborne. His eyes scanned his surroundings and 
came 
to rest on the one person he knew could help him.

"Hey troops, come look at this . . ." Frohike stopped dead in the doorway to the 
compartment. He'd been running the text from the laptop through language 
programs to no avail when suddenly more of the cryptic text had begun to race 
across the screen. Inside the compartment, Scully and Gibson stood before 
Mulder. 
Frohike watched as his friend examined his body as if it were that of someone 
else, 
raising each arm, turning each hand over and flexing his fingers to observe 
their 
mechanics. He looked up at the intrusion. Melvin felt Mulder's piercing gaze 
fall on 
him, he met his eyes and shuddered involuntarily at what he saw there.

"ti-isa saialikaxa paoli tilioti io-o ka-alili sasai-inosai li-iatisa io-o aoa-
ai paliono onoti-
ilisatianoti-inoia io-oli tilioi noatioli-i io-o tio no-oti onoti-ilisatianoti 
io-oli iksaisati-
inosai paika-aosai io-o li-ipaosai tio sai-i ti-i sainopali-isati opa ti-
inokasa" 14 
"Gibson?" Scully inquired. Mulder watched her he spoke etc as Mulder's eyes fell 
on 
her as he spoke in this foreign tongue, the deep resonating tone of his voice 
was 
almost frightening. From her vantage point, his gaze from below his brow felt 
almost 
evil, the soft amber glow of his irises causing her to pause. Though he made no 
attempt to move from where he was, she was filled with apprehension, a power was 
emanating from her partner she could not explain. 

"What is he saying?"

"I'm not sure, I can only understand a few words, like 'truth' and 'science'. 
This is 
what was happening to him in the lab."

"I won't hurt her Gibson, trust me. You have to explain to her what's happened 
to 
me."

"Gibson? What is it?" Scully questioned, watching as Gibson turned to her 
partner 
with a look of comprehension.

"He wants me to explain what's happening to him."

"I thought you couldn't understand the language? Can you read his mind?"

"Only Mulder's, when he can force his consciousness through."

"Hey weasel, let the man through," Krycek had come down the hallway from the 
cockpit behind Frohike who still stood transfixed in the doorway.

"Man, you don't want to go back there," Melvin wrestled briefly with the one-
armed 
man until Krycek shoved him aside and stepped into the back compartment.

"What the hell. . ." Krycek stopped short at the scene that was currently 
unfolding 
before him. Mulder turned at the sound of his voice, his eyes radiating a 
brilliant 
gold, freezing Krycek where he stood. Unable to move, he watched Mulder raise 
his 
right arm, extending his hand out towards him, fingers splayed. A shock, like 
that of 
a strong electric current hit his body, almost immediately knocking him from his 
feet.

"Get him out of here!" Scully yelled, watching as Frohike and Byer's scrambled 
to 
drag Krycek, who now lay gasping for breath, from the compartment.

"Mulder?" Scully's voice trembled as she questioned the actions of her partner. 
This 
could not be happening.

"Gibson, I'm sorry, please make her understand that it's not me. I'm not doing 
this."

"Tell me what I can do?" Gibson could actually feel the anguish in Mulder's 
thoughts. Trapped as he seemed to be in the mind and body of someone else, he 
was at a loss as to how to help.

"Gibson, if you can communicate with him, you have to make him understand this 
is 
dangerous to his health," Scully was becoming more concerned as Mulder's vitals 
continued to become more erratic. Sweat now glistened on his upper body and 
face. Scully didn't need the now removed monitors to tell her that her partner 
was in 
serious trouble. 

"Gibson, Scully can help me, tell her to work her magic. I'm so close, I just 
need 
more time to understand. Tthis knowledge, this power, it's unimaginable. . ."

Gibson turned away from his friend, troubled by his inability to aid in the 
conflict he 
sensed was going on within Mulder's mind. He knew Scully was deeply concerned 
for 
his physical well-being. If Mulder died, it wouldn't matter who won the war that 
now 
raged in his head.

"He wants you to help him, whatever you can do to stabilize him. He says he 
needs 
to understand -- this power. . ."

"I don't give a damn about what knowledge he thinks. . ."

"io-o paiali ti-i pao-oaili anoti i-iti iti isa pa-aliti opa ipaili-i li-
ipaipaolisai alio-onoti io-
o kaononoikati-inoia onoi tio ti-i oti-ili ino ano inotili-isasa liopa opa 
iksaisati-inosai" 
15

Scully stopped in mid sentence; drawn by the look in Mulder's eyes, she was 
unable 
to turn away, hypnotized by the candor of his voice.

"xaonoano ka-apa-apaili-iti-i-isa ali-i onoli-i xainoti-ili-iti pai ti-i-ili 
sailipaisaxanoisasa 
io-o li-ipaosai tio akakano-o-oali-itikai io-oli noi-iti paoli iakaxa oti-ili 
iti oailili pai io-
oli onotioinoia" 16 

"Agent Scully, Agent Scully!" Gibson was tugging on her arm. The sound of an 
alarm 
from one of the monitors finally brought her thoughts back to the present. 
Mulder's 
blood pressure was climbing again, the irregularity of his heart rhythm becoming 
more pronounced.

"Dammit Mulder!" Scully started to dig through the plane's stash of pharma-
ceuticals, looking for a sedative. The Haloperidol had worked before, but she 
was 
hesitant to try and use it again. She found a bottle of Ativan near the bottom 
and 
grabbed a syringe. It was milder than the Haloperidol, but she couldn't afford 
to 
knock him into a coma. After she drew up a fairly high dose, she bit her lip and 
tried 
to approach her partner.

"Don't let her do this Gibson, I need to stay conscious, it's the only way."

"Agent Scully, don't," Gibson pulled her hand from the case. "He doesn't want 
you to 
do this."

Scully watched Gibson's eyes turn toward her partner. She looked up at Mulder; 
his 
eyes were fixed on her. For a moment the amber glow flickered out and the warm 
hazel returned. Suddenly, he leaned towards her grabbing the sides of her skull 
with 
both hands. "NO! Not her!" Gibson yelled, reaching out to try and pull his hands 
away from her.

"No!" 

It was Mulder's voice coming through loud and clear. He knew what he was 
doing. Gibson hesitantly pulled back and watched as Mulder's fingers at first 
caressed 
Scully's scalp and then gripped both sides of her head. Scully closed her eyes 
and 
the syringe fell from nerveless fingers. Gibson trusted his friend, but his fear 
of what 
Mulder had become drove him to look for a weapon. He'd kill Mulder before he 
would 
let him hurt Scully. He leaned over and drew Scully's sig from the holster at 
her 
back.

Scully noticed the feeling of euphoria that enveloped her. She watched as 
Mulder's 
lips moved, but she could not hear his voice. Instead, she heard the words 
resonate 
through her own mind in a voice she didn't recognize. 
"The date is coming when all truths will be revealed. When the minds of the New 
Ones must become one if they are to understand their place in what is to be."

"Scully, it's me. I need the investigator in you now more than ever. This Tomb 
of 
Records he speaks of, he will lead me to it."

"Mulder, dear God, what's happened to you?"

"Not just God, Scully, THE Gods have everything to do with this Scully. The 
virus, 
Strughold. . . he thought exposing me to it would help him gain information, 
information about a race that once existed here. I was told once that this virus 
is the 
original inhabitant of this planet, the predecessors of human life. I didn't 
understand 
it then, but I do now. They've been here for a long time Sully. The evidence is 
everywhere. The pyramids at Giza, Teotihuacan, Machu Picchu, Chaco Canyon, even 
Stonehenge, they're the fingerprints of the Gods. All the human mysteries on 
earth, 
everything you and I have been trying to explain, what if they can all be traced 
back 
to one civilization. 

"Gods,? The virus? Mulder, what are you talking about? You - you were exposed to 
the virus?"

Could that be what was causing his distress? She wanted desperately to touch him 
but she found she couldn't move.

"The form in which human life on this planet originally existed, more human than 
human, Scully. It's what I've become.

She didn't understand this. Mulder's touch was allowing their thoughts to flow 
freely 
between them in silent benediction. The longer they were connected, the stronger 
his thoughts seemed to become. It was also taxing his body to the limit.

"Mulder, you're going to die if I can't find a way to help you. The human body 
was 
not meant to take the stress this is putting on you. It's not worth it." 

"Scully, how can you say it's not worth it! The key to all their ancient 
knowledge, the 
secrets of their power, our future is within my grasp."

"Whose knowledge Mulder? Why you? Maybe it isn't meant for us."

"I don't know why, Scully, Maybe it's just a freak thing. Rube Goldberg - one 
thing 
has led to another that's led to another to bring me to this point. Someplace 
they 
never expected, I've opened the door to the past, Scully, the proof of our 
existence, 
everything we've. . ."

"Mulder, please, please stop! You're not a god; you're just a man, a man with a 
dream. A dream of a better future that we all share. This isn't meant for you 
alone. You said it yourself. Our minds must become one to understand. Let me 
help 
you, let us help you. Don't leave me here to figure this out alone. Please!"

The hazel returned to his eyes for a brief moment once again. She saw in them a 
hope and a final understanding of what she was trying to convey. 

"I know what this means to you, Mulder, trust me."

She felt Mulder's hands begin to tremble. Pulling back as they slid from the 
side of 
her face, she could see the tremors wrack his entire body. 

"Mulder!" she gasped as his eyes rolled back and he slumped to the floor of the 
compartment.

"Gibson! I need some help!"

**
Byers looked anxiously at the few remaining leads on the agent's chest and then 
back to the heart monitor. "Scully, his heart rate is skyrocketing!"

"He's seizing," Frohike pointed out, his voice catching. "What'll we do?"

"Help me get him on his side. Watch his head; don't let him bang it on the 
floor. Damn it, Mulder, why do you do these things?" she ground out in 
exasperation.

Leave me alone, Scully! I'm so close!

"Agent Scully, I can still hear him!" Gibson shouted out above the shrill siren 
of the 
blood pressure monitor. "He says to leave him alone!"

"He's going to go into cardiac arrest, Gibson," Scully retorted sternly. 
"Mulder, I told 
you already, I will not let you kill yourself over this," she directed at her 
partner. 

"It's been three minutes, Scully," Frohike interjected as he checked his watch. 

"Heart rate 100 and rising," Byers reported grimly.

It's there, right in my grasp . . .

"xai oaxao ka-ainosa ti-i pao-oaili saxa-alili alisao ka-aino ti-i kano-o-oali-
itikai opa 
ti-i anokai-inotisa. tiati kano-o-oali-itikai oailili sa-apai io-oli oaoliliti. 
" *17 

Gibson frowned at the sudden shift in thoughts. Some he could make out as his 
friend's, but others he couldn't understand at all, as if Mulder was thinking in 
another 
language.

"I see something . . . it's so foggy . . . can't make it out . . . just a little 
closer 
maybe…if only it were clearer . . ."

The heart monitor set up a steady bleat, the green line going straight across 
the 
screen. Scully's eyes went wild as she sought out the equipment just a few feet 
away. 

"Byers! The defibrillator! Now!" 

The bearded man looked in the direction of her stare and saw the small red 
plastic 
case with the picture of a beating heart. "Got it!" he crowed and pulled it down 
to the 
floor beside Mulder. Mulder continued to jerk spasmodically; Frohike was having 
a 
hard time keeping his head from striking the ground. As the monitor continued to 
shriek, Mulder's spasms lessened and finally stopped completely.

"Lay him flat," Scully ordered. Frohike placed Mulder's head gently on the floor 
of the 
plane while Byers straightened the agent's legs. "OK, Byers, crank it up to 200 
joules 
and get back," she told him while she placed the paddles just inches above her 
partner's exposed chest. 

Again, Byers did exactly as directed and both men scooted back a few feet. 

"CLEAR!" Scully shouted, even though it was unnecessary. She applied the paddles 
and nodded for Byers to hit the button. Mulder's body jerked off the floor for a 
second before slamming back down. Scully watched the heart monitor the whole 
time. There was no change. The green line taunted her.

"250. CLEAR!" she shouted, barely giving Byers enough time to adjust the machine 
before hitting the button. Again, the stricken agent's body jumped off the floor 
only 
to slam back down a second later. This time, there was a tiny beat, followed by 
another and another. 

Scully sighed heavily. "Let's get him on the gurney," she said tiredly.

"Scully, this isn't right," Gibson said, biting his lip and staring at Mulder.

"It's OK, Gibson. We got him back," Scully assured the young man.

"No. We didn't. Before I could hear his thoughts, I could hear Mulder. Now, I'm 
just 
hearing . . . that other guy."

"What other guy?" Scully quarreled.

"The guy I can't understand," Gibson said lamely. "I can't understand him, but 
he's 
still in there. I can't hear Mulder at all."

Upon closer examination, Scully saw that her partner's lips were still moving, 
but 
now no sound was coming from him. Hesitantly, she raised one closed eyelid, only 
to 
find the eerie gold pupils staring back at her.

"Mulder? Mulder, can you hear me?"

Gibson reacted as if shocked. He grabbed his head and winced, turning from his 
friend. "It's worse now! You have to make it stop!"

"Gibson" Scully shouted, reaching out to the youth. "Gibson, what's happening?" 

"It's not me -- it's him! You have to stop this thing from taking over his 
body!" 
Gibson cried out. "His thoughts are all jumbled up! I can't understand him!"

"His heart rate isn't steady, Scully, and it's starting to rise again," Byers 
noted.

"Damn, if we had an EEG," Scully bit out. She stared at the heart monitor for a 
moment. "I've seen this before. His cardiac rhythm -- the doctor was worried 
that his 
body was wearing out," she gasped. 

She stared down at the defib paddles still in her hands. "Byers, set the machine 
at 
100 joules," she said quietly.

"Scully, his heart is beating," Frohike reminded her.

"I know. It's not his heart that's the problem. It's his brain."

"Scully, what are you planning?" Byers asked fearfully.

"Electro conductive therapy," she said, glancing at the two men in turn. She 
licked 
her lips and drew in a deep breath. Slowly, she placed the paddles on either 
side of 
Mulder's head, right at the temples. "Clear," she said firmly and nodded.

Byers looked terrified, but he acquiesced to her order. He punched the button on 
the 
machine and slammed his eyes shut. Frohike held his breath as Mulder's head 
jumped and then landed with a soft thud on the mattress. With exaggerated 
movements, she lowered the paddles. 

Scully looked over at Gibson, anguish in her eyes. Gibson stared hard at Mulder 
and 
then shrugged. "I can't hear anything," he said quietly.

Scully dropped the paddles and lay her head down on her partner's chest. It 
wasn't a 
moment before her shoulders started to shake with unrepressed sobs.

After several minutes, she raised her head. Wiping her eyes on the back of her 
hand, 
she caressed her partner's forehead. As if it pained her to move, she gently 
peeled 
back on eyelid. Only the tiny gold flecks floating in a sea of brown and green 
shone 
back at her. His heart rate jumped and then settled at a steady 60 beats a 
minute. His whole body seemed to relax into the mattress of the gurney, losing 
the 
tension it had held since the rescue. This time when she cried, it was in 
relief.

Act 8
Hulwan, Egypt
12 hours later

"What do you know of apiculture, Charles?" Strughold's tones were low and 
soothing, 
but Charlie nearly soiled himself nonetheless. 

Following the debacle at the facility, he'd been rushed to what the old man 
called 
'the test plots' near Hulwan south of Cairo, and fear had steeped inside his 
chest as 
Strughold silently attended to stacks of Langstroth hives ripe with hymenoptera. 

The Scarred Man, grotesquely elegant in a canvas chair nearby, sipped a thick 
amber 
liquid from a tall, thin glass. The Egyptian sky was sapphire, the Nile sparkled 
in the 
valley below the fields of rustling grain, and Charlie was waiting for the axe 
to drop. 

"Bees?" Charlie rasped.

Strughold nodded with a slight smile. "Very good, Charles. You see these hives? 
A 
miracle of zoological architecture. You see, beekeepers once harvested honey by 
killing the colonies inhabiting the hives. Then, a countryman of yours, Lorenzo 
Langstroth, discovered the principles of 'bee space.' You are familiar with this 
principle?"

Charlie shook his head spastically. Strughold's head jerked toward a nearby 
greenhouse, and the German hoisted a pair of hives. "Come along." Charlie looked 
to 
the Scarred Man, who imbibed impassively, and hastily trailed Strughold into the 
glass building.

The interior was filled with the hives. "Bees leave spaces of roughly 0.6 
centimeters 
between wax combs," Strughold continued. "Langstroth understood this. His hive 
design made it possible to remove individual frames from a beehive and to 
harvest 
honey and wax without destroying the colony."

For the first time, the old man looked directly into Charlie's eyes. The younger 
man 
struggled to maintain contact. "Marvelous creatures. The bee is a model of 
order, of 
regimentation, of discipline. The colony labors single-mindedly for the greater 
good, 
and the result is. This is discipline."

"Look," Charlie began. Strughold held up a weathered hand.

"You are familiar with Sherlock Holmes, Charles? The famous detective? He, too, 
studied the colony to better understand the forces that drive Man. You would do 
well 
to emulate our friends here. You have a certain foolish courage, a mindless 
determination, but you lack the discipline."

"How could I have predicted what happened?" Charlie protested. "It wasn't my 
fault."

Strughold smiled and patted Charlie's cheek. "Perhaps, perhaps. A moment, 
please, 
while I consult with our friend. I try to reason with him, yes?"

Charlie slumped with relief. "Sure, sure."

Strughold flipped a switch near the greenhouse door, and a low hum filled the 
space. 
He smiled again, reassuringly, and left his protégé.

Charlie leaned against a table of germinating wheat, his head reeling. 
Strughold's 
sub-arctic rage was legend, but he had yet to read the old Frenchman. What 
retribution might lie ahead if Strughold had to reason with him.

Charlie felt a sudden tingle on the back of his neck, and reached back to 
scratch. His 
finger's contacted a small, vibrating object, and he yanked his hand away 
quickly, 
remembering where he was. He reasoned in his normal linear manner that as this 
was Africa, these must be African bees.

He froze as the insect buzzed past his nose. Killer bees.

As Charlie moved cautiously toward the door, the second one lit on his right 
hand. A 
third, then a fourth began to hover about his scalp. He opened his mouth to call 
to 
Strughold.

No words would come.

**

"Puzzling," Strughold sighed as he accepted a flute of cassis from the Scarred 
Man. 
"The cruel whims of human genetics. The brother, completely devoid of ethical 
boundaries and yet wholly devoid of any prudent judgment or foresight. The 
sister, 
reasoned, rationale, brilliant, and fearless, and yet cursed with an essential 
moral 
fortitude."

The Scarred Man clucked. "It's where you and your Teutonic witch doctors erred, 
in 
assuming man's character and weaknesses could be pinned with genetic certainty 
to 
a board like dragonflies."

Strughold chuckled -- this parody of the wartime Franco-German enmity had been a 
recurrent schtick for the pair for decades, ever since Dr. Mengele's jaded 
assistant 
and the French resistance fighter joined to combat a common enemy. "They were 
fools -- small, hate-filled murderers who rationalized their deviance through 
science. 
I suppose I was merely lamenting the passing of a generation."

"The Greatest Generation?" the Scarred Man posed. "Mon bon ami, we have little 
place to romanticize our actions. That which we have coveted for all these 
years, we 
could freely have given to mankind."

"Ha. Mankind has neither the imagination, the patience, or the prudence to 
wisely 
use this gift you would so freely give." Strughold waved his glass toward the 
greenhouse. "In there, that is the nature of Man."

The Scarred Man glanced beyond his friend. The glass was steamed and smudged, 
but he could discern a shifting, roughly man-shaped swarm of bees. "And when do 
you plan to intervene, mon ami?"

Strughold glanced at the besieged Charles, shrugged. "It is a valuable lesson 
for our 
young associate. A lesson in patience and discipline. If he maintains control, 
if he 
waits out his current travails, he will prevail. If he surrenders to his 
reckless nature, 
well…This is quite delightful, if a bit cloying. I prefer a reisling, but. . ."

"Mon dieu," the Scarred Man sighed in mock exasperation. His damaged lips curled 
with bemusement. "It is not like you to give in to petty retribution."

"It is not petty," Strughold protested. "It will make him stronger. Or perhaps 
kill 
him."
The Frenchman suddenly sobered. "Might I remind you, he remains useful in many 
ways."

The German barked harshly. "Do not concern yourself. These are stingless 
European 
honeybees -- I maintain the hives for my breakfast honey and to pollinate the 
crops. 
Charles will suffer no more than a traumatic lesson in humility and perhaps the 
cost 
of a new pair of trousers. However, I feel he is long past due for reeducation 
in an 
environment where he can meditate on his insignificance. Do you agree?"

The Scarred Man nodded silently and savored his cassis. He sipped unruffled as 
the 
first muted scream broke the afternoon malaise, followed by an angry, almost 
metallic hum.

"So predictable," Strughold lamented.

Epilogue
F.B.I. Headquarters
Two Weeks Later
11 am

Scully sat on the couch in A.D. Skinner's outer office. He had called the day 
before to 
talk with Mulder but the conversation had ended up as only a short communication 
between the A.D. and herself with his request for her to stop by at her earliest 
convenience. It wasn't actually convenient but she needed to know what was 
behind 
the urgent request. Skinner's office door clicked open and he stuck his head 
out, 
"Agent Scully, please come in."

She gathered herself up off the couch and strode purposefully into his office. 
She 
was glad to see by the emptiness of the office that this was indeed a private 
meeting 
between herself and their superior. The door clicked shut behind her, "Dana, 
it's 
good to see you, please have a seat." Skinner's voice sounded upbeat as he 
walked 
past her and motioned to her usual chair in front of his desk. 

As she settled, the empty chair beside her was somewhat discomforting. When she 
looked up to meet Skinner's gaze she found he was also looking at Mulder's empty 
chair. "How are you doing?" his casual demeanor continued as he broke the 
silence 
between them.

"I'm fine, sir." The catch phrase came out without much thought. Truth was, she 
was 
anything but fine and Skinner knew it. A woman could hide a lot with makeup but 
one look at her eyes told him everything, he smiled at her anyway. 

"That's good to hear," his voice now held that edge that told her that even with 
the 
air of professionalism she'd dressed herself in this morning, she wasn't putting 
anything past him. "I asked you to come in because I'm in receipt of Agent 
Mulder's 
medical report." he met her eyes again and sighed. "Dana, I don't know what to 
say. 
He wouldn't talk to me yesterday when I called. I want to hear it from you. How 
is 
Mulder doing?"

The purpose of this meeting now became clear. Skinner was their superior but he 
was also a friend. It wasn't like Mulder to refuse to talk with him and he 
wanted to 
know why. Scully curled her lips inward. The A.D. watched as her eyes surveyed 
the 
room as if trying to determine who else might be watching or listening. "He was 
severely dehydrated when we found him and his weight is down about twelve 
pounds. He's only been out of the hospital a week, Sir. It's going to take him 
some 
time to recover," she confessed, looking down at her hands resting in her lap. 
"He - 
um, the damage to his inner ear from the building explosion has left him 
partially 
deaf. He has terrible bouts of vertigo, especially when he stands up or tries to 
walk. Both of which should disappear with time."

The A.D. said nothing; waiting for her to go on about the more troubling aspects 
of 
Mulder's medical report. The things that had made him cringe when he read them, 
his imagination supplying the possible reasons for their presence. When she 
looked 
up and saw he was expecting her to continue, her lower lip began to tremble and 
she 
looked away again, "There was a lot of trauma to his brain, his cardio-vascular 
and 
pulmonary systems. He has contusions everywhere and ligature marks on his 
ankles, 
wrists and upper arms. There's a hairline fracture of the scaphoid bone in his 
left 
wrist suggesting he'd put up a valiant fight against being restrained. It's all 
in the 
report, Sir."

At first confused by her superior's silence, she suddenly realized that this was 
the 
first time she had actually spoken to anyone about the trauma her partner had 
suffered. She realized now what a relief it was to her own psyche and silently 
thanked the man. "It took three days for the barbiturate cocktail they gave him 
to 
leave his system." She didn't want to think about the other substance Mulder had 
told her he'd been exposed to. "And he's not real happy with the hair cut they 
gave 
him." 

Skinner smiled one of those gentle lip-curling smiles meant to comfort her but 
she 
saw the hint of humor in it. 

"I've never known Mulder to be a vain man," she responded. "And it's not like it 
hasn't already begun to grow back but he still refuses to look at himself in the 
mirror," a trace of a smile crossed her lips with that admission.

"I'm so sorry, Scully," Skinner said. His effort at condolences seemed far too 
inadequate for the circumstances. "I don't know what I can do or offer that 
would 
make the past few weeks any less traumatic. I'd like to say that the Bureau will 
make every effort to find those responsible but you and I both know that's going 
to 
be difficult to accomplish. 

Scully shook her head sadly, both in agreement of what her superior had just 
said 
and because she also knew that once again there would be no justice for this 
violation against her partner. "Outside of the security tapes the gunmen came up 
with from before he left the country, there just isn't any other evidence and I 
don't 
think Mulder remembers much of what happened while he was being held and that's 
probably a good thing," she admitted; once again looking up to meet Skinner's 
eyes. Their eyes gaze for a moment and then she looked away again. "I hope to 
God 
he never remembers what I did to him. . ." 

"Dana." Skinner got up from behind the desk, came around to sit on the corner of 
it 
in front of her. "You saved him, he'll always remember that."

She finally turned back to him, her eyes filled with moisture. "Did I? He's 
angry, 
angry at the injustice of it all -- what was done, how it was done. That he was 
set up 
and those kids had to die in order for these men to accomplish their goal. It's 
all out 
of his control and he's having a hard time dealing with that. The worst part is, 
I think 
he's angry with me too."

"Dana, why would he. . ." Before Skinner could complete his thought he was 
interrupted.

"Dammit! Who are these men," her voice suddenly turned angry as Skinner found 
himself the subject of her intense blue eyes. "Who can appropriate these crimes 
and 
then just crawl back into the woodwork without any fear of retribution? What 
gives 
them the right?" she demanded.

Skinner had his own ideas, but for the moment he chose to blame it on 
Washington. The answer to that question right now lay in the hands of the 
current 
administration. "I'm sure you're aware that the 'war on terrorism' has given 
that 
authority to the very people we had thought we'd appointed to prevent it. In 
some 
sense this war has become an excuse to take away many of the rights this country 
was founded on." He watched as Scully scanned his face for a crack in his 
demeanor. Finding none, she had obviously accepted his answer. 

He slid into the chair beside her. "I don't understand. Why would Mulder be 
angry 
with you?"

"Because," her gaze dropped back to her hands resting in her lap. "I destroyed 
the 
connection he thought he had. He thought he had the means to unlocking the 
secrets of the world and I took it from him. He just wants to know why this 
keeps 
happening to him, to the both of us for that matter. He just wants it to stop 
and I 
think in the back of his mind he feels that removing him from the equation would 
accomplish that." Skinner listened as her voice trailed off at the end. He 
didn't like 
the implication.

"Do you think he's giving up?" It was a question Skinner didn't really want the 
answer to because if Mulder gave up, he knew without a doubt Scully would take 
up 
the cause, with or without Mulder's blessing.

"Gibson told us the dialect Mulder was speaking was ancient, something that 
dates 
back before recorded history. Mulder believes it's Atlantean." It took a moment 
for 
Skinner to realize Scully was still talking. "The continent of Atlantis is a 
myth, or so 
we all believed. There's some conjecture that Antarctica could in fact be 
Atlantis. You've read about the crater in Wilkes Land - Mulder insists it's the 
crater 
the ship embarked from when he rescued me." A tear escaped her right eye and she 
angrily swiped at her cheek to remove it. 

"Mulder believed he was channeling beings from this ancient civilization, that 
the 
ability would allow him to understand the truth behind some of the greatest 
leaps in 
human history - the Maya, the Aztecs, the Egyptians, he says they're all 
descendents 
from this Atlantean culture, perhaps an alien culture that came here thousands 
of 
years ago. He was convinced he'd become one of them and as such he'd be able to 
find out what their purpose was. He thinks this Strughold one of them." It all 
sounded so absurd, she couldn't meet Skinner's eyes. 

"Strughold is one of these Atlantean's also?" Skinner couldn't believe he'd 
asked the 
question. It was obvious by the look Scully was currently giving him, she didn't 
believe it either. 
"I have no idea, Sir. I don't know how you'd ever prove it. That's the whole 
problem, 
despite Mulder's claims of aliens and invasions and secret government 
conspiracies 
to cover them up, things he's always believed, he still can't produce any valid 
proof. 
None of it makes any sense at this point; they'd lock him away if he ever took 
his 
claims public. I only know that I have to find a way to help him."

Skinner reached to touch her shoulder. "Maybe what's more important is what do 
you believe?"

Scully let out a harsh laugh. "I guess that's always been the question, hasn't 
it sir," 
she answered looking the A.D. right in the eye. "I believe that whatever 
Strughold's 
doctors did to Mulder, triggered something in that active DNA. Something I 
wouldn't 
have believed possible if I hadn't seen it myself. I know how badly he wanted us 
to 
study it, find the answers together but it was killing him and the doctor in me 
couldn't let it go on."

"What about Gibson? Why wasn't he affected?" "As far as we've been able to 
determine, Gibson was born with his abilities. Mulder's, though similar, have 
been 
acquired, or as he prefers to say "turned on" through some sort of stimuli. He 
and 
Gibson are enigmas, it's evident in both their DNA, but throwbacks to early 
humans, 
Atlantean? It's impossible to say. There's definitely a connection they share, 
along 
with this man Strughold who took Mulder. Gibson is terrified of him and I'm 
certain 
Mulder knows why."

"Strughold?" Skinner leaned over to jot the name down on his yellow desk pad. 
"Do 
you want me to see what else I can dig up on him?" he offered, feeling the need 
to 
offer to do something. "What about this Dr. Leonard, any news on him?"

"Thank you for offering, Sir," Scully answered, readjusting herself in the 
chair. A 
movement Skinner took as a subtle way of saying it was time for this 
conversation to 
come to an end. "Dr. Leonard is no longer on staff at NWG, which is no surprise. 
As 
for Strughold, I think that's something Mulder would want to work on. Something 
he 
needs to do, not only for himself but for Gibson. I know he feels indebted to 
him, 
Gibson told me so. There's a connection between them that I just can't explain."

Skinner frowned in concern but waited for her to continue. "It's something 
that's 
always made me afraid for them but never of them," she finally admitted. "Not 
until 
now. What I saw in Mulder frightened me and he knows that. He's afraid he's lost 
my 
trust."

A lack of trust was something that Skinner had never imagined would come between 
these two. "Has he?" he asked, genuine concern evident in his tone.

"I keep telling Mulder that it wasn't him I was afraid of," she replied shaking 
her 
head in disbelief. "It was what or who he had become. He was in my mind, he 
knows 
it was a purely selfish act that I did what I did to get him back and I won't 
deny it." 

"I'm sure he wouldn't expect you to," Skinner replied, reaching over to cover 
her 
hands with one of his large ones. Scully appreciated the warmth of the gesture. 
"I'm 
going to ask you something that you might have to think about for a while and 
then 
I'll explain why I'm asking it. Where do you two see yourselves going from 
here?"

Scully's brow furrowed. "If you mean do we intend to return to work, the answer 
is 
yes." Skinner watched as her face brightened a little, "With Gibson's help, 
Mulder 
should be able to navigate the house in a wheelchair by the end of the week. 
He'll 
need some physical therapy for his wrist and to help him regain his balance. 
That, 
you well know he has no patience for. But he realizes he'll have to pass a 
physical 
and be recertified before he can return to work" 

"If it weren't for you I'd expect to see him back in here tomorrow. But that's 
not 
what I was asking you, Dana."

The implication of what he was actually asking finally sunk in. She knew the 
fear was 
still there, lurking in her subconscious. Not of Mulder personally but of what 
she'd 
witnessed in him and of what others might want to do with it. Mulder feared it 
too 
and she was damned if she'd let him use it as a wedge between them. In sickness 
and in health and in alien possession if so be it. She looked Skinner straight 
in the 
eye. 

"We've gotten through everything else in the past thirteen years, Sir," she 
replied 
with conviction. "We'll get through this too."

Skinner hadn't really expected any other type of answer from her and he nodded 
his 
approval. "Now, I'll explain to you why I asked. I don't know if Mulder ever 
shared 
this with you." Skinner got up from the chair, walked over to the large window 
that 
spanned the exterior wall of his office and turned back to her. 

"About a year ago he and I had a discussion about revamping the X-Files 
division. I 
suggested that as senior agent of the division he take a "supervisory" position. 
That I 
could arrange to get a couple more agents down there to help with field 
investigations," he searched Scully's face for understanding. He thought it was 
there 
but she made no comment. "I just want you to know, I think that option is still 
available. It might get him out of harms way. . ."

"Sir." Scully stood up and walked over to stand in front of Skinner. "I know 
what 
you're trying to do and I appreciate it. Mulder would -- well I know what he 
said 
about your suggestion the last time," she watched her boss nod in 
acknowledgement 
of Mulder's rant on the subject at the time. "I can't speak for him on this now, 
Sir. These men, my brother included, who violate a person's human rights for 
their 
own gain are always going to be there. It doesn't make the psychological trauma 
any 
easier to deal with but I know Mulder and the best way he's going to deal with 
this is 
to put it behind him. The X-Files are his life's work, his first love. I can't 
deny him 
those."

"You're his first love, Dana." Skinner reached for her, hoping she'd accept the 
gesture and enveloping her in a gentle hug when she leaned into him. "You tell 
him," 
he said, stepping back, "that I look in the mirror every day; the shine doesn't 
scare 
me that much." 

**
"Scully," the trill of her phone sounded the moment she stepped off the elevator 
and 
headed for their office. She waited for the caller's reply as she fumbled with 
the key. 

"Hey Scully, it's me." The familiarity of Mulder's response warmed her to her 
toes. "You on your way home yet?"

"I -- um, I. . ." she stuttered a moment, a fleeting memory freezing her in her 
tracks 
as the door snicked open. "I thought I'd stop in the office for a minute."

Flicking on the lights, she scanned the room. Everything in it spoke of Mulder. 
The 
thought of having to continue on in this office without his presence was -- 
well, the 
evidence of what it was like for the most part was still here. Broken computer 
equipment still sat on his desk, the litter that had once been their files had 
been 
dumped unceremoniously into boxes. How would she ever explain this all to him? 
She was suddenly aware of Mulder's silence on the line. "I shouldn't be too 
long, is 
everything OK?"

"Yeah, I just decided I really needed to get out of here. I was hoping I could 
talk you 
into picking me up."

For a moment she didn't know what to say. It was such a complete turn around 
from 
his reclusive behavior of late but she was damned if she'd let the opportunity 
get 
away from them. They'd have to take the wheelchair, hell, she didn't care if she 
had 
to carry him, and she'd get him out of the house somehow. "Well, yes, of 
course!" The more she thought about it, the more excited she became, making one 
quick sweep of the office to take a mental inventory and then heading for the 
door. "What did you have in mind?"

"I don't know, maybe a ride, get some dinner someplace."

The idea that he wanted to get out of the house was one thing, but that he also 
wanted to put himself in a public surrounding came as a shock. She stopped dead 
in 
her tracks. "Mulder? What about your…"

"I'll wear my victory cap," he teased.

Scully smiled, it felt good to hear the humor back in his voice. It was also a 
relief 
that evidently she wouldn't have to wait a month or so for his hair to grow out 
before 
he'd leave the house. She picked up her pace again, slamming through the door to 
the parking garage. "I'll be home in fifteen minutes, Mulder."

Mulder's smile waned slightly as he put the cordless phone back on its 
cradle. Drawing in a deep breath, he raised the head of the hospital bed that 
now 
took up two-thirds of their living room floor space and angled his body so that 
he 
could sit on the edge. It took him almost five minutes to get out of the dratted 
contraption, but that was seven minutes faster than when Scully first brought 
him 
home.

Home. He'd come around in the hospital, Northeast Georgetown -- his old stomping 
grounds. It had felt like home at the time. He could remember bits and pieces of 
his 
ordeal. He remembered the explosion -- it was hard to forget when he was still 
experiencing significant hearing loss in his left ear and the damned ringing 
wouldn't 
go away unless he was lying flat on his back. The ear, nose and throat 
specialist he 
was seeing had assured him that although the blast had ruptured the membrane of 
his ear, in time it would recover and he'd have full hearing. But the kindly 
older man 
had also warned him it would be several weeks to a couple of months before he 
was 
back to normal.

He was a long way from normal. Even after the hospital had assured Scully that 
the 
wrist would heal, the ear would recover, they were at a loss to explain his 
continued 
weakness. 'Stress', they'd finally written down on his release papers. A 
diagnosis of 
'stress'. Yeah, getting kidnapped, 'ghosted', tortured, infected with an alien 
virus -- 
again -- and playing host to a demigod from a lost civilization could stress a 
guy out, 
no doubt about it. But he had been so close -- so close to figuring out what the 
demigod was trying to tell him and then Scully had to ruin his chances by --

By bringing him back to life. Mulder sighed again and closed his eyes. When he'd 
come around in the hospital, she'd refused to talk about anything that had 
happened. Apparently the 'stress' was contagious because she'd had a good shot 
of 
it, too. Not to mention drugged to the gills and thinking he was dead. What 
would 
Mulder have done if the tables had been turned? 

As much as he hated the thought that all that evidence, all that knowledge 
slipped 
through his fingers, he couldn't blame Scully. He was angry at first, when he 
realized 
what had been lost. But when he saw the look in her eyes, the fear, the longing, 
he 
knew he was where he belonged. And as if the kid was some sort of consolation 
prize 
for losing the secrets of the ancients, they now had Gibson back.

"OK, it's all set," Gibson said, smiling as he entered the room. "Bags packed in 
the 
back of your car, tank is full."

"I won't even ask when you learned to drive," Mulder said dryly.

"Hey, they have cars in Egypt," the young man shot back. "And I just heard from 
the 
other end. They're good to go."

"Thanks for all your help," Mulder said, clasping Gibson on the shoulder. 

"We're not even close to square yet," Gibson reminded him. "Want to get in your 
chair?"

Mulder nodded wearily. A damned wheelchair. It was the only way he could 
navigate 
the downstairs of their duplex. He hadn't even been able to go upstairs since 
he'd 
come home from the hospital. He was sick and tired of sponge baths. But, that 
was 
part of the ulterior motive for his surprise for Scully. A shower, even one 
sitting on a 
chair, was calling his name. Of course, Scully would have to tie plastic around 
his 
cast. One of these days he was going to manage to come home _not_ lying on his 
shield.

Just as Gibson helped him settle into the chair, he heard the keys in the front 
door. Scully breezed in, a smile plastered on her face. They hadn't had a chance 
to 
talk much and she'd acted as if she were afraid to touch him. That was ending as 
soon as possible, if he had any say in the matter.

"So, what will it be? The B and O canal with a stop at Tony's later? Pizza with 
all the 
trimmings? I'll even relent and let you have a beer as long as you're good and 
let me 
drive," she quipped, but her heart still wasn't in it. She turned to Gibson. 
"Want to 
tag along?" she asked innocently.

"Oh, uh, nah. Really. Langly has a new game he's working on and he wants me to 
play it tonight, see if I can beat a computer," Gibson said with an easy smile. 
He 
winked over at Mulder, he was only half lying. "You kids go on, don't worry 
about 
me."

"He got his dorm assignment in the mail today," Mulder informed Scully. "He's 
all set 
for the fall semester."

"Well, at least you won't be far. Georgetown is just around the corner," Scully 
reminded him.

"I know, but I don't want to impose on you guys. You've done enough, getting me 
out of that place. At least they stopped poking around in my brain. But I really 
would 
like to get on with my life."

"I bet," Scully agreed. "So, it's just you and me, Mulder. Here, if Gibson will 
give me 
a hand we can get you in the car -- "

"Why don't we use my car out back? It hasn't been out of the garage in over a 
month. Besides, the new ramp works pretty well, Mr. Timmons' contractor did a 
good 
job. I'd like to try it out," Mulder suggested and Gibson had to choke back a 
grin at 
his casualness. 

"Sure, that's great. Let me change real quick and we'll be on our way. I might 
even 
let you talk me into anchovies -- on your half," she replied breezily and 
hurried up 
the stairs.

"She has no idea," Gibson advised with a smile as he handed Mulder his baseball 
cap 
to hide his just appearing hair. Mulder had not been pleased when he awoke to 
find 
that one of the nurses had inadvertently shaved his head again as well as his 
face. 

"But she's still nervous," Mulder sighed heavily. "I hate that I make her ner-
vous."

"Mulder, you don't make her nervous. Whatever that was that took over your body 
made her nervous. She was afraid she'd never get you back. And she knows you 
were mad at her for getting rid of it."

Mulder chewed on his bottom lip. "I was mad, but I'm always mad when evidence 
gets away. I never meant for her to think I blamed her."

"Well, you still have the laptop. That's a place to start. And as for the two of 
you 
getting over this, that is what this weekend is for, isn't it?" Gibson 
suggested.

"Hey, _I'm_ supposed to be giving _you_ relationship advice, young man," Mulder 
said with mock gruffness. He drew in a deep breath. "I just hope it works."

Gibson clasped him on the shoulder. "It will. I know it."

"Precognitive as well as telepathic? Keep this up and I'll start running more 
tests on 
you," Mulder teased.

Gibson just laughed and was still laughing as Scully bounded down the steps. 
"OK, 
what's so funny?"

"Gibson was just telling me he's a White Sox fan," Mulder covered and Gibson 
didn't 
disagree. "So, we're off. Lock up when you leave, OK?" 

"I will," the young man agreed. He helped Scully negotiate the ramp and then put 
the lightweight wheelchair in the trunk for her. He waved them off as she backed 
into the alley.

"OK, G-man, where to? The Canal, Rock Creek Park, the Zoo?" she asked again.

"Nah, I'm not really in the mood to see anything locked in a cage. Can we just 
take a 
drive along the coast?"

"OK, sure," she said hesitantly. "Ocean City?"

"A little farther north, actually. Scully, could we go to the summerhouse for 
the 
night?"

"Mulder," she said, worrying her lip."You want to go to Rhode Island? I mean, 
the 
summerhouse has been closed up -- well for years! And you don't have your meds . 
. 
."

"Sure I do," he countered, holding up a seven-day pill case. "We can stay in a 
hotel if 
the house is a mess," he added.

The silence in the car was unnerving. It was bad enough that Mulder's bad ear 
was 
toward Scully, which meant he had to sit angled toward her to hear anything she 
said. On top of that, it seemed they couldn't find a topic to talk about. He 
mourned 
their loss of contact, and vowed as soon as the car stopped to do something 
about it.

The traffic was light for a Friday afternoon in mid summer, and the sun was with 
them for most of the way, the sky clouding a little as they reach the Rhode 
Island 
shore. It was a little before 6 when they pulled into the gravel driveway.

"I think we should have made reservations at one of the hotels we passed at the 
395 
exit, Mulder. Or at least picked up a pizza on the way," Scully said, going 
around to 
pull out the wheelchair.

"Leave it, Scully. I think I can make it in the house without it. Why bother, if 
we 
aren't staying," he added with a shrug.

"OK, lean on me, though. I don't want you falling." She hurried to put her arm 
around his waist. 

The dizziness hit him hard, but he closed his eyes and tilted his head to a 
point 
where it became bearable. He nodded mutely and she held on tighter. He worried 
that one missed step would bring them both tumbling to the ground, but before he 
knew it they were at the door.

The minute the key was in the lock, he knew the guys had done their magic. He 
could smell the dinner he'd ordered and just hoped everything else was in 
place. Scully, naturally, was a little confused.

"Mulder, did you rent the house out for the summer?" she asked, throwing the 
door 
open wide and helping him into the little foyer. "Smells like someone's been 
cooking 
in here."

Mulder positioned himself to lean against one wall while taking her hands in the 
other. "Scully, close your eyes," he ordered. "Please," he added when she 
frowned in 
his direction.

"Mulder, if I close my eyes, both of us are going to fall on our asses," she 
said, but 
she let him take her hand. Using walls and furniture, he maneuvered them into 
the 
living room and seated them both on the sofa. He almost lost his balance 
fumbling 
for the remote on the coffee table, but in a minute, he was ready.

"OK, Scully, open your eyes."

As she did so, an orchestra suddenly struck up the first movement of Mozart's 
celebrated Symphony No. 41, otherwise known as the Jupiter Symphony. With the 
50-inch wide screen television and the superior stereo surround sound, they 
might 
as well have been sitting in the front row of the Kennedy Center.

"Mulder," she breathed his name and clutched his hand to her chest. She was 
blinking back tears but she couldn't take her eyes off her partner. "Mulder -- 
this is -
- " She looked around the room in amazement. It didn't look like the same 
summerhouse, the one where he'd once tried to kill himself, where he'd once been 
possessed and tried to kill her. It had a fresh coat of paint on the walls, new 
lamps 
and furniture. Even the fireplace looked different with a new mirror and candles 
arranged on the mantel. "When did you do all this? For that matter, how? And 
that 
TV, Mulder, it's enormous!"

"Well, as for when, this last week. The how -- there are three guys I owe a 
whole lot 
to and now I owe them more. And a personal banker who made his retainer this 
month arranging for the contractors and such. The TV -- well, that's for this," 
he 
said, waving his good hand toward the conductor and the symphony. "There's 
dinner 
in the kitchen," he told her. Cavetelli agli asparagi for you and mezze maniche 
alla 
Napoli for me. It's not from Paparazzi, but I talked to the owners and they have 
family who own a restaurant in New York. That's where this came from. The guys 
brought it up earlier and put it in the oven. They might even be hiding in the 
closet 
or the loft right now."

"Mulder -- I'm speechless -- "

He leaned over carefully, ever mindful of the dizziness that would creep upon 
him at 
a moment's notice, and cupped her cheek. Slowly, he drew her into a gentle kiss 
that 
lingered long enough to cause them both to be breathless. "Good. I like you 
speechless," he said, kissing her again.

He stopped when he realized she was really crying. "Scully, I didn't want to 
make 
you cry," he whined, wiping at her cheeks with his thumbs. "This is supposed to 
make you happy. After everything you've been through lately, I wanted to 
surprise 
you, to give you something that -- "

"That was taken from us," she said, completing his thought flawlessly. "Mulder, 
you 
dope, these are happy tears," she sniffed, wiping at her chin where a few tears 
had 
escaped his gentle caress. "How? How did you -- "

"As I said, the guys, mostly. Gibson was in on it, too. Between the money you 
took 
out to rescue us, and the money to fix this place up -- we'll have to put off 
retirement for a couple of weeks. I think John McKinley has a crush on you, by 
the 
way," he teased. "When I told him the money was to go toward a surprise for you, 
he fell all over himself helping to get it all arranged."

She looked around for the first time and noticed the dramatic change in the 
little 
cottage. "You redecorated."

"Yeah, see I was hoping to turn this into my 'bachelor pad'. Very Austin Powers, 
don't you think?"

She feigned a glower at him. "Bachelor pad?"

"OK, how about a quiet place away from the city where we can regroup. I've 
missed 
this place, Scully. Yes, it's fallen on some hard times, but it used to be a 
very happy 
place to me. I'd like to get that back -- make new memories. If you want 
to. Otherwise, it will sell faster if it's not in a complete shambles," he said 
casually.

She looked into his eyes, silently reading his real intention. If he wanted to 
make 
new memories, maybe recapture some of the good memories of his childhood, she 
was the last person to try and stop him. "I like the idea of a little getaway."

He kissed her again. "I promise not to bring other girls up here, Scully," he 
said with 
a wink.

She regally ignored his jibe. "But the symphony performance -- is that the one 
we 
missed? How on earth -- that was just a few weeks ago!"

"Yeah. Seems it's going to be the next fundraising special on PBS. When Byers 
explained some of the situation -- the parts that wouldn't cause world panic, 
they 
were happy to give him a 'pre-release' copy. The condition is that we aren't 
supposed to let this DVD get out to anybody," he said sheepishly. "It's just for 
us."

Her face crumbled as she teared up again. 

"Scully, please, stop crying. You're making me feel like I did something wrong 
here," 
he admonished.

"No, no, it's not that. It's just, well, after everything that's happened . . . 
Mulder, I 
thought you were dead! I eventually came to know that was a lie, but for several 
days, I thought -- " He started to object again, but she held up her hand to 
stop 
him. "And then when we finally got everything together and we thought we had 
you, 
that . . . thing . . . was inside you and I know you wanted -- you wanted to 
stay that 
way . . ."

Finally, he was able to break in. "Scully, listen to me. Yes, I was so close to 
finding 
answers to where we're going, what is going to happen to this planet. I wanted 
to 
understand the visions I've been having. I needed to know what they have been 
trying to tell me. I was angry that you would break that connection; that you 
would 
throw that away. But there was another connection I wasn't thinking about and it 
takes priority in my life -- it has for a very long time." He took both her 
hands in his 
and kissed her knuckles. "I don't want to be a demigod if means I lose you in 
the 
process."

She chuckled and it soon turned into a relief-filled giggle. "Mulder, in the 
right 
context, that was the most romantic thing you've ever said to me." She leaned 
over 
and kissed him soundly, caressing his cheek as he had done hers just moments 
before. 

"Good. I'm glad. Now, woman, gimme my supper!" he demanded with a wink. "I 
would serve you dinner, but with my equilibrium, you'd be wearing it."

"Coming right up," she said, kissing him again. "Oh, and Mulder . . . I really 
appreciate the thought and all, but let's not plan any more dates -- ever 
again?"

"I wouldn't dream of it," he replied.

THE END.

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