"No way," Mulder said irritably. "No way, that's crazy—"
"Mulder, Belleville Pike will take you straight onto the Skyway and the Holland
Tunnel—"
"Two-eighty is bound to be faster—"
"It's a Sunday, it doesn't make—"
"—and besides, I'm not sure I even want to take the Holland Tunnel."
Alex stared at him. "You are out of your freakin' mind, you realize—you
aren't seriously thinking of taking Lincoln and Midtown... Mulder, are you nuts—"
Mulder glared at the road. "All right, all right." He made a sharp
left, then turned his glare on Alex. "Scullydoesn't do this to me."
"Yeah, but Scully doesn't do anything foryou either." Alex leered
pleasantly.
"Oh man, I knew this was gonna happen," Mulder muttered. But his lips were
twitching even after he looked away, and there was a light flush on his cheeks that even
the brutal summer heat couldn't entirely account for.
"So why did you blow off Pilsson?" Alex asked, settling back in his seat. He
couldn't get comfortable; the air-conditioner was still out and the mercury had pushed
well past the centenary. Melting popsicles were less sticky than he was feeling right now.
Mulder's tones edged into dark, disgusted snottiness. "That federally-funded
brain-cutter—that GS-13 pension-sucking hack? Oh, I don't know... didn't like his tie, I guess."
After a minute of silence, he added quietly, muted anger simmering below the surface,
"That whole set-up is just an invitation for systemized abuse. Cole's level of
functioning was low, at least according to Pilsson's notes, but he wasn't vegetative or
catatonic. He usually rated about a 15 to 20 on the GAF scale—and pulled a 100, of course, on the V.A.'s own disabilities rating schedule. He had a primary diagnosis of
posttraumatic stress disorder and had been treated for plenty of others—substance abuse,
panic disorder, agoraphobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder... not to mention his
somatization disorder—"
"His sleeping problem."
"—whatever that was," Mulder finished dryly. "He had chronic PTSD and
they had him locked away in the basement like the Count of Monte Cristo—don't say
it," he added, glancing over at Alex's ready smirk. "According to his file he
was scheduled for group counselling and physiotherapy sessions, but he'd stopped going a
few years ago, and Pilsson had never pushed him back into treatment. He himself was
supposed to have a weekly therapy session with Cole, doing the old cognitive-behavioral
waltz, but his entries suggest he'd been skipping them, since around about the same time.
I doubt anyone was calling him up for question on the matter. And get this"—he
looked over at Alex again—"there was nothing in the file about any sleep
disorder except a notation made almost twelve years ago on his admittance: self-reported
insomnia, 'Patient mentioned trouble sleeping', and a remark to prescribe
sedatives. I don't even want to tell you all the medications he was taking. Suffice to say
it's longer than your average shopping list."
"Kinda funny isn't it," Alex said absently. "I mean, all the medications
he was on, all the medications in Grissom's medicine cabinet. These days the doctors are
taking as much as the patients it seems."
"The New England Journal of Medicine reported recently that in an anonymous
survey two out of five anesthesiologists admitted to regular amphetamine use on
duty."
Alex raised a brow. "What about the surgeons?"
Mulder just shook his head; they'd slid into some heavy traffic and his eyes were
working the road. After a few minutes he said, "V.A. hospitals aren't always on the
cutting edge of therapeutic trends, but Cole's situation stunk. A veteran with PTSD, even
one with agoraphobia, should never have been locked away in isolation."
"It was a hole," Alex said with blunt loathing and enough force to draw
Mulder's steady, contemplative gaze away from the road a moment. Alex thought the other
man was going to start playing psych major again on that one, but he didn't address the
remark.
"His treatment should have included a holistic approach, even if it didn't go by
that name. Somehow I don't get the feeling Cole got to spend much time in the dayroom. Low
exposure to full-spectrum light, limited social interaction, long periods in a
low-stimulus environment—all this would produce a form of sensory deprivation. His
problems could only have been worsened under such circumstances."
"And that's why you looked like you wanted to use Pilsson's tie for a practice
target?"
Mulder's fingers gripped the steering wheel more tightly, knuckles stretching skin.
"You could take any relatively normal, well-adjusted man off the street and toss him
into that kind of environment and have a basket case within six months. And Cole was a
diagnosed patient supposedly receiving rehabilitative treatment... I don't like
hacks."
Alex stretched his knees, fiddled his fingers on the open window edge. "Cole might
have been pretty hard to deal with—to treat—"
"I've seen patients with almost no communicative skills, patients who spend their
days smearing themselves with their own shit, who get better treatment." Mulder's
voice had risen slightly with bitterness and anger, and his hands had tightened further on
the wheel. His entire body had taken on a building charge of tension that seemed to Alex
out of proportion to the topic.
"Take it easy," Alex said quietly. "I agree with you."
There was a small silence. Both men's gazes were directed outside the car, on the
traffic-thick road. Summer sunlight blazed off the trim and windows of other cars,
bouncing into their eyes with small, blinding strikes. There was a dull, monochromatic
cast to the day despite this, as if the world had been toned down, repainted in shades of
dun and grey. Even the occasional touch of earth-sprung green seemed dusty, drab.
Dropping off for a bit into his own thoughts, feeling them rev and slow like the
sluggish cars around them, Alex replayed the last few days in his head, trying to figure
out what he was doing. Was he on the right course? Was his assignment proceeding as it
should? Well... no, it wasn't really, was it. Even not looking at the man sitting next to
him, Alex was sharply aware of him. The shape of his body beneath linen and cotton, the
sensual smell of him, the small, shifting movements he made as he drove. Impatient,
restless. Their bodies had fit together too well for him to forget, too well for him to go
on from this point as if Mulder was just a job, a temporary partner whose career in the
FBI, unbeknownst to him, was probably winding down to its terminus. The switch between
Alex's legs might have been pointing off, but the current still flowed in him strongly.
All it needed was a touch and he'd be lit up, burning.
Even thinking about the things they'd done was pushing tendrils of well-being through
his body, uncoiling sprouts of arousal that blossomed ticklishly in his balls. Oh shit.
He forced himself not to look at Mulder. Mulder. What the hell kind of a name was that.
Betraying his good intentions with an unobtrusive sidelong look, Alex frowned at the other
man, trying to find fault. He'd had no trouble doing so their first few meetings, but now
couldn't recall what it was about Mulder that had particularly bugged him. He was rude...
to those who probably deserved it. Moody—true, but then so was Alex. A flake, though,
that couldn't be ignored. And yet, for someone rumored to be a flake, he was ten times the
investigator of any other agent Alex had met so far. The man's brain might have been
patented by IBM, even if it was programmed by Daffy Duck.
Gloomily, Alex stared out his side window, watching the family station wagons pass with
their kidloads, the truckers roaring by like bull elephants, the air-conditioned outings
of bracingly straight yuppies and ancient, lane-crawling couples. Wedlock and gridlock.
Face it, Alex told himself. You shouldn't have fucked him. You shouldn't have
slept with him or taken a shower with him or played with him, or let him get under your
skin in any way. Now you've got to deal with it. So just soldier through. Do what you have
to do. If you don't, someone else will. A man with a brain like his isn't going to have
any trouble finding a job. He'll probably even be better off outside the bureau. He
doesn't fit the mold. Like some sleek, nervous pony prancing circles around the plow
horses. They must fucking hate him. And an ass like that doesn't belong on the federal
payroll. Better venues for it, I can think of plenty. Always looks ready to take off his
suit. Makes you wonder. MUFON centerfold, maybe. But when that suit comes off he's a full
box of eye candy, with a cherry on top, and they've got him fitted for a plain brown
wrapper, his dick wrapped in red tape. What a waste.
For just a minute Alex fantasized a future in which Mulder was booted from the bureau,
never knowing that Alex was the one who'd fitted him for the boot. Why shouldn't they go
on seeing each other? Assuming no charges were brought, of course. (Which assumed in turn
that official discipline was even the point of his assignment, Alex reminded
himself cynically... and in that brief thought flashed a newly sharpened blade of worry,
harkening dark possibilities he hadn't let himself fully contemplate... and which he
refused to now.)
On the surface of Alex's mind his fanciful thoughts rolled on. What a perfect set up it
would be. Mulder needing a place to stay. Mulder needing someone to gripe to... Mulder
waking up in Alex's bed, tousled, smiling, stretching in the tangle of sheets. Have a
good day at work, Alex. Thought I'd make spaghetti tonight, okay with you?
Get a fucking grip, Alex, Alex said sarcastically to himself.
"We should probably lay down some kind of ground rules," Mulder said out of
the blue, signifying with eerie relevance upon Alex's line of thought. He was staring
straight ahead into traffic, and spoke as if he'd just been dosed with emotional
novacaine, but Alex could nonetheless see small signs of nervous energy in his still,
well-governed body.
"What brings this on?"
"Besides the obvious?" Silence. "We both know there's a line
here—"
"Is this going to be a grown-up conversation?" Alex heard the defensive
mockery in his voice, paused and swallowed before going on. "Can we just take this as
said?"
"I just wanted to tell you," Mulder said quietly but determinedly, "that
I tend to get very focused on the job, and if I find myself getting distracted I may do
things to help me stay focused. I mean, if I call you 'Krycek' or forget to smile or don't
offer you any of my fries, I don't want you to take it personally."
Alex looked at him, an irritated, disbelieving scowl twisting his lips. "Mulder.
Like I'm really going to pull some swooning faggot shit—is that what you think?"
Mulder sighed. "No." He seemed about to say more, then didn't. Silence
stretched out again.
After a mile or so, Alex said, "I didn't mean to slam at you. I'm sorry."
There was much more he might have said, but every tautly stretched fiber in his being had
long ago been fashioned into a man who balked at queer-to-queer chit-chat. He usually had
a good eye for finding his type: the kind of casual, occasional lay who wouldn't press for
apartment keys and birthday gifts, and would be content to drop by on short notice for a
quick fuck and maybe some Chinese take-out, if Alex was feeling sociable after the act. He
shied off at any hint of structured 'communication' that might lead him into deep and
dangerous waters. And he had no interest whatsoever in having such a touchy-feely
discussion in the passenger seat of a bureau Bucar with a man he barely knew. A few kinky
screws in a hotel room didn't call for matching bands and mortgage vows.
Mulder nodded at Alex's terse apology. After a few more miles, he said in an easy
voice, "What did you make of that news about Cole's cross-twisting?"
"Incredible," Alex said immediately, sincerely. He shook his head. "I
can't believe it." He glanced at Mulder. "I can't think of any other agent who
would have caught that. I've never seen anything like it."
Mulder felt a tiny blush threaten to advance face front from ears to cheeks. "I
wasn't fishing for compliments," he said quickly. "I just—"
"Go fish, Mulder. Why shouldn't you take a few bows? That's how you get ahead in
this world. You've got to blow your own horn—you can't just tap dance for them, you've
got to hold out your hat, collect your due."
Any more cliches you want to trot out? Mulder thought wryly. But he didn't say
it aloud. Bad form to dig at a man while he's complimenting you. Might as well make
this lingo a tango.
"It's been a long time since I've been on the fast track, Alex. My goals have
changed since I joined the bureau. I had to leave the rat race to the rats."
"Are you calling me a rat, Mulder?"
"Well... a cute rat." Mulder gave him a mild sideways look.
In response Alex just shook his head, feigning more exasperation than he really felt.
He flicked a look at his watch. "I don't know if we're going to make it to Mrs Diaz's
before dinner time."
Against the confines of the car and his seat belt, Mulder managed to strike a starched
and granite semi-pose. "Well, guess what—we're the FBI. They'll deal with it."
"Oh, tough guy—"
"Badges?" Mulder continued, running happily along his own dialogue track. His
voice had degraded to an atrocious take-off of a Mexican accent. "We don't need no
stinkin' badges—"
With considerable startlement, Alex realized he was almost about to giggle like a
schoolboy. Get a grip, he told himself once again. Aloud, he cleared his throat.
"Do you want me to call her back?"
"Not yet. Let's let it go a while longer. See how late we're running once we hit
the Long Island Expressway... if we're running very late, I might drop you off at the
Diaz house, run an errand... " He trailed off, frowning, having apparently developed
a sudden, intense interest in the bumper of the car ahead of him.
"What errand?" Alex asked casually.
"Mmm... I really do want to stop back by Mrs Dipace's. She's in the same general
neighborhood, it shouldn't take long."
"You're not going to try and hypnotize her yourself?"
"No, of course not. I just want to go over her statement again."
"Mmm." Alex nodded, looked out the window, seeming to accept this at face
value. "Why did you take Cole's Bible?" he asked, turning back after a minute.
"Take a look." Mulder nudged the book across the seat toward Alex.
"Gloves?" Alex asked laconically, touching the book at one edge, though
Mulder himself had already handled it.
"Prints aren't the point—though you should put it in a bag when you're done.
Spilling a Frosty on it would be my last act before meeting Death by Scully... Pilsson
identified it as Cole's; if it has any evidentiary value it'll be in that, as an indicator
of state of mind and possibly intent."
Alex had picked up the Bible and was handling it with a curious deliberateness and
absence of expression, the way another man might inspect a jarred uterus. "What am I
looking for?" he asked, opening the book and flipping idly through the pages.
"Exodus." He glanced over at Alex's skimming hands, added rather dryly,
"Toward the front, Alex. You shouldn't have any trouble, anyway—ah,
yes—"
"Jesus," Alex muttered, studying the violently marked pages.
"Well, not quite yet... just think if God had wielded a red pen—one could wish
he'd done a bit more editing... certainly around Corinthians."
"Oh, this is classic," Alex said half to himself, scanning the scribbled
pages.
"So they say," Mulder murmured back, eyes on the road.
"'--then thou shalt give life for life, / Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand
for hand, foot for foot, / Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe'—he's
drawn freakin' daggers around the verses." Alex laughed once, a sharp, ironic sound.
"Quick trial, looks like." He turned the marked pages back and forth, frowned.
"Did you notice this when you were in his room—you didn't say anything then."
Mulder nodded. "I hoped Cole was still in the building. You can't just
take a man's Bible, you know."
Alex grimaced. "You can have mine."
"Oh, do you have one?" Mulder asked, letting his bland conversational tone
mask an almost professional curiosity.
"Why didn't you show me the markings then?" Alex said, following another line
of thought.
"Um." Mulder gave him a sheepish, apologetic look. "Sorry. I noticed
them after I showed it to you, and then I was distracted. You wanna beat me?" His
smile was one of impure beauty.
"I thought we weren't mixing business with pleasure."
"Oh yeah."
"I just don't get it—tell me this—how do people read this and manage to pick out
just what's useful—if it's all the Word of God"—he spoke in jeering
capitals—"then why don't they obey them all?" He pressed a finger back upon the
opened page. "'He that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to
death'—yeah right."
"Guess we all have our blind spots."
"'Thou shalt also make a table of shittim wood: two cubits'—fuck."
With a sound that was half sigh, half sneer, Alex shut the Bible and tossed it on the
seat, then recalled Mulder's words and dug out an evidence bag from the glove compartment.
"So Cole's been on the loose," Alex mused aloud after a minute. "And
obviously has some sort of revenge thing going for old acquaintances... you're not going
to sing, are you?" Alex smiled slightly at Mulder's grave profile.
"I only sing when deeply inspired."
They exchanged a heavy-lidded look, both of them suddenly recalled back to their
pleasures of the morning. Both shifted in their seats almost at the same moment.
Jesus, Mulder thought. A fresh trickle of sweat was striping his brow. Without
warning he'd become fully conscious of the younger man's presence again. Rushes of
gut-knotting desire had been sweeping him for the last few days at odd, unexpected
moments—in the library, on the street, in the alley (don't think of it)—but he'd
tried to convince himself that off-loading his rocks would ease the ache, that companiable
lust could segue comfortably into mere companionship.
So much for theory.
He should have listened to the soft, nagging whisper of experience. It looked like the
odds had taken a sharp upswing in favor of messy. What did I expect after that? Banging
away at each other when we should have been banging away at our field reports like two
good little fibbies. Frisking like minks when we should have been working, if not working
then sublimating our higher Malthusian impulses into bluff, macho, punch-your-arm
camaraderie. Known him how long? Four days? God, I let him choke me. Within
him, Mulder winced. His entire body flushed with the memory. And he knew just what to
do... god he was so fucking good...
Feeling rather light-headed, Mulder ran a free hand through his hair and tried to find
focus in the road, its turning wheels and careening machinery. He didn't want to think
about the man next to him and couldn't stop himself, his mind babbled on—
...pull him out of that crappy suit. Hard as steel. Cyborg, obviously. Panther
haunting a man's body. Mouth like a blowtorch, kissing him is like taking a toke, hot
breath, but good... used to chew on pine cones down by the lake at the summer house, a
taste like that... three, four? Wow. I really need to get laid more often, this is
obvious... god, he knew just what to do. Can't believe I can sit... dick like a
jackhammer, absolutely fucking perfect — fuck—oh fuck, this is not the
time for this...
Alex glanced over, down. "Wanna find a rhododendron, lover?" he said with a
cheerful grin, collecting a dark, smoldering look from Mulder in return.
"Shut up. It's just a mild case of hyperemia. It'll pass." Mulder smothered
his own burgeoning grin with difficulty. The virile reflex wasn't exactly quelled either.
"Hmm... "
"Stop staring. You're making it nervous."
"Ever had a blow-job in a speeding car?"
"Government, rental, or private?"
"Oh, baby!" Alex laughed. "You're a bitch on wheels." He chuckled
again, as at a more private joke. Mulder's dark, dry look returned and directed itself his
way.
"I've a sensitive nature, I do. Please be kind, Alex."
"When you gonna top me, Mulder?"
"Well, not now, I'm sorry to say—"
"You know, I had a fantasy about doing you in a rest stop."
Mulder gave him an intrigued, semi-incredulous look. "How long have we
known each other?"
"Mm. Good point."
"Was I making one?" Mulder asked himself aloud.
"Hand job, Mulder?" In Alex's offhand tone, the inquiry might have been just
another way of saying, See the Redskins game last night?
"We're between two Mack trucks, in case you haven't noticed... still, if
we didn't have government plates," he mused dreamily.
"I'll bet." Alex seemed to grow bored with the banter. He looked off out the
window, lapsing into quiet.
Disappointed, Mulder sneaked a diagonal, downward peek at Alex's person. Was that just
the drape of the cloth, or—he suddenly smiled to himself. No drape, that. Damn, he wished
they could stop. But there was no way to fit a quickie into their schedule at this
late hour, even if it were otherwise thinkable. Which, he reminded himself resolutely, it
wasn't.
With waning arousal and the ambiguous silence that had settled, shadows drifted into
his mind. For a while, Mulder's thoughts spun wind-blown, picked up and swirled by a
gathering of dark mental weather. He thought of the case, of deaths, of driving along
highways at dusk. Obscure Anglican poetry. Suburbs and sodomy. A summer day ending as the
sun slides lower, and evening edges its way in. Houses like islands in neighborhoods like
oceans, front yards in the deepening shadows as the cars arrive home, children laughing in
the obscure distance, missing children, his sister, his father, his mother who was
somewhere right now—in her house surely—fixing her own solitary dinner, alone by fate
and by choice, not even the television on for company, just the ticking of the clocks...
"What?"
"I said it looks like we're running late. I can interview Diaz, if you still want
to get over to Mrs Dipace's." After a moment, when Mulder didn't respond, Alex said,
"Is there anything specific you want me to ask her?"
"You've got Cole's photo now to show her—we'll have to stop at a copy shop, by
the way. I'll have a dupe made to show Mrs Dipace. Can she recall seeing Cole recently,
around the apartment building or elsewhere. Horton asked her about strangers, but ask her
again, and about phone calls, notes—crosses, too. Has she seen any odd scraps of paper,
maybe tacked or taped or wedged up somewhere where Grissom might have been likely to see
it. If he used it as a message, a warning—god, a signature like that would be a lucky
break, though if he did I'd have expected to find the evidence on the victims' bodies or
around the scene... you know, that cross we found in the stairwell was pretty
small." His voice was musing. "I wonder what the chances are that someone picked
it up on their shoe... a fireman's boot, an EMT... we're going to have to go back over
Willig's building with a fine-tooth comb, see if we can turn up anything. It's equally
possible that Cole just had the cross in his pocket or snagged on his clothes, and lost it
in fleeing the scene... "
Alex cleared his throat gently to ask a question, which seemed to interrupt Mulder's
train of thought.
"You know how to conduct the interview, I'm assuming. I can't recall the last time
I saw the IT syllabus, but I'd think—" Mulder broke off rather absently, not
finishing his sentence. Then unconsciously, absorbed in his driving and his own myriad
thoughts, he shifted into conversational high gear. "You probably want to do the
interview in the kitchen. If they've had dinner, great. If they haven't—well, you could
try talking while she's cooking—it'd be the perfect distractive activity to get her mind
running on a double track if she were a suspect, but as a witness—you really should try
and get her to sit down at the table with you, concentrate. She's Spanish and married,
don't let her husband hover. Kick him out of the room if you have to, and if you can't get
him to leave, try not to let her look to him for cues. You might ask him to sit somewhere
behind her, if you can manage it.
"This is the first interview with her—ours, anyway—put her at ease. As far as
proximics, use the intimate mode—if you lean in, don't lean in a lot. Give her your
earnest and polite look, the one that makes you look like a Jehovah's Witness."
Alex opened his mouth to speak, but Mulder rolled obliviously on.
"She'll probably try and feed you. You always look hungry. Must be the suits. Try
and touch her arm at some point, but don't be obvious. You know the witness typologies, of
course—she's likely to be reluctant or intimidated if anything—though if she's
intimidated, I suspect it would be in a more general sense rather than fear of
reprisal—distrust of government representatives tends to run high among Hispanic
populations. You might have a red herring reaction—she might have a relative who's an
illegal alien, or have some other reason to be nervous. Look for any signs of stress,
motor restlessness, flushing, inappropriate smiling, increase in gestures, ring-twisting,
cross-touching—she's almost certainly Catholic—selective inattention, shifting of eyes,
biting of lips, trembling—"
"Mulder—"
"—stammering, hesitation, dilation of pupils—"
"Mulder!"
Mulder stopped, looked at him.
"All right already. I know all this."
Mulder nodded, but remained half in his own world of thought, as if reluctant to
abandon it entirely. "She's probably right handed. If she looks to the right after
you ask a question, it's more likely she's trying to remember something. If she looks to
the left, she's fabricating—"
"Mulder, that's great, thanks—are you finished? Okay. Jesus." He shook his
head once, then looked over at Mulder, giving the older man an irritated frown. "Talk
about selective memory. I was an NYPD cop, Mulder. Plus I speak Spanish."
"Oh yeah." Mulder was quiet. Selective memory, indeed. He'd seen the notation
for language proficiency in Alex's file; prudence, of course, prevented him from
mentioning this now.
For the rest of the ride they discussed the case, on and off again, their talk mixed
with more general conversation—from Alex's side, snide remarks on Jersey, NYPD anecdotes,
retold urban legends—from Mulder's side, cryptic allusions to his childhood, dry but
affectionate Scully stories, and trivia about famous lust killers. Lewd badinage was
notable in its absence; both men had retreated into best-behavior mode, though when Mulder
let Alex off at the Diaz apartment building, the younger agent did lean in at the
driver side window and—after a brief palaver—punctuate his adieu by making tiny kissy
movements with his lips.
"You shouldn't tempt me to exhibitionism," Mulder said, his eyelids in
sensual descent. "You don't know how poor my impulse control is."
Alex smirked, pulled back, and sauntered up the walk. Mulder watched him go, a
suspiciously bright young man with a tendency to overgel and execrable taste in suits. And
yet... there was something about him. Or am I just easy, Mulder wondered as he
drove off. After all, the bureau's rainbow brigade could be numbered on the fingers of an
unlucky lion tamer. It nagged at Mulder's conscience that the rare conjunction of erotic
and professional compatibility might have been what induced him to tumble bedlong into a
relationship with Alex on such short acquaintance.
Wait a minute—'relationship'? Yikes. Abort sequence. You're thinking with your joystick again.
He really needed to concentrate. Mulder looked at his watch. He should have plenty of
time to interview Mrs Dipace once more (keeping on the good side of truth) before meeting
with his source, the mysterious dispenser of tapes and enigmatic messages... the voice from the void... Mr X...? Hmmm... . Queens, New York
Mulder had run late at Mrs Dipace's, cutting it close for his meeting with the man he
was now thinking of as 'Mr X'. He pulled up outside their meeting place, turned off the
car and studied the building, its parking lot and its environs, then read the sign on the
facade. After a few seconds he shook his head and got out of the car.
Queens Rollers read the unlit sign that stretched across the facing wall of the
parking lot. A roller hockey rink—and apparently a defunct one at that. Not very
glamorous, Mr X. Not exactly the National Aquarium or the Kenilworth, or the Washington
Monument by moonlight. But voguing isn't everything, is it. Maybe your talents lie in
survival. Let's hope so.
Mulder followed the instructions X had given him, walking around the building to the
back door, which he found open. Funny how you had this back-up location all cleared and
handy, Mr X. Wonder how many other little rendezvouses and spy-meets-spy-holes you've got
scattered around the greater metropolitan area.
Mulder, entering the building, could see no one in his sweeping lateral scans, but that
didn't mean there was no one to be seen. His other source had always seemed to attend
their meetings alone, for a proper, cozy tete-a-tete. But that didn't mean X would. The
good Mr X, whoever he was, might have brought back-up... as perhaps Mulder himself should
have. Should at least have called Scully, he thought as he moved around the
perimeter entrance hall. Give them a pointer if they need to track down the body. Maybe
I am too credulous.
Rather belatedly, a blade of nervous concern began to tickle in and out around Mulder's
ribs. In the daytime the building's atmosphere was surely the most innocuous imaginable;
at night, en route to meet the voice of doom, it was something else again. Darkness, a
silvery negative of light, pooled around every doorway and counter, lent menace to Coke
machines and push-brooms, gathered across the ceiling like cobwebs. Silence was an
antisocial shroud upon the empty building.
Mulder entered the rink area, inspecting the bleachers he passed, peering into the dark
skirts of shadow that edged the rink-buffers. These big machines, abandoned in the middle
of the rink itself, resembled slumbering buffalo which it seemed advisable not to startle,
but they harbored no signs of awakening to life in threatening, B-movie fashion, and
Mulder passed them safely enough.
A few emergency lights cast forth a pallid, isolated illumination from high above.
Mulder entered further, glancing around warily as he crossed the echoing rink floor,
uncertain of where exactly he was going. The bleachers might have concealed a multitude of
sinister spectators to his progress. It was impossible to see through the bench gaps to
what lay behind. His nerves slid up a notch, for no reason he could tell, then with
precipitate suddenness his eyes fixed on something—someone—waiting in the shadows. A
motionless figure. Watching him.
Instinctively, Mulder's hand dropped to his gun, and he paused without approaching any
further. "Who are you?" he called out across several yards of dim rink. The
words rang out between them, challenge and hail.
"Who I am is irrelevant." The man stepped forward unthreateningly, pulling
out of the shadows' gentle embrace to reveal himself: a neat-looking, bearded black man in
a buttoned-up trenchcoat, a tie peeking out at the top.
Slowly Mulder's hand lowered from his gun. Even as one part of his mind assessed the
threat level of the situation and found it acceptable, another part took in the man's
appearance. Mulder found himself trying out his old Sherlock Holmes trick, fingering
visual puzzle pieces for later assembly. "Why are you trying to help me?" he
said aloud.
"You think I want to be here, Agent Mulder?" The man paused, as if to
emphasize his next words. "I don't want to be here." His voice was level, devoid
of any softening emotion, such as Mulder had come to associate with the man he'd fondly
nicknamed 'Deep Throat'; and his gaze—X's gaze—was intense and direct, the hypnotic
stare of a snake-handler. He held a manila envelope out to Mulder.
Mulder looked at it without immediately taking it, half-consciously noting the form of
address X had used. Agent Mulder. A bureau man? Present—past?
"What is this?"
"Data from a top-secret military project born of the idea that sleep is a
soldier's greatest enemy."
Mulder took the file, mental wheels turning. After a moment synapses fired, his mind
made the connection. "Grissom was conducting sleep deprivation experiments on Parris
Island."
"Not deprivation. Eradication."
"Why?"
"Why else? To build a better soldier. Sustained wakefulness dulls fear. Heightens
aggression... Science had just put a man on the moon. So they looked to science to win or
lose the war."
Mulder made a small involuntary sound of disgust. "And Willig and Cole were the
lab rats."
"The lab rats with the highest kill ratio in the Marine Corps. Four thousand plus
confirmed kills. For a thirteen-man squad."
Mulder heard the figures, but he couldn't quite take them in. "Do you think Cole's
behind what's happening now?"
"I'm not here to do your thinking, Agent Mulder... all I know is Augustus Cole
hasn't slept in twenty-four years."
Mulder absorbed this without responding. Some days I know exactly how he feels,
a low voice muttered from the offstage wings of his mind.
"There's someone else you should see," X continued. "Another member of
the squad who was reportedly killed in action."
"I thought Cole was the last."
"His name is on the envelope."
As Mulder examined the scrap of paper clipped to the outside of the envelope, X turned
and began walking away. Mulder glanced up to see the other man's retreating back. He had
to wonder what was motivating this Mr X, who seemed so brusque and businesslike about
dispensing his information; there was no sense of reluctance about him, exactly, and yet
something suggested he was being compelled. But who—or what—was compelling him, Mulder
wondered. Were the higher powers behind his motivation merely moral—or all too human? For
some reason, Mulder flashed now on the words that always entered his mind when he saw the
ominous cigarette-smoking man in Skinner's office. Pay no attention to the man behind
the curtain...
"Well, how do I contact you?" Mulder called out after X, suddenly feeling
rather exasperated. Cloak and dagger. This really wasn't the plan he'd had for his life,
oh so long ago.
"You can't," X called back.
Mulder, more as a test than in truth, said, "I may need more—"
X stopped and turned, interrupted him. "You still don't get it, do you?"
Mulder hoped he projected an appropriately bewildered facade. Tell me more, he
thought to himself. Elucidate me, Shadow Man. Any and all information was useful
under these circumstances.
"Closing the X files, separating you and Scully, was only the beginning." X
paused. "The truth is still out there. But it's never been more dangerous... The man
we both knew—" X looked to one side with the first hint of feeling he'd shown.
"—paid for that information with his life." Significant pause. "A
sacrifice I'm not willing to make." X's tone was very deliberate on the last few
words. He turned again, and left.
Mulder didn't try and follow. Even if a one-man tail had been remotely practicable
under such conditions, such fancy shenanigans weren't where his talents lay. Mulder sighed
and left the rink unhurriedly, his footsteps rapping on the hard rink floor and sending
echoes bouncing around the darkness like the steady knocks of a woodpecker. Ambivalent
velleities were plaguing him again; he didn't know what to think or feel, and all that he
knew to do was simply to go on as before.
When he got to his car he sat for a few minutes in the wan bath of the car's interior
light and read through the contents of the envelope X had given him. He spent longer on
them than he meant to. There was so much to take in, most of it written either in
jungle-thick Army jargon or the equally dense lingo that was modern medicalese. There was
a copy of the original R&D proposal and the project protocol (in itself, enough to
send Nat Hentoff into a joyful tailspin), materiel requisitions, a line-item budget and
approved allocations, data collection forms, medical records, consent waivers. The
military paperwork was signed off under the auspices of various officers within the US
Army Medical Research and Development Command, but there were also memos to and from the
Surgeon General's office, the Department of Defense, the Army's Deputy Chief of Staff for
Personnel, and the office of the Judge Advocate General.
Grissom's name appeared regularly as project head; the squad members seemed to be
referred to most often by case or code numbers; there were other names, but much of the
paperwork was smudged, aged, and difficult to read, particularly in the poor light. This
was obviously not even a fraction of the records relating to the project, but it was more
than enough to warrant investigation.
Finally, Mulder had to force himself to stop reading. The hard weight of the files in
his hands (evidence, evidence!) gave him an almost sensual thrill, and inspired
happy thoughts of Post headlines, Congressional hearings, Justice Department
probes, and general public exposure. To be sure, this wasn't quite as sexy as Air Force
UFO contact logs, or a bottled alien fetus; but it would be one more chink scored in their
armor of silence. One more brick knocked from that great grey wall protecting their
castle.
Mulder looked at his watch and felt a guilty twist his gut at seeing how late it was.
He started the car and drove off, thinking he should call Krycek, and then almost
immediately reflecting on why Krycek hadn't called him. Maybe the interview was
running long. Mulder decided he wouldn't call. He didn't want to risk an untimely
interruption. Maybe Krycek wouldn't even notice that Mulder had run late.
What would he tell Krycek about this information? Nothing, nothing, Mulder's
mind cautioned harshly. But he'd have to say something, he couldn't just drag his partner
to interview this Matola person without an explanation. Can't use that psychic hotline
line again, he thought dryly. I haf my sources, he might say in a faux German
accent. But really, this was ridiculous. His partner on a case—with whom he was playing
hide-the-salami, by the way—and he couldn't trust the man enough to tell him where their
information was coming from...
No, I can't, he reminded himself again. His interior voice was quiet, firm;
regretful but hard. It could not be helped. He didn't know Alex—didn't know Krycek—that
well, and could not afford to trust him. Certainly X could not afford the risk of
Mulder extending his trust to anyone on this matter. His thoughts as he made his way to
his car, as he drove off to pick up his partner, centered on his former source, another
man without a name. He'd never learned it, even after his death. His body has quietly
disappeared from the morgue a few days after its arrival. Mulder had intently searched the
obituaries of East coast papers for weeks after the event, but had never turned up a name
to put with the familiar face he'd known. It had been a good face, maybe not one you'd
single out of a crowd, but that was a point in his favor given the precarious business
he'd taken upon himself. Despite their one-sided, anonymous acquaintance, he'd always been
an individual, a personality.
And Mulder missed him. Odd, that he should miss a man so much whose name he'd never
known. But what's in a name. ...these men don't have names... and does it
matter... a rose would smell as sweet, a canker as foul... as thou, my cancer...
Mulder yawned. Tired again. Not to sleep... in twenty-four years. He shook his head,
and the lights and the traffic and the summer night air blended for a moment like an
epiphany, and then vanished again. The sum broke down, back into its parts. How would it
be not to sleep for a lifetime... oh yes, but he knew. When day's oppression is not
eased by night, / But day and night by day oppressed, / And each, though enemies to
either's reign, / Do in consent shake hands to torture me...
Torture.
When Mulder reached the street where the Diaz apartment building was located, he could
see even from a hundred feet Krycek's tall figure, hunched into a corner of the
illuminated entranceway like a malingering beanstalk. Krycek's own eyesight was apparently
keen as well, for before Mulder was halfway up the street he was out of his niche like a
jack-in-the-box, moving toward the curb, stepping out into the street to meet the car.
Mulder eyed the envelope on the seat and mentally swore, then slid it under his floormat.
He couldn't tell if it would be noticeable or not, the envelope was rather thick. Too
thick? Too late. He slowed the car, and Krycek was opening the door before the wheels
even stopped turning. He got in and Mulder started up again.
"Where were ya?" Krycek asked. He didn't really wait for an answer.
"Someone matching Cole's description just robbed a drugstore in Queens—and the
police have located him in a motel around the corner." He pointed off down the
street, vaguely indicating a right turn.
"Was he alive?" Mulder asked, feeling his blood and nerves begin to sing with
the excitement of the chase.
"He was when the night manager saw him... so where were ya?"
The offhand question was repeated, tagged on almost as an afterthought, but something
about that ultra-casual tone made Mulder's ears prick up. Was he paranoid, or...
"Sorry, I ran late... why didn't you call if you were waiting? When did you hear
about Cole?"
Alex studied him covertly. "It's about a half mile, past the McDonald's, place
called the Phoenix," he said, looking out the dash window as Mulder turned onto the
other street and began picking up speed. "I ran late too, so I wasn't waiting too
long. I lost your cellular number, was just about to call in for it. Horton called a few
minutes ago about Cole—"
"Horton?" Mulder interrupted, frowning.
"Yeah, he lives not too far away. Was hangin' out with the homies down at his
local when a few of his buddies got the radio call." They exchanged a look, Mulder
incredulous and smiling, and Alex smug and smiling, as pleased as if it were a coup he'd
pulled off himself. "Fuckin' awesome break, or what?"
"No shit. We've definitely had our share and then some on this case."
Alex gave the other man a faintly quizzical look he didn't notice, then his own
attention was distracted. "That must be it—see—turn here—" Then, to himself
sotto voce, "Sheesh, talk about your roach motels."
Mulder pulled up into the parking lot. "How did it go with Mrs Diaz, by the
way—anything there?"
"Not that I could find." They were getting out of the car; Alex continued
speaking as they hoofed it quickly around to the front of the building. "She doesn't
remember any lurkers, any odd messages, any phone calls, any crosses, anything."
Mulder held the door of the apartment building open for Alex, smiled crookedly as he
passed. "For that you ran late?"
"Well, you know, carnitas de puerco, rice and beans, a nice tossed salad..."
"Bastard," Mulder groaned beneath his breath, his stomach punching itself
with sudden violence at the mention of food. He followed Alex in, then paused with his
hand on the door, looking back from where they'd come, realizing he'd left his recently
acquired Top Secret folder carelessly in the car. Low blood sugar, must be, or else my
brain has been sucked out by aliens without my knowing it.
"Shit," he muttered aloud.
Alex stopped with his foot on the bottom stair. "What is it?"
"Nothing," Mulder said, letting the door close. "Thought I'd left my
cellular on the seat." He patted his pocket, smiled mechanically. Shit. Well... we're parked between two squad cars... and if anyone does break in, they'll probably be
going for the radio.
As transient hotels went, the Phoenix was middling seedy; large signs advertised
hourly, nightly, and weekly rates. The signs were old and peeling, the prices blocked out
in separate squares that were clearly the current mark-ups of many inflationary lower
layers. The first floor was, quite oddly, almost entirely closed off with a rough
partition of aging, untreated wood, this makeshift wall pasted over with flyers and grubby
business cards. A few locals loitered in the corner by the entrance, taking in the agents'
passing with glazed but watchful eyes.
Sounds of more organized hubbub drifted down from above, and as Alex and Mulder bounded
up the stairwell they were passed by an officer descending, wearing the absorbed
expression of a man who is trying to remember whether he left his squad car locked. On the
landing there was an impression of a bustle of people all around, mostly onlookers, but
also a few plainclothes asking questions. Light from naked bulbs lent a brittle
illumination to the sordid situation. The wooden floors and baseboards were greyed with a
deep opacity of old wax. The man behind the cash window was a spectator who had seen this
bit of action countless times, but who would watch the game anyway, in the hopes of an
unusual run, a good play, an upset or unexpected reversal in the score.
Alex, youthful energy and Mexican fuel carrying him aloft at a high rate of speed,
spotted Horton first and called out.
"Detective Horton—" Still in ascent and approaching the police detective,
Alex noticed a blank, wary look pass over the man's tired and abstracted face. Hello?
Shake hands with your short term memory lately? Too many faces, too few hours of
sleep—and maybe a few too many beers? Poor shmuck, thank god I got out... look at that
puss, we're about to be mistaken for reporters. Jesus. Rather than take a chance, Alex
flashed his badge. "I'm Agent Krycek. This is Agent Mulder," he said, making the
reminder breezily, with a deliberate absence of emphasis.
Horton's face subtly adjusted as recognition switched back on. For a second he looked
almost embarrassed, but to them he said only, "I been waitin' for you guys. I tried
holdin' the SWAT guys back but they're gettin' a little antsy."
They crossed the landing together. Horton had absorbed his mental lapse with what was
surely the ease of long practice, and continued speaking to the agents with as much
familiarity now as if they'd danced at each other's weddings. A badge. Instant bond and
passport, guaranteed membership in a ready-made fraternity. You have to love it, thought
Alex.
"For whatever it's worth," Horton was saying, "Cole didn't steal dime
one from that drugstore—"
Alex and Mulder both glanced at Horton as they turned and began up the next flight.
"—just a bunch a' pills," Horton finished. He made an upturned gesture with
his hand to indicate apparently that he was at a loss.
As Horton finished speaking, two shots rang out in quick succession from above, and a
voice yelled "Freeze!"
Both agents dropped to the stairs, flattening themselves and looking up. Behind them,
Horton ducked down. As a scream rang out, all three men pulled out their guns. They paused
a second, then on hearing no other immediate shots or screams quickly ascended.
Leaping up the remaining steps, running down the hallway above, Alex felt his heart
accelerate into the feral predatory rhythms that were the reason he loved his job, the
reason he hacked the hackwork. It was for this that he really lived. This was a man's most
lucid window into existence, the guts of it. The peak. Gun in hand, scent of fear in the
surrounding air. Life and death. And when it came down to it, in the end, those were the
choices, the conditions. You had no other. Religion was shit. There was nothing after
this. This was unique, a one-shot deal. You took the roller-coaster ride for the thrill,
not to arrive anywhere. Purity.
Alex was aware of the presence of other humans, their faces appearing in some doorways,
ducking out of others. But they signified nothing, were less than nothing. Just monkeys
looking dimly on as the lions fought among themselves. He took the lead almost recklessly,
sprinting ahead of Mulder, of Horton. Behind him he heard Horton's gruff
voice—"Inside, now!"—directed at some foolhardy peeper. Monkeys, monkeys,
Alex's mind cried. His mind was a grinning thing, though his face showed to the
undiscerning eye only a focused attention to duty. From somewhere he heard a baby cry, a
sound he could rarely hear without going cold at heart. New life. How sweet, his
mind was wont to sing mockingly. How foreign and how Other. Like a needle driven in his
soul, the sound pushed his crest of dark, wild energy even higher, and his hands tightened
on his gun as if clasping that icon in a prayerful gesture for salvation.
The long hallway was traversed in what seemed the flash of a moment, and a confusing
choreography then ensued as each man tried to find the scene of the action, the origin of
the gunfire.
From ahead a voice bellowed out mournfully, "Ahh—officer down!"
Alex passed a small room, seeing from the corner of his eye one of the SWAT team
members kneeling on the floor next to his fallen fellow, pushing on his chest to keep the
heart going. "Two officers down!" he heard a voice yell. He arrived at another
room, sweeping it with his gaze, trying to sort out the chaos. Several other officers were
gathered around, looking stunned and bewildered. Another was speaking into his radio.
"Full critical—request emergency vehicles immediately—"
Alex moved on down the hall, looking around, and slowly lowering his gun as he realized
that Cole must have fled. But why was no one chasing him?
Mulder, following Alex's path, reached the room where the second injured man lay on the
dirty floor, oozing his life blood. He stared a moment, a sick lash of despair painting a
dry stripe down the back of his throat, then turned and retraced his steps to the first
room, his mind pulling up a mental snapshot of an open window. He circled around Horton,
who stood looking down with impotent anger at the fallen officer and his attendant. The
other officer's murmurs rose and fell in rhythmic litany ("Easy, Stan, buddy, you
just keep breathin' for me—that's it, easy, Stan, buddy—") as Mulder moved to
the window he'd seen on his first pass. He ducked his head, looked out searchingly into
the alley. Saw nothing, heard nothing, and received from the night only a misleading sense
of peace.
Alex came up to the window, speaking breathlessly. "What's going on here,
Mulder?"
Mulder looked at him in distracted inquiry.
Alex, catching his breath, gestured. "These two officers—they shot each
other."
After a stunned moment, Mulder's mind spun back onto track. "Cole was here. I know
it." He turned, looked at the SWAT man, the unlucky star of his own drama. "We
need to question them," he said reluctantly, in a lower voice. "If either of
them is up to it. Shit... damn it." He turned with tensely subdued anger back
to the window, leaned on the sill and looked out again, up and down the alley.
"Where the hell is everybody?" he snapped, half to himself. "They should
have men in the alley by now." He drew back in. "Find out what's going on,
Krycek, get their fucking asses moving before we lose him."
Alex moved off quickly, and Mulder went over to where Horton stood watch over the
fallen SWAT man and his partner. "Horton," he said quietly. Horton turned to
look at him, eyes engraved with world-weary gloom, and Mulder drew him off a few feet.
Mulder gestured inconspicuously with his chin at the fallen man. "Can he talk—I need
to find out what he saw."
"Not him," Horton said, looking back at the man, who had been surrounded in
the space of a second by arriving EMT's, in a manner disturbingly evocative of a carcass
being set upon by blowflies.
They went together to the other room, where the second cop lay, but he too was already
well barricaded behind the stern shield of emergency medical care. Dark-jacketed forms
crouched around him, armoring him with cervical collar and oxygen mask, BP cuff and IV,
each apparatus ensnaring him further in their life-saving web.
Mulder's eyes fixed on the collar. "Oh fuck," he said tonelessly. Horton's
gaze followed his gravely, then in silence and as one the two men turned away, moving out
of the path of the busy medics. Mulder looked up and down the hall. Two SWAT men stood
together off to the side, conversing in words vocal and obscene, their guns held alongside
their thighs like extensions of their bulky arms. Another officer was speaking into a
radio. Behind him, a young man's sleepy face poked out from behind a door. But the hallway
was emptier, Mulder saw; the officers had moved out, and Krycek was nowhere to be seen.
"Listen, Horton," he said, turning to the other man, then paused. "Who's
your counterpart here—or have they elected you top dog by default?"
"Mmm, not me. I'm just playin' your friendly neighborhood tour guide." Horton
looked around. "Groff's gotta be here somewhere."
"What kind of a man is Groff?" Mulder asked.
Horton looked at him with phlegmatic incomprehension. "What—looks?" At
Mulder's headshake, Horton frowned and returned the other man's steady, searching gaze
with his own. "Good cop... knows his business... why?"
At this trite, terse endorsement, Mulder sighed and studied Horton with glum
resignation. "Just that I need to tell him something and I was wondering how he would
take it... I think Cole might have certain... powers."
"Uh-huh." Horton eyed him without moving a muscle in face or form.
"Groff's men—nobody wants another injury, or a death," Mulder said quietly.
"And I think Cole might be uniquely dangerous—certainly to the experience of these
men."
"I'm listening."
Mulder took a deeper breath, said, "I think he might have, um—" (The
ability to cloud men's minds? Cripes.) "—cultivated a talent toward hypnosis.
Distraction."
"Distraction." Horton's eyes were steady and patient as a pit bull's.
"Mm, yeah. Um, how much do you know about rapid induction techniques?"
"Fuck all," Horton said calmly.
Mulder nodded understandingly, eyes wide. Oh good. "Well," he
said blandly and brightly, "accounts seem to suggest that the suspect may have honed
a personalized technique for rapid induction of subjects—such as his psychiatrist, and
perhaps these officers—into a hypnotic, suggestive state in which they would respond and
act unexpectedly. He may even be taking advantage of the subjects' pre-existing hypnotic
states—which are actually quite common, self-induced, spontaneous occurrences that we
experience several times a day without even realizing... particularly during periods of
intense concentration or stress... " Mulder trailed off, shrugging and making a tiny
"Eh, but what do I know?" gesture with one hand.
"Uh-huh." Horton's response was forbiddingly laconic, but he actually looked
rather thoughtful. "So like, he's what—some kinda magician?"
"No, probably just a guy who's spent the last twelve years of his life locked up
with an irritating psychiatrist and nothing better to do with his time."
"Yeah, well I can see that." Horton snorted softly.
"I know it sounds, um, cheesy—but if you could tell Groff to instruct his men not
to look into the suspect's eyes—I don't know if that has anything to do with his
trick, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to be on the safe side. The men need to expect the
unexpected. SWAT officers are pretty frosty to begin with, but if Cole could somehow
manage to have two of them shoot each other in crossfire, at what looks like close
range... "
Horton absorbed this, then swore for several seconds in a dull, tired voice. "I'll
find Groff," he said at last. "Talk to him." He looked sharply then at
Mulder, smiled a little. "You're a smart kid. This is better comin' from me than you,
you can bet your federal ass."
Bemused, Mulder watched Horton walk off. Wish I could be that smart all the time, he
thought sourly, shaking his head to himself. He ran a hand through his hair, and was just
about to follow the trail of Krycek and the SWAT team, when the other agent came loping
up. His dark hair had fallen loose of its governance and was hanging rakishly across his
eyes, which gleamed brightly. He was out of breath, but not heavily so; more likely from
excitement than exertion. Parted lips compressed as he arrived at Mulder's side, and the
impression of excitement suddenly waned. In the space of a second the younger man went
from looking aroused to merely exasperated, frustrated.
"What's up?" Mulder asked, tensing but already knowing the answer.
"Nothing. Nada. Zip. They're combing the area, but... " Krycek shrugged,
disgusted. "Looks like he got away. There's a subway stop less than fifty yards down
the street, guard saw a man matching Cole's description jump the stile, but after
that—nothing. SWAT got on radio with the Transit Authority, had the departing train
checked, but they've got nobody resembling Cole on board."
"Shit," Mulder said. Keyed up, angry, he turned in place restlessly and
looked for some focus. Preferably something to hit.
"TA will stay on it. Groff—he's the ranking officer in charge—will coordinate
for the NYPD in the borough, he's gonna get a picture to them and put an update out on the
NCIC."
"You talked to him?"
"Just in passing." Krycek gestured with his shoulder back down the hall.
"He's down by the rear entrance of the building with Horton."
Mulder went still for a moment, closing his eyes, seeking his focus. After several
seconds he opened his eyes again, looked at Krycek, who waited expectantly.
"Okay," Mulder sighed. "First thing, we need to call the scene team.
They'll take over here."
"Groff's not gonna like that," Krycek said dryly and knowingly. "Two of
his own down."
Unexpectedly, Mulder felt a small smile touch his lips. A hint of New Yawk accent
had begun creeping into the younger agent's voice. He looked awfully damn cute, too. He
had a filthy smudge across one cheekbone that detracted not at all from his charm, and he
was still slightly out of breath—in a healthy, spunky sort of way.
"Yeah, well he can lump it." At Krycek's silent headshake and clear,
messaging gaze, Mulder sighed again. "Too harsh? Okay. Listen—you know these
guys—maybe not personally, but you were one of them. You should talk the talk, for the
both of us." He pulled a wry face, smiled again. "This is your case anyway,
right?"
"Well... " Krycek, melting quite suddenly into Alex, smiled in
return, looking lush, dangerous, incredibly personal. "Four days ago, anyway."
His eyes were twin lasers, beams locked on target.
Bad form to swoon, Mulder thought, swallowing on his dry throat, unable to tear
his eyes away from the other man's. Green eyes... huh. Didn't notice that before. What
the hell was I looking at... stop staring. God, but he had it bad. This was the kind
of lust that burned like a chronic, low-grade fever in the flesh but could flare up at any
moment—a tiger springing under the skin, burning bright and swallowing him from the
inside out. It was raw, stupid, animal need with no respect for propriety, injury, death,
time or place. It ate when it was hungry. It was eating him now; he could feel its bite
everywhere in his body.
"Oh fuck," he said aloud, without stopping to think.
Alex gave a low laugh that went no further than the twinned orbit of their bodies.
"Wanna get a room?" he said, breath quickening into another soft laugh, his warm
voice a vibrant purr. "What better convenience, Mulder?"
"When body lice turns me on, I'll take you up on that." He tore his gaze
away, licked his lips, and tried to remember what he'd been going to do next. He spotted
Horton turning the corner at the end of the hall, walking alongside a scowling middle-aged
man in SWAT gear.
"Okay," Mulder said with a familiar sense of resignation, "let's earn
our merit badges."
"Well, they took that better than I expected." Alex rubbed one gritty
canthus, inspected the salty crystal on his fingertip a second, then brushed it off as he
yawned. "Where and when did you come up with that hypnosis bullshit?" They were
clattering together down a flight of steps within the precinct building, heading toward
the car park.
Mulder shook his head tiredly. "Sounded good, didn't it?"
"You don't believe it then?" Alex's tone conveyed clearly: I knew
it.
"I had to tell them something," Mulder grumbled. "I don't
know what Cole's trick is, but I think he has a way of making people—" He hesitated,
shrugged (more to himself than Alex, whose back was to him). "—zone out. I dunno.
Talk about zoned out." He yawned, groaned. "I'm so looking forward to our
drive into Manhattan."
"Traffic'll be light," Alex offered with a sardonic, one-sided smile.
Mulder shot him a dirty look. Alex studied him surreptitiously. The older man looked
wiped out—the walking dead—but also incredibly appealing, despite this. His hair had
flattened as the day had progressed, and now it clung to his scalp like a fitted cap of
some fine soft bark. His eyelids were at half mast, full and furling with sleep, and
damnably seductive even as a signal of their owner's exhaustion. Face planed with stubble
and city grit, collar unbuttoned and sleeves rolled up, tie loosened, jacket dangling from
one hand, every lucid bone in his body flowing, his glorious internal architecture set
into motion...
Breath ragged, Alex felt a slamming wave hit his gut and chest, the recognition of how
aroused he was. Mulder, moving ahead of him, was sorting out his keys with one hand, then
glancing up irritably at the dim lights. Alex overtook him and bumped him to one side,
into the narrow space between two parked cars. He pushed with the full length of his body,
and remained pressingly close.
Mulder's jacket dropped, and his keys. "Fuck—what—don't even—"
Alex caught the other man's mouth in a hard, searching kiss that cut off all speech. He
heard a groan of delirious pleasure as their tongues met in wet, blunt swordplay and their
jaws rubbed abrasively.
Mulder jerked his head away roughly with the obvious intention of protesting, but after
only the space of a breath his mouth latched on to Alex's again, with wilder need. His
tongue was supple, and the grip of his hands was strong and getting stronger. Their
wrestling caresses pulled at the cotton and linen of each other's shirts, and at the
tautly flexing muscles of backs and arms underneath the cloth. Alex arched hard, bumping
hip to hip. Both men gasped into their dueling mouths then Mulder twisted and they
stumbled together against a car. Mulder's hips drove imperiously over Alex's, thrusting
his trapped, stiffening cock against its match.
Mulder's mouth tore away again. "Oh shit—" His eyes, wider now,
directed a searching gaze past Alex, playing over the cars and posts in the dim cavernous
car park. "This is insane," he rasped out angrily. "Anyone could walk in. Cops for
Christ's sake!" He pulled back and touched a dazed hand to his brow, then to the
slack knot of his tie. His hand was trembling.
"In the car, then—on the road—hand job, blowjob—" Lips curved like the
edge of a scimitar. Eyes darkly glowing, Alex leaned in, licked the inner seal of Mulder's
parted lips, whispered there. "You do me, I'll do you—"
"Fuck no!"
Alex shook his head and just looked at him, face hardening slightly. "Prick
tease," he said in an evil voice.
"Me?"
Alex twisted his head down and sucked one peaked nipple through the fabric of Mulder's
shirt, then bit hard and heard a sharp gasp. Another, rougher bite brought a harsh moan of
need. He leaned back again, observed in fascination as Mulder's eyes sparked dangerously:
twin green fires burning the surface of their darkly blossomed irises. The pulse in his
neck was jumping, his clenched jaw almost vibrating with rage. "Bastard," Mulder
whispered. It was hard to tell if he was more wounded or wounding. Alex, lips parting and
curling, reached out and cupped him between his legs, and watched Mulder's defensive
facade crumble, the immediacy of the surrender branding him a true sensualist. He grabbed
Alex's wrist to hold him in place. His face turned aside in a desperate attempt at denial,
but his body was rubbing itself against the glove of Alex's palm.
"Thought you wanted me to stop," Alex said, molding his hand more closely to
the jutting shaft beneath the dark fabric. Mulder's hips pumped once, twice. Alex pulled
his hand away. "I'm not into charity work," he said coolly. His eyes betrayed
the lie of his indifference. Mulder forced his own into focus, looked at him. Alex
couldn't stop himself from staring back. For a moment they were equally mesmerized. Was
this was what it meant to drink in the sight of someone, Alex wondered. Fox Mulder:
a long, tall shot of whiskey, right to the gut. Alex's eyes, in the flash of split
seconds, traced the arcs of the other's face—the sphinxish eyelids, the imperfect but
suitable bend of nose, the lips whose uneven distribution of flesh lent them a perpetual,
rather boyish pout. Not spoiled, but supplicant and amused in turns.
Not my type, Alex's mind said, but if not then why was his body in rut, ignited
by this man?
Because he fucks like a demon. Or as if he's possessed by them.
Alex caught his lower lip between his teeth, and then licked it deliberately, raised
his eyebrows. "Okay, Mulder, let's hit the road then," he said, turning.
Mulder grabbed him, hissed. "Not on your fucking life. Get down on your
knees." He jerked Alex around hard, then pushed with startling force at his shoulder:
a boy's playground challenge, its violence charged with unexpected eroticism. "Down!
Now." His voice was low and roughened with lust, the faintly nasal tones
contributing the perfect nuance of a sneer to his command.
Alex went to his knees. "Watch for the cops, Mulder," he whispered, grinning,
pressing his lips to the peaked seam of trousers before his face. Mulder was fumbling with
his belt, his zipper, and had himself out in just a few skillful urgent seconds, and then
his hand was cupping the back of Alex's head and forcing him with brutal efficiency onto
his cock. He thrust without tenderness, desperately. Alex raised his hands to Mulder's
hips and knocked his rough clasp loose. After a few moments the other man's hands slid
back to cradle his head, twined in his hair, but somewhat more gently now.
Alex didn't look up but could feel in his mouth the reverberations of Mulder's every
movement. The snap and roll of his hips, the arch of his back, the flexing rhythm of his
ass and thighs. Big hands skidded around Alex's scalp, in and out of the weave of his
hair, and Alex felt the storm growing in Mulder's tightening, pulsing cock, could taste
its precipitation on the salty, pearling head. Silence built like the force of a wave's
crest and then shattered with soft gasps.
"Oh god, oh god Alex—oh god, yes—oh god—" It went on and on, a
repetitive prayer to him the other man could not contain. But the piercing heft of Mulder
in his mouth made Alex a worshipper, too. He wanted to laugh with this, couldn't. Mulder's
whispered invocations were low, strung like beads that alternated with quiet sobs of
pleasure that built and rose in his throat.
Riding his lust, Mulder felt his world spin out from under him. At any moment a police
officer could bang out of the stairwell, the elevator doors could open and a half dozen of
them could tumble out laughing and walking toward their cars. Dazed, he stared at the hood
of the Toyota Corolla in front of him. This car. They weren't far back enough, the
light wasn't dim enough, there was no way Krycek (Alex, Alex) could get up fast
enough for this to appear anything but what it was, tawdry and raw, the stuff of crude
locker-room anecdotes, one FBI agent giving another a blow job in the car park of a police
precinct. Oh god, oh god—yes, YES—!
Mulder slammed hard into Alex's mouth, feeling the jaw stretch to take him, the tongue
strain to hold him on its silken pallet, a blanketing of slick, soft flesh that the
underside of his cock stroked ruthlessly. He gripped Alex harder and shoved until he
heard—felt—Christ!—the back of the other man's head hit the car behind him,
barely cushioned by the mesh of Mulder's tense fingers. The sudden bump drove him deeper
into the spasmodic grip of a choke and he arched, feeling his balls draw up, and then Alex
pushed at his hips and jerked forward on his knees, sending them stumbling back clumsily
against the other buffering car, at which the garage filled with the resounding
wails of its alarm—and with that nerve-jarring scream vibrating up through his flesh
Mulder stiffened and came with the force of a gunshot.
"Oh fuck," he yelped, blinding pleasure and sheer panic striking
together. For a long, drawn out instant his brain flatlined and he felt himself caught up
under the sternum and lifted by a cruel talon of breathless joy—
Then he was snapped loose of ecstasy, dropped back into his body with the sense of a
stunned thud. In the same moment he instinctively shoved Alex away, Alex jerked his mouth
free. He fell back on his heels, shocked face striped with Mulder's seed. For a second he
stared wide-eyed and astonished at the banshee car the other man leaned against, then he
began to laugh. Sprawled on the ground, he gasped with laughter, while Mulder zipped and
belted himself with nearly as much urgency as he'd unzipped—more, perhaps.
"Get up," Mulder said, dazedly. He gripped Alex under one arm to pull him
upright. Alex rose unsteadily, still breathlessly giggling. Mulder grabbed his jacket and
keys and straightened again, looking out around the parking garage, expecting any moment
to see cops swarming in on them, guns drawn.
"Christ, this is insane... worse than an airplane bathroom," Mulder
muttered. He scanned the sea of cars again, then with no change in his tense face he
caught Alex around the back of his head and kissed him full on his open mouth. The kiss
lasted only a second, just long enough for their tongues to exchange the taste of one
another, then Mulder broke it off and moved out into the main ramp area; just as the
stairwell door opened and a plainclothes officer ambled out, pulling on his jacket. He
looked down the row of cars, toward Mulder and the source of the whooping alarm.
"Sorry," Mulder called. He smiled and waved. "Bumped the car." The
man took both him and Alex in with a glance, nodded and waved back, then continued on to
the far side of the lot.
"Bumped the car," Alex snickered under his breath.
"Well, we did."
"My turn, Mulder."
"No way—you realize we didn't even think to check for video cameras?"
Humor and desire banished themselves from Alex's face in the space of a second. Eyes
narrowed, he scoped out the territory with newly sharpened attention, examining the
support posts and ceilings with a hawk's diamond-cutting perusal.
"There's nothing," he said at last. His voice was flat but sure. His
lascivious enthusiasm seemed effectively killed. He wiped his mouth carelessly, eyes
shuttered of any expression, and said, "Let's get the fuck out of here." He
turned his back on Mulder, walked off down the cars.
Mulder stared him, mixed emotions stirring, then followed.
Alex reached the car first, waited impatiently for Mulder to come up. He eyed the older
man closely, noting the alteration in his tiredness. Previously tense and wired, Mulder
had softened almost completely now into boneless, dreamy-eyed fatigue. A dry, crooked
smile touched Alex's lips despite the itching thorn of his own unrelieved tension. A job
well done, after all.
"Why don't you let me drive?" he said, holding out his hand for the keys.
"Mmm." Mulder sleepily hesitated, wondering why that shouldn't be a good
idea, then gave up on the question and dropped the keychain in Alex's open hand. He yawned
and ambled around the car while Alex got in the driver's side. Alex adjusted the seat,
shifted and removed his gun, belted up. Mulder just slumped in the passenger seat, eyes
shut, arm resting on the open window.
"Belt up," Alex said, and received a small grunt in response. After a moment
Mulder sighed, opened his eyes and obeyed. "Airplane bathroom, huh?" Alex said
as he started the car and pulled out.
"Wild child." Mulder closed his eyes again, leaned his head against the seat
rest. "First trip to Europe. Paris to Marrakesh shuttle... very nauseating... ate
fourteen packs of peanuts... girl next to me wouldn't turn off her tape player... Men at
Work, Stray Cats, Toto... don't make them like that anymore... thank god... odd... very hairy legs, red hair, kinda nice, but she'd shaved her... "
Silence drifted over from the passenger seat. Irked, Alex said, "Her what,
Mulder?"
"... plotte."
Alex's lips twitched. "Thought you didn't specialize in those foreign words,
Mulder."
"Only the naughty ones."
"Didn't know you went for plotte either."
"Mmm. Very pretty plotte... purty plotte... funny, isn't it... " He didn't
finish the thought. Or perhaps he did.
Alex shook his head. They'd reached the street. It was raining again, a moderate fall
that bounced steadily on the streets and buildings, and began rapping on the car as soon
as they pulled from the garage. Alex looked over at Mulder, whose arm was still slung
along the open window. His bare lower arm glittered in with raindrops below the rolled
sleeve, and rain was peppering his shirt and trousers, but the older man didn't open his
eyes. Alex studied him a moment as they paused for a traffic signal. Mulder in the grey
light, sprawled back in replete repose, patterned in red and raindrops.
The signal changed, red shifting to a cold, lurid green. Alex rested his own arm on his
window and settled back into the seat, accelerating again. The night was cooled by the
rain and light traffic swished by, heading to and from the lights of Manhattan that
gleamed intermittently in the distance. Even asleep Mulder was a presence beside him.
Sated and in partial dishabille, he looked like a voluptuary sleeping off his opium.
Glowing and fading ribbons of light and shadow passed across his chest, his legs; his body
was extraordinarily distinct to Alex. He was, somehow, more real than he'd been at
any point before. His body was a galaxy of atoms that had suddenly drawn in densely, to
throng the air with their existence—how did that line go, Alex wondered. Something about
containing multitudes...
He was lulled by the road, thinking of the long day just passed. Mulder was being very
cagey about the case, about whatever thoughts he was having on it. He'd pulled that
hypnosis rigamarole out of thin air. Brilliant, but still ridiculous. Zone out.
What did that mean? And how had he even come up with such an idea? He'd seen the same
things Alex had, and all that Alex had seen was a bureaucratic foul-up and a
witness who'd thought she'd heard gunshots and a few SWAT studs who'd probably snorted too
much coke before suiting up. Guess this is the Mulder mind at work. Seeing little green
men and psychic specters around every corner. Spooky, huh.
After a few drifty moments, Alex realized he was smiling. He sighed, tried to ease the
muscles at the corners of his mouth, but found them resistant. Mad as a hatter.
Paranoid, too. When they were handing out common sense bet he thought it was poisoned and
gave it back. But... hotter than I thought. Nature compensating.
Mulder muttered something in his sleep. Instinctively Alex sharpened his ears,
listened. But the words were slurred, fleeting.
"What, Mulder?" he whispered.
Silence.
Alex relaxed again slowly. Thinking about his assignment, he wondered what they'd have
him do when this case ended. Stay on Mulder, they'd probably say. No fucking
problem, sir. You've got it. Christ. Talk about soft duty. An easy ride. Alex's
smile widened momentarily and then faded back out. Traitor. What kind of a word was that,
anyway. There was no war on.
A bus whooshed by in the next lane, sending up a fine, misty spray; the lighted
interior showed its slumped occupants, being carried to their janitorial jobs and
restaurant openings. Alex half watched it pass. The Queensborough Bridge was uncluttered
this time of night. Morning, nearly. The darkened skyline still glittered though. Below
them the dark, murky waters of the East River swept by, laden with rubbish and luckless
rats and the corpses of equally ill-fated men.
They'd told him something of Mulder's background ("Don't let sympathy sway you,
Alex"), that he was driven by the mystery of his sister's abduction, that he'd
come to believe it had been the work of aliens. Aliens. Not the illegal Mexicans or
Chinese or any of other beleaguered races crowding the city's tenements, but creatures
from beyond. As if. Humans could be scooped up by the vast easy handful, if anyone was
interested. Why take such trouble taking one at a time, often just to put them back again
later, as the stories went. For the sport of it? Fishing, maybe? Alex grimaced.
He may have been untruthful when he'd told Mulder he'd followed his work, but he'd
heard the same gossip everyone else had; and when commissioned for this job he'd been
given background material, details of Mulder's checkered career and of his more notorious
cases. Alex had familiarized himself with these, had been ready to offer up the
appropriate offhand comment on request, but in the past four days they'd had barely a half
dozen conversations on Mulder's 'X files'. Mulder hadn't seemed inclined to discuss them,
and Alex hadn't been inclined to press—hadn't needed to. No one was seeking further
information on Mulder's old cases or his private thoughts on them. Alex's job was to keep
current tabs.
So far he wasn't sure how useful he'd been. He sighed softly in the darkness, staring
out into the rain, watching it illuminate in the headlights like silvery threads in the
night's rippling fabric. What am I looking for? he'd asked the chairman. Sources,
the grey man had replied. Sources and directions. Messages, calls, deliveries.
Who's talking to him, who's feeding him. And who was? Alex had not for a moment
forgotten the envelope Mulder had received from Scully. He'd called it in, but received no
sign that his tip had been useful. So far Mulder had let slip nothing else, and Alex had
been granted only certain freedom of means in getting information. He wasn't supposed
to tip his hand if he could help it, they'd said; which suggested to him a long term
assignment. Odd, perhaps; but it wasn't his call, and as it turned out he didn't mind in
the least.
From the shadowy figure beside him came another soft trickle of words. Alex cocked his
head, looked over at Mulder. His face had turned inward toward Alex, like a flower heavy
on its stem. His lips were parted. So lush. With a sense of liberty and fascination, Alex
reached out and ran the back of one finger across that sensual mouth, a feathering touch.
His knuckle might have been a jewel drawn along chamois. Mulder neither moved nor woke.
Alex returned his hand to the wheel. Selfish prick, he thought, crossness mixed
with indulgence. Least he could've done is jack me off in the car.
Oh well. He would get his own back.
Alex sighed and attempted to stretch his cramped legs. He took his foot off the gas a
moment, flexed it; it skidded across the damp rubber of the floor mat before he pressed it
back. Something niggled, a submerged impression that slowly rose to consciousness. Mat's
crooked. Must've kicked the mat up. Frowning absently, Alex reached down and felt
around. The mat was down, but...
Expression disappeared from Alex's face as his hand slid under the floor mat and
touched paper. He caught his breath, straightened and stared out at the road, both hands
tightly gripped on the wheel. After a few seconds he glanced over at Mulder. The other man
slept on quietly. Alex reached down again, keeping his eyes alternately on the road and on
Mulder. He pulled out the envelope, looked at it. Scully's little present, still on
hand? It certainly looked that way, didn't it.
Problem: driving a car with one hand, holding a fastened envelope with the other, how
to open the envelope while sitting inches away from a man who must not be awakened in the
process. Not to mention how to study the contents while watching the road.
Fuck. Alex quietly seethed. Carefully, he rested the envelope on the steering
wheel and unfastened it; he would have to work fast and simply hope Mulder didn't wake up.
When he managed to undo the clasp and work the pages out, he looked them over as best he
could, given that he couldn't risk turning on the interior light, which made matters even
more difficult. The contents appeared to be Army documents. Army medical documents.
With 'top-secret' stamps clearly visible on the header of almost every page. Okay.
Bingo. Heart racing, Alex slid the pages back in, closed the envelope, and returned it
to where he'd found it. He'd seen all he needed to see, now he just had to figure out what
to do. Obviously he needed to call in, but when was the question. He'd have to make sure
Mulder didn't move the documents in the meantime, before Alex received instructions.
Had the envelope been there under the mat for the last four days, he wondered. Christ.
All that time, I didn't notice... or maybe he had them somewhere else? Yeah, probably. Alex
was smiling again, a tense thin smile. Nailed you, Spooky. Receipt of classified
defense documents... what is that, let's see, Title 18, chapter 37—793?—798? Mm. Well I
don't have your memory, do I.
They were coming off the bridge now, entering Manhattan's dark forest, and Alex felt
strangely as if the trip from Queens had contained within it some longer journey. His
initial elation at finding some hard evidence had passed rapidly off. Cool cynical fingers
played over him, light ghostly touches he barely acknowledged. He didn't know why he
should feel so spiritless now, all of a sudden. Fatigue, perhaps. It had been a long day.
Mulder was no reason for the blues. He was what they said he was. And Alex hadn't been
surprised to find the papers, so... so there was no reason to feel disillusioned. He'd
never been illusioned. He lived without drugs and fantasies. He accepted reality,
however harsh. However hard and sharp the facts were that cut your hands when you handled
them.
Buildings tall and dark stretched up on all sides, and they drove through the caverns
of the night. Mulder was muttering again, and his body was caught up in the restless
motion of an internal dream storm. He shifted, his head moved from side to side, the
half-finished gestures of his body arriving somewhere between gentleness and a
subterranean urgency.
Alex, after a sidelong look, forced his gaze back on the road. But the whispers this
time did not fade out. From faintness they rose, carrying reverberations of distress.
Words like echoes rising from a well, borne from a distance but nearing.
"Dad," Mulder said, the word clearing suddenly from his vague murmurs.
He sighed a bit, and his breath quickened. Small anxious sounds escaped him that Alex
found disturbing, without being able to say why.
"Dad... no... "
Gooseflesh rose on Alex's arms, and he swallowed. Eyes ahead. Watch the road.
"Dad—don't—I'm sorry—"
Alex's lips parted even as his jaw began a slow, aching tightening. This was nothing,
this was not important. The personal garbage of a man's mind being churned out, nothing
useful.
"Hurts... sorry... " A sob choked out.
Alex worked his jaw back and forth several times. Tense. Tired. Long day. Hadn't it
been, though.
"Sorry... "
Anguish, rage. Hard to know the difference. Alex could feel the other man's private,
unknowable emotions fighting free of the trap he kept them in while awake. His words were
like the spilling of blood from hidden wounds. Sleeping, Mulder was vulnerable. Utterly
vulnerable.
Halted for a light, Alex reached over and touched a hand to Mulder's shoulder.
"Hey—"
Mulder shifted, groaned. Alex slid his hand up, resting his palm against the warm nape
of Mulder's neck, then caressing the back of his skull. "Hey, wake up," he said
in a low voice. His fingers blended with the fine strands of Mulder's hair; his thumb,
with its own autonomous desire, stroked across the flat whorl of his left ear.
Mulder murmured, rolled and rubbed into his hand. "Dad... "
"Wake up, Mulder," Alex said, letting his voice strengthen just a fraction,
still quiet enough not to startle.
"Mmm... " Mulder's eyes opened, without focus but without dream, as if he
were hanging in a limbo that was neither sleep or waking. "I left the dishes in the
sink," he said in a normal but toneless voice.
A tiny laugh was startled from Alex's throat. "Mulder, man, you are wiped."
Blinks. The face that turned his way was calm, smooth as a sea-polished stone. Deeply
incised eyelids blinked contemplatively across unsurprised eyes. Eyes opaque and granite,
like those of ancient statues.
"Mom said she'd call... "
"Jeez, Mulder," Alex sighed, torn between amusement and exasperation,
glancing at the light, which had turned green again and was swinging almost imperceptibly
above the street. No cars were behind them, though. Yet. Alex cupped Mulder's cheek, shook
him gently. "Snap out of it, Mulder. Rise and shine."
Mulder turned his head unhurriedly, blinked at the nearly empty street. "Where are
we? Aren't you going to the hotel?"
Alex relaxed, withdrew his hand. He shook his head, made a small tch with his
tongue against his teeth, gave a wry smile. "Yeah, the hotel, Spud. We're almost
there." He started up again, and drove with both hands on the wheel, concentrating on
staying awake. He was nearly wiped out himself.
Mulder straightened in his seat and brought himself into some semblance of wakefulness,
tugging absently at his clothes. His gaze panned randomly around the streets and buildings
outside, across the dash, across Alex, away again. "I don't usually fall asleep in
cars," he said after a few minutes.
"You were definitely out," Alex remarked. "Dreaming," he added,
almost as an afterthought. He felt rather than saw Mulder's expressionless face turned his
way again.
"Did I talk?" His voice was distant, the words half swallowed.
"Mm, yeah," Alex said indifferently. He listened with interest to the longish
silence that followed.
"What did I say?" Mulder said at last, growing edgier.
"Dad—dad—dad—" Alex flashed an ironic look his way. "Et cetera."
Mulder stared at him for a long time. "What else did I say."
Alex shrugged. "I don't know. I wasn't really listening."
They pulled into the parking area for the hotel. Alex got out of the car slowly,
fiddling with keys and then following Mulder into the hotel, wondering how to break away
for a few minutes. Inside the lobby, he said, "Why don't you go up, you look
beat—I'm going to see if the morning Times has come yet."
Mulder's blank, tired stare said clearly what the fuck for? But he merely nodded
and headed off to the elevator. Once he was gone, Alex found a secluded niche and pulled
out his cellular, tapping out the number for his contact.
The man's voice came on the line with a nettled, unfriendly growl. "Yeah?"
"Joseph K," Alex said dryly, rolling his eyes and blandly scoping the lobby.
As the conversation progressed he chewed a hangnail, spit it out, inspected his other
nails, his watch, a flyer for local street theatre.
"What."
"I've found a folder containing top-secret Army documents, medical, probably
case-related. Our ghost has it stashed in the car. What do you want me to
do—photos?"
"Keep your hands off it."
"I touched it," Alex said, then added with a trace of offhand sarcasm,
"Sorry, pop. Will my palms grow hair?"
"Asshole," the voice muttered, growing momentarily distant, as if he'd leaned
away from the phone and was reaching for something. "Listen, we'll arrange to pick it
up—where is it?"
"Under the front seat driver's side floor mat."
"Tomorrow—we'll have a tail on the car. Make sure he doesn't have a chance to
move the item and we'll do the rest."
"A tail?" Alex said skeptically. Idly, he watched a maid flirt with the desk
clerk. As they chatted their bent heads bobbed close, often nearly bumping, like clumsily
handled puppets. "Traffic's lovely this time of year. Good fucking luck."
"Yeah, well don't you worry, okay, Junior?" the man said.
Alex straightened suddenly, every muscle in his body seizing like cooling steel.
"You droppin' on me, stud?" he asked in a cold, calm voice.
There was a crude, disembodied chuckle from the other end. "Oh-oh, what have you
been up to, fella? Something the man should be worried about?"
"I was told I'd be working clean," Alex said tightly. "Unless otherwise
notified."
"Uh-huh. What makes you think you aren't?"
Alex bit down on a snarl that was threatening to escape. "Listen, when you take
that file, why don't you give me some fucking support and bring it down so I come off Snow
White, okay?"
"Well then, you stay real close to our ghost, why don't
you," the man said. His tone was evil, suggestive. "Think you can do that,
slick?"
Alex cursed and hung up. He very nearly slammed the phone against the wall. Great.
Just fucking great. "Need to be sleeping not sweeping," he muttered to
himself tiredly. "Shit." He paused indecisively at the lobby's edge, raking his
hair back and forth. Then he went upstairs. He slipped quietly into the room. The bedside
lamp was on. Mulder lay shoeless but fully dressed on his bed, face emptied by sleep
again. Alex kept an eye on him while he went through his suitcase. He pulled out his RF
scanner and quickly ran it over as many hazards as he could reasonably cover, found
nothing. He picked up the phone, contemplated it, then zapped it with his bug burner. What
the hell. Couldn't hurt, not in this case.
He went back down to the car, ran another bug hunt there. Nothing—not that showed up
on scanner, at least. Which didn't necessarily mean there was nothing to find, but Alex
felt somewhat better. He couldn't very well rip apart the car himself, of course. He'd
just have to watch what he said more closely from now on, certainly when on the road. It's
not paranoia, it's self-preservation, he told himself wryly. The kick to his nerves
had triggered his self-protective reflexes, that was all. Doesn't mean I'm a
Spooky kinda guy. But a single, ironical brow quirked itself self-mockingly as he
stood and studied the Bucar.
How the hell am I going to shut Mulder up, he wondered, then yawned. If he were
smart, he'd cut the man off. Cold turkey. No more Spooky nooky. An image of a
wagging finger itched at his thoughts, but Alex grimaced, scowled to himself. Fuck that.
He intended to get payback for services rendered, at the very least. He returned once
again to the room. Mulder still lay on his bed, sprawled face down, a pillow now pulled
half over his head. He remained thus as Alex repacked his scanner and assorted tools, then
pattered around getting undressed, showering.
By the time he left the bath it was after six and dawn's early light was buttering the
edges of the window drapes. Alex walked over to the window, peeked out into the grey, hard
land of the city. Already it was looking like another hot and ugly day. He sighed, drew
back in. Sitting naked on the edge of his bed, he considered Mulder and then the travel
alarm, trying to calculate the minimum necessary sleep they'd need. And trying, he
realized after a minute, to figure out what time Mulder would want him to set the
alarm for. Growing disgusted at his own fuzzy vacillations, he set it for noon, then
slumped back into his sheets and flicked off the lamp.
He felt as if he'd barely dropped off when he was brought sharply awake by hoarse,
agonized cries. He cursed, was rolling off the bed before he was even fully conscious. He
fell to the floor with a thump in an ungainly tangle of bedsheets, but managed to arrive
gun in hand. He lay there for a few seconds assessing the murky room, before pulling
himself upright. Behind him, angry sobs continued to spill from the other bed.
Alex set his gun on the floor and turned to study the bed and its occupant. He watched
and listened. Violent sounds that didn't quite cohere into speech rose and fell in
Mulder's throat. After a minute, Alex climbed up and twined against him, quelling his
restless movements with the braid of muscled arms and legs. Mulder jerked in the gentle
restraint, but didn't wake. Gradually, his dream—his nightmare—appeared to dissipate,
and he fell quiet in Alex's arms. Mulder's cellular woke them at nine. Alex, first to wake, heard the ringing and slowly
disengaged himself from their tangled limbs. Stunned with sleep, he fumbled stupidly
around for several rings until he figured out which phone it was and plucked it from
Mulder's discarded jacket.
"Hello?" he said groggily, then cleared his throat. His eyes were already
sinking shut again.
From the other end of the line was a silence, and then finally a small
"Mulder?"
"Mm... hold on." The last few words were absorbed by a yawn. Alex rolled
back into the bed, nestled his body against Mulder's back and wrapped his arm around him.
Blindly, he sought Mulder's hand and pressed the phone into it. "Talk to
Scully," he said, lips brushing Mulder's hair.
"Mrnnahh," Mulder purred unintelligibly, with feline indifference. He
rubbed back against Alex, showing more interest in that direction.
Alex lifted his head a few inches and spoke directly into his ear: "Wake up,
Fox."
"Fuck," Mulder said clearly. "Are you waking me up?"
"Phone." Alex tugged at his hand.
It finally reached Mulder's comprehension that he was holding his phone. He brought it
to his ear and muttered a cranky "Hello?"
"Mulder, is that you?"
"Last time I checked... what the hell time is it... "
There was a tiny wordless pause on the other end that sounded suspiciously like a
twitched brow. "Nine a.m., Mulder. Where are you?"
"Hotel. Late night. Shooting."
"Yes, I got your note—and the other things you faxed. I've barely glanced at
them, just grabbed them off the machine as I was leaving—"
Mulder struggled up from sleep and from the belt of Alex's draped arm. "Hold
on—hold on—" He sat up, took a deep breath, blinked several times. "Listen,
I'm glad you got my note. I didn't want to call you in the middle of the night. Can I call
you back later when Dr Frankenstein has finished with me—I'm not quite all here at the
moment."
Another silence. "You can't talk now," Scully finally said in a mild,
deceptively smooth voice.
"I haven't booted up my brain yet, Scully."
"I'll be in or around my office all day. I'll keep my cellular on me."
"Great." Mulder hung up unceremoniously and tossed the phone away. He looked
over his shoulder at Alex, whose eyes were closed, then rubbed a hand across his own
numbed face. He noticed he was still wearing his clothes and rose groggily to his feet,
unbuttoning himself with small, plucking movements that were not entirely effective.
Eventually he gave up and pulled the shirt over his head. The trousers seemed too much of
an effort and he left them on and crawled back across the mattress. With acrobatic
dexterity he reached out across Alex and snagged the coverlet off the other bed; the soft
material blanketed them like snowfall. Under its cover, Mulder let his hands roam Alex's
naked body.
"I'm sleeping," Alex said.
"So sleep." Mulder pressed his head against a muscled shoulder and cupped the
other man's ass.
"You're waking me... "
The words were bit off rudely, but the hardness Mulder felt rising against his
wandering hand was nicer. He disappeared under the comforter.
"Oh, chr... " Alex rolled onto his back, arched, still nine-tenths asleep.
"Yes—" He pushed a hand down under the covers, gripping Mulder's head. A hot,
invisible mouth closed over his lifting cock and sucked it in hard. No time was wasted on
introductions; the rhythm was ruthless, a fiery glissade of tongue and hand.
Then: "Parimrshtaka or amrachushita?" Mulder asked in a muffled voice. The
words buzzed like a mouthful of honey bees around Alex's cock. "Both—neither?"
"Chupamela, puta."
"No habla espanol, senor... " The last word trilled skillfully over
Alex, across his cock's stretched, blushing head, and he gripped a handful of pillow with
one hand, and a handful of Mulder with the other.
"Suck it, bitch... or I'll cut out your tongue." Alex, eyes still closed,
grinned in rude glee. Mulder's maligned tongue curled around the base of his cock; with
exquisite forgiveness he swallowed in one ball, then the other. Alex groaned happily.
Under the covers, Mulder crooned to himself. "Ooh, senoorrrrrr... "
Alex, buoyed on sleepiness and ticklish waves of arousal, began to giggle, then to
gasp. "Oh—oh, god—oh no—" His cries trailed off in a wail.
"Mulder—"
"Jus' comin' up to see ya," Mulder mumbled. "Hot down there."
Before Alex could in any way respond to this, their mouths blended distractingly.
Alex wrapped his arms around Mulder, determined to hold him to his current position. Slippery
bastard. He did help the other man free himself from his trousers, but only in the
furtherance of his own interests.
Hip to hip, they began rubbing sparks off one another in a quickening fire. In moments,
with wordless communication, their entire bodies picked up the kindling tempo. Mulder,
half propped on one arm, a hand cupped under Alex's head, swooped down with kisses between
which he drew back just far enough to compel Alex's gaze, until after a time it seemed
that every glancing, sparking contact of their eyes was like another kiss, was wired into
the almost painful friction of their cocks.
"Fuck," Alex whispered helplessly. Mulder's green eyes flashed over him, and
Alex felt the thrust of their erect, throbbing flesh in the same moment. He arched back.
"Yes—" A warm tongue filled his mouth, cutting off speech, then
retreated teasingly. Eyes burned unceasingly into his, parted lips dusted hot breath
across his own like the stroking passage of feathers. Alex's hips lifted, twisted, bumped
against Mulder's. With uncontrolled impulse he threw one arm out above his head, reaching
wildly for some purchase, and felt Mulder intercept his hand and catch hold of it, felt
their palms press hard into one another, their fingers mesh tightly. Mulder's other hand,
cradling his head, held him steadily in place for kiss after kiss.
"No," Alex groaned out. His eyes squeezed shut, his fingers flexed
wildly within Mulder's. Stars came out behind his tautly stretched eyelids. Mulder was
kissing him harder now. Alex arched again, his balls aching like a knot pulled strainingly
tight, his dick pulsing and pearling, its swollen cap bathed entirely in liquid fire.
"Dry," he gasped, unable to articulate further what he wanted.
Mulder pulled away and down, kicking off the blanket as he went. He swirled his tongue
around Alex's burning cock for a tantalizing half minute, then just as Alex thought he was
finally achieving salvation—hallelujah—withdrew to straddle his hips. Crouching
on him, the demon imp grabbed his hands and locked their clasps together again, doubled
now. He allowed their cocks to nudge one another gently.
"Let me finish," Alex said, the words a throaty rasp of pure, pleading need.
"Sure," Mulder whispered mockingly. He leaned forward slightly, his weight
pressing into Alex's hands and hips, and began to move.
"Oh god yes—" Even as Alex was crying out this affirmation his head
tossed back and forth in instinctive resistance; his chin lifted defiantly even as his
will crumbled. He could feel Mulder's predatory gaze burning through his closed eyelids,
and when he finally opened his eyes again, as he neared the peak, Mulder filled his sight:
face flushed, triumphant, stripped down to animal simplicity.
"Please don't stop—oh god, fuck, do it—don't stop—oh god—" Alex
bucked, was caught up and pulled on the stabbing rhythm, and heard Mulder laugh and cry
out his name sharply. He couldn't escape the grip of his captured hands, didn't want to.
With harsh gasps Mulder jetted over Alex's belly and chest—a stripe of wet fire licking
across one nipple, drops as hot as blood striking his chin—and Alex came for him, his own
expulsing pleasure taking him almost by surprise. His legs kicked out and one wrapped
around the nearest of Mulder's calves and he had an impression of light soft fur along
with everything else—the damp manacles of Mulder's hands, the salty smell of him, the
forceful pressure of him, masculine and incredibly, suddenly dominant.
They collapsed together, mutually demolished. Alex lay sated and suffocated under
Mulder, arms wound around his back, hands polishing its muscled blades and cuts.
"You're heavier than you look," he muttered at last, reluctantly.
"Um... " Mulder rolled to one side, but kept himself half draped. His head
fitted in next to Alex's, chin resting on his shoulder. "What dayzzit anyway..."
"Mm... "
They slept again. Roger Smith dining room
"Yo, it's Starsky and Hutch," Gilda said, nudging her.
Mezzy choked in delight and nearly inhaled her gum. She ducked behind the service
partition and gasped several times, bent over the water glasses. Gilda thumped her back.
"Don't," Mezzy groaned, then hissed: "Did they hear you? Aw,
fuck—" She peered out from behind the wall. "Oh, man, look at that—he is so
Benetton, I'm sayin'—he is so Richard Gere—"
"No." Gilda shook her permed and frosted head authoritatively.
"And he's what?" Mezzy asked in tones of incredulous outrage.
"Not Richard Gere."
"Bitch, you are so lost... look a' that schweet ass on
him—" Mezzy kissed her fingers and smacked the kiss off into the air. "Phatta than
that you cannot get."
"Tell him you wanna jump his nightstick, honey—"
"He ain't a cop, he's an F-B-I agent, and lissen—"
Gilda was laughing to herself with a smoker's throaty wheeze. "Ask if you can see
his gun—"
"—I'll betcha his gun is smokinnnn'—"
"Now I like the young one," Gilda murmured, fanning herself
ostentatiously with a menu.
"You go girl," Mezzy giggled. Gilda was a happily divorced
forty-eight, and knew the happy hour window of every singles' night for every bar in an
eight-block radius.
"Trade you for table 14," she said now, eyeing the agents with canny
interest.
"No fuckin' way?!"
"That newlywed couple'll tip better—"
"Get offa it, you are crazy. I got to inhale this man."
"Better not let him inhale you, or you'll be on your way
downtown."
"Okay, shut up now, I'm workin' here." Mezzy, who'd been gathering up water
glasses and roll basket, swished by Gilda with her chin lifted perkily and swept out into
the dining room. She visualized herself into a deeply Cindy Crawford mode and made her
approach with catwalk self-consciousness.
"Good morning, gentlemen." Mezzy placed each man's water glass before him
with a demure smile and a thump. "Can I get youse—you gentlemen—some
coffees?"
Both nodded. The younger one asked with a small frown, "Did you get your
cappuccino machine fixed?"
"Oh, no, I'm sorry," Mezzy said, wrapping an arm around her
tray and pulling a sympathetic, almost parodically grief-stricken, face. "It's still broken.
I think we're gonna hafta send it to Italy, ya know. We had to once before, and it
took them months to get it back. It cost somethin' like eight thousand dollas,
can you imagine? For a fu—for a frickin' coffee machine."
"Thanks, um, Mezzy," the older man said.
She turned to catch him squinting doubtfully at her name-tag, then his gaze rose to
hers and she nearly fell swooning in the beam of those steady, magnetic eyes. He smiled at
her. "Oh no problem," she said. "Sir," she added
enthusiastically after a few moments.
"Can we order now?" the man asked, gazing up at her... so steadily...
"Wh—oh sure," Mezzy said. "What would you like to have this
morning, sir?" She smiled winningly, all teeth.
When she'd taken their order and brought their coffee and danced brightly off once
more, Mulder sighed gratefully and reached for the sugar.
"She digs you, man," Alex said, giving him a sly, lidded look.
"Fuck off."
Alex watched as Mulder ripped open a good half dozen sugar packets all at once, doused
his coffee with the contents, stirred. "You know you can take a pill for that now,
Mulder."
Mulder stared at him dangerously over a sip of coffee.
"Lithium solves Mondays. Late nights. Bad hair days—"
"But it tends to even out the personality, Krycek," Mulder said sardonically.
"I wouldn't have those perky highs anymore."
"Kills your sex drive, too, I hear." Alex leaned back in his chair, smiled.
It was the smallest exercise of a smile, somewhere on the border of perfunctory.
Mulder eyed him, face ironed flat, green eyes narrowing. "You tryin' to send me a
message?"
Alex touched his silverware, minutely straightening the pieces. After a minute he
shifted in his seat, turned on Mulder his most earnest look, hoping it would hold up
against the other man's inspection. "I just think we're going to need to cool off
once we get back to HQ... and maybe we should start now."
Astonished and speechless, and more hurt than he'd expected, Mulder stared at the
younger man, before dropping his gaze into the dark well of his coffee cup. You knew
this was coming, didn't you? He asked himself the question but found he wasn't sure of
the answer.
Aloud, Mulder tried for a normal, careless tone of voice. "All right. If that's
what you want." In the brief ensuing silence, he concentrated on banishing rancor,
regret. They were on a case after all. This was—had been—nothing. A fling.
Right. Some fling. This is what gives men a bad name, Mulder thought with sour
resignation. A rut and a handshake. I knew there was a reason for sticking to phone sex
with women named Tiffany. If you're going to go casual, better to add it to your
long-distance bill and avoid all ambiguity.
"If this is going to interfere with the investigation—" Alex began.
"Don't be ridiculous," Mulder said in a quiet voice. He raised his gaze to
Alex's and held it steadfastly until Alex looked away, head ducked, throat muscles
evidencing a swallow of nervousness. His discomfort gave Mulder some satisfaction. He
wasn't as urbane or as indifferent as he liked to pretend. And he wasn't anything special,
Mulder told himself brutally. Bureau buccaneer, one part of his hurt mind sneered.
Internalized homophobe, ruthless little rung-climber. But other voices still whispered
insidious praises of the man across from him, lyrics on his eyes and mouth and body that
had nothing to do with reason.
Their food came. Both men wolfed down massive sandwiches with appetites that made
conversation an area of distant, secondary interest. After the meal they skidded out from
under Mezzy's wistful, avaricious eyes and hit the road.
"There's something I have to tell you," Mulder said in the car. He had taken
the driver's seat, and was leading them slowly out of Manhattan and Monday traffic, back
into Queens once again.
You're married, he's CIA, I'm a dead man? "Okay," Alex said warily,
resting his arm on the window.
"I got another tip from my source."
Alex looked over. He kept his face blank, a shade drawn down across his inner
calculations. "When?"
Mulder hesitated, then admitted, "At the V.A. clinic."
"When were you gonna tell me?" Alex asked simply.
"I'm telling you. We need to interview someone—"
"I thought you wanted to go to the hospital."
"After the hospital." When this met with silence, Mulder went on. "His
name is Sal Matola. He was one—"
"Your source," Alex interrupted sharply. "That's his name?"
"No," Mulder said impatiently. "The interview—he was one of the members
of Cole's squad.
"They're all dead."
"No. Not all."
"You knew this when?" Alex asked incredulously. "Since
yesterday?"
"I tried to confirm an address for him last night at the precinct," Mulder
said quietly. "But he's not in the system. So this is still a bit iffy... worth
pursuing though, I think." He kept his eyes studiously on the road as he spoke,
wondering idly if Scully's Catholic education had included equivocation anywhere in its
roster of sins. Hard to believe they'd leave anything out; he'd always had the impression
Catholics preferred to err on the side of caution and inclusion. Was a misleading silence
a sin of omission? This was exotica and esoterica to his unaffiliated soul. He'd have to
ask her sometime.
After debating the merits of spurious offense versus graceful surrender, Alex chose the
latter. The mendacious poses this job required of him could only be carried so far before
he began feeling foolish and transparent. "Yeah, well I guess I have to agree,"
he said aloud. "So give, partner—what's this guy's story?" He tossed a quirked,
inquiring look the other man's way.
Though he didn't take his eyes off the road, the tense set of Mulder's shoulders seemed
to ease slightly. "I'm not really sure. I don't know why he went underground or how
he managed it. But... " He hesitated, then said carefully, "I think he might
have been afraid of the government finding out his whereabouts—or even the very fact of
his continued existence."
Here we go, Alex thought with an odd twist of satisfaction. "The
government." He made a dry sound. "Yeah, well I have a feeling their going to
want to talk to him about his back taxes, at any rate."
"About more than that maybe," Mulder said quietly. "Apparently while he
was in the Army he was subject to certain experiments, along with the other members of his
squad—which would include our man of the hour, Cole."
"Experiments?" Alex said, an odd note in his voice.
"Sleep-deprivation experiments—or sleep 'eradication'."
"What kind of experiments—did they consent?"
"Consent," Mulder said derisively. "What's consent? What grunt's going
to ask his good Uncle Sam questions with a war on, Alex? Besides, the experiments took
place before any federal regulations were codified for experiments involving human
subjects. Nobody was policing the Nuremberg Code. Institutions and agencies were still
working safely in the dark—this was before Tuskegee hit the headlines. They could still
play fast and loose with consent issues in those days."
"What makes you think they were?" Alex asked.
"The nature of the experiments, for one thing. We're talking surgical
procedure." Mulder looked over at Alex, grey-green eyes boring into his. "You
saw the photo of the scar on Willig's neck. I'll bet if we could get a good look at some
of the other squad member's bodies we'd see the same scars. Assuming the remains have held
up at all well."
"You aren't thinking—"
"No... not yet, anyway."
"Christ, Mulder." Alex shook his head. "So, what kind of information do
you have? What was the operation?"
"I don't exactly know. But I might have a better idea soon... "
Scully. Alex chewed one edge of his lip and wondered whether to broach the
subject aloud. "You're playing this pretty close to the vest, Mulder," he
finally said.
"I have to," Mulder said, a stubborn bend slewing into his jaw.
"Right. Paranoia 101—Silence: Theory and Technique." Alex framed the remark
in the air with mocking hands, a lecturer showing off his blackboard.
Mulder shot him a look, daggers tipped with sharp irony. "You pick up the phone
and make a date with Freeh for the Ozone, I'll be real impressed. Otherwise don't talk to
me about significant silences... I've had a source killed for passing me
information—in case you didn't know."
Mulder's voice had turned sarcastic, darkly edged. There was also a question buried
within the last few words, which Alex didn't fail to hear. He looked out his window,
hiding his reaction, his mental wheels churning with grating energy. Killed. But
what was Mulder implying—that the government had a source of his killed? Has
it gone that far... ? Christ he hoped not. Alex felt a ripple of nervous energy roll
through him.
"I didn't know," he said, his voice quiet, emptied of expression. He glanced
at Mulder, then away.
"Now you do." FBI Academy, Quantico
Dana Scully stared at the glowing lights for a long time, inexplicably mesmerized.
Then, when no great deliverance or enlightenment was visited upon her, she sighed and
pressed the button for a Diet Coke. It hit the deck and rolled with a dull thud; she
plucked the can out, hefting and rolling its cold weight in her hand and wondering idly
what Mulder was doing now.
She began to leave the vending area, then paused in front of the snack machine. Odd
reasonless cravings tickled within her. The neon orange crackers with peanut butter looked
far better than they had any right to; but then so did the glossy package of Reeses Cups,
and the tiny but deadly bag of Doritos (why are so many calories so orange?). But
then there were the pink coconut cakes... like edible pom-poms...
Am I pre-menstrual already? Dana checked her internal schedule, frowning to
herself in the empty but faintly echoing hallway. She stared into the boxed machine,
seeing her reflection overlaid across the snacks inside like a ghostly admonishing
portrait. Dull, Dana. Dull suit... dull hair... what is with you... just
back away from the snack food, Dana. Easy—that a girl—easy now...
She smiled at herself for a moment, turning away; then the mental image of men with
bullhorns and SWAT jackets faded and her smile with it. Mulder. If this were the
headquarters, she'd be on her way back now to the basement office, filled with all the
bizarre Mulderisms the man had accumulated in his stay there: the jarred abortions of
nature, warped frogs and mutant albino squid; the moon rocks and meteorite fragments, most
sent to him for investigation (as 'evidence') by a mad archaeologist who believed they
proved alien missile bombardment (but were in truth merely incredible hunks of mineral
that should have been in a museum, as Dana had so often informed Mulder, but had he
listened, no, he'd just leaned back in his chair and smiled and murmured seductively: "Brecchia,
Odessa, troilite, Zagora, Huckitta, Esquel, oh Scully, oh Scully—" until she had
to smile back); the ridiculous 'UFO' and Yeti photos, grainy and poorly exposed; the loony
self-published diatribes of abductees (God, I've even stopped putting mental quotes
around that word, Dana thought in exasperation). All this and more. The steer skull
with the Mysterious Hole. The Unknown Substance, carefully dated and labeled as such and
stuck away in a drawer with countless others of its ilk. The fuzzy, hissing tapes of
purported backyard visitations... and the pathetic pleas from parents of missing
children, who had given up on the world and hope of justice, and who looked now to the
sky—and to Mulder—for answers.
Pathetic... it should have been. And yet in time it had become familiar to Dana. Not
welcoming, exactly. Not homey or comforting. But it was Mulder, that office, that drafty,
cramped and cluttered, perpetually messy place of otherworldly worship. It might
have been a comfortable place, if Mulder had been another kind of man. If he'd been
self-indulgent and sedentary, if his beliefs had been simply the mad dreams of a mild
eccentric, and not the dark, grimly driven quest of a gun-carrying FBI agent walking the
razor's edge—then his office would have reflected that.
Funny, Dana thought to herself. She'd never really analyzed her discomfort in
Mulder's office, but it was no different than the discomfort Mulder himself sometimes
engendered in her. He was a man given over to a purpse that was utterly—well, alien—to
her own world view. That she could not fathom. At times it seemed no different to her than
another man's idiosyncratic obsession with model aircraft or macrobiotics; at other times
he seemed to her to be treading the very brink of psychosis. If he weren't so incredibly
lucid, so undeniably brilliant and focused, she suspected he'd have been diagnosed long
ago.
Entering her office, she moved to her chair and sank into her seat, reimmersing herself
almost without hesitation into the papers Mulder had faxed her. Absorbed, she began to set
her soda down among them, then placed the can unopened on the floor beside her chair and
promptly forgot about it. Within less than a minute she was typing away assiduously.
Also described in the report is a highly experimental neurosurgical procedure
designed to induce a permanent waking state. The procedure involved cutting part of the
brain stem in the mid-pontile region, which would explain Henry Willig's scar. A similar
scar should also be evident on Augustus Cole. Post-op treatment included a regimen of
synthetic supplements to replenish the organic defecits caused by prolonged lack of sleep.
This is consistent with the antidepressants Cole robbed from the pharmacy. These drugs
maintain serotonin levels in the blood, serotonin being the primary substance produced
during sleep. While it is theoretically possible that this procedure greatly diminished
the subject's need for sleep, I can neither quantify nor substantiate its success without
further clinical evidence—
The phone rang, interrupting Dana's flow. She answered, mind still spinning out a web
of words. "Scully," she said absently. She was half expecting to hear Mulder's
voice, but it still came like a burst of warm breath in her ear, sudden and shockingly
vibrant. He leapt into conversation without preliminaries, as if his mind had started the
conversation even before her answer. Dana could almost hear a cork pop when he began
speaking. It was their old, familiar way of communicating, and without even noticing she
was drawn immediately into its cocooning intimacy.
"Yeah," Mulder said on hearing her voice. (Mulderese for hello—and sometimes
he didn't even bother with this much.) "The second officer is still in a coma, so I
don't think we can count on him to tell us what happened."
"I'm going over these reports you faxed me. They're incredible."
"Well, the military already sent troops through a radioactive mushroom cloud—I
guess they figure they have to top themselves," Mulder said.
"Sleep eradication still doesn't explain the shooting of those two officers."
Dana sighed. "Or the anomalous autopsy results on Willig and Dr Grissom."
"Well, I learned something at Dr Grissom's clinic about what happens to a person's
cortex when you stimulate it with electricity—"
Dana heard the slight rise at the end of his remark, and with sudden internal dismay
read this as a very likely danger signal for one of Mulder's awful medical jokes (Hey
Scully, I just read this article in the New England Journal of Medicine—? Says that the
practice of circumcision is petering out.) In a bland, quelling voice, she said,
"They experience mild visual and auditory hallucinations. Any first year med student
can tell you that."
There was a tiny silence on the other end of the phone. Then Mulder said with matching
seriousness, "Well, what if that stimulus were to come from a remote source? What if
Cole has somehow developed the ability to project his unconscious?"
Dana nearly groaned. The awful thing was that when Mulder was serious he
might as well have been joking. "Are you suggesting that Cole killed those
people with telepathic images?"
Mulder, in a clear 'hear me out' tone, continued. "Well, think about it, Scully.
In all those years without REM sleep, maybe Cole built a bridge between the waking world
and the dream world—the collective unconscious. And what if—by existing consciously in
the unconscious world—he's—he's developed the ability to externalize his dreams and
effectively alter reality... ?"
Dana paused, licking her lips with gentle hesitation as she considered her words. The
risk one ran with Mulder wasn't so much that of offending him, as of embroiling oneself in
a theoretical debate with him. "Even if you're right—you'll have a much better
chance of finding Cole if you work up a profile and try and surmise his next move."
After a moment he answered with that amiable tone of his that always surprised her when
it came: always suddenly, like a ray of bright sun from a perpetually clouded sky.
"All right," he said. Dana could almost hear his smile—could see it all too
clearly. "I'll sharpen my pencils and I'll see you later—"
Dana heard then the interruptive note to his words, and heard something else in the
vague background sound from his end. A sense of movement, otherness.
"I'll be right there, Krycek," Mulder's voice said in her ear.
Scully stared off into space, feeling all that she couldn't see. The other man, Alex
Krycek, somewhere in Mulder's view. An interloper with a wolf's hungry face. A shadowy
presence circling the safe, brief shelter of their phone conversation, somehow menacing.
Was she being silly? Hard to tell. Krycek's name spoken so casually by Mulder, spilled
from those warm lips, unsettled her for no reason she could put her finger on. She thought
of the muffled conversation she hadn't quite overheard that morning, vague, soft
murmurings suggestive of... of what, Dana? Ridiculous. Jealousy of any kind was
uncalled for. It was unprofessional, inappropriate. Yes, she missed Mulder, and felt left
out of his current investigation, and she wished she were in on the action. These were
natural feelings, but they didn't add up to a good reason for jealousy. Nothing did,
because there was no good reason for it. She'd been raised to keep her head above that
ugly fray of feeling, and she would.
"Where are you going?" Dana asked, trying to keep her voice casual.
"We're going to check on another member of the squad. See if he can tell us
something about Cole."
Dana felt a fresh wave of loneliness strike her, compounding Mulder's distant, familiar
voice with the empty silence of her office. "Sounds like your new partner's working
out," she observed. Her own voice sounded toneless to her, but she wondered if Mulder
heard the heavy feelings weighting down her words.
In a mild voice, Mulder said, "Yeah—he's all right. He could use a little more
seasoning and some, uh—wardrobe advice, but he's a lot more open to extreme possibilities
than—"
"Than I was?" Scully asked smoothly, interrupting and finishing his sentence.
There was a smallish pause, then Mulder—voice rich with understanding and
patience—finished gently and deliberately: "Than I assumed he would be."
Scully smiled. Warmth touched her, but was mixed with less easily discernible emotions.
They swirled through her, feelings as tenuous and transient as cigarette smoke and yet
with a similar, lingering flavor of bitterness. Why? Why, Dana? She drew in a long,
deep breath. "Must be nice not having someone questioning your every move, poking
holes in all your theories... "
Dana tried to see Mulder, tried to pull his image to life from the far end of the
phone. Was he smiling now? Was his smile widening to a rare, open grin? When he spoke it
was with a strange, stuttery attenuation of words—as if he were tripping and catching on
his own irony.
"Oh, oh yeah, i-i-it's great, I uh, I—I'm—surprised I put up with you for so
long—"
Dana smiled again. But it hurt more than it should to smile. She could not help but
fear there was some grain of truth to Mulder's dry, gently jabbing remark. She paused,
searching for some response appropriate to his teasing, but found none. What could she
say? There were no words for all that she wanted to say, for the feelings that seethed
like dark, restless snakes in her depths. There never were.
In a deliberately light tone, winding up the conversation, she said, "You'd better
go... I'll, uh, read over this report again and see what I can come up with."
And Mulder simply said "Okay." And hung up without a goodbye, as was his
wont. In the wake of silence, Dana put down phone slowly. She looked at her desk, at the
papers layering its surface, their endless words and thick sentences forming their own
complex web of illusory significance. The strands of this conspiracy radiated out but
ended nowhere, formed no grand design. They entangled everything in their sticky parts but
eluded capture themselves. What was the point?
Dana looked at the papers, and then around her office, feeling a depression that had no
one simple cause, that was not Mulder or work or family despite how
much she would like to lay blame at one of those causes—preferably the first, the
easiest. But the reason was not there alone. The reason was none of those things in
itself. Not lack of love or the complications of same. Just life. Just life, Dana.
Sleepless
Part Three
They were on the road quickly, leaving the sprawling, architecturally uninspired
complex of the V.A. Medical Center behind, driving out of North Orange toward the
metropolitan area and Queens... more or less.
Sunday, 7:33 p.m.
115th Precinct, Queens
3:42 a.m.
Monday, 12:34 p.m.
Monday, 3:22 p.m.
