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Title: Trust 5: Mind Summary: Samantha is back: but the quest is far from over. Note: (Forgive me father, for I have sinned. It has been six months since my last Trust installment.) Author's Note: This is the fifth story in this series. It contains extensive references to events in the previous four installments. Nevertheless, I insist on believing that this is a stand-alone story with a cliffhanger ending. That's my tale, and I'm gonna stick to it. Because this series was plotted well before the events of the latter half of season four, the Trust X-Files universe is pretty out of whack with the canonical one. Just go with it. Remember, here in Trust-land, Scully's been abducted twice, and cancer threatens but has not arrived. Please write me! I groove on feedback. Thank yous: To Chris Carter for creating The X-Files; to David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson and the entire cast and crew for bringing this marvelous series to life; and to Fox for putting it on the air. September 15, 1997 Your blank eyes staring at me from across the room frighten me. They are so impossibly empty. So dead. They make me want to scream, to strike out. To strike you. Anything to get a response. But I know it would be no use. Those eyes. I've often heard people say they hate fish because of the eyes. The way they gaze, unblinking, emotionless, vacant. But I know better. Behind every fish eye is a vital organism that eats, breathes, responds to stimuli, mates, reproduces. Lives. But behind those eyes...nothing. Oh, you're alive. Technically. A house is a house, even when there's nobody home. Samantha? Are you in there? Stop. Get a grip. This isn't helping. You're supposed to be writing to keep yourself calm. Tell the story. Right. Start at the beginning. He called me about an hour ago. It was the middle of the afternoon, and I was at the lab. My heart began to race the instant I recognized his voice. He would never have called like that unless something was very wrong. My first thought was for her. That she'd been taken. That the nightmare was starting again. He would tell me nothing over the phone, just asked me to come to his apartment right away. It was all I could do to drive here without wrapping the car around a lamp post. The door opened the instant I knocked. Dana stood on the other side. She was all right. She was standing before me, looking tense but all right. In the intoxicating rush of relief that followed, I told myself I must have been mistaken. No emergency, no disaster. They were both all right. I entered the apartment and saw you seated on the couch. A young woman, with long, dark curls and a high forehead. You sat very still, very quiet, hands resting limply in your lap, lips slightly parted as though you were asleep. But your eyes, deep brown and thickly lashed, were wide open. Staring straight ahead. I thought for a moment you must be blind. "I came as quickly as I could," I said, unable to take my eyes off the seated stranger. I felt I should have recognized you, but no name would associate itself with your face. It was only when Mulder said "Thank you" from a shadowy corner of the room that I realized he was there, too. He stood with his back against the wall, his arms crossed against his chest. Something about the set of his shoulders told me he was working very hard to remain still, to contain his body in as small a space as possible. I had seen what could happen when he lost that control and lashed out in a whirlwind of destructive energy. Involuntarily, I glanced around to see whether there were any breakables nearby. Dana spoke while he stood against that wall, motionless. "This is Samantha Mulder," she began, nodding her head toward you. "At least, we're pretty sure it is." "It is!" Mulder interrupted angrily. She went on, ignoring him. Mulder had been out all night and returned home early that morning to find you there, sitting much as I saw you now. Totally unresponsive. He'd called Dana right away. They'd taken you to the hospital. The doctor who examined you could find no organic condition to explain your symptoms, but they also found nothing to indicate you were anyone but the missing Samantha Mulder. Dana had insisted on genetic tests, but those results would take days. She paused at that point, as if reluctant to continue. "Go on. Tell her," Mulder said. When she went on, it was in the flat tone of a schoolgirl reading her lessons. They'd found nothing organic to account for your condition, she repeated. But they had found something inorganic. A skull x-ray revealed dozens of implants throughout your brain and central nervous system. Not just one, as it had been with other abductees. Not just in the neck. Not like Dana. Dozens. It didn't make any sense, and I said so. Why go to all that trouble just to make someone catatonic? There were far easier ways. Dana just shrugged and shook her head. The hospital had wanted to admit you for observation, Samantha. Dana had agreed, but not surprisingly, your brother would have none of it. Hence the call to me. Would I stay with you while they went to talk to their boss? There was a time: it seems like a lifetime ago: when I would not have thought twice about helping friends in need. But that was when helping someone meant some inconvenience, some effort, maybe some money. Before I'd been shot trying to retrieve a floppy disk from a shipwreck. Before I'd been slammed in the head with a gun butt and watched six men abduct one woman. Before I'd struggled for a way to convince her anguished, desperate partner that blowing his brains out wouldn't fix things. Before I'd been forced to choose between dangerous involvement and safe retreat. So this time, I thought twice. And here I am with you, Silent Samantha. I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Rachel Sachs. I'm a friend of your brother and his partner. Don't ask why. Must be a self-destructive streak. What's going on in there, Sam? Anything at all? Are you thinking about the choices your brother has made because of what happened to you? Did you have any choices to make after the night you were taken, an eight-year-old girl screaming out her brother's name? Maybe you've had no choices since then. For that matter, maybe he's had none, either. Maybe everything that's happened to him was preordained by the events of that fateful night. Joining the FBI. Opening the X-Files. Meeting Dana Scully. His father's death. Dana's sister's death. Dana's two abductions. Me, here, with you. Dominoes falling in a row. Do you know if that's so, Silent Samantha? Would you tell us if you could? September 16, 1997 I think the clothes I brought over will do nicely. You're a bit taller than I, but I took that into account and chose pants that are long on me. Mulder seemed strangely surprised by the whole thing, as though he figured you'd just keep wearing that same pair of khakis and polo shirt forever. Whoever outfitted you last must have been a die-hard catalog shopper. For my part, I was surprised to see Dana here so early. It was as though she'd never gone home. Maybe she hadn't. I could have done without the argument those two gave me, but I'd fully expected it. Did they think I would just slink away until they called me again? And what the hell was Mulder planning to do with you all day while he's out playing Superfed? Hang you in the closet next to his Armanis? It took some talking to get them to agree to let me keep an eye on you for the next couple of weeks. I didn't make it up, you know. I really am starting a research paper, and I really was planning to work from home. I may as well do it here. God know you're not much of a distraction, Sam. No offense. Still, I know what they told me is true. This is dangerous. Someone went to an awful lot of trouble to take you and keep you hidden all those years. To do whatever they did to make you this way. It seems hardly likely that they just woke up one morning suffering pangs of remorse and decided to bring you back. They're up to something. Judging from my own somewhat limited experience, I don't think I'd be going out on a limb to say it's not likely to be something good. I only hope your brother and Dana can figure it out before the shit hits the fan. But I'll tell you one thing, Samantha. If the truth about all this can be known, they will know it. Or die trying. What a pair they make. Don't you think? Oops. Sorry. I guess that's the $64,000 question. Mulder believes you can. Well, if not think, then feel. He was so reluctant to let Dana remove an implant to study. He didn't want to cause you pain. But he knew it had to be done. Dana convinced him of that: and she never said a word. Just looked at him in that way of hers, as though she's gentling a wild horse. Confident. Calm. Reassuring. I think that look could convince the Pope to start doing public service announcements for safe sex. She performed the procedure quickly and gently. You never flinched. Not when the scalpel parted the tender skin at the base of your skull. Not when the tiny tweezers invaded the bloody wound. Not even when the disinfectant was applied afterward. Did you feel it, Sam? Did you see it? Hear it? Wanna play pinball? Sorry. Bad joke. I'd better get back to work. September 17, 1997 The meadow was very quiet. Unnaturally quiet. The stillness was so oppressive that my own breathing seemed to be a violation of some unspoken law. It was very hot, although there didn't seem to be any sun shining overhead. I looked up at the sky, and it was black. The place where I stood was filled with light, but the sky was black as asphalt on a blazing Summer day. A bright, sticky black. Empty. I looked away, distraught. That's when I noticed them. I'd at first taken them for small trees, but they weren't. They were all around me, as far as I could see, stretching into the infinite distance. Huge fish, tails planted in the ground, standing motionless and silent. Their eyes, large, round and unblinking, gazed blankly in every direction. I was terrified of them. Gunshots shattered the total silence, then the sound of heavy footfalls. I detected movement, but I couldn't turn my head to look around. A long while passed before I could see who it was, the passage of time marked by the ticking of an invisible clock. Mulder. He was running toward me. I tried to call to him, but I couldn't make a sound. As he approached, I felt relief wash over me like warm rain. He was so normal in that surreal, frightening forest of shining scales and round eyes. When he was quite close, I tried to reach out to him, but my arms refused to move. I watched in horror as he ran past. I wanted to cry out, to beg him to stop, but I couldn't. I could only watch as he ran to a fish near me and wrapped his arms around it, weeping. I saw then that that fish was different. There was a warmth in its eyes, an intelligence. As I watched, its eyes changed. Flattened. Widened. Their color melting from steely gray to warm blue. The transformation spread from the eyes outward, until I could make out a defined head, shoulders, breasts, legs. Dana. Mulder held Dana. He rocked her back and forth in his arms, weeping, until she told him it was time to go. They walked right by me, never once looking at me. Why should they? I was a fish, watching the scene through dull, round, inhuman eyes, scales gleaming silver against a shining black sky. I think, Samantha, that last night I dreamed I was you. I hope someday you'll forgive me. My heart fluttered fast when I awoke, clammy and shivering, blinking at the sun. When I arrived at your brother's apartment this morning, he looked so sad. He told me there had been no change. As though he had hoped: even believed: there would be. He was just finishing feeding you. I watched in fascination as he put spoonfuls of cereal in your mouth. You chewed and swallowed. When he was done, I offered to take you to the bathroom, but he insisted on doing it himself. Why is it you can do those things, Sam? Those basic functions eating, excreting: you can do, and do well. Not like a brain-damaged gork, drooling and leaking with no control, but like a normal person. You even wait to be placed on the toilet before relieving yourself. But there's no sign that you know what you're doing. No hint of understanding in your eyes. Perhaps the fact that you can do these things explains why Mulder believes you are still in there, somewhere. He hasn't said as much, but it's obvious just seeing the way he is with you. As though, from moment to moment, he's expecting you to wake up. Like this is just a little nap. Temporary. How can any one man harbor so much hope? But I have seen the flip side of that hope. Despair lurks around the corner, waiting to claim him the moment hope falters. I pray it doesn't come to that. Mulder says Dana plans to work with an acquaintance of hers to run you through a battery of sophisticated neurological tests. Try to determine your level of functioning. See if there's any highly localized damage too specific to be diagnosed by cruder means. Ironically, they're not unlike the tests to which she was subjected on Frog Island, Maine. At least as far as anyone can tell. Poor Dana. Her nightmare never ends, like a thread that's infinitely long. Once it was woven into the pattern of her life, she couldn't get rid of it. It's part of the structure, part of the design. Pull it out, and the whole thing unravels. A black thread. September 18, 1997 I learned an important lesson today, Sam. You know why it's so difficult to expect the unexpected? Because it pops up in the most unexpected places. I wanted to cheer your brother up. That's hard to do with words. Harder still with grand gestures. With him, it's the little things. I bet he was the same as a kid, wasn't he? I showed up at his place early this morning to surprise him with doughnuts and coffee. I didn't want to wake him up in case this just happened to be the one morning of his life he was actually managing to sleep in. So I used the key he gave me when I took this gig. Hey, it was foolish, I know. If he'd been awake, he could have blown my damn fool head off, coming in unannounced like that. But I really did want to surprise him. Finding the apartment dark and silent, I tiptoed to the couch, expecting to see Mulder crashed out, TV remote in hand, papers and magazines strewn across the floor. I was taken aback to find you there instead, sound asleep, looking like you could wake up, stretch and say "Good morning" at any moment. Now why the hell would Mulder have stuck you on the couch and taken the bed for himself, I wondered rather unimaginatively. I headed for the bedroom. Talk about the unexpected. I will never, for as long as I live, forget the moment when I first saw Fox Mulder and Dana Scully spooned together like Pringles in a can. It was breathtaking. Not because each of them is such a great beauty: though each surely is. It was rather this sense of completeness, of closure. Like when a piece of music ends, and the turbulence and striving of an entire movement finds its resting place. They lay on their sides, Mulder's body wrapped shoulder to knees around Dana's, his arm curled tightly around her middle. They were both covered by a sheet from the waist down, and bare above. The room smelled of them. Not of Mulder and Dana coexisting in a confined space, but of them. A new scent. One I'd never smelled before. I crossed quietly to the bed, knelt beside Dana and put my hand on her shoulder. Her skin was warm and soft, and for a moment I imagined how it must have felt beneath Mulder's fingertips, just hours ago, here in this very bed. How the silky heat of her must have affected him. Stolen his breath, hardened his body and clouded his mind. My face flushed at the thought. Dana's eyes fluttered open as I gently shook her. "Mulder?" she asked. "Logical guess," I whispered. "But try again." It took her a moment to recognize me. When she did, she blushed faintly and reached down to pull the sheet higher. The modest gesture made me laugh quietly. I reminded her that we first met naked in a locker room. I set the goodies out on the kitchen table while I waited for her to finish using the bathroom. She came out in a robe and slippers, sat down and wrapped her small, delicate hands around a warm cup of coffee. I think she actually intended not to talk about it. Yeah, right. So I asked her what happened. She stared at the coffee for a long moment before answering. The eyebrow came up inquiringly, almost as if, for the first time, she was asking herself the same thing. Finally, she offered the only answer she seemed able to come up with. "The inevitable," she said. "I love him." I just nodded. I've been thinking about that simple statement all day. Those words seem to float out there in this no-man's land, where language and reality are eternally, tragically unable to connect. What does that mean, "I love him?" Had Dana's feelings for this man suddenly changed one day, compelling her to crave the sensation of his stroke? Had her carefully contained passion unexpectedly overflowed its banks, sweeping her into an act she had been studiously avoiding? Or had a new kind of loneliness descended upon her, one that demanded a novel remedy? Maybe all those things. Maybe none of them. The words and the truth refuse to align themselves. Mulder put in an appearance after we'd been talking only a few minutes. He stood in the hall doorway, still surrounded by the haze of sleep, wearing only sweatpants he must have pulled on hastily when he'd heard voices in his apartment. He seemed unperturbed by my presence, and I was glad. Seeing him that way, I again imagined his eyes lit with passion as he gave Dana his body. I remember the night I saw that fire in his eyes. The night he'd been ready to give himself to me. I'm glad now that I didn't let him. I think. If only all the rest of it would end, all the chaos and fear. All the complications. If only you would just look at me, Sam, and say something. Anything. "Who the hell are you?" would do nicely. If only I could... Hold that thought. They're home. September 19, 1997 I reread it in bed, unable to fall asleep. I found it depressing, for one thing. For another, dangerous. I've set things down I shouldn't have. Dana and Mulder would kill me if they knew about this. But this morning, I changed my mind. I'm not even sure why. I just have this crazy feeling that it will be important to have this some day. That someone will be glad to read this. Maybe it will be me, reading it to remember. Or maybe you, Sam. I certainly hope some day you can read this. Or maybe... I don't know. They looked terrible when they came in last night. I could tell they'd been arguing. But when I asked, they clammed up on me. Mulder skewered me with a stare that made my internal organs feel like shish kebab. A look that said still, after everything, after the intimacy I'd witnessed that very morning, he didn't really trust me. Or at least, he was fighting the urge to. Dana must have seen the disappointment in my eyes. Worse than disappointment, really. Hurt. How much farther out do I have to go on this limb before he's willing to believe I'm willing to risk the fall? "She's watching your sister," Dana said. It was a reprimand. He simply nodded, giving in, and sat down tiredly while Dana spoke. The genetic tests had all been completed, and the results showed that, as far as it was humanly possible to ascertain, this woman was Fox Mulder's sister. She was fully human, not a clone, and clearly his sibling. I could tell even Dana was convinced. The preliminary lab analysis on the implant had also been completed. The thing was like the one that had been removed from Dana after her first abduction: a highly sophisticated microchip of unknown purpose, embodying technology no one had ever seen before. I knew the rest already. Mulder would have taken the results to mean that his sister's experience was clearly linked to Scully's. Hell, that's what I took it to mean. Anyone who didn't know Dana would have thought she would, too. But I know Dana. She's not one to put her faith in circumstantial evidence. Especially not when it hits this close to home. As Dana related the latest developments, I watched Mulder first wander around the room randomly, then plant himself behind your chair, Sam. I was mesmerized by the way he stroked your hair, gently, rhythmically. Lovingly. It's not normal for a man to love someone so much whom he hasn't seen for twenty-five years. But then again, it's not normal for a man to look for someone without giving up for twenty-five years. In that sense, Fox Mulder is utterly abnormal. And that's a lucky thing for you. Because whatever else his obsessions make him, they keep him utterly dedicated to you. You and Dana. Few people have ever been asked to sacrifice so much, to risk so much, for the sake of others. Far fewer have done it. The endless struggle has sapped the joy from his life and offered him nothing in return. Nothing but the narrow, single-minded pursuit of the truth. Well, one other thing, and this one well worth having. The loyalty and love of Dana Scully, an utterly extraordinary woman. And of me. For whatever that's worth. But I didn't want to go there... Mulder resumed his restless wandering as the two of them took up the argument they'd left off when they'd entered the apartment. He was relentless, insisting that they resume the investigation of the Japanese file containing the experimental neurological data on Dana and so many other abductees. That they find new engineers, ones willing to consider more extreme possibilities, to analyze the equipment that had been retrieved from the facility in Frog Island. That they review in painstaking detail everything they knew about what had been done to Dana. About the ultimate violation in which her mind had been ruthlessly penetrated, the very essence of her being stolen and transformed into cold, impersonal data while her body was held captive, immobilized, vulnerable. How could he do this? Then again...how could he not? When she woke up in the hospital in Portland, he told her her ordeal was over. But he knew it was a lie. There will be no peace for any of us until we know. And that includes me. God help me. We're lucky, Sam. We're lucky Dana is who she is. She has enough courage for all of us. Last night, she chose to march directly into the lion's den. Today, the investigation into her own abduction is being reopened. I'm deathly afraid of what lies down this road. But I'll stay the course, whether it means just sitting here with you, Sam, or something more ugly and brutal. Any other choice would be a surrender. September 20, 1997 Would you hate me if you knew I was thankful to be away from Apartment 42 for a while? This morning brought Dana to my door, for no reason other than to sit and talk. The strain is really starting to show on her. When she showed up unannounced, I was alarmed, thinking she'd come with bad news. I guess I'm always expecting the worst these days. She was so pale, and her face was set in a mask of grim tension. I was relieved to learn there was no crisis, but it saddened me to realize that's just how she looks now. It's the investigation. She's leaving no stone unturned in an effort to understand what happened to you, Sam. If she's not poring over the data in the Japanese file, she's reading up on the latest advances in neurophysiology, biotechnology and microprocessors. I suspect she regularly sacrifices both food and sleep to this quest. The charcoal smudges beneath her eyes and the loose fit of her clothes attest to that. Behind all that drive, of course, is the fear. She fears for Mulder. I gather from what she's said that, while she has been immersed in mental gymnastics, he has been pursuing information from other channels. I don't know any more than that, but that's enough. Knowing him, he's taking every risk that comes his way, no matter how improbable the pay-off. Behind her fear for Mulder, buried so deep it no doubt shows its monstrous visage only in the dim obscurity of night, in disturbed dreams and wakeful trembling, lies her fear for herself. Her anxiety at not remembering. Her apprehension that she will remember. Her terror of what the future may hold. There's one undeniable fact that batters her psyche from moment to moment: Everyone who's ever been through what she has contracted the cancer. I suspect she never allows herself to say it aloud. She probably doesn't even think about it consciously. But it's always there. It shows itself in the grim lines of her face. The way the corners of her mouth turn down. The way her shoulders fold forward when she crosses her arms, as though she were trying to close herself like an unread book. As morning turned into afternoon, we exhausted the subjects of the investigation and the vagaries of higher brain function. The conversation shifted casually. We'd been discussing the implants and their possible origins. One moment, she was telling me with irritation that Mulder would not abandon his theory that the technology was extraterrestrial, despite a total lack of evidence. The next moment, she was telling me how that same stubborn faith wrapped her in its warm embrace through the darkest hours of night, sustaining her until light and hope returned. I settled back to allow the flow of her thoughts to wash over me. I knew she had never before articulated any of this. The nature of the deep bond she and Mulder shared. Her wonder at the greatness of his heart and the sharpness of his mind. Her gratitude that he had carved out a place for her in his soul. That made me laugh, and I broke the spell. She blinked and looked at me as though she'd forgotten I was in the room with her. She asked me what was so funny, and I told her she was. She and Mulder. She gave me the deadly arched eyebrow. I explained how bizarre it is from my point of view. How every day, each of them offers him or herself on the altar of the other. How I see each of them open their veins and bleed whatever life-sustaining substance the other needs: sanity, hope, trust, love. This tragic orgy of self-sacrifice. And then, like a starving beggar thankful for a crumb, she expresses shocked gratitude when she learns Mulder gives a rat's ass about her. The only thing funnier, I assured her, was that he was exactly the same way. She digested this observation in silence for a while. I could see I'd depressed her and considered apologizing. But it was the truth, and she needed to hear it. So I tried a different tack. I asked her to tell me all about Mulder, the lover. I'd frankly expected her to demur, or, if she replied at all, to offer only vague generalities like "tender," "thoughtful," or maybe "exciting." Instead, she let loose with a torrent of gorgeous detail, her language almost poetic, her sudden effusiveness animating her as though the lid of a plain little box were lifted to reveal dancing bears and carnival music. She told me that he was as moody in lovemaking as in everything else, sometimes coy, sometimes giddy, or desperate, or serene, or even: yes: tender. She told me how she had come to him the first time in their motel on that freakish televangelist case because she'd been lonely, and needy, but mostly because her abduction had left her with a sense of urgency, a painful awareness that life guarantees nothing, and that opportunities lost are often gone forever. And, quite simply, she wanted him. The way she used that word: "want": made it rich with overtone and subtext. Want that is need that is desire that is love. Still, she'd had to convince him. Denial years in the making is not seconds in the undoing. He'd trotted out all the objections, all the reasons they'd both relied on but never given voice to since their first meeting. In the broad light of day: or in this case, the glare of a 100-watt bulb: those objections had been revealed for what they were. Paper tigers. Once they'd broken through, she said, they unleashed a maelstrom so fierce that she thought at first it couldn't last, they couldn't last. But there was so much force in it that it did last, late into that night and many nights since. She told me about his eyes. How sometimes he watches her very carefully when they make love, with an almost unnatural level of control and concentration. How that cool, locked gaze contrasts with the wild heat of their joined bodies, like ice cubes on sunburnt flesh. She told me he calls her Scully, even in the moment of release. How sometimes, when he calls her name like that, it's as though he's forgotten she's right there beneath him, above him, around him. Like he's trying to summon her back from someplace far, far away. And she told me she was afraid. Not of him, but of his need, and her own. She's a smart one, Sam. She knows that what you need often becomes an addiction, an easy path to take when other roads are rough and dangerous. I told her not to worry. Addiction is a function of cowardice, of the inability to look reality squarely in the eye. She is no coward. And neither is he. I have a confession to make, Sam. When she left my apartment, I was relieved to see her go. Happy for her, but not for myself. I will say nothing to her of it, or to him. I am the coward. September 29, 1997 I told myself I was doing a nice thing for these athletes, standing there and shouting encouragement. Buy I felt like a cheat. If I'd been willing to work harder, to bear the pain, then I would have been out there with them, running. That's what this past week has been like, Sam. I've been burying my nose in this damn paper, waiting for a tired, determined runner to come by and accept a pat on the back. To tell me how much more distance is left to run. Dana and Mulder race doggedly on. For Dana, this is a medical mystery. She has taken you a number of times for testing, trying to make sense of the results in light of what little can be determined about the implants. One thing has become clear: the microchips have been carefully placed in areas of higher brain function, areas associated with complex mental processes. But there are three enormous obstacles that hamper her progress. First, there's the fact that so little can be learned about the implants themselves. Dana and her colleagues can't even determine whether they are currently functioning in the way they were intended, whether they are malfunctioning, or whether they are totally nonfunctional. In other words, she has no idea whether the implants are meant to cause your current condition, or your condition is the result of their failure. She can't even determine with 100 percent certainty that they have anything to do with it. Second, there's the complexity of the system in question. Little is understood about the way the brain works. It's clear that the implants are located in areas of high neurological activity, but it's far less clear what each of those areas actually does. It's likely that, in a normal person's brain, these areas are involved in complex interactions with one or more other regions in order to produce particular responses, rather than each individual region controlling some specific behavior on a one-to-one basis. And it remains a mystery as to whether all those implants are identical, doing the same thing at each location, or whether each is fine-tuned to do something different depending on the brain function associated with the region where it's located. Taken together, all these variables combine to make for a mind-boggling array of possibilities. Scientific method demands that any experiment designed to solve the puzzle must isolate one variable at a time and test thoroughly before moving on to the next. That could literally take several lifetimes. The third point is perhaps the most frightening. Your implants, Sam, are scattered throughout your brain. Many of them are buried deep inside the tissue. It is utterly inconceivable how they got there. Any cuts made to gain access to such deeply recessed areas of the brain would undoubtedly have damaged other key areas, causing irreparable harm. Yet there are no signs that any cutting occurred, other than a few tiny scars on the epidermis. The biotechnology needed to place these implants where they've been found not only doesn't exist, but cannot even be imagined within the realm of our science. Given how badly that fact scares me, I can only guess how Dana must feel about it, knowing that her own abductions are probably in some way related to whatever was done to you. I suppose none of this comes as a total shock to your brother, willing as he is to believe in extreme possibilities. But that doesn't minimize the pain or the sorrow. The other evening, I came out of the kitchen to find Mulder sitting on the couch with you tucked securely under one arm. His head rested gently on yours, and he rocked you slowly. He sang to you, Samantha. I've never heard him sing before. "I'd like to be, Such a simple scene. Nothing is simple. Mulder's days have been spent in an attempt to unravel the tangled web of possibilities presented by what little could be learned from the Frog Island evidence. He's taken every item found there and every statement from the people who worked there, trying to trace something back to a source with knowledge of the project. He's investigated every manufacturer of every device in the place; every equipment provider. Hell, he's even investigated the supermarket where the milk found in the fridge was purchased. All he has to show for it is a map of the United States on his living room wall stuck full of push pins. Meanwhile, Skinner is running out of excuses to keep from assigning the two of them to regular cases. Yesterday, he told Mulder that time was running out. I slipped out quietly the night Mulder sang to you and rocked you in his arms, and I came to a realization that leaves me sad and empty. My absence from the sidelines would go largely unnoticed. My cheers would not be missed. The runners do not race for me. They race for themselves. And for you, Sam. October 1, 1997 This reaction against the species-centric, Enlightenment view of human intelligence as Prime Mover strikes me as a pathetic attempt to tell ourselves comforting stories in the midst of a frightening thunderstorm on a dark night. In this view, what we do, or do not do, is merely a part of some great, elaborate pattern that, despite individual choices and actions, will always be whatever it is meant to be. So why get your knickers in a twist over doing the right thing? And why worry about events when it's so easy to tell yourself you have no control over them? When out atoms blend with the matter that surrounds us, when our species becomes extinct, when our sun goes nova, when the universe contracts to a single point off unfathomable density containing everything that ever existed, what will it matter what someone said on a given Tuesday evening in autumn? And yet it does. We had just sat down for dinner at Mulder's kitchen table Scully, he, you and I. We were eating silently: actually, Mulder was cutting up your food: when there was a knock at the door. We froze. With all of us there, no one else was expected. Company seemed guaranteed to be bad news. Mulder drew his gun, looked at me and nodded toward the bedroom. Taking your hand, I led you there, closing the door and trying to still the frantic beating of my heart. I looked around for something to use as a weapon, wondering why in movies there always seemed to be a baseball bat or a heavy vase lying around. I could hear the front door open, followed by muffled voices. Footsteps. The bedroom door swung inward. I gripped your hand harder as if to lock you to me. It was Dana. She motioned me to come out, and I followed her into the living room with you in tow. Walter Skinner was there. "I need to talk to you two," he said, emphasizing the "two" while glaring at me through the blank, flat glass circles that shielded his eyes. "She knows the risks," Dana said. I swallowed, wondering if that were really true. Skinner merely nodded and went on. His story was brief, and I didn't fully understand it. There were signs of great upheaval in "certain circles." An Englishman who, he told Mulder and Dana, "was known to you but whose identity remains a mystery," had turned up dead. I didn't grasp the implications, but neither did I miss the twin, sharp inhalations this news elicited. Skinner said he's seen signs of a change in those "certain circles." A destabilization. Infighting. Even panic. The signs began when you appeared, Sam. Knowing as little as I do, I can only guess at the meaning of all this. Perhaps your return was the action of a rogue party working against the consortium. Maybe this Englishman. Or it represents a divergence in strategy between two factions, a sign of internal conflict. I don't know. But I do know that I believed Skinner when he said things were more dangerous than ever. When he left, I asked Dana and Mulder what this news might mean. They exchanged a look the significance of which was lost on me: but not, undoubtedly, on each other. "It means we're running out of time," Dana said. That was all the answer I got. October 2, 1997 After that, he'd have to come up with another solution. He nodded that tiny little nod. The one that could mean "no" just as much as "yes." His obvious reluctance to discuss the subject made the next part even harder, but I felt I had to say it. I asked him if he'd like me to look into a suitable nursing home. I just hoped he wouldn't start throwing things. Instead, he just shook his head as slightly as he'd nodded it before. I didn't know what to make of that, so I asked him what he would do with you when I couldn't come any more. He just shrugged. You sat as silent as ever, unaware of, or at least unresponsive to, your fate. Mulder went to stand behind you and caress your hair. "Thank you," he said, his voice small even in the tight space of his crowded little apartment. I felt as though I should say something. I got as far as opening my mouth, then snapped it shut again. I had no idea what I wanted to say. How sorry I was that he had the world's shittiest luck? I mean, the guy finally gets some love after a lifetime of loneliness, guilt and a self-image just a notch below subterranean. And bam. His long-lost sister turns up with the personality of a leek. How scared I was? For the past couple of weeks, I've been plagued by moments of near-panic I imagine to be like what an airline passenger experiences when hearing the words, "Brace for impact" over the loudspeaker. Somehow, I suspected that thought wouldn't do Mulder a whole lot of good. How badly I wanted to run like hell, break my lease and move to another state? Another country? Another hemisphere? Yeah. Only then I'd have to articulate just what I'd be running from. And I don't like thinking about it. I mean, I'm happy for them. Both of them. I swear. It's just that... No. Stop right there, Rachel. You will not play the fool. Don't mix Macbeth with Melrose Place. Don't trivialize what's going on here. So what was I babbling about? Oh, yeah. Your brother said, "thank you." I'll just tuck that away in a safe place that's all mine. Is that very selfish of me? To treasure two lousy words I barely heard? Sometimes I'm afraid the only reason I'm doing this is just to hear those two lousy words. That thought makes me feel very small. So I'll just lock that notion away, too. October 3, 1997 The stupid map with the pins seems to have paid off. At some ungodly hour this morning, when your damn fool of a brilliant brother should have been sleeping, he was instead staring at that map. Knowing him, he probably considered it a test of will: either the map would cough up an answer, or his eyes would fall out of his head. No other outcome would be acceptable. Apparently, a new idea eventually occurred to him. Going back to the roster of companies that had anything to do with the inventory from Frog Island, he started making lists. Lots of them. He listed the hundred or so firms alphabetically. He listed them by size. By profitability. By product type. Then, he color-coded each list, matching a pin color to a category. He must have been moving pins around for hours. It wasn't until he tried the listing by age that he found it. A cluster. When Dana and I showed up in the morning, we found him so agitated he couldn't sit down, couldn't stand still, couldn't stop moving his hands, running them through his hair, picking up random object, putting them down somewhere else. I looked at the map as he prattled on, and there it was, plain as day. Red pins. They stood for companies founded in the 1950s. No less than fourteen of them were spread across northeastern California, southern Oregon and northwestern Nevada. Mulder's excitement was infectious, and I found I was smiling as I turned from my examination of the map. At last, something straightforward and convincing. Something even I could wrap my mind around. So why was Dana frowning? Her expression was downright stern. Accusatory, even. I didn't understand. "Forty thousand square miles," she said in a funereal tone. Mulder's face collapsed into a downward pull of anger and frustration, a contrast so sharp with his previous wide-eyed hopefulness that it touched my heart. How could she do that to him? How dare she? What right does she have to douse the flames of his urgency? I watched in fascination as they fell into their assigned roles, realizing this very scene must have been played out hundreds of times between them. She, probing, questioning, doubting, testing for weakness. He, insistent, assertive, confident. I held my peace, believing that this conflict was, if not harmless, then necessary, like a poisoned body healing itself by violently disgorging the dangerous toxin. The upheaval eventually quieted into small, retching spasms. Mulder was all for flying out west right away, paying random visits to the companies marked by red pins on his map. Dana worked to convince him it would be folly, given that there were fourteen locations and they had no clear idea what they were looking for. "So what do you expect me to do, Scully? Nothing?" Mulder asked, hurling at her the bilious by-product of their conflict. Could these really be the same two people I'd seen spooned sweetly together in the shared shelter of a warm bed? That miraculous scene now seemed like a snooze-button dream I'd once had rather than the crisply poignant memory it had been these last few weeks. "The technicians," Dana said. To my surprise, Mulder merely nodded in agreement. I could no longer contain myself. "What about them?" They both looked at me in a way that made it clear my presence had been utterly forgotten. I was as little a part of what was going on there as you, Sam. The technicians who had been staffing the Frog Island facility had been released, Mulder explained. No evidence could be found that they'd had any notion the test subjects were being held against their will or that the experiments they monitored were illegal. Apparently, they knew little of the nature of the tests, having been told only that it had something to do with sleep patterns. But they were the only witnesses, the only connection to the project. Their bosses, the men who had been in charge, had not been at the facility when the FBI had arrived. The names, descriptions and fingerprints of the people in authority, taken from the witnesses and the physical evidence, had matched no one in any law enforcement database. The initial interrogations of the technicians had yielded nothing that could illuminate the nature of the group behind the project. But now, with something more specific to question them on: a geographic region: they might offer information that had seemed insignificant before. Maybe the name of a town overheard in conversation, or a company, or perhaps even a person. It meant Mulder and Dana would have to hit the road to track down the witnesses, who had scattered after the FBI had gotten done with them. I assured them I would stay with you while they did what they had to do. So here we are, Sam. I think I'll wash your hair tonight. You have such beautiful hair. October 4, 1997 Jesus. Get a grip. Get a grip. I'm so scared. This fucking Winnebago is so goddamn claustrophobic. I don't even have a gun. Stop. Okay. I'll tell the story. That's what matters. I washed your hair last night. I'll start with that. It was relaxing - for me, anyway. I don't know about you. Then I dried it and put you to bed. I lay down on the couch. I didn't sleep very well. Not surprising, I guess. Strange apartment. Stranger circumstances. Besides, that couch is infected with nightmares. I was bound to catch a few. Though I couldn't have been sleeping very deeply, I don't know exactly what awakened me. It must have been something subtle, because I floated to consciousness slowly. At first, there was nothing to alarm me, and I would have just rolled over and gone back to sleep. But then I smelled it, and I sprang up like a jackin-the-box, my heart hammering that insipid, rhythmless tune those things play when you crank the handle. Smoke. He was there. Just sitting in an armchair, in the dark, smoke curling from the glowing red tip of a Morley, watching me calmly as though this situation were the most normal in the world. For one insane moment, I wondered if it was. Maybe people like him watching people like me happened all the time. The crazy thought burst like a bubble when he spoke. "I'm sorry to have disturbed you, Miss Sachs." His voice was strange, the hard consonants cracking and the sibilants hissing, his cadence unnaturally slow and deliberate. My last name on his tongue sounded like a punctured tire losing all its air. It was too dark to see him clearly, but I could tell from his shape that he wore a business suit and that his legs were crossed. He looked comfortable, as though he'd been sitting there a while and had made himself at home. I told him to get the fuck out or I would call the police. It was all I could think to say, though it must have sounded painfully naive. He laughed and replied that there was no need to use profanity. So of course I told him to go fuck himself. Ignoring my outburst, he proceeded to deliver his message. He said you had been returned and were permitted to stay at his sole discretion, and that he could change his mind at any time. He gave me a message for "Samantha's brother and his partner" that's exactly how he referred to them. "Tell them to drop their current investigation," he said, "and I will cure Samantha Mulder." The next thing I knew, I was shouting at him, asking him what they'd done to you, what gave them the right, how dare he make threats. It was so unbelievably frustrating, to have the devil right there before me delivering his evil ultimatum, and to be able to do nothing but throw blunt, harmless words at him. If I had had a gun at that moment, would I have used it? Dana told me once of the temptation to do so, to act as proverbial judge, jury and executioner. Now I understand completely. I think I would have done it. I think I would have blown his greasy head right off his stooped, narrow shoulders. Or maybe not. It doesn't matter now. It's too late. The smoker just got up and left while I was still screaming at him. I rose to my feet as the door closed behind him and stumbled across the room, turning the lock with a badly shaking hand. Not that the lock had stopped him in the first place. If he had intended to hurt me, or you, Sam, he could certainly have done so before I'd have known he was even there. I stood in the dark trying to quiet me pounding heart and rapid, panicky breathing, listening for any sounds from the hallway. Was he still out there? Was anyone else coming? Minutes passed: I don't know how many. The first fierce flush of adrenaline began to ebb, and I found I could think again. Only one thought would come. Run. I found you lying awake. Perhaps the shouting had roused you. I got you up and dressed as quickly as I could, then dressed myself. Grabbing the suitcase I'd brought for my stay, I blindly tossed some things out to make room and threw some of your things in. I bundled you up in a warm jacket: it wasn't cold out, but I had no clear notion where we'd end up, or for how long and grabbed a piece of paper Mulder had left by the phone. My hand was on the doorknob when the panic returned. What if he was standing outside, waiting? I forced myself to open the door. The hallway was quiet and empty. I took you by the hand and headed out, locking the door behind me. There was no one in the street outside, either, and I began to breathe at a human rate again. It was about 4 AM, and only the occasional whoosh of a passing car broke the stillness. We got into my old Jetta and drove off to the address written on the paper that I clutched with the desperation of a fallen climber grasping a ledge. The place was a plain door at the end of a dim hallway in a drab little building on a bad block. Only the video camera hanging from a high bracket, trained on the spot where I stood knocking, gave a clue that this was the place. When the door finally opened, a skinny man with long, oilsodden hair and heavy glasses eyed me suspiciously. I had obviously woken him up. His face still bore the marks of his wrinkled pillow case, his skin matching the clothing he'd been sleeping in. He wasn't what I'd expected, but I plunged ahead anyway. It wasn't like I had a Plan B in my back pocket. I told him I was a friend of Mulder's, and that I needed his help. He took a good look at you, Sam, and I could see his face become alert as realization hit him. He grabbed us both by the arms and pulled us inside. The man introduced himself as Langly and asked if you were Mulder's sister. I said "Yes," and he said, "Awesome." I can't really blame him. It is pretty awesome. Besides, he must have been hearing about you for a very long time. I waited for him to finish his 360-degree inspection before telling him why we'd come. He agreed to give my message to Mulder and Dana, but asked me to give him more than a pager number. I considered it for a moment. Mulder did, after all, trust this guy. And Mulder is the Supreme Emperor of Paranoia. But people can be gotten to. You're my responsibility, Sam, and I'm not going to take foolish risks. This is a dangerous game, and I'm a novice player. I'm sticking to the safe moves. As if there were any safe moves... So I told Langly to have Mulder or Dana page me to a secure number. Not like I have a clue whether such a thing actually exists. But they do, and I'll have to trust to that. When I took you by the hand and turned to go, the guy surprised me by offering to come with us. One of the other Lone Gunmen could deliver the message, he said, adding that I could probably use some articulate company. I don't think he meant that as an insult, Sam. I really think he wanted to help us. Funny. Some of the most decent people are the biggest kooks. I thanked him but turned him down. Sitting here, now, half out of my mind with fear, I wonder if that was a mistake. "Here" is a Winnebago parked at a campsite deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains. My friend Peter will be pretty upset when he finds his RV missing: but hey, he gave me the keys and said to use it whenever I wanted to. Sure, he probably figured I'd let him know when that might be. I just hope my car is still on the street where I parked it in that shitty neighborhood where the Lone Gunmen hold council. Trivial. That's stupid. Let me live through this, and some inner city youth can have my damn Jetta with 93,000 miles on the odometer and very little clutch left. Jesus. I have to find a way off this roller coaster ride of panic. I'm just not cut out for this shit. How do Dana and Mulder do it? They always look so calm. At least, Dana does. And the crap that Mulder freaks out about has nothing to do with the danger. He pops off about his oddball theories or his guilt trip du jour. But when it comes to fear, he seems to have been born without. Or is that something they teach you in G-person school? Is there a lecture called, "How not to wet yourself when things get nasty?" Must be between "Badge-flashing for success" and "Your trenchcoat is your friend." Babbling again. And there you sit, Sam. Placid as ever, like a sheep out to pasture. Time for me to take a page from your book. We've been up most of the night. Let's try to get some rest. October 5, 1997 Today, horror is mine. It rests dripping in my hands, its putrid stench invading my nostrils. It burns my skin and stings my eyes. I want to drop this hideous thing so that it lies like the bloody pulp of a human heart, ripped from the chest and left to rot. I want to run away from it. But this thing in my hands still beats. It belongs to humanity, just as Auschwitz and the killing fields of Cambodia do. To drop it and run is to forget, to absolve, to deny. And I will never forget what I saw today. It transcended mere physical torment, operating instead in the ethereal, almost mystical realm of the mind. The most vulnerable human organ, where defenses are weak and no wound ever truly heals. Fox Mulder bears such a wound of the mind, a very old wound that has never healed. It was created when someone removed some part of him with blind, uncaring violence. Until today, the wound had been covered by a thin layer of skin, appearing normal to others, but allowing him no relief. Just beneath the surface, it festered with microbes that nibbled hungrily at raw, inflamed tissue. The pain was constant, driving him ever to seek what had been removed. Today, he found it. The missing part was reattached, returned to him by a mortal enemy who tore it mercilessly from him again, leaving the wound more open than ever, weeping the vital fluids that make sanity possible. Oh, Samantha. I'm sorry. I write in riddles because I can't bring myself to tell the plain truth about what the Smoker did to your brother today. And to you. The story. Tell the story. The truth is in the story. Early yesterday evening, my pager beeped loudly in the quiet Winnebago, startling me from a fitful, disturbed sleep. I called the number from my cell phone. Dana answered. I told her of the smoker's visit and of our flight. I told her where I was. I asked her what to do, trying not to sound too frightened. I wanted her to believe I could handle this. I wanted her to trust me. I heard her relay the information to Mulder, and I heard him curse. They would come to me, Dana said. But they couldn't get there before morning. Last night was a torment of waiting. At the time, I would have called it the worst possible torment. Now I know better. My long vigil ended with the noise of a car's engine at midmorning. Fear surged as I waited to see whether the sound brought friends or foes. When Dana and Mulder appeared, I felt as though my burden had been lifted. Let them decide. That's their role, not mine. The debate began immediately, obviously carrying over from one they were having before they arrived. Where should they hide her? Would any place be safe? What about leaving the country? It went on for five, maybe ten minutes, and was so heated that we never heard the footsteps approaching. The camper's door opened, and our alternatives melted away like ice cream in a microwave. The smoker stood there, outlined against the morning brightness like a black hole in the fabric of the universe. Mulder instantly kicked into defensive overdrive, shouting his defiance as he and Dana leveled their weapons at the intruder's head. The smoker spoke calmly in his oily voice, offering unconvincing guarantees that he had no desire to see it come to violence. Why should it, he asked, when each of them had what the other wanted? And there was the deal again, out on the table for all to examine. For their part, Mulder and Dana leave off their pursuit of the truth, which, the smoker assured them, they would never find anyway. If that were so, why offer a deal? Dana voiced the question. It sounded like a very good question to me. He ignored her and went on, focusing his words on Mulder alone. For his part, in exchange, Samantha is cured. I waited for Mulder to erupt in rage. Instead, he quietly asked how he could be sure the smoker would live up to his part of the bargain. That inquiry opened up possibilities I had never considered, paths the existence of which I had been aware, but which I had all along assumed would never be taken. But why not, after all? Why should he forever live a slave to an unending quest, a character in an eternal tragedy in which the permanent lack of closure is itself a kind of fate? For Mulder, limbo had become a final destination: and thank you for flying the conspiratorial skies. Offered a shot at the brass ring and a way off the merry-go-round, why shouldn't he take it? All those questions unwrapped themselves in my mind in the tense moment between Mulder asking and the smoker replying. "Let me show you," he said. Reaching into his coat pocket, careful not to move too quickly with two guns trained on him, he took out a device that looked more than anything like a TV remote control. As he pointed it at you, Sam, your brother jumped forward as if to shield you with his body. Either he was too late, or the physical barrier made no difference. We saw the smoker's finger squeeze a button on the device, and all eyes whipped around to look at you. You raised your head. "Fox?" One word, rasped through rusty, disused vocal cords. The sound made me choke on my own spit. The world seemed to dissolve. Reality zoomed in on Fox and Samantha Mulder, as though a telephoto lens had closed down my field of vision to the space occupied by the scene's two main players. "Samantha?" And then he was on his knees beside you, his arms wrapped tightly around you, his face pressed hard into your neck, your name repeated over and over. You stroked his hair, your eyes squeezed shut, your lip quivering with unnamed emotion. At long last, you pulled back and looked him in the eye, telling him you thought you'd never see him again. That he had become a man when you remembered a boy. That you never forgot him. That you had missed him. He listened, drinking in the ragged sound of your feeble voice, the vivid animation of your now-responsive features, your tears that could have been equal parts sorrow for the ache of separation and joy for the fulfillment of reunion. Minute stretched into minute. You stopped speaking, and still you rested passive in his arms, watching him look at you. Finally, he spoke, words choked with feeling. "I never stopped looking, Samantha." And you froze. The world came rushing back as three pairs of eyes turned to the forgotten outsider. He held the device poised, aimed at your head, for another moment before replacing it in his pocket. Your arms fell away from your brother to hang limply at your sides. "NO!" Mulder leaped to his feet and lunged, but Dana was faster. She shoved the smoker to the wall and grabbed him by the lapels, hissing at him to give her the device. He just laughed. Surely she didn't think he would have shown them something he couldn't control, he asked mockingly. The device in his pocket could be disabled anywhere, at any time. Taking it from him would do no good. And if they harmed him, there would be no cure. Ever. With great reluctance, Dana unhanded him. He straightened his mussed coat, took out a cigarette, and lit it. "Call me when you're ready to deal," he said, handing Dana a card. And he left. It was with a sense of terrible dread that I brought myself to turn and look at Mulder. Silent tears streaked his cheeks. His face reflected what the scene had been for him. His own worst nightmare. They did it to him again. The thing that had corrupted his youth, stolen his future, slaughtered his innocence. They took you away as he stood by, watching helplessly. It would have been kinder to put a bullet through his brain. But this time, he has a choice. A terrible choice. If he chooses the truth, he abandons you. If he chooses you, he forsakes the truth. By forcing him to choose, the smoker makes him complicit in his own sad fate. Damned if he does. Damned if he doesn't. Therein lies the horror. October 6, 1997 Mulder sits at the kitchen table, feeding his full-grown but helpless sister. Dana sits beside him, carefully cleaning and buffing her most important possession: her gun. I sit on the couch, scribbling furiously, wishing I were a million miles away. Dad, Mom, Baby and Sis. Begin theme music, cue laugh track. This week, Sis worries about why she can't get a date while Mom and Dad wait for an important phone call from the boss. Good, clean fun. We drove the RV back here last night. No one said a word the whole way, and the silence was as thick as Martha Stewart's tapioca pudding. It's a good thing. Once back in Mulder's apartment, I busied myself getting you to bed, dreading the inevitable argument. They waited until we "kids" were safely in the other room before starting. "You're not really considering this, are you?" The explosion followed, as surely as if a flame had touched a fuse. Why the hell shouldn't he? All he ever wanted was to get his sister back. This was his chance. Didn't he have the right to live in peace for a while? No one could tell him he hadn't suffered enough, sacrificed enough. On and on, until he ran out of steam and the torrent of words abated. At some point, I slipped back into the living room and silently took a place in the corner, wedged protectively between the wall and the bookcase. Dana waited patiently for Mulder's roiling emotions to settle. When at last they did, she shifted gears completely, engaging him on a level she knew he couldn't resist. She told him, quite simply, to stop and think about what they now knew or could infer about your condition and the project that made you this way. The implants. They obviously give the men behind the project a way to control your very thought processes. Turn them off, and the processes just shut down. Turn them on, and all systems are normal. But what if there were a third mode: a much more subtle one, in which those processes could be controlled and manipulated? Mulder was with her now, following her line of thought with interest. I could see his mind working, chewing on the data he'd previously swallowed whole. Digesting it. Dana saw it, too. So she threw him a prompt, a question to spur his thinking. What's it got to do with Frog Island? He took up the tale. This kind of sophisticated mind control would require massive experimental data on normal brain function. The vast majority of abductees who later find a single implant in their necks are involved in this part of the experiment: stimulating, recording and analyzing the functions of a normal brain. The information gleaned from the batteries of tests performed on those many women is used to perfect the mind-control process on a selected few long-term subjects who cannot themselves undergo such intensive testing. Obviously, much was invested in subjects like Samantha. The inevitable abbreviation of the normal life span would be unacceptable for them. For a fleeting moment, he reached out and lightly brushed his fingertips across her arm. Just enough contact to let her know he hadn't forgotten her or her part in this. The fact that it was her life span he was talking about. Unfazed, she took up the next question. How could such technology possibly exist? So much work has yet to be done to understand the human brain, let alone to create the mechanisms that could manipulate it. Mulder grew agitated again, insisting that she was refusing to consider the most likely explanation. Extraterrestrials. The bickering began again as they went back and forth over the point. It was Dana who again advanced the argument. What, she asked, could the purpose of this project possibly be? Mulder answered in a whisper, as though saying it aloud might somehow hasten the eventuality. Total control. Total power. Over everyone. "But that's mad!" I don't know who was more surprised at my outburst, they or I. Not that it mattered. A dense, stifling silence fell. When Dana finally broke it, it was to tell Mulder gently that, if he did the deal, the project would go forward. There would be other Samanthas. Maybe many others. And besides, she added, they had a lead to follow up. The cluster of red pins. The phone rang. When Mulder hung up, his face was white. Skinner had called to let them know that two of the Frog Island technicians had been found in different states with their throats slit. Mulder had told Skinner to have the others rounded up and taken into protective custody. To set up a safe house where they could be further interrogated. Dana raised an eyebrow in question. He nodded slightly, and she closed her eyes. Is the investigation on? Yes. The deal is off. It was late, and I decided to stay, sharing a bed with you. I suppose they squeezed onto the couch together. And now we bide our time, waiting for Skinner to call and let us know how many, if any, of the witnesses from Maine have been found alive. Mulder feeds you. Dana cleans her gun. And I write. There's an odd calm this morning. The sun shines brightly though easterly windows. We four are at ease together, though we are uneasy about so much. The phone rings. Mulder says only, "I see. Thank you." He hangs up and tells us without being asked. Two more dead, four alive. Skinner would come by personally when the safe house has been arranged. Dana stands and crosses to him, reaching out to cup his cheek in her hand. "That's good news," she tells him. "We have witnesses left. We'll get a lead." He looks at her. His eyes tell her what he wants. It's time for me to go. End
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