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Title: Resolution Summary: A picture of a partnership's darker days, painted while Mulder and Scully investigate a case. Northern Virginia Scully leaned back in her desk chair. Taking off her reading glasses, which she always wore when using the computer, she palmed her eyes. It was Sunday night. She was tired. And she didn't know if the message on the screen before her represented what she really wanted. "Dana K. Scully" it read. "Position objective: To develop and direct a state of the art forensic pathology laboratory." "Availability: With appropriate notice to current employer." "Yes, " she thought. "I think that's what I want. But what if I'm wrong? Right now I don't have a life, a life with real live people in it." She'd been so lonely, and hadn't really dated anyone since she'd been assigned as Mulder's partner. Her association with Mulder had probably scared off some of the 'eligibles' in the Bureau, the ones who weren't Agents. She and Mulder had been close, as partners, and for a time, even as pals, but never really as friends. At least, she didn't think so. And he was not emotionally reliable; he would draw away, for no reason she could discern, except a mild case of depression. Scully had identified it quite early in the partnership. It came and went several times a year. During the good times, he could be great fun, almost outgoing. During the difficult times, he was withdrawn and silent. It never seemed to affect the brilliance of his work. But it did affect how he worked with others. Scully had heard there had been several other partners, before her, but none had clicked. She wondered, not for the first time, why she had been assigned. In any event, he didn't seem to be the man for her to share the rest of her life with. He was frightening off any other possibilities. In any event, the Bureau frowned on fraternization, at least among the Agents. But the Bureau employed many non-Agents. With the exception of one or two of the medical staff, and several of the younger computer programming staff, most shied away, especially after they found out who she was. And who she worked with. Dana Katherine Scully wanted a life. One with time for friends, companions, and possibly a lover. She smiled at the possibility, and immediately an image of Joel Walton, wavy dark brown hair, neatly trimmed beard, wonderful open smile below big brown eyes came to mind. Not a lover, at least not yet. But Joel represented a possibility. A definite possibility. Dana hadn't felt the way he made her feel in a long time. She found she liked the feeling, and wanted more. For that she'd need the time to pursue it. And if it turned out not to be Joel, there would certainly be someone. "Never second guess yourself." That's what her father had told her, and that was exactly what she was doing. With a shrug, Dana punched up FILE/SAVE on the resume file. It had taken three months of thinking, but she had finally made up her mind. She had decided to leave the FBI. Now all she had to do was find a job, and tell them. Tell them all. Including Mulder. Monday, October 31 Mulder's eyes slowly opened to the thin light of a Washington October morning. Daylight savings time meant it was light when you woke up, but dark when you came home, at least until Christmas, when it was dark when you woke up and dark when you came home. For the first couple of minutes he wondered why he was awake. It was Sunday. Sunday was a day of rest. He should be resting. And his head hurt. Mulder wasn't sufficiently awake to get beyond those facts. It WAS Sunday, wasn't it? As he gradually became better able to concentrate on his environment, Mulder attempted to focus on what had awakened him. Not the light, he was sure. Light was good for sleeping, in the personal scheme of things, but not for much else. Mulder was a night owl; whether it was a natural condition, or a reflection of and reaction to his on-going insomnia he did not know. He slowly turned his head a bit, but didn't lift it from the pillow. He heard some kind of insistent buzzing. Couldn't be the phone; they ring. All he really wanted was to roll over and surrender himself to the arms of Morpheus, knowing that Morpheus rarely delivered dreams, or their bastard cousin, the nightmare, at least not in broad daylight. Had he been more awake, he might have smiled, or at least smirked, at the linguistic formulation, but for now... The buzzing continued. He shoved himself more or less upright on the couch, dumping the blanket, and heard several soft thumps on the carpet. Must be the remote for the TV. He had others, including the remote control for the video recorder, and the remote for the tiny stereo that occupied the corner of the living room. His electronic's collection, except for the computer, had been assembled bit by bit, purchased from friends, or notices on bulletin boards. None was really compatible with the other, and most of it was old; the idea of a single remote seemed, well, remote. He looked down slowly and saw the collection, on the rug. Next to the paper. Next to the paper with color comics. Next to Sunday's paper. Geez. Sunday must be over. The buzzing finally activated enough brain cells to register as the alarm clock, in the bedroom, where most people would sleep. He'd never made it that far. With that, he shoved himself upright, and dragged into the bathroom. He kicked what he profoundly hoped was not an empty vodka bottle on the way. Judging by his head, it was empty. A shower would help. Or at least, so he told himself. Mulder turned on he hot water, full blast, and thanked whatever gods of kindness that might exist for the high force shower head. The apartment had several good points, close to the marvelous Washington subway system, inexpensive (by Washington standards, though he, unmarried, unattached, and not really looking had little enough else to spend his salary on) with heat that worked and a functional air conditioner, for the hot months. And hot water. Lots and lots of hot water. Mulder let the water pound on his brain, in a futile effort to reactivate the remaining live brain cells. It was loud enough that he couldn't hear the phone. One ring, two, three. "This is the number you called" brayed the answer box. "Leave a message and I'll get back to you." Not too sophisticated, but sufficient. "Mulder." Dead silence from his end, except for the audible whirring of the tape. "MULDER! Mulder, if you're there, pick up." A few more seconds silence suggested that he was either absent, not answering, or possibly dead to the feminine voice at the other end. Fortunately, Mulder lacked the technological skills to set the machine to turn itself off if no one spoke into it. "MULDERRRRRR! Get yourself to the office. Get yourself here right away. Skinner wants to see you. He'd like it to be soon. Really soon." With that Dana Scully, having done all that was possible short of hopping a cab from the monolithic pile of concrete that the FBI called home to north Arlington, hung up. It was a trip she didn't want to make. Mulder's troubles, and he hid a lot of them beneath a fairly affable, if mainly misleading, public face, were Mulder's. She had problems of her own, many of them connected to being saddled, at least part time, with a partner who was close to a certifiable loony. Mulder managed to come out of the shower without barking shins, or hitting anything with his elbows. He didn't bother to wrap himself up. Just toweled off and ambled back to the living room. His eyes were open too, open enough to see the shambles of that space. Slowly it came back to him. Saturday, right, that was the day one of the Information division deputies--she must outrank him by 5 GS grades, and had a reputation for kindness to staff-- her husband and son took him out to the wilds of suburban northern Virginia. Yard sale hopping. In a van. A true suburban Saturday, with all the trimmings. He couldn't believe he'd agreed to that. Anita and Bill must pick up stray cats, too. Couch. Right, a replacement, less lumpy, and if you took your time it folded out to a bed, much better than what had been there before. And curtains. Curtains? Oh yes, Bill had put up the rod. They'd gone out to dinner, the four of them, Mulder, Anita, Bill, and their son Pete. Pete was 13 and a computer whiz. He was also still fairly polite, having not yet lapsed into the total brain lock called adolescence. They'd had Italian, in Arlington, dropped him off, and gone home. It had been late for Anita, well past 11:00, and she had church at 8:30. Mulder vaguely remembered her asking him to join the family, and his polite decline of the offer. The message light on his phone winked. Unfortunately, it didn't have a fog horn attached. Church had little to offer Mulder, who wondered whether there could possibly be a God who allowed such terrible things to happen. It might have been better than the way he had spent the day. Slept in, and in his bed, for a change. By himself, but that was the usual story. Did laundry. Did a lot of laundry, washing some of the clothes he'd picked up, including some flannel lined pants and a couple of flannel shirts, hauling it in a plastic basket, on foot, two blocks to Columbia Pike, to the local coin-op. He'd been amazed at the quality of stuff people could put out for yard sales; the trick was to go to sales in upscale neighborhoods. In between loading laundry, Mulder had read a couple of papers. The evidence, scattered piles of newsprint, seemed to confirm memory. That must be when he read the Sunday paper. Eventually he got the laundry done, and shoved the couch into it's new home, displacing old lumpy. What had happened to the old one? Oh yes, maintenance man said he'd take it. Straightened up the shelf that held his computer, the TV, the VCR and the stereo. Mulder smiled when he remembered Peter's kidding him about having all that stuff too close together. Generated competing electrical vibrations, or something. Never seemed to cause problems however. And how the boy had insisted on straightening up and taping the appropriate wiring. The problems usually came from other things. Memory seemed to be getting vaguer, although an empty carry out carton suggested Chinese. "Great detective work, special agent." Mulder got himself dressed, came back into the living room, and bent over to pick up the carton, hoping fervently that he'd emptied it before he had knocked it over. Close by, he found an empty beer bottle, and a little further away, snuggled next to the couch, the empty liquor bottle. No wonder his head hurt. He picked up the trash, and dumped it. The trash can was next to phone. The blinking light finally registered. Mulder hit "play" and was rewarded. "Mulder." Then silence. "Hmmph, " he thought. "She's ready to talk." "MULDER! Mulder, if you're there, pick up." Mulder thought by the tone of voice she hadn't called voluntarily. A few more seconds silence dragged by. Scully represented another of the far too occasional grace notes in his life. Normally, he'd be pleased to hear from her, especially since she had been noticeably absent the last three months. She sounded unhappy. "MULDERRRRRR! Get your self to the office. Get yourself here right away. Skinner wants to see you. He'd like it to be soon. Really soon." Mulder hit the rewind button, walked over to the bureau, and picked up change, wallet, and badge from the litter on the top. He pulled on his overcoat, and started out of the apartment. Maybe he'd get some coffee, once he got to the office. He hadn't worked with Scully for months, hadn't talked to her since she'd come back from that dreadful assignment in Oklahoma City. Maybe he'd skip the coffee. His headache was getting worse.. It felt cold outside, but Mulder thought he was just experiencing the huge difference in temperatures between outside normal, and inside, shower enhanced temperatures. He walked, as briskly as possible, in the direction of the bus stop, happy, when he got there, to see there were still papers in the box. He dropped a quarter in, and pulled out a Washington POST. By and by the bus came along; Mulder dropped some money in the fare box (why couldn't they have tokens?) and worked his way to an empty seat, settling in for the short hop to the Pentagon, nearest subway stop. There wasn't time to open the paper, just glance at the front page. Weather: Mostly sunny, windy and cool. Winds, northwest 15-25 mph. High 62, Low 40. AQI: Good. A brief glance out the window confirmed the sunny part, anyway. The right hand above-the-fold article detailed the damage done to a bridge over the Washington beltway, much further out, but still on the Virginia side. Apparently a gasoline truck had over turned, burned itself, burned the driver, and burned the bridge. The article said it would remain closed until further notice. Left side above the fold was some drivel on welfare reform. Mulder had long since ceased reading anything connected with politics, though, arguably, he lived close by the most political city in the country. Several smaller articles appeared below the fold, including some bleat about the governor of Maryland, a little more sociological yapping, and a short article announcing that an Army Ranger sergeant, age 36, had gone berserk, taken an M-16 from stock, added tracer bullets, and had proceeded to shoot, murder, and/or maim 31 fellow soldiers, including his lieutenant. Mulder shrugged to himself. People went crazy all the time. Fortunately, only a few of them did it with combat firepower available and in their hands. The bus glided into its bay, and Mulder, along with 40 or so others, probably civil servants all, made his way off, through the never ending construction, and to the Metro platform. The office was only 20 minutes or so away. Dr. Scully firmly wished she were back in the lab, or at Quantico, or even in the closet--really meant only for files but quickly converted by Mulder and herself into a very efficient efficiency office--with two scrounged (and very beat-up) desks, facing one another, two chairs--the fake leatherette arms on hers were torn--and several filing cabinets. People outside the Bureau assumed that since the building was relatively new, the furniture was as well. People assumed wrong; there was a huge depot in Northern Virginia where all surplus furniture went. Some of it was refinished by Prison Industries. The rest just waited to be rescued "as is" and recycled. Mulder's chair was in the latter category, and appeared to date from a different century. It was covered with real leather. He had been offered the opportunity to have it recovered, but recovering meant naugahyde. Mulder had declined. The chair must have belonged to a big wig, most likely a long time ago. Scully and her partner had agreed from the beginning that it might be best to keep their operation discrete, away from the eyes of the other Agents. Scully rated an office of her own down at the Quantico facility, but nearly everyone in the headquarters building below senior executive service level shared. Most of the special agents resided in a huge open bull pen. The double office, even though located far from the heart of the building, was a real perk. Scully had gone out scrounging with one of her few Washington pals, Anita Williams, which is how they came by the furnishings. Aside from being optimistic, pleasant, smart, earthy, funny, and knowing every bit of gossip from the last 20 years, Anita knew how to scavenge. Sometimes she joked that she took orders. She had promised to look for a real coat tree, maybe oak, to replace the too-large metal monstrosity in the corner. Instead of waiting in her office, Scully was cooling her heels in the waiting room outside Assistant Director's Skinner's office. She hoped Mulder arrived soon. She hadn't been partnered with him in three months, hadn't worked an x-file in longer that that, and was considering leaving the x-files, leaving the violent crime division, and maybe the Bureau altogether. She hoped that whatever Skinner had in mind, it wouldn't be some wild goose chase. Most of their cases seemed to be just that, the chase taking longer while Special Agent Mulder thought it over, looking for alien abductions, conspiracies, and just plain weirdness. Scully admitted to herself that the unexplainable had occurred. At least things that were unexplainable by conventional reasoning and explanations. Sometimes, the appearance was caused by a lack of information on which to base the explanation. Other times, there simply wasn't a rational explanation. The intercom on Mary Ellen Garcia's phone buzzed, interrupting Agent Scully's reverie. A few words, not many, passed between the Assistant Director's secretary and the chief himself. Afterward, Mary Ellen cleared her throat. "Dr. Scully, do you know when Agent Mulder will be available?" Clearly she was trying to coat what the chief had said. "I believe he's on his way; I phoned his home, but no answer. Must be the traffic, or possibly a breakdown on the train." Breakdowns on Washington's fabulous metro system were not unheard of. Secretly, Scully hoped she was telling the truth. "How about if I reschedule you and Agent Mulder. Assistant Director Skinner is clear at 11:30, and again at 2:00. I understand he has an assignment for you." Mary Ellen, ever the diplomat, left unsaid the point that the sooner the two agents got in and OUT of Skinner's office, the better. Skinner was aware of Scully's unhappiness in assignment, and had personally agreed to the reassignment to Quantico. "I'm sure 11:30 will be fine." She glanced down at her watch. "That gives me some time. I'll be in the office, if you need to reach me meanwhile. Do you know the number?" Mary Ellen nodded assent. Mary Ellen knew everything. That was one of the factors that made her invaluable to Mr. Skinner. "If Agent Mulder comes here first, send him to the office." Scully smiled one of her rare smiles, one of gratitude to the head secretary. "That will be fine. See you at 11:30." Mary Ellen turned to pencil the new appointment into Skinner's diary. Scully turned and walked from the room, hoping fervently that her partner could see his way clear to put in an appearance. Dr. Dana Scully walked slowly in the general direction of the stairs she normally took to her office, wondering. The office was in an well lighted but lightly trafficked corridor, close by the Automated Data Processing Division. In point of fact, it used to be the home, or location, of one some of the peripherals to the Agency's massive mainframe computer system. Scully seemed to recall hearing it held backup tapes, or something. It continued to benefit from the computer facility's lights, and it's air conditioning, which was a real blessing in Washington's summers, when the building system could not keep up. On the way, she passed a pay coffee machine. Machine coffee was generally considered to be useful only for cleaning off woodwork, or possibly poisoning wolves. And, for burning holes in stomach linings. Scully figured a cup of poison like that would be good enough for her partner, when he appeared. Gleefully, she dumped some change in the machine, and dialed up BLACK, no sugar. That would fix him. She popped a plastic cap on the brew, and continued down the hall to the office. The interior lights seemed to be on; in any event she could see light from under the door. Her imagination flashed briefly to a trailer in Oklahoma City, near the tumbled pile of masonry that had been the federal building. So many dead people. So little to do but pack the bodies into bags, and hope they find whoever did the job and send him, her, or them to meet their Maker. The worst had been the little kids from the day care center. The emergency medical technicians, EMTs, some of them from the Washington suburbs, kept bringing in pieces. In the end, they had her help play hide and seek with the rescue dogs, so the dogs could experience the success of finding a live one. Scully had been the live one. She'd made friends with a couple of medics, and rode back with them on the charter flight that brought them back to Washington. One of them had invited her and one of the single EMTs to her house for dinner, playing Cupid. It had worked. They had gone out several times, and at his suggestion she'd agreed to volunteer at a clinic. Joel said that maybe she ought to be spending her talent on the living. She liked him. When she walked in, she found Mulder, slumped in his leather chair. He didn't look too energetic. "Here. This will fix you right up." Scully knew better, but was annoyed enough with him not to care. She had been backing away from the x-files, and had pretty much made her mind to depart altogether. She planned to tell Mulder after this case that she was transferring out of violent, back to Quantico. After that, she'd see whether doctoring the living had more appeal than carving up the dead. "Thanks." He accepted the cup, peeled the top off, sniffed, sipped, and grimaced at the taste. "We have an 11:30 with Skinner." "All right." "Mulder, are you all right?" No sarcasm, no humor, no cynicism. This was not like the usual Mulder. "I'm OK." He was taciturn as well. Scully looked him over, particularly in the eyes. She was on the other side of a desk from him, but the light was pretty good. He looked sallow. He had bags under his eyes, and serious dark circles under the bags. OK was something he clearly wasn't. "Are you ill?" "Well, a little under the weather. Upset stomach, " he said. She thought "massive hangover" but kept the deduction to herself. Scully was annoyed, but not inhuman. She reached over and took the cup away. "Oh, well, better not drink this. Let's get you some cola." Mulder smiled, gratefully. Encouraged, she went on, "We can get it on the way to Skinner's office." Mulder's smile faded. The two agents put in their appearance in the outer office of the Assistant Director, and were, almost immediately, shown in. Skinner himself was still on the phone; obviously he had directed Mary Ellen to shoo them in immediately they arrived. Scully tried hard not to imagine why. The room smelled of some strong, orange-scented room freshener, locally known as "government-cheap." It smelled disgustingly sweet. And it was cold in the office; apparently the air-conditioning system was still running. Washington was notorious for late autumn hot spells, which made building managers reluctant to turn on the heat too early. "Well, Agent Scully. And Agent Mulder." Turning to Mulder, he added, "I'm glad you could make it." The temperature in Skinner's sanctum seemed to drop about 10 degrees. Scully said "Yes, sir." Mulder kept silent. He could smell cigarette smoke through the nose-deadening orange scented cover up. "I have an assignment for you." He handed Scully two folders, perhaps duplicates. "It involves a murder, in Waterford, Illinois. This is a small town, not the kind of place where you find murders.. Waterford sits about two hours drive from O'Hare, if you don't hit the traffic wrong. The anti-terrorism group thinks it may be related somehow to the Michigan militia." Skinner named a radical, eliminate-the-government group. The FBI, though not the violent crimes division to which they were formally attached, was watching all of these groups, as closely as staffing permitted. The trial for the men accused of blowing up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was just getting under way. There had been threats. The room temperature dropped another five degrees. Skinner forbore from mentioning that two outsiders were interested in the case. His his previous visitor had pressured him to assign the two of them to this case, together, or that similar, unexplained killings had occurred in Rome, Nice, Sofia, and Moscow. Or that his caller had queried him on the state of their partnership. The assignment, which he had been directed to make, sounded a little weak, and certainly not in their general area of expertise. Still, it needed looking into. These two were available. Skinner understood that the visitor wanted the team back together. Maybe the assignment would do the job. He forged on. "One of the members, a part time dairyman and truck driver named Allen Baumgartner, took it into his head to pick up a loaded rifle, close to the end of the meeting. He killed one friend, and shot up at least one other, before they got him stopped. I want you to look into it. The county sheriff has asked for help, and the State Police have agreed; this is out of their league, and they admit it. It isn't in federal jurisdiction, but if we are asked on a case like this, we try to help." Skinner appeared to be winding himself up. Scully hoped he was getting to why, and on one level was not disappointed, when he added, "There have been several similar cases lately, not all involving the militias. Someone totally whacks out. In previous cases, the perpetrator attacked someone he knew, for no reason. The Internet is whispering that there is some kind of government conspiracy to discredit the groups." Mulder simply looked up, frowning. "That somehow the FBI, or the CIA or some other para-military group is trying to get them to kill each other off?" Mulder's experiences with bagmen from various groups suggested that whoever it was, it didn't need to be someone directly employed by the government. There were a lot of people, with a lot of firepower, out there. Undaunted, Skinner plowed on. "There is an opposing theory, which says that someone is whipping these groups into a frenzy, with the ultimate aim of overthrowing the government." Skinner paused a moment, before adding, "I want you to find out what you can, and bring back whatever report and information you can to help the Bureau 'illuminate' this situation." There was another pause, while Skinner took a deep breath, before adding, "Some of the right wing whackos think that these people eliminating one another is a good thing. That isn't how I was taught that America works. The victims, and even the alleged perpetrator, were American citizens. We owe them justice." Mulder cleared his throat. "And the alleged perpetrator?" "He appears to have been an All-American boy. Good student, not excellent. Engaged to be married. The Chicago office says no previous record. You probably know that the nature of the membership of these groups varies widely. He appears, but you'll soon know more, to have been more interested in preserving jobs and wages, and getting along, than in violence. Oh, yes, you won't be able to interview him. " Scully knew the answer but asked, anyway. "Why is that, sir?" "One of the fellow militia members took offense, and blew his head off. Scully, do an autopsy, see if there's anything chemical involved. Mulder, talk to people, find out what is going on. And be careful. Be very careful. The local police invited us in. There's just a sheriff for the county. He'll meet you in the township office in Pinedale. His name is Connor. The townspeople are in shock. Keep in mind that the militia won't want you around. Obviously, they do have some violent members." With that he turned back to his desk. They had clearly been dismissed. Scully thought the cola must be helping. The bags, and the circles under them, were still apparent, but Mulder's color had improved. Maybe it was the case. "So, Mulder, what do you think." "Doesn't sound like an x-file. Doesn't really even sound like FBI territory, except for the militia connection, and I'm not too sure even about that. I think Baumgartner was a loony. There are a lot of mentally unstable people, scattered all over America. Even in the great American heartland. Possibly the proportion is higher in groups like this. Why one of them, already preconditioned for violence, should go off, doesn't present much mystery. We should be able to get in and out in about three days." His voice trailed off. Surprisingly, he added "I know a great steak house in Chicago. Maybe we can celebrate, when we're done." That last was spoken a trifle more forcefully than usual. "Maybe." Scully didn't offer him much encouragement. Mulder let it ride. "Let's go up to travel and see what they can arrange. Want to try for one of the fleet vehicles, or should we shoot for a rental car?" The reference to the "fleet vehicle, " really a joke, made Scully grimace. Her last experience with one of them included a broken air conditioner, and a failing transmission. It was many things, but fleet it was not. "Let's shoot for the rental." Travel came up with two tickets on the 4:00 to Chicago, and a rental car to follow on, but no hotel. Waterford didn't have a hotel, or so it seemed. They would be on a smaller plane to Pittsburgh, the airline's great east coast hub, then change to something bigger. That schedule was tight, but doable. They had to scoot to their respective apartments, pack, and cab it back to National. No way would the subway/bus combination get either one of them there on time. Scully and Mulder told their time and attendance clerk where they would be, and promised to call in with an office phone and a hotel address. They left in separate cabs. Mulder sat in the back of his cab, with the window open a little, just looking out the window, and thinking. His first thought was for an antacid and some aspirin. Beyond that, he mentally catalogued what he'd need for a four day stay (he dumped in an extra shirt and underwear, just in case). It would all fit into a carry-on bag, including some running clothes, especially if he wore the flannel lined jeans, the turtleneck and flannel shirts, the lightweight parka and the hiking boots. After that, he considered WHY he had the headache. This wasn't your everyday hangover; it was a vodka inspired killer. Possibly, Saturday had not been as inconsequential as he had thought. Anita and Bill lived the American suburban dream. Added together, they amounted to about a GS 29. Nice house, extremely, in not too far out suburbia. Contented, with friends, and kind. Happy. Why couldn't he have something like that? He was nice. He liked women, if they were smart. He could carry on a respectable conversation, if he put his mind to it. And he had to admit that he was lonely. He had become expert in the chase, never letting it come to fruition early on, possibly to help avoid the end. His relationships over the past five years had never lasted much past the first full weekend together. Three nights and two full days seemed to be the limit. Among other things, he wasn't a very good sleeper. Several had become offended at awakening, and finding him asleep on the sofa. Others had been annoyed that his job seemed to make him so unavailable, both physically and emotionally. Part of it was clearly the job, into which he poured himself in lieu of the rest of a life; special agents traveled a lot and worked hours not fully compatible with hearth and home. Most of the rest of the time he spent holed up in his office, reading old files. And cataloging them. For the past three months he'd been doing that mostly on his own, since his partner had been on extended assignment, elsewhere. He had missed her, but had more than enough reading to keep him occupied. He'd been out of town on short assignments, part of the violent crimes operation, with partners who hadn't clicked. He'd called Scully, leaving messages on her answering machine, and had even gotten one or two in return, but no live conversations. It was a little unusual for a special agent to continue to accept so many field cases at his age, but he kept volunteering. By his age, most had moved on, or moved up and out of operational work. Of course, he could look for someone with similar constraints on her time, but they probably wouldn't match. And becoming involved with a fellow agent was out of the question. Possibly this knowledge, and the immediate exposure to what he had missed, drove him to the vodka. Then again, maybe he just didn't want to be alone. Mulder dismissed these thoughts as unproductive speculation, as the cabby pulled up to his apartment. It occurred to him that his partner had been nothing if not taciturn at the office. He wondered if he had done anything to upset her. To the cabby, "Wait for me, will you? I'll need to go to National. Will be down in 15 minutes. Keep the meter hot." The cabby, with a thick accent, replied "Hey, no problem." He pointed to his meter and smiled. "She'll take a licking and keep on ticking. See you in 15 minutes. I got time to scoot down to the 7-11, " he named a local carryout chain, "for some coffee?" "Sure. Just remember to come back." With that Mulder turned and climbed the front step to his building. He would just make it. Lucky he had a ticket and a boarding pass; he wouldn't need to check the bag at the gate. Of course he'd have to declare his weapon before he boarded the plane; but travel should have greased that skid for him. There was a good reason why they stuck with the contract carrier, even if it meant a detour: it saved pain. He should just make it. Scully sat in the front of her cab, next to the driver. She was not looking forward to riding in a small airplane with the turbulence loving Mr. Mulder. Scully hated flying, especially in anything smaller than a 747. Boeing's old flagships do not fly from Washington DC to Pittsburgh. She was in for a ride. And she had plans which would have to be changed, probably before she left the apartment. She'd have to cancel a piano lesson, scheduled for Wednesday. After 10 years' absence from the instrument, she had decided to wade back into the musical waters. She told herself that the exercise would be good for her hands. Her self told her back that the music would be good for her soul. And practice time, a lot of it, would fill up her life. Then there was the scheduled Saturday afternoon at the free clinic; she'd been inveighed into that one, just two Saturdays and two Thursday afternoons a month. Joel had talked her into it, and the clinic had scheduled the Saturday tours to coincide with his own. She wondered how he had managed that. The Bureau, seeing an opportunity to burnish its somewhat tarnished image had not only coughed up the hours, on official time yet, on Thursday, but agreed to allow her to pass any field work that would keep her our of town for more than two sessions, and for six months. Scully thought to herself she might make it back, but she ought to warn them so they'd have someone on standby. Then there was the dinner, promised by Joel three weeks ago, for the first Saturday they both had free. Saturday night. Let's see, today's Monday. It's just some nut case; surely I'll be back by Saturday night. Scully firmly promised herself that if she had to cancel, she'd do it out of Mulder's earshot. There was no sense in having him privy to her personal life, what little of it there was. With that, Scully thought to herself that possibly that was the absence of a personal life which was the cause of her snappishness. She'd been recruited into the FBI just after her residency at Georgetown, which followed a harrowing internship at DC General, the great public hospital in Southeast DC. Dana Katherine Scully, she of the copper colored hair, was a happy, successful child, smart, attractive, and musical. With her brother and sister to boost her along, she developed social skills, and early on learned to hold her own wrestling with her brother. No one was surprised when she announced her intention to study medicine. Nor were they surprised that she studied at Georgetown University, one of the country's better medical schools. Washington is a city of contrasts, and few are more vivid that the university, and the community that surrounds it, located on a hill. Rich, successful, home to Kennedys and others, even richer. They sought anonymity, not notoriety, and were effectively invisible. The other extreme was well represented by those closer to the river, squatting inelegantly in what used to be a marsh. It was a high crime area. Georgetown University was associated with the University Hospital. It was the hospital of the cognoscenti. The education there would be as good as anyplace she could hope for. The connections would be excellent. In her senior year at Georgetown University in Washington, she was offered an internship. She was also approached, as was the entire graduating class, by DC General, the great public hospital, located in the poor part of town, the hospital where poor people died, and eventual murder victims expired, where the poorest of the poor, having neglected their problems for want of insurance, eventually gravitated, hoping for a free miracle. With the welfare and Medicaid cuts, DCGen was looking for a miracle. Even the foreign students, who had long dominated its internship and residency program, had been chased out by the "anti-alien" tenor of the times. The miracle was that Dana accepted DC General, and turned down Georgetown. Her family tried to cover it up, but they were appalled. They were even more shocked when she'd signed up with the FBI, and agreed to become a special agent, no less, a (as her mother called it) "pistol packing momma." Of course, she was no such thing. What she was smart. In the FBI hierarchy, no one except special agents advanced to division director level positions. Never. Well, there was one exception. Anita's new division director had started out as an ADP professional, and had never been a special agent. Dana hadn't expected this phase of her career to last as long as it had. Her tour at DCGen had convinced her that she didn't have the "calling" for healing the sick. However, she'd shown a surprising knack for pathology, and seemed to enjoy puzzling truths out of cadavers. Goodness knows, there were plenty of them, mostly victims of drug deals gone bad, in the year of her internship. Regrettably, Scully had concluded that life as a special agent was not compatible with a personal life. In fact, between the hours and the travel, it practically precluded a personal life. Piano, free clinic, and an occasional date were her attempt at getting one back. And it ALL was going to be delayed, postponed, put off. While she traveled with Mulder. She wondered a bit about her mild hostility toward her partner. Possibly the root cause was that although he showed no interest, beyond professional, in her, her association with him was scaring off anyone else who might be interested. There were plenty of non-Agents, and only a limited number of women. Still, she hadn't been dating, not at all, for over a year and a half. And no one had asked lately. Gazing out the window, Agent Scully began mentally packing what gear she expected to need for the next 4 days or so, allowing for one extra day, plus at least one dirtied outfit. Pants suits, two; skirt and two blouses; heels; undergarments; nightgown and robe (no telling where they'd end up). Jeans, flannel shirt, boots. Blow dryer, comb and makeup. Bag would have to be checked of course; and she'd have to stop and fill in the form if she planned on bringing her personal side arm. She planned on bringing it. Dana's first guess was that Mulder would turn out to be right on this one, that it was just some nut case with a gun. The good part of Mulder's reputation, his fame, if that were the word for it, was based on his ability to profile criminals, and to reconstruct crime scenes. One of the downsides of that brilliant ability to profile was that it required, no, it demanded, that the profiler get "inside" the head of the criminal. Mulder didn't like profiling nutcases. It made him nervous. Scully's opinion about Mulder's correctness on the case held part way home, until she began reading the briefing material. There had been 9 similar cases in the past seven months, three of them involving militia members. People just going off and killing other people, for no real reason. The terrorist alert memo noted that the militias were saying that someone was drugging their members, causing the violence. Of course, they all leapt to the conclusion that "someone" meant Federal Government, and "Federal Government" meant "FBI." Great. Just great. She mentally added jeans and a couple of sweaters to the list. With a hungover partner, this could be a swell trip. The two special agents managed to miss each other in the hubbub of National Airport. They HAD to check in at the ticket counter, and show identification to get their bags, and more important their personal weapons, through the gates. Then they proceeded, still missing each other somehow, through the security check in, necessitating another badge flashing operation, and to the gate. Scully went first, looking around for Mulder, confident he would turn up. Mulder liked to fly. With any luck, there'd be a storm. Then he'd love it. She was still waiting for him when the called the flight. One of the worst problems at National is that none of the passengers believed in waiting until their row was called, even the ones with boarding passes. They all rushed the gate. The cause was the extremely limited stowage space on the aircraft. And of course, they all packed attache cases, computer cases, and carry-on bags. Scully had only a purse, and a small laptop case. She could afford to wait. Eventually they got to her row, toward the front of the craft. Still, no Mulder. She boarded the plane, got herself a blanket and a pillow, tucked the laptop and the purse under the seat, and generally settled in. "Excuse me, Miss. Is that seat taken?" Finally, there he was. "Oh, funny, Mulder. Extremely funny." Mulder contrived to look contrite. "I'm sorry. I told the cabby he could go get some coffee at the 7-11. I told him to come back in 15 minutes. He took a powder. I had to hoof it up to Columbia Pike and hope for the best." He slid, somewhat relieved, into his seat. Into his window seat, which she had saved for him. Mulder settled in with considerable aplomb, and looked out the window. It was not quite 4:00, and certainly not even close to sunset, but getting dark already from the approaching storm.. "Hey, it's going to rain." He looked over at Scully, who seemed to be swallowing something, probably an anti-motion sickness pill. "See, there's lightning; it's hitting the runway." Scully found Mulder's blow by blow description hard to take. She pitched the folder at him, knowing she would soon be beyond reading. "Here, read me some of the background in the files. Maybe we can rascal up some idea of how to approach it. By the way, is this being run out of Chicago, or Springfield?" "Neither. The FBI doesn't have jurisdiction, and even with a request for assistance, there is only so much we can do. Chicago has a bigger lab, so if we need facilities, you'll probably end up there. Mary Ellen faxed me an update on the preliminary work done by the sheriff's office and some additional information. It was waiting for me when I checked in." Scully thought it over. "All right, I'll bite...where is this place, how do we get there, and where are we staying. I want to call my mother." She wanted to call no such person, but said so anyway. "Here's the drill: change to a bigger plane in Pittsburgh, fly to O'Hare." He named the better airport. "We pick up a rental car there...travel tried to stick me with a fleet vehicle, but it's going to be past 7:00 by the time we get there, and someone would have to get torn from his or her dinner to deliver it. The Sheriff will meet us at a satellite office in Pinedale; the main office is in the county seat, Woodbridge. Pinedale is 2 hours southwest. There will probably be a Motel 6, or something; per diem is not for Chicago--it's for Springfield, so unless you want lots of outta pocket, we're going to do it the cheap way. I called Triple A, by the way, and they couldn't name any hostelries nearby." He had continued to stare, fascinated, at the storm. "Swell." Mulder managed to turn his face away from the port and to the folder. When he opened it, he saw a preliminary reconstruction done by the local sheriff and a list of persons to be interviewed. Usually Scully and Mulder talked to them again; there was not substitute for first hand hearing of the information. A map of the area was attached, showing the remains of the canal after whose lock the town had been named. Not much else around, including major roads. Burrowing through the papers, he found some information about the group Mr. Baumgartner, the late Mr. Baumgartner, had been affiliated. It appeared to be an offshoot of the so-called Michigan militia. The Bureau certainly didn't have much of a handle on these groups, or even a legitimate way to distinguish most of them from one another. Movement watchers in the Bureau had identified militia activity in at least 40 states, with a conservatively estimated hard-core membership of at least 10,000 - and growing . It was difficult to judge from attendance at public meetings how many militias and militia members there might be. "How much do you know about the militias, Scully?" "Just what I read in the paper. And what I heard at the terrorism seminar last month at State. They invited me, " she added when she saw his eyebrows rise, "to comment on the psychological aspects of terrorism. I'm not an expert, but I told them what I knew." "Well, although there is considerable talk, some of it on talk radio, some of it on the Internet, we don't know how many militias there are, how many members they have and the extent to which, as had been widely rumored, any given group is conducting military training and exercises." Mulder went on the fill his partner in on the rest of the briefing. "Not knowing much seemed to be the main conclusion on the paper. The groups seem to have in common fears about the federal government. However, the fears varied widely. In the far west, and parts of the Midwest, they center around fears that the environmental movement will make it impossible for men to support their families. The spotted owl--which generated huge problems for the Agriculture Department's Forest Service--and timbering restrictions were just one example." Mulder added mentally, that of course, if you restrict timbering, particularly in an area where the economy is completely tied to this one industry, you put a lot of people out of work. Mulder skipped over several pages of text, then concluded with a real killer. "No matter what their initial cause of interest, the groups tend to perceive all actions with which they do not agree or of which they do not approve as parts of some grand conspiracy." Scully smiled a little, when mention of conspiracies came up. Mulder believed in conspiracies, with precious little hard evidence, possibly because nothing he had observed had discourage him from believing. "The other factors are economic and social. This predominantly white, male, and middle- and working-class sector has been buffeted by global economic restructuring, with its attendant job losses, declining real wages and social dislocations. While under economic stress, this sector has also seen its traditional privileges and status challenged by 1960s-style social movements, such as feminism, minority rights, and environmentalism. "Someone must be to blame. But in the current political context, serious progressive analysis is virtually invisible, while the Patriot movement provides plenty of answers. Certainly, it could not be that their skills were insufficient to provide for themselves in the modern world. It had to be a government conspiracy." Scully was silent. "They are dangerous." "They were dangerous to Allen Baumgartner and his friends." The co-pilot came on and told the stewards to prepare for landing. They must be getting to Pittsburgh, which meant changing planes, clearing weapons, dragging bags again. Mulder's recitation of the file had the side effect of taking her mind off her stomach. She hoped the effect would last all the way to Chicago. Clearing Pittsburgh turned out to be much easier than expected, with the gates located close together. Somewhere, there had to be a rule: any two gates for connecting flights shall be located at opposite ends of the airport. But this time, they only walked past two gates on the way. The connect time was fairly short, so their flight was called before they cleared weapons. That done, they boarded, and settled in. Scully got blankets and pillows, and announced, in a tone that dared Mulder to try to stop her, plans for a nap. She was asleep before the plane left the gate. One of Scully's virtues, retained from medical school, was the ability to fall asleep almost at once. She rarely had trouble staying asleep, and generally woke up instantly. These were all survival characteristics in medical school. With no one to listen to, or to listen to him, Mulder was thrown back on his own company. It was a feeling he knew well. Most of the time he enjoyed thinking about things, but today's case was not one of them. It simply did NOT feel right to him somehow; everything in the file suggested it was too straightforward. And yet, the local police had asked the FBI to assist. And Skinner had sent him. He could understand sending Scully, even were she not part of the x-files; she was a forensic pathologist. If anything physical had caused Baumgartner to go off, she would surely find it. Thinking about Scully's abilities caused to think about Scully in general. He had wondered at her absence, but hadn't pressed. He'd heard she'd had a bad time with the last assignment, and needed some downtime. A return to the violent crimes division didn't seem indicated. He shifted in his seat so he could watch her. She was asleep, and looked peaceful. He was glad of that. She hated flying. Curling up was an impossibility on these newer planes, but he saw her arms crossed over her chest, and her hands. She had lovely hands, with long fingers and carefully manicured nails. The nails were short, and innocent of polish, just shining pink nails with beautiful white moons at the tips. Short nails were not just an esthetic choice; long ones would puncture the rubber examination gloves. They wouldn't be safe. He smiled at his analysis. Being around Scully did that to him, made him think of nice things, always associated with practical things. She would always listen to him, and if he could prove a theory, she would believe it. Having someone to believe in you was important, and made up for much of the professional isolation he had felt since joining the service. Since being recruited to join the service. After all, it was THEIR idea, not his. Naturally, he hadn't fit in easily, but then he rarely had since he was 12, with the exception of two happy years at Oxford. In England, or at least at College, eccentricity was not only tolerated, but valued. They had been the happiest of his life. Mulder straightened up, put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. "Wake up." He felt a poke in the ribs. "Wake up, Mulder, we're here." He'd been asleep until Scully's poke and persistence woke him up. Mulder's best gift was also his worst problem. Once he actually got to sleep, it took quite a lot to wake him up, which meant that he rarely woke up from nightmares before they had him paralyzed with fear. "OK, hey, I'm awake already." He dumped a blanket on the floor, and gathered up his folders. The trip down to Pinedale was a quiet one, not much talking. They were both tired. Scully suggested checking in with the local sheriff, and then finding some place to stay. It was past 8:00 when they got there, and quite dark. They found the sheriff's office with little difficulty, parked the car, and walked in. At the front entrance, they announced who they were, and flashed their shields. The deputy on duty, one Deputy Morales, by the sign on the desk, waved them around the partition to the back. Sheriff Connors walked out of his office, looking tired, not smiling, but with his hand extended. "Glad to see you. Wish we hadn't needed you, nothing personal you understand, but isn't our usual kind of case." "So we heard, " Scully commented. She managed a smile for the sheriff. "We've been sent out of Washington, as you already know. You were probably expecting help from Springfield, or maybe Chicago, but with the trial in Oklahoma City, the Bureau is stretched quite thin." Scully continued. "We're from a branch of the violent crimes division, not anti-terrorism. Agent Mulder's specialty is crime scene reconstruction, and criminal profiles. I'm a forensic pathologist. It's not clear that any federal statutes have been violated, but with the threats coming from the militias, and the trial under way, and at the invitation of you and the State Police, we were asked to place ourselves at your disposal. " Scully didn't mention the x-files connection. There didn't seem to be any need. Sheriff Connors motioned to the two beat up visitor's chairs in his office, and hitched himself onto the corner of his desk. He was a big man, well over six feet, with a considerable spread. He looked more like an ex-football player, or a coal miner, than anything else. The blue sleeves on his uniform shirt were rolled up, despite the cool evening. No weapon, but then, how often would you need one in the office. He had a layer of beard stubble. There was a layer of fat there that Scully suspected didn't run very deep, or extend above his neck. The Sheriff considered for a moment, then began. "First, a little background. Waterford is a little town. It's close knit. Everyone knows everyone, and most are related one way or the other. The whole county is the same. There's only about 250 in the town itself, but we're the center of the township, and there are quite a few more, mostly farmers, scattered out. They come here for a little shopping, and church. The school closed five years ago; the kids get bused to the next town, Eagle Valley High, at Pinedale. To tell you the truth, the town is dying. You'll be able to see that for yourself in the morning. I expect eventually Sam Wall will build a Walmart, or something, on down the road, and what little we have will dry up altogether." "How'd the town get it's name?" Scully asked, trying to be friendly. "Oh, yeah, I forgot the history part. Years ago, until early this century, this was where there was a wooden bridge, a big one, over the river. You know, 'water' and 'ford.' Sort of like in the 'Bridges of Madison County' except the National Geographic never stopped by. There used to be a canal, too, where the river was too shallow. They replaced the bridge, years ago, a little bit downstream from the original site, with a steel suspension one. Too bad the highway was built so far away. It would have made a big difference, but people here couldn't see it at the time, and the government, seeing there was opposition, and lots of other choices, took one of them." He sounded a little bitter. "Now, let me tell you what I know. On the evening of October 29 there was some kind of meeting in the field behind Jack Ross' place. Jack's retired now, but still lives on the farm. His son doesn't want to farm. Anyway, the farm runs down toward the river, and there's a gravel road from the county road along the side of his farm down to the river, where the wooden bridge used to be. Jack would use the road to move his heavy equipment, but I didn't think anyone had been on it, except kids, you know, drinking beer and making out, in years. There's a large flood plain, and lots of trees along the river. You can't see the back field from the house." Scully nodded. "Go on. We don't know the territory." "Well, " the sheriff ran his hands through his thinning hair, "like I said, there was some kind of meeting. I'm pretty sure it was a local offshoot of the militia. There's quite a few of the younger ones who just can't make it any more farming, and there isn't much of anything else. The girls move away first; it's easier for them to get jobs either at the county seat, Woodbridge, or maybe Springfield, but there just isn't much of anything for the men, unless you want to farm. Prices have been pretty good this year, but we made a late start, and with the flooding, this makes two rotten farm years out of three. I knew there was some kind of 'civic' group, " Scully could hear the quotes around the word, "meeting around the township, different places. I go have coffee, eat donuts, and listen. I hear things." Mulder thought to himself that the sheriff must have had a pretty good grip on the happenings on his turf, and had decided to let the meetings run on, so people could boil off steam. It was a good plan, but it didn't work. He told the sheriff, "I'm sure you do. Ninety percent of detective work is listening, and actually seeing what you are looking at. What else can you tell us?" "I guess they must have built a fire; you can see the remains. These folks weren't vandals or anything, they even ringed up the firepit, to keep it from getting loose. I found some empty beer cans, but no liquor bottles, and lots of cigarette butts. Mostly, I just blocked off the site, and the road leading to it. We picked up a few things and bagged them, but figured you'd want more. We don't, " he added, "investigate many murders around here. "The witnesses, the ones who'd talk, all agreed that there had been a meeting, that they had been discussing their troubles, and that they all thought the government was to blame. Especially for farmers losing their land. Some stranger had come to talk to them, about the farm mess, and their political rights. A couple of them had hunting rifles, nothing unusual, and then Allen Baumgartner picked one up and started shooting people. It was Dick Halliburton's gun; I can't believe Dan would leave a shell in the chamber, but Allen pumped them off pretty fast." "Did the witnesses mention who was in charge?" Mulder asked. "No, I couldn't get it out of them. I don't think it was any local boy. None of these men are really the leader type, at least not when they're sober." Mulder persisted. "Any reports of strangers?" "Not that I've heard, but to tell the truth, the old folks don't come out much, and the younger ones have clammed up on me, " was the sheriff's reply. "I suppose you'll want to talk to some folks, friends, witnesses, and so forth. I started putting together a list, " he added, handing Agent Scully a paper. "Yeah, that sounds like the way to go. Agent Scully will have to autopsy Mr. Baumgartner, just to check for toxins, alcohol, drugs, anything that might give us a clue." "Yes, we knew that; the body is at morgue in the county hospital, in Woodbridge. Can you do the work there?" The sheriff looked a little worried. "Allen had a fiancee, and his mother is still here. He never had any trouble. He was a good person, he really was. This wasn't like him, not at all. There are folks who knew him and cared about him. Is there any way we can keep him close to home, and go on with the funeral?" Scully sighed. The rights of the FBI, and even the sheriff, clearly outweighed the rights of the mother and fiancee of an alleged murderer, but she was human enough to sympathize with them. And not to cause them more heartache than she had to. "Certainly, sheriff. The hospital will be fine. I'll have to be present at the autopsy; I can handle it by assisting the county medical examiner. I'll also collect samples, of course, but I can take them to the Chicago lab, if it gets that far. The family will have to be told, but between us, we can fix him up for a funeral." It wasn't much, but was the best she could offer, under the circumstances. "Thank you, Agent Scully. I really appreciate this; I know it probably is going to make more work, but it will be better for all of us." The sheriff stood up. "I'll run you by the crime scene in the morning, and you can figure out what you want to do after that. Meet me here. Do you know where you're staying?" Mulder chimed in. "We don't have a clue. I'm afraid Triple A missed Waterford. We're open to suggestions." "There isn't a lot of choice; the best bet is to get back on the highway. There's a motel, they call it the Lamplighter, just off the exit for Pinedale. I can call them for you, if you want, but I don't think they've ever turned away a paying customer. It's not fancy, " he added, nodding at Agent Scully, "but there's hot water and a coffee shop." Special Agent Scully smiled her thanks to the sheriff, who she knew was just being a trifle old-fashioned. Special Agent Scully had finished second in her hand-to-hand unarmed combat class, and had traveled all over on Bureau business. Hot water was fine. A coffee shop was even better. She wasn't expecting any problems. Scully took the wheel while they drove up the road, and began to wonder after half an hour had dragged by, without seeing more than three sets of headlights, how the Illini defined "just up the road." Eventually they got to the Lamplighter, just off the exit. It's most obvious charms were in its huge, well-lighted parking lot, decorated with 16 wheelers. That and the promised coffee shop with an "OPEN ALL NITE" sign blinking in the window. She and Mulder registered, agreed to dump bags and meet in the coffee shop 15 minutes later. Scully was hungry. The diner featured a well lighted coffee shop section, and a darker "dining room" section. Scully made for the lighted area, sat down and waited. Mulder was only a minute or so behind her. A large boned but extremely skinny and unattractive woman with a name tag reading "Beverly" came over. She handed them menus. "Would you like something to drink while you're studying the menu?" Scully said "Coffee, decaf, please." Mulder grunted, and just held up two fingers. Agents were forbidden to drink while on duty, or within 6 hours of expecting to be on duty. Scully added "and an order of French toast for me." Mulder again grunted, and held up two fingers. Beverly departed. She hadn't expected to see two strangers come in and order decaf. Aside from the long haul truckers, and the kids in daylight hours, about the only adults she saw were couples, each married to someone else. They tended to drink, and tip well. She didn't think much was coming from this pair. "Must be married already, to each other, " is what she thought to herself. Beverly didn't keep up with the news, and the Section County Observer only was printed once a week. Breakfast, or dinner, or whatever, came quickly, was hot and tasted good. Scully looked at her partner, five years older and five years more senior in the Bureau. Mulder generally took the lead in planning investigations. After all, he was the crime scene reconstruction expert. "How 'bout it, Mulder? How do we start?" "Scully, it's just a murder. We'll meet the Sheriff tomorrow, say after 9:00, when it's really light, and have him lead us over the crime scene. It's less than 24 hours old, and the local force has it marked off. We might see something useful. Then we'll have to talk to folks. The survivors, and others at the meeting. Find out who Baumgartner's friends were, anyone who knew him well. In a town like this, that means high school teachers, maybe. I think it'd be better if you take the lead with the mother and the fiancee. Baumgartner might be a murderer to us, but he was son and future husband to them." Scully was a little surprised at that last statement, the one which showed, or seemed to show, so much compassion. Mulder had never been noted for that. He wasn't cruel, just maximally disengaged from most of society. "All right. You going running first thing?" Scully knew it was his principal form of exercise. She preferred aerobics and weight machines, but expected neither at the Lamplighter. "I'll go with you if you hold it down to 11 minute miles." It was Mulder's turn to be surprised. Scully loathed running; said it made her knees ache. "Sure, that'd be great." They parted by agreeing to meet in the lobby at 7:00. Tuesday Mulder and Scully came back from the run, more or less together, and both winded. Mulder had slowed down a bit, and Scully had picked up the pace. The had run down the side of the highway, up and down the few side streets close to the exit. After 3 miles or so they looped back to the motel. Scully knew her knees would ache in the morning. Mulder could smell himself, and knew he'd have to shower. "How long will it take you to get ready?' "Give me 15 minutes or so. I'll meet you in the lobby." Scully knew that 15 minutes would be pressing it, but she was interested in visiting the crime scene. For months she had rarely ventured far from her lab at Quantico, except for an occasional meeting at the Hoover Building. Teaching, even at Quantico, could turn into a full time job. Mulder just smiled and turned. He wondered what was going on in her head. Maybe she decided she wanted her life back. Hell, maybe she just wanted a life. The hot shower drove thoughts of his partner out of Mulder's head. He was in the lobby in the prescribed 15 minutes. Scully was waiting. Her hair was still wet; it seemed longer than he remembered. She'd pulled it into a pony tail. When it dried, she have a crease where the band had been. "Let's roll." Scully threw the keys up and caught them one handed. "I'll drive." The drove slowly down the streets, away from the intersection with the road leading back to the center of town. "I just want to look around a bit. Mulder, " she asked, "did you notice anything about this town?" "Not many people." "No, that's not what I mean. Did you notice the peeling paint? How it's run down at the heels? I don't understand it; the floods two years ago didn't put these folks under, the rivers didn't back up quite this far." She referred to the 100 year flood which had backed up the Mississippi almost all the way to Canada. "They lost their crops from the flooding, but prices picked up. Remember what Skinner said? That the group had complained about low incomes from corn? That doesn't make much sense, unless it means a long turn problem with prices. That would explain a lot." Mulder failed to see her point, unless she was suggesting that Baumgartner was delusional about prices, and other things, and that in some kind of frenzy, had started shooting. Still, why shoot people he knew? Of course Mulder was at least nominally sane, and maybe looking at things rationally wasn't the way to go. "Scully, why did they ask us to take this case? Scully didn't turn eyes away from the road, but did have some thoughts. "I've been asking myself that since yesterday. Mulder, they have agents in Chicago, and Springfield. They could get here almost immediately. The scene is probably cold, most likely contaminated from the first search. We're supercargo on this one. I'll admit I'm a pathologist, and that a lot of the staff is tied up in the Oklahoma City preparations, but it's not like there's much question of what happened. I think they want us in violent crimes, or maybe anti-terrorism." Mulder's ear caught on the "we." Maybe she did want to work with him, or at least continue working on the project. Scully went silent, except to herself. "There. I said it." What she'd try to say was that Skinner and the others had folded to the pressure to kill the x-files. What better way than to divert the only two agents working on it to something, if not more important, clearly more immediate? Mulder thought it over. There had been pressure before. The Bureau had never objected, not truly, to Mulder's interest in what they called "unconventional causes and cases" in part because he had been so good at using conventional investigation techniques on the cases. They had tried--with considerable success--to limit the scope of the operation, and in particular his investigations into what appeared to be conspiracies. Still, working as a team, they had a case closure record approaching 70 percent, on cases which other agents had completely failed to close. The trouble had been caused when they strayed from what the Bureau called "paranormal" into what he privately called "government conspiracy." And his last four assignments, mostly holding a brief as advisor, had been regular cases. They'd been interesting, and at first he'd accepted them as a challenge, in the short staff situation. Of course, Scully hadn't been assigned, but he hadn't been asked to take a permanent partner. Just to follow the cases, and take a look. His unconventional way of looking at things, particularly in criminal profiles, had nailed one counterfeiter. These cases had drawn him away from his studies, his examination of information in the file cabinets he'd gathered. Without the intellectual background in a vast array of cases, he would not be likely to make a connection from the present to something unusual in the past. In point of fact, he could feel himself becoming more like the other agents, without the special information needed to make the connection. Lots and LOTS of extra hours, some of at home using the Internet, had helped make up for it, but being away as much as he had been was clearly making a dent. "Well, all that's true, " he replied, "but why, " he groped for an elegant phrase for what had to come next, "put the two of us together in a different division?" The Bureau encouraged considerable flexibility in the choice of partners. He and she had worked together almost constantly for the last two years, and had been pulled apart by the pressure of competing assignments, and possibly other things he didn't even want to speculate about. "Why throw us together, if they don't want us working together. It would only be a matter of time before the x-files were revived." "Mulder, I don't know." At that point all of Scully's carefully thought out plan to divorce herself from the x-files, permanently, seemed like it might not be necessary. "Oh." That was all he could muster by way of a reply. After that, Mulder sat in silence, although he was hardly shocked. How many things seemed clearer, now that he heard that. It would explain why, after her Oklahoma City assignment she'd holed up at Quantico. It might even explain WHY she took the OK trip in the first place. Of course, it didn't explain her disappearance from his life, but then again, maybe she not only wanted to shed herself of the x-files and the Bureau, but of him. He knew he didn't make any easy friend. And yet, he had missed her, missed her as a partner, missed her advice and counsel, missed her clear-headed analyses. Especially her expostulations at what he sometimes called his "finely tuned insanities." Once she heard them, she always tried to follow up any trails they seemed to present. She was better at trails than he. He missed her as a friend, virtually his only friend and supporter at the Bureau. It hadn't occurred to him, until just that instant, that she hadn't felt the same. No more words were possible. This would call for some careful thought. He liked and admired Dana Katherine Scully, and wanted her to be happy. Maybe working with him was a major pothole in the highway to that happiness. They'd have to talk about it, if she were willing, but after this case was behind them, maybe in Chicago, or back in Washington. The Ford rental pulled into the visitor's lot at the satellite sheriff's office. "Wake up, Mulder, we're getting there." He managed a smile in her direction. Sheriff Connors walked out of the office as they walked up the steps. "Thought you two weren't coming. We get up early round here, while there's light. Even with the time change, in another two weeks it'll be dark at 7:00, again. Ready to go?" Scully put in, "Give me five minutes, " and headed for the women's room. When she emerged, Mulder asked, "Take your car, or this one?" The Sheriff smiled. "I'll drive, give you the full tour. I'm not sure you'll find anything new, place was churned up pretty thoroughly already." Scully tried to smooth it over. "Oh, I'm sure you've found everything there is to find. We just want to walk the ground, and see if we can get a real feel for what happened that night. You walk us through it; maybe we'll see something different, since we don't know the ground at all." The Sheriff brightened at that, and led them to his cruiser. Mulder was silent on the way, pondering Scully's transformation. The elastic band was gone, and she'd added some light pink lipstick, not at all like the reddish brown, so fashionable, that he had remembered. Mulder thought this was better. As the Sheriff drove out of Waterford toward Jack Ross' farm, he pointed out some of the local landmarks. "This road rides a small ridge, just above the river. Between the road and the river is some of the best farm land in the township. Good dirt, the kind that corn loves. Beans, too, " he added, referring to soybeans, not lentils. "Along the river is a flood plain, just like all rivers. This river rarely floods or jumps its banks; it's pretty well behaved as rivers go. Most farmers plow pastures practically to the banks, where there's no erosion. About one year in four they might get flooded out, but the profits from the other three make it worth taking the chance." "How is it Mr. Ross couldn't sell his farm, if it's as good as you say?" That was Scully; she may not have been born on a farm, but she had managed to pass introductory economics in college. The Sheriff replied, "It wasn't that he could not sell his farm, it's that he has not. Jack's retired, lives by himself. His wife Edna passed on about 10 years ago. His son, Keith, isn't interested in farming. He has a job in Woodbridge. Has a 16 year old son as well.. Jack keeps hoping the grandson will take over the farm, since he couldn't talk Keith into it. But even if the boy doesn't come home, if Jack sells, where would he go? A man like that, used to living on his own land, under his own rules? I can't see him living in an apartment in Pinedale or Woodbridge. He wouldn't even know anybody." "Those are good points Sheriff" "That's Jack Ross' place." He pointed out the passenger side of the car. There was a gravel driveway that led to a white farm house. The could see a barn and silo, behind the house. A couple of cows. Just beyond the driveway was a second gravel road, wider. "This is the turn off toward the old bridge I told you about. Used to be a regular thoroughfare, and, like I said, Jack has continued to use it to move his heavy equipment. He's put in several gates leading from the road into his pastures. His farm is a long rectangle; it's nearly half a mile from here to the river." It was Mulder's turn to ask, "Should we talk to him first?" The sheriff considered it. "Well, he probably doesn't really know much, except that the McClure kid came running up to the house to use the phone, but since we'll be walking on his property, it would be polite." He looked at Agent Scully, and added, "I'm sure he'll be glad to meet you." Sheriff Connors did the knocking, and after a short explanation and introductions, Jack Ross showed him and the two special agents into the front parlor. It was a room out of another time. Old fashioned furniture, clean, but old. There was a green velvet camel back sofa, with a couple of side chairs to match. On one of the end tables were faded pink silk peonies. The room smelled of wood smoke. No television, but a table piled up with books and papers, reading glasses on top, and several lamps. There was a desk as well. A pot bellied stove reigned in old-fashioned glory in a corner; Scully could feel the heat, and when the farmer asked her to sit, she chose the chair closest to the stove. It was cold out that morning. "I suppose your here about the shooting, " Jack started off, right to the point. Mulder took the lead. "Yes, Mr. Ross. We'd like to hear whatever you can tell us." "Isn't much to tell. I usually go to bed pretty early, since I gave up dairying. Now that the Missus is gone, there isn't much to keep me up. Well, that night I was still up, way past 10:00, reading. I was sitting right there, next to where you're sitting, Miss, " he added. "I get behind on my reading sometimes this time of year, what with the leaves and all." "I understand. I don't even own a farm, and I get behind." That was Scully, chiming in. "Go on, Mr. Ross." Scully pulled a green government-issue fake leatherette covered notepad out of her jacket pocket, pulled out a ball-point pen and started to take notes. Mulder was surprised. Usually they used a tape recorder. Jack Ross turned a farsighted eye on "Miss" Scully, and began, "You can call me Jack. Those notes you're taking are OK, too. Anyway, it must have been past 11:00, when I heard a pounding on the door. No one is around that late, so before I answered, I picked up my shotgun. I've had a lot of problems with vandals, and there's been a few break-ins, " he added, possibly by way of apology. "I answered the door, gun close at hand. It was the McClure kid, first name's Billy, I think. I've lost track of who's who among the grandchildren, but I recognized him right off. He looked clear scared to death." Scully nodded to herself. The preliminary investigation mentioned that a William McClure, 3rd, had notified Mr. Ross of the shootings. He'd been covered with blood, from a relatively minor wound on the side of his left arm. "Well, Billy, he told me what had happened, and I called the Sheriff. Sheriff Connors here, " he added, nodding at the Sheriff, "wasn't on that hour, but one of the deputies came by quick enough. I walked down the path with him. Cars starting to have a hard time getting through. You'll see that when you walk down there. When we got there, the deputy used his portable radio, called for an ambulance, but it had to come from Pinedale, and by the time it got there, the Baumgartner kid" he said, referring to the 30 year old Allen Baumgartner, "and Dick Halliburton were dead." Sheriff Connors spoke. "Now, Jack, they were probably dead before my deputy got there." Jack answered, "Well, maybe, but I wish it hadn't happened on my property." "It wasn't your fault, Mr. Ross." That last from Scully. The old dairy farmer looked in her direction and smiled. "Sheriff Connors?" Mulder was talking. "Could we speak privately? Would you excuse us, Agent Scully? Mr. Ross?" They nodded assent. The Sheriff and Mulder withdrew to the kitchen. It was as old as the owner, but modernized. There was a Mr. Coffee, and a little surprisingly, a microwave oven. Mulder quietly closed the door. "Let him talk to Scully. She's pretty good with people. Say, how old is this place?' Sheriff Connors answered, "It belonged to Jack's wife's family. Her name was Edna, Beautiful woman, even when she was past 60. The Lord called her home, nearly 10 years ago. She had cancer. Anyway, before Jack and Edna lived here, it belonged to her parents. She was an only child, and inherited the farm. Jack added on to it some, and they lived here for years and years. His son didn't want to farm; he's a school teacher over in Pinedale. Jack still hasn't sold; he has a 16 year old grandson he hopes will take over." Mulder nodded to himself, wondering what it might be like to have family with hopes for you, and for your children. But it seemed nice. The Sheriff added one more thing. "I told you he'd like your partner. Edna had just that color hair, before it went gray." By and bye, Scully and Jack came into the kitchen. Scully called out, "Is the secret conference over? Can we come in and make coffee?" Mulder pushed open the door, with a big smile. "All done." "Yes. Mr. Ross..." she had to amend that after a dirty look, "Jack offered to walk us down to the back pasture." "Oh, I'm afraid that won't be possible. We have to investigate on our own." Mulder hated puncturing the balloon, but it was true. "But thanks for your help Mr. Ross. If we have questions, we'll stop by on the way out, if that is all right with you." "Sure thing, Agent Mulder. Glad to help out. Not only a duty, but a pleasure, so to speak. Let me get you some mugs for your coffee. You can leave them when you come back." The three officials gratefully accepted those mugs of coffee. It made them feel warm, before starting down the road for a place from which all warmth had long since fled. The roadway was much as the sheriff had described, running along the western edge of the Ross place. Although severely potholed, it was passable, at least with a truck. Passibility by a car was more questionable, and the Sheriff said so. They elected to walk. As they walked down the roadway, Scully noticed that several gates had been set into the fence, leading from pastures and fields to the road. He remembered that the Sheriff had mentioned that Jack Ross had used the road to move his equipment. Obviously, this was how he got in and out of the pastures. Driving the tractor on this road would almost certainly be preferable to driving along a dirt path down the middle of the farm. There was a slight but steady down hill grade. Scully noted, "I see where he hasn't plowed in several years. See, where the small trees are starting. What kind are they?" The Sheriff answered, "Locust thorn trees. I forget the exact name. Terrible nuisance in this part of the country, even if you cut them down they seem to spread by the roots. They have big thorns. If the livestock were in this pasture, half of them would be blinded by the thorns. Those are big suckers, might be 4 to 5 inches long. They'll hurt you if you don't watch out. There's a regular cycle; farmer comes in and cuts them down, keeps the plowed down, and they seem to disappear. Farmer gets older, stops plowing, and they gradually come back. Probably the reservoir is down by the stream bank." At that time they came upon the final pasture. Mulder thought he could hear the stream, not too far off. "Show us what happened, Sheriff Connor." The three of them climbed the fence and walked through some trees to a clearing in the bottom pasture. "This is where they had the meeting. The best we can reconstruct, the men built a fire in the fire pit. You can see the ashes. They stood around, or walked around quite a bit, talking we think. Smoked quite a few cigarettes. You can see the butts. "There was a speaker, some man no one admits to knowing. He started talking about the problems with the government, and the militia's responsibility for cleaning up the mess, and about that time--they'd probably been there an hour or so--Allen wandered over to that maple tree, picked up Dick Halliburton's lever action Remington 30-06, cocked it and started shooting. He killed Dick Halliburton, but a small hole in the McClure kid, and dropped Paul Burkhammer--one shot in the left calf. The first shot no one did anything, just stood there in shock. After the McClure kid started screaming, a couple of the men ran toward him, including Paul. Like I said, he dropped Paul, and then the others dropped him. No one knows who shot him yet--the weapons are all ready for testing--but several of them admit shooting." Scully asked the obvious. "What made him do it?" The Sheriff answered the obvious. "Damned if I know. Allen never hurt a fly, was going to get married next month. No one understands it. He just went loco. We were hoping you could tell us." Suddenly, the Sheriff looked more tired than Scully thought it was possible for a man to be. "I'll do my best. I arranged with the medical examiner to assist on the autopsy this afternoon. I'll probably need to run some samples up the lab in Chicago, afterward, unless you know someone going that way. Of course, we can't just FEDEX it; that would violate chain of custody protocols. But if you'd like to volunteer a deputy, I'd be pleased to be able to say thank you." Scully smiled a rare smile, the kind Mulder couldn't remember seeing for months before her reassignment. "That would be fine. Deputy Morales has a girl up there anyway, and he'll be going off about 4:00. I could give him a few hours time off in the morning, to make it up to him. "Good idea. That should do the trick." Mulder was still walking around the clearing, trying to visualize what must have happened. He took a deep breath, mouth and nose both, and got the smell of the wet ground, and the water from the stream. He couldn't smell cigarettes, but did smell something form the wet ashes in the firepit. He didn't think talking to the witnesses would help much; the sheriff had already talked to them. He walked down to the riverbank, catching a gust of smell off the banks, then quickly walked back. The witnesses, he thought, probably were more sad than frightened. Everyone knew everyone, except for the mystery guest. Still, nothing said so far would account for a nominally normal man going stark raving mad, and shooting up people he'd known for years. Unless it were drugs.... "Sheriff, " he asked, "did you sample any of the cigarette butts?" "Yes, a few." "Do we know where Allen was standing most of the time?" "The best I can make out, under that pin oak." He pointed to the tree; there were quite a few cigarette stubs under it. "Scully, do you have an evidence bag?" Scully pulled a plastic bag out of her jacket pocket, and handed it over, and Mulder carefully lifted several more cigarette butts, using the end of a ball point pen, into the bag. "I think we're about done now. And I'm cold. Are you ready to go, Sheriff? Scully?" They nodded, and walked back toward the road, climbing the fence, and walking up the grade to the main road. The stopped at the house to return the coffee mugs, and say good bye. Then they headed back for the cruiser. Sheriff Connors had one question: "What do you expect to find in the cigarette butts?" "Possibly evidence of drug contamination. Maybe not. Even if we do find something that would account for Baumgartner's behavior, we don't know who would have put it there." The trip back to town was fairly quiet. Scully rode back to Woodbridge, with the Sheriff, and met the medical examiner at the hospital. The county was too small to either have or require a separate medical examiner's office; they simply rented space, as needed from the hospital. One of the technicians showed Dr. Scully where she could scrub up, and she prepared to do so, changing out of her denim and flannel and into scrubs, complete with apron and mask. She walked into the autopsy suite, nodded at Dr. Farris, and asked if he was ready to begin. "I'll use my tape recorder to keep notes, " she said, pointing at the black microphone clipped to the top of her scrubs. "Just speak up and this will catch it all; I should have it transcribed by tomorrow, if the power on my laptop holds up." The M.E. smiled, or at least Scully assumed it was a smile behind that mask. "I like your recorder; mine has to sit on the table. It doesn't have a separate microphone, and half the time I can't hear what I said. Of course, I don't do this very often." He sighed. "All right, let's begin. Male specimen, toe tag labeled Allen Baumgartner, apparent age late twenties to early thirties." Dr. Farris made an additional note, "He was 31; I delivered him." That last accompanied by a grimace discernible even behind the mask. "Subject was apparently killed by small caliber rifle or handgun bullet." By this time, they'd found the entrance wound, no corresponding exit wound, and had opened the chest wall. There had been a powder burn on Baumgartner's chest. He must not have been wearing a coat, or else it had been hanging open. "Yes. See, the shell must have torn the artery along the breastbone. Blood pressure would have dropped right away, especially in the cold weather, with nearly instant unconsciousness, death probably took a little longer. immediate. It's pretty unambiguous." "Yes, Dr. Farris, I agree. Still, I need to take some tissue samples for examination." Scully pointed to a number of specimen containers. "The Sheriff promised one of his deputies could run these up to the lab I Chicago for me. Deputy Morales?" With that, she began excising small samples of the late Allen Baumgartner; stomach contents, lung tissue, brain tissue, blood sample, urine sample. Other sections, more gruesome. "I know him, too. He has a girl, up in the Chicago suburbs. He'll be happy for a chance to drive up there, especially if it's on taxpayer time. Good man, too, he'll be a detective some day." Dr. Farris dug out the slug that had been the proximate cause of death, dumping it in the evidence bag. "Not very large, might be just a deer rifle, or a rabbit gun." "Doesn't have to be very large, if it's close enough and hits the right spot. This appeared to do both. They took some time closing Allen Baumgartner up; Scully knew the local mortician could make him presentable for the funeral. She'd heard that Dick Halliburton's funeral was scheduled for Thursday; arrangements for Allen Baumgartner's funeral were nominally called "incomplete" which really meant that they were waiting for the investigation to finish up. She told the M.E. that her examination was complete, and that once he was satisfied, he could write up the death certificate. There wouldn't need to be any further delay. It was all she could do for someone whose death didn't make any more sense the circumstances surrounding it. They finished up, and Scully took the samples with her while she cleaned up. Scully called the main sheriff's office, and a deputy was dispatched to pick her up. She searched out Deputy Morales, and dropped the bags with him. He was all set for her. He had the receipts ready for signature, properly prepared. He gave every evidence that he knew what he was doing. "Do you know where to deliver these, Deputy?" "Yes, Agent Scully. Main FBI laboratory, Chicago. I've been there before." Scully wondered whether he meant to the FBI lab, or to Chicago, but thought better of asking. He was, after all saving her a trip. "Sheriff Connors called them. They know I'm driving up tonight, and promised to have an official waiting to sign for them." "Good. Have a safe trip." "Thank you, Agent Scully. Sheriff Connors asked me to give you a ride back to Pinedale or Waterford, whichever you want. They're both on the way." Scully smiled her thanks and followed the Deputy to the parking lot.. She had promised to meet Mulder at the drug store, in Waterford, and compare notes. Mulder was to interview several acquaintances of the late Allen Baumgartner, and Dick Halliburton. They had the same people listed on the records as long time friends. Mulder took a look at the list, and thought again how hard this case must be for the tiny Illinois farming community. Everyone knew everyone, and most people were related, one way or the other. In a way, it made his job simpler, since by interviewing two long-time acquaintances for one, he could interview two for each. The former editor and owner of the newspaper, Louise Weingarten, now retired. And the Latin and high school English teacher, also retired, Eleanor Smalley. Though Dick Halliburton, victim, and Allen Baumgartner were separated by over twenty years in age, they had shared these acquaintances. With a sigh, Mulder looked at the addresses. The Latin teacher still lived in town, just off Main Street. For the editor, a map directing him three miles the other way from the crime scene was attached. He decided to start with Miss Smalley Eleanor Smalley's house was stucco covered, complete with shutters, and a screened porch. He walked onto the porch, and pulled the chain on a bell. After a minute or two, he added a knock at the door. An old woman with an incredibly straight back answered the door. "Miss Smalley? I'm Special Agent Mulder, of the Federal Bureau of Investigation." Mulder handed his badge to her. She was an old woman, must be well past 70, with hair that was still partially dark, not all white or gray. She looked at Mulder's badge very carefully, and compared the picture with the face. Satisfied, she invited him in. "I suppose you're here to talk about Allen Baumgartner." This was a woman who didn't waste any time. "He was one of my students; took two years of Latin--that's all we offered, and stayed the course with me through four years of English. I pulled out my records, " she added, pointing at several black covered teacher grade books on the coffee table, "just to be sure. He was a pretty good student, could have probably gone on, but all he really wanted to do was farm. I seem to recall he was good a math, as well, but you'd have to talk to someone else about that." Mulder nodded; he'd already read about the same thing in the file. "Did he ever get into trouble?" Miss Smalley laughed. "Now, Agent Mulder, don't talk foolishly. All high school boys get into some trouble." Her face crinkled up into a million wrinkles. "But if you really mean, did he get into serious trouble, then I can give you a serious answer. No." "Do you know what happened to him after he left high school?" "Agent Mulder, this is a little town, and I live in the middle of it. Of course I know. He farmed with his dad, until he passed on, and still farmed for his mother; he also helped out an uncle, dairying. He and his girl planned to take over his mother's farm, after the wedding. Dairying is about the hardest kind of farming I know. Cows don't wait. And dairymen don't have much time to get into trouble, not when they have to be ready to milk starting at 5am. It doesn't leave much time. Oh, yes, Allen was ambitious, and drove the school bus, too. He was engaged to be married. Did you know that? He'd saved his money, and was planning to buy out his uncle, who's ready to retire. I don't understand how this could have happened, " she added, the laughter and crinkles totally gone. "Neither does the Sheriff. Neither do I. But we'll try to find out. Now, what can you tell me about Dick Halliburton?" "I thought you'd probably ask about him, too. Dick goes a lot farther back, but I've always been pretty well organized. To find his records, " she pointed at several red-covered books, "I had to go digging in the attic. I found them, too. Dick was just an average student. He took a year of Latin, and three years, that was the state-wide minimum at the time, of English. He was a B- or C+ student, planned on being a farmer. I remember trying to get him to work on the school paper, we had one in those days, and for one semester he did write the sports column. Nice man, raised corn and soybeans, and fed them to the cattle. Made a good living, and I seem to recall hearing had his wife using a computer to help manage the herd, and the finances. She wasn't much of a student, so I suppose, " she added, "Dick must have taught her. Or possibly the children. He had three children. One of the boys is at the University of Illinois; the older girl is a senior at Woodbridge High. The youngest is a boy, eighth grader at Section County Intermediate. That's in Pinedale." Listening to the old woman talk, Mulder thought that all he'd collect would be hearsay, and observations two decades out of date. Undeniably, however, Miss Eleanor Smalley did keep up with the happenings of the town. "Miss Smalley, tell me, have you heard anything about the group they were members of?" "Just enough to know that I wouldn't fit in. No girls allowed. I don't believe in taking government in my own hands. Still, the farmers around here work very hard, and for not much return. This is a way of life that is dying out. They think they can stop that, but this is just foolishness. The can't stop it, anymore than they could stop the school's being closed. But there was always just talk. I was surprised to hear that they had weapons at their meeting. Not as surprised, " she added, "as I was to hear that they turned them on one another." "Miss Smalley, you've been a big help. Thank your for taking the time to talk to me. I'm sure this has upset everyone in the town. If you think of anything else, you can contact me through Sheriff Connors' office." She led him to the door, proffered an arthritic hand, and said goodbye. Mulder heard her turn the lock in the door, after she showed him out. He wondered whether this happened often, or just lately. Mulder's second call, after some driving, was at the home of the retired editor. He found Louise Weingarten in her back yard, digging up flower bulbs. The season was already over. Mrs. Weingarten was talkative, and knew both men, but really added very little to what Mulder had already learned from Teacher Smalley. She did have some additional information about the militia. She kept digging while she talked, occasionally pitching a flower bulb toward a bushel basket. "Oh, yes, I've heard about them. But they aren't what you think. Not a part of that awful group that blew up the courthouse in Oklahoma. Not even a part of what they're calling the 'Michigan Militia.' This is just a home grown group, more a political club than anything else. They were angry that they didn't think they could make a living doing the only thing they knew how to do." "Mrs. Weingarten, if they were a political club, why did they have weapons with them? And why meet in an abandoned field down by the river?" Mrs. Weingarten stopped digging, and straightened up. "If you want my opinion, Mr. Mulder, they met in an abandoned field because it represented an element of adventure. I suppose you've seen Waterford. There isn't much there for excitement, just the sheriff's office, and a small grocer, with the drugstore next door. Package liquor, or even beer, you'd have to drive up to Pinedale for. They don't sell it here. About the rifles, well, sometimes the men go deer hunting in the early evening. It's the season; probably they just showed up there, after hunting along the river. Hunting is still legal, and pretty common around here." That last was added a little defensively. "Of course it is." Mulder kept to himself the observation that she had been the first person to volunteer a plausible explanation of why the rifles were present. Neither Dick Halliburton nor Allen Baumgartner were around to be interviewed, and none of the other witnesses had mentioned it at all. Mollified, Mrs. Weingarten added, "Why, of course. What did you think they had them for? People around here don't go around shooting one another. For that, you have to go to Chicago, or Washington, I suppose." She said it so sincerely that Mulder was hard pressed not to smile. Washington, DC had the reputation of one of the murder capitals of America. Mostly it was done with high powered hand guns, however, not rabbit or deer guns. Mulder thanked the editor, and, at her request, carried a big basket of freshly dug up bulbs to the garage for her. They were quite heavy. The basket was a little muddy, but he thought it only fair, she'd given him a clue, to give her a hand. After he set the basket down, he wiped his hand on his slacks, and offered it to her. "I didn't mean to be so tart about the rifles. People from cities don't seem to understand that life out here is very different. They think we're just hicks. We're not. We get newspapers, watch TV, and some of the younger folks even use the Internet. Our interests are just different. Not wrong." It didn't take Mulder long to drive back to town. He'd spent a lot of time listening, but couldn't make much sense of what he'd heard. Nothing about the case seemed to add up. Why would one man pick up a rifle for no reason and start shooting people who'd known him since he'd been born? Less immediate, but more pressing, was why were he and Scully here? This wasn't an x-file, not at all. Springfield should have handled it.. Why dispatch them all the way from Washington? It was a long trip. Mulder was still trying to puzzle it out when we got back to the office. It turned out the Sheriff had gone off duty. One deputy was left on, but only until 8:00. After that, any calls were routed to Pinedale, or Woodbridge. The Sheriff's office covered all of Section County. They were stretched fairly thin. Mulder left a message that he'd talk to the Sheriff in the morning, and walked back outside to wait for Scully. It was past 4:00, but the sky was already starting to lose the light. Scully didn't keep him waiting for long, arriving, chauffeured, by the smiling Deputy Morales. She thanked him heartily through the window. Mulder was a little surprised; Scully had the reputation of being something of an ice queen. Still, it wasn't his business. "Hello, Mulder, all done? Do we need to go inside? Or can we head back to the Lamplighter? I'm beat, " she added. "Sure. Find out anything?" "I found out a LOT. These people LOVE to talk, some of them anyway. I heard all about the Deputy's lovelife from the Sheriff, with romantic additions from the Medical Examiner. It turns out he's one of two docs in the County, and probably delivered half of everyone here under age 40." Well, that explained the smiling deputy, anyway. "All right, let's head back. We can get cleaned up, and talk about it over dinner, if you want to eat." That last was a little tentative; Mulder didn't feel on safe ground with her, not at all. "Hey, sounds good. If you want to go to Woodbridge, I found a place that the ME claims makes the best fried catfish in 5 counties." The autopsy had been easier than the interview with Mrs. Halliburton, which had preceded it. The widow had still been in shock, and had added little to the stock of information, except that her husband and Allen Baumgartner had gone hunting that afternoon. Dana was glad to be back at the hotel, and proceeded to take off the last 10 hours, one piece at a time. First off came the down jacket; she hung that up on one of three hangers on the clothes bar...the room didn't have a closet. Next came the shirt, revealing a pretty pink lace bra. It had been bought on impulse, shortly after the Oklahoma City assignment. She'd purchased several other pieces of lingerie, all pink, mostly lacy. Maybe she had thought even then that eventually, she might be in a position to show them off. But not so far. Then the hiking boots, which provided quite a startling contrast, should anyone ever have seen it, to the lace, and the flannel lined jeans, which she'd been happy to be wearing that morning, out at the Ross place. The jeans got folded up, and the shirt dumped in the tub. She planned to wash it out while she washed herself out. Ten minutes later, Dana was relaxing in hot water two thirds of the way up her back. The shirt was soaking at the other end of the tub, helped along by occasional agitation courtesy of her feet. She slid down in the water a bit, then started to lather a washcloth. The soap was just Ivory, plain scented, but it did make nice bubbles. As she washed off her arms, she felt some of the tension generated by assisting at the autopsy began to leach out. The case was beginning to disturb her. There wasn't any rational explanation for Allen Baumgartner's behavior, none at all. Although she hadn't mentioned in front of the Sheriff, when Mulder began bagging cigarette butts the thought that Baumgartner had been taking some kind of drug had flashed through her mind. The only thing in the pharmacopoeia that came to mind was PCP; not a drug for intelligent people, but then again, how intelligent is it to take drugs? It was first of all an animal tranquilizer, and still licensed for that purpose. It probably would be available in this area. Baumgartner had been a dairy farmer; presumably he had known about the stuff. She made a mental note to contact the local veterinarian or veterinarians--there were more cows and hogs in the county than people, judging by the drive to the Ross place and back--to see if there had been any thefts. Dana raised a leg and let the warm water trail down her calf. She was starting to feel quite a bit better; she hadn't realized how cold she felt until she sat in the tub. PCP might explain the irrationally violent outburst. But why in the world would he have taken it? Farmers were not, in general, the cadre of people in which she'd expect to see much drug taking. She rubbed a little more Ivory onto the washcloth, and started on her foot, noticing that it was time for a pedicure. One of her special treats, an all for herself treat, was a full blown pedicure, self-administered, whenever she traveled. Among other things, it took quite a bit of time. That and sightseeing, looking at the town, no matter where it was, were her travel diversions. Thinking of time reminded her, that she would need to call Joel, back in Washington, if the case was going to run much past Wednesday. She didn't think they could get clear any before Thursday, which meant that she'd have to cancel her stint at the clinic. Suddenly, somehow she didn't feel so relaxed anymore. And the crick in her shoulder, which had bothered her off and on for the last three days, was back. "Time to get out, Dana Katherine, " she told herself. "I suppose I'd better get dressed." Dana climbed out of the tub and carefully toweled off, then combed out her hair. She wished it were a little longer, so she could pin it up, but had never succeeded in growing it much beyond the minimal pony-tail stage. She walked over to the clothes bar, and considered carefully. There was a charcoal gray pantsuit; she'd brought a pink blouse to soften it. And there was a teal suit, a new one with a long coat, buttoned from chin almost to knees. Very stylish. Very covered up. And extremely unrevealing. That would be the ticket. She looked carefully into the mirror as she added a coat of mascara to her eyelashes, and some pink lipstick. Walking past the dresser, she picked up an atomizer, and without stopping to think, spritzed some Bal a Versailles cologne on her neck. Eight minutes later, she was in the registration lobby, waiting. Fox Mulder didn't take tub baths, except when he was sick. They took up too much time, and allowed for too much introspection. Introspection was something he tried to avoid, or at least minimize, since it was hard to put aside at bed time, and frequently leaked into his dreams. But a hot shower, now that felt good. Too bad the water wasn't really hot, and only a trickle came through, instead of the rush he got at home. Well. It would have to do. At least there was soap, real Ivory. He could remember using it as a kid. It was funny, he didn't use it now, but he still liked it. He just never thought about it much. Scrubbing quickly, he was out of the shower, and roughly drying himself off. He looked at the pile of clothing; he was going to have to find a laundry or coin cleaner tomorrow, or start washing out clothes in the tub. In front of the mirror, Mulder took a good look and wasn't too pleased by what he saw. Clear beard shadow. Beyond shadow, it had thickened into a stubble. Totally unsuitable for polite company. With a sigh, he reached for his razor, and lather. The lather was on his face before he considered the possible implications of "polite company." He was thinking about his partner, not a date. Not a lover. Not even a potential lover. FBI rules about fraternization were very clear. It was not permitted, under any circumstances. Any Agents found to be so engaging were transferred sent to different field offices. He liked Scully; she was the cool logical one; proving her logic wrong required far more than the intuitive guesses he so liked to make. It required rational, fully formed theses, and explanations. Being away from her would be very hard to bear. Had been very hard. Ouch. He nicked himself, along the jaw line. "Get a grip, Mulder. Start thinking with your brain." Mulder had told himself, many times, that while he couldn't command his feelings, he could control his actions. This entire line of thought was counterproductive, and if he continued it, would only make him unhappy. Solitude was something he normally sought out, to avoid the danger of engagement with another human being. Solitary lives did not necessarily mean lonely. But he was both solitary and lonely. He looked forward to working with his partner. And he had missed her while she had been gone. He dabbed on a bit of styptic pencil, wincing at the sting. The nick wouldn't be very noticeable. His choice in clothing was limited; Scully had said restaurant. Best restaurant in the county. He hadn't a clue what that might imply, but assumed it meant better than jeans and flannel shirt, and topsiders. The alternative here was a suit. With a tie. Why hadn't he brought some Dockers? Or something. He compromised on suit slacks and a white shirt, open at the collar, but no tie. And walked out to the registration lobby. Possibly he and Scully were carrying the no fraternization thing too far, but they had agreed NEVER to be in one another's rooms. Mulder was first in the lobby. He sat down, and picked up a copy of the Section County Observer, remembering that once Waterford had supported its own weekly newspaper. The editor/owner had told him so herself. Now there weren't enough people to support more than the one county paper, published in Woodbridge. It was last Friday's paper, probably put to bed sometime on Wednesday. Which would mean that if he and Scully didn't have something reasonable to announce by late tomorrow, the story of the shooting would come out, with no resolution, at least in print, for another week. He heard heels tapping on the linoleum and looked up to see Scully. She was wearing a turquoise suit, neatly tailored, no jewelry, but had on a little lipstick. He admired her, not too obviously, he hoped, and wished, not for the first time, that they could social partners, as well as professional. "Scully, you cleaned up nice, " he said. To himself he thought, "You jerk. She looks lovely. Turquoise suits her." He deliberately chose the unchic older name for the currently popular color, one that set off her eyes and hair so well. "Turquoise suits you, and" he thought again, catching the sweet scent of the perfume, something expensive and French, he guessed, "you smell wonderful." Mulder wished he hadn't said anything, hadn't even thought anything, not anything at all. It would be too easy to get in too deep with a woman like Scully. She could make him think about things he'd prefer to keep buried. "So where is this fish place?" He pulled the car keys out of his pocket. "Are you driving? Or am I?" Scully affected not to notice the comment. "Why can't he ever say something nice. It wouldn't be like he was asking me to marry him, just observing the social niceties, " she thought to herself. Aloud, all she said was, "You drive, I'll navigate. I hope I can make sense of these instructions." Mulder took the wheel, and the headed back toward the highway, and the road that led to Woodbridge. They were becoming more familiar with the route than they liked. Bye and bye, the road widened a little, and they were at the stop light at the east entrance to the town. The state road turned into Main Street. It was rather pretty. There were some rather widely spaced street lamps, incandescent, not sodium vapor, so they cast a yellow glow on the street, the wide sidewalk, and the low buildings. It wasn't at all like the harsh, anti crime white and nerve jangling yellow lamps of the city. The townspeople had decided to repave the road with bricks, or possibly it had always been made of bricks. Mulder was fairly sure that Main Street was older than the State Road. "I'd guess, when they built the road, they looked at the existing roads, Main Street here, and I think it was Locust in Pinedale, and then Main again in Waterford, and the connected them." Scully nodded. His guess seemed to be a logical one, and the towns had clearly been there for a long time. Possibly, the current state road simply followed a much older country gravel road. Instead of admiring Mulder's observations, she said, a little abruptly, "If the next cross street is Walnut, turn left." Which was not at all what she was feeling. Or maybe it was. The restaurant was called "Hal's"; it was really a bar, with a dining room attached. Scully loathed bars; they proceeded to dining room. Mulder looked around for a minute or so, to see if he could catch clues for local behavior. He noticed several tables came decorated with pitchers of beer. They'd be off duty until at least 8:00 tomorrow; let's see, the 6 hour prohibition on consumption of alcohol prior to duty left them with....lots of time. "Do you want some beer? I don't think there's going to be much choice in wine here." "Sure, beer would be fine, " she responded, but thought to herself, "and a bourbon Manhattan, on the rocks, would be even finer." They had been seated at a booth for four, toward the back of the dining room, close to the kitchen, in one of only a few spaces with any privacy at all. Mulder was glad of it. He wanted to find out what was bothering his partner. She'd gone missing for weeks, hadn't called, hadn't been by the office. On Monday, when he first heard her voice on the answering machine, he'd been happy, even though his head ached from the night before. She clearly hadn't been so happy to see him. He liked and admired Dana Scully, and had missed her during her reassignment. He wanted to know why she had gone, and whether she was really coming back. Tonight would be as good a time as any to try to find out, maybe while they were waiting for the food to come. Someone had dropped a quarter into the jukebox at the front of the room, and Dolly Parton began braying. It wasn't particularly conducive to Mulder's thinking process. He looked at her, and grinned, that slightly lopsided grin that Dana had teased him about when their friendship was new. "Dana, " he began, only to be interrupted by the waitress with the beer. Scully thought, a little confusedly, and to herself, "Dana?" but was interrupted by the waitress. She held out or order pad, pencil at the ready. Clearly, she expected them to order. Mulder cleared his throat. "Dana, what do you want to eat?" "Catfish, " she responded. "Baked or fried?" was the response. "Fried, of course, with French fries, and Cole slaw." "Fried catfish, fries, slaw." The waitress noted it down on the pad. Turning to Mulder, she asked "And you?" "I'll have the same. And a pitcher of draft beer. "The waitress made one more mark on the pad, probably prefacing Scully's order with a "2", said thanks and left. Mulder let go with a sigh, and tried again. "Scully, before we work through the case, I haven't seen you in months, haven't heard from you, until Monday, in weeks. Where have you been? What have you been doing?": Scully had always thought one of Mulder's most disconcerting habits could be his directness. She was silent until the beer arrived. She sipped on her glass of beer, buying time while she composed an answer. She decided to follow the guidelines given in "testimony" class; this was a week long session at the Academy on how to comport yourself in giving depositions, and more importantly, before a judge or jury, in a criminal case. The one rule her instructor had told the class to get through their heads, even if they forgot everything else, was always answer the question. Just the explicitly stated questions, not the obvious follow-on, or background. Use demonstrable facts. Never volunteer opinions; it opened up unpredictable lines of inquiry. "Mulder, you know what I've been doing. I spent two weeks in Oklahoma City." Though holding herself to the facts, she found it hard to suppress a frown. "Then I took two weeks of leave. When I came back, Skinner assigned me to teach a forensics course out at Quantico, complete with autopsy demonstrations. I pitched in on the first aid classes as well. And I've been doing all the professional reading I should have done over the last two years." She knew she couldn't stick to the "testimony" model. "Mulder, I've been thinking about giving it up. Not just the x-files, but the Bureau, altogether." Mulder leaned back a little in his chair, and pushed his beer glass a little to one side, studying the pattern of moisture it left behind on the varnished tabletop, looking for fundamental truth, or courage, or something. "Giving it up?" He thought to himself, giving up the x-files was something he could understand; he knew she had endured considerable razzing for her partnership with him. But giving up the Bureau? She could be director of forensics one day. "Yes, Mulder, giving it up. When I was in Oklahoma City, it turned out that I had time to reflect, you might say, on life. Mostly the EMTs brought me bits and pieces of bodies. Legs and feet of small children, killed in an explosion I hope they didn't feel. Before they had a chance to have a life. I made friends with one of them, an emergency medical technician and his partner, a dog handler. "And the dog. The dog had the most important job of all; it had been trained to sniff out living people in construction rubble. The dog, not just Ralphie, but all of the dogs, didn't find very many. After a couple of days, tails stopped wagging, and the handler, Mac McLeod, told me that the pooches were getting depressed. They asked me to play victim, so the dog could find something living. I had plenty of time. The dog always found me, wherever I hid, even under the trailer. And when it licked me, I always laughed, and carried on, and I could see the dog laughing back. I could see it in Ralphie's eyes. Later on, he found one little girl, three days later, still alive. That's all, except for corpses, bits and pieces. All I could do was inspect them and try to group them by size. And put bodies in body bags. It was terrible." "When I came back, I asked for two weeks leave. I spent a week with a girlfriend. We went down to Williamsburg, went sightseeing, went shopping at the outlet malls. I also spent a week with my mother. I never realized how lonely I've been. I think I need something more." Mulder considered what she had said. It all made sense, sort of. He would have just done more work to fill the hours, but then he was solitary by nature. Maybe she needed to be with people. "Do you know what you want to do next?" "I'm not sure. I'm volunteering at a free clinic; I used to think I didn't like being a doctor, that people got in the way of research. Maybe that was wrong. I need to find out. I could always, " she added, "go to work for one of the state or county medical examiners. I'm sure I could get a job doing that." Just then the fried catfish came, piled high on a plate. Scully picked up a fork and stabbed a piece for herself, and Mulder did the same. Scully dug in with considerable enthusiasm, peeling the catfish away from its bones. When she'd told him catfish, Mulder assumed it would be tame, civilized, deboned catfish. Mulder had assumed wrong. "They must catch them down in the stream." Mulder tried, but found he wasn't very hungry. And picking out the bones was harder than he thought. After a while, he gave up. "Do you want to talk about the case?" "Sure, " she said, talking around a mouthful of fish. "Don't you like it? It's a little muddy." Catfish were notorious bottom feeders; lack of mud, like lack of bones, suggested farm raised fish. Dana hadn't cared for the farm raised variety. Mud flavor was better than the concrete off taste they seemed to pick up in the troughs. Mulder temporized. "It's a little muddy." He then gave her a précis of his interviews with Mrs. Halliburton, Mrs. Weingarten and Miss Smalley. Scully gave up her findings from the autopsy. They were conclusive on how Baumgartner had died, but not on why. She mentioned sending the samples for forensic testing in Chicago. "You know, Scully, I'd be willing to bet that they find something, either in the samples you sent, or in the cigarette butts. The more I consider it, the more certain I am that Baumgartner had taken some kind of drug. Possibly PCP." Scully smiled; that tallied with her initial impression during the autopsy. He went on the remind her that it would be available in the area. "I talked to his high school Latin teacher, and the editor of the town paper; they both agree that this was entirely out of character. We'll have to speak with the fiancee and his mother tomorrow. I don't think there's any way out of it. But I don't expect to find out anything different. Allen Baumgartner was a farmer. They don't strike me as the kind of people who spend time voluntarily smoking dope. He straightened up. "I don't have one of my finely tuned improbabilities, yet, but consider this idea: someone gave it to him." The idea, as stated, seemed eminently reasonable. It did leave a big gaping hole. "Who? Why?" Mulder reached for some French fries. "These are pretty good. Who? Well, the first approximation answer has to be the mystery guest. I can't see anyone else as probable. As to why, let's see if the tests support the idea; I wouldn't want to put much effort into figuring out why, if there wasn't a why to figure." Scully smiled at the linguistic formulation. "How about some dessert?" She had demolished two thirds of the platter of fish, and half the fries, but wasn't done eating. Her beer remained virtually untouched. "Dessert? No thanks. It'll give me indigestion, " he replied, thinking that it would also cause fitful sleeping, the kind that nightmares could gallop through. "Coward!" Dana waggled a hand at the waitress and said, "Mud pie. It'll be a perfect mate with the catfish. And decaf coffee." The waitress laughed; everyone complained about the mud flavor. Mulder merely shook his head when the waitress asked him for his order. Tonight was Scully's turn to pick up the check, which came to $22.50, tip included. It had been a bargain. She pulled out her government issue expenditures book, and noted down the amount. By prior agreement, Scully always kept the records, and they filed a expense claims simultaneously. On the three early occasions in the partnership when Mulder had kept records, Mulder had lost records. He seemed unable to adapt to the record keeping required by the rules. The drive back to Pinedale was far less terrible than Scully had anticipated. She had not known what to expect when she told Mulder what she had been thinking. Of course, she was still just thinking about it, wasn't she? It wasn't as if she'd turned in her resignation. Assistant Director Walter Skinner was working late. It was a bad habit, he knew. He had never decided if his marriage had gone sour because of the long hours, or if the long hours had started as an escape when his marriage had soured. Divorced now, he saw his two kids every weekend. He and his wife had arranged one of those "civilized" divorces, for which he was glad. Even though he hated being unattached. And hadn't found anyone else. But the demise of their love was more his fault than hers, and he had admitted it. When the phone rang, he picked it up. He had been expecting the call from his chain smoking shadow. "Have you heard from them?" "No, not yet. I'm expecting them to call in the morning. Have your people dug up anything I can give them on the case?" The chain smoker had sources that even the FBI couldn't match. Not always very reliable, but very available. "Not anything. But there was another case, this time in Nevada. And the Internet is really hot with speculation. Someone is deliberately causing these people to lose their minds. The talk hosts are even picking it up. They assume it's the FBI. Or my people. My people don't need any more unfavorable publicity. Since conventional investigations have been inconclusive in the earlier cases, we need to try something new." Skinner mulled over that piece of news. He'd already seen the flash fax from Chicago, with the results of preliminary tissue and evidence sampling. Positive for PCP. Scully and Mulder would find out in the morning. "Listen, Skinner, this isn't your average case. Some of the others don't have PCP as probable cause. And it isn't just in America, it's all over. Imagination is not something the Bureau is long on; we only have Mulder and Scully working on the unconventional side. We need to keep them together." Chain smoker added, mentally, that something like this, a real conspiracy with threats of overthrown governments, not just his own, should sufficiently engage Mulder to drag him away from his pet alien abduction investigation. He could still be useful. "I've done what I can. It's up to the two of them now. But, I must tell you that Scully seemed pretty determined to leave the project; I'd doubt that Mulder can talk her into staying. Mulder's an excellent agent, but he can be a bit undisciplined. That's what she supplies to the partnership, discipline and logic. And companionship. That part seems to work both ways." "Well, do what you can." And with that the smoker hung up the phone. Skinner despised him, loathed is presence, hated taking "suggestions" from him. And had no choice. He turned out the lights as he left for his home. He ought to buy a dog, so someone would be happy to see him when he walked through the door. Wednesday. Wednesday dawned, overcast and cold. The two agents met, as agreed, for a run. Came back, showered, and headed back to Waterford. They had appointments to keep, Sheriff Connors in tow, with Mrs. Baumgartner, the mother, and the future, and now never, Mrs. Baumgartner, wife. The Sheriff had arranged to do the interview of the two women at Mrs. Baumgartner's house. Miss Caldwell would be there. Sheriff Connors handled the introductions. The ladies knew why the agents where there. Mulder took a good look at Allen Baumgartner's mother. Medium height, a little stooped, gray-haired, red eyed, she'd been crying. She probably wasn't as old as she looked, but outdoor life, particularly for a farmer's wife, was hard. Linda Caldwell was also red eyed, but still brunette. Mulder reminded himself that she was only 28; she looked much older. Agent Scully asked the women if they would mind her tape recording the interview. They had agreed. "Mrs. Baumgartner, can you tell me where your son was on Sunday night?" Mrs. Baumgartner tensed immediately. "He had dinner here, with me and Linda. That was about 5:00. He left a little after that and drove over to Uncle Will's, to give him a hand with the milking. It's only about five miles north of here." Linda nodded her agreement to the statement. "Did he mention anything about a meeting?" Linda chimed in. "Yes. He'd been going to some kind of grange meetings ever since last summer. Allen told me they talked about farm prices and farm strategies and such. The meetings were always at night, I assumed at someone's home. The ladies weren't invited. I suppose they must have sat around and drunk beer in warm weather. I can't imagine why they were out in a field. It must have been cold." "Did he ever mention any names of others?" "No. Well, just Dick Halliburton. He and Dick used to go hunting sometimes. Allen wasn't much of a shot, " she added, a tear running down her cheek. Mulder hated what he had to ask next. There was no sugar coating it. "Miss Caldwell, did Mr. Baumgartner ever seem violent? Or unbalanced?" "No, never. I wouldn't have been planning to marry him if he were. My father was like that. In the old days they called it being a man, but now the call it being an abuser. I wanted someone completely different." Mulder's insides crawled. He had always considered himself to have been mentally abused, by a distant father and an emotionally frozen mother. He knew what it was like. That and the loss of his sister, while he was supposed to be in charge, had made him wary of human connections. "I'm sorry, and didn't mean to offend you. You understand, I had to ask." "I understand." Mrs. Baumgartner cleared her throat. "Sheriff, " she said, "Linda and I don't understand this. Not at all. Allen wouldn't do something like that. Everyone will tell you the same thing. He wasn't drunk either. He didn't drink much, except a little beer, on a hot day, maybe. None of this makes any sense." It was Mulder's turn. "Mrs. Baumgartner, Miss Caldwell, we know what happened at Jack Ross' place, but we don't know why. And everything we've heard tends to confirm what you say: it doesn't make sense." Mulder didn't want to bring the possible drug angle into it. Their grief was real enough without adding the besmirching, and possibly false, information that illegal drugs were involved. "We'll keep you up to date on what we learn through the Sheriff." "Good-bye, Agent Mulder. Good bye Agent Scully." Mrs. Baumgartner turned away. It was left to the grieving fiancee to show them to the door. "Thank you for anything you can do." Miss Caldwell closed the door after them. Sheriff Connors walked very slowly down the front steps with the two agents. "Let's go back to Pinedale. Maybe the results from your tests will be back." The drive back to town was very quiet, Mulder looking out one window, Scully, in the back seat, looking at her hands. Mulder had been unable, absent a pharmacologically induced madness, to construct a plausible explanation for the shootings. The facts of the matter seemed clear enough. What was lacking was the facts BEHIND the facts. And Scully, after listening to the grieving mother and fiancee, thought how hard their lives were going to be. How hard their lives MUST be, with the person they loved most gone. From there it was just a short logical leap to remembering that she needed to call home. Joel might have missed her by now; not that they were constantly together, but they did talk, mostly about the clinic, or the dogs, several times a week. He hadn't picked up when she phoned on Monday, and neither had the machine. He had forgotten to turn it on in the past. A message was waiting for them when they reached the office; Deputy Morales was back, and had brought some results for Agent Scully. There was also a call for him, not an emergency, "Listen, " he addressed Mulder and Scully, "I have to swing by the south east corner of the county; some kids had been knocking down mailboxes, again. Sounds like they were pitching field corn." He saw Mulder raise an eyebrow. "It gets pretty hard, once it dries out. This is more my kind of crime." He paused, and chose his words carefully. "This is why I stay in Section County. I could have moved a long time ago, to a better paying post. But my wife was born in Woodbridge, and my kids live here, and I've worked here for 20 years. Better paying posts make you earn the money by dealing with real crime, not just kids and vandalism." He paused again. "This office doesn't have a FAX machine. You'll drive back to Woodbridge in the rental car; I don't think you'd be much interested in broken mailboxes." The Sheriff was disappointed at the investigation so far; clearly the Agents hadn't come up with much more than he had. He was fairly clear on what had happened, what he didn't understand was why. "All right, Sheriff. We'll be along in a few minutes. Agent Scully and I need to talk about the case a bit, then we'll catch up." That was Mulder. "Use my office if it will help." "Thanks." Mulder, again. Mulder walked into the Sheriff's office, and once Scully had entered, closed the door. Without preamble, he began, "I'm sure the reports will show PCP. There's no other explanation. People don't pick up loaded rifles for no reason and start shooting, unless they are not in their right minds. Everyone I've talked to agrees that Allen was in his right mind." Scully nodded, and murmured, "Yes." "So, someone must have given him the drug. But who?" "Good question, Mulder, keep going." She was waiting for him to spring the little green men on her, or a psychic projection, or a poltergeist, or something, but his next suggestion was as solid as could be. "Someone who wanted to either enrage the militia to further violence, or discredit it completely. So that it would shred itself to pieces." It was Scully's turn to put forward a suggestion. "So, you're suggesting that some anti-militia group wanted to damage it somehow, or make it damage itself?" "Yes. The question is, who did it?" "Depends on the ultimate goal; the intelligence effort would suggest that it was someone who wanted the militia's to grow more violent, possibly engage in the overthrow of the government. Maybe one of Saddam's nutty ideas? Or, if the goal is to defang the militias by getting them to tear themselves up, it would logically have to be someone who was threatened by them. The only one threatened would be the U.S. government." She hated herself, as soon as she said it, but either hypothesis suggested some kind of government, or anti-government, conspiracy. Mulder looked a little surprised at her statement, and was more surprised that she hadn't allowed him to bring it up, the better to skewer it. "Well, those do seem to be the alternatives." Scully added. "I think we need to find out more about that "guest" speaker. According to the Sheriff's reports, he was the only 'unidentified' on the meeting attendance roster." "Let's go back to Woodbridge. Maybe there will be something in the report that will help." Mulder led the way. Ensconced in the Section County Sheriff's office, reports from the dutiful Deputy Morales in hand, and laptop computer powered up, Scully began to read. "Nothing abnormal, healthy young man, blood tests showed nicotine, and urine showed traces of PCP. Nothing in the digestive track. And there weren't any needle marks. Probably smoked." She looked over at Mulder, who was staring out a window. "That tally with your thinking?" Mulder eyed her. "Yes." Scully tapped into the computer for several minutes. Then she asked, "Anything I don't know about for the reconstruction?." Mulder thought for a moment, before replying, "No." More typing followed. Suddenly, Scully pushed the laptop away from herself. "Mulder, what do I tell them? "Exactly what we found. A lot of dead ends. Murder committed by Allen Baumgartner, for reasons unknown. Perpetrator found to have consumed, probably unwittingly, PCP, a powerful hallucinogen, among other things. Perpetrator finally downed by several men, which would be consistent with PCP intoxication. . . it really makes you crazy. Perpetrator not credible as voluntary drug consumer. Baumgartner shot by someone whose bullet will eventually be traced, and clearly in self defense. Unknown person or persons present at meeting. Possible follow-up: unknown is responsible for giving Baumgartner the drug. Let it go at that." Scully frowned, and began the attempt to put Mulder's synopsis into a context that would be comprehensible and believable back in Washington. It wasn't hard, except that it came from him. No poltergeists. No astral projections. No little green men. A fine piece of detective work. After several minutes, she looked up, and asked "Mulder, are you sure?" "Yes." Mulder's mind was elsewhere. "Should I 'fax it to Skinner?" "Go ahead." "Do you see a phone jack I can plug into the laptop? It would be faster to fax it direct, and probably more secure." Mulder looked around, and found the phone, but it had a fixed wire, not detachable. He traced the wire back to the wall, and sure enough found a outlet. Once he unplugged the existing wire, the lead to Scully's PC would patch in. "Here, " he said, reaching for the phone line. It took several minutes to get a connection to Walter Skinner's fax machine, and only about five more minutes for the report to fax out. Scully had already punched up "files/save" on the PC. They were done with the interim report. Scully didn't think it was very satisfactory, but she was to eventually be found to be mistaken on that count. "Who tells the Sheriff, Scully?" asked Mulder. "We both do. We're done here; maybe back in Washington we can make a connection, but we've done all we can here." "All right." Looking back on it, before dinner, Mulder thought that they had actually probably gotten off easily. Sheriff Connors had seemed relieved that Allen Baumgartner, for whatever reasons, hadn't done anything voluntarily. People in small towns rarely sued others in civil court, but in this case, he smelled wrongful death claims coming from the Halliburton family. No matter how it was decided in a court, the bitterness would fester for years, maybe forever. The Sheriff was not pleased that the prime mover could not be identified, but was willing to accept Scully and Mulder's promise that the would continue to look into it, even after they returned to Washington. Of course, Sheriff Connors would be the one who had to face the Halliburton family, and explain it, and Baumgartner's mother and fiancee and explain it, but that seemed infinitely preferable to any other outcome Mulder could imagine. He held out his hand, in saying goodbye, to Agent Scully, particularly. She had shown genuine humanity in the matter of the autopsy. And to Agent Mulder, who seemed inclined to pursue the unknown poisoner, if that was the name for it. "I was glad to work with you both, but I'm glad you're leaving. We don't have troubles for people like the two of you. We don't ever want to. This is just a quiet farm community, in an equally quiet farm county. Whatever happened here, it looks to me, like it happened because of an outsider. Just help me keep them away." That last statement, rather sad, and incapable of fulfillment, disturbed Mulder. How could he keep the world away from Bureau County Illinois? How, indeed? Mary Ellen brought the fax to Mr. Skinner immediately, and he read it as soon as she left the room. There was always the possibility that Mary Ellen had read the report, but she had consistently demonstrated her discretion, which is what made her invaluable to Skinner. Discretion. Optimism. Good nature. Truly indispensable. He thought, briefly, "too bad she already works for me. I'd hire her. Or marry her." Skinner read over the report, and considered the implications. If Scully and Mulder were correct, and he saw no reason to doubt their analysis, there was a conspiracy here. Skinner had carefully read through reports of the similar killings, and all seemed to have in common an unexplained, and extremely uncharacteristic murder, by a perpetrator extremely unsuited for the role. In addition, all had featured a "guest speaker", unidentified, who had disappeared about the time the killing started. "Conspiracy, " he thought to himself. "But by whom, and against whom?" These were questions far less easily answered. Perhaps with study, they would give up their secrets. Reluctantly, Skinner picked up the phone, and spoke to his secretary. "See if you can get Scully or Mulder on the phone, please." Mary Ellen had written down the originating 'fax number. And the phone number of the cover sheet. She dialed the call immediately. "Mr. Skinner, I have Agent Mulder on the line." "Thank you, Mary Ellen." Mary Ellen put Mulder through. "Hello, Mulder." Mulder merely indicated he was there. "Yes?" "I think you've done all you can do, there." "Yes, Mr. Skinner, I agree." "How about you and Agent Scully come on home. Can you get a flight yet tonight?" Mulder thought about it. Back to Pinedale, pack and check out. It was a two hour drive back to Chicago, if nothing went wrong. Give them an hour or so to dump off the rental, check in, maybe make the plane, change in Pittsburgh- he'd already looked at the Airline Travel Guide- and knew with connect times that they'd be lucky to make National, the close-in airport, before it closed to landings at 11:00. "I don't think so." Skinner grunted, "All right, first thing in the morning, then. Clean up your report. And report to me at 1:00, my office." Skinner knew he'd have to brief his shadow first, and didn't have much of a clue as to what outrageous demands the shadow would put on him. "Fine, sir." Mulder was being suspiciously acquiescent. Skinner wondered whether he'd found someone to feed the damned goldfish. A woman, maybe? Mulder was saying goodbye as Scully was waving arms at him. Scully bent a suspicious eye in Mulder's direction. "Well?" she asked. "We're supposed to come home, first thing in the morning." "What about the rest of TODAY?" "Listen, Scully, today is about shot We need to go back to Pinedale, pack, check out, drive up to Chicago, dump the rental, make the plane, make a change of planes in Pittsburgh, and maybe, probably get turned away from National and sent to BWI" he added, naming the none to accessible Baltimore airport. It was a great airport, but not if you lived 6 miles from National, in Northern Virginia. Mulder took a breath. "How about if we do this. Pack, check out, drive up to Chicago, have dinner, check into the Airport Hotel, and leave on the 6:30? That would get us back to the office before 9:00." Scully sensed a trap in the word "dinner" but thought the rest of it made quite a lot of sense. And she didn't have any goldfish to feed. "All right, " she answered. "Let's go." The drive back to Chicago was fairly quiet, until they got quite close to the airport. Mulder mentioned that he'd made reservations for them at the Airport Hilton, and went on to announce that he had them booked and confirmed on the 6:30AM nonstop back to Washington. He pulled into the hotel parking lot, and began to speak. "Scully, let's check in, then let's go downtown." Scully began winding up to give him a big negative on the suggestion, but he plowed on, apparently oblivious, as he got out of the car and walked with her to the lobby. Scully had a suitcase on wheels. It clattered as it followed her, like a little dog. "We could drive along Lakeshore Drive. Have you ever seen the city?" He was playing into one of the few personal weaknesses he had discerned in his partner, which was that whenever she traveled, after the work was done, she liked to take a look around. Pressing his point home, he added, "It's really nice. And then we could have that dinner, at Morton's or any place you want. The steak there is really terrific. Much better than you can get most places back home." Scully sighed, inwardly, and caved in. A dinner would give her time to expand on her decision to leave the Bureau. Mulder continued, "I was thinking about those people, and the other cases. While you were gone, " he skated past that part pretty smoothly "I've been reading a lot of cases, including some similar to these. The problem isn't just current, it goes back more than 50 years, off and on, and hasn't been related to just the militias, although I think the current cluster is related, and that it's just similar to, but not related to the old cases. For the recent files, the cases have a lot in common. Mostly they include someone who inexplicably whacked out, and started shooting; one man picked up a deer knife and slit his best friend's throat. That's a lot of bodies, and a lot of misery left behind. Widows, kids, mothers and fathers. Left alone." Scully shuddered. She knew Mulder had been left alone, a long time ago. His public persona was pretty tough, but she knew he was bothered by the prospect, and disliked seeing anyone put in a similar position, against his or her will. Mulder added, "Maybe there's a pattern we could identify." Scully thought it over. She didn't have a job to go to, at least not yet. Her best move might be to wean herself away from it gradually. Then when the time came, if she was sure this was what she wanted, she could cut the string to Bureau. She looked over at her partner. His face was expressionless, as if he were waiting for something from her, anything, to react to. "All right, let's go for that drive." Mulder pulled open the door of the hotel and waved her through. Once she was in front of him, he allowed himself to smile. Perhaps she could be persuaded to be his partner once more. The restaurant turned out to be something for everyone. There were dark corners designed, Mulder thought, for illicit married lovers. And lighter sections of the room, much brighter, clearly designed for business entertainment. He asked to be seated in the lighted section. They had time for a long talk before dinner, encouraged somewhat by the excellent bourbon Manhattans on which the restaurant prided itself. Mulder was a little surprised that Scully had ordered one; he'd never seen her drink much more than red wine. The talk had been better than the bourbon. The two agents had cautiously danced about the situation, each reluctant to give up much personal information. They had once seemed, on the surface at least, so close. How had they drifted so far apart? Mulder didn't want to admit he'd missed his partner, or that she had in a very innocent way become the proxy for the personal life he didn't have. He couldn't bring himself to do so. It would be indiscreet. It might embarrass her. It could give the wrong impression; he was not unaware that he had succeeded in scaring off most of the male staff who had been interested in Scully. That by itself would be reason enough for her to steer clear of him. And he knew, much as he would like to start a romance with her, that would be the end of their partnership. Mulder had only limited confidence in his ability to maintain that kind of relationship, at least right now, over the long term. And when the romance was over, if it ended, he amended, he would have neither a partner nor a lover. His mind skittered like a frightened horse away from the idea of no more Scully. Someday, maybe, but certainly not now. Not until his head was straighter, and they were done with the Bureau. Scully was a little more open, talking a bit about the clinic. It didn't seem so interesting, now that she had been on a field case, with a real live on-going mystery. She mentioned Joel in passing. She liked him. She really did. He made her feel feminine, attractive, desirable. These were nice feelings, something she hadn't felt in a long time. But was that worth giving up the Bureau? That was a very serious decision, something that needed more justification than a "maybe" romance. As fond as she had grown of him, somehow, he didn't look quite so good, either. Poor Joel. She thought to herself that it wouldn't have lasted long, in any event. She ended by mentioning that her Quantico detail would have ended on Friday, anyway. She decided that she wouldn't ask for an extension, at least not right now. She could always go back, later. The steak was excellent. Skinner inhaled deeply as he talked to his colleague. The shadow was smoking, yet again. "Well?" he asked. "They have identified the cause as PCP intoxication. Baumgartner is actually guilty of no more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and smoking the wrong cigarette. Doesn't change the fact of who he killed, but it will make the death more comprehensible." "And Scully? Is she coming back?" "Can't tell yet. I'm fairly certain she drafted the interim report. It closed with a recommendation for further research in the Bureau files, and a follow-up to profile an unidentified 'speaker' at the meeting. There seem to have been other similar instances, and the only thing in common, aside from the violence, is the mystery speaker." "Send them to Moscow. Maybe they can untangle it. We've been invited in." And at that, the cigarette smoker departed. Skinner thought to himself, "Today's Thursday. The government might run out of money and shut down by Tuesday. Send them to Moscow. Just like that." He wasn't sure that Scully wouldn't resign on the spot. Mulder and Scully entered Walter Skinner's office at one o'clock. They'd been back for a couple of hours, long enough to polish up the draft report a bit, and to start calculating their expenses for reimbursement. One of the little secrets of government service is that they give you an AMEX card, but McDonald's doesn't accept AMEX. At that, it represented a huge improvement over the card's predecessor, Diner's Club. Relatively speaking, NO ONE accepted Diners. If the restaurant didn't take plastic, it was temporarily out of pocket. And all expenses had to be accounted for before you could get a check so YOU could pay the AMEX bill. Mulder had been a little surprised to see several related files dumped on his desk. There were a LOT of cases of people suddenly going berserk. Most were explainable either by previous mental problems, or drug intoxication, as was the case of Allen Baumgartner. There were also many cases with no explanation; these were the ones he'd collected for the files. Explainable cases were of little interest to Mulder, unless they led to the unexplainable. A quick glance through showed them to be similar cases. The big dissimilarity was that in some of the cases, no drug related cause for the violence had been found. And none of the perpetrators had ever shown signs of mental instability. They had just all gone berserk, for no discernible reason. As if someone or something was telling them to go crazy, or making them go crazy. Of course, sudden insanity was nothing new. It went back to old-Testament times, and continued, sporadically, to the present time. Without identifiable causes, for the most part, although scientific investigation had made what it believed was a dent in the cases. There were many possible causes. Mulder envisioned some kind of post hypnotic suggestion. It was plausible, if not necessarily viable, and bore looking into. Psychic persuasion of one kind or another, related to hypnotism, occurred to him, but he decided not to burden Scully with that. She'd undoubtedly end up muttering "astral projection, little green men" as she retreated to Quantico and eventually away from the Bureau, and him, forever. Better he should wait a while. If the partnership could be cemented, she would be more open to these ideas. She had in the past. Skinner waved them into chairs. "Nice piece of work. I thought you'd like to know that the local sheriff, " he referred to a document on his desk, "Sheriff Connors, apparently called the Governor and had him call the director. They made special mention of your humane questioning of the witnesses, and dealings with the townspeople. Nice commendation, " he added. "How are you planning to follow up?" Mulder spoke for himself. "I've already identified a number of similar, but much older cases. All unsolved. I planned to run some computer searches for similar cases, see if I can home in on the mystery speaker. The violent crimes folks already dumped several new, similar files on my desk." He looked over at Scully; he simply didn't know what she would say next. Scully cleared her throat. "My tour at Quantico will be over on Friday. I believe I'd like to assist Agent Mulder in completing this investigation, unless" she raised an eyebrow, "you have a different assignment for me." Skinner looked at them both, and wondered what was going on that he didn't see. Clearly, it wasn't a romantic involvement. That would have come to his ears, via the coffee pot and powder puff grapevine, into which he had numerous, excellent taps. There were no secrets in a small agency, none. That level of discretion was not possible, not with all the nosies about. Well, whatever the rift had been, it appeared to be papered over. He hoped it wasn't just temporary. "That would be fine, Agent Scully. You go on out to Quantico, and spend today and tomorrow clearing up. You can report back here on Monday." He paused, before adding, "That will be all now." Digging down through some papers on his desk he added, "There's a shuttle in 15 minutes, north entrance. You can just make it." The two agents stood. Skinner added, "Mulder, I need a moment more with you, please." Mulder smiled his goodbye at Scully. And she smiled back. "Now, Mulder, " Skinner began, after the door closed. "I have some additional information for your use in follow-up." Mulder wondered why, if Scully had agreed to help, Skinner wasn't telling her this as well. Skinner continued, "About those files. I ordered them 'dumped' and incidentally, the correct terminology calls for 'referred', not 'dumped' on your desk. You'll already have noticed that they are similar. The problem here isn't the ones that are explained by PCP, or prior mental problems. It's the others with NO explanation. And those are just the case that have been referred to us. "I have knowledge, " Skinner took a big breath, "of numerous other cases to which we are not a party. Some of them are outside the United States. The latest was in, in Moldova. That is part, " he added parenthetically, "of the Former Soviet Union. The area borders on Romania. The Moldovan police cannot find any rational explanation for the violence. No drugs; they seem to have enough laboratory capacity to find something like that, even now, providing they did a thorough crime scene search. I'm told, " he added, leaving out the source, "that they did." Mulder mulled it over. "Moldova. When you say Romania, you really mean it's close to Transylvania, home of gypsies, medievalists, gypsies and mystics. And people who believed in all of it. With no proven cause, I think we'd have to look into possible alternative causes." Skinner's face was absolutely expressionless. "Yes, well, you are the expert on paranormal cases. Rule out the normal first, if you can. Then you can look into paranormal." Skinner shuddered as he said it, remembering his own brush with the paranormal, while an infantry captain in Vietnam. His men had told him there was a "ghost" enemy soldier, a member of the Viet Cong. Skinner hadn't believed in ghosts, or astral projections, or anything associated with them. But he too had, eventually, seen something, one night in the jungle. The something came back to him from time to time, not often, and usually when he was awake. It was enough to make Assistant Director Skinner have some respect for the beliefs of others. Skinner forced his mind back to the present. "We've been asked, by the Moldovan and Russian ambassadors, jointly, if we could provide assistance. The Russian ambassador admitted, when his diplomatic colleague was out of ear shot, that they are especially concerned. Russia still has quite an nuclear arsenal. They're dismantling it, but that could take a while. And if a madman got in there, who could predict what might happen. "Would you be interested?" Visions of the Kremlin, Red Square and St. Basil's cathedral flashed through Mulder's mind, but were almost immediately suppressed by something more important. It sounded more like an X-file. "Certainly." Skinner kept his face clear. "Do you want a partner? I see you've partnered with several other Agents while Agent Scully has been on assignment." "Yes, I think it calls for a partner. I'll be working through an interpreter, most likely. I'm not the most diplomatic person. I don't want to have to rely on someone for whom English is a second, or maybe third, language. And I would prefer Agent Scully, if she'll accept the assignment. She's the only partner I've had for whom `Mulder' is even a second language." Mulder smiled a little, the slightly lopsided little grin that had been so absent from his face for the preceding three months. Skinner nodded. "Fine. Shall I ask her, or you?" Mulder stood up and straightened his back. "I'll ask her." Skinner held out his hand. "Fine." He consulted his watch. "You still have five minutes before the shuttle leaves. See if you can catch her. Have you been home yet? Mulder shook his head, "No." "Well, if she agrees, you can leave tonight. Drop everything and head to your homes. You'll need very warm clothing. It's winter there already. Expect to be gone a week or so. No, " he amended, "with travel and downtime, both ways, count on 10 days to two weeks. You can spend a down day in Paris on the way back, if you want. I'll have travel work out all the arrangements. Tickets and passports and visas will be waiting for you at the International Check-in Gate, Dulles." Mulder was impressed. He'd heard tales of it's taking months to get a visa. And here was Skinner planning to have him ready to go tonight. At least he and Scully had passports, but Russian visas? Mulder wondered whether Skinner had planned this out quite a bit in advance, and had neglected to tell him, or if he just had excellent connections. Mulder's flashing thought was interrupted by Walter Skinner's voice. "And be careful. This will be harder than Waterford. Don't step on any diplomatic toes. They all have bunions, and behave unpredictably when they hurt." Mulder turned and walked briskly out of the office suite. Once past Mary Ellen's office, he broke into a trot. The End |
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Title: Out-take 1 Summary: This story follows immediately after my first story in the "partners" series, "Resolution." It represents a non-PG 13 "out-take" from the second story in the series "Moscow Nights, " which is still under heavy development. Scully and Mulder have just returned from a murder investigation in Illinois, and Walter Skinner is about to send them to Moscow. Dana has decided not to leave the X-files project, at least temporarily, and is on her way to Quantico, to clean up after a three month temporary duty (TDY) there. The relationship between them has been strained, with Mulder distressed far more than she. She is looking forward to dinner, and possibly much more, in two nights time, with her new beau, Joel Walton. All you non-relationshippers, this one is NOT for you. However, watch this spot for the next session, tentatively titled "Moscow Nights." I promise to make it up to you. [archivist's note: The sequel was ultimately titled Ivan's Heirs] "Now, Mulder, " Skinner began, after the door closed. "I have some additional information for your use in follow-up." "I think we may have a serious problem. Let me give you the background. You are familiar with the fact that the Russian Federation, " he named the biggest single remaining chunk of the former USSR, "is having difficult dismantling its nuclear arsenal?" Mulder nodded. The breakdown in the government and police control over that huge land mass, one-sixth of the inhabitable area of the entire world, was enough to frighten anyone. "I have knowledge, " Skinner took a big breath, "of numerous other cases of unexplained insanity, to which we are not currently a party. The latest was in, in Moldova. That is part, " he added parenthetically, 'of the Former Soviet Union. The area borders on Romania. The Moldovan police cannot find any rational explanation for the violence. No drugs; they seem to have enough laboratory capacity to find something like that, even now, providing they did a thorough crime scene search. I'm told, " he added, leaving out the source, "that they did." Mulder mulled it over. "Moldova. When you say Romania, you really mean it's close to Transylvania, home of gypsies, medievalists, Dracula, and mystics. And people who believed in all of it." Mulder was discrete enough to keep these thoughts to himself. Skinner's face was absolutely expressionless. "You are the expert on paranormal cases. We've been asked, by the Moldovan and Russian ambassadors, jointly, if we could provide assistance. The Russian ambassador admitted, when his diplomatic colleague was out of ear shot, that they are especially concerned. Russia still has quite an nuclear arsenal. They're dismantling it, but that could take a while. And if a madman got in there, who could predict what might happen. "Would you be interested?" Mulder considered for a moment. Scully had already told him that she had unfinished personal business to take care of, and had mentioned her new friend, Joel. Mulder had understood that Joel stood in line to become far more than just a friend. He'd been wounded that the man would be someone aside from himself, but ultimately had been happy for Scully, when he thought it over. He could understand how she might be lonely, knew that he was not material for a romantic liaison, at least not yet, and was not unaware of the fact that he probably frightened off many prospects, once they found out she worked with him. An assignment from the Bureau, interfering yet again with her personal life, might get her to change her mind about junking that resume. "I'll ask her." Catching up with Agent Scully turned out to be a bit harder than Mulder had expected. It wasn't that he couldn't run fast enough; it was that she had too long a head start. He jogged into the shuttle bus loading zone just as the bus pulled out onto the Avenue. He'd been less than 30 seconds too late. Mulder looked around, a little wildly, and spotted a security guard. The guard spoke, with out prompting, but on the wrong topic. "The next shuttle isn't for an hour." That wouldn't help; he needed to catch up with her before she started on the long trip to Quantico. Mulder considered. "Where does the shuttle stop?" The guard looked at the printed schedule. "First stop is 14th and Independence, at the south entrance to the Agriculture Department. It will be there in 7 minutes. The next stop is the Pentagon; that would be in 18 minutes. After that, it's non-stop to Quantico; that will take 40 minutes longer." Mulder thought it over. The easiest would be to call her; she could get off at Agriculture, and walk back to the FBI building. He walked outside, pulled out his cel phone, and hit the memory dial for Scully's call. He was rewarded with a busy signal. He decided to punch redial every minute or so, until she got off. Dana Scully had walked out of Walter Skinner's office wondering what to do first. She'd stopped to chat with Skinner's secretary, Mary Ellen, and had learned about her reassignment and promotion. It was wonderful news; the party was scheduled for 2 weeks from that day. Scully had promised to bring some brownies, or cookies, or something, for the festivities. Scully loved to cook, but had rarely done so until the last few weeks, when she had cooked for Joel. Knowing someone would eat her cooking really put some excitement into her cooking. She was a firm believer in the idea that no one to cook for made for a dull, sad fire. Scully had gone back to her office, listened to her voice mail and noted those calls needing to be returned, collected her coat and brief case, dawdled long enough to purchase a cup of machine coffee (with extra cream), had walked down to the shuttle bus bay, and had waited for the bus. She was the only one on it, aside from the driver. She carefully sat down in the back, determined to catch up on some phone calls. She'd picked up over a dozen phone messages from her voice mail, all work-related, but decided to start with Joel Walton. She could see him in her mind's eye, and the feelings the vision generated made her blush a little. They were supposed to work together at the clinic this afternoon, but she'd already canceled that. Then there was dinner, at his invitation, and planned for Saturday night. It was going to be in an Indonesian restaurant, located uptown, called Ivy's Place. It was, he had assured her, a dump, but a dump with an excellent cook. Scully had already invited Joel back to her place for dessert and coffee, although it was fairly certain to her that they wouldn't get past the ice cream. Her daydreams concerning him had developed rather slowly, from a simple embrace, through more passionate kisses, and into mutual undressing. She had been holding off a bit, even in her imagination, so as not to taint their first lovemaking, until last week. Her imaginary foreplay wasn't all imaginary, but based in part on their last time together. Not against her will, Dana considered her potential lover, and remembered the last time she had seen him, at the gym. They had met, her driving up from Quantico, him driving across Fairfax county from his station to the west, compromising on the Recreation Center located down old route 1. She smiled at how he and she had gone to the gym, he peddling madly on a stationary bicycle as she worked out on a stair stepper. How attractive he looked in his athletic shirt, navy blue, cut to show the muscles in his buffed up arms and back, his arms glistening with healthy perspiration, as she looked down at him from the stepper. How well defined the muscles in his legs, his thighs, had seemed. And how he looked up at her with honest admiration, encouraging her "stick with it Dana, you're almost done." And his smile, his dazzling smile. The session had finished, the two of them soaked with perspiration. Dana had worn a purple leotard, white shorts, and a purple and blue striped cotton shirt. The leotard was wet through under her breasts, where flesh pressed against flesh. Joel's shirt was similarly soaked. The weather, in late November, had taken a turn for the warmer, and they didn't bother with their heavy sweat clothing. The two walked out to the parking lot together. Dana was breathing a little heavier than usual. Their two cars were parked together, in the far corner of the lot. When they reached Joel's van, he put down his gym bag. Smiling, he reached for her, taking her hand and leading her to a bench, just off the parking lot. He sat down, legs astraddle, inviting her to do the same. Joel placed his hands on her ribs, thumbs resting, whether by instinct or by experience she could not know, just at the point where her breasts met her chest wall. He looked at her for approval, then pulled her close to him. Dana reached up to kiss him; Joel gradually began kneading the flesh, just at the point where his thumbs rested, and kissed her back. Dana breathed heavily as Joel moved his hands under her shirt, sliding them back up toward the pillows of her breasts, thumbs and then hands gently massaging each breast, and finally brushing over her fully erect nipples. With one hand, he pulled off her shirt, dropping it by their feet. He pushed down one of the straps, freeing the now erect breast from its minimal covering, easing the nearly painful tightness of even the stretchy cloth which so tightly constricted her erect and swollen breast tissues. Covering her nipple with his mouth, he gently began to suck. Dana slid her arms around her Joel, sliding one hand down his side, pulling herself until her legs were atop his, pulling herself closer, parting her legs wider until she could feel the hard curvature of his manhood, nestled up against her. Joel responded by pulling her closer, pushing himself against the cup she had made between her thighs. As he continued to work on her breast, he felt her labia attempt to stroke him, through the fabric. He did not find it not necessary to manipulate her clitoris; he removed his hand from her mons, pulling her hips against his now thoroughly excited penis, slipping his manhood--still straining against his shorts--back in the waiting, beckoning cup of her thighs. The sucking on her breast brought her to a gentle but shuddering climax. He felt the climax with his hands, through his lips, and against his now thoroughly excited and fully erect penis. Reaching under her shorts, he pushed the crotch of her leotard to the side. Gently spreading her labia with his hand, he rested one thumb on her clitoris, gently brushing against the hair between her thighs. Sucking harder, with a little gentle manual stimulation, Joel was able to bring her into a second, and more shudderingly definite, climax. Joel breathed out, and taking Dana's hands, led her away from the bench, leaning her against a large tree. Pushing one well muscled thigh between her legs, he spread her thighs apart, and using his hand on her hip to tilt her pelvis until there was a cup, just the right size, waiting to receive his swelling manhood. Dana could feel the heat between her legs, feel her sexual labia begin to tense and release, as if to draw him into her. Joel reached under her shorts, and gently pushing aside the creamy crotch of the leotard, began massaging her now swollen folds of sexual flesh, gently brushing the coarse hair, working his way ever deeper from her thighs, beyond the lips. Dana, now excited beyond speaking, pushed Joel away slightly, and reached under the bottom of his shorts leg, past the extremely thin material, and into the sewn in supporter, gently untangling his manhood, and pulling it down, and free of his shorts. Joel groaned, savoring her gentle but decisive touch on his exquisitely sensitive and fully erect member. This was no mere appendix to his sensuality, but the core, the center of his ability to be stimulated. Joel moaned, encouraging her. As she gently twirled his penis in her hand, stimulating him, he decided to return the favor, readying her to receive his fully swollen manhood, for him to plunge deeper, to lose himself in her heat and her wetness. Returning his thumb to her secret site, increasing the pressure on her clitoris, he gently forced first one, then a second, finger into her hot center, to make her the more read for his entry. And, judging by the reaction, Dana was ready, desperately ready. He felt her ready for him to remove his fingers and insert his rock hard, aching member into her, an act on which he intended to take considerable time, pushing in and then withdrawing, continuing, holding off on giving her a release until she begged, screamed for him to plunge into him and explode. Before he could achieve this however, Dana climaxed again, in a third and far more explosive sexual climax. Dana was now beyond all sense, wanting only more of the excitement. Of the sensuality. She called to him, hoarsely, begging him to take her, take her now. She cried out, begging him to force himself into her, to roughly plunge, again and again until she and he collapsed in mutual explosions of orgasms. She pulled Joel's erection toward her, whispering, "stroke me" forcing his hand away from her womanhood. She then used his hardened penis to pleasure herself, pushing down and back the swollen slit opening to her womanhood, fitting him through the bottom of her shorts, feeling him shake in excitement as he was bathed in her heat, in her cream. Once shown what she wanted, Joel was able to continue the stroking, entering her a little with each stroke, just pushing the tip in to force her open, but fully pulling himself out to continue the burrowing against and into her fully heated slit of flesh, restraining himself hugely, concentrating on pleasuring her first, circling her clitoris until she reached yet another shuddering, gasping orgasm. Dana whispered, "your turn" and attempted to pull him into her, standing there in the woods next to the parking lot, but Joel pulled back, saying, "No. Wait. Not like this. Not uncovered, not just for a moment. I want you for all night." Dana groaned hugely, with disappointment, but wasn't so far gone as not to understand the need for some kind of protection before the act was fully consummated. Hell, she should have insisted on it from the beginning. Well. Good. "Then let me do this for you." Dana bent over and took him into her mouth, whirling her tongue over and round the tip of his maleness, folding her hot hands around his testicles, gently rubbing his scrotum, forcing, it seemed, the semen from his testicles into Joel Walton's penis, restraining his climax with a firm pressure to the tip of his glans and simultaneously urging him on to a wildly sexual explosion. No man could master more than a moment of two of such stimulation, and Joel was no exception as he erupted into her. Dana held him as best she could until his excited tremors subsided, reaching up eventually to kiss him, to share his flavor with him. Dana had been a woman done. Joel had been a man undone. Remembering it, in a very specific and stimulating way, confirmed by the wetness between her thighs, Dana was looking forward to fully consummating their love, after dinner, on Saturday night. Shaking her head at the memory, Dana pulled out her cel phone, and without consulting a calendar date-book, punched in Joel Walloon's number. Her coffee was more than half gone. While the phone was ringing, she thought that it was about time to program his number into the phone. The phone rang at Joel's end, several times, but the machine didn't pick up. Today, she knew, was his off day from work, and he should be at home. Perhaps taking a nap? Joel had told her that he had problems with the answering machine, and this was confirmed by the "no answer-no machine" response she had gotten when she had tried to call from Illinois. Normally the machine picked up on the second ring; Scully generally held on for at least four or five, just to make sure. On the fourth ring, Scully got an answer, though not the one she was expecting. "Hello?" It was a woman's voice, sounding a little sleepy. Scully was taken aback. "May I speak with Joel, please?" "He's still asleep. Do you want me to wake him up?" "No." Dana gripped her Styrofoam cup tightly, so tightly that she punched a small home through it, fortunately above the coffee line. "Is there a message?" "Not any more." With that Scully punched up "end." The expression on her face remained blank, but that expression was not an accurate reflection of her feelings. She couldn't even put a description to how she felt. Dana had waited a long time to find the right man, and by her personal standards was unwilling to share. She expected no less from the man. Apparently, Joel's affections were previously engaged. Or were currently engaged. Or something. In any event, it appeared that he was less eligible than she had thought. As she was putting the phone away, just one tear escaped, and rolled down her cheek. Mulder hit redial, yet again, and was rewarded with a ring, then two, three. He knew Scully kept her phone in her handbag; between it and the hand gun, because of the weight, the two instruments tended to their work its way to the bottom, and required excavation before she could answer. On the fifth ring, she connected. "Scully." She sounded a little hoarse. "Scully, it's Mulder. Where are you?" "We just left Agriculture, and are at the light for the turn onto the 14th street bridge." "Can you get off?" "Get off? Why? Mulder, it's the middle of 14th street." "Listen, ask the driver to let you off, and start east on Independence. I'll walk up 7th and meet you. We have an assignment." "Already?" Still in a daze, afflicted by unsatisfied desire, and an immense feeling of loss, Scully worked here way to the front of the bus. She took the phone away from her ear while she spoke to the driver. He agreed to let her off, after he made the turn, just in front of the Holocaust Museum. Letting her walk off in the middle of Independence Avenue wouldn't be safe. Scully headed up the avenue, and looked up to see Capitol Hill, still nearly a mile off. Seventh street would be halfway to the Capitol. Mulder double-timed it out of headquarters and had walked south on 7th to Independence, and was nearly to 11th when he met Scully. The huge Agriculture department main building loomed over, and totally obscured, the rest of the horizon. "Mulder, what's this all about?" She was more curious than exasperated. The walk in the cold air had helped her regain a tiny portion of composure. Mulder was a little out of breath. He looked at her hand, damaged coffee cup still tightly held. "Listen, let's walk back to Agriculture. I'll buy you some decent coffee." The Agriculture Department was generally believed to have the best food in town. After all, it WAS the Agriculture Department. It was a point of personal pride for the staff. The mention of coffee reminded Scully of what had happened to her first cup, but she repressed the sadness and just nodded. Then she considered that she hadn't had lunch. Mulder could be muley when he wanted to be; she'd learned, early on, to let him tell his stories in his own way. "We have a new assignment." Dana Scully dumped the old cup as they entered South Building. Perhaps a new adventure would ease the pain of her immediate loss. |
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Title: Outtakes 2: You're So Right For What's Wrong... No infringement intended on any part. Redistribute freely, but leave my name on it. If you don't recognize a character, that just means it's mine. Summary: Our intrepid duo is in Moscow, on official business. It's a professional relationship story, leading from the usual healthy dose of UST, nothing dirty, just a little sad. It snowed 25 inches at my house Saturday-Sunday, and we only got ploughed out today (Wednesday.) They are forecasting another 6-12 inches for early Friday, probably mixed with sleet. And very cold. I was last in Moscow in 1978, and although I have some maps, and try to keep up, I'm sure that the place has changed out of all recognition. Any one with up to date information, please write, if for no other reason to let me know some one is reading my stuff. (;-) Written, as you would have guessed anyway, under the heavy influence of a Sinatra CD. Mulder was quite curious about his room, whose most obvious features were what appeared to be a king-size bed, with a huge mirror mounted behind it. He checked out the bathroom, and the closet, and chose to try the handle to the third door. It seemed to be locked. Assuming the door led to the hallway, Mulder decided to see if the key to his room would fit; turning it, he opened a door onto a really lovely living room, all lemon colored, with lemon colored wall paper, gold figured white background upholstery on a camel-back sofa, two matching arm chairs, and, in a rather discreet armoire, a television. Under the TV he discovered a small, hotel-sized refrigerator. Next to the icebox was a pitcher of water. Odd. A card, in four languages--including English, -listed the contents and prices. There didn't seem to be a door to the corridor, unless it was the one set directly across from him. Mulder walked over and tried the handle. It was locked. Well, the key had worked before. Why not again? He fitted it into the lock and gave it a turn, opening into a room which seemed to be a duplicate of his own, except for its single bed, and what appeared to be Scully's suitcases on the bed. And her clothes on top. At that moment, Dana Katherine Scully walked out of the bathroom, looked up, saw him and gasped. Mulder heard her soft gasp, and turned. "Mulder, how did you get in here?" Mulder simply stared. He couldn't help himself. He knew he should turn around, or close his eyes, or something, but the sight of his partner, discretely covered, but definitely covered only by pink, lace-trimmed lingerie, as well as a surprising amount of dignity, was simply too much for him. He couldn't help himself from looking. He saw a blush begin under her camisole, gradually coloring the top of her chest, the part visible above the lace of the camisole--rising past her neck, over her face, all the way to her hair. It made a lovely clash with that red hair of hers. At that he managed to mumble, "I thought redheads couldn't wear pink, " mentally kicking himself for saying something so idiotic. He had meant to say she looked gorgeous. And she did. "Turn around, Mulder." As he complied, he heard her open up the suitcase, and rustle in the clothing. While turned, he tried desperately to master his feelings of desire. Good thing he still had on a jacket. In a moment, she added, "All right, you can turn back now." She'd managed to pull out a robe, figured with pink, yellow and he thought navy blue peonies, and was tieing the navy sash about herself. Nothing showed, not anymore, except in Mulder's imagination. He wondered, "Do peonies come in blue?" but kept that thought to himself. Oh, what was he supposed to say? Charging on as if nothing had occurred seemed to be the best idea. "We seem to have a suite. There's a sitting room between us. I thought the door led back to the hallway. I'm sorry..." he added, thinking to himself, "Lame, Mulder, absolutely inept." Scully and Mulder dined in the buffet of the Hotel Ukraine that cold night in Moscow, eating very simply, again with just bread and tea for Mulder, who was still feeling a tad under the weather. Scully had downed a cucumber salad and some kind of sandwich. Scully had seemed very tired, and had asked to be excused after dinner. Well, it was reasonable for the jet lag for the Washington-Moscow trip, coming, as it did immediately after their return from Illinois, to be catching up with her. "Try to stay out of trouble, Mulder, " she had said at her hotel door. And she had smiled, a tired but still dazzling smile, one of friendship, for her partner. The sight of that smile, when she chose to grace the world with it, normally made Mulder go a little weak, just looking at her, wondering what was going on in her mind. He hadn't had the courage to broach the subject. And Mulder was unhappy about it. He'd returned to his room, and pulled off his tie, shrugging off his suit coat and settling in with the television. He couldn't sleep. He wasn't interested in the "agricultural news" on the tube. He walked into the sitting room, and, seating himself on the sofa, began riffling through the printed materials on the side table. One of them appeared to be the Russian version of "This week in..." the usual city guide. And in common with every other city guide he'd ever seen, he found a map stapled to the center, with the hotel plainly marked. As were the subway stops. A picture seemed to indicate St. Basil's cathedral, which Mulder remembered was on Red Square. Thinking back on the day, he remembered the Corporal telling him about the National Hotel, with a decent bar. Well, it might present a diversion. Mulder pulled a sweater over his dress shirt, and picking up a wool scarf and his overcoat, headed for the lobby. At the front desk, he found an English-speaking concierge, who offered to mark the map for him, and to sell him several subway tokens. So armed, Mulder headed out into the Moscow night. The snow had stopped, the skies had cleared and in response it was dazzlingly cold; Mulder hadn't walked ten feet when he felt the hairs inside his nose begin to freeze. Eventually he made his way to the Metro; subway stops were well marked, and the map was very clear. After dropping the token into the turnstile, Mulder entered the system. It was beautiful, down by the trains. This stop, like many of the older stops, was decorated, was a showcase for the best of the old Soviet art; in this case, it was a beautiful mosaic on each wall. It would have cost a fortune, if anyone had been forced to pay for the hand work. Mulder reflected that it was all probably done by prisoners, those slaves of the system. Mulder recalled that Nikita Khrushchev had started his economic life as an engineer, and had helped design and build the system. Stalin had wanted it built deep, to double as air raid shelters. Mulder couldn't remember who had said to make it attractive. Possibly no one. Emerging at the Red Square stop, Mulder looked around in wonder. Walking through the square, he eventually saw the Saviour's Tower, and remembered reading that it was the very symbol and emblem of Moscow. He seemed to recall that it had been around since the 1500's but had acquired the red star sometime during the Stalin era. It was impressive. They used to use it as a background for the foreign correspondents, during the cold war. At 11:00 Mulder heard the clock strike the time. "Still too early to turn in. I should've gone to the Marine party. Well, too late for that now." He could see St. Basil's, highlighted and beautified by the lamps, as well as the other cathedrals, and even Lenin's tomb. It was glorious, and would have taken his breath, had det' Moroz, Grandpa Frost, not done the job already. The square was huge, and nearly empty. Apparently, even the Muscovites were inside this night. Mulder located a huge building, presumably the Rossiya hotel, but remembered the corporal's advice to seek after the National. After wandering over the square for a few minutes, he turned his back on Red Square and walked back in the general direction of the subway. Just as he was about to give up, Mulder discovered the National Hotel. At least, he assumed it was the National; apparently, the Russian letter for "n" looked like an English "h". Mulder went in, and followed his ears to the band, in the bar. It was a pretty good band, playing jazz and pop rock. Mulder counted himself lucky to find a seat at the bar. The place was jammed. Waving the bartender over, he pointed to the glass of the man seated next to him, and held up one finger. "Schto grammov?" Mulder, who hadn't the faintest idea of what the woman, the very pretty woman wearing some kind of embroidered Cossack blouse--had said, merely smiled and nodded yes. How bad could it be? Very quickly, the bartender returned with a small brandy glass, with an ice cube, and a small flask, filled with what was obviously vodka. She pointed at the glass and repeated, "Schto grammov!" Mulder nodded yes, managed to speak his only word of Russian, "Spasibo! Thank you!" with a big smile, dumped the ice cube, mindful of what Scully had said about the water, and poured the vodka into the brandy glass. He began to sip. The barmistress looked at him, and addressed him, first in German. Mulder didn't speak German, and merely shrugged. Next, she tried English. "Are you English?" "No, American." "Oh. Do you understand what you ordered?" "Vodka?" "Yes, vodka. We sell it here by volume; you ordered 100 grams." "Thank you." "Pozhalyusta. You're welcome. We don't sip it here...The Russian way is to, uh, knock it back, in one slug." Mulder considered that the Russian way was guaranteed to run up his bar bill, but did so. After all, the sign outside said his American Express card was welcome. It went down very easily. He ordered another, and looked around for a table, but an empty one was not to be found, and Mulder wasn't particularly feeling like company. The room was smoky and somewhat overheated. He wanted to listen to the band. He chased off a bargirl who had decided he needed company. But the band was gone, and in its place was tape recorded music. Mulder had to listen for a while to decide, in the end, that it had to be Frank Sinatra. Well, that certainly was one kind of taste. He was crooning, scratchily, over bad speakers, about someone being so right, for what's wrong in your life. Mulder looked down and saw that his glass was empty. He ordered one more, for the road he told himself, and mainly as antifreeze. The alcohol had made Mulder somewhat meditative. He considered what was wrong with his life. He single-mindedness, which led very directly to the crushing loneliness which some days nearly overwhelmed him. And how he dealt with that: by working harder, longer, more hours. Dana Scully had filled part of the void in his life, providing friendship, and someone to talk to. He looked forward to seeing her, to talking to her over the phone, to working with her. To being with her. How desperately he wanted her, for the rest of his life. And he cursed himself for a coward, for avoiding her, for hurting her. She was wonderful, but how could he ever explain that she filled all the needs in his heart? It would be wrong. He wondered if he had affected her world at all. Without a single word he had learned that she could, eventually would, right every thing that was wrong in his life. Sinatra had moved on to sing "Dream away." "How appropriate. Enough Mulder. You can't. She has someone else. And, she's your partner." Obviously, the vodka had been stronger than he had thought, or maybe it was just the Sinatra. He wondered if Sinatra-itis had been written up in "Nature" magazine as a defined illness. And he made his way out of the hotel, back through the subway to the Ukraine. As he walked past Scully's door, he was tempted to knock, to talk, but thought better of it. "Let her sleep." He smiled as he turned away from her door. Mulder woke up, still in his underwear, tangled in blankets on the sitting room couch. He felt pretty good; he knew he was hungry. No more toast and tea, he decided, he would eat, and take his chances. He washed, shaved, and dressed. Listening at the door to Scully's room, and heard water running. "Good, she's up." When the sound of water died down, he knocked, loudly on the connecting door, and shouted, "Scully, are you decent?" Scully sighed with exasperation when she heard the knocking at the door. Hadn't he learned his lesson last night? She bit off a sharp retort, however, considering it a bit. Maybe she was carrying this "no fraternization" business a little too far. Of course, there had been no excuse for Mulder's staring at her, although he could understand how his entering her room once had probably been an accident. "Yes, Mulder, I'm decent. I'll come on out." In a very few minutes, a fully dressed, and possibly seriously overdressed Dana Scully appeared. She sat down on a chair next to the small table in the sitting room. "So, Mulder, how'd you do last night." Mulder's head felt pretty good, for a man on the tag end of a serious jet lag. Vodka seemed to improve it. "I went out to see the sites." Dana merely gasped. "Sure, went all the way to Red Square, saw the Cathedral, and ended up in the bar at the National Hotel." He debated how much of the bar scene to admit, and decided that the story about chasing off the bar girl, and the admission to drinking the vodka would suffice. No point in telling her about Sinatra-itis. |
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Title: Ivan's Heirs Author: Alexis1917 Written: March 1996 Disclaimer: All must sing the mantra. All characters copyright of TenThirteen Productions and Chris Carter, and Fox. No infringement intended on any part. Redistribute freely, but leave my name on it. If you don't recognize a haracter that just means it belongs to me. Summary: Mulder and Scully investigate a case in Russia. This is the sequel to "Resolution". The working story title, "Moscow Nights" didn't really fit, once the story was completed. In the winter, Frankfurt, Germany is 6 hours ahead of Washington, DC. Moscow is 8 hours ahead of Washington time. Travel time between the two will seem like the longest trip of your life.All must sing the mantra. All characters copyright of TenThirteen Productions and Chris Carter, and Fox. No infringement intended on any part. Redistribute freely, but leave my name on it. If you don't recognize a character that just means it belongs to me. Rating: PG-13. It's a professional relationship story, mostly, with a healthy dose of UST, some autoeroticism, and a bit of resolved sexual tension. After all, Mulder and Scully are only human. So, contrary to popular belief, is Walter Skinner. It's not without romance. But not the romance you're thinking about. And again, toward the inevitable dark side of any partnership. Moscow, Russia Several of the patients were of particular interest to her, as she had them participating in a study, a study of particular matters not of interest to the rest of the staff. Given the patients' tendency toward raving, Vera Vasilevnya felt confident that none of the custodial staff would be either able or even want to understand what the studies were about. Initiative was not the long suit of her employees. For that she was grateful, as the studies were unorthodox, and her inability to cure her patients unusual. Vera Vasilevnya thought again of the winds of fate, which had led her away from the healing of the ill of mind, to the prying and occasional torturing of them, all in the name of progress for the state. An Oxford trained psychologist, Vera Vasilevnya had been put in charge in 1991 of an ongoing study which had become critical to the survival of the department of Forensic Psychiatric Studies at the University. The Department had been asked by the military in 1986 to undertake some specialized studies mainly directed toward explaining the facts, if any, of the paranormal. This was most unusual; in Russia the existence of the paranormal had long been accepted by the people. That in itself was well and good; there were many things about the human mind not well understood. She had been assigned a military contact, with powers similar to that of a contracting officer's representative. The contact had quickly seized control of the study, carefully directing the questioning and the focus of the project toward obtaining of information of immediate military benefit. Very little was done to help the patients, apart from keeping them clean, safe, and well fed. Her practical Ukrainian roots, for Vera was a scion of old Kiev, came to the fore. Vera Vasilevnya came to understand that it was not in her, or the University's best interest to cure these unfortunates. Vera assuaged her conscience: most of them could not be cured by present treatment methods, anyway. "Well, no time like the present, " she thought to herself, calling to the matron. "Prepare old Nicholai for his treatment." The object of those preparations, was not so far gone as to be unable to understand and interpret that request; interpreting it, he pulled back under his covers, as far as the restraints would allow. He began to whimper. "Here, here, dorogoi Nicholai, dear Nicholai, why do you cower so?" Nicholai replied with a wail; he was generally considered "unavailable" for therapy. Nothing seemed to phase his hallucinations. Well, an injection would soon MAKE him available. Nicholai was one of her best subjects; fool under normal circumstances, but in a chemically induced trance state, he another being altogether. Nicholai seemed to be able to see the future. His "visions" repeated over time, becoming clearer, more rich in detail in each telling. Vera had long suspected that he was telling her what she wanted to hear. Vera Vasilevnya's current work was directed toward focusing old Nicholai's mind in specific areas. Her contact, the good colonel, had been most insistent. Her contact controlled the money, and owned the study. But not yet her. Three days past, Nicholai had rambled on, less incoherently than usual. He described a man in a khaki uniform. The man entered a room, one with lots of buttons and dials. He was talking, apparently as a friend, to another man, and when the listener's back was turned, he hit the other man. Nicholai saw the other man's rifle. Nicholai then detailed how the first man began to operate the dials; old Nicholai's eyes had grown wide at what he appeared to see next, screaming "heat, white heat!" then retreating even in his medically induced trance to some place else altogether. His only other comment was on the other person in that room, one he couldn't see clearly, who was laughing. Vera Vasilevnya thought him nearly frightened to death; the old man had soiled his clothes, with fear. When Vera Vasilevnya reported her findings to the "colonel, " he had merely nodded, after writing down the details. That was one thing about the "colonel, " he never seemed to exhibit surprise. Vera Vasilevnya wondered to herself if he already knew what she had to report, or whether he was, as the Americans say, a "good poker player." She assumed that he had listened to her sessions. Vera Vasilevnya was quite wrong about that; the colonel hadn't known about this "vision, " not at all. And he had been quite frightened by what he had just heard. Bendery, Moldova The guard at the launch center, Alexander Shumatov, snapped to attention when he saw the brass, and brass had appeared, right under his nose. Alexander dropped his book, issued a salute, and said, "Zdrastveetye, Colonel Nicholayev. I am surprised to see you so soon. Did you have a good trip?" Colonel Boris Leonich Nicholayev managed a friendly smile for the guard. "Yes, indeed, Sasha, " he replied, using the familiar form of Shumatov's first name. "I learned many things. How have things been here at the site?" Without waiting for even the most cursory response he went on, "No problems or difficulties, I trust?" Michman Shumatov relaxed a little. He had feared he was about to be put on report, for reading while on duty, but clearly the Colonel was in a good mood and just wanted to talk. That would be fine with Shumatov, who just wanted to get his tour, his day, and his enlistment over with. Finishing the first seemed most important of the three, because the final day of his tour was still eight months in the future. He had already heard that after the Bendery cleanup he would be reassigned, either to some hole in the Ukraine, or worse (far worse) to the north of Kazakhstan. The north of Kazakhstan was good for growing wheat, and for silos, both of the agricultural and military variety, but for little else. And, no women. At least none, according to the reports of his comrades, that any man could relish, absent ingestion of a large bottle of vodka, first. "Shumatov, open up the vault. I want to conduct a quick inspection." Such inspections were not unusual, and, given the goodwill expressed earlier, made soothed Shumatov into thinking he had something to worry about. "Of course, comrade Colonel." The guard ignored the shadow flickering in the room, assuming it was yet another problem with the electric circuits, just as he ignored the smell of river bottom on his officer's clothing. He didn't hear anything as the Colonel leapt toward his back, knocking him to the ground and strangling the life out of him with his bare hands. "Poor Shumatov, he never was any good at security" thought Boris Leonich. "Well, after tonight, comrade, that will no longer be a problem." Boris Leonich headed into the vault, whose doors he locked, and combinations he scrambled. He sat and began to work at the console controlling the firing mechanism. "So much for the 'comrades, '" he thought. "Long live mother Russia." Washington, D.C. Walter Skinner sat at his desk, considering. His two special agents, Mulder and Scully, had returned from an assignment early Thursday, one which they had handled especially well. He even had a commendation from one of the local law enforcement officers involved, to prove it. Such a citation probably was not unexpected for Scully, but for Mulder, it certainly was. They were due in his office in half an hour. The Assistant Director was unhappy. Unhappiness wasn't a feeling to which he was accustomed, except when his kids were gone. Emptiness was his more common condition. He was divorced. That divorce, as he now looked at it, had been inevitable. The marriage was dead several years before he and his former wife had buried it. Now, his extremely efficient secretary, Mary Ellen Garcia, was leaving as well. She had been offered, and had decided to accept, a position with the Immigration and Naturalization Service. It started at a grade 10, in the administrative GS series, and went to an 12. The best Skinner had been able to manage for her was a nine, in the secretarial series, and that was when he had hired her, five years ago, just after the turmoil began at home. After the divorce he and his former wife shared custody of the children, he taking the girls every other weekend and half the holidays. Plus whenever else he had an excuse. He and Ruth had agreed that when the girls were older, and didn't require someone in the house when they came home from school, they could alternate months. Mary Ellen was the best secretary he had ever worked with. Efficient and professional. She had a take charge personality which helped her dominate almost any group she entered. Mary Ellen had consistently displayed her discretion, which is what made her invaluable to Skinner. Discretion. Optimism. Good nature. Truly indispensable. Plus, she seemed to know everything and everyone. She had occasionally walked into his sanctum, a coffee cup in hand, closed the door, and told him things she thought he needed to know, undeterred by his frowning indications that he did NOT want to know. She wasn't afraid of anyone, not even the formidable AD. At first, Skinner had resented those talks, but he'd very quickly come to value them, and soon after to positively depend on the information she brought. Skinner didn't socialize with his subordinates, and rarely ventured into their offices. With Mary Ellen on the job, he could confine his worrying to other things. The AD thought, briefly, at how much he had liked her, and would miss her. She had many good points. His marriage had been made for passion, and once that cooled--and it had lasted quite a long time--he and his wife, Ruth, found out that except for the two girls, they had nothing, absolutely nothing in common. Once burned had made Walter Skinner several times shy. He hadn't even dated. Idly, he wondered why she hadn't ever remarried; her husband, a DC police officer, had been killed in the line of duty, nearly nine years ago. Skinner recalled that she had moved to the Maryland suburbs, looking for a safer life, and better schools for her children. Raising two kids, even on a GS-9 salary, couldn't have been easy. It had occurred to him, from time to time, that she'd make someone a good wife. He'd normally brushed that thought aside as he got on with the work of the day, but today it occurred to him again. He wasn't quite sure what was going on inside his head, or whether he wanted to even think about it. Unable to repress the notion, he considered that she would be worth considering, now that she wasn't going to be working for him any more. Curiously enough, he didn't know whether the feeling was mutual. Still, once she no longer worked for him, and the paperwork was done, he might be free to pursue it. For now, though, he had to see if he could corral Scully and Mulder, and shoo them in the general direction of Moscow. After that, he'd allow himself to think about the estimable Ms. Garcia. Mulder and Scully entered Walter Skinner's office suite at one o'clock. Mary Ellen smiled, more at Scully than at Mulder, and waved them right in. They'd been back from their latest assignment just a day, having flown in from Chicago the previous morning. They'd been home long enough to pay the rent, feed Mulder's fish, play with Scully's dog, polish up the draft report a bit, and to start calculating their expenses for reimbursement. Skinner considered the last case. They had investigated murder, preceded by a case of sudden insanity, and plausibly connected to the Michigan Militia movement. The draft report had two theories: Mulder's, which posited the existence of some undefined additional player, with paranormal abilities, and Scully's, which suggested that the perpetrator had been deliberately drugged, and from there induced to commit mayhem. Either seemed to fit the facts, as he knew them. Possibly, it hadn't been an x-file at all. The Michigan Militia had been involved, but not the causative factor, or so it seemed. Sudden insanity was nothing new. It went back to old-Testament times, and continued, sporadically, to the present time. Without identifiable causes, for the most part, although scientific investigation had made what it believed was a dent in the cases. There were many possible causes, most of them having nothing at all to do with the paranormal. Those cases wouldn't interest Mulder; it was the unexplainable ones that caught, and held, his attention. Skinner waved them into chairs. "Nice piece of work. I thought you'd like to know that the local sheriff, " he referred to a document on his desk, "Sheriff Connors, apparently called the Governor and had him call the Director. They made special mention of your humane questioning of the witnesses, and dealings with the townspeople. Nice commendation, " he added. "How are you planning to follow up?" Mulder spoke for himself. "We have agreed to look further into the cause of this case. Neither Scully nor I can believe that the perpetrator ingested the drugs voluntarily. The questions are who drugged him, and why. I've already identified a number of similar, but much older cases. All unsolved. I planned to run some computer searches for similar cases, see if I can home in on the mystery speaker. The violent crimes' folks already dumped several new, similar files on my desk." He looked over at Scully; he simply didn't know what she would say next. Scully cleared her throat. "My tour at Quantico is over today. I believe I'd like to assist Agent Mulder in completing this investigation, unless" she raised an eyebrow, "you have a different assignment for me." Skinner looked at them both, and wondered what was going on that he didn't see. He didn't think it was a romantic involvement. That would have come to his ears, via the coffee pot and powder puff grapevine, or rather, from Mary Ellen--same thing as far as the results were concerned. She had had numerous, excellent taps. There were no secrets in a small agency, none. That level of discretion was not possible, not with all the nosies about. Well, whatever the rift had been, it appeared to be healed. He hoped it wasn't just papered over. "That would be fine, Agent Scully. You go on out to Quantico, and spend today clearing up. You can report here on Monday." He paused, before adding, "That will be all now." Digging down through some papers on his desk he added, "There's a shuttle in 15 minutes, north entrance. You can just make it." The two agents stood. Skinner added, "Mulder, I need a moment more with you, please." Mulder smiled his goodbye at Scully. And she smiled back. That tiny byplay wasn't lost on Skinner, whose main motivation in sending the two of them to Chicago was forced on him by someone else, and was designed to see if the partnership could be repaired. Skinner wondered how much longer he'd have to deal with people like the cigarette smoker. Cancerman, as the AD thought of him, wasn't a part of the FBI, or even the CIA. The worst of it was that all of Skinner's probing hadn't identified exactly WHO he was, just that he represented powerful interests, scattered throughout the government. Interests powerful enough to spell the end of Skinner's career. Hell, powerful enough, should they be sufficiently provoked, to spell the end of Skinner, and of Mulder and Scully. That knowledge made him cautiously, if somewhat resentfully, obedient. "Now, Mulder, " Skinner began, after the door closed. "I have some additional information for your use in follow-up." Mulder wondered why, if Scully had agreed to help, Skinner wasn't telling her this as well. Skinner continued, "First, Agent Mulder, about those files. I ordered them 'referred' and not 'dumped' on your desk. The problem here isn't the ones that are explained by PCP, or prior mental problems. It's the others with NO explanation. And those are just the cases that have been referred to us. "I think we may have a serious problem. Let me give you the background. You are familiar with the fact that the Russian Federation, " he named the biggest single remaining chunk of the former USSR, "is having difficulty dismantling its nuclear arsenal?" Mulder nodded. The breakdown in the government and police control over that huge land mass, one-sixth of the inhabitable area of the entire world, was enough to frighten anyone. "I have knowledge, " Skinner took a big breath, "of numerous other cases of unexplained insanity, to which we are not currently a party. The latest was in, in Moldova. That is part, " he added parenthetically, "of the Former Soviet Union. The area borders on Romania. The Moldovan police cannot find any rational explanation for the violence. No drugs; they seem to have enough laboratory capacity to find something like that, even now, providing they did a thorough crime scene search. I'm told, " he added, leaving out the source, "that they did." Mulder thought it over. "When you say Romania, you really mean it's close to Transylvania, home of gypsies, medievalists, Dracula, and mystics. And people who believed in all of it." Skinner's face was absolutely expressionless. "You and Scully are the experts on paranormal cases. The Russians have suggested, extremely delicately, that this is what they think they have. Another case has been identified, among the elite military group responsible for maintenance of the intercontinental missiles. Fortunately, the security people were able to stop him, before he managed an ICBM launch. The Russians have heard about your work, both earlier and in Illinois; don't ask me how, but they asked specifically asked for you and a partner to take a look. The Russians, " he added, "are a far more superstitious people than we, on the whole. They can't find a normal cause for what is happening, and seem to be terrified about the possibility of abnormal causes. Rule out the normal first, if you can. Then you can look into paranormal." Skinner shuddered as he said it; he'd seen just enough in Vietnam to have a considerable respect for the possibility of the paranormal. Skinner forced his mind back to the present. "We've been asked, by the Moldovan and Russian ambassadors, jointly, if we could provide assistance. The Russian ambassador admitted, when his diplomatic colleague was out of ear shot, that they are especially concerned. Russia still has quite a large nuclear arsenal. They're dismantling it, but that could take a while. And if a madman got in there, who could predict what might happen? "Would you be interested?" Visions of the Kremlin, Red Square and St. Basil's cathedral flashed through Mulder's mind, but were almost immediately suppressed by something more important. It sounded more like an X-file. Even if it wasn't an x-file, it was at least potentially connected to the Illinois case, and would be exotic. "Certainly." Skinner kept his face expressionless. "Do you want a partner? I see you've partnered with several other Agents while Agent Scully has been on assignment." "Yes, I think it calls for a partner. I'll be working through an interpreter, most likely. I'm not the most diplomatic person. I don't want to have to rely on someone for whom English is a second, or maybe third, language. I studied French. That probably won't be a lot of help. And I would prefer Agent Scully, if she'll accept the assignment. She's the only partner I've had for whom 'Mulder' is even a second language." Mulder smiled a little, the slightly lopsided little grin that had been so absent from his face for the preceding three months. Skinner nodded. "Agent Mulder, are you aware that Agent Scully, in addition to acquiring a B.S. in Physics from the University of Maryland, took two years of Russian?" Skinner reached for a file folder, and opened it. "That isn't a lot for a difficult language like Russian, but she did well enough to be inducted into the Slavic National Honorary, Dobro Slovo." He added, parenthetically, "It means 'good word.' She took courses in Russian history and culture as well." Mulder's eyes opened a little, showing as much surprise as he was capable of expressing. Scully had never mentioned Russian. He knew about the degree in Physics, really she had been pre-med, but very little else about her time before she had joined the Bureau, and had been assigned as his partner. Skinner continued. "Shall I assign her? Or do you want to ask her?" Mulder considered for a moment. Scully had already told him that she had unfinished personal business to take care of, and had mentioned her new friend, Joel. Mulder had understood that Joel stood in line to become far more than just a friend. He'd been happy for Scully, when he understood. He could understand how she might be lonely, and was not unaware of the fact that he probably frightened off many prospects, once they found out she worked with him. An assignment from the Bureau, interfering yet again with her personal life, might get her to change her mind about junking that resume. "I'll ask her." Skinner held out his hand. "Fine." He consulted his watch. "You still have five minutes before the shuttle leaves. See if you can catch her. Keep in touch with Mary Ellen; she'll be handling your travel arrangements. "If Agent Scully agrees, and we can get the paperwork done, you can leave tonight. Drop everything and head to your homes. Take a laptop with a fax/modem. There's no telling what kind of facilities they'll have available. You'll need very warm clothing. It's winter there already. Expect to be gone a week or so. You can spend a down day in Paris on the way back, if you want. I'll have travel work out all the arrangements. Tickets and passports and visas will be waiting for you at the International Check-in Gate, Dulles. Be there by 6:00 p.m." Mulder was impressed. He'd heard tales of its taking months to get a visa for Russia. And here was Skinner planning to have him ready to go tonight. At least he and Scully had passports, but Russian visas? Mulder wondered whether Skinner had planned this out quite a bit in advance, and had neglected to tell him, or if he just had excellent connections. Mulder's thought was interrupted by Walter Skinner's voice. "And be careful. This will be harder than Watersford. Don't step on any diplomatic toes. They all have intellectual gout, and can behave violently when they get hurt." Mulder turned and walked briskly out of the office suite. Once past Mary Ellen's office, he broke into a trot. Washington, D.C. "Close the door, and sit down. I need you to do quite a bit of work for me, and it MUST get done today. Is there any possibility of your staying late?" Mary Ellen thought it over. Her two sons, ages 16 and 14, would be home from school about 4:30 in the afternoon, and she normally was home about 5:30, but they could easily fend for themselves for an hour or two more. Truth to tell, since there was frozen pizza in the house, they'd probably be HAPPY to fend for themselves. No Mom meant no vegetables. "I'll have to call home, but, yes, I think I can." "Good. Here is what I need you to do. I need to get Mulder and Scully to Moscow. It would be best if they can leave tonight; I want them in the air, in case they actually do have a federal shutdown. Call travel, and see what you can work out. At a minimum, we should be able to get them to Frankfurt or Paris by tomorrow morning. See what's available onward. If we need to do something else, use your best judgment and do it; we need to have travel authorizations, passports, visas, an interim itinerary, and tickets at Dulles, probably no later than 7:00. Most of the international flights don't get off the ground before 8:00. Oh, yes, have travel pay for an open return ticket; I don't know how long it will take them, or what other travel might be necessary." Without slowing, for Walter Skinner could think even faster than he could talk, he continued, "If they need to spend the night somewhere, that's fine; I want them awake when the hit Mother Russia. And tell travel to book them somewhere decent in Moscow, not the Rossiya. If they ask, you can tell them I said it's a roach hole. While travel is working all that out, we'll need to get passports and visas. Their passports are still good from the trip to Norway. I'll call the Russian embassy about the visas; call the Director's office and ask if Julius, " he named the Director's extremely efficient driver and factotum, "would be available as a runner to pick the visas up. If you need more help, let me know." Skinner stopped and took a breath. "Do you have all that?" "Yes, Mr. Skinner. But what about money?" Skinner reminded himself how much he depended on this woman. "Oh, yes, they'll need money. They should be all right in Moscow with American Express, but outside the major cities, the former Soviet Union has become a cash economy. Please arrange for traveler's checks--they can cash them at the Embassy if no where else--$1000 each, and cash $1000 each. They should be able to cover the rest of it with their credit cards." He looked at her and added, "Anything else I missed?" "I can't think of anything else; while travel is working, and Julius is running, I can take care of preparing the travel authorization. How are you going to get the Executive Travel Committee, " she asked, naming the authority that had to approve all foreign trips, "to clear this?" "I'm not. When you have the paperwork done, walk it up to the Director's office; I'll call and tell them to expect you." "Very well." Mary Ellen rose and left. She wondered a bit about the extent to which rules were being bent, but, when she reached her desk, punched up "travel" on the phone and started the grist mill of the bureaucracy to grinding; it might grind exceedingly fine, but it was already 1:45, and to get this done, it was going to grind FAST. Catching up with Agent Scully turned out to be a bit harder than Mulder had expected. It wasn't that he couldn't run fast enough; it was that she had too long a head start. He jogged into the shuttle bus loading zone just as the bus pulled out onto the Avenue. He'd been less than 30 seconds too late. Mulder looked around, a little wildly, and spotted a security guard. The guard spoke, without prompting, but on the wrong topic. "The next shuttle isn't for an hour." That wouldn't help; he needed to catch up with her before she started on the long trip to Quantico. Mulder considered. "Where does the shuttle stop?" The guard referred to the printed schedule. "First stop is Independence and D, at the south entrance to the Agriculture Department. It will be there in seven minutes. The next stop is the Pentagon; that would be in 18 minutes. After that, it's nonstop to Quantico; that will take 40 minutes longer." Mulder considered. The easiest would be to call her; she could get off at Agriculture, and walk back to the FBI building. He walked outside, pulled out his cell phone, and hit the memory dial for Scully's call. He was rewarded with a busy signal. Mulder decided to punch redial every minute or so, until she got off. Dana Scully had walked out of Walter Skinner's office wondering what to do first. She'd stopped to chat with Skinner's secretary, Mary Ellen, and had learned about her reassignment and promotion. It was wonderful news; the party was scheduled for next Friday, just one week from that day. Scully had promised to bring some brownies, or cookies, or something, for the festivities. Scully had gone back to her office, collected her coat and brief case, dawdled long enough to purchase a cup of machine coffee (with extra cream), had walked down to the shuttle bus bay, and had waited for the bus. She was the only one on it, except the driver. Her car was at Quantico. She'd be driving home against the rush hour flow of traffic. Perhaps Joel could meet her at the gym before dinner. She carefully sat in the back, determined to catch up on some phone calls. She'd start with Joel Walton; she could see him in her mind's eye, and they feelings the vision generated made her blush a little. They were supposed to work together at the clinic this afternoon, but she'd already canceled that. Then there was dinner, at his invitation, and planned for Saturday night. He'd picked Ivy's Place, an Indonesian restaurant north of Georgetown. He warned her that it wasn't fancy, but the food was terrific. Scully was looking forward to it. Scully had already decided to invite Joel back to her place for dessert and coffee. After that, she was willing to see what happened. They had been dating for several months, more intensively the last few weeks. She had grown quite attached to him, talking to him regularly, sometimes at the firestation where he worked, and seeing him regularly. He was a part of her life, an important part. Dana wondered whether he felt the same. Dana balanced her coffee cup between her knees, pulled out her cell phone, and without consulting a calendar date-book, punched in Joel Walton's number. Her coffee was more than half gone. While the phone was ringing, she thought that it was about time to program his number into the phone. The phone rang at Joel's end, several times, but the machine didn't pick up. Today, she knew, was his off day from work, and he should be at home. Perhaps taking a nap? Joel had told her that he had problems with the answering machine, and this was confirmed by the "no answer-no machine" response she had gotten when she had tried to call from Illinois. Normally the machine picked up on the second ring; Scully generally held on for at least four or five, just to make sure. On the fourth ring, Scully got an answer, though not the one she was expecting. "Hello?" It was a woman's voice, sounding a little sleepy. Scully was taken aback. "May I speak with Joel, please?" "He's still asleep. Do you want me to wake him up?" "No." Dana gripped her Styrofoam cup tightly, so tightly that she punched a small home through it, fortunately above the coffee line. "Is there a message?" "Not anymore." With that Scully punched up "end." The expression on her face remained blank, and did not reflect her feelings, which were anything but. She hadn't realized that Joel was seeing someone else. Apparently, Joel's affections were previously engaged. Or were currently engaged. Or something. In any event, it appeared that he was less eligible than she had thought. As she was putting the phone away, just one tear escaped, and rolled down her cheek. Mulder hit redial, yet again, and was rewarded with a ring, then two, three. He knew Scully sometimes kept her phone in her handbag; even the newer models made a bulge when worn in their special holster, under her jacket. Since she was already wearing a personal weapon, the phone went into the purse. Because of the weight, the instrument tended to its work its way to the bottom, and required excavation before she could answer. On the fifth ring, she connected. "Scully." She sounded a little odd, as if there were a bad connection. "Scully, it's Mulder. Where are you?" "We just left Agriculture, and are at the light for the turn onto the 14th street bridge." "Can you get off?" "Get off? Why? Mulder, it's the middle of 14th street." "Listen, ask the driver to let you off, and start east on Independence. I'll walk up and meet you in front of Agriculture. We have an assignment." "Now?" Scully was already walking toward the front of the bus. She took the phone away from her ear while she spoke to the driver. He agreed to let her off, after he made the turn, just in front of the Holocaust Museum. Letting her walk off in the middle of Independence Avenue wouldn't be safe. Scully headed up the Avenue, dumped her unfinished cup of coffee in a trash can at the corner, and looked up to see Capitol Hill, still nearly a mile off. Agriculture filled two blocks, between 12th and 14th, on the south side of Independence. Mulder had double-timed it out of headquarters and had walked south on 7th to Independence, and was nearly to 11th street when he connected with Scully. The huge Agriculture department main building loomed over, and totally obscured, the rest of the horizon. "Mulder, what's this all about?" She was more curious than puzzled. Mulder was a little out of breath. "Listen, let's walk back to Agriculture. I'll buy you some lunch." The Agriculture Department was generally believed to have the best food in town. After all, it WAS the Agriculture Department. It was a point of personal pride for the staff. The mention of food reminded Scully of what had happened to her cup of coffee. She repressed the sadness and just nodded. She didn't much feel like lunch, even though she hadn't eaten yet. Mulder could be muley when he wanted to be; she'd learned, early on, to let him tell his stories in his own way. U.S. Department of Agriculture The Agents' government badges got them into the huge main Agriculture Department building; they hadn't needed to use their FBI passes. Mulder led the way, possibly following his nose, and got them fairly quickly to the cafeteria. With no wrong turns. He'd either been there before, or had a really great sense of smell. Well, Foxes generally hunt by smell, don't they? They picked up trays, and Mulder began filling her in on the details, although it seemed clear she was willing to go, details not withstanding. He was a little surprised at how little persuading it had taken, and wondered about the implications. Didn't she have a date? Wasn't she supposed to be seeing Joel? Would she explain it? Mulder knew it shouldn't be any of his business, but he was interested. He was more than just curious. Dana Scully was important to him; she was the only person he would trust to watch his back, and truly the only person he felt comfortable enough to fall asleep in front of. As evidenced by the flight to Chicago, when he'd been able to stretch out, put his hands behind his head, and sleep. Mulder had been a quiet child, his normal quietness maturing into introversion as he reached manhood. He could see that this made him different from most of the people he met at school, and he didn't enjoy being different. Mulder tried to overcoat this difference by assuming an outward mien of boldness, bordering on fearlessness. Unfortunately, it generally came across as brash impertinence, bordering at times on cockiness. It generally hadn't won him many friends, forcing those with less forgiving minds to ignore his theories because of his presentation. Some women were attracted to the bold type, at least at first. He had had moderate success with the ladies, in college, and even when he had first joined the Bureau. However, when sleeping in the presence of (much less WITH) a member of the opposite sex, he was uncomfortable, and generally unhappy. He usually ended on the couch, which helped explain his continuing unattached status. Word had gotten around about Spooky Mulder. Dana caught a cab on Independence Avenue for home; Mulder had to hoof it back to FBI headquarters to collect a computer. He found a message from Anita Williams waiting for him, taped to the door. "See me before you leave, " read the message. Mulder had. Anita's office was just down the hall. When he poked his head into her office, she smiled, and pointed to a new laptop. "Here, take this one. I fixed it up myself; brand new, almost state of the art--well as close I could manage on the GSA schedule, high speed fax-modem, software, the works." At Mulder's raised eyebrow, she added, "The AD called down here himself and asked me to set it up for you. It has features. Oh, yes, you need to remember the code key for the encryption software. It's, " she consulted a tiny piece of paper in her wallet, "spasibo." Mulder, against all the regulations, wrote it down, making sure of the spelling. He thought about asking what it meant, but was interrupted. "Is the battery charged?" Anita looked a little hurt. "Of course it is. And here's the property pass. How were you planning on getting it out of the building without one?" Mulder forbore from telling her he had planned to sneak it out; security, even in FBI headquarters, was quite weak on the outgoing side. Coming in was an entirely different matter. He thanked her and headed home. Dana Scully's apartment Packing up was not Dana Scully's idea of a good time, particularly since she knew she wouldn't have time to get the clothes back from the dry cleaners. Fortunately, she had a couple of wool suits in reserve. What she was thinking about was that she'd just have enough time to repack with clean clothes. She was going to try to get away with the carry-on bag again, although the necessity for winter clothing, much heavier and bulkier, might make that impossible. Coming home in the cab, all she could do was look out the window; it had been relatively warm for an early November day, well into the 50's, so she'd been able to roll down the window and let the breeze hit her. She didn't really want to think about the implications of her phone call to Joel Walton, but could not stop herself. Joel had another interest. Another interest with whom he was sleeping. Scully was an intensely private woman, more so with each year, and had had a difficult time opening up to this man. She believed in what she privately called "serial monogamy, " which meant you only slept with one person at a time. And she expected the man, possibly not always fairly, to behave the same way. Joel was sleeping with someone else. She was not, and had not been for several years. Dana Scully didn't much feel like sharing. The feeling of loss, of emptiness, was nearly overwhelming, a kind of deep ache inside her guts that wouldn't go away. The tears wouldn't come. For the last two months anyway, as the relationship had developed--and it had been Joel who had done the pursuing--she had allowed his presence to enter her psyche. And to become part of her routine. People do different things, and play different games, at bedtime. Some--the happily mated--entered the land of Nod, at least on most nights, in a warm, sexually satisfied blur. Others, less fortunate, merely imagined it, in the absence of someone to do it for them. Still others resorted to counting sheep, playing alphabet games (start with one letter words, then two letter words, then three letter words, and eventually you get so bored you drop off), or if of a more creative bent, picturing short story plot lines in their imagination that could be translated into print during daylight hours. Dana had frequently imagined being with Joel. Her reveries had advanced rather slowly, from a simple embrace, through more passionate kisses, and into mutual undressing. She had been holding off, so as not to taint their first lovemaking. And now, it wasn't going to be happening. Even worse, she wouldn't be able to permit herself to imagine it. Going to sleep would be a little harder now, resorting to the alphabet game. She wasn't looking forward to it. Dana looked down at her bed, and saw a pile of clothing, suits, blouses, pantyhose, underwear, long underwear, and shoes, dumped next to the suitcase on the bed. It had all been carried there as she had been thinking; clearly, she'd been on autopilot. And it was time to take control away from "George, " the autopilot, and take command of herself. She began sorting through the clothing, rolling up what could be bundled together, putting suits on hangers, and trying to get it ALL in the roll-along case. It took a little doing, but she managed to get most of the larger pieces into the suitcase. A few items could go into a knapsack, along with her purse. She was set. Dana smiled at the thought of Mulder, who'd probably be dragging at least two suitcases along. He was bigger than she was, MUCH bigger, and his clothing--although he was thin--took up much more room. He'd be lucky to get away with a check through AND a carry-on. It would be something to tease him about. Suddenly, the idea of having someone to tease, about almost anything, seemed quite attractive. Bags packed, she walked out the front door of the apartment, and gave her key to her neighbor. She had spent just one night at the apartment, and hadn't even reclaimed Clyde, the dog, from her neighbor, since returning. "Hello! Can you keep picking up my mail for me, Jenny?" Fortunately, Jenny had been at home. Clyde heard her and interrupted the conversation, yapping most noisily for even more attention than he normally got from Jenny and the kids. "Good doggie. You stay with Aunt Jenny, doggie." Turning her attention back to the human neighbor, she continued, "I have to go out of town again; just keep it in a pile and I'll get it when I get home, in about a week. "Dana, did you pay the rent? I think your off cycle on the utilities, and the rest can wait." That about took care of almost the only other detail. Scully would call Mary Ellen and asks her to call the clinic to cancel her stints there, permanently. Mary Ellen could arrange a graceful exit from the voluntary task that had thrown her and Joel together; Scully couldn't bear the thought of having to work with him again, at least not any time soon. The only other detail was to call her own mother. She'd do that from Dulles, when she was sure the trip would actually come off. She still remembered the best travel advice she'd ever been given: "Never believe it until you're airborne--being on the plane isn't good enough. People have been hauled OFF planes. Once you're airborne, you're usually sure the trip is going to happen." En route to his Arlington, Virginia Mulder cabbed it back to Arlington. He was happy that the cabby who picked him up wasn't the same as the one who'd stranded him the last trip out. That would be deja vu, all over again. Last time out he'd nearly missed the plane. Mulder, too, did some thinking in the cab. His was mission-related. Mulder believed in the paranormal, but his experience showed that it could be investigated, and understood, if the investigator took a disciplined approach to the task. And Mulder, most of the time, was nothing if not disciplined. His favorite quote, originally applied to Vietnam, and enshrined in history as the 'Domino theory, ' came from President Eisenhower: "You have a row of dominoes set up; you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is that it will go over very quickly." The problem nearly always lay in knocking over the first one. And the first one was usually his employer. He had quickly grown suspicious of the other agents, covering his discomfort with a facade of outward obliviousness. He had even, at first, played on one of the agency basketball teams. Still, he knew what they thought about him, and it hurt. Mulder thought it over a bit as he rode out to Arlington, remembering his early association with Special Agent Scully. He had first believed that she'd been assigned to discredit him, but she had quickly shown herself to be a seeker after truth. And willing even to accept his truths, although she remained a skeptic until shown otherwise. Mulder wished he understood his feelings toward his partner, and yet expended considerable effort avoiding the effort needed to refine and categorize those feelings. He had grown to trust her, he whose motto had been "trust-no-one." He enjoyed the intellectually robust relationship he had with her, on assignment, and had made some effort to extend that relationship, at least to the time they were in Washington, talking to her, over the phone, at all hours, day and night. He had missed her during her long reassignment, but had lacked both the courage, and the status in her life, to ask her to come back. The Bureau frowned on fraternization among the Agents. He knew he had enough emotional trouble for two; enough psychology had sunk in that he had been able to recognize, if not deal with, his ongoing intermittent depressions. He strongly doubted his ability to maintain an ongoing relationship, at least for now. And he wasn't interested in anything merely temporary. The Scully's of the world required permanence. Sometime, perhaps, but not just now. To start a relationship, in this state of mind, could only lead to the disaster in which Scully would be driven off, permanently. Much as he would like to start a romance with her, that would be the end of their partnership. He knew Scully to be a real straight arrow: she'd recuse herself from the professional partnership, should a love affair begin. That thought bothered Mulder, but not as much as the fact that he had only limited confidence in his ability to maintain that kind of relationship, at least right now, over the long term. And when the romance was over, if it ended, he amended, he would have neither a partner nor a lover. His mind skittered like a frightened horse away from the idea of no more Scully. Someday, maybe, but certainly not now. Not until his head was straighter, and they were done with the Bureau. The only problem was that the memories of the look, the sound, and the scent of his partner made it increasingly difficult for him to be with anyone else, certainly emotionally and to a lesser, but still noticeable extent, even physically. He made up for that loss with an occasional X-rated video, pleasuring himself, effectively, but emotionally barrenly, and only with the aid of imagining his partner. Pursuit of others didn't seem like so much fun any more; it took time, and effort, and aside from the occasional sexual release, not much else seemed to come of it. The sexual release he could manage on his own. In any event, he seemed to have less and less time to indulge in pursuit. A more astute psychologist would have immediately noted that the reason he lacked time was that he poured most of his waking hours into his work, far beyond what was required. And why? Possibly to avoid having the time to do anything else. Mulder's apartment Mulder dumped out his suitcase, and refilled it in record time, thanking his lucky star for all the washes he had done just before leaving for Chicago. Almost all of the clean clothes were still waiting, hung up in the closet or neatly folded in his bureau drawers. He dumped what seemed to be a sufficient amount of underwear and other clothing into one bag, and put several suits, shirts, shoes, and highly ornamental ties into a carry-on bag. Of course, the big bag would HAVE to be checked through. Surely, surely, even short petite Scully couldn't get away with just carry-on bags. He smiled, certain she wouldn't have any cause for teasing him. Still, it almost would be worth it to have her tease him, at least a little. Mulder quickly repressed that thought, and headed down the hallway, notepaper in hand. He'd ask his neighbor, Mrs. McCurdy, to continue to feed the fish, but to give them a little less. They looked noticeably fatter to Mulder, and there were leftover fish food flakes in the tank. They could die from over feeding, possibly faster than from not eating at all. FBI Headquarters It was well past 4:00 when Mary Ellen Garcia had all the paperwork tied up; true to his promise, Assistant Director Skinner had been able to arrange to obtain the Director's OK on the international travel, without convening the ETC, or Executive Travel Committee. Given the current budgetary climate, Mary Ellen had been surprised and impressed. When the money got tight, travel was usually the first line item to get the ax. Julius had returned from the Russian embassy at 4:30, and had been burdened with itineraries, tickets, travel orders, some additional files and notes, a listing of contacts, passports (with the appropriate visas stamped in them) and both cash and traveler's checks. Julius already had figured he was going to Dulles; that was where most of the international flights originated. Mary Ellen told him to look for Mulder and Scully at the UAL International Gate. Fortunately, he knew both Agents by sight. The good news was that he'd be able to use the Dulles Expressway, guilt-free. It was limited to those going to the Airport on official business. Delivering tickets and so forth to someone already there, and waiting, clearly constituted official business. Plus, the trip would mean substantial overtime. The Bureau was generous in such matters. Having sent Julius on his way, Mary Ellen poked her head into Walter Skinner's office. Skinner, quite uncharacteristically, was turned away from his desk and appeared to be staring out of the window. Mr. Skinner was one of the most intense men Mary Ellen had ever met: lollygagging did not seem to be his style. She wondered if he were ill. "Will there be anything else tonight?" Excellently trained, a long-ago product of the Kathryn Gibbs School for Secretaries, she made the inquiry. Her boys had arranged to get themselves invited to a neighbor's house. The AD turned around and looked at her, a little curiously. He'd been using that time, looking out of the window, wondering how, and IF, he could approach her for a social engagement. Now seemed like the right time, and yet, it also seemed like the wrong time. After all, she still worked for him. Unfortunately, in the current social climate, he wasn't exactly sure what steps he could take, that wouldn't set himself up for some kind of harassment charge. Harassment of Mary Ellen Garcia was absolutely the LAST thing on his mind, although he thought some mutual social interaction might be extremely pleasurable. But for now, he'd wait. Until she was gone. "Mary Ellen, thank you." He mentally kicked himself for not being brave enough to say more. "What kind of travel arrangements did you finally make?" The LAST thing he wanted to talk about with this woman, right now, was travel arrangements for two of his other subordinates. "Well, I was able to get them nonstop to Frankfurt; they'll get there Saturday morning, Frankfurt time. It seemed like a better prospect to have them lay over for three hours in Frankfurt airport, then take Lufthansa to Moscow. The alternative was United to New York, Finnair to Helsinki, Finnair again to Moscow. Nothing else looked particularly good, especially going into the weekend. They have open returns from Moscow; they'll have to make the arrangements when they finish the case. You did say, " she added, a little defensively, "that you wanted them awake when they reached Mother Russia, so I sprang for a business class upgrade. Mulder's pretty tall, and those seats are pretty small. "Does Julius know where to look for them?" "Oh, yes, I talked to Agent Mulder about 4:00. He was still at home. I told him to wait at the United International Check-in. I also caught Agent Scully. Julius will find them there. It shouldn't be a problem. Of course, they can do their weapons check-in at the Customs desk." "That all sounds fine. A good job. You're. . ." Skinner trailed off, wanting to say "wonderful" but contented himself with "you're terrific. Thank you." Skinner thought to himself, "It won't hurt to ask." "Mary Ellen, what did you do with the boys?" He paused before adding, "Do you need a ride home?" Mary Ellen was a little surprised; rides home hadn't been part of the routine. Still, it was getting late, had been a very long week, what with starting to pack out, and it would save quite a bit of time. "Why, thank you. Let me close the shop and get my coat. Is 10 minutes all right?" "Whenever you're ready." With that Skinner turned back to the window. This might not be quite as hard as he had imagined. Scully was waiting, seated quietly on her tag along suitcase, her backpack open showing where she'd dug out a phone list and phone, as well as a medical bestseller, detailing the hunt for the origin and alternate host of the Ebola virus. Mulder came along bye and bye, lugging a big suitcase, a slightly overstuffed suit bag, and a knapsack. Scully looked at the overburdened Mulder, and was unable to repress a peal of laughter. She counted the bags, aloud. He had a check through bag, a carry on suit bag, and a backpack. She had her "roll-along" and a backpack. Score: Scully 1, Mulder zip. "Hello, Scully." Mulder forbore from mentioning that he saw only one bag. "Did you get any messages?" Mulder had long since noticed that she always had a lot of people to tell, when she made a trip. Mulder never seemed to need to tell anyone, except the neighbor he trusted to feed the fish. "Just a call from Mary Ellen, saying to wait here. And here, " she said, gesturing broadly to include herself, the suitcase she was sitting on, and the backpack, "I am. I see you decided to bring along your entire wardrobe." Mulder hadn't time for even a squawk before Julius walked up, laden with several sealed government envelopes. He moved the two of them off, close to a wall, and pulled a list out of his pocket, diving into explanations without preamble. Handing Scully and Mulder each a smaller envelop, he said: "These are your official passports, with visas, and your tickets. Take a look now. You aren't going anywhere without these. Also inside the envelopes are your travel orders. There's two copies. Mary Ellen said to put one set somewhere else, in case the first set gets lost." Scully and Mulder riffled through their envelops, Scully repressing a shudder when she saw the photograph in the passport. Definitely not flattering; she sincerely hoped that no one thought she looked like that. Everything else seemed to be in order. Mulder noticed that their first stop was Frankfurt, onward via Lufthansa, and that the ticket showed business class. Impressed, he dug through the paper for the travel orders. There was more information there, but no reservations at a Moscow hotel. Mulder didn't know whether to be more surprised by the routing, the upgrade, or the use of "other-than-U.S.-carriers." The fly American act practically required an additional act of Congress to use non-US flag carriers. Mulder hadn't ever been in Moscow, and spoke no Russian. The itinerary said they would be met at the Moscow International Airport by a representative of the American embassy. They'd get word about the hotel then. He hoped thy would stay downtown, instead of in some anonymous, could-be-anywhere-in-the world hotel near the airport. Scully would probably like it. When he looked up at her, she wasn't smiling; she'd found a very old, extremely well-thumbed, small Russian-English/English-Russian Berlitz phrase book in her envelop. Apparently, someone had remembered that she had studied Russian. Julius, undeterred by the byplay, plowed on. "Agent Scully, do you have tickets? Good. I think you have everything on the list. Put those away." He handed each agent two more packages. "These have travelers' checks, and cash. We'll need to find somewhere where you can sign each check, and I need you to sign a receipt for the checks and the cash. How about using this suitcase?" He pointed to Agent Scully's roll-along, and the two agents started signing. There were quite a few checks, and $1,000 in cash apiece. Julius reminded the agents to put their own receipts for the travelers' checks somewhere aside from where they were keeping the checks, mentioned that there was additional material for them to read, and pocketed his own receipts. "All right, let's get you through check-in, and Customs. I believe airport security is expecting you. I assume you have your weapons? I can show you where you're supposed to check in." Julius waited for the Agents to heft their respective bags, and led them first to the United counter. The got to go to a short line, since they were booked in business class. Scully waited with Julius while Mulder checked his big bag. That done, they headed through to security, where they'd sign their declarations. A United gate agent was waiting by the time they arrived, to walk them through security, and see them to the ramp. Julius waved his good bye, telling them to have a safe trip. He looked at them, trying to figure out what, if anything was going on between them, finally giving up in complete puzzlement. His puzzlement was no less than that of anyone else in the Bureau who had tried to understand the relationship over the last three years. The night flight was comfortable enough, flying in an old-fashioned Boeing 747. Scully had always adored the big planes, the only ones she could be reasonably certain she could fly in without succumbing to airsickness. That fear in the background (and her serenity was undergirded by the rather large motion sickness pill she had swallowed, just before boarding), she was able to dig into the dinner, though with limited enthusiasm. She hadn't really eaten since breakfast on the flight from Chicago, just picking at her lunch at the Agriculture Department. Mulder watched her push the tray away, very little eaten. Scully nearly always had an excellent appetite. Mulder wondered if she were ill, but decided to allow her to raise the point. She certainly had been quiet; maybe she was just tired. Aboard United Airlines Scully was tired, not physically, but emotionally drained from the day's events. Deciding to leave the x-files, looking forward to seeing Joel, finding he was with another woman, getting an immediate assignment, and not leaving the x-files. It was quite a bit of emotional turmoil to absorb on almost no sleep. That was what Scully wanted, to curl up and sleep. Regrettably, even a 747 didn't make for outstanding sleep. She felt a little sorry for Mulder, doomed to forever fly with feet falling asleep, never really being able to stretch out (no room) or curl up (if that was how he liked to sleep.) Scully was a curled up sleeper, and short enough that, if she had access to even half an extra seat, she could manage it. Unfortunately, Mulder had the window, she was next to him, and someone else was in the aisle seat. The plane wasn't completely full, and Mr. Aisle Seat moved out for the movie. Scully had asked politely if he were coming back, and he'd said yes. Denied the spare seat, all she could do was to cover up and tuck in with the blankets. "Wake me up for breakfast, Mulder." By the time the lights went down for the movie, Scully was in dreamland. Mulder, on the other hand, was ready for anything except sleep. He'd had wine with dinner, which had tasted very good, and then what was SUPPOSED, but demonstrably had NOT been, decaffeinated coffee. He couldn't really read, not without the light waking his partner. The movie seemed idiotic. Scully sat sleeping next to him, a small airline pillow tucked between the seat back and the graceful curve of her neck, right hand resting on her left shoulder, and covered up to the chin with two blankets. Being petite did have advantages; even with the tiny airline blankets, two could cover her completely. Mulder tried to imagine contorting himself into that position, but gave up the effort. He simply couldn't twist and curl up that far. Mulder tried to stretch himself into some position which was at least a first approximation of comfortable. The problem was that he liked to sleep stretched out. Scully shifted in her sleep, her head falling against his left arm, and her blanket dropping off her shoulder. He reached around with his right hand and tried to pull the blanket back up, but it kept slipping off. Finally, he disentangled his left arm from her head, and reached around her shoulders with it, gently snugging the blanket up. This left Scully sleeping against his side, next to his heart. The symbolism of all this was not lost on the usually phlegmatic agent. Considering his relationship, or, more accurately, lack of it, with his partner was something that Mulder simply didn't want to get into, at least not with a case waiting. Agents knew that they were always one step from harm's way, and needed to have their minds on business. Not relationships, and not on romance. Still, Mulder was only human. That certainly wasn't a factor that played often into his thinking. With no one to listen to, or to listen to him, Mulder was thrown back on his own company. He shifted in his seat so he could watch her. His arm was getting cold, and would probably soon be going numb, but she was asleep, and looked peaceful, and he didn't want to wake her. He felt warm, and safe, in her company, the scent of her perfume, something quite expensive and French, he felt certain, filling the air around the two of them. Mulder had generally managed to keep secret his excellent sense of smell. He wondered if Scully had noticed. As a child, his sister had discovered it, and he had taken many, many jokes, relating it, his name, and his nose. Mulder hadn't enjoyed any of it as a boy, though he'd give 10 years of his life to hear Samantha tease him one more time. But he did enjoy the sensations he could discover, and felt a warmth and a growing of desire, generated by the nearness, the scent, and the sight of Dana Scully. He felt a sense of desire, warming him, as he watched her, gently breathing under all the blankets. And he wanted to be with her, to hold her forever. "No, that won't do, " he said to himself. "She's my partner. What would she want with me? I'm surprised she hasn't written me up as a paper for a medical journal." The feeling of desire faded, as he had intended it to. He was glad she was sleeping. She hated flying. Mulder noticed a diamond ring on her right hand; he couldn't recall ever seeing her wear jewelry, except for her cross, and was a little surprised. The warmth of being with her faded a little, more out of fear than anything else. Could there be someone else? A gift from Joel, perhaps? No, he thought, a little wildly, that would be on the left hand. At least he thought it would be on the left hand. Being around Scully did that to him, made him think of things, frequently things he did not want to deal with. He had rarely been able to get her to accept his explanations, based in the paranormal, but then again, NO ONE ever accepted them. The difference between Dana, as he always thought of her, and the others, was that she would always listen to him, and if he could prove a theory, she would believe it. Unfortunately, he rarely had unambiguous evidence to give her. Still, she'd always been willing to listen, even though she rarely believed. Having someone to listen to you was important, and made up for much of the professional isolation he had felt since joining the service. Since being recruited to join the service. After all, it was THEIR idea, not his. Naturally, he hadn't fit in easily, but then he rarely had since he was 12, with the exception of two happy years at Oxford. In England, or at least at College, eccentricity was not only tolerated, but valued. Those two years had been the happiest of his life. "All right, enough self-analysis." Mulder gently disentangled his arm from Scully's shoulder, pushed her back toward her seat, straightened up, put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. As he drifted to sleep, he felt her shift toward him once more. Her hand was on his chest. "Well, I didn't start it." And he closed his eyes. From Dana Scully's point of view, the flight to Frankfurt was mercifully short, since she spent much of it sleeping. She had awakened in mid-flight, to find herself leaning across Mulder, his arm around her shoulder, her hand on his chest, close to his heart. She'd stayed still for a moment, enjoying the closeness, before forcing herself to turn away, after gently disentangling his arm from her shoulder. It must have been cold in the cabin; she couldn't think of any other reason why she would have tried to cuddle close to her partner. The layover in Frankfurt, for five hours, was boring, enlivened only by Mulder's disappearance to visit, and view, the sexually oriented mall, provided for the convenience and delectation of the male traveling public. She knew this because he told her. Scully occupied herself with the book on the discovery of the Ebola virus, watching Mulder's carry-on bag, as well as her own desiderata, faithfully. Scully understood, and knew that eventually he would return the time to her. Scully looked up to see her partner returning. "So, how was it? Did you find out anything you didn't already know?" Mulder had the grace to look a little embarrassed. "No, it was about the same as you'd find in the CVS, " he said, naming the Washington area drugstore chain. He couldn't bring himself to tell her about the airport sex shop, the quaintly labeled "marital aids, " including, as the least offensive item, a life-size, blow up doll. Then he wrenched the conversation to moving to the connecting flight gate, which was now posted on the flight information board. He saw no reason to inform her that, looking at the so-called "marital aids" wouldn't do him much good, absent someone, someone like her, oh, shoot, HER, to try them on. Aboard Lufthansa Airlines "Here we go. We'd better do our talking now, otherwise we'll have to wait until we get to the Embassy. We'll be met at the airport, it says here, by someone from the embassy. Doesn't say who; probably it will be the most junior officer, maybe the econ guy, or maybe one of the Marine guards. They all carry embassy status now. On Monday, we have an appointment with the Moscow city police. Name of Arkady Gregoriov, I guess you pronounce it." Scully shuddered listening to Mulder mangle the pronunciation. "There's a second keeper assigned to us, Vera Vasilevnya Olkhovskova." "Fine. Keep going." Scully vowed not to even attempt translations, not with only two years of Russian, buried under nearly 12 years of other studies. "I suppose we'll talk to the embassy rep first, find out what we need to know, go to the hotel, and crash. As soon as the caffeine wears off, I know I'm going to fold, " he added, parenthetically. "Today's Saturday. It IS Saturday, isn't it?" "Yes, Mulder, it only seems like next Thursday." "We have meetings scheduled with the Moscow police first thing on Monday. I think we'll have time to walk around a little, if you want, maybe Sunday." Mulder, uncharacteristically optimistic, had made up his mind to go out of his way to make at least a tiny portion of the trip something less than a monumental chore. Scully was a little touched by the gesture; she knew he'd be much happier burying his nose in the mystery. She smiled at him answering, "Sure." "Wonder what this Arkady person is like?" Scully was frowning when she looked over at Mulder. "He's probably leftover from the KGB, or worse, if they have it. Maybe the embassy can fill us in." She reached over and picked up the folder from Mulder's lap, preparing to read. The coffee must have had an ameliorating effect on her chronic air sickness. "Let's see what this is about. Hmm. Officially, we've been invited in as part of a joint Russian American initiative in the reduction of international crime. And, it's even true, at least in general. In specific, the Russian and Moldovan ambassadors approached the White House with a specific request for assistance. "A Russian full colonel, named Boris Leonich Nicholayev, part of the logistics branch of the missile corps, had been assigned to and successfully completed the dismantling of former Soviet ICBMs. He'd worked in Tashkent, in Soviet Central Asia, in Turkmenistan, and last, in Bendery, Moldova, completing all his assignments with dispatch and distinction." Scully frowned; that seemed like a lot of territory. She hoped she wouldn't have to cover all of it personally. She still remembered the line from her second year Russian textbook, to the effect that the Soviet Union occupied one-sixth of the inhabitable surface of the globe. Mulder, having read the file on the trip between Washington and Frankfurt, went on, "Yes. He had reported to Moscow to give a status report on his assignment in Bendery. His next assignment was to be in Ukraine. He took the plane back to Kishinev, then drove to Bendery. The colonel returned to the missile center, used his official badge and security codes to bypass all the local security, knocked a guard unconscious, and strangled a second with his bare hands. He was about a quarter of the way through the missile launch sequence before the remainder of security took him out. Obviously, they hadn't finished the de-installation. The missiles were aimed at Moscow." "Well, no wonder Moscow was upset. Still, why'd they ask for us? Or did they just ask for you?" Scully had begun to wonder about why she was there. "Here's the part that isn't in the briefing material. The Russian Ambassador claims that the 'episode' was predicted in advance, by a psychic working on a study contracted out by the Red Army to Moscow State University. In the psychology department. That's where Miss, uh, Olkhovskova, comes in. She's the head of the project. The Army asked the Moscow police, and they asked Washington, if anyone was available with any expertise in the subject. Skinner offered them us." Here Mulder fell silent, wondering whether he should tell her that HE had asked for her, rather than the Russians, and decided against it, at least temporarily. Scully looked out the window, and was saddened to see that even in 1995, the Russians felt it necessary to continue to pick up and escort civilian aircraft entering their airspace. A Mig jet, presumably loaded with air to air missiles, and capable of taking out almost any imaginable aircraft, was at the port side of the aircraft. She remembered being shown them by her uncle, when she had traveled with him and his family to Moscow. He had been the naval attache there for two years, and she had been invited to join them for a summer vacation. She'd picked up a little Russian at the time, enough to go shopping and understand ordinary conversation, studying with her cousin, one year older, at 16. She'd studied a little more in college, but had given it up well before she could have been considered fluent. Still, she had been able to get by. "Look, " she said, pointing out the window. "There's our shadow." She told Mulder about her last trip there, and admitted remembering a few words of Russian, just enough to be polite. While she was talking, she pulled her backpack out from under the seat in front of her, and dug out the Russian-English phrase book. Opening it, she saw that it had belonged last to Walter Skinner. "I guess he remembered my 171, where I listed Russian as a language. I should have left that part blank." Mulder just smiled. He thought to himself that even if his partner could only understand a few words, it would probably be a big help. Possibly she could teach him some. But not right now. The steward came on the cabin intercom and began giving, in an orderly and precise English, landing information. Moscow International/Sheremetyevo airport "Dr. Scully? Mr. Mulder?" They nodded their affirmatives. "I'm Corporal Henley, from the Embassy. Have a good trip?" All Scully could manage was a nod, and a slight smile. Mulder did better. "Thanks for coming out for us. I know it's Saturday and you'd probably rather be back at the barracks." "It's not a problem; the drive out here is less boring than walking tours in front of Spasso, " the corporal replied, naming the Ambassador's residence. He looked down at the bags by their feet. "Is this everything?" Mulder replied, "Yes." "Good, let's head back. I'm parked in one of the diplomatic spaces. It's not too far. Do you need help with that bag, Ma'am?" he asked, pointing at Mulder's suit bag. Scully managed a laugh, and said "No, that one belongs to my partner. I've got 'Spot', my roll-along, and a backpack. I can manage." She couldn't hide the slightly evil glint in her eyes as she added, "You need any help, Mulder?" "Sure, I take any help that's offered. How about you take the suit bag, corporal? I can manage the rest. And thank you." With that, the trio headed out of Moscow International Airport, to a discreet, dark sedan. It was already dark, and seemed very cold. Once they were on the St. Petersburg road, heading back to town, Mulder asked the corporal if he had any messages for them. "No, sir. But I can tell you where you're staying. There's a major convention in town this week, so the best we could manage was the Ukraine. It's a rat trap, and it costs like crazy. GSO, " he added, naming the government services operations staff of the embassy, "managed to get you on the VIP floor. About the only advantage is that it is pretty much walking distance from the Embassy. Prepare yourself for an entirely new level of service, " he put in, suggesting by the tone of voice that the level would be substantially below anything they'd ever encountered before. Mulder was looking out the right-hand window of the car. They seemed to be passing concrete ruins, off to the right. The Corporal, without being asked, obligingly explained, "Those are the leftover tank traps, from World War II. They call it the Great Patriotic War, here. The Germans came within a couple of whiskers of taking Moscow. That's where they got stuck; General Winter finished them off. "About the only other things you need to know are to avoid private cabs; the cabbies will cut your throat for an American dollar. I left a tourist map and a map of the subway system on the deck behind your seat, " he looked in his rearview mirror, adding, "it's right behind your head, Ma'am. "If you feel like coming out later tonight, take the subway to the stop marked 'Krasnaya Ploschad;' it means Red Square. I marked it and the stop by the hotel for you in English. When you come up, look around until you see St. Basil's Cathedral. They keep it lighted up all night. It's really something to see. The institutional buildings you'll see off to the left will be GUM, that's the old State Department Store. To the right is Lenin's tomb; that's not as big a deal as it used to be. Oh, yes, at the foot of the square you'll see the National Hotel. Used to be quite a dump, so the locals tell me, but it's been fixed up, and has the best restaurant and bar in town. Expensive, except you can actually drink what they serve there and live to tell the tale." Mulder looked over at his partner, who had opened the map, put on her reading glasses, and seemed to be following along. He sincerely hoped she could manage enough Russian to get them some supper. Scully peered intently at the map, trying to remember. She found the hotel with no problems, and Red Square, and was looking for the Embassy, whose address she remembered. Once she had those spotted, she looked for an index, determined to find one more place, the New Maiden Monastery. "Let's see, " she thought, "uh, Novodevichy?" Glancing down the Cyrillic listing, she found it. Not very far, actually, quite close to the University, and worth the trip. The grounds had several churches, Cathedrals actually by Russian standards, and a fabulous cemetery. The cathedrals had been closed, 'na remont', last time, like half of the Motherland, or so it seemed to a 15-year-old girl. She was determined to see at least one of them this time. And the cemetery. Behind the monastery was Khrushchev's grave. Khrushchev had been a blustering--and very frightening--dictator, with an exquisitely elegant grave marker, at the back of a Russian orthodox monastery. She'd never understood it. The second item on the mental list was Derzhinski Square. The KGB headquarters and Lubyanka prison were there. She couldn't find them in the listing. Well, these weren't exactly tourist spots, anyway. At that point Corporal Henley pulled up in front of the Ukraine. "I can come in with you, if you want, but they have English-speaking staff, and the duty officer confirmed your reservations before I left to pick you up. Just go to the front desk, it's real obvious, and tell them your names. "Oh, yes, about your schedules. The Embassy is pretty much shut down for the weekend now. There'll be a party tonight at the Marine barracks, if you'd like to come." The Marines routinely invited ALL visitors to their weekly beer and pretzel feast, whether they were pretty redheads, or not. Corporal Henley just wanted to talk to someone new. "Here's the barracks number, if you want to call, or you can just walk over. I marked it on the map. "Oh, Corporal, I don't think so. I'm coming off a caffeine high, and will probably sack out, " the pretty red head replied, with a big smile. "But thanks for the offer. Maybe Agent Mulder will come on by. He's much more of a night owl than I am." "Well, if I don't see you tonight, I'll pick you up at 8:30 sharp, right here, tomorrow morning. You're due at the Charge's office at 9:00. It's about four blocks; would you be willing to walk?" Scully thought that walking might not be a bad idea, while they were getting the lay of the land. And it could cut down on the time waiting for the routine search of the car. She said as much, and the Corporal sighed, then agreed. "Yes, Ma'am." "Well, thank you, Corporal." Mulder was holding out his hand to Scully, to pull her out of the car while the Marine opened the trunk and began off loading their bags. "We'll see you tomorrow. Right here, in front. If you don't mind, " he added, feeling the hairs inside his nostrils begin to frost from the cold, "we'll wait inside for you. Is it always this cold so early in winter?" "Mr. Mulder, winter starts here the last week of September. We had snow on the ground on October 2." FBI Headquarters As Scully and Mulder were checking in, it was lunchtime Saturday, back in Washington. The weather had turned extremely cold, by temperate Washington standards, especially for early December. Congress continued to threaten another government shutdown, this one tentatively scheduled to begin at midnight, Friday night. Far fewer people were to be affected, but Assistant Director Skinner was still at his desk, working on some papers, and considering how much stuff to take home with him. He'd decided to hang on until 4:00 or so, in case his two travelers called in. He was a little concerned, sending Scully and Mulder off on such short notice, wondering how many things had been neglected, or outright forgotten. Well, at least they got the tickets, the money, and the computer. Skinner was on the list of "emergency" workers, meaning he would be coming back on Monday, whether the President and Congress came to their senses, or not. He considered checking in on Sunday, about midday. But the messages would come coded, and he didn't have the code key. He could ask someone from the computer services division to come in, but. . .no, they deserved a day off, too. There would be no way to read any messages from his emissaries at home; too many security loops were built into the system. Still, he wanted to get some things cleaned up. And do some thinking, somewhere more congenial than his empty condo in Bethesda. Ruth had taken the girls to Michigan, to visit her parents. He'd already fielded a call from his cigarette smoking nemesis, asking for a trip update. What was he supposed to say? Mulder and Scully should have gotten to Moscow, but hadn't called in yet. Maybe CSM just wanted to know they had actually gone. And he wanted to do some thinking about what to do, if anything, about Mary Ellen Garcia. She was on his mind, more with each passing day, and not just in her capacity of chief secretary. Skinner thought over every thing he knew about her, and with each passing thought decided she was ever more remarkable. There were things going on in his head he didn't really want to think about, much less deal with. And, he was absolutely at a loss for how to approach her. He felt like a one of the gawky computer programmers he'd seen hanging about Agent Scully. Like a geek. The last woman he'd asked out on a date had been Ruth, whom he'd married. He was sorely out of practice. Gostinitsa Ukraina (Hotel Ukraine), Saturday True to Corporal Henley's promise, they did have reservations, for rooms on the tenth floor of the hotel. The lobby didn't seem so bad, but Mulder had been in lots of firetraps that had lovely lobbies. He resolved to plot out at least two exits, besides the elevators, before he sacked out for the evening. And to drag Scully, if need be, with him while he was doing it. They were each handed folders, holding a paper with a room number, and a rather large key, and were offered the assistance of a bellboy, which they accepted. The bellboy rolled up a cart and put their bags on it. Scully held onto her backpack. "Follow me, please?" he said, in heavily accented Russian. He led them to a bank of elevators, pushing the cart past some other would-be passengers, and led them on. The elevator seemed to take its own sweet time making it to the tenth floor, with lots and lots of people seeming to enter and leave only one or two floors later. Eventually, they got there. "Follow me, please?" He seemed to know what their rooms were; Scully didn't recall hearing the check in clerk call out anything that sounded like numbers, but maybe she had. The bellboy and cart came to a stop in front of 1013. "Sir, follow me, please?" He held out his hand, apparently for the key, and receiving it, opened the door, turned on the light, and moved Mulder's bags into the room. Without waiting, he returned to the cart, and said "Ma'am, follow me, please?" and repeated his performance for her, stopping quite a way down the hall, at 1009. Again, he held out hand, for the key, opened the door, turned on the light, and moved Scully's bags into the room. Scully, much faster on the uptake, slipped $5 into his hand as she was taking back the key, saying "Spasibo, thank you." Hearing even one word of Russian from the copper-topped American opened a flood of words, all of it in Russian, from the awestruck bellboy. One saw many redheaded Russian women, although not of 'Ma'am's' coloring, and mainly thanks to considerable considerable chemical enhancement. It was apparent that he only knew about 10 words in English. Scully smiled a dazzling smile at her Russian admirer, and waved him out of the room and locked the door. Gosh, she was tired. It wasn't until she dragged her bags over to the bed that she noticed her environment. A gilt mirror, gold colored bed covers, gilt, French provincial--definitely not Russian-looking furniture. Light colored carpets. Pale lemon colored wall paper. Must have been used by higher level party members in the old days. Curiosity aroused, she opened up the closet door, and saw clothes' hangers. Even in America you didn't always find them. The bathroom had a huge, ball and claw tub, with a shower and curtain added, black and white mini-tile floor, and white tile walls, with black trim. There was even a hair-dryer. The tub looked huge. Scully found a stopper--she wouldn't have to dig the one she always carried out of her suitcase--and started running the water. It didn't run very quickly, and clearly would take quite a while to fill. Still, a bath and a shampoo would feel wonderful. Before she did that, she took out her immersion heater and began the first installment of the day's worth of clean drinking water. Russian water was not very trustworthy, owing to the presence of giardia, which caused giardiasis, one of the most dreadful of travelers' illnesses. Boiled water only, or bottled. You couldn't even use tap water to brush your teeth, not safely. As she began undressing, she couldn't help but imagine how good that bath would feel. She started removing the previous 18 hours, shoes first, then down to lingerie. She fingered the silk and lace of her camisole and slip and felt a little sorry that no one else would ever see them, or feel the exquisite softness of the fabric. Involuntarily, her mind flashed to Joel, how he and she had gone to the gym, he peddling madly on a stationary bicycle as her worked out on a stair stepper. She remembered how attractive he looked in his uniform athletic shirt, navy blue, cut to show the muscles in his arms and back. She recalled how he had looked up at her, her with honest admiration, encouraging her "stick with it Dana, you're almost done." And his smile, his dazzling smile. Well, Joel was gone. No point in thinking about that. While the water was running, she opened up her suitcase, pulling out a cosmetic bag and putting it next to the sink. Her soap, her shampoo, her creme rinse and body lotion. And some bath salts; she ripped open the envelop and poured the sweet smelling stuff under the running water. Mulder was quite curious about his room, whose most obvious features were what appeared to be a king-size bed, with a huge mirror mounted behind it. He checked out the bathroom, and the closet, and chose to try the handle to the third door. It seemed to be locked. Assuming the door led to the hallway, Mulder decided to see if the key to his room would fit; turning it, he opened a door onto a really lovely living room, all lemon colored, with lemon-colored wall paper, gold-figured white background upholstery on a camelback sofa, two matching arm chairs, and, in a rather discreet armoire, a television. Under the TV he discovered a small, hotel-sized refrigerator. Next to the icebox was a pitcher of water. Odd. A card, in four languages--including English--listed the contents and prices. There didn't seem to be a door to the corridor, unless it was the one set directly across from him. Mulder walked over and tried the handle. It was locked. Well, the key had worked before. Why not again? He fitted it into the lock and gave it a turn, opening into a room which seemed to be a duplicate of his own, except for its single bed, and what appeared to be Scully's suitcase on the bed. And her clothes on top. At that moment, Dana Katherine Scully walked out of the bathroom, looked up, saw him and gasped. Mulder heard her soft gasp, and turned. "Mulder, how did you get in here?" Mulder simply stared. He couldn't help himself. He knew he should turn around, or close his eyes, or something, but the sight of his partner, discretely covered, but definitely covered only by pink, lace-trimmed lingerie, as well as a surprising amount of dignity, was simply too much for him. Mulder couldn't help himself from looking. He saw a blush begin under her camisole, gradually coloring the top of her chest--the part visible above the lace of the camisole--rising past her neck, over her face, all the way to her hair. It made a lovely clash with that red hair of hers. At that he managed to mumble, "I thought redheads couldn't wear pink, " mentally kicking himself for saying something so idiotic. He had meant to say she looked gorgeous. And she did. "Turn around, Mulder." As he complied, he heard her open up the suitcase, and rustle in the clothing. While turned, he tried desperately to master his feelings of desire. A good thing he still had on a jacket. In a moment, she added, "All right, you can turn back now." She'd managed to pull out a robe, figured with pink, yellow and he thought navy blue peonies, and was tying the navy sash about herself. Nothing showed, not anymore, except in Mulder's imagination. He thought to himself that she looked lovely. He'd seen her sleep in clothes, while they were on a stakeout--once they had even shared a hotel room, her sleeping in her suit on top of the bed, him in his clothes, on the sofa. He'd even seen her in shorts, once, at an Agency picnic, but never in night clothes. He wondered, a little confusedly, "Do peonies come in blue?" but kept that thought to himself. Charging on as if nothing had occurred seemed to be the best idea. "We seem to have a suite. There's a sitting room between us. I thought the door led back to the hallway. I'm sorry, " he added, thinking to himself, "Lame, Mulder, absolutely inept." "Oh." Scully seemed to have the blush mastered. She gestured toward the door, and said, "Well, show me." Mulder led the way back to the sitting room, and discovered a fireplace he'd managed to overlook. He wondered how a fireplace came to be in a hotel. He started to lead her to his room, coming to his senses just before he made a fool of himself, again. "My room looks about the same as yours, except I got the king-size bed, with the mirror over it." Scully shook her head, and walked back to her own room, closing the door gently. She had found his attempt to cover his obvsiou embarrassment sad, and a little offputting. She heard the water begin to run into the overflow line on the tub. Gostinitsa Ukraina (Hotel Ukraine), Saturday Mulder was left standing in the sitting room, looking at the door through which Scully had left him. He'd noticed the rather large bolt on her side, and knew that she wouldn't even need to throw it. Their silent but implicit compact would keep him out. Still, he couldn't help wondering. He sat in one of the chairs and thought over the implications of what had just happened to him. His feelings for Scully were deep, and carefully repressed. He liked Scully; she was the cool, logical one--her handling of this incident showed that clearly. Certainly, he hadn't felt at all cool headed about it, and he noticed he had enjoyed looking at her, he had enjoyed it immensely. He was pleased with the reaction he had to her, which just showed he was human. He was less pleased that there had been any reaction at all. Mulder knew he should be thinking about his partner, not a date. Not a lover. Not even a potential lover. FBI rules about fraternization were clear. It was not permitted, under any circumstances. Any Agents found to be so engaging were transferred to different field offices. When she had been kidnapped, he had barely been able to survive the loss. Getting her back had polished off what little relationship he had with his mother. Mom still believed that he had traded his sister, Samantha, rather than a clone, back to the aliens for his partner. She had made it plain she would never forgive him. Mulder had always felt that Dana's earlier disappearance had somehow been his fault, that once again, as with his sister, he had been unable, helpless, to protect someone he cared for. She had been cooler toward him than previously. The phone calls never recovered to previous levels. She had accepted a long assignment at Quantico, had gone to Oklahoma city to help investigate the bombing of the Murrah building, all without even calling him. She must blame him, at least a little, for her disappearance. That might account for her distance these last few months. Being away from her had been very hard. Would be even harder to bear. Especially now. Dana Scully pulled the stopper from the tub, averting the threatening flood of her bathroom, then turned off the taps. While the water line was descending to a manageable level, she walked back to the bedroom, threw the deadbolt, pulled the plug on the immersion heater, and began shedding clothes, hastily-tied robe first. Dana had been unnerved to find Mulder in her bedroom. She was accustomed to being stared at; every woman with any kind of outstanding feature--and her red hair clearly qualified her for the list--quickly got used to being stared at. Still, she hadn't been prepared for the expression on Mulder's face, or his clumsy and ultimately futile to hide his understandable physical reaction to her presense. Scully had come to realize in that moment, finally, that she had a real problem on her hands. Oddly, the thought hadn't occurred to her before. On second thought, she rejected the idea: it was just too astonishing to be true. She was more annoyed than embarrassed about the rooms. So, what was this supposed to mean? Did the secret police still take pictures? Did some idiot in the surveillance group think she was along just to provide sexual favors for the male agent? Or, was this set up just left over, from a long time ago? She supposed there'd be no harm done, as long as they kept to their own rooms, with the doors locked. Even using the living room might be out of the question. Well, probably out of the question. It did have the only TV. And a desk. And since she was fairly certain there was a camera running 24 hours a day, she could warn Mulder about it, out of doors, away from any possible eavesdroppers. They could do their talking outside, or at the embassy. Not in each other's rooms, not ever. It was a part of their tacit agreement as partners. "Enough, Dana Katherine. Time for a bath, " she muttered to herself, adding, mentally, "not a cold shower. I'll leave the cold shower for Mulder." The water was quite warm. And the tub was filled. Dana climbed in, sat down, and let the water draw some of the stress out of her body. She raised a leg and let the warm water trail down her calf. She was starting to feel quite a bit better; Scully hadn't realized how tense and tired she was until she sat in the tub. Presumably, being human accounted for Mulder's behavior; after all, he was a man. Even if he was her partner first. History probably accounted for the KGB, or whatever they were called, in putting her into this potentially compromising position. She decided to put it all out of her mind. She rubbed a little more Ivory onto the washcloth, inhaling its "99 and 44 percent pure" scent, and drifting off to another time, a time when her father and mother had always kept her safe. The memories felt wonderful. She hadn't really felt safe, not since Melly had died, not since she had been kidnaped. The huge gap in her memory continued to worry her, despite the fact that the doctors had told her it would probably return, in time. Suddenly, the cocooning feeling of safety evaporated. Dana decided to settle for the feeling of being pampered, with the hot bath, and started on her foot, noticing that it was way past time for a pedicure. One of her special treats, an all for herself treat, was a full-blown pedicure, self-administered, whenever she traveled. Among other things, it took quite a bit of time. That and sightseeing, looking at the town, no matter where it was, were her travel diversions. Scully wondered whether there would be any other diversions this trip; from the preview she'd had in the suite, she thought she'd already had just about enough. Suddenly, somehow she didn't feel so relaxed anymore. The crick in her shoulder, which had bothered her off and on for months, was back. "Time to get out, Dana Katherine, " she told herself. "I suppose I'll have to take Mulder to dinner, that or let him starve." Scully knew quite well that Mulder's foreign language aptitude hovered just above zero. "I'd better get dressed and talk to him." Talking to him was the LAST thing she wanted to do at the moment. Dana reached down by her feet, and pulled the plug on the tub, simultaneously turning the taps on. When the water temperature seemed about right, she stood up and pulled the lever for the shower head. She was well into her shampoo when the water ran cold. With a shout she tore aside the shower curtain, and jumped out. She reached back in and turned OFF the cold water tap, but only cold water flowed from the tap. No adjusting would bring back the hot water. There she stood, head full of shampoo. Fortunately, most of the soap had been blasted off by the burst of ice water. She tried turning on the tap and just rinsing out her hair, but the cold defeated her. She tried turning on just the hot water tap in the sink, thinking she could get enough warm water to rinse out her hair, and to finish with a "cat bath" but only cold water poured forth. Totally disgusted, she turned off the water, found the last dry towel to wrap around her head, tied on her robe and headed out to find someone, anyone, in authority, who could get her some clean warm water. It didn't matter if it came out of the Moscow river, as long as there wasn't any ice in it. Eventually, she found someone. By the time a hotel functionary came back, tapping at her door, and proudly presenting a galvanized bucket of steaming water, the shampoo started to dry in her hair. It took some soaking to rinse it out again. Dana resolved to never tell Mulder about this. Dana dried and combed out her hair. She wished it were a little longer, so she could pin it up, but had never succeeded in growing it much beyond the minimal ponytail stage. She walked over to the closet, and considered carefully. There was a navy pantsuit; she'd brought a pale blue blouse to soften it. The suit wasn't new, but it did have a long coat. Very stylish. Very covered up. And extremely unrevealing. That would be the ticket. Being by hmself seldom bothered Mulder, who lived in a society where he was his--with the exception of his partner--generally his own company. Still, this evening Mulder moped around the suite, thinking mostly that he was hungry. He considered trying out the restaurant on his own, and then, thinking about the quality and quantity of the bellboy's English, decided against it. In addition, he was thirsty. Alcohol from the fridge didn't seem very tempting. Well, a glass of water out of the sink couldn't get him into much trouble. He was into the second glass when he heard a knock on the corridor door. "Mulder." It was Scully. Mulder put down the glass, and walked over to the door, as he heard a second round set of knocking. "Mulder." A bit louder. He wondered why she didn't use the door from the sitting room as he opened up the door to the corridor. Time, he thought for himself, for sheepish grin. He managed it while saying "Scully. Bath all done? Are you hungry?" This was greeted with dead silence. "Sheesh, " he thought, "I shouldn't have mentioned the bath." Scully meanwhile was wondering if he could possibly know about the unintended cold shower. No, it wasn't possible. Instead of all of the possible retorts, she merely replied, mildly, "Sure. Want to go to the restaurant?" "YES! I'm starving. Maybe you'd better teach me some Russian while we're at it. First things first, though. Let me show you the fire escape routes. Just in case." Scully contained a quiet groan. "All right. First things first, " she replied, as he was locking the door. Mulder walked her down the far end of the hall, to a stairwell. "Here's the closest. The other is at the opposite end of the hall, " he said, pointing. "Now, let's eat. Where do we go?" "Mulder, it's time for your first Russian lesson. This will be easy, since the word for restaurant has all English characters." They were in the elevator, descending at a leisurely pace. "The letters appear to spell the word 'PECTOPAH', but you pronounce it 'restauran', no T at the end. There used to be a kind of coffee shop, called a 'buffet, ' but the letters are quite different. It's on the third floor, I think We'll find it after dinner, and I'll write it down for you. "Real Russian food is very different from what you might imagine. A lot of the fancy, or feast food, has its origins in French cuisine, even down to the names. They normally take their big meal at lunch time, or at least they used to. That might have changed since the Communists got booted. Dinner is more like we would think of as a late supper. Fairly light. But, it depends. We'll see what's on the menu." Mulder, immensely grateful that she was still speaking to him, smiled. "You can do the ordering." He meant it, primarily because he didn't have any words to do the ordering with. Dinner, when the found the "PECTOPAH, " turned out to consist mainly of meat and cabbage soup called borscht, and bread. Scully also ordered beer, and bottled water. She did the ordering, in Russian, with what appeared to be considerable confidence. Mulder suspected that she'd cracked open that language primer sometime during the evening. After dinner, they located the buffet, whose word looked like "byfet, " but was pronounced the same as in English. They found it on the third floor, right where Scully had thought, then made their way back to the suite. Mulder, aware that he was treading on dangerous ground, walked Scully to the entrance to her room, leaving after saying goodnight. He heard her lock the door. Clearly, she was still miffed. Mulder too went into his own room, and immediately began shrugging out his clothes. He was tired, but not sleepy. He loosened and removed his tie, and got out of his shirt, carefully hanging the two in the shower in hopes the any remaining steam would take the wrinkles out. The man toed off his shoes and put them in the closet, then unbuckled his belt and stepped out of his trousers. That left him in shorts and a tee-shirt, and he decided to leave it that way, knowing that Scully wouldn't come into the sitting room. His stomach was a little upset--maybe it was that rotten Russian beer? He drank another glass of water, and thought about watching TV. The couch looked a little doubtful, but it might be fixable with a couple of pillows. And a blanket. Pulling them off his bed, he managed to turn on the TV, and settled in. First up was what appeared to be a news show; he recognized the format, one man one woman, same as at home, and after a bit recognized the show. It was "Vremya, " or Time, and he had actually seen it, though with subtitles, on the foreign language cable channel back in Arlington. Then came some kind of program, on agriculture, or so he thought, since he saw pictures of tractors, and huge fields of sunflower seeds. Mulder, being a big fan of roasted sunflower seeds, was interested. These looked quite different from the confectionery variety he was accustomed to. They were entirely black. Apparently, the Russians processed them into cooking and salad oil, or so the presentation seemed to show. He'd have to pay attention, and order some kind of salad for supper tomorrow. He must have drifted off during the show on agriculture; Mulder awoke, feeling quite ill, some time past midnight. He sat up and took a couple of deep breaths, thinking it was only indigestion. The queasiness matured into a full-blown case of nausea, complete with a cold sweat, the kind that felt like a million pin pricks stabbing him from inside his skin. He managed to make it to the bathroom before losing the remains of his dinner. Before he really had settled down, the diarrhea began. After a bit, when his insides had beaten the rest of him into submission, Mulder swallowed a Lo-motil, and, wrapping himself in his blanket, went back to sleep, on the couch. It had turned out to be more comfortable than it looked. Scully had slept fitfully, finally settling in for some solid shut-eye only an hour or so before the alarm went off at 6:30. She got up, washed her face, brushed her teeth with the boiled water, started more water boiling, and began dressing. Today was Sunday. She had been a little surprised that the Charge at the Embassy had wanted to see them at 9:00, but it was his town, and his call. Scully wondered if the man--Matthew Aldershot--was "essential." The Corporal had told them, on the trip from the airport, that the government had shut down, again. Well, maybe she'd find out. Scully debated the merits of trying to find the hotel gym, if one existed, but honestly thought she could give it a pass; she was just too tired. Pulling on the same clothes as she'd worn at dinner the night before, she looked carefully into the mirror as she added a coat of mascara to her eyelashes, and some pink lipstick. Walking past the dresser, she picked up an atomizer, and without stopping to think, spritzed some Bal a Versailles cologne on her neck. She hadn't heard anything that sounded like life from Mulder's room. She decided to set a good example; she'd tramp down the hallway and knock on his bed room door from the corridor. The red head did that, several times, but couldn't get a response. After retreating to her own hotel room, she considered her options, and decided to risk the backdoor approach, via the sitting room. Mulder had told her in the past that he frequently ended up sleeping on the couch in his apartment. She thought that would be where she might find him. And she did find what she assumed was Mulder, still asleep, on the couch. His face was covered by a blanket, but his arms were outside of the covers. She noticed the hair on his arms, his skin so much lighter than Joel's, his hair so straight. Well. No time like the present. Scully cleared her throat. "Mulder." No response. Well, maybe he was a heavy sleeper. Louder, she said "MULDER, " and was rewarded with a moan, suggesting life under the blanket. "Scully." He coughed and rolled over, the blanket dropping away from his face. He looked unwell. "Do you need a few more minutes?" "No, I'm awake. What time is it? "It's 7:15; we're supposed to meet the Corporal in an hour. We barely have time for breakfast." Mulder groaned. "Don't mention food in my presence." Suddenly concerned, Scully asked, "Mulder, what's wrong?" "I don't know what they call it--maybe Stalin's revenge?" "Oh." Scully considered and asked, "Mulder, did you drink any tap water?" "Yeah, a couple of glasses, before and after dinner." "Mulder, didn't you read the travel advisory?" "What travel advisory?" "The one that said not to drink tap water in the former Soviet Union, because of the problems with giardia. Well, " she added, "obviously not. Let me take a look at you." She pulled down the blanket from his face and neck, and felt his neck. He didn't seem to be running a fever. "Let me give you some water to drink; probably you've dehydrated yourself." Then she added, despite the huge potential for generating false hope, "Maybe it's only traveler's sickness, not giardia." Mulder nodded; he was a little concerned, and dreaded the thought of having to deal with a Russian doctor. He drank the water Scully brought back, and got himself up off the couch, carefully covering himself up first. A hot shower helped, and 15 minutes later he was dried, dressed and ready to go out. He thought about traversing the living room to Scully's bedroom, but decided against it. Mulder could just walk down the hall and knock. Gostinitsa Ukraina (Hotel Ukraine) Mulder's breakfast, at Dr. Scully's advice, had consisted of bottled water and dry toast. Scully had attempted to get him to drink some kind of spoiled milk, with lumps. It looked worse than butter milk, but Scully insisted it was just fermented, and not capable of spoiling. Here Mulder drew the line. The smell didn't seem to bother Scully, who stirred a little sugar into the brew and drank it down, the whole glassful. "It's called 'kefir." True to his word, the Corporal was waiting just inside the lobby. "Morning Mr. Mulder, Dr. Scully. All ready? It got a lot colder, last night; if you have hats, I'd say put them on." Scully pulled a scarf up around her face. Mulder just shrugged. The trip to the Embassy was the coldest walk Mulder could remember enduring in his life. He'd heard tales about the Russian winter, of course, but mere words on a printed page could not prepare a mortal for this. No wonder the Russians drank so much; they must use liquor mainly as antifreeze. Mulder took a deep breath, and felt the hairs in his nostrils freeze solid. Now, THAT'S cold! Eventually, they got to the Embassy building, where the Corporal's badge plus their FBI badges gained them admission. The standing guard was about to process them through the metal detectors when the Corporal thought to ask whether they carried weapons. The two agents were required to surrender them; the sergeant at guard locked them in a weapons' locker, and issued receipts, as well as Embassy access badges. "Keep these on all the time." Matthew Aldershot, charge d'affaires, and number two ranking officer in the Embassy, met them in the sitting room outside the Ambassador's office. He was a comfortable looking man, apparently in his early fifties, thick white hair with a hairline starting to rise, wearing a shirt and a wool pullover sweater, wool slacks and leather moccasins. He looked comfortable sitting in a room which surely must have had better days. At a guess, Scully thought there must be at least twenty layers of paint on the walls. The furniture similarly had, she hoped, seen better days, being apparently of good quality, Drexel or Ethan Allen at a guess, but suffering from too many years of use. Rising, Aldershot held out his hand. "Glad to see you, Dr. Scully, Agent Mulder. Sit, sit down. Did you have a comfortable trip? I'm sorry about the Ukraine; I'll rip the head off the GSO guys tomorrow if you want." Scully was taken aback about the comments on the Ukraine, and said so, "Why Mr. Aldershot, my room is lovely. All French provincial, on the tenth floor. Very comfortable. Don't kill anyone." Aldershot had a perplexed expression on his face. Then, the look cleared. "Oh, tenth floor did you say? Did they put you in connecting rooms?" Mulder decided to let Scully handle this one. "Well, not exactly, there's a sitting room between us." Mat Aldershot started to laugh, with a merry redness coloring his entire face. "Which one of you got the double bed with the mirror over it?" Scully nearly choked before Mulder spoke. "I did--it's a king." Aldershot looked at Scully and decided to throttle the merriment, at least a little. "Well, you probably don't need to know this, but might want the story to tell your children some day. In the old days, they used to keep a movie camera running whenever anyone was in that particular room. I've been told it was the duty assigned to first-year internal security police recruits. I understand, " he added, parenthetically, "that the corresponding duty for first year special agents is to tail the Bulgarian agricultural attache. Tell whoever has the duty, " the man plowed on, oblivious to the stare from Scully, "that I know Dr. Kornakov. He's legit. Anyway, the camera duty was absolutely dreaded, since almost nothing ever happened. You'd be amazed, " he added, still chortling a little, "what you hear at cocktail parties." Mulder managed a dry comment, "Thank you for the insight." Aldershot decided that it was time to get down to business. But first, "Would you like some coffee? It's Folgers' American, not the swill they serve at the hotel." Scully accepted and joined Aldershot in drinking a cupful. Mulder politely declined. "Well, I assume from the cable traffic that you've been briefed on why you're here." He looked around and nodded in the direction of the ventilator grilles. "Everything has ears here, you know, so make like the New York Times--all the news you want out will leak out of this room." Mulder replied. "Yes, we've been briefed. Can you tell us a little bit more about the two Russians assigned to help us?" He looked at a piece of paper. "Arkady Gregoriov, I guess you pronounce it, and Vera Vasilevnya Olkhovskova." "Sure. Arkady Allesandreevich, I've known him almost since I got here; he's a detective with the Moscow Oblast, kind of like a state, police. Anyway, that is what his papers said. Truth is, dear Arkady used to be in military intelligence. Carried the rank of colonel. Maybe he's retired; maybe the detective posting is just a cover. Just so you know you aren't just dealing with an ordinary police detective. Arkady is extraordinary. A good detective, a real bloodhound. Spooky person; sometimes he'll look right through me, almost as if he doesn't see me, or doesn't recognize me." Aldershot ploughed on. "Arkady speaks English, not as well as us, or so he lets on, but extremely passable. For all I know he speaks it BETTER than I do. He once was the head of the guard detail in Washington, while he was in the Army. Very experienced. Learned his trade in the Red Army, or so I've heard. Probably has a KGB connection, although the people here haven't ever nailed it down. Usually gets assigned to extremely dangerous or odd cases, and keeps a very low profile. Vera Vasilevnya, " he went on, smiling, "dorogoya Vera, dear Vera, is Ukrainian, not Russian. A lovely woman, absolutely charming, excellent English. She studied psychology at Oxford; don't ask me how she got the appointment. Her degree is legit enough, and for the past five years she's been head of a departmental contract program you've already had described to you." Mulder nodded, thinking about the paranormal research program Skinner had told him about. Why couldn't the Americans have something like that? Well. The Charge went on. "I've asked the Marine detachment to assign Corporal Henley to you for the duration. You'll find he's a good man; speaks passable Russian, has been all over the city. Likes the ladies, does our Corporal, but has always shown discretion. He knows the score. I think he'd like to go into the FBI, or at least apply, after his tour is up; I give him the highest ratings. He's finishing an undergraduate degree right now, by correspondence. He'll still have a few classes to go by the time he leaves here. Don't tell him I said this, but let me know if you think he's got the right stuff. Henley has served us well, always willing to pitch in and do the dirty work. He got the ambassador's son out of a tight spot, once. Details don't matter. I'd like to do something for him, if I can." "All right, Mr. Aldershot." That was Scully. "Well, do you have a list of appointments for us?" "Sure do. Arkady knows what the trip from the States is like, so he told me, unofficially, that he'd be happy to meet with you and Vera in his office, this afternoon, if you think you'll be awake." "That would be fine, " replied Mulder. "Where is his office?" "Oh, it's just off Derzhinski Square. I'll make sure the Corporal gets you there on time." Mulder and Scully, sensing that the odd interview was at an end, rose, and allowed the charge to lead them from the sitting room. They found Corporal Henley, sitting with the duty officer at the guard's desk. "Take care of them, Corporal. They'll need to be at Moscow State Police HQ at 1:00. "Very good, Mr. Aldershot. I'll see them there." The two agents retrieved their weapons from the Marine weapons' locker, and passed out into the cold. They assured the Corporal that they could make it without escort, and agreed to meet him at 12:45, with the Embassy car, in front of the hotel. Mulder smiled his good bye, adding, "And make sure the heater works, OK?" The corporal just laughed. After a lunch composed of tea, some more bread, and jam, the two Agents allowed themselves to be ferried to city police headquarters. Corporal Henley, resplendent in his uniform, did the talking, and after a few moments delay, they were shown to a rather nondescript office, on one of the upper floors of the building. It had lights, but seemed quite drab. About the only noticeable feature was that the curtains appeared to be blowing from a draft, although plainly the window had been closed. Soviet architecture was notoriously shoddy, and the building clearly predated the new Russian republic. After brief introductions, Arkady Alessandrovich plunged into the story of Bendery, adding surprisingly little to what Mulder and Scully already knew, except for the tidbit that Boris Leonich Nicholayev, despite his high rank in the Army, and his former Communist party membership, had appeared to belong to some kind of religious cult. Arkady reported evidence of Nicholayev's growing loathing of the Communists, and commented on his evident acting talent, since the late Boris had been a party member in good standing. "Of course, that in itself is not very remarkable. Almost everyone over the age of 25, with any kind of standing or achievement even in the current new society, HAD to be a member, or at least to acquiesce to the teachings of the party. Even me." Scully asked the first question. "I assume you have the situation in Bendery under control?" "Yes." Mulder asked the second. "Tell us about the precognition of the event." Arkady Allesandreevich looked a little puzzled. His evident grasp of English simply didn't extend to the vocabulary of the paranormal. "Precog..?" Scully chimed in. "Precognition. It means something seen ahead of time, but not usually with the eyes. Like the predictions of the gypsies, only apparently true." "Oh, yes, the word you want is, well, it would be something like perevod veed. Transferred vision. Dr. Olkhovskova, of the Institute, will tell you more about it. She informed me that she would be available this afternoon, if you would care to speak with her." Mulder and Scully indicated that they would. It wasn't lost on either of them that dear Arkady didn't want to talk about the precognition. After a few minutes, they were bundled back into the Embassy car, Corporal Henley at the wheel, Arkady Allesandreevich riding shotgun, and headed in the direction of the University, located in the Lenin Hills section of the City. The Lenin Hills occupy some of the prettiest territory in the Moscow area, with hills high enough to accommodate modest skiers. The buildings comprising the University, like all Soviet construction, were gray, leaked heat, and surprisingly unattractive. Arkady mentioned that the University, with its ability to attract contract research, and continued support from the government of the Russian republic, had actually fared much better on the new Republic than most civic institutions. Still, the place looked even shabbier than Scully had remembered. She managed to bite her tongue before saying so. Corporal Henley wheeled the big sedan with considerable aplomb, parking in a space which Scully believed said NO PARKING, but in Russian. Henley's chariot sported diplomatic plates, and he just ignored the parking restrictions. Mulder watched the operation with considerable interest, since to his eyes there simply wasn't room for the car. Then he considered the Corporal's dealings with the local traffic police. The Moscow police had pulled the big sedan over, between the embassy and Derzhinski square; Henley's decision to gun the car through the amber light had been questionable, at best. Scully later filled Mulder in on the byplay between the Corporal and the local militiaman, who had clearly seen the plates, and stopped them just for the hell of it. There hadn't been any traffic, not at Sunday. The Corporal, who clearly understood the simple Russian of the militia man, merely repeated, in abominably accented Russian the words "krasnaya lampa?", which meant "red light?" adding "schto eto?" which meant "what's that?" The militia man gave up pretty easily. Scully had chuckled in the back of the car, afterward, asking "Corporal, is your Russian really THAT BAD?" "No, ma'am, except when I'm talking to one of the goons. I don't know, but I think it's the sight of the ticket book; it just frightens all the Russian I ever learned out of my head." The corporal turned and leaned over the seat a little, smiling. "You know what, he gave up pretty easily, before I could even start mangling the expression I'm an American diplomat." The two agents and Arkady Allesandreevich agreed that Corporal Henley wouldn't be needed for at least a couple of hours, and offered to send him back to the Embassy, or out in the University area, whichever he preferred. Henley, without any explanation, chose to stay in the University area. Mulder shrugged; maybe the Corporal had a girl friend. Mulder and Scully, led by Arkady Allesandreevich, walked into the gray concrete bunker of University offices. Clearly, Arkady had been there before. He led them down corridors and up stairs, until they reached the Psychology department. After walking down two more corridors, they found Vera Vasilevnya's office. She called out "enter" in English, when he tapped at the door. She either had a view, or wasn't expecting anyone else. Arkady and Vera began their conversation in English, for which Mulder was profoundly grateful. She addressed him as colonel, but appeared to be on friendly terms with him. Her English was English accented. Mulder remembered the charge's telling him that she had studied at Oxford. The doctor appeared to be in her mid-forties, although she easily might be a decade on either side of that. Mulder wondered what family or party connections had gotten her the permission to study abroad. He'd met some Soviets during his time at University, and while clearly intelligent, they all seemed to have "family" connections, usually because of prominent party membership, of one kind or another. He couldn't recall meeting, or even hearing of anyone's meeting, an ordinary Soviet, one who was at University purely on the basis of merit. "Good day, Agent Mulder, Dr. Scully. I am Vera Vasilevnya Olkhovskova; Arkady has told me why you are here. I suppose you would like to hear about our program of studies?" Mulder took up the conversation. "Yes, we would. I understand that some of this is probably very sensitive. However, anything you can tell us would be of help." Arkady Allesandreevich added in, "Vera Vasilevnya will tell you everything; this has already been approved by the government. Our goals are to avoid any more 'incidents, ' to find out whether and how her project predicted the incident, and to see if the project might be used to prevent further incidents. Anything we can learn is to be shared equally by our two governments." "Very well. The project I've been working on has been funded by a. . uh, contract I suppose you Americans would call it, from the Russkaya Armiya, Russian Army. Specifically, I have been researching, assisted by a staff of professional psychologists and some graduate students, the existence of various so-called paranormal phenomena. You are, I'm told, quite familiar with the concepts." Scully thought to herself, "And how, " but commented only "yes, go on." "Yes. Well, as you may be aware, Mother Russia has a very long history of gloomy, psychically related activity. The trail, so far as I have researched it, seems to stretch back all the way to Ivan Groznii, " she continued, giving Ivan the Terrible his Russian name. "Ivan was a terrible person; according to the reports, he murdered his own son, in some kind of fit, with his bare hands. There have been many similar cases up to the present time, with the worst occurrences seeming to take place during the winter months." Mulder began to shudder; it was obvious that Vera Vasilevnya was really warming up to the subject, as she continued. "I myself believe that almost all of the so-called psychically sensitive are no such thing. Scully interjected, "So, what are they?" Vera Vasilevnya straightened up her shoulders before continuing. "Many of the apparent manifestations really are signs of profound mental disturbances. These exist in many different varieties. For example, a moderate depression can easily lead to fantasizing, which is subject to many different interpretations. Almost all true depression appears to be chemically induced, though this may be from natural operations of the body, as well as from the ingestion of synthetic chemicals." Dr. Olkhovskova clearly was familiar with her studies. "One variety, with which you may be familiar, is something you English speakers call seasonal attitude disorder; it's generally linked to lack of exposure to sunlight. As you are probably aware, as far north as my country is, the problem would be expected to be far worse than somewhere further south, such as Cuba. Some of the more common and benign manifestations of the problem are sadness, depression, increased alcohol consumption, changes in eating patters, that sort of thing. And the occasional outbreak of violence. None of this seems to emanate from the paranormal, at least not when it gets started. "We Russians have studied, closely, other psychic phenomena. For example, we have individuals who appear to be human magnets." Scully gaped, as Vera went on. "Oh, yes, I'm surprised you seem not to know about it. These people seem to be able to hang small metal objects, spoons and such, on their hands or faces. They generally claim to be able to do this only with iron metallic objects, the kind that an ordinary magnet would be attracted to. The 'magnet people' don't actually appear to possess magnetic bodies. What they do seem to be able to do is to control the perspiration on their faces, developing just enough to permit a kind of surface tension to exist between their skin and the spoons. Still, while not as it appears, the phenomenon is interesting. We have no idea how they accomplish it. "As you may be aware, over the course of the last 70 years or so, scientific research was not always initiated or carried out on a rational basis. In part because of these earlier abuses, people are not so inclined to believe in the phenomenon of mental illness as they once did. They are somewhat more likely to believe in other possibilities. This has been coupled with a resurgence of the effects of organized religion. "Believers are more likely to see things like this, and to remember them. It has only been in the last five years, since I began this study, that I've had much experience with them. We have identified several subjects; I will introduce you to some of them if you wish. Most are currently confined, for their own welfare, because of their extensive psychiatric problems, and are not what we refer to as available for therapy. It is among these profoundly disturbed individuals that you find the violent manifestations: unprovoked attacks on other people, brought about by 'orders' issued in the unfortunate person's head. Arkady can tell you about old Andrei." Arkady looked up, with a sour expression on his face. "Yes, of course, Andrei Levich. He is remarkable; after assaulting a colonel in the Army some eight years ago, he claimed that he was ordered to do so, for the good of Mat' Rossiya, mother Russia, by the spirit of Ivan the terrible. He broke the good colonel's neck, with his bare hands. He does have moments of lucidity. None recently. At one time he seemed to be able to see into the future. But not now. Andrei Levich would seem to be a psychological heir of Ivan Groznii. "Another, equally disturbed, has committed similar assaults, claiming that she is the reincarnation of Yosif Issarionovich, " here she looked up, took a deep breath, and added, "you probably know him as Stalin. Stalin was a bloody handed murderer, capable of dispatching his enemies with his bare hands. They say he murdered his first wife that way." Mulder looked at her, fascinated. "Are any of them not in the hospital? Where do you get your test subjects?" Vera Vasilevnya continued, "Some. Mostly, they are extremely old women, not too well educated. Peasants, really. They claim to hear voices, and occasionally exhibit delusional manifestations in which they claim to be, or possibly merely to be speaking for, other persons. These women are very poor, desperately poor. That is how we persuade them to work with us; we give them food, and some money, in exchange for their time. You can see others, not so poorly off mentally, standing on the streets all over Mother Russia now, begging. They have small pensions, but since the dismemberment of the old Soviet Union, their money does not go so very far. "There is one more, a little like Andrei Levich, but without a murderous history. Old Nicholai we call him. He's a chronic alcoholic. Nicholai sees things. We write them down. Old Nicholai saw, so the colonel has told me, what happened in Bendery. He saw it, I think now, more than a month before it happened." Mulder wondered what Scully thought about the comments about believers, but his thought came back to the here and now when Scully asked a question. "How many pretenders have you weeded out, Vera Vasilevnya?" "Many pretenders have been found. However, it sometimes takes quite a bit of effort to prove it, since we do not have any definitive tests, we keep testing and cross referencing their results. And they have incentive not to be found. After all, we do pay for their services. Jobs aren't so easy to come by any more. However, a pretender will trip up on a duplicate question. Those left over--and I have a cadre of about a dozen- are what I refer to as 'potential' sensitives. Some of them are pretty marginal to the research." Scully interrupted. "For instance?" "Well, all of the psychical phenomena have names. Empathy. People who pick up other the feelings of other people. I do not believe that this represents a psychic phenomenon at all. There are too many people who can do that. And then there is the exact opposite: the psychically blind. These are people who are absolutely oblivious to the feelings of those around us. A better explanation for someone like that is that the person is incredibly self centered, so self-focused that he or she is unable to comprehend that there are other beings in the universe, beings like themselves. These are generally extremely unpleasant people." Mulder wondered for a moment if anyone put him in latter category. He certainly hoped not. He looked over at Scully, wondering what she was thinking. Scully continued to talk. "Empathy and psychic blindness, which sometimes goes by the label self-centeredness apparently do not represent the entire extent of your psychical studies." "No, of course not. Eliminating those two groups cuts my study group down to about a dozen people, who I have tentatively labeled as 'sensitives.' Aside from the old comrade, who believes he hears the voice of Ivan Groznii, Ivan the Terrible, and the woman who claims she is ordered about by Joseph Stalin, I have somewhat more rational subjects. One seems to have the ability to see distant sites, not necessarily actions, or the future, just distant sites. I understand, " she added waggishly, "that your Defense Intelligence Agency has been testing for the same thing." Noting the obvious surprise on Mulder's face, she added, "I do have access to the Internet, and learn about world events, when they are important to me. In any event, this subject tests higher than the statistics would suggest for simple guessing. Far higher. High enough that we are forced to believe that she is either a statistical fluke, or genuine. The other, old Nicholai, seems to be able to predict the future. Never however, " she added, with considerable chagrin, "about things we ask about. Only whatever comes into his head. We write it down, and then try to verify it. Sometimes we can. Most of the time, we cannot. However, given the state of communications here, that may not necessarily mean that she is incorrect, merely that we don't have the means to verify." "It leaves us with this problem: do we search for the complicated explanation, or accept the simple and obvious one? We have spent a very large amount of time and talent looking for the complicated explanation, and have been forced, tentatively, to fall back to the simple one: these people have some kind of genuine talent, talent which we may be able to exploit, but which we cannot explain." Scully thought to herself "Mysticism. Simple minded hysterics. Like the gypsy's predictions." She'd seen examples. Still, she was a guest here, and obligated to be polite. The expression on her face did not elude Vera Vasilevnya Olkhovskova. "I see that you do not believe, Dr. Scully. That is good; if you do not believe and I cannot convince you, then perhaps I need to revise my explanation, for what I tell you does, indeed, appear to be the truth.. Would you like to meet our test subjects? I would be happy to discuss our testing methods and results with a fellow professional. I can explain to them that you are an American specialist; that would be acceptable to them. There is no need to drag in any information about your employer. We Russians, " she added, "remain very sensitive about any suggestion of the secret police." Taking Scully's silence for assent, Vera Vasilevnya continued. "Good. Nicholai, who sees future events, or so we think, will be available in the morning. We can begin tomorrow. Marina Petrovna, the distant viewer, will be available tomorrow afternoon.". "We will meet here, at 9:00 hours; it is quite a distance to the hospital by Metro." Scully was happy to be able to offer the use of the Embassy car and driver. She thanked Dr. Olkhovskova, and the three of them took their leave of her office. Outside Moscow City Police Headquarters Arkady Allesandreevich had asked to be dropped off at the University metro stop, leaving the three Americans to return with the car. The corporal promptly, and with no talking, delivered them back to the hotel, asking at the end only, "What's next on the schedule?" It was only 4:00 but already quite dark. Mulder looked at Scully, raising one eyebrow. "I think it might be better if you went with Vera. We'll see what Arkady has in mind, although I don't see the two of us doing the patients much good." Scully nodded in agreement. "All right." Addressing the corporal, she said, "We need to meet at the University tomorrow at 9:00. I may want you to come with us; Dr. Vera Vasilevnya and I are going to make some rounds. Agent Mulder may accompany us, or he and Arkady may go off separately. We'll play it by ear." Moscow, Sunday night That evening, Scully and Mulder dined in the buffet, very simply, again with just bread and tea for Mulder, although Scully had downed a cucumber salad and some kind of sandwich. Scully had seemed very tired, and had asked to be excused. "Try to stay out of trouble, Mulder, " she had said at her hotel door. And she had smiled, a tired but still dazzling smile, one of friendship, for her partner. Mulder had gone a little weak, just looking at her, wondering what was going on in her mind. Was she planning to marry this man, Joel? Mulder admitted that he was essentially clueless to what she might be thinking. He hadn't had the courage to broach the subject. He couldn't sleep and wasn't interested in the "agricultural news" on the tube. He walked into the sitting room, and, seating himself on the sofa, began riffling through the printed materials on the side table. One of them appeared to be the Russian version of "This week in, " the usual city guide. And in common with every other city guide he'd ever seen, he found a map stapled to the center, with the hotel plainly marked. As were the subway stops. A picture seemed to suggest St. Basil's cathedral, which Mulder remembered was on Red Square. Thinking back on the day, he remembered the Corporal telling him about the Hotel, with a decent bar. Well, it might present a diversion. Mulder pulled on his overcoat and headed for the lobby. At the front desk, he found an English-speaking concierge, who offered to mark the map for him, and to sell him several subway tokens. So armed, Mulder headed out into the Moscow night. It was dazzlingly cold; Mulder hadn't walked ten feet when he felt his nose begin to freeze. Eventually he made his way to the Metro; subway stops were well marked, and the map was very plain. After dropping the token into the turnstile, Mulder entered the system. It was beautiful, down by the trains. This stop, like many of the older stops, was decorated, was a showcase for the best of the old Soviet art; in this case, it was a beautiful mosaic on each wall. It would have cost a fortune, if anyone had been forced to pay for the hand work. Mulder reflected that it was all probably done by prisoners. Mulder recalled that Nikita Khrushchev had started his economic life as an engineer, and had helped design and build the system. Stalin had wanted it built deep, to double as huge air-raid shelters. Mulder couldn't remember who had said to make it attractive. Possibly no one. Emerging at the Red Square stop, Mulder looked around in wonder. The snow had stopped, and he could see St. Basil's, highlighted and beautified by the lamps, as well as the Kremlin walls, with their red stars, in the background. It was glorious, and would have taken his breath, had det' Moroz, Grandpa Frost, not done the job already. The square was huge, and nearly empty. Apparently, even the Muscovites were inside this night. Mulder located a huge building, presumably the Rossiya Hotel, but remembered the corporal's advice to seek after the National. After wandering over the square for a few minutes, he turned his back on Red Square and walked back in the general direction of the subway. Just as he was about to give up, Mulder discovered the National Hotel. At least, he assumed it was the National; apparently, the Russian letter for "n" looked like an English "H." Mulder went in, and followed his ears to the band, in the bar. It wasn't a bad band, alternating between pop rock and jazz. Mulder turned his attention to the bar, and waving the bartender over, pointed to the glass of the man seated next to him, and held up one finger. "Schto grammov?" Mulder, who hadn't the faintest idea of what the woman--the very pretty woman wearing some kind of embroidered Cossack blouse--had said, merely smiled and nodded yes. How bad could it be? Very quickly, the bartender returned with a small brandy glass, with an ice cube, and a miniature flask, filled with what was obviously vodka. She pointed at the glass and repeated, "Schto grammov!" Mulder nodded yes, dumped the ice cube--mindful of what Scully had said about the water--and poured the vodka into the brandy glass. He began to sip. The bar mistress looked at him, and addressed him, first in German. Mulder didn't speak German, and merely shrugged. Next, she tried English. "Are you English?" "No, American." "Oh. Do you understand what you ordered?" "Vodka?" "Yes, vodka. We sell it here by volume; you ordered 100 grams." "Thank you." "Pozhalyusta. You're welcome. We don't sip it here . . . The Russian way is to, uh, knock it back, in one slug." Mulder considered that the Russian way was guaranteed to run up his bar bill, but did so. It went down pretty easily. He ordered another, and paid off his tab, taking his drink to a table. The room was smoky and somewhat overheated. He wanted to listen to the band. He soon found he had company in the form of a heavily made-up woman, one wearing some kind of iridescent blue eye shadow, and too much perfume. Mulder chased her off. But the band was gone, and in its place was tape-recorded music. Mulder had to listen for a while to decide, in the end, that it had to be Frank Sinatra, maybe a CD. Well, that certainly was one kind of taste. Sinatra was crooning, smoothly, about someone being so right, for what's wrong in your life. Jet lag, giardia and alcohol are a powerful combination for anyone. The trio made Mulder somewhat meditative, and the song started him off thinking. He considered what was wrong with his life. His devotion to his work, his single-mindedness, which influenced everything in his life and could be the cause of his loneliness. Looking down at the table, he saw his vodka flask was empty. He waved to a waitress, a pretty, petite, redhead in a Cossack blouse, with her pants tucked into her boots, and managed to order another "schto grammov." The woman did not look at all like Dana Scully. Mulder considered how Scully had filled part of the void in his life. How much he looked forward to seeing her, to talking to her over the phone, to working with her. How desperately he wanted her, for the rest of the life. And he cursed himself for letting her get hurt. Mulder's feelings toward his partner were extremely complicated, and he knew speaking to her now, before he had worked it out in his own mind, would be a mistake. Mulder understood that there were distinct differences between friendship, admiration, love, and desire or just plain lust. The problem was that he was not sure, in his mind, exactly which emotion he was dealing with. Possibly, it was part of all of these. He knew he liked her, admired her, and felt desire for her. Until he was sure, absolutely certain, speaking to her would be a mistake. She was involved with someone else, a man who had not let her get hurt. Mulder genuinely hoped that she would be happy, even though he knew that losing her would be an agony. Like the woman in the song, Scully could right every thing that was wrong in his life. Perhaps, one day she would. Looking down at the table, he saw that the vodka flask was empty, again. He didn't debate debate before ordering more, mostly as painkiller and antifreeze for when he had to go back outside. Good Lord! Too much Sinatra, definitely. He was starting to think the way the crooner sang. Sinatra had moved on to sing "Dream away." "How appropriate. Enough Mulder. You can't. She has someone else. And, she's your partner." Obviously, the vodka had been stronger than he had thought, or maybe it was just the Sinatra. He wondered if Sinatra-itis had been written up in "Nature" magazine as a defined illness. After finishing the "schto grammov, " and a second set from the band were complete, Mulder heard the opening strains of still more Sinatra. With that, he made his way out of the hotel, back through the subway to the Ukraine. As he walked past Scully's door, he was tempted to knock, to talk, but thought better of it. "Let her sleep." Mulder woke up, in his shorts, tangled in blankets on the sitting room couch. He looked around and saw his clothes, strewn on the chair and floor. Still, he felt pretty good; he knew he was hungry. No more toast and tea, he decided, he would eat, and take his chances. He washed, shaved, and dressed. Listening at the door to Scully's room, and heard water running. "Good, she's up." When the sound of water died down, he knocked, loudly on the connecting door, and shouted, "Scully, are you decent?" Scully sighed with exasperation when she heard the knocking at the door. Hadn't he learned his lesson Saturday night? She bit off a sharp retort, however, considering it a bit. Maybe she was carrying this "no fraternization" business a little too far. Of course, there had been no excuse for Mulder's staring at her, although he could understand how his entering her room once had probably been an accident. "Yes, Mulder, I'm decent. I'll come on out." In a very few minutes, a fully-dressed, and possibly seriously overdressed Dana Scully appeared. She sat down on a chair next to the small table in the sitting room. "So, Mulder, how'd you do last night?" Mulder's head felt pretty good, for a man on the tag end of a serious jet lag. Vodka seemed to improve it. "I went out to see the sites." Dana gasped. "Sure, went all the way to Red Square, saw the Cathedral, and ended up in the bar at the National Hotel." He debated how much of the bar scene to admit, and decided that the story about chasing off the bar girl, and the admission to drinking the vodka would suffice. No point in telling her about Sinatra-itis. The American pair walked over to the Embassy just after breakfast, having called and told the ever obliging corporal that they wanted to see a little of the city. They hadn't crossed the bridge over the Moscow river before Mulder realized that with the cold, they had made a serious error. Oddly, Scully didn't complain. He took a good look at her and noticed the hat. It didn't look new, but he couldn't recall ever seeing her in a hat before. Mulder reached over and down a bit, and touching the hat asked, "Where'd you come by the crown?" Scully looked up and smiled. "I didn't go straight to bed last night; I couldn't sleep, so I went out for a walk. Along the Arbat. "The Arbat is in what they call the old town. There used to be lots of antique shops there, and a dollar store, and places where you could buy reproduction icons. I remember when I was here before I bought three icons, about $3.00 a piece. They were printed on canvas stretched on thick cardboard. Pretty impressive, once you put them in a nice frame. "Arbat, it wasn't like what I remembered. Mulder, NOTHING here is like I remembered. Part of it probably was that I was just a kid, only 16, when I was here before. But not all of it. Not by a long shot. There were lots of old people, selling things, their possessions I suppose. Most of them looked too weak to have stolen things themselves. I gave one of the babushkas, the grannies, $10 for this. That was probably too much. It's pretty old. The label inside says it was made in 1971. I think it says it's made out of dyed Siberian muskrat, I'm not certain. But it is warm." Mulder felt a sudden chill, remembering that Scully spoke some Russian, and that she had gone out unescorted. Still, he wasn't in any position to say anything, not ANYTHING, to her. Who'd gone out at night, on the subways, and couldn't say a word in Russian? Who was drinking Lord knows how much in some Russian bar? They were in sight of the embassy. He thought they'd better go over the procedure for the morning. "Are you still planning to go with Dr. Vera? I've given up saying her last name." "Yes, I am. I'm kind of looking forward to meeting old Marina Petrovna, old Nicholai, and the other subjects, or inmates, and taking a look at the institution. What about you?" "I am not entirely certain what dear Arkady has in mind for me, but I'll go along and see." "All right, Mulder. Incidently, I don't think he's a bit spooky. I wonder why Aldershot said that about him? We can start at Vasilevnya's, " she said, using the familiar patronymic form of Dr. Olkhovskova's name, "and see how it shakes out from there. If we don't connect earlier, I'll meet you at the restaurant, say about 5:30, to compare notes." Dana stopped there. Mulder was obviously intrigued by the psychical studies. She wondered how she could tell him that they'd been sent out on a wild goose chase, again. She looked out the window of the sedan, and saw that they had made the trip back to the University. "Thank you, Corporal. What do you have planned while we're gone?" "Ma'am, " he said, turning his head and smiling amiably, "the head of the detail told me to do whatever you two wanted. If you want me to go with you, I will. If you want me to drive you, I'll be happy to. Whatever you say." Scully looked at the Corporal, and felt a little sorry for him. Young, probably unattached, and surrounded by lots of girls who probably couldn't understand a single word he said. She wondered what he was like, out of uniform. The military trained its personnel carefully in how to behave; if the men and women learned their lessons properly, no one would be able to distinguish the son or daughter of a rich man from that of a common laborer. They educated their people, all to the same high, and generally impeccable standards. There would be no guessing at the Corporal's background; perhaps she would get a chance to ask. Dana had already noticed the college level psychology texts on the front seat. Apparently, the Corporal was using at least part of his spare time to study. Mulder broke into Scully's thoughts by stating, "Corporal Henley, you'll be doing some driving. We're going to play this one by ear, just keep listening and we'll decide on the fly how to handle it." Turning to Scully, he added, "You want to get Dr. Vera, or should we send our young legged Marine after her?" Scully smiled. "Young legs can climb all those stairs, definitely. Corporal, " she added, turning back to the driver, "it will get you into shape for the Marathon." Moscow State University After a short delay, the corporal returned to the car, Dr. Olkhovskova in tow. Scully asked her about Arkady but the only response was that she'd heard from him, and he had asked that they go on without him. He would try to catch up, at the asylum. The hospital, or asylum, really wasn't so very far in terms of time, by car. Dr. Olkhovskova didn't seem to be uncomfortable in the car. Mulder reminded himself that she had studied in England, and probably came from a family with the Russian equivalent of wealth and influence. Odd, he hadn't heard any political chatter. But then, theoretically at least, the communists were gone. Bye and bye the land yacht from the embassy pulled up to yet another distressingly gray building. The corporal sounded out the Cyrillic script, "gosudarstvenniyi gospital na. . ." and started to translate. Olga impatiently interrupted him. "It says State Hospital for the Insane. Let us go inside." Scully turned toward the Corporal, noticing his uniform. "Corporal, do you want to come inside? Do you have errands to run in this part of the city?" Corporal Henley looked a little regretful, and admitted that he had no errands. He followed the trio into the gray, concrete, and extremely forbidding building. They found Arkady Allesandreevich, looking quite at home, waiting for them outside the treatment room. Arkady spoke up. "Ah, good morning, Agent Mulder." He turned and looked at Agent Scully, obvious admiration on his face. "And you, Dr. Scully, look very well." Dr. Olkhovskova waved them into a waiting room, complete with what appeared to be a one way mirror. They could see what appeared to be some kind of treatment room. There was a chair and a desk with nothing on it, and a rather ratty couch, with another chair. "The first patient I want you to meet is really very interesting. His name is Nicholai Andreevich Mishkin, but we call him Old Nicholai. Really, he's quite remarkable, says he can see the future." Arkady was unable to repress the sour expression on his face. "More than just says, Vera Vasilevnya. Old Nicholai's visions, or future visions, or whatever, are repetitive. His descriptions of what he sees seem to become more detailed with each session. Remember, he SAW the future, at least once that we know of. I am not inclined to think that he isn't seeing something else, now. Too bad we didn't recognize it before it took place." With that comment, Mulder knew that Arkady had let the cat out of the bag. The interest of his principals wasn't in psychic visions, it was in foretelling the future. Could be a handy thing, theoretically, for the military to have in its arsenal. Could it be that looking forward and seeing a somehow unsatisfactory future, they could make changes in the present that would improve it? Or was someone just looking to see what the winning numbers on the next Virginia Lottery might be? They could put poor Lady Luck out of business, permanently. Somehow, Mulder thought to himself, that the application would be less venal and more sinister. But he decided to reserve final judgment until he had heard more. "Well, yes, Arkady has a point, but unfortunately, most of the time what Old Nicholai says makes no sense at all that we can see. Still, we write it down; occasionally, his more spectacular visions are proven out. Not often, mind you, but occasionally. Perhaps you would care to listen to him? Maybe you can tell me. I no longer automatically discount Nicholai's stories as 'mad' ravings. But I cannot tell you what it is that he sees." Mulder was fascinated, and wanted to observe the session. Normally, the idea of observing madness made Mulder most uncomfortable. Mulder looked over at Scully, who seemed somewhat reluctant, and answered for both of them. "Of course, we'd be interested in listening. How could it be arranged?" "I will administer a sedative, a hypnotic, which should relax him and make him more accessible. Lately, I have had to increase the dosage, fairly significantly. Nicholai had been telling us about what the Colonel has described, alternating with another, much less clearly defined story. In the last few interviews, the more prominent vision seemed to overwhelm him. Now that this event has passed, he no longer describes it. There have been two sessions since the incident. He has begun to amplify on the newer story, which you may find interesting. Arkady can tell you the general background. I can interview him in the next room. Between the one-way mirror and the microphones, you will be able to see and hear what I see and hear. Arkady will translate for you, if you like." Mulder looked over at Doctor Olkhovskova and said, "Fair enough." The good doctor nodded, and left the room, leaving the two FBI agents and Arkady Allesandreevich alone. Corporal Henley had excused himself to wait in the lobby. Eventually, an orderly appeared, with old Nicholai in tow. By the vacant expression on his face it was clear that he already had a fairly large dose of whatever narcotics the Russians were using in him. The orderly sat him down on the couch, and pushed him over so he would lie down. Nicholai just lay there as they tied him, chest, waist, arms, and legs, effectively hog-tying the man. Scully looked a little surprised; however, when Dr. Olkhovskova returned to the room, he recognized her and began to struggle. With some difficulty, she administered what appeared to be an additional hypo of some drug. Gradually, Nicholai's struggles faded. As Dr. Olkhovskova's voice, calm, patient, and exceeding clear rang out, Arkady began the translations. He either spoke much better English than they thought, or had studied up ahead of time, or had heard the same speech enough that he had it by memory, even in English. "Now, Nicholai, " the translation of Vera's peroration began, "I want you to look at the television, and tell me what you see." Mulder looked about the room, and said "What television?" Arkady's reply came quickly. "Oh, it's imaginary. Vera Vasilevnya tells me that by having the subject describe what he or she sees on the television, the sight becomes far less threatening." Scully had recognized the idea, from observations of hypnotic recall, and from explanations given to her by the women who claimed to have met her during her disappearance. Nicholai began to moan. "I was here for the previous interview, and will tell you about the amplifications as we go along. He says he sees a field, with many trees. Last time, he told us about a space out of doors. It is dark. Nicholai says that he sees two people, one man, one woman. And someone or something moving in the shadow. The last time, he only seemed to see two people." Nicholai was babbling far more words; apparently Arkady was condensing the translation. Mulder only hoped he wasn't censoring it, or condensing it so far that no information would come out. "The man is shouting at the woman." Arkady switched to Vera's words, "What is he shouting Nicholai? Tell me." "I do not know. I am afraid. Let me leave . . . " "No, Nicholai, you understand that this is just the television. You are here, with me, at the hospital. Not outside. There is no one here to hurt you. Tell me more about what you see." "On Russkie. . . the man is a Russian. He is shouting at her. "What is he saying?" "I cannot tell. Vera Vasilevnya sighed. "Nicholai, dorogoi, dear Nicholai, tell us about the woman." "She is short. She is Russian. "Can you tell us what she is saying? "Nyet, she is saying NO. I do not understand any more." Dr. Olkhovskova continued. "You said there was a shadow, and something moving. Tell us what you see." "NYET! No, I am afraid . . . " "Remember, it is only television, Nicholai. The story cannot hurt you." Nicholai drew a deep breath and seemed to relax a little. "The shadow is moving toward the man. He is hard to see, but I still hear him shouting. The woman is trying to speak, but I cannot hear her. Now I can see him again. He is reaching toward the woman. He is hitting her. She is on the ground and he is on top of her. She is hitting back, but he has his hands on her throat, and. . ." Nicholai began to whimper. "Tell me more, Nicholai. What does the man look like? "He has a uniform." "And the woman.. "I see just a black coat. She did not look very tall. "You said she was Russian. How can you tell this? What is she wearing?" "A coat and a fur hat. She is wearing boots. " "And the shadow? "It is coming. It is coming for me!" and here began an inarticulate, animal yowling. Vera Vasilevnya picked up the phone, which rang in the observation room. Scully picked up to hear "Enough? I do not believe we will learn more from poor Nicholai today. He is an old man, and the drugs are powerful. More might damage him." "By all means, that is enough. We'll wait here for you. There was a silence while the three observers waited for Dr. Olkhovskova to return. Arkady Allesandreevich broke that silence. "I would be interested to hear your impressions, Dr. Scully." Scully was a little hesitant to give any impressions. "Arkady Allesandreevich, you indicated as you were translating that this vision, or daydream, seemed far more detailed. I believe that a similar progression in terms of clarity occurred with the Bendery vision, is that right? "Yes, that is true. But the Bendery vision strengthened over a period of nearly three months. This new vision only was discovered in the last two interviews, starting four days ago. What came before was so vague I am not convinced it was related." "And the progression?" "Oh, I must say that this has moved ahead with frightening rapidity. Of course, I was not in the room, but I believe that Vera Vasilevnya will tell you that Old Nicholai was as agitated, and as disturbed today, on the second visitation for the vision, as he was at the end of the Bendery vision." Dr. Olkhovskova walked back into the room. She sat down, removed her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose with one finger. Vera Vasilevnya looked tired, and a little frightened. "What did you think of Nicholai's vision?" Mulder spoke up. "Was he as frightened as he appeared to us?" "Oh, yes, I had to give him a second injection after we finished. Nicholai was terrified." "Do you have any idea who the people in the vision are? Or where it takes place?" Arkady Allesandreevich spoke up, nodding at Dr. Olkhovskova, and smiling a little. "Of course it could have been anyone, including just a figment of Nicholai's imagination. Still, after the Bendery vision, I am not inclined to dismiss it. Well, I am fairly confident that the woman was not our good doctor." Mulder nodded. Arkady continued, "When Nicholai began to speak, I thought perhaps the good doctor would be the next victim. She is Russian, and I believe that she has a fur cap. But, you will have noted that Vera Vasilevnya is not very short." Mulder pressed on. "What about the man?" "Mr. Mulder, ah, may I know your first name?" "Just call me Mulder." Arkady Allesandreevich looked a little puzzled, but went on. "Ah, Mulder, the man had a uniform. You will have noticed that very many of our citizens wear uniforms. The military, the police, the workers at the hotel. I did not hear enough of a description to begin even to guess who it might have been. And we must keep in mind that Old Nicholai is just that: he is OLD, and has been separated from society for a good while. What appears to him as a uniform, and frightening, may only be common fashion to us." Arkady seemed puzzled, and a little excited perhaps, but not frightened. Scully broke the impasse. "Well, Dr. Olkhovskova . . . " She was interrupted, "Please, call me by my first name, or my patronymic." Scully responded, "I must call you by your first name, since we share the patronymic. I too could be called Vasilevnya. My father's name was William. Vera, Agent Mulder and I would like to consider what we have seen. You mentioned that you would like us to meet a second patient?" "Yes, of course, you remember, her name is Marina Petrovna." Vera pulled a pocket watch, very old fashioned, out of a pocket in her skirt. "Well, it much past lunch time, and I normally try to do these interviews in the morning, when the patients are fresh. Would you be willing to visit Marina tomorrow? We could perhaps start a little earlier." Mulder spoke. "Yes, may I too call you Vera? I cannot pronounce your patron . . . uh . . . middle name." The doctor smiled. "Yes, tomorrow would be fine. Shall we all meet at your office? We would be happy to provide transportation again, if that would be helpful." "Oh, yes, Agent Mulder. That would be fine." Turning, she added, "And you Arkady?" "I hope to meet you at your office at the University at about 9:00. I do, however, have another case which may draw me away. I will try to telephone if I am delayed." Scully turned to Mulder. "Well, I think that about wraps up here. Arkady, Vera, would you like to return to the University? We can easily drop you off." Vera answered for the two of them. "No, thank you, we must complete our notes and records here, while the memory is fresh, before we return. We will see you tomorrow, say about 9:30." The agents and the Russians parted company amicably enough, with Scully leading the way out of the building. Corporal Henley was waiting, reading a book by the door. Scully smiled a little. It was a textbook. The title was "Crime and Criminality." "Back to the hotel, Corporal, and then you're off the hook until tomorrow." She flashed a small smile at him, and allowed the Corporal to precede her out of the building. Ukraine Hotel The two agents agreed to meet at the restaurant for lunch. Mulder was starving, and waiting when Scully arrived. She had fluffed on some blusher powder, and looked not at all tired. Mulder, on the other hand, was starting to fade, again. He thought to himself it HAD to be the jet lag. Possibly they could go out and do some sightseeing after they had lunch. He knew he needed to keep himself awake. And he had decided to try faxing a preliminary report to the AD that evening, if they could get it written up. "Hello, Mulder. You getting hungry?" "I'm famished. Is it safe to eat yet?" "Did you get sick again?" "No. But I could die just as fast from lack of food. No more toast and tea, please!" "All right." Scully waved a waiter over, spoke a few words, and was presented with two menus. Mulder heard the words "borscht" and a lot of other words he didn't understand. "Are you curious about lunch?" "I'm interested, let's say. I heard you say borscht. Anything else, or should I just be surprised?" "I took a chance and ordered you a salad. The waiter told me that they had fresh sunflowerseed oil, to go with the cucumbers. I thought you might like to try it." Mulder smiled. While they were waiting for the food, he asked, "So, what did you think of old Nicholai, Scully?" Mulder hadn't known exactly what to think. "Beyond the obvious, that he was doped to the gills, and that even in that condition, he was terrified, I'm not too certain. I don't think he was doing this for fun. Did you see the expression on Vera's face? I'm sure she thinks that she's the next victim of the murder he saw." "And the rest of it? The shadow, and the shape moving in it?" "Mulder, I will concede that old Nicholai is reporting, in a hypnotic state, on what he imagines he is seeing. I think that what he is seeing are more like nightmares than anything else." Scully decided to approach this topic with considerable care. "In general, people rarely remember them, and when you do have a frightening dream, your memory normally fades very quickly." Mulder cringed, inwardly. He had mentioned on more than on occasion that he suffered from them. The preceding three months, while Scully had been on TDY, had been particularly difficult. But he hadn't had one in over a week, not since before they had left Washington for Illinois. He wondered, idly, whether the stress of concentrating at work kept them at bay. The only other variable was that he had been constantly in Scully's company. Maybe she was a dream chaser, something that kept them at bay. It was pleasant to think so. But he didn't think it appropriate to mention the fact. He wasn't sure how she would take the idea. Scully plowed on. "Once you are awake, all you are left is with an overwhelming feeling of terror. If Nicholai is reporting on a nightmare, it wouldn't be surprising that there would be parts that he couldn't see, since dreams fade, aren't necessarily coherent, and since the parts he claims he can't see could easily be things that weren't necessary for the main part of the episode. Alternatively, and I would LOVE to see what Dr. Vera was pumping into him, he could easily be hallucinating as he was speaking, in real time, so to say." Mulder had to admit that Scully could easily be correct. Either of her hypotheses had the ring of truth, and of a simple explanation. Scully was pretty hard headed: she would always go for the simple, elegant explanation, instead of the complicated one, the one full of holes and unknowns. It had to be the scientist in her. He could see that he wasn't going to get any place very fast on this line of discussion. Scully had clearly written the "Bendery vision" as well as the current Nicholai nightmare off as just that: nightmares. Lunch, when it came, consisted of lukewarm soup and bread. The coffee was undrinkable. The soup was good, just not hot enough. Mulder ate his, and the part the Scully left in her bowl, wiping up the bowls, both of them with the bread. The bread was excellent. Mulder signed the tab for lunch, his only contribution to getting them fed, and the two agents headed back upstairs. "Let's go back upstairs. I'd like to draft of a preliminary status report. We can E-mail it to the Bureau tonight. I have the address." Hotel Ukraine, Room 1011 "Mulder, E-mail? You know there's no security on that." "Down Scully, I came equipped with the best. State of the art Gateway, FAX modem and software, complete Internet connection software and some encryption software. It gives us options, lots and lots of options. I think we owe Anita lunch if this works. It should be OK. After all, it's not as if we're planning to transmit state secrets over the Internet." Once in the drawing room, Mulder dragged in the PC, and booted it up. It had been password-protected, so he was fairly confident that it was safe to use. Anita had thoughtfully included a 3X5 card with instructions. Mulder punched in the password. Even back in Washington, it would take a little time to crack the password software. Plus, the bad guys would need physical possession of the machine to do it. And this software was said to be a little more effective than average. Mulder started a new document, and hands poised, waited for Scully to start dictating. They took turns at the secretarial chores, and it was his turn to tickle the keyboard. Scully started off with a date, a title, and her preliminary report. Warming to the task at hand, she kicked off her shoes and stretched out on Mulder's couch; the dezhurnaya, the cleaning lady, had come in and tidied up the place. Scully provided a couple of paragraphs about their reception, their interviews and the plans for the next day. "Mulder, you do the theories. I just want to listen, " she said that with an absolutely straight face, because it was true. Mulder was a little surprised. He assumed she had thought the entire vision thing was moonshine. Possibly she did not. Mulder typed up his general theory: that the old man, and possibly others had been shown to possess precognitive abilities. That old Nicholai clearly had, to the satisfaction of a Red Army Colonel, predicted a near disaster in a Russian missile site. That the visions or precognitions of the future seemed to become clearer as the observer moved closer in time to the actual event, and that the vision stopped once the event took place. Finally, that the facts in the final event did not appear to be fixed, that is, that they mutated or changed with changing circumstances. After all, old Nicholai had predicted a nuclear explosion in his final vision. Something had clearly happened to change that future. The mad missile colonel had been disarmed. Scully got up from her perch on the couch, sat at the table and read over Mulder's shoulder. She gently pulled the laptop away from Mulder and added her alternative theory: that the precognition had been little more than a repetitive nightmare, common in the annals of psychiatry. That the "vision" showed many of the same characteristics as a nightmare. Mulder rejected the idea that the parallels between the "vision" and the event detailed to them were merely coincidence. And that they were planning to meet with another of the Russian "subjects" on the next day. "There you go, Mulder. How are you planning to send it?" Mulder was reading over her emendations. "That all sounds fair. Sending it should be the easy part. First, we save this as ASCII text. Actually, you could send it as a binary, but let's not add any complications we don't need to add. Next you encode it. See, the software is all right here. Just punch up a few buttons. I was given the code key, and Anita has the key as well. This will arrive as garbage, but when she decodes it, she'll send it right on the AD. OK, " he added, punching up a few more buttons, then digging into the computer case. He pulled out a cord, and tossed the nearly empty case in the general direction of another chair. "Here's a cord for a modem to connect to the phone system. See if there's a place to tap in." Scully was following the phone call back to the wall. "Mulder, don't you have to have an Internet service?" She thought to herself that the instructions on the card seemed pretty slim, and that he must do this a lot, at home. She wondered what he used it for. Something told her it wasn't just to download pornography. Scully decided to chance the surmise. "Are you going to just call home and use your own provider? That's a big time international phone call." "Well, I could do that, at a pinch. Or, we could put on about five layers of long underwear and walk over to the Embassy and use their phone. I'd prefer it be waiting for them when they come in. Corporal Henley already got me the dial-in number, login and password for their service. Henley uses it to get his class assignments and to send his homework back to school." Scully looked up from behind the couch, where the wires for the phone terminated. "It doesn't have a jack. Now what?" "Scully, hand me the case for the computer, please." Scully dusted off her knees, walked over to the chair and carried the case over. "No jack. Well, Anita warned me about that possibility. She said, depending on the hotel that we wouldn't be able to use the phone lines here, anyway." Mulder was digging into the case, and came up with another piece of equipment. "She gave me an acoustic coupler. See if you can get the earpiece and mouthpiece off of the phone handle. The theory is that you can connect the modem to the phone wires with a couple of alligator clips." He looked up to see Scully, with the phone handle in one hand, and the cover for the mouthpiece in the other. "Good." Mulder wired up the coupler, and dialed out of the hotel using the modem dialer on the PC. It took a couple of tries, but he was eventually rewarded with the heartwarming buzz of the "connect" signal. Punching up a few more keys brought up his mail package, and two minutes later, the message was gone. "We're all done here. Let me disconnect, erase the file, and close down shop." "What would you have done if the phone handle was one piece? "There are couplers that you can just set the entire handle in, but since there's so many different phone styles today, there's no guarantee that the coupler would fit. I would have waited until tomorrow, and sent this from the Embassy." Mulder stretched. "Let's say we call it a day. I'm about ready to fold." Scully took the clue. She smiled over at him and said, "Good night, Mulder. Sleep well." Dana walked out of the sitting room to her bedroom. By common, unspoken consent, she would leave the sitting room, with the couch, for Mulder's use. FBI Head Quarters Building Mary Ellen Garcia tapped lightly on the Assistant Director's door. After a moment's delay, she opened the door, and walked in. The AD was on the phone, listening, and frowning. He looked up and saw her at the door, throttled the frown, and waved her into the room, gesturing toward a chair. He seemed to want to talk to her, but Mary Ellen hadn't intended to speak, just to deliver a paper which had been hand carried to her by the Deputy Director of the Information Systems division, Anita Williams. It was in an envelop, marked "For Assistant Director Skinner. Hand carry." Skinner asked his caller to hang on the line, reached out for the envelop, tore it open and read the enclosed page. "Thank you, Mary Ellen." She left the room. Skinner glanced throught the report, then spoke into the phone. "Still there? I just received word from them. They've arrived in Moscow safely, and begun the investigation. They seem to be working together, with separate alternative theories of what is happening there. They are investigating each possibility, jointly. Satisfied?" In return, he heard a grunt, which he took for an affirmative to the last question, and a dial tone resulting from the hang up at the other end. Skinner hated dealing with his chain smoking shadow. Not one to think of revenge, normally, he fervently hoped the shadow died, preferably slowly and hard. Lung cancer would be a good idea. He already privately thought of him as CancerMan. And with good reason: the shadow didn't have a name that Skinner could find. Walter Skinner looked at the paper again. His emissaries seemed to be doing fine. No toes had been stepped on. This would be a safe, and in terms of investigative technique, routine investigation. Of course the case wasn't routine, not at all. Even if Mulder's "vision" theory didn't hold water, and it was just a case of coincidence. Skinner looked at his watch, saw that it was 'way past lunch time. He planned to go out, to the Hill, to the Tune Inn. His favorite place, where they served the sandwiches on thick cut sourdough bread, had been closed for years. The Tune Inn wasn't your typical Capitol Hill expense account watering hole. Run down, and Skinner thought it must have been run down when it was built. But the food was terrific. He decided, as he got up from his desk, to ask Mary Ellen Garcia to accompany him. Company would be nice. State Hospital for the Insane The two Agents and Dr. Olkhovskova were seated in a treatment room. Arkady Allesandreevich had called Dr. Olkhovskova, explaining that he would meet them at the hospital. Corporal Henley was stationed in a waiting room. He had a book. This time it was entitled "The Sociological Aspects of the Criminal Mind." While they were waiting for Arkady Allesandreevich, Vera began. "You will recall I told you that today's 'subject' appears to have somewhat different talent, or manifestations, than did old Nicholai. Marina is, well, I'll let you guess her age when you see her. She grew up in eastern Ukraine, in a little village called 'Dikovo.' The name refers to the priests of the old religion. There have been several subjects who came from the same general region. One of the 'magnet ladies, ' for example, seems to possess the ability to hold metal objects against her body, not with her hands. We Soviets have been studying similar phenomena for years. Another of the same general variety of skill, seems to be able to move objects just by passing his hands over, or near them, but without touching the object." Mulder asked, "Telekinesis is what we call it in English. Have you tested them? Will we meet them here?" Dr. Olkhovskova smiled, "No, they aren't a part of my project. Their activities are fascinating, but unfortunately not germane to the task at hand. And they don't need to 'reside' in our facilities. Both are quite sane. Unusual, I must admit, but sane. Possessing this ability doesn't seem to affect mental and psychological functioning. "Maria Petrovna, on the other hand, is quite different. She has apparently had this ability of seeing distant places and things all of her life. Not so very much notice was taken of it before, " by which Scully took her to mean before the fall of the communists. "As you might imagine, her family, at least when she was young, went to considerable effort to disguise her talent, which they regarded of as a curse. The family lived on a kolkhoz, a collective farm. "The father was a farm manager, with some education, despite his peasant background. He understood very well the consequences of general knowledge of his daughter's talent; he could lose his posting, and the family could lose its place on the farm. The mother did not share her husband's views, and took the girl to the village priest, at night. The priest told her the girl was possessed. "When the daughter reached about the age of 12 or 13, she apparently suffered a major mental breakdown. That would have been about 1963- you see, I couldn't disguise the age. Marina claimed to see a tropical landscape, populated with a dusky tribe of people, speaking some language she didn't understand. There were palm trees. And beneath the surface of the earth, she claimed to see immense grain silos, similar to those on the farm. But instead of wheat, they were filled with metal objects. She was most insistent; eventually the family could no longer control her, and had her hospitalized." Dana Scully frowned. "Do you have a formal diagnosis?" Dr. Olkhovskova frowned in turn. "There have been several over the years. In the beginning, the very unscientific doctors in the raion, or county hospital, merely claimed that she was anti-Socialist. This was during the time of what you Americans refer to as the Cuban Missile Crisis. Marina Petrovna was hospitalized, formally separated from her family and jailed as a dissident. "After a time, the keepers in the prison decided that she might be many things, but that dissident was not one of them. They sent her back to hospital. The preliminary diagnosis was schizophrenia. However, that turned out to be somewhat incorrect. She had a major depressive episode in the late 1960s, and was treated first with insulin shock, later with electroshock therapy. While she seemed to recover from the depression, we were never able to learn whether or not she still had her visions. She is very intelligent, and was able to associate the jailing, the hospital and the treatment with the visions. Any person would try to hide the cause for as long as possible. And she did hide it, for a while. "Marina was returned to her family for a number of years. Not unsurprisingly, for she was intelligent, pretty, and well connected for a peasant girl, she married. In 1979, shortly after the birth of a son, she began behaving erratically, and again made claims." "Pregnancy is a frequent stressor in mental illness. And post-partum depression is fairly common world wide, " Scully added. "We have also seen cases in which the stress of pregnancy seems to have been implicated in an increase in paranormal ability, although we have yet to prove this theory." "What kind of claims?" asked Mulder. Mulder's interests had never extended much into international relations, although Scully's had. "This time, she claimed to see a desert, with airplanes streaking over it, and young soldiers dying on the ground. Marina was quite insistent that they were Red Army, although she said they were not Russian." Noticing the puzzlement on Mulder's face, she added, "You are perhaps unaware of the fact that many of the recruits to the former Red Army came from the Central Asian republics--Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tadzhikstan, and Gruzii, Georgia I believe you say in English. Dr. Olkhovskova's recitation was interrupted by the arrival of Arkady Allesandreevich, who seated himself, apparently prepared to listen. She continued. "I was just telling Mr. Mulder and Dr. Scully about Marina Petrovna's interesting history. Her second major episode occurred during the Soviet's very unfortunate involvement in Afghanistan. As you may be aware, under the old government, this information was not made public. "Marina lived a very circumscribed life, and there was no Internet. It has been very difficult for us to piece together, from the local hospital records, exactly what she claimed to see. The local doctors assumed she was raving. In lucid moments, she has confided some of the stories to me. According to her, she saw many mourning women, dressed in black, weeping. The scene appeared to be a funeral. I believe it should have been a military funeral, but for some reason military honors were withheld. The men did not weep, they became angry. After the burials, the returned to the city, to the local military offices. It was there that the riot began. "There was no way she could have read about, or heard about, the places she could describe. On another occasion, she seemed to visualize a riot, in Turkmenistan, possibly at a mosque. It was at what should have been a peaceful military funeral Some political specialists date the beginning of the end of the old Soviet Union to this foreign adventure, analogous in many ways to America's unhappy venture in Vietnam. Many, many young men were brought home from Afghanistan, in body bags. For a very long time I was most puzzled by this vision, which was relayed to me along with her other records. Arkady Allesandreevich, here, who served with the Army, was able to confirm the story of the riot." Arkady nodded. "Yes, that is true. I was there. I was a captain at the beginning of the Afghan police action. By 1986, I had been assigned to what you would call the criminal investigation section. I was then a major. I believe that I attended the funeral that this woman described, or one very much like it. There was a major riot in Alma-Aty, possibly connected with the funerals, in mid-1986." He unsuccessfully tried to repress a frown. "There were several similar events. There was a great deal of trouble in those days." "What happened to her this time?" Scully's eyes had opened a little wider than normal. Vera continued her narrative. "This time, she was sent to the local hospital, and after that she came to the University hospital system. The local people could only administer more electroshock, and vitamins. Clearly, Marina Petrovna no longer had the mental control to be a dissident. The local police said she was just a crazy woman. Eventually, I learned of her from a colleague at Kiev State University, and had her transferred to us. She has been with us ever since." It was up to Mulder to ask the final question. "What has she seen, lately?" "Well, yes, she is talking, again, but what she has to say makes absolutely no sense. Perhaps you would care to listen to her? Maybe you can tell me. I no longer automatically discount Marina Petrovna's stories as 'mad' ravings. But I cannot tell you what it is that she sees." Arkady Allesandreevich was wearing his police uniform, which added to the seriousness of his demeanor. Still, Dana thought to herself, he was a nice looking man, about 45, older than she, but definitely well preserved. Tall, broad shoulders. She had noticed his carefully manicured hands and nails. He was what her Russian girl friends from so long ago would have called "kulturny" or cultured. It meant a lot more, in the Russian mind, than the English translation implied. The Colonel added, "The remains of the Bendery colonel Nicholayev, are available at Moscow police headquarters. I have arranged for Dr. Scully to assist in the autopsy. The medical examiner has been told the details surrounding Colonel Nicholayev's death, but none of the background or any of our suspicions. Perhaps there is some physical explanation for his behavior. After we finish here, would you accompany me there? And perhaps, if time permits, you would permit me to show you some of the city, afterwards." Mulder looked over at Scully, who seemed not at all reluctant. Scully answered, "Of course. Now, could we listen to your interview with Marina Petrovna? Vera replied. "Certainly. It will take me a few minutes to prepare her, but you can wait here. I will administer a mild sedative, a hypnotic, which should make her more accessible. I can interview her in a room with a one-way mirror, and microphones, the same as yesterday. You will be able to see and hear what I see and hear. Arkady can translate for you. Keep in mind that Marina Petrovna is far more intelligent than old Nicholai. You will see a remarkable difference in her behavior." Vera Olkhovskova turned and left the room. Shortly after Vera Vasilevnya had left the room, the phone rang. Arkady Allesandreevich took the call, speaking quite rapidly, and looking a little annoyed. When he hung up the phone, he turned to the two FBI agents. "That was the Moscow medical examiner. He requests our presence for the Nicholayev autopsy as quickly as possible. I think it would be best if we were to agree; he is a difficult person, brilliant, but difficult. Although I have the authority to order him to wait for us, he is also human, and the quality of his cooperation might decline if we were to thwart him." Scully thought to herself that the autopsy probably was far more important than watching another of Vasilevnya's therapy sessions, and further that Mulder was more entranced by the "vision" thing than she. "Mulder, I think perhaps I'll go with the Colonel now. We can meet back at the hotel, say around 6:00." Mulder looked a little uncomfortable with the idea, but really had no choice but to agree. "Send the Corporal back for me when you're done." He smiled a good bye at the Russian and his partner. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Vasily Shurov was a tsar in his own laboratories. He had studied, traveled, and spoke Russian, German, French, and English. He was accomplished. He owned the offices he inhabited, completely. There was no higher authority. And he was being asked to wait, to postpone a simple autopsy, for some American woman doctor. He thought, despite the fact that she was a female doctor, that she must have some special prominence for a Colonel in the FRB, the successor to the KGB, to ask him to wait. She had better be important. When Colonel Gregoriov and Dr. Dana Scully arrived, the medical examiner was not particularly impressed. Nevertheless, he held his tongue. He had not risen to his current position solely based on competence, although he was competent. His rise had been aided by his ability to placate the bureaucrats of the communist regime; he had stayed at the top by continuing to be able to placate the bureaucrats of the new regime. Colonel Gregoriov introduced the two doctors, and then excused himself. He had, it turned out, business, pressing business, elsewhere, or so he told them. "I will meet you at Dr. Olkhovskova's University office tomorrow at 10:00. Do you think we may be able to finish our study by then?" Dana didn't want to commit to anything, not without consulting Mulder. And she was a little curious at Arkady Allesandreevich's apparent desire to miss the autopsy. Well, even combat colonels probably have their weak points. Mulder didn't enjoy the autopsy theater, either. "Perhaps we will, Colonel, perhaps we will. Do zdrastva, until tomorrow, then." Arkady Allesandreevich smiled, turned and left the office. Vasily Shurov nodded at his American "colleague." "Shall we begin?" Three hours later, autopsy completed, the two doctors agreed in general terms on their findings. The late Colonel Nicholayev appeared to have been a healthy, vigorous man in early middle age. He had all of the usual signs of early middle age, a little arthritis in his back, but no major visible problems. Although there were toxicology tests to wait for, both Dr. Shurov and Dr. Scully agreed that it seemed unlikely anything else significant would turn up. A preliminary blood test has already shown him not to have ingested any major drugs or other chemicals. The only really noticeable feature of the corpse was it's deeply stained teeth, and fingers on the right hand. The stains were consistent with heavy cigarette smoking. The Russians had not, apparently, developed an aversion to the habit, at least not yet. There was nothing obvious to explain the sudden madness that apparently developed from no cause, back in Bendery. Dana Scully thanked Dr. Shurov for his professional courtesy, and promised him a copy of her final report. The old Russian looked at her curiously and asked, "Are you going to tell me what we were really looking for, and why?" Scully was a little surprised; she assumed that Arkady Allesandreevich had already briefed the medical examiner. "I'm sorry, Dr. Shurov, but I am not at liberty to tell you this. I am sure that Colonel Gregoriov will explain it to you, and I will recommend in my report that you be brought fully into the case. However, it is not my place to brief you myself." Vasily Shurov nodded to himself. It was no less than he had expected. Still, he hadn't attained his position by constantly rocking the boat and now, at the end of his career, he was disinclined to begin. "Good bye, Dr. Dana Scully. I think that we shall not meet again." He turned and walked out of the autopsy suite. He had not offered to shake hands. Office of the State Medical Examiner, Moscow city With her turtle neck and short jacket, she thought the outfit quite becoming. "Too bad to cover it all up with that overcoat, " she thought a little regretfully as she buttoned herself in, adding the scarf and fur cap last. She walked out of the medical examiner's offices, determined to find a cab and head back to the hotel. Possibly to the hotel gym, and then for a long hot bath. Scully was a little surprised to find Arkady Allesandreevich waiting in the lobby of the building. "Ah, Dana Vasilevnya, how Russian you look." "Arkady. I am surprised to see you." "I promised you the city, and asked good Dr. Shurov to let me know when he thought you might be finished here. I have been considering; Mulder tells me that he believes you will be finishing your work in the next day or so, and you have not yet had the opportunity to see any of my lovely city. I have a car; what would you like to see?" Dana thought only for a minute before replying, "Novodevichy. I was in Moscow one time before, when I was 15. It was closed for repair." "Very well. Do you know about the monuments?" "If you mean the cemetery, behind the monastery, yes, I do. That is what I would like to see." "Then see it you shall. I would be remiss to not permit this." Doctor's Dining Room Dr. Olkhovskova and Mulder were just leaving the hospital dining room. Mulder thought to himself that while the details of the food were different, it was at least as bad as any other hospital food he had eaten, and because of the differences, certainly no worse. "I do apologize for the delay, Mulder, but Marina Petrovna was not in any condition for an interview. I do not understand what has come over her. She has had weeks of relatively stable behavior, until the last week or so. Generally, as I told you, we have been attempting to focus her attention on distant places, rather than on seeing future actions. For this purpose, I normally frame the questions to refer to a painting; Marina tells me what she sees in the painting. "It is all consistent, since paintings have varying amounts of clarity. Sometimes, however, we try to get her to focus on events, and for this purpose, we frame the questions to refer to the television, the same as old Nicholai. And to do this, we have remarkably reduced her drug regimen. We have been looking for details, very explicit details. You will recall that with old Nicholai, as heavily medicated as we need to keep him, details were lacking. Marina's details, on the other hand, tend to be exquisitely clear. If only we could make them out. "Tell me why we needed to delay." "It seems that Marina had a set back in the last 24 hours, and has become quite agitated. I administered a mild tranquilizer--nothing very serious--just to relax her. I want most of it to wear off, before the interview. Since Arkady has left us, I plan to permit you to sit in the room with us; Marina has met outsiders before. I will explain to her in Russian that you are interested in her ability, and will translate what she tells us as she goes along. Of course, we will have a complete tape recording of the session, in case there are details which we need to clarify." "May I ask questions?" "Certainly; keep your voice entirely neutral, and I will put the questions to her in Russian. I will almost certainly have to modify them somewhat, to keep them within our 'photograph' and 'television' framework." The two had rounded the last turn and entered the treatment room. "That would be fine." Vera Olkhovskova lifted the phone, and spoke briefly, to one of the orderlies, or so Mulder supposed. She then led him into the treatment room. Soon, a matron brought a middle-aged woman into the room. She was wearing an extremely ill-fitting hospital gown, and her hair had been chopped quite short, but even with this most unbecoming wardrobe, Mulder could appreciate that she once must have been quite beautiful. Her eyes were probably her best feature; huge, deep pools of dark brown, quite unusual among the Russians that he had observed. Their beauty was somewhat marred by the way they darted about the room, a little wildly. Dr. Olkhovskova began the session, with the same calm patient voice she had used with Nicholai. It was a technique that deserved better success than it had met with old Nicholai, and as the patient began to calm down, seemed to be meeting with that success. "Marina Petrovna, " Dr. Olkhovskova began, this is an American, Mr. Mulder. He is interested in your talent. He would like to hear what you have to say, about the things you see. He may ask you a few questions; he will not hurt you." Vera Vasilevnya's voice amounted almost to a drone, calming, soothing. "Do you understand?" "Da." " 'Yes, ' she says." "Will you answer his questions?" "Da, ya budy." " 'Yes, I will try, ' she says. "Marina Petrovna, do you see the picture?" Marina Petrovna nodded her head indicating she did. "Can you tell me what you see?" "I see the television." "Mulder, I believe that she is going to focus on an event, rather than a site. Would you like me to press her for a site, or shall we go with the event?" "The event, by all means." "Marina Petrovna, what do you see on the television?" "I see a church." "Tell me about the church. "It is very large. There are many icons on the icon stand, and much gold. It is very rich. "Can you tell me the time of day?" "It is late afternoon. It is very dark inside the church." "What else do you see, Marina Petrovna? "I see two people. They are looking at the icons. A man, and a woman." "Tell me about the man." "He is tall. He is wearing a uniform. He is showing the icons to the woman." "And the woman?" "She is short. She is wearing a coat. I can see her boots. Her pants are tucked into the boots." "Do you see anything else?" "They are walking out of the church. The man has his arm around the woman's shoulders." "What are they doing now?" "They seem to be . . . I think they must be in the church yard. It is getting dark, but still light enough to see. I see many monuments, and markers." "Mulder, I think she must be seeing a cemetery. Marina would possibly recognize it; her mother was a believer." Vera turned back to Marina Petrovna. "What else to you see?" "The man and the woman are walking through the churchyard, away from the Church. The man is leading the woman. They have stopped, in front of a large monument." "Can you make out the name on the monument?" Marina Petrovna squinted her eyes, as if trying to read the letters. She sounded out part of a name. "Chroo.." Then she added, "there is a shadow on the monument. I cannot see the rest of the name. "Tell me what else you see." "I can hear the bells ringing." "What time is it? "It is 4:00." "Mulder, that would be consistent with the fading daylight. You will have noticed that it gets dark quite early here, in winter." She turned back to the patient, slowly, repeating her question. "Tell me what else you see, Marina Petrovna." "The woman has walked closer to the monument. I cannot see the man; he is obscured by the shadow." "Tell me more." "The man is walking toward the woman. Her back is turned to him; she is bending close to the monument. He has hit her in the back of the head." Mulder spoke. "This sounds a little like old Nicholai's story. Has Marina Petrovna had contact with him?" "No, Mulder. They are kept in separate wards." "Ask her some more questions." "Tell me more, Marina Petrovna. Move closer to the television, so that you can see the picture better." Marina Petrovna got up from her chair, and moved closer to the box that was used to symbolize the television. "Is that better?" "Da, konyechno. Yes, of course, I can see more clearly now." "What do you see now?" Marina drew in her breath sharply, and made as if to pull away from the "television." Vera Vasilevnya intervened by reminding her that it was just the television. "There is no reason to be afraid." "The woman is on the ground, on her stomach. She is trying to push up from the earth. There is snow on her coat. Her fur hat has fallen to the ground." Mulder interjected, "Ask her what the man is doing. And about the shadow." "This is a very interesting program, Marina Petrovna. But I do not understand about the shadow. Tell me about the shadow." "The shadow is moving; it makes it hard to see the man. The man and the shadow are moving toward the woman. He is kicking her, and she has turned over on her back. He has thrown himself down on her, and is strangling her. She is screaming, but I cannot understand her words. I can see her face, it is turning red, redder even than her hair. I am afraid. I do not want to watch more." "That is very good, Marina Petrovna. You have told us a very nice story. You can sit back on your chair and relax for a moment. The matron will take you back to your ward and give you something to help you sleep." A matron entered the room promptly, and led the dazed woman from the treatment room. Vera Olkhovskova looked dazed as well. Mulder broke the silence. "Did you recognize any of the places she described?" He was thinking furiously about something that Marina had said, something that he should have recognized, something he had been told about. "Mulder, there are thousands of churches left in Russia, most of them in poor repair. Those in good repair are state museums, mostly. The church Marina described must be an important one, a very important one, if it still has its iconostasis, its icon stand, and its icons." "Could it have been St. Basil's, or one of the Churches on Red Square? Do you think she was describing a museum?" "That is possible, of course. But this one seems to have a cemetery. The churches on the Kremlin do not have churchyards, and of course the icons are long gone. However, she might have been describing frescoes, rather than icons. They look somewhat alike." "Could she have mistaken a fresco for an icon stand?" "You are right, Mulder. That mistake would be impossible for anyone who has ever see an iconostasis. A church, either a museum, or an active church, with a church yard. That is somewhat unusual. There are several in the area." "A man in a military uniform, and a woman, much shorter, in a coat, with boots with the pants legs tucked in. And a fur hat. That could be any of a very large number of people." Mulder was stumped. He could sense a connection, a tantalizing but tenuous connection to something he knew. But he couldn't puzzle it out. "What about the name on the gravestone?" "Chroosh . . . is what she said. The only name that comes to mind is Khrushchev. He was our premier." "Isn't he buried somewhere in Moscow? Scully told me, I know she did, some kind of monastery? She wanted to visit it; she told me she missed it her first trip here." "Yes, of course, Nikita Khrushchev. He is buried at the back of the cemetery at Novodevichy." Mulder looked at his watch, and saw that it was a little past 3:30. "Do you think the event could be taking place today? "There is no way to be certain; I can only judge from our experience with old Nicholai. His vision became frighteningly clear the day of the events he described. Yes, it is possible that Marina is seeing something that is happening today." Mulder's eyes opened wide. "Fur hat, red hair, Novodevichy. Today. Scully. Arkady Allesandreevich said he would take her to see the city, after she finished the autopsy. Where's Scully?" Mulder picked up the telephone, and realized that he didn't have the slightest idea how to contact Scully. They hadn't even bothered bringing their cell phones. He looked in his pocket, fishing around for a receipt, any paper with the phone number on it. He found a match book from the bar at the National--that wouldn't help. Then he found the folder for his room key. "Here, call the hotel. Ask for room 1013." Vera Olkhovskova did Mulder's bidding. He heard her speak; the inflection of her voice indicated a question. There was a pause, as she continued listening. "Mulder, Dana Vasilevnya does not answer. Possibly she is still at the office of the medical examiner." Mulder didn't think so. He turned and charged out of the room, running to the stair well and taking the steps three at a time. At the first floor he called for Henley, shouting "Novodevichy. Do you know how to get there?" Henley was much too well trained to be more than startled; but his training took over, putting everything else on autopilot. He was certain Mulder wasn't going sightseeing. "Yes--10 minutes, if I run every red light." "Gun it, and run them all." Universitetskiy Prospect The corporal was clearly pushing the big Buick for all it was worth, and judging by the speed at which the buildings were flying by, it was worth quite a lot. Mulder was surprised to see that the corporal had managed to pull out a magnetic flasher and attach it to the roof; perhaps the flasher scared off the militia, or possibly they simply couldn't catch up with what they had at hand. "How much further?" They seemed to be flying across the Moscow river. Mulder saw a huge stadium off to his right. "10 minutes." Mulder looked at his watch; it read 3:50. If his guess was right, 10 minutes might just be too late. He remembered how the final event in Bendery didn't completely agree with Nicholai's vision. "Floor it, " he commanded, grimly. Mulder pulled out his Sig Sauer, and checked the magazine. He was suddenly very glad that Corporal Henley was armed. If the vision was close to the truth, the tall military stranger was going to be difficult to disarm; one person might not be able to do it. The closest parallel that Mulder could consider was a drug addict flying on PCP: they had been known to keep charging, short of a direct hit to the heart. The car turned onto a much narrower street, and Henley was forced to lessen the pace. Novodevichy Convent Arkady Allesandreevich seemed in his element, displaying the glories of the church, pointing out some of the more famous parts of the artwork. Russian churches, orthodox churches, generally had no seating. The congregation, he added, in the old days was expected to stand, or to kneel, to show its piety. This particular church was still at least partly a museum, and as such, had a few chairs scattered about, presumably for weary tourists. "Let us go out and see the churchyard. There are many interesting monuments." "Yes, Arkady. I took a course in Russian culture, in college, but of course that isn't at all the same as being able to see things. I am looking forward to seeing the churchyard." Arkady waved in the direction of one of the massive doors to the church. "And see it you shall. This way." He pointed in the direction of the exit, casually putting his hand on Scully's shoulder, smiling, before he led her outside. Scully pulled up her scarf and shuddered a bit, from the cold; it had been cold inside the church, or so she thought, until she went back outside. Arkady was commenting on some of the sculpture as they passed throughout the graveyard. Scully was surprised to see how many of the monuments were marked with the sign of the cross. She hadn't expected to see that, at least not so prominently. The second feature catching her eye was the profusion of flowers, very colorful flowers, on many of the grave sites. It took a few minutes before she realized that the flowers were either paper or silk, left in place of instead of the living blooms, which would have frozen solid almost before the mourners had left the graves. Paper, silk, and, a few even of plastic. The paper were by far the prettiest, where they were fresh, and had not been damaged by the snow. Arkady gradually fell silent as they drew close to the edge of the cemetery, merely pointing in the direction of a large, and obtrusive monument. He waved her in the direction of the stele, commenting, "Chitai, Vasilevnya, " "read it out, Vasilevnya, " referring to her patronymic or nickname. Scully pulled closer to the monument, and began to sound out the words on it. "Chroo-shev, Nikita" Nikita Khrushchev. Scully bent a little closer to the monument, to read the smaller print underneath. Before she could say more, she felt a powerful blow to the back of her head, and felt herself begin to fall as her vision faded to black. Outside Novodevichy Convent "Is there a back entrance?" "No, Mulder, you have to go through the front gate. "Pull up close. You're with me . . . " Henley slammed on the brakes, brining the Buick down to zero from 60 in less time than Mulder thought possible. It was a remarkable piece of driving. The two Americans jumped out of the car, leaving doors open and the engine running. Mulder was able to just keep up the with marine, his gun out, the other American screaming "Amerikantsi diplomati, " American diplomats, at the top of his lungs. The two ran into a huge whitewashed church, passed across the nave to the back exit, through the church in a blur, disturbing the few worshipers. "Where's Khrushchev's grave?" Mulder was worried; he couldn't see anyone. Shouldn't there be tourists, or mourners, or someone there? "At the back, on the left. Stick with me." Henley flew on, and the 10-year age difference started to show, since he knew the way to go. The two Americans were running through the graveyard. Mulder was surprised when he first caught a whiff of river mud; it reminded him of something he'd smelled before. As they ran, Mulder caught a glimpse of a man, just a glimpse. The churchyard was enveloped in complete silence. He could just see a figure on the ground, lying on the snow, but obscured by the shadow. The man was screaming; Mulder couldn't tell what language he was shouting. Suddenly the man dropped toward the ground. As Mulder and Henley found the last gravestone, they saw Colonel Arkady Allesandreevich Gregoriov. He was astraddle a black coated figure, hands at the figure's throat. The other person was fighting back, ineffectively. Henley screamed and charged at the figure as Mulder was pulling out his weapon. The corporal managed to knock Gregoriov away, not realizing that the scrabbling figure under Gregoriov was Dana Scully. Scully coughed and tried to crawl away. Mulder screamed at Henley to let Gregoriov go, but Henley, bulldog like, hung onto the man. Gregoriov was batting wildly, kicking and screaming. He seemed not to recognize anyone in the churchyard. Mulder couldn't get a clear shot, without hitting the Corporal. Gregoriov managed to swing himself around, the Corporal still gamely hanging on. Finally, Gregoriov slammed the corporal into the edge of a grave marker. Henley hit his head and dropped off, stunned. "Gregoriov, stop." Mulder bellowed. Gregoriov swung around and lunged back at Scully, who had managed to crawl a short distance away. Mulder aimed carefully, and fired. He had tried to take out the man in the knee, disabling him but not killing him, but Gregoriov dove toward Scully as the gun exploded, and the shell caught him in the chest. Gregoriov dropped. Mulder heard shouting coming from the church. He raced to Scully, calling out to the Corporal, "Are you all right?" and seeing him nod, a little groggily, before turning his full attention to his partner. Dana was gasping and wheezing, her face incredibly red from the struggle. She had managed to sit up. Mulder looked at her, watched her breathe, and gently pushed her hair away from her neck, touching the already swollen flesh on her throat. He could see the hand and finger prints on her neck, which was already starting to discolor. "Are you all right?" Dana wheezed, nodded, and waved toward Gregoriov. Once assured that she was safe, Mulder turned back to the Corporal, who had pushed himself upright, against the grave stele. He sprinted toward the colonel. "Mulder." He was barely conscious. The smell of river bottom was overpowering. There was even some mud on the colonel's coat. Mulder wondered how that came to pass, as cold as it was. "Why did you do this?" "The man in the shadow . . . " The colonel passed from consciousness just as the militia arrived. Mulder saw up and saw a contingent of Marines, flanked by what he assumed were local police. Mulder said, "The marines are here, " for which he heard a weak rejoinder from the Corporal. "Sir, the marine is already here." Henley turned to the local police. "Dr. Shurov, Vasily." Scully spoke to one of the Russians, who had knelt by her. He was speaking to her softly, examining her head and neck. Seemingly satisfied that she was in no immediate danger, Shurov turned his attention to the Colonel, calling to the local police. Mulder assumed he was calling for an ambulance. Wednesday, 9:00 a.m. Mulder called out, clearly, "Arkady Allesandreevich." There was no response. He called out again, "Arkady Allesandreevich, " and was greeted by the fluttering of eyelids. Scully gently elbowed Mulder aside, put on her best doctor's bedside manner, and took command of the interview. "Arkady Allesandreevich. Do you know who I am? "Vasilevnya." The bruises on Dana's neck were clearly visible. Arkady looked puzzled, as if he didn't know where he was, or how he came to be there. "Arkady, you are in Moscow City Hospital. Can you tell me what happened to you?" "Hospital?" "Yes, Arkady, you remember, we were in Novodevichy Churchyard. You were showing me the monuments." "Da, konyechno, yes I remember." Arkady frowned, as if he was having difficulty in concentrating. That would not be inconsistent with his immediate post surgical state; he must have been pumped full of painkillers. "I was showing you the monument. There was a shadow, and I heard a voice. I saw myself, as if from a distance. Dumaio, I think I hit you. Did I hit you, Dana Vasilevnya?" "Yes, Arkady, you did." Dana pulled her hair away from her neck to display the bruises. "Do you know why?" "I am sorry Dana Vasilevnya, I do not know. I saw the shadow, I heard a voice, I reached toward you, I remember. And after that I have no memory." Mulder broke into the conversation. "Arkady, tell us about the shadow." "Mulder, I am sorry, but there is nothing more to tell. I remember the shadow; it fell across the grave marker, and then seemed to shift over me. Then I seemed to be able to smell the river. I heard a voice. After that, I do not remember." Arkady Allesandreevich closed his eyes. "Mulder, " Scully whispered, "it's time for us to go." The two agents turned and left the room. They were a little surprised to see Vasily Shurov at the nurses' station. "Dr. Shurov? Checking on your patient?" "Yes, Dana Vasilevnya, I found him first; that makes him my patient." "Prognosis?" "Prognosis? Excellent, I'd say. Our Colonel is one 'tough cookie' as you Americans say. I believe he will make a complete recovery." "That's good to hear. I am not certain he will remember our visit. If he asks, tell him that I said I did not believe this was his fault." "I will, Dr. Scully. The last time I said good bye to you, I said I did not think we would meet again. This time I will tell you 'dosvedaniya.' Until we meet again." The good doctor held out his hand to be shaken. Bethesda, Maryland Walter Skinner gave up on his attempt to sleep, sat up and picked up a book on the history of crime. It was a popular and somewhat sensational treatment of the subject. Skinner thought briefly of his two travelers, and wondered how they were getting on; he expected to see a message from them when he got to the office. Thinking of his staff made Skinner think about his soon to be ex-secretary. He and she had a wonderful lunch, and milkshakes afterward. He had only been slightly dismayed to learn about her "gentleman friend." Walter Skinner hadn't gotten to where he was without facing, and besting, many other challengers. "Maybe there really are others in the pond, besides Ruth." Skinner put down the book and turned on the tube; undoubtedly there would be some late night talk show. Something that would make noise, but not distract him from his thoughts. His thoughts about the pursuit, now begun, of his soon to be ex-secretary. They were pleasant. Skinner was looking forward to the chase. Hotel Ukraine, Wednesday Scully pulled out the laptop and booted it up. It was her turn to type the report; Mulder had wanted to get something out, either by fax or by E-mail, today, if possible. They already had the embassy working on the transport problem; nothing was available until Thursday morning, which left the remainder of the afternoon, and evening, if they were so inclined, free. Mulder didn't want to spend the entire day writing a report in his hotel room. He had gone so far as to sign up for the half-day city sightseeing tour. The tour left at 1:00, which should leave plenty of time. Mulder began dictating, describing all of the people they had come in contact with, and giving a factual summary of their experiences. That was always the easy part. Mulder had even written in the observation concerning the smell of river bottom, and how unusual it seemed in this context. Although Scully had shown him a map, in the CIA Moscow Street Guide, page 37, showing how the Convent grounds backed to the river, it seemed much too cold to have been able to smell it. After a while, Mulder connected the scent; he had smelled it earlier, back in Illinois, investigating a previous case, which he had initially thought was murder by a drug-induced psychotic. Perhaps there was a connection. It would bear investigating. The hard part came under the heading "explanations/conclusions. Mulder seemed to be on a roll. "Based on direct observations, at the State hospital, in the Novodevichy graveyard, and on careful debriefing of Dr. Scully and of Colonel Arkady Allesandreevich Gregoriov, I present the following analysis and conclusions. 1. Both distant vision and future vision must be considered to have been conclusively shown. Each of these phenomena has been discovered and discussed in the American press, and in various scientific journnals. Research into the phenomenon should be expanded. Russians, who seem to be somewhat ahead of us in terms of study of the phenomena, should be considered. The frequency with which mentally ill persons demonstrate this capacity does cause difficulties, and an effort should be found to identify rational possessors of this talent. 2. With regard to both distant vision and future vision, the closer the 'observer' comes, either in terms of space (from the substitute portrait or photograph) or in terms of time (for the future vision) comes to the event, the more refined, detailed, and clear the vision seems to become. Were, on the other hand, these visions to be described to dreams, nightmares, or hallucinations, similar shifts would occur. Very few of the visions have actually been validated by cross referencing with actual events. 3. For future vision, we must note that the image, or scene, or event does not appear to be immutable or fixed; events foreseen appear to change as the observer comes nearer. If we assume the correctness of this hypothesis, we still do not know whether this is a function of greater clarity on the part of the "observer" or on the mutability of the "future." 4. A third phenomenon seems to be at work here. Although I do not have a name for this, it has been given visual representation by the idea of a "shadow" and "whisperings" as described earlier in this report. Several of the subjects under Dr. Olkhovskova's care have had delusional episodes in which either Ivan the Terrible or Stalin had been mentioned. Is this merely happenstance? Or is there a relationship to these two personalities and presently occurring events? Dr. Scully suggests that the closest named phenomenon might be a "poltergeist, " in this case, certainly one of a malevolent or evil nature. Looked at in this framework, several other "open" cases may be explained, if not completely understood. 5. There are several similarities between this case and the Illinois murder case (file reference 101095_IL3825). Unexpected violence, in that case attributed to drug intoxification. In this case, no drugs have been discovered, nor in the precursor cases. Perhaps the perpetrators were influenced by some other person or cause, possibly related to the riverine locations where the events occurred. On point which we have not yet ascertained is whether there is a water connection to the events in Bendery. 6. On a personal note, we especially commend the assistance and support of marine Corporal Robert Henley. Corporal Henley has displayed considerable initiative in this investigation. He is a person of high potential, currently finishing work on an undergraduate degree in criminology. He has expressed an interest in applying to the Bureau, afte r completion of his tour with the Marines. We recommend him wholeheartedly." "Well, Scully, what do you think? Can you sign it?" Dana read over the last few paragraphs carefully, and noted how carefully hedged some of the language seemed to be. May, might, unexplained. Number five and six, though carefully couched, were raised silent reproof from the AD. Still, Mulder was normally far more positive in his statements. This was sufficiently open that it captured most, if not all of her feelings. And each paragraph, as written, seemed to express something she had seen. "Yes, I think I can." "Well, shall we send it home?" "Do it, Mulder." Mulder prepped the file and after hooking up his equipment, dialed into the local Internet Service Provider and punched up send. He shut down the computer, put away the extra equipment and said, "Let's do Moscow." And they did. Hotel Tsentralnaya restaurant, Wednesday "Hello, Mulder. Are you awake? You getting hungry?" They were seated in a fabulously ornate dining room, and Mulder had been gawking at the decorations. "I'm famished. Is it safe to eat yet?" "Did you get sick, yet?" "No. How could I get sick? You haven't let me eat anything since we got here. No more toast and tea, please!" "All right." Scully waved a waiter over, spoke a few words, and was presented with two menus. "Scully, they're in RUSSIAN. That's no help. What am I supposed to do, point and pray?" "Compose yourself, Mulder. I'll order. Do you trust me?" Mulder thought it over, and decided yes, he did, with his life, but said, "To order? Sure." Scully waved the waiter back and began speaking. He looked a little startled, and asked what appeared to be questions as she went along, furiously scribbling on his note pad. On a couple of occasions, Scully resorted to speaking while she was pointing to words on the menu, the waiter apparently correcting her Russian as she went along. It took nearly 10 minutes to order, between the linguistic difficulties and the laughter. Mulder wondered whether she had ordered EVERYTHING on the menu. He was surprised when she stood up. "Mulder, we'll start with the zakuski, the hor d'oeuvres. At a Russian feast, these are normally placed on the table, but it appears that someone in the restaurant's management has been to Italy, or some place with a salad bar. The waiter told us to help ourselves." She reached out her hand, wrist decorated with a gold bangle bracelet Mulder had never seen before, to take his, Mulder thought. He was disappointed when she picked up a salad plate and walked toward a huge table, at one end of the dance floor. Much later, three hours, five courses, two sets of balalaika music and several "intermissions, " composed of dance music, which the two Americans sat out, later, Mulder no longer wondered whether his partner had ordered everything on the menu. He knew she had. He couldn't recall ever eating so much in his life, all of it liberally lubricated by vodka, first of all, and later wine. Dana was just polishing off dessert, some kind of pound cake with a cream cheese sauce. She had told him it was called "Pashka" and was an Easter specialty, but was also general feast food, when she ordered it. Mulder had declined dessert. Mulder turned in his chair, and saw couples walking toward the dance floor. The vodka and the wine had loosened his inhibitions, to say the least. He decided to risk asking her to dance. "Scully, Dana, would you like to dance?" Scully looked up, nonplussed, and thought to herself, "Dana?" but answered, "You know how?" her quiet laugh taking away the taint of cruelty. "All right, Mulder, just this once." Mulder rose and walked around the table to help her up, a touchingly anachronistic touch. He was aware of the difference between a social relationship and a professional relationship, and a little confused about how to proceed. The last time he had asked a woman to dance had been in sixth grade. Mulder led Scully to the dance floor, and saw her grimace as she raised her arm to try to reach his shoulder. "Does it hurt to reach?" He took her hand in his, and placed it on his arm, closer to his elbow than his shoulder. "Just put your hand on my arm." He took her other hand in his, and put his arm under hers, around to the middle of her back. To reach her waist and really pull her close would have required his leaning over, much too closely. He wouldn't have minded the odd appearance, but decided that he might be taking too much for granted. Still, he could feel the warmth or her, and looking down at her red hair, smell her. She smelled wonderful. Mulder was pleased to discover he remembered the basic step for a waltz. The fact that the orchestra was playing a very slow foxtrot bothered him not at all. They slowly waltzed in place, the other dancers more energetically dancing around them. After the waltz, Mulder led Scully back to the table and sat down. They settled the bill, which seemed huge. He began to be almost glad he had eaten so little in the previous days; his share of this dinner would wipe out three day's worth of M&IE, the meals and incidental expenses portion of his travel allowance. It had been worth it. They had reservations on the 8:00 Lufthansa back to Frankfurt, and from there on to Paris. The two agents had agreed to delay in Paris for a day or two, taking the usual break in the flight plus a day of vacation time, to unwind. Mulder hadn't been there since a disastrous trip with his then-girlfriend, Phoebe, back in college. He hoped this would turn out better. Mulder and Scully walked out of the restaurant to the "garderobe" the coat check room. He helped her on with her coat, then held her hat, idly fingering the fur, as she gingerly wrapped her neck in a scarf Mulder. As he handed her the hat, he murmured, "Time to go home, Dana Vasilevnya." The End |