Drop, Drop, Drop, Plop.
What I can tell about that December month is it had started all crappy.
First at work. All that had not been done that year, files neglected for lack of interests, reports not asked and by hazard dumped or lost in the process, counts for the service, and other nice stuff in the kind, all had to be perfectly neat for January, 2nd, in Skinner’s office. If my partner was more constant in paperwork, let us say I was less. And that just the idea of it bothered me big time.
What is more, I had received confidential information, apparently, those that I had hoped for and expected for so long. My source, who was no more crazy than the Gunmen, had documented them this time, providing me with elements that troubled me. And above all, he had given me an address to check on this time.
Of course, I had no evidence, or real clue, only insightful suppositions, and my direct superior had assigned me on some useless job instead, while my partner had glared at me and then slowly breathed out her pure happiness. I agree we had lots of work already, commonplace for the season. Christmas was coming too fast this year too.
So I decided that I quickly would handle the stuff Skinner absolutely wanted first. In return, he would not bother me too much if no one could tell in which part of the FBI building I hid. Scully wished me a slightly amused good day as she showed me her back to make up coffee. She held nothing against me, and so none of my excitement to rush out had disappeared.
I jumped in the car and left Washington D.C for the wild. My source had spotted a place in the woods, with, he said, a strange activity. It was a sort of huge bunker in the middle of nowhere, and it immediately caught my attention when he said there was something extraterrestrial there. I had drawn my own map, not to be fucked at the last minute by unofficial details. I hid the car, took my bag. And I walked; for about half-an-hour. I stayed for a while in the copses, binoculars glued to my eyes to catch the slightest move. And I felt very lucky, because nothing at all happened for hours; And for the hours that followed. No cars, no people, no noise. It sounded like the echo of a bad joke. I suspected it was because of a “service” I had refused him, on last July. I dropped him a quick “bullshit” before I went back to the bureau and eased up concluding it was neither the first nor the last time I would be the goat of the story.
Then, personally at work. I found my Scully absorbed on her laptop. She sort of growled when I said hi, unruffled. I sat down at my desk, thinking I had finally lost more time to do those shit. I took the first file on the pile and sighed before I had even opened it. I am not exactly the sheet guy. Only then I realized that my partner was working on something that had nothing to do with the bureau. She bothered to do the paperwork job all along the year, and she was finished, but that was not what amazed me in her. What amazed me in her was she was still working after the job was done. Or not? I narrowed my eyes to see the better. She was on the internet, on a page of the Georgetown University Hospital site. She was reading an article that had for title: How to select a bone marrow transplant program. I know it was ridiculous, but I felt a stab in the stomach that painfully went up to my throat. I knew she was a doctor, and that it was the kind of knowledge that aroused her curiosity. But the title was so specifically oriented. She would tell me if she was sick. Would she? And she lived in Georgetown. One thing sure, she would not like to be harassed in her privacy. I just, could not help it; I needed to know; since she had been abducted. However, I did not know how to talk to her. A message from my source gave me an idea.
- Hey Scully, I have a stakeout this evening, wanna come?
She looked up as if she was rising back from the realm of the dead.
- Huh? Oh, no, I can’t, I have something to do this evening.
She had answered loosely, and I did not expect anything else from her. Oh yeah, except maybe that she would accept my invitation. Was it something to do at the hospital? I would not know more, but it got me a little nervous. I finished some more sheet work, and I left, as natural as I thought I usually was, although she stared with her interrogative frown.
Anyways, I was out.
I only needed a blanket and two or three sandwiches for the long night that came. My source had finally told me that if I expected that anything would happen on day time, I had believed too much porn is real life. My source obviously knew more than he wanted to admit. I would have to be cautious. I left the car in another place, not too close, not too far from the place I had found earlier, and I made my way for the second time that day, to my stakeout, through the cold of the night. I had been there; sitting in the grass for so long I thought my bones remained in the earth as I got up, when I saw shadows on the front wall of the bunker. I could hear some whispers coupling the steps. I took my binoculars, but the lights were too high on the building, and too shallow, for I could see who they were. I only could count four people. They passed on the other side of the bunker, and I got up rapidly not to lose them. I saw them all disappear under the earth in barely some seconds. I came closer and saw no stairs like I thought first. I knelt on the grass and started to grope around. I felt a metallic stick lying in the blades of grass. I pulled it, and a piece of wood appeared from under the earth; and a hole with stairs. So I was right. I took my flash light in my bag and carefully enlightened the small and low-ceiling corridor that opens narrowly in front of me. I did not shut the passage after me, and started to walk fast until I heard voices. I slowed down and listened. But I was too far to hear properly, I grabbed only vague sounds. As I approached the end of the tunnel, I began to see strangely colored flash of lights, like a rainbow, or the lab of Doctor Nutso. Back to the wall, I carefully passed my head to see what was shining in the immense hangar. I wished I had my source near to him one of these things in the ass and see him fly away to Mars. I did not have alien technology, but only four kids that burnt powders, of fireworks or whatever, on frogs, and that then licked them. I walked to them and they fist looked scared. But I told them I would not do anything to them, and they settled down. I think they were drugged, but I had other things I was curious about.
- What are these… powders you burn?
- We found them there, one of the girls said showing me the back of the huge room.
I turned to where she said, and I could see nothing more than the emptiness. I would take a look then.
- Have you ever seen people here?
They looked at each others, a little embarrassed.
- Well, there are some people who come, sometimes, above, one of the boys said.
- Do you know what they do here?
He shook his head.
- What do they look like?
- It’s hard to tell, it’s night when they come, the first girl said.
- They often have, you know, bags, or boxes, the second boy said.
- Do you know when they come, usually?
- Evening, night, the first girl said, whenever when it’s night.
- When was the last time you saw them?
- About 10 days ago, the second girl said.
- And you’re here often?
- Three times a week, the first boy pouted.
I nodded. Maybe my source had not told a lie.
- I see no door, I said, do you know how they come inside the building?
They watched each others, and my question remained unanswered.
- What do you think there is up there?
The first boy laughed.
- Something secret owned by the government, doubtless.
I nodded with a smile. I watched the second boy who had not said a word. He avoided watching me, and the conversation looked to annoy him a lot.
- He’s shy, don’t pay attention, the first boy said.
The boy was so nervous he let escape his frog. He got up and left.
- Lance! They all called.
- Wow, that guy will never find a girl, the first boy said shaking his head in disproval.
As I walked to the end of the hangar, I wondered if his shyness was really the trigger to such a sudden stress. Indeed, there were boxes, average sized, at the back of the hangar, and one of the reason was the boxes were black. I opened them. They were all filled with the same thing, a multicolor powder. I took a handful that I put in my jacket’s pocket. I swept the area, but there was nothing else to be found. Not even a door. I went back to the kids.
- Are you always here when they come?
- Mostly yes, the second girl said.
- So you never saw them?
- We can hear then come from here, there’s a sort of pipe, up there, the second boy explained, and we hear the motors, that’s how we know they come.
- Do they ever get down, here?
- I’ve never seen them here.
So why put these boxes there?
- Those boxes, I asked, how long have they been down here?
- I don’t know exactly, the boy said.
- That wasn’t there the last time they came, the second girl said.
She was apparently the only one who looked still sober. I started to find all that pretty interesting and I wished Scully was with me to see that. I suddenly remembered the copy of her internet page. I possibly had left it on my desk. Anyways, Scully was not at the bureau when I passed by before my stakeout, and she would not be before me on the day after. I watched them a last time, thanked them, and left the hangar. The hatch was still open, and nothing to be heard. Nothing would happen. I looked at the building for the last time. I thought that they might come in by the roof, but it would need a ladder to get up there. The kids had said they did not know how they came inside. They might have lied. I packed my things and made my way to the car. I passed by the bureau. The copy was still on my desk. I put it in my jacket and went home. There was nothing on TV, but I let it on because I could not find my sleep. I might have slept about three or four hours that night.
I thought my chance had turned after my evening in the forest.
Skinner had left a note about a special reunion that he would not like me to miss, for once. It must have been one of these “checkpoints” the bureau liked to organize, mostly to bother his agents. That is true I never appeared on the list, not much that than my partner, and some heads complained. So Skinner had put us both on that damn list, and notified us after. I know he had talked to me about that two weeks ago, at least, but it was the kind of things I chose to unconsciously ignore. I wonder if Scully remembered. I guessed she did, and would come on time like she always did.
I was surprised to be there the first. I was five minutes early, and chose two seats at the back of the room, near the door. Agents came in until the room was full. That was the policy of the bureau, one chair, one ass. On the, one hundred, one hundred and fifty seats, one was vacant. The last I would have guessed would be.
Everybody was ready; some agents even had note books and pens. I watched behind me, expecting to see the impassive redhead step in. But nothing happened, and the “conference” on “how to be a good agent this year” started. I never thought that I would be the one of us two to bear it alone. And it was supposed to last one hour. After half-an-hour about which I had listened nothing said, I heard a knock on the door. I turned round to see Scully came in, and I smiled.
- I’m sorry to be late, she said.
- You honor us, agent Scully; can we know what held you away from us for so long?
- I was at the hospital, to… to ID a body.
She lied.
The old pot sighed and held out his arm with such grace…
- Please, have a seat, he said, and continued his speech with softness.
She sat down at our table without even giving me a look. I knew these sessions annoyed her nearly as much as it annoyed her, and I expected an amused knowing look, or smile. I found her so pallid. Maybe she was really ill? I could not help glimpsing at her, from time to time, it was impossible she did not notice, and even under her collected “I do as if I was listening” attitude, I felt there was something else. I tried another approach.
- Scully, pss…
She turned to me. She looked tired. She cut me:- Not now Mulder.
- Scully…
- I lost a patient, she said with a look that did not allow any answer.
- Thank God, I breathed out more mechanically than to be heard.
- What?
She stared at me like if I was completely nuts, frowning in the Dana-Scully-angry-but-I-am-fine look. She settled her jaw and watched mister bubble-bubble talking.
I do not know if you have ever been to a pseudo conference, where you never intended to go, but by some fate, you find yourself sitting exactly where you did not want to be. That was me. But I waited for my partner at the end of the session. She stayed sat until every other agent had left the room. She then got up, and I was ready to follow her, when the old guy, so old I wonder if he was still in age to pump the air at the FBI, came toward us and said:
- Agent Scully, we haven’t had the pleasure to see you here in years; I understand you have bonds more important than the FBI, but I will appreciate your attendance at the next week session, same hour.
And he left. I could barely believe it. Scully raised an eyebrow and sighed. And we both left.
- Hey Scully, I have something to tell you, yesterday evening I was in the woods and I might have a new X-File. I have material to show you, if you could…
I was so excited to tell her about my new discovery that I had not seen she was weeping silently.
- I know this is pretty horrible, but I’ll come with you if you want.
She closed her eyes and shook her head, sign it was too deep for humor. I grabbed her arm to make her stop, and she immediately put her arms around herself. I put an arm around her shoulders, and walked her away. “Come”, I had told her. Scully did not like to show her emotions, and it was clumsy of me to have forgotten we were in a corridor of the FBI. We went to the staircase, nobody ever used them. I closed the door. Gently, I hugged her, and I let her sob the time she needed. I had learnt in the psychology class, that some people reacted so. But it was Scully. And as strong as she was most of the time, and in spite of my knowledge, it was so painful when she cried that each time I thought I would never be the magician to appease her. And I would never dare to ask her why she had cried. I admitted to myself I selfishly was happy it was not because she was sick.
And she pulled away from me, and we went back to our office just as nothing had ever happened.
- What was that stuff you wanted to show me? She said casually, as if we had lost the track of these last minutes.
- Maybe an X-File, I said.
And I told her all my adventures in the woods. She listened to me, serious and focused like always, and she waited for me to be finished before she spoke.
- They were licking frogs? Was the first thing she said, eyebrow up, arms folded, and then, Mulder, did you think that maybe they were so drugged they would have told you everything you wanted to hear?
I nodded.
- What do you say about that?
I took a good handful of the powder I had kept in my pocket and dropped it on a sheet. She watched it and said, apparently quite irritated:
- It looks like, let me guess, chalk?
I shrugged.
- I don’t know, could you have it analyzed for me?
- Sure, she said.
And that was all.
I went back to the forest in the evening, and I waited in the dark that something happened.
