I watched it this evening on TV. I had never seen it, and out of the synopsis my partner read me (about an average Joe seeing a white light), I didn’t know anything about it. Whether they’re perfect or not, if there’s a minimum of quality, I love that kind of movies, that go at the boundaries of what de know about ourselves and our possibilities. That, or signs, or Powder, to name them,are like the light in the dark. These movies make me think, about the perception we have, and from one being to the other, it’s different, with about 90% in the average; but what about the others? Are they wrong? I think about Einstein, and others like him, and their special made brains. It made me feel too, lots of things I can’t express, it’s inside. Maybe because I hope this kind of mystery magic advanced from the average, very, and good energy for us, could be real.
Honestly, when I think of the human race, I’m disgusted. But when I think about the human mind potential, I’m in awe. I wish I was intelligent enough to study the human brain, in terms of connections with openess.
But I don’t know to whom. It’s about important issues, and it’s difficult for me to say how I feel; and all I hear is: “it’ll be ok, it’ll pass”. It does, to come back, deeper and more powerful. I just have in mind they don’t care. I don’t want to make the difficult effort to communicate. What if I started taking revenge?
Really, I feel like a wave of rage coming from deep inside when I have one on front of me. The thing is, I have a sort of gift? I don’t know how to qualify that, I know when people lie to me, or are playing a game to obtain something, I see what’s under, what they really want. And it makes me mad. I prefer to be hurt by someone honest and even too frank, that have to bear hypocrisy.
Positive:
I have a job
I can pay all my part of the bills
I have a partner who tries to improve
I have one good friend
I like the place where I live, apartment, and city is ok
I like to be a person of knowledge and independent
I enjoy not to be someone superficial and appearance oriented
I have a cat
I have lots of projects, I want to do new things
I let go of my father
Negative:
I don’t really like my job, I don’t like my employer at all
I cannot express my feelings properly, and I’m unable to let myself go, to cry etc…
I feel angry, empty and disillusioned too often
I don’t write, I don’t want to
I lost my faith in the future
I can’t realize my projects, I have no real projects set with my partner, I see no evolution possible for work
I am worried, nervous, and I have insomnia
The picture above is I guess the face I pull most of the time when people talk to me lately.
and I do hours more. That allows me to pay my bill. Now If I found a second job, good, if not, good. I’ve been running for a second job, I had one, lost the first, had to find a new one. I’m sick and tired with it, and withh people I meet for interviews. I consider that largely done.
Of what happened these last months.
I found a new job. I searched a lot for that. About 25 interviews only in August. Ok, I’ll be able to pay my bills; but not to live. ONe year more with my projects held. Certainly a hidden abusive emplyer. But I don’t intend to leave it be.
It’s better with my partner. I battled for months, years, for it is, and it left me more exhausted and bitter than happy and confident.
I’m still in contact with one friend of mine, still the same I’ve known for 25 years. And well, there’s a real share I think, between us. Rather satisfying. For the others, it’s… always the same. Rather disappointing.
I have given up on my father. Searching him, or talk to him. I’m sick of it. I don’t want to tell anything more on that topic.
In conclusion, I have battled to improve things, on every stages, and in the end, it leaves me more empty than full. I have lost faith in humans, and in the future. I feel more angry and disgusted, so was it worth it? Maybe it needs time to show. But I don’t believe anymore.
Like most introverts.
However, it’s not only a matter of energy; not all introverts dislike people like I do. I say dislike because I can’t say I hate just everyone, that wouldn’t be true. Yet, I’m often disgusted by people, the human race even. I do know that all I see around in the world, and what I have lived all along my life weights a big part in the balance.
As I read a lot on the internet, a some about psychology, too, I saw an article, about what to say to someone suicidal, and I thought to myself that if one day I wanted to commit suicide, there’ll be all the chances it works, because it said: “Think of your family”. I have none, just my partner. I’m not sure he’ll really miss me. “Think about your past and when it was good”. But it never was so good, I don’t have good memories, not really. “God loves you”. that’s nice, but I don’t believe in God.
I’m angry a lot, and I don’t know how to evacuate it. I tried sport, writing, and some other stuff, but it’s obviously not enough. I need to express that justified anger to the people concerned; the thing is I can’t. Some of these people are dead. Some I can’t reach. And there’s my employer lately. I thought it was because of the pressure I felt like that, but it’s not. I re-wrote the best parts of my first book under pressure. I had the best mark in French of grade school all years under pressure. It’s not pressure, it’s control. I’m so independent it sometimes scares me.
I prefer to be alone than to have to live all that above. My partner is the only one to leave me my space, and to let me decide for myself, and to have an open field of dialog halfway.
Before it was: “I’ll help you if I can”. Now I’m: “I’ll think about it.”
He obviously has got several qualities for him, that I hate. He wraps people on honey, fake to be soft-spoken, when in facts he’s super, ultra rigid, like Adolph, and, he’s manipulative. I don’t know if it works with others, but he’s got a way to tell things to make you feel guilty, or that you owe him …things… that gets on my nerves.
What happened. He asked me to work on next Saturday evening, on Monday end afternoon (so yesterday before I left). What I do, I’m the nanny for his children, “nanny”, and more educator, and I work the week, not the WEs. He asked me for a baby-sitting… I told him I had something decided though, and he has on conscience that would break my WE, but his answer was: “That’d be good if you could because without you, we can’t book our tickets.” How much I hate this kind of people. As it sounds to me? BLACKMAIL.
I haven’t given him my answer yet, I must give it to him this end afternoon, when I leave. And of course we’re gonna talk about it, because if I say yes, it’s under some conditions, be sure it’s occasional on the Saturdays (because the only evening I have to spend with my partner without him falling asleep at 9pm – when I come back at 7.30pm), and if so, if my partner can come. If no there, no here. I’ll ask him anyway for that Saturday, for he understands that 1) I work for him, I’m not his bitch 2) he broke my WE. If no now, I’ll probably do it if he pays me well. But it’ll be remembered. Of course, if he pays me the same as usually, he can forget his tickets.
Already before I wanted to punch him, because he’s a hypocrite. But now, it’s obviously worse.
I have no problem with his wife though.
I want to talk about things with my father.
However, he’s never been in my life. I don’t think it’s because he didn’t want to, but that he didn’t have much the choice. CC. I can’t wave at you, I just look at you. In the beautiful fall, it felt as my blood was drained down my body, my hands were heavy, flooding with the water of your life, and instinctively I seemed to guess.
I know now. My heart is not of ice, it’s only a squeeze, deep in my throat, and beyond the sea I followed the pilot in space, through the cloudy shape, a fallen angel told me I was still young at heart. I’m Eve; when darkness falls I’ll be born again.
I need time for myself; a lot. By that I don’t mean time to go shopping, or see my friends, I mean time for myself alone, peaceful, private, doing calm things, in a quiet place. The more I spend time in society, with people, the more time alone I need.
My daily nightmare is everywhere I look, it seems to be another extrovert, king of the realm of extroverts by whom I feel misunderstood, smothered, and sometimes hurt. I feel invaded, and not respected, very often, too often. I suffer already of small talk, that I try to avoid, and also that I can’t have a job in which I’m alone, or with people with whom I have a deeper connexion.
If I say: ””I don’t feel like talking.” It’s: “Oh why? What’s wrong with you?” Nothing! I just need some peace.
Think twice, you extroverts, be an introvert is a nature, we’re not arrogant or hateful because we prefer to be alone. I’ve felt it heavy on my chest for a while. I feel down, and drained a lot because of it. You don’t ask anymore a lefty to be a righty, or a gay to be straight; I hope it could be the same for us introverts.
Well, I’ll be the one here to say I loved the movie. It’s not the better script I’ve seen on TXF, it lacked what I call emotional action, too classic, but still good enough to me, and very spiritual, and especially for the fans, this movie was made for the fans, in particular the message I believe. The direction was rather good, the ambiance was just pure XF.
I wonder how many of you here preferred HULK to XF. I hope not too much because if so, well, I’m losing hope in humans for good.
I still hope and want an XF 3, mythological this time please. I’d be ready to work like a dog for it. So work on it!
I agree this was not the movie of the year, but I’m disappointed by the reactions of the fans.
11.22 pm
Mulder was depressed at the back of the car. Frohike did not look better. Langly was unreadable, possibly thinking about something in his old life, to the face he pulled. Byers drove quietly. No need for them to draw attention. He pulled over to the car park.
If Langly continued to scan “red”; Byers re-read all the sheets he could have on the conference, and Frohike fell on his bed like a mass, Mulder could not stay motionless. He bought a bottle at the bar, and he went to hide in the darker corner of the room, where you could only guess his silhouette. After three glass of the beverage, he thought he would feel better. But he could only think about Scully, and how he had failed.
He was about to serve himself another when he heard a low grave voice who said offensively:
- Alcohol ain’t fit you, agent Mulder.
He looked up. He thought he knew that voice.
- You came here to tell me off?
- Quit whining on your fate, it’s not that way you’ll help her.
- I can’t do anything for her, I’m not even sure that’s what she wants.
- She’s not responsible for what happens to her.
- Explain.
- She was of service by force, she’s a pawn, and they will kill her if there’s the slight problem, like four idiots snooping about in moon boots.
- Why did they take her?
- They only use her for their project.
- Who “they”, and what project?
- The code “red”, agent Mulder.
- What is the code “red”?
- The control of the human mind.
Mulder sighed.
- How can I help her?
- That, agent Mulder, is in you, and only in you. But you’ll have to be quick; she doesn’t have much time left.
The voice got up and disappeared. Mulder hated himself for being so drunk. He would never remember how he left the bar.
2.34 am
Mulder woke up with a start. Scully, he had lost her.
He was on his bed, after a black hole. He did not even know how he had made it to his room. It tasted like a bitter failure. Or maybe it was about tequila. Yet, he was not drunk anymore, and he had not dreamt of his source. It was real. Before he left, he had slipped a piece of sheet under his palm; in the pocket of his jeans.
He read: “Marine Stanford, Elroy Block”.
He immediately got up.
He noticed a little light was still shining under the Gunmen’s door. He knocked slightly. Langly opened.
- You don’t sleep either.
3.29 am
- If I’m not back in half-an-hour, you call the artillery.
Langly smiled.
Mulder got off the car. The building he was looking for dressed just before him. There was nothing suspicious around. The area was pretty quiet at this hour. With his torch, he searched a Marine Stanford on the letter boxes. Second floor, seventh door; he knew he would not be welcome at nearly four in the morning, but he did not care. He rang. He first heard nothing, then a little hustling inside. Someone walked to the door. It opened. Mulder had prepared a speech, boldness, a kid effrontery, to threaten, but all was lost in his throat when he saw her without a wig. She frowned.
- Do you know the hour?
She looked furious. Mulder smiled.
- Scully…
She frowned again.
- You’re that guy in my dreams.
The saying was ambiguous. But there was no time to piss her a little.
- Scully, come with me.
- Scully?
- Yes, I know, you don’t remember, but that’s your name, Dana Scully.
She did not answer anything and became thoughtful. She was just like she had been. It was not a too good idea to let her think for so long.
- Take your pack and come with me, trust me Scully.
Langly was listening to punk music. Mulder had been gone for twenty minutes and he started to worry.
Scully looked to hesitate. He wondered what was going on behind that look lost in the clouds of the wall. Her eyes shone. She was in deep thoughts, and doubts, and certainly she would hate him to ask her to recall, but he had to break the breech. Ignoring her insecurities he said:
- They’ll come back, they’ll come back.
Confused, she stared at him, motionless.
- Scully, you have to believe me, all these men in black are only with you to make sure you can never escape, and they washed your brain. Scully, trust me!
- What proves me what you say is true?
- Scully will be Scully.
- What? She said folding her arms.
- I can’t prove you right now what you want, but I will.
- Alright, she said dryly.
His phone rang.
- Mulder.
He looked up in Scully’s apartment. He came in as she watched him in disbelief, and walked to the windows. Two huge guys dressed in black walked themselves to the building as a third waited in the car.
- That’s your name, Mulder?
- There’re here.
Scully approached. They carried weapons. They had never carried weapons.
- Is there another exit?
She got down on Earth and stared at him, and as if she had done that all her life, she nodded.
- Follow me; I know where we can hide.
They ran across the corridor to a large small cupboard.
- There, she said.
They rushed inside and closed the door. The elevator’s door opened. They caught their breathing in the same time and watched each others. She looked away.
- We get out, she said.
- Where do we go now?
Mulder counted on her to get out. If the terminators in black caught them, she could pretend anything, but he, would be dead. Could a man die for a perfect stranger?
She turned the eyes to him again.
- There.
A blocked stairs that she opened, and he was sure she had done that already. What really was in her head? They ran down the stairs as Mulder called Langly to change the plans. They got off the building at the beard of the third man. Langly just picked them kindly, and thus they escaped the claws of evil.
- Glad to see you safe, agent Scully, Langly said as she got on next to him.
- It’s Langly, a friend, you fear nothing.
- Agent?
- I’ll explain that to you, later.
Mulder was happy. Scully was safe with them. He knew they would liquefy them at the first occasion. He wanted to know what they did to her, their project; their lies.
He saw her chill. She only had her pajamas on. It was not so cold but maybe she was cold? But he looked in her eyes through the rear-mirror. Her eyes were not so blue anymore, but grey, her skin was more pallid than it caught the light. Her lips were nearly white. He hoped it was only because it was dark around, when he saw her hair shine at the street lamp, that is what he hoped.
Then she had curled up a very little, because she had seen him watch, probably. And he lost the magic thread. The vague emotion he had seen in her vanished, and she was unreadable again. She had sure not changed for that, she was still good at keeping him away whenever she felt something. Even unconsciously; so it was not too late? He could have cried to have her so close and so far in the same time. He watched outside instead.
4.47 am
The three guys were silently standing face to Scully. They did not dare to say a word. Mulder was in the middle.
- Scully, you know Langly, this Frohike, and Byers. You remember them?
She shook her head. She swallowed her saliva and watched Mulder. She was afraid.
- It’s ok, he said, he Langly? He said throwing his elbow in the blonde’s ribs.
- No! He said under the shock.
- Welcome back, Frohike said.
- We have a long day tomorrow guys, Byers said, and maybe you’re tired, Scully.
- I am, she said.
- Ok, good night guys, Mulder said.
He put one hand in Scully’s back and guided her out.
- You could have put your pants on, Frohike, Langly said.
Frohike watched. He had his pajamas on. But he could hear Langly laugh in the bathroom.
He let her came in the room first. It was a bit of a mess. She moved slowly. There were sunflower seeds shells on the night table, a book about conspiracies beside the TV, the bed where he had slept was open, sheets wrinkled, and his pillow was on the carpet. The other bed was untouched.
- Where do you come from? She asked.
- Washington DC.
He did not say more than she asked.
- Do I also live there?
- Yes, you have an apartment there, in Georgetown.
She turned around for a little while, making the place hers, and she then sat down on the bed that was done. Mulder had stayed near the door and let her do.
If she asked, she doubted. Something told her he was right. But she was too insecure to show more of herself, and the situation did not help a bit.
He then closed the door and sat down on his own bed. This sudden proximity seemed to annoy her because she moved back a little. He wanted to touch her, but that would just scare her, and he stayed the way he was until she looked to feel more comfortable. He tried to hide his sadness in front of the wall without memory. After a while she relaxed. Mulder thought it was just like before, and if he could forget she did not remember, he had the same Scully staring at him, deeply anchored in his thoughts.
- I feel the same, she said.
Mulder did not move, lips parted; it was indescribable, sun warm and ice cold, pure, absolute.
- I’m tired, she said with a hoarse voice.
He nodded, and she waited for him to go to the bathroom into slip in bed.
Mulder knocked three times. He had been searching new clothes for Scully earlier in the morning.
- Can I come in?
- Yes, he simply heard.
She was reading on her bed.
- I hope you don’t mind me borrowing your book, she said.
- No, not at all.
- Thanks, for the clothes.
- You’re welcome, he nodded.
He sat down on his bed.
- How are you feeling?
She shrugged.
- Not bad.
- Scully, there’s something I want to tell you.
He ceased talking for a while to give her the time to be receptive to what he was about to say.
- I think you have been used in a program that stole your memory, and put another in your head.
She kept on watching him but said nothing. He studied her least motion, and he could tell she realized plainly what he meant.
- What for? She asked with a slightly shaky voice.
- I don’t know, but we had you back before it’s too late.
- How do you know? She immediately dropped.
- Because it’s Scully I’ve seen since yesterday.
She looked down.
- Langly and Frohike are on it, he tried to reassure her, they try to decipher a code, code red, that will help her to understand what happened to you.
- I passed by their room this morning, to see if you were there, they told me we work together. How long have we known?
- More than two years.
He could not detach his gaze off her.
- What’s your first name?
- Fox.
- Fox, she repeated.
She frowned and looked at him as if she was going to say something.
- What?
- I… I had a picture in mind, a man; he was bald, with glasses.
- Skinner?
- I don’t know. Who’s Skinner?
- The guy who decides if we live or die.
She leaned her head and smiled a little; her look was interrogative though.
- He’s Assistant Director Skinner, our boss.
She was quiet, like usually.
- You don’t like to be called Mulder.
- You remember?
- I just know.
10.31 am
“Enter”
- Code red is the key to files.
- The problem, Frohike said, is the code can’t be broken here.
- You mean it can’t be deciphered?
- It can, but we need the original software, on the original machine that created it.
- We can’t download such a software, it’s made-home stuff, and I even believe the computer that deciphers that shit has been created for this only purpose, Langly said.- We have to find that machine, or we have one chance out of one billion to find to break the code, Frohike concluded.
Mulder turned to Scully.
- Maybe you know that place.
She shivered.
- I don’t know.
- That mustn’t be very far, Byers said, at least not far from where Scully lived.
- The black cupboards came quite fast, Mulder said; Scully was without a doubt under close surveillance, but even if they drove fast, and I believe they did, I think they were too slow to come from downtown; they certainly came from outside the city.
Langly established a large perimeter, including a range of speed between sixty and one hundred and twenty kilometers per hour.
- There’s still a probability it’s outside that perimeter, Scully said.
- We reduced a lot, Langly said.
- I don’t think there’re lots of possibilities around, Mulder said.
- We’re gonna start with that I suppose, she said.
Mulder thought something was wrong but said nothing.
- Ok, Langly said, first is Robert Halbright, seventy nine, twenty seven kilometers, second is a pest control, twenty nine kilometers.
- I think we should go softly, Byers said.
Mulder nodded.
- Scully and I will go to see Mister Halbright, you guys check on pest control. See you later.
Robert Halbright’s Domain – Road 147
1.23 pm
Mulder drove on the muddy soil. The car doors were dirty because of the spatters. Scully listened to the gloomy lapping the wheels did at the contact of the blend of water and earth. Mulder glimpsed at her. Although she said nothing and looked pretty calm, he knew she was worried. Maybe it was there they had done that to her. She sighed.
They arrived at the domain’s door, so to speak. A small house, a little shed, some green around and some cows eating the green of it.
He stopped in front of the emaciated hovel. Some tiles lacked on the roof, and the apparently unique door had its handful half-broken. The windows were dirty, big long stains leaked like slime. Still, they were able to notice the flowery curtains inside, a little yellow because of time, they hoped. Mulder looked at his partner.
- Anything?
She shook her head. He nodded.
They carefully walked up the three little stairs, all rotten. Mulder feared they would give in under his weight. But they did not move an inch as Scully went on. She had already rang the door when he joined her up there. They had no answer. She re-tried. They waited a good minute before the sounds they heard inside propagated to the door. A woman, in her little fifties, opened the door. She was smaller than Scully, her face was fat and she had two protuberances that seemed to be warts. She had and greasy hair she wore free. Her clothes were simple and dusty and her apron full of holes and oil stains. Mulder did not want to be impolite, but he would say she was stinky, quite a lot, like a tide of not cool shrimps.
She was however very kind, yet, Mulder hoped they would not have to stay for long in that rats hole.
- What can I do for you? She asked while rubbing her hands on her apron.
- We heard this domain was for sale, and we would like to see Robert Halbright.
- Oh, I’m sorry, but Mr. Halbright doesn’t live here anymore, he sold us the farm, to me and my husband, two years ago.
- Do you know where he lives now? Scully asked.
- He lives downtown now.
- But maybe he still has another house to sell, Mulder sell to Scully like talking to his wife.
- I don’t know, the woman said.
- Do you have his address? Scully said, always down-on-earth in spite of her amnesia.
- I wrote it down somewhere, you have a minute?
- Yeah, Mulder said as Scully cracked a forced smile.
She came back with a paper and read:
- It’s Paul-Emile Victor Street, do you want the sheet?
- Mmmh, no, Scully said noticing the yellow color and the suspicious flavor, thank you Mrs.…?
- Kershaw.
- Thank you Mrs. Kershaw.
And they turned their back to the horrible place. Mulder was impressed with how much Scully she still was. He thought about the Scully he knew about three weeks ago. It was always a possibility she remembered more than she wanted to tell him. But why?
Mulder had now a furious need to meet with Robert Halbright. He saw Scully who closed her eyes for a while and asked her if she wanted to rest. She said she was “fine”, and he did not ask more; yet he was intrigued.
Meanwhile on Road 207
Langly clapped the mini video camera on Frohike.
They walked to the firm main building; and only building apparently. There was no reception.
- Very productive, Frohike said as they came in the great hall.
Some guys were working in a corner of the huge place; they wore protection glasses, blues overalls, and used blowtorches for God knew why.
- A little radical for rats, Langly said with a twisted smile.
- It looks like metallurgy.
- We’ll have to find something.
A man walked himself to them. Contrary to the others, he was wearing a nice suit and a canary yellow necktie, hair in a singular wave backward. He could be thirty-year-old. He slid with the large smile of a hypocrite best-selling. Langly murmured to Frohike:
- His mouth is full of teeth.
- It’s a revelation.
Langly’s death metal-skull picture T-Shirt or Frohike kaki military pants did not look to impress him, nor annoy him. He immediately held his hand out to them.
- What can I do for you dear sirs?
- Well…, Langly started, embarrassed, we’re in a medieval troop and we’re gonna need lots of steel for swords.
- Ok, how much do you think you’ll need?
- Oh…, Langly pursued, telling lie on lie.
Frohike had managed to get away, asking for the toilets, where, by the way, he did not intend to go. The employees were lost in their sparkles, and the manager was all eyes for Langly who did not leave him a second to talk. He could disappear quite easily.
The camera was on, and the little machine was genius; it worked perfectly. He saw stairs that went down. He was hidden behind a bunch of boxes and discreetly slipped to it. After the first stairs, he landed on a mid-floor; there he was able to see the door and the rectangular red light above it. It was darker there, but he had to watch from closer. He went down the other stairs. The door was locked. Maybe it was just a place to stock important cargoes. But he doubted so; he thought more about unseen bureaus. He was about to try to open it when he noticed, just in time, that it was equipped with a double security, certainly an alarm to wake up the dead. He filmed well everything he could in details, and he did as if he was back from the toilets.
- Ah, Al, I was waiting for you, Langly said feigning to be irritated, the mister took our order, we’ll have to wait a couple of weeks.
- That’s perfect; we’ll have time to find sites to play.
- Very true.
They left after some banalities, Frohike mortified to have been compared with cousin farter.
157, Paul-Emile Victor Street
Scully got off the car the first. Mulder found her more appeased than at that isolated house. He had to admit he did not feel bad to have left the rot hole. However, the smell of old used gas pipe made him regret nature. The stairs were solid though that time, strong marble on which Scully’s shoes clapped reassuringly. She watched him make the clown from upstairs with a puzzled frown before she let the old man know of their presence.
When he came, they were surprised to find a very strong and healthy man, with long gray hair and large square glasses. His look showed determination and frankness.
He let them in quickly. He was not afraid at all. Mulder sensed he wanted to talk.
- So you retired two years ago, he started.
- Exactly, I began to feel old, and it’s more practical downtown if I need anything.
- A house in such a beautiful is calmer though, Scully said.
- You know, young lady, I’ll be soon eighty, and I can’t tell I had a bad life, but not especially adventurous, and I prefer a little more comfortable place.
He stopped a moment before he said:
- But that wasn’t all.
Mulder’s ear dressed.
- There were lots of dead people in the surroundings before I moved.
Mulder and Scully watched each other.
- How’s that? He asked.
- Oh, of course, that could be accidents, cars, or others, but I know it wasn’t true.
- What makes you think that? Scully asked.
- Well, their presence; it was a little in the beginning, and then it was all the time, and I’ve never seen any police service and any service that came around to check.
- Would you say there were strange activities? Mulder asked.
- Young man, I’ll bet my own hand on that!
Mulder smiled at his enthusiasm; Scully really less.
- What was strange? She asked though.
- Halbright turned to her.
- The men in black.
She quivered.
- Then what I would call murders, they prowled like rapacious.
- What do you think they did actually? Mulder asked.
- They just watched, I believe, and I never went really far without my van.
Scully had remained silent since Halbright had talked about the big guys. She looked through the window, melancholic eyes lost in the grey of the sky, hands sealed together on her stomach.
- What do you think about that Scully?
She slowly turned to him, as waking from a life dream.
- I don’t really know, I guess he told the truth.
Mulder nodded, and smiled to her. She gave him his smile back, but it was a little smile that those eyes of hers said sad.
She was tired and suffered from a headache and wanted to lay down for a while. Mulder knocked on the guys’ door as she slept. Byers had stayed there to find information and talk to people on the phone.
- I talked with the tourism office, about possible houses in the area we’re combing. There’s nothing else. I tried to ask about the pest control, but they say they have nothing there, just an old unused building. Where’s Scully?
- Sleeping, I think it’s exhausting for her.
- Does she remember anything?
Mulder hesitated.
- Nothing she tells me.
Frohike and Langly came back a while then.
- Pest control my ass, Langly started.
- It’s a metallurgic firm, Frohike said.
He put off the camera.
- I shot all I could; they have a super protection down.
- Like they hid something, or something, Langly added.
Scully knocked and came in. She arrived just to switch off the light and come to watch with them what Frohike had filmed.
- You’re cool on cam, Langly, Mulder mocked.
- Good picture Frohike, Byers said, we’ll know what they have.
- I couldn’t pass that door, ultra sophisticated alarm.
- Yup, Langly, said, the only alarm in the whole place.
- It looks more like a house for personal purpose than a real firm, his mate said.
- The metallurgists are very few indeed, Scully noticed.
Frohike nodded to her.
- Maybe it’s a familial stuff, Byers said.
- Possibly, Frohike said, but I’d like to go make a little visit, just to see if it’s lucrative business.
- We’re gonna have to do it fast, Mulder said, they must be looking for Scully.
- Certainly, Byers said, and I suppose we’ll have to book our flights at the last minutes and will be separated.
Scully looked worried at his last words. All the guys look at each other’s in silence.
- It’s our only chance, Mulder said.
- Is it worth to risk our lives? Scully asked.
- Maybe there’s the only way to have your memory back there, Mulder said turning to her. He stared at her for a while, you don’t want to know? Unless you already remember?
She did not quit looking at him but he could tell she was hurt.
- We’ll go, she said, this evening, and then leave, whatever we find, OR don’t find there. Mulder?
- Ok, he said.
She kept on staring at him intensely for a moment, briefly watched the others, and left the room. But Mulder followed her this time.
- Do you remember? He asked her nearly stuck to her.
- I don’t know.
- How do you mean you don’t know?
She sighed.
- I have pictures in mind, but it doesn’t mean anything to me.
She looked up and he could see how she really felt about it. He nodded, and said softer:
- I think we’ll go when the night is totally set.
Metallurgic firm
May, 11 – 12.07 am
Byers and Frohike were inside the old air pipes of the building. They were relied with auditory pieces. They had to guide them when inside.
- A child work, Frohike said.
- I hope so, Byers said.
Underneath, the other three walked themselves in silence to the door Frohike had found earlier. Frohike could disconnect the alarms with Langly’s laptop and they came in. Each one held a powerful torch, Langly first, then Scully and Mulder. They only had one alternative, take the corridor on the right. It was dark and barely enlightened by the same rectangular red light there was above the very first door. The atmosphere was gloomy, and oppressing. On the other side, was a unique door, also had an alarm on.
- Frohike, there’s another, Langly said.
He disconnected the second. Byers could not help hearing their breathing, fast. They might not have a long time ahead them. Langly pushed the door; another corridor.
- It looks like a dumb trap, he said a little irritated.
Nonetheless, it looked a bit different. There were two doors, right in the middle of the dark tunnel, perfectly opposite one from another. Strangely, one of them was not closed. The other was.
- Curious, Mulder said suspicious.
- We don’t have much time to wonder, Mulder.
- She’s right.
Langly came in the room and rushed to the computer. Scully followed him and started to rummage through the bureau, on the desk, the drawers, anywhere her eyes met. Mulder observed with amazement that sudden kind of inward rage. With that light on her red head, she looked like an animal. He had the feeling to have her back. He watched in the corridor. No alarm had been triggered. Langly was searching the software. He typed very fast, and tons of pictures and letters scrolled at a high rate. A characteristic “bip” resounded, and his face showed he had found what he was looking for. He then put a disc in, and they now waited.
- So? Mulder asked from where he was.
- It deciphers, I download it.
Scully had ceased searching. She then looked around, combing every corner with incisive eyes. Mulder started thinking she really wanted to find something. She turned to the desk, just some inches from her, the key.
She took it and walked past Mulder to open the other door in front. Mulder watched her do. She stayed for a moment in the door, and then came in, vanishing off his sight. He turned to Langly.
- How’s it going?
- Twenty-five per cent.
He nodded.
Scully was standing in the middle of the room and watched. Near her was a huge chair, with large thick handcuffs of steel, ankles and wrists. She had a slow heavy sigh. He could not see her face well, but she stared at something, pensive, or worried, he could not really tell as she held it inside. She took the thing, a chain, with a pendant. She squeezed it in her palms as her teeth bit her lower lip. He gently came closer to her.
- It’s yours, he said softly.
She turned to him, not really surprised to see him, tearless but eyes wet, she gazed at him without fear. She did not answer, but as he parted his lips to say nothing, he knew she remembered. He could stare for a lifetime.
He had taken her hands in his out of consciousness, and she pulled them off, and then rested her head on his shoulder, quietly, and he held her close to him.
- Shit, they heard in their earpieces.
- What Frohike? Scully asked.
- The Dobermans, he said, four of them.
- They must have located us when I activated the software.
- You have to get out of here, Byers said.
Scully and Mulder went in the room where Langly was still waiting the end of the software to download.
- Quick Langly! Mulder shouted.
- Ninety-eight per cent.
- Stop it Langly, Frohike said, you won’t make anything of it once you’re flat dead.
- They’re going down, Byers added.
- I got it, Langly dropped.
Byers and Frohike took their material and shoved off to the car where they got the connection back.
Langly took the disc off the computer.
- We’re going, Mulder said taking Scully by the arm.
The door at the other side of the corridor was opening. They ran in the other room. Langly shut the door and let the key inside the hole. Mulder watched around him.
- Over here, he said keenly.
Scully helped him push the desk. He put a chair on it and pulled off the ventilation gate. Someone tried to open the door. Langly jumped first in the narrow tunnel.
- Scully quick!
She followed Langly. The key fell on the floor. Mulder jumped to catch the side of the pipe, and kicked the chair down. Langly and Scully helped in on, and he put the gate back as they heard strong hits on the door.
- Frohike, you hear me, Langly whispered.
- Yeah hen, where are you?
- In an air pipe above the left room.
- I have a way out, left, straight, then right, then you’ll see a gate, the car is about sixty yards from there.
They scrawled as fast as they could, hurting their knees and elbows. They took the first turn, then all straight; they would make it what was Mulder thought as he quickly looked behind him. However, he might have thought it too quickly, because he heard the gate knocked.
On the right.
- Stop! He said, they’re waiting for us outside, shit!
Scully turned her head to him.
- What do we do now?
- What alternative? Langly asked.
- None, Byers said.
- The others are approaching, Scully said with a panicked look in the pipe behind her.
- That’s gonna shit hard, Frohike said, you go outside, you hear me?
- What? Scully said.
- We can’t, Langly barked.
Mulder looked behind. They were here.
- Do it! Frohike screamed.
- Shit! Langly said going forward.
They heard a motor raging in the night. Then shocks, not even a scream.
- He he, strike, Frohike said.
- Get out now guys, Byers said.
Langly kicked in the gate. He jumped in the car, followed by Scully. A gunshot burst. Scully felt her chest tighten. Mulder did not come.
Place unknown
Late
He had been running for a long time and he started to be really tired. He was now alone on the dark and waving of the last night steams. He stopped for a while to take his breath. Hands on his knees, he thought it would have happened one day or the other. A bit tight in his suit and that bow tie, he sweat a lot. The training in rooms, and even forest, would ever be enough here. He looked up. He had heard something, that noise, the noise. They were after him, they had found him, and he could be as good, and even better, as he had been, they were more. He had known about it, you could not mess with them. However, there was her, and she counted more than them, more than any project, money, love, life. Even her memory would still be more than them. But he had understood too late. In the end, he had lost everything.
He stayed a moment more behind a car. He would have to run until he could escape, anyway now what it would be. He closed his eyes and left his hideout. He could hear them, maybe some short streets from him. He was not far enough for they could not notice him. They ran fast, and they were never tired, never sick. And they were three. He ran for a while more, knowing they chased him, and that they would not stop unless a miracle happened. He felt he began to be old. Not so old, but not like before. How old would they all be?
The noise sounded horribly close now. Their legs and their awful polished black shoes. He was exhausted. He came in a darker little street, where he could not be seen because two of the three lamps there were broken. He remained his back against the wall, trying to not even breathe. They were dogs, or fortune tellers, because they quit walking at the entrance of the street. He could not believe that it was possible. The giants slowly appeared in the sick light of the white bulbs. He opened his eyes, ready to move again, but something was so wrong. They coldly walked to him, as they already know he would not escape them this time. And he knew him too. The last put his foot next to him for the last time, in the pure darkness of hell on Earth. The other two stopped some yards away, and they watched through their unreadable glasses, as the giant caught him by the throat, motionless; emotionless. It was his fate for believing he could be by himself. It was the rule. The third giant lifted the poor body above the ground, still back to the wall, tense and red in the only light shining like a still firefly. His bones cracked. The sparkles on her face were fading away. He had hoped for nothing. He loosened up the burden now dead. It fell on the floor nearly silently. The mission was accomplished. The other two waited for their other piece to join them, and as a same unique line, they left the street.
Washington DC – May, 7
6.02 am
He had been sitting there for three hours now. He did not want to admit he had fallen asleep. He had slept on the file, the pictures of his partner, and two weeks of investigations that led nowhere. He would never give up, yet, he felt deprived of resources face to the wall of the agents who went on with their lives, as if nothing had ever happened. Skinner had helped him to search, not like a boss, but like a friend.
He felt the wisdom given to the poor of everything, he was brought forward and backward, he was slow. Since she had gone.
He wrapped the pictures into the file, put his coat on and left. He might have a last chance.
Lair of The Lone Gunmen
6.42 am
Langly was on his laptop, the only one awake since he had met pretty hacker creature at a congress, and he had been chatting with her to early in the morning these days. He quit nearly instantly his newly addiction when he saw it was Mulder who had rung the doorbell. Forgetting for a while his beautifully good hacking intentions, he opened the door to his friend. He always had good stories to tell.
Woken up by the noise, the other two got up. Byers was perfectly all dressed whereas Frohike was still in pajamas and slippers, and an odd balaclava. Mulder looked tired; fact confirmed when he let himself fall into the smashed couch.
- Blank night, Mulder, Langly mocked.
- And we’re never invited, Frohike added.
- I’ll need your help guys, Mulder broke suddenly.
It was not like him to look so serious, and not crack a joke back to their directed comments. They looked at each others.
- What can we do for you? Byers asked.
- Scully’s missing.
They looked at him as if he was an alien.
- For several weeks, Mulder continued, Skinner helped me search, he sighed, vainly, no need to say beside Skinner, I wasn’t proposed much help.
The gunmen did not really know what to tell him. They pretty well knew it was a delicate situation. But they all had affection for agent Scully, and they were touched. Mulder took his chin in his fingers to hide his trouble the seconds it needed to disappear behind its usual casualness.
- Alright, Langly said first, what else can you tell us?
- Her name appears nowhere, nobody saw her, it’s like she never existed.
Mulder chilled to his own words.
- How long has she been missing? Frohike asked. He looked worried.
- A bit more than two weeks.
It was a fact.
- I know it’s much; I should’ve come to you earlier, but…
He bit his lower lip.
- But I refuse to give up on her. I can count on you?
- Of course, Frohike said immediately.
- We’ll do everything to help you, Byers said.
Langly was already behind his laptop, and he said with a laid-back tone:
- Go home, Mulder, have some rest, we’ll contact you as soon as we something.
Once Mulder left, Frohike had turned to Langly.
- You look so sure of yourself.
- You saw his head? He looked like an actor of The House of the Dead. And anyways, I’ve got a little idea. Byers, could you gather the airports’ surveillance videos, or at least see them?
Byers nodded.
- Frohike, the same with car renting, trains, I’m gonna try to hack the registers from here. Good luck.
Fox Mulder’s apartment
7.19pm
Mulder was very tired and he fell on his couch. In spite of his exhaustion, it was hard for him to find peace in sleep.
The phone was ringing. He had slept all day long, and he felt a little appeased for the first time in weeks. He picked up the phone without switching on the light.
- Mulder.
- Agent Mulder, I have information for you.
- Who are you?
- I’ll leave you an envelope where you know, ask for a margarita at the bar. Be quick.
And he hung up.
What did he exactly mean by “be quick”?
Like he was advised, he took a margarita at the bar, and he was given a key for the lockbox 901 at the closer station. There lied a simple sheet, with three written on it.
9.27pm
Langly had downloaded all the flights and their passengers within the last 3 weeks, in Washington DC and its surroundings. He made a break when Frohike came back a while after. He came back with nothing out of a sad face. The rental did not have for habit to be talkative, and three out of four stations were small, or old, and were not equipped with video surveillance.
There were knocks on the door.
- Mulder? Frohike asked.
To tell the truth, both Langly and him expected the return of Byers, who was their last and maybe only chance to have interesting information.
- You look surprised, Mulder said as he let himself in like he would have done two weeks earlier.
- You’re…ok? Frohike asked.
- Yeah, I was contacted.
He gave the sheet to Langly, and Frohike came closer.
- Clara Rubinson, Red, Kisangani, what the hell that means?
- I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure it’s something to do with Scully missing. Where is Byers?
- He won’t be late.
They all sat down around a drink, and waited in silence.
- Sorry, Byers said, it’s very late.
He stood near the table.
- There were lots of tapes to watch, I could have made it before, but the guard was rigid, and I had to wait around for he was relieved… the next guy gave me access to the last two weeks of tapes, and I don’t regret it.
- What? You found something? The impatient Frohike asked.
- I wanted to show you first, he said as he put the tape in the VCR.
He put it in fast motion, and they all watched with attention, tense faces in the half-dark of the lair. Mulder wanted to come to the point quick and felt ants in his numb hands. Byers stopped it, at last. In less tragic circumstances, the pictures that followed would have been banal. People moved in an airport. Mulder narrowed his eyes. Two very tall men, in suits and dark tinted glasses walked on each side of small woman with a long black coat. But she was a brunette.
- Now! Byers said.
He had made a sort of montage? The camera shot in a closer angle. It was certainly the one shooting up to the last corridor that led to the tarmac. The two men and the woman appeared again. Byers stopped on the picture. Mulder felt his heart race in his chest.
- It’s her, he said, relieving the stress.
She just had a wig.
- The problem is a name appears on no list at all, Langly said.
- But I checked the timetables, Byers protested, and it’s the flight of ten days ago, for Kisangani.
Mulder, Langly and Frohike watched each others.
- What’s wrong?
- Mulder had a contact; Frohike explained giving him the sheet.
- Alright, Langly nearly shouted, I ‘got the passengers’ list for that flight.
The list was printed.
Mulder took the page. He expected to see the name Clara Rubinson on it. But it was not. There were two hundred and six people on the plane, and ninety three were women.
- Langly, can you dress a list of the women’s names? Mulder said putting on his coat.
- Where are you going? Frohike asked.
- Book on the first flight to Kisangani.
- Take two, Frohike said.
- Three.
Byers shrugged with a smile.
Mulder did not say anything, but he was moved.
Kinshasa Flight NW 1356
May, 9
Mulder was slightly irritated. They had found a flight to Kinshasa and would not be able to fly to Kisangani before the day after. He only tried to keep in mind they were on the good path, and that they would find Scully in the end. Uncertainty usually gave him a boost. He tried to focus.
Langly woke him up from his day dreaming. He still was absorbed on his laptop.
- It’s ok for the rooms.
Frohike sighed. Byers had won their third game.
- Don’t pull that face Frohike, Byers is the home-runner of the chess club, Mulder said deadpan.
Langly sniggered.
- Your move Frohike.
- Ha, I’m done!
- You prefer liar’s poker? Mulder asked.
Langly puffed. Frohike had lost big time. Mulder remembered Scully has accepted to come there, not for the game, but for the music. There was a intimate piano jazz concert after the games, and so she had passed by to see them play. Mulder wondered whether she knew well about the game because she was good at math, or because she had already played.
- Mulder, hang on, Langly announced, I found something you’re gonna like.
- What? Mulder mechanically asked, a little dreamy.
- There’ll be a conference, on the human brain and its suggestibility, in Kisangani, and guess what? Professor Clara Rubinson will be there.
Mulder’s eye sparkled.
- When?
- Tomorrow evening.
- Tell me about luck, Frohike dropped.
Mulder disappeared into his seat and started thinking, music on the ears.
Kisangani – The Tropical Capricorn
3.58 pm
The cargo from Kinshasa had barely landed less than two hours earlier. Mulder knew they had little time before the conference, and that a lot of their course will be hazardous; and dangerous. He was glad not to be alone on that one.
Out of the biting heat and the flies, Mulder liked the place. A big forest park circled the hotel. Scully would like. Focus.
The boy at the reception gave them their keys. They could have booked only two rooms: one the gunmen took, with one double bed and one single, and a room with two single beds where Mulder buried himself for an hour before to join the guys in the big salon, in which they had to finalize their project.
5.02 pm
Frohike and Langly had come the firsts and sat down in big couches with sort of small palm trees above their heads. Frohike ordered a margarita, and Langly an Indian Porto. They were soon joined by Byers, who had decided to remain all sober. Mulder still was not there.
- He’s sleeping on play-boy, Langly said.
- Sorry, I’m late, they heard.
- What happened to you mate, Frohike ask with an odd voice.
- I was going down the stairs when I heard two people who talked about the conference of this evening, and I learnt I had Professor Clara Rubinson herself in front of me. I have four pass. You won’t have to enter by the roof I suppose.
- I’m proud of you Mulder, good boy, Langly said with a drunken pout.
- How did you do that? Byers asked to distract him from the other two.
- I told her I was a searcher, I was documented a lot because of you, and I’ve had Scully for several years, he smiled weakly.
- What do we eat? Frohike shouted.
Mulder turned to Byers, surprised.
- Plastered. That must be the heat.
8.06 pm
To come inside the forums, everybody had had to do some dress effort. It was very difficult for Langly to wear a necktie, which was more or less wrongly tied besides. But no one looked to give a damn, and all of them found themselves under the huge, high, magnificent shelter roof.
Once alone, Frohike and Langly went to hide in their cupboard. Langly ripped off his tie and began to install the dispositive as Frohike watched out.
Meanwhile, Byers and Mulder came in the immense conference room in a basically but not unpleasant hubbub. The conference was going to start, and the noise intensified before melting.
- Here we are, they heard in their earpieces.
A man was talking to announce the professor’s works. Langly searched more details on her.
- She’s good, doubtless, he said.
- You said it man.
Mulder and Byers smiled.
A religious silence grew in room, and Professor Rubinson came in under tons of applauds. She introduced herself, and gave a description of the points she wanted to tackle.
- We’re gonna have all the yada yada now, Langly said, ok guys; I’m connected to the cameras of the conference room’s surveillance.
Now he could see what they saw; or almost.
Suddenly, Mulder grabbed Byers’ arm and instinctively made himself smaller in his seat.
- These are the two men who escorted Scully, he whispered.
Byers nodded.
The two passed near them as if they did not exist, what relieved them. Mulder and Byers followed them with the eyes. They joined two other guys built on the same model. These got up and left. The two new sat down instead. Mulder leaned forward. Each of them was apart a dark-haired woman.
- Good to have your place hot, he mused, Langly, can you focus on row five, on the right.
- Sure chicken.
- You see the two terminators?
- Yup.
- Can you narrow on the woman in the middle?
Langly remained silent for a moment.
- You got it Mulder.
- Yeah, I must go there.
Byers caught his arm.
- If you do that now, they will catch you, and we lose her.
Mulder knew he was right. Once more, he kept the steam inside. Scully was there, just some yards from him and he could not go to her.
Langly was trying to obtain a configuration of the whole forums. He quickly wanted to find a way to take Scully away without being shot in the process. The conference was at its climax. Mulder fidgeted in his seat like a boy. The four men could feel the tension through the joy of the event. Nobody around could know what was going to happen.
- I can’t do anything if she doesn’t get out of that fucking room, Langly said irritated.
- We must be able to get closer, Mulder whispered in the same state of mind.
- I’ll go inside, Frohike cut.
- How? Byers asked more serene.
- There’re cables at that level, I’m gonna disguise, I have what it needs in the maintenance cupboard one door away.
- Ok, good luck.
It was easy for him to go inside the cloakroom and steal a technician’s uniform. He came inside the conference room like in butter, and slipped himself to row five without anyone even paying attention to that poor maintenance guy. That way, he could baste to Scully with no difficulty. Even the two Dobermans did not notice him. He had his head bent to the floor; however he could look up and see her face. She was impassive; nonetheless, her look had something both sad and angry. “Catch her attention!” What? Oh, the cable.
- Sorry, ma’m.
She looked down to him.
- Sorry, sir.
Frohike stayed still. He did his false job. He then crawled himself back.
- She doesn’t recognize me.
- What?!
Mulder had jumped off his chair. He was already out of the room. He joined Langly in the cupboard. He could not stand to do nothing. Frohike got out right after him. Mulder was seething, completely powerless.
- What can we do now?
- Chill out, Mulder, we’re gonna find something; Langly said typing faster than the speed of light.
- If she doesn’t recognize us, why would she follow us?
Only a cold silence answered Mulder’s rhetoric. He was right. That was all. The conference was ending.
There was nothing they could have done.
I told all I had inside about the Fowley to my partner. It did good to me.
He did efforts towards me for two months I’d say, but it’s even better. No phone, less PC. We go out.
And about the Fow? She knows I hate her now.
That’s true I keep what I feel inside. But if you really ask, I tell you.
Ok, it’s getting more balanced, but he knows I only value people, and their efforts, on the lenght.
There’s still work on that goal, but it’s in big progress.
no it was a joke.
I would like to start with an old story I wrote some years ago, maybe I will change things in the process. It’s one of these I liked to write. It’s long and mythological inspired And I had not finished it at the time.
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.