Noel ran his fingers over the palm pilot lovingly, almost, but not
quite, pressing the buttons.
"What did you think, Alex? That you pitiful humans had the
technology to develop something like this?" Noel spoke with such
malevolence that it made Alex's blood run cold. "One touch to this
button, Alex, you'll die a horrible, painful death.
"I know." Alex felt defeated; lost beyond all redemption. It had
come to this; all his fighting against them washed away like some
stain on a concrete floor under a high-pressure water hose.
"I want you to shoot Mulder, Alex." Noel spoke so softly as though
what he asked had no meaning whatsoever.
Alex looked at him with disbelief and banged his head against the
steering wheel.
"No! I can't do that, Noel. Press the button...kill me, now."
Noel laughed, but without any real humour. Alex wondered if these
terminator wannabes actually had something as mundane as human
emotions.
"Touching, your concern for this man... a man who has the greatest
contempt for you. I really do believe that you'd die for him. But
you know it might not just end there, I can kill you and bring you
back a thousand times, and then start all over again." Noel said,
not looking at Alex, but staring straight ahead through the
windshield. "Does that sound like a living hell to you, Alex?
Alex breathed a sigh of despair, but didn't reply. Noel turned to
him and with dead eyes spoke his name again.
"Alex, do your feelings of concern transfer to other people in
general?"
"What do you mean? What are you saying, Noel?" Alex's pupils had
dilated in fear and fatalism so that his eyes appeared completely
black.
"If you don't do this," Noel said calmly, "tonight I will kill one
thousand people. I'll rip their heads right from their shoulders.
You know I can do this, Alex. Do it now," he said and exited the
car without looking back.
Alex felt sick, the bile rising to his throat, burning; with only
the greatest self-control was he able to force it back down into his
gut.
Alex stood there, pointing the gun at Mulder. His finger trembled
on the trigger. Staring straight into those eyes, which held only
hate and contempt for him, he felt the bullet tear into his good
arm, loosening his grip on the gun and it fell to the floor. With
pain in his arm, only a pale imitation of the pain in his heart, he
reached for the gun again, knowing the uselessness of the action.
When the next shot tore into his chest, he screamed in pain.
He looked into Skinner's black eyes. "You don't have enough bullets
to stop them." Skinner didn't move, didn't lower his gun. "With one
bullet, I can give you a thousand lives... shoot Mulder." With the
blood bubbling and pooling in his lungs, Alex realized the futility
of this request.
When the kill shot tore into his brain, Alex's last coherent thought
was that now they were the heirs to the kingdom, and god help
them. He felt warmed from the inside, at peace, free at last. As
his soul left his body and began its rise toward the welcoming,
bright light, what hurt him the most was Mulder's sang froid glance
at his dead body—no emotion, just another piece of trash to be
disposed of.
The Heirs to the Kingdom
by The Riticulan Amanuensis
The FBI parking garage was a barren world at three am in the
morning—a lonely, uninviting place.
