Another Existence

Alex Krycek knew what it was to sell his soul.

He thought he had known before. Many times. But now he realized that each step closer to the Inferno had only prepared him for what he had to do tonight.

He swallowed back the rising bile and reminded himself one more time that he was doing the only thing he could at this point.

He had to kill Fox Mulder.

It wasn't as if he didn't realize what this act made him. He knew. He knew that to be Mulder's assassin was to forever place himself in the camp of the Devil himself. To be branded with the distinction of having destroyed humanity's last hope of purity, innocence and good.

But he knew that were humanity to survive the coming times, they would have to be rid of this crippling naiveté.

And, as ever, Alex Krycek's primary objective was survival.

God damn you, Mulder. Damn you for not being just a little more like me. Just a little more, and I'd be able to let you live. If I could believe, anywhere in my mind and soul, that you could be persuaded to give up some of your frustratingly single-minded ideas about right and wrong, I would be able to hand on to the tattered remains of my battered soul.

But I know you, Mulder. Better than you know yourself. Maybe better than anyone, except maybe Scully, knows you. And you'd never go for it. No matter how many other lives it would save; no matter how much promise it would provide for Earth's future; and no matter how much power and glory it would give you, you would never be a part of the destruction of the remaining rebel holdouts.

It's too late now. Resistance is only going make things messier and more painful than they have to be. If you could only see that, and join the ever-widening circle of future world leaders, we could work together to make the process as quick and simple as possible. You and I, paving the way for a new world order, facilitating the takeover so that it happened ubiquitously and completely without most of the world's knowledge until it was too late to fight.

Instead, you want to fight us to the end, getting in the way, costing the lives of too many valuable pieces of the future ruling class and postponing and complicating the inevitable takeover of the planet.

We can't let you do it anymore, brother. It's time to let go of all of those lingering hopes and dreams of freedom and autonomy. When you allowed Scully's baby to come to term in spite of what it might mean to the entire human race, I realized that your heart and your misplaced sense of honor and loyalty would mean the death and destruction of everything I've worked so hard for.

It was a test, tovarisch. And you failed. As I knew you would.

They told me to recruit you. They told me to turn you and to bring you into our burgeoning power base.

Yeah, right. Like I said, Mulder. They don't know you like I do.

It was supposed to happen so differently. You were supposed to be replaced. Replicated. Another Mulder, this one more than happy to do whatever we needed it to in order to make the invasion as painless and quick as possible.

I already dealt with your death, brother. And with what I knew they were doing to you on that assimilation vessel all those months. I worked through my grief and horror and pain and came to think of you as already gone.

When you were taken for replication, I stopped resisting them and began a new quest, to make sure that I was included in the rapidly coalescing power structure, and to use my power and influence to prevent any bloody uprisings before they could complicate things. I looked forward to working with the new you. Even the pretense of teamwork between us made me heady with anticipation. They would have preserved your intellect, your personality and your skills. Those who didn't know you well would never know it wasn't you and when you silently worked behind the scenes to destroy their rebellious efforts, you would be the last one they'd ever think to suspect.

In your absence we were able to advance the invasion in breathtaking order, working our way into the highest offices of power with relative effortlessness. Skinner and Scully and even Doggett can claim to be fighting the future, but we all know that without your belief, passion and single-mindedness, they are as effectual as your typical government employee. You can't stop an alien invasion and still come in under budget, can you, brother?

Watching the ease with which we danced around their pathetic attempts at discovery, I actually came to believe that the takeover would be accomplished with very little bloodshed and revolution. Just a nice, insidious infection of the planet's power centers, culminating in the final day when it would all be made clear to the general populace. By the time the story broke, people would already be quite completely enslaved and resistance would be nearly impossible and simple to quash.

Then it all went to hell.

They dug you up and through one Goddamned lucky break after another, arrested the replication process and revived you.

The real you.

So now instead of marching next to an alien double-agent wearing your face, I am right back where I've always been. Struggling to catch my breath as you do your best to fuck everything up without really understanding it.

The Controllers were dumbfounded. They couldn't believe all the serendipitous events that led to your resurrection and the end of all their careful plans.

Of course, they don't know you like I do. Serendipity follows you. Luck and circumstance have bedded down permanently with you, Mulder, and when the dominoes starting falling in the direction opposite to their intentions, I just sat back and enjoyed the show.

Scrambling to salvage their original plans, they gave me the vaccine and ordered me to come after you. To make you a part of it all willingly and consentingly. I knew it was hopeless to believe that you would ever sacrifice your nobility, and Scully's unborn child, and it hardly surprised me when your flunkies all gathered around Scully's baby to protect it, not even interested in how that might affect the future of the human race.

So I watched as they brought you back without the vaccine, against all odds, and I knew then that my next course of action was set.

I actually enjoyed playing the savior, teaming up with you all in your silly efforts to save Scully from the Billy Miles replicant. Save her from her child's creators and guardians. From the very beings responsible for her own survival. If I hadn't been so nauseated at what I had to do, I would have laughed.

You'll never understand. You'll never give in and join us. And you'll never give up. So it has to be this way. God damn you, Mulder. Damn you for making me do this. I don't think I've ever been this angry.

I quietly step out of my car and make my way over to yours.

"He failed. He's obviously not as competent as you had described." The man-being's eyes were expressionless, its tone flat.

"Be that as it may, Mulder's untimely resurrection makes it imperative that we preserve as many of the original collaborators as possible. We simply can't afford to lose him." The other being's face was equally void of emotion, but there was the slightest suggestion of power behind the toneless words.

They watched for a moment as Walter Skinner brought his car around, preparing to put the body of his victim in the trunk.

"Why don't we just replicate him?"

The commander's gaze was angry. "You fool. We don't need someone who looks like Alex Krycek. We need the original human. His history, knowledge, skills, and influence are invaluable to us and are critical if we are to salvage our plans for the takeover of the planet. He's more important to this mission than you are. Now do it."

The other man-being nodded submissively and walked swiftly over to where Krycek's killer was getting out of his car. His expression never changed as he back-handed the shocked man and knocked him to his knees on the concrete. The man lunged at the being, but it sidestepped him and brought its hands around in a double fist, propelling the man several feet to the side, leaving him lying unconconscious in a heap, possibly dead. It was of no consequence to the alien, since the man obviously no longer served as an obstacle to the main objective.

The being knelt beside the rapidly cooling form of the failed assassin. It reached out a hand and laid its palm on the gray, blood-spattered forehead and closed its eyes.