The FBI parking garage was a barren world at three am in the morning—a lonely, uninviting place. 
     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, does 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. Kill Mulder 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, 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. 

Loved it?  Hated it? let Riticulan know.  No mail goes unanswered