Author's note: This story, the fruit of six months of writing, takes place during the fourth season of The X-Files, in the span of time between the episodes "Never Again" and "Leonard Betts," and during this past year in Due South-land as well. I trust Ray, Fraser and Dief have been having many adventures during the year that their show's been off the air, and this is one of them. This story is rated PG for some dead bodies, action-movie violence, and some mild language from Ray-- nothing too bad.

the soul stealer

by Nathan Alderman

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
JANUARY 5 1:09 AM

Ellis Vincenzo slept. The thin, dark-haired and handsome young man slumped on the imitation-leather upholstery, a seat belt clipped around his waist. The cuffs on his hands glinted in the passing squares of orange light from the streetlamps. His head tilted back, resting on the seat, and his mouth hung open just enough to let out faint breathing sounds. A large white wolf rested on the seat beside him, watching him intently.

"Well, that was a waste of my time," said Detective Raymond Vecchio, behind the wheel of the green 1971 Buick Riviera in which Vincenzo slept. "For all the help he's given us, I say we just gift-wrap him and drop him on the Capellis' doorstep. Who knows? They might even send us a thank-you note."

"Now, Ray, you can't place all the blame on him," replied Constable Benton Fraser. His brown hat rested on the Riv's dashboard. "There were a great many warehouses on that street. It's only natural that he'd be unable to remember which of them was the storehouse for the Capelli family's narcotics operation."

"I say, if a guy says he wants to cop a plea and save his butt, he better cough up some hard evidence," Ray muttered, jerking a thumb at the motionless informant.

"Keep in mind that the man is afraid for his life, Ray. You yourself said that the Capellis have a notoriously long reach, especially when it comes to reaching those who inform on them. Given the choice between a prison term for armed robbery and the chance of a bullet to the back of the head, I can understand why he'd be less than forthcoming." Fraser looked out the windshield at the wet slush glistening on the street. It was an unusually cold January, even for Chicago.

"Whatever. Say, Benny, you want to get a bite to eat? I know this great pizza place a few blocks from here." Ray's stomach was growling-- they'd been driving around since nine that night, trying to get Vincenzo to point out specific locations of the Capellis' operations, and his watch now read a little after one A.M.

"Shouldn't we take Vincenzo back to police headquarters first? Unless I'm mistaken, isn't that official police procedure?" Fraser cast a quick glance back at their captive.

"Maybe official official police procedure, as in the technicalities and legal mumbo-jumbo and all that . But the Daley Rules say it's OK."

"Pardon me?"

"The Daley Rules. You know, the unwritten rules of Chicago cops. They're the first thing you learn when you join the force."

"I see. How come I've never heard of them?"

"Oh, it's a big police secret. I really shouldn't even be telling you-- you don't know the secret handshake."

"Secret handshake, Ray?" The Mountie looked down at his hand.

"Never mind, I'll teach it to you later."

"Ah. Very good. Well , then, am I to assume the Daley Rules permit you to enter a restaurant and purchase food while on duty?"

"That's right."

"With a known criminal in the back seat of your car?"

"Yup."

"Well..."

"Great. Here we are." Ray turned a corner and parked in the shadow of an El track, right next to a small, brightly lit diner. The sign above the door said LOUIE'S, accompanied by a blinking neon slice of pizza next to it. Brightly painted signs for pizza and pasta covered the windows around the glass door.

Fraser and Ray opened the car doors and got out. Their breath steamed in the frigid air. As he picked up his hat from the dashboard, Fraser spotted the sign on the sidewalk parallel to the Riv: NO PARKING.

"Uh, Ray, did you know that you just--"

"Yes, Fraser." Ray locked the doors.

"Well, perhaps you should--"

"Don't worry about it. I'm allowed."

"The Daley Rules?"

"The Daley Rules."

"Ah." Fraser still felt fundamentally uncertain about this entire "Daley Rules" business, particularly the secret handshake bit. Still, when in Rome... "Are you certain that it will be safe to leave Vincenzo unguarded like this?"

"No problem, Benny. Diefenbaker will watch him, won't you?" Diefenbaker pressed his nose to the window of the Riv on Ray's side and whimpered. "Keep an eye on him, and we'll bring you back a slice," Ray promised. Dief licked his lips. "And remember-- if he moves, bite him." Ray turned and went inside the restaurant.

Dief turned and regarded Fraser quizzically. "I'm sure he didn't mean that literally," Fraser told the wolf, and followed Ray inside.

A few seconds passed. A shadow detached itself from an alley across the street and glided towards the car.

The diner was bright and warm inside, the air filled with the aroma of baking dough and fresh tomato sauce. Fraser noted the clean floor with appreciation, not to mention the various spotless tables and chairs in the front of the restaurant. A large red counter sat directly opposite the door, behind which the Canadian saw the steel machinery of the kitchen; a backlit menu hung from the ceiling above the counter, and tables and booths stretched to the back of the restaurant on either side.

At this hour of night, there were few customers; Fraser saw only a thin, gray-haired man in a black coat sitting at a booth in the back. He was puffing on a cigarette and thumbing through what looked like a manuscript, making corrections and revisions with a red pen.

A short, cheery man with wiry dark hair emerged from the kitchen. His white apron was spotted with red tomato sauce. "Raymond!" he cried, coming around the counter to shake Ray's hand. "How's my best customer doing?"

"Just fine, Louie. Hey, I'd like to introduce you to my friend Benny. Benny, this is Louie Patino. I've been coming to his place for pizza since I was in junior high."

"Pleased to meet you," Fraser said, shaking the short man's flour-covered hand.

Louie quickly glanced at Fraser's uniform. "You Canadian or something? What are you doing down here?"

Fraser took a deep breath and began to recite. "My name is Constable Benton Fraser. I first came to Chicago on the trail of the killers of my father, and for reasons that--"

"Skip it, Benny," Ray cut him off. "Nobody wants to hear your whole life story all the time."

Fraser reconsidered. "Right you are, Ray. "

"So, what can I get you tonight, Raymond?" Louie asked.

"I'll have a--" Ray's words were drowned out by a growing roar above them. The chairs began rattling and the light fixtures swung gently. Ray shook his head-- he'd almost forgotten about the El track that ran over Louie's place. He turned to try and yell something in Benny's ear about it, then noticed his friend had his head tilted toward the door and was looking outside as if he heard something disturbing.

"IT'S JUST THE TRAIN, FRASER!" Ray yelled over the din. Fraser put a finger to his lips gravely. "WHAT?" asked Ray. "WHO? ME OR THE TRAIN?" The din began to die down.

"I thought I heard something..." Fraser began. Then Ray heard it, too-- Diefenbaker was barking loudly, fiercely. Fraser stopped only to tip his hat at Louie and bolted out the door, with Ray a second behind him.

They made it outside and stopped short. The street was empty , but Dief was positively snarling at something. Ray could see that the Riv's passenger door was ajar; he drew his gun. Fraser and Ray stepped over the heaps of dirty snow piled curbside and circled around the car.

"What the--" said Ray.

"Oh dear," said Fraser.

Diefenbaker huddled against the driver's side door of the Riv, ears flattened, teeth bared. His eyes seemed fixed on the other side of the street. Ellis Vincenzo lay half-in, half-out of the Riv's open door, the back of his head resting on the wet street in a small patch of grimy snow. There was an expression of sheer terror frozen on his face. His cuffed hands, clenched tightly, stretched above his head. His shirt was torn open and there was a steaming burn mark on the skin of his chest, about where his heart would be. The flesh was blackened in the shape of a human hand.

Fraser looked at Ray. "I don't suppose the Daley Rules cover something like this, Ray?"

Ray just stared at the body.

"No," the Mountie answered himself. "I don't suppose they do."

FBI HEADQUARTERS
WASHINGTON, D.C.
JANUARY 6 10:23 AM

For a moment, just after the lights went out, Special Agent Dana Scully could see nothing. Then she heard the soft whir of the projector starting up and the first slide splashed upon the pull-down screen. It was a mug shot of a young man, dark-haired, with sharp handsome features. The slate he held read "VINCENZO, ELLIS."

Her partner's voice drifted out of the darkness. "Ellis Vincenzo, a known member of the Capelli crime family, was arrested last week in Chicago while attempting a daylight robbery of a jewelry store. It wasn't his lucky day-- a pair of off-duty cops were shopping for an engagement ring and managed to get the drop on him. Shortly after his arrest, he offered to lead police to the locations of various Capelli operations in exchange for a suspended sentence and enrollment in the witness protection program."

The slide changed. This one was obviously a police surveillance photo. A corpulent, gray-haired man in a finely tailored suit was seen stepping out of a limousine on a city street. "The Capelli family, led by this man, Arturo Capelli, is by all accounts the reigning crime family of Chicago. Not content to stick with illegal gambling profits, sources say the Capellis have their fingers in a lot of other pies. Most prominently, the Chicago police believe that the Capellis are using their legitimately owned shipping operations on Lake Michigan as a front to funnel narcotics into Canada. Vincenzo claimed he was going to tell police exactly where and how the drug-running was taking place. Unfortunately, he was killed early this morning."

"Not surprising," remarked Scully. "How does this concern us?"

"The bureau in Chicago e-mailed me the following photos this morning," her partner said. The projector clicked and a new slide came into view. Vincenzo, hands cuffed, sprawled of the passenger-side door of a green car, his eyes looking skyward. His shirt, torn open, revealed some form of blackened mark on his chest.

"Vincenzo was in the custody of a Chicago police officer at the time of his death," Mulder explained. "The officer and a friend stopped in a pizza place on the way back to the police station. They report being inside for no more than a minute, a report the owner confirms. When they came out, they found him like this."

Another slide. Close-up on Vincenzo's face. His eyes stared out at her, wide and empty, his features contorted in fear.

"The passenger-side door, which had been locked, was open," Mulder said. "As of this morning, no fingerprints other than that of the detective and his passenger had been found anywhere on the door. Cause of death is still unknown-- there's no evidence of poison, or any external or internal trauma. In fact, the body doesn't have a mark on it-- except for this."

The slide changed to show a closer view of the grisly burn mark on the victim's exposed chest, roughly the size and shape of a human hand, fingers spread. Scully's eyes widened. "Although the mark on his chest bears all the signs of a third-degree burn, initial examination indicates that the charring was only skin deep, and that no tissue damage took place below the dermis," her partner said.

Special Agent Fox Mulder flipped on the office lights and shut off the projector. "And here's the kicker: this was the fourth such murder in as many weeks." He handed his partner a manila envelope. She opened it to find a series of photos, the first of a man in a flannel shirt and jeans. He was on the ground in a similar position as Vincenzo, the same burn mark on his chest. "The first took place on the northern side of Lake Michigan, in Canada-- a Toronto fence named Joe Halfeagle. Then there were those two--" Scully flipped through the stack and came to a picture of two dark-haired men in business suits and heavy coats sprawled in an alley-- "James Morgan and Glen Wong, executives at First Chicago who had recently been fired and were facing indictment on embezzling. The evidence suggests they skimmed millions of dollars earmarked for the accounts of charities for local childrens' hospitals, cancer research, and the homeless. They vanished from their respective apartments on the same night a week before Christmas, and were discovered in an alley inside the Loop."

Scully studied the photos, deep in thought. "I don't understand, Mulder-- there's no logic to the killings, aside from the fact that each victim was a criminal. Different backgrounds, different incomes, different countries... What's your theory?"

Mulder moved over to his desk and began rooting through the drawers, casting occasional glances up at his partner. "You may find this hard to believe, Scully, but I don't have one-- yet. Victims of alien abductions often report mysterious or unexplained burns, but the handprint on his chest is clearly human, and the burn is far more severe than usual accounts."

He picked up a pair of airline tickets from his top drawer and handed one to Scully. "The FBI is nonetheless very interested to know why one of its prize potential witnesses mysteriously died in police custody. That's why we're flying to Chicago tonight. And while we're there, we can conduct a side investigation into the possibility of extraterrestrial life on earth." He produced two more slips of paper from his shirt pocket.

Scully folded her arms and regarded him warily. "What are those, Mulder?"

"Tickets to the Bulls - Rockets game," he grinned. "Fifth row, center. Come on, Scully, aren't you even remotely curious as to what planet Dennis Rodman really comes from?"

POLICE DISTRICT 27
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
JANUARY 7, 12:23 PM

Lt. Harding Welsh had the following items spread out on a sheet of butcher paper that covered his desk: a quarter-pound each of prosciutto, Genoa salami, bologna, and provolone cheese; a jar of mustard and a jar of mayonnaise, each with an attendant knife; a tomato, sliced; a jar of little yellow banana peppers; a fork and a bread knife; and half a loaf of fine rye bread.

Though he seemed to be in the process of using these materials to construct the Greatest Sandwich Known to Man, at the moment Welsh seemed more interested in having Detective Ray Vecchio for lunch.

Ray stood stiffly in front of the Lieutenant's desk, expecting the worst. He had no doubt his expectations would be fulfilled.

"Explain to me again, Detective Vecchio, exactly how it was that this informant managed to die in your custody," the Lieutenant said, lovingly slicing open the rye loaf and slathering it with mayonnaise and mustard. He put extra emphasis on the word "Detective," as if to underscore how easily that particular term could be replaced with something like "traffic cop."

"Well, sir, considering the lateness of the hour, and the fact that we hadn't eaten since lunch, my companion and I decided to stop and get some pizza on the way back to the station," Ray replied innocently.

"Your companion? This would be the Mountie, I take it?" inquired Lt. Welsh. He was carefully layering the slices of meat, evenly distributing them along the length of each half of the rye loaf.

"Yes sir, I believe it would."

"I see. And how long, exactly, was it that you left this highly valued informant in the back seat of your car--"

"May I add that the doors were locked, sir?"

The lieutenant sighed. "Fine. In the back seat of your car with the doors locked, unguarded, while you and Constable Fraser went in for pizza." The cheese now in place, the lieutenant fished the small yellow pepper rings out of their jar with his fork, placing them with a keen aesthetic eye along the length of one half of the sandwich.

"A minute or less, sir. With all due respect, sir, I would hardly say that Vincenzo was unguarded," Ray quickly pointed out.

"Really, Detective? As I understand it, there were only two of you, and you both went into the pizza establishment. Who was it, exactly, who stayed in the car to keep watch over Vincenzo?"

"That would be the wolf, sir."

Lt. Welsh paused momentarily in the act of laying out the tomato slices. "The wolf. Ah, yes. Detective, perhaps I'm mistaken here, but I don't believe we deputized the wolf, did we?"

"No sir, we did not."

"Then what, may I ask, was he doing guarding your informant?" With a deft touch, Welsh flipped the two sandwich halves together and set the work of art gingerly down upon his desk. "Let me guess, Vecchio. You were invoking the Daley Rules here, weren't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, Detective, you seem to have forgotten the primary clause of the Daley Rules--that clause being, and I quote, 'if you screw up in any way, shape or form, all protections under said rules become null and void in the eyes of your superiors.'" Welsh glowered. Ray swallowed hard.

"That's the bad news," the Lieutenant continued, leaning back in his chair. "The good news is, considering the, shall we say, unusual circumstances surrounding Mr. Vincenzo's departure from this life, I'm not inclined to relieve you of your badge-- not just yet. Unofficially, after looking at what killed this guy, I'm not sure you could have prevented it even if you were there."

"Your confidence is appreciated, sir."

"I'm sure it is. Listen, Vecchio, the FBI is breathing down my neck about this. Vincenzo was a federal witness. That means you just stepped on some enormous toes. And that means that the safety of your badge is of a conditional and highly temporary nature. I want to know who killed him, and why."

"Absolutely, sir. I'll get right on it."

"See that you do," Welsh told him, then waved a hand in dismissal. Ray backed out of the office cautiously, keeping his eyes on the lieutenant, and closed the door as he left.

Welsh regarded the sandwich on his desk for a moment. Then, abruptly, he picked it up and bit into it with a savagery that only began to express his frustration. For all the good it would do, he thought as he chewed fiercely, perhaps they should deputize the wolf.

CANADIAN CONSULATE, CHICAGO
12:41 PM

"Constable Fraser, I hope you appreciate the trouble I went to on your behalf." Inspector Margaret Thatcher cast a dark glare at Fraser from across her desk.

"Absolutely, sir," Fraser replied, standing at attention. His gripped his hat in one hand, smartly attired in his dress reds. "I understand that your time is valuable."

"Extremely valuable. I had hoped to complete this paperwork authorizing transport of the new antibiotics from Chicago Hope to Tuktoyaktuk--" and here Thatcher indicated the forests' worth of official documents neatly stacked in her "in" box-- "by noon today. Unfortunately, retrieving you from police custody in time for your afternoon shift has basically eliminated that possibility."

"The police were quite thorough in their questioning. I apologize for the difficulty I've caused, sir."

"The next time something like this happens, Constable, you won't even have the opportunity to apologize. Do I make myself perfectly clear?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good." The inspector glanced down at the sheaf of papers directly before her and began to fill them out in pen. As an afterthought, she looked back up at Fraser, still at attention. "You do understand, of course, that I only went to all this trouble so that you would be able to make your shift for the consulate on time. Not for any other reasons. Especially those of a... "

"Personal nature, sir?"

"Yes." Thatcher looked relieved that she hadn't been the one to say it.

"Understood."

"Good. Dismissed, Constable." Fraser left, closing the door behind him. Thatcher stared after him for a moment, then shook her head slightly as if to clear an unwanted thought from it, and resumed her paperwork.

"Son, I'm disappointed in you." Robert Fraser shook his ghostly head reproachfully at his son as the two made their way down the consulate hallway. Diefenbaker trotted along beside them. "Haven't you been listening to anything I've told you? Never leave your prisoner unguarded!"

"Well, Dad, technically he was in the custody of Detective Vecchio at the time," Fraser replied, letting a note of frustration creep into his voice. While Fraser was generally glad to have his father around-- concerns for his own mental health aside-- the elder Fraser's incorporeality and habit of nitpicking often made for an exasperating combination.

"Excuses, excuses." Fraser Sr. walked through a potted plant and kept lecturing. "A Mountie should never let his guard down. I remember one time, up near Moosejaw; I was tracking a man named Thorndike for elk poaching..."

"Not now, Dad," Fraser told him. " I'm due to stand watch in--" he checked his watch briskly-- "three minutes." He turned back to his father. "No offense, Dad, but you're dead. As such I'd hardly consider you an expert on the subject of preparedness."

Fraser Sr. fingered the back of his hat, where the brim had been cut off to fit in the coffin. "Hmm. You may have a point there, son."

"Still," Fraser said as he began to descend the stairs, "the manner in which poor Mr. Vincenzo died troubles me. I don't believe I've ever seen the like of it." His father did not reply; he seemed lost in thought. Fraser shrugged, chalking it up to the peculiarities of the deceased, and continued down the stairs and out of sight. Dief stayed at the top of the stairs, studying the old man.

At length, well after his son had gone, the elder Fraser spoke. "I have," he said softly. "A long, long time ago..."

CHICAGO POLICE DISTRICT 27
JANUARY 8 9:02 AM

Mulder ran his fingers carefully over the cold steel, staring at his reflection in the gleaming surface. "Here it is, Scully," he said raptly. "Do you know how long I've been searching for one of these?"

Scully raised one eyebrow. "It's a car, Mulder," she said. The agents stood on the sidewalk in front of the 27th District House, a squat red-brick building in the midst of a forest of black-smudged skyscrapers. The Chicago sky, as usual, was dead gray. A few lost snowflakes drifted gently down to the salt-strewn streets as a cold, cutting wind whipped around the corners of the buildings.

"A 1971 Buick Riviera, hunter green," Mulder continued, mesmerized. "Imitation leather interior, all-chrome fenders, custom hubcaps, six-cylinder engine, and five on the floor." He looked up at her. "Some would say this represents the pinnacle of American automotive engineering."

Scully pointed to the red-and-white sign on the sidewalk next to the car. "And some would say it's illegally parked," she told him, working hard to surpress a smirk.

Mulder glanced at the sign and grinned. "Welcome to Chicago, Scully."

Scully wrapped her long black coat around herself a little tighter in the cold. "If I'm not mistaken, this is the same car Ellis Vincenzo was killed in."

Mulder nodded. "Exactly. Look at the tag on the rear view mirror-- it's just out of impound." He cast one last, loving look at the car before turning toward the stationhouse door. "Now let's go see if we can find its owner."

Ray was leaning back in his chair, feet on his desk, eyes shut, massaging his temples, when Elaine Besbriss poked her head around the edge of the nearest divider. "Hey, Ray, got a moment?" she asked brightly.

Ray had more than a moment, but didn't particularly feel like sharing it with anyone at this particular instant in time. His case was stone-cold; he had spent half of yesterday combing the city, talking to every lowlife and stool pigeon he knew, trying to see if the Capellis had put the hit on Vincenzo. Each one of them had the same story: the Capelli higher-ups considered themselves fortunate, but were at least as confused as he was. On top of that, he'd had to wade through several hours' worth of red tape to rescue his beloved Riv from police impoundment. The thought of a team of forensics technicians crawling all over his pride and joy, dusting and tweezing every nook and cranny, made his skin crawl.

"No, Elaine, I haven't seen Fraser today," he told her without opening his eyes, "and as far as I know he's still not accepting marriage proposals." Yeah, he told himself, it was kinda cruel. So what?

Elaine's voice became considerately less bright. "There are a pair of FBI agents here to see you," she said, icicles hanging on each word, and vanished.

Great, Ray thought, the last thing I need today is to put up with flak from a couple of know-nothing Feds. From his experience, agents of the FBI were arrogant, inefficient, and terminally clueless, the notorious Agent Ford being a case in point. He resolved to be only as cooperative as he absolutely had to be-- if his life was miserable already, he reasoned, why make their jobs any easier?

That was, of course, before the astonishing redhead walked around the corner. Ray opened his eyes and almost fell backwards out of his chair.

"Detective Vecchio?" the vision asked him as somewhat morose, brown-haired guy in a black suit appeared behind her. "I'm Special Agent Dana Scully, and this is my partner Fox Mulder. We're with the FBI." Ray sat up straight as if he'd been hit by a cattle prod.

"How can I help you?" The words came out of his mouth before he even knew what he was saying.

"We'd like to ask you a few questions about Ellis Vincenzo's death," Scully told him.

A small voice inside Ray's head told him, Stop smiling, you idiot. She's still a Fed. He ignored it. "Ask away," he replied, quite to his own amazement.

"... and so the El train passed overhead for approximately thirty seconds?" Scully had pulled up a chair next to Detective Vecchio's desk, scribbling notes on a small pad of paper. Mulder, leaning against a file cabinet, checked his watch. They'd hardly been here for fifteen minutes, and already they'd gotten nearly all the information they needed from Vecchio.

Mulder had expected more resistance, some sign of irritation on the detective's part for their intrusion into his time. Nearly every report he read from a Chicago-based investigation included a complaint about "local law enforcement uncooperative." Instead, Vecchio was beaming as if they'd just handed him a $10 million check on national television.

"That's correct," Vecchio said. Scully flipped the pad closed, stuck it in her coat pocket, and began to rise from the chair.

"Thank you for your time, Detective Vecchio," she said. "We'd still like to talk to your friend, Mr. Fraser-- the one who was in the restaurant with you at the time of the murder. Do you have any number or address where we can get in touch with him?"

"If you'll pardon me saying so, I don't believe that will be necessary," came a polite, clipped voice from behind the agents. Mulder and Scully turned to see a man in a red uniform, high leather boots and a wide-brimmed tan hat standing at attention. What appeared to be a large white wolf stood at his side, tongue hanging out, surveying the agents with one brown and one blue eye. This, Mulder decided, must be another one of those Darin Morgan episodes.

The man in red extended his arm and shook first Mulder's hand, then Scully's. He had a strong but friendly grip. "Constable Benton Fraser, R.C.M.P. At your service."

"Fox Mulder, FBI. This is my partner, Dana Scully. Aren't you a little bit out of your jurisdiction, Constable?" Mulder asked. In the corner of his eye he caught the half-bemused, half-bewildered expression on Scully's face.

"Well, in a manner of speaking, yes," Fraser replied. "I first came to Chicago on the--" He stopped, seemed to think his words over, then began again. "I'm assigned to diplomatic duty at the Canadian Consulate here in Chicago, but as of late I find myself in the role of, well... I suppose you could I've become something of an unofficial liaison from Canada's law enforcement community." While the Mountie spoke, the wolf had brazenly approached Mulder's partner and begun to sniffing her coat. Scully remained motionless, apparently unsure of what to make of the presence of an Arctic wolf in a police squadroom.

"Diefenbaker!" Fraser scolded, bending down to gently turn the wolf's face toward his. "Where are your manners?" The wolf whined a little. The Mountie looked up at Scully. "You'll have to forgive him, Agent Scully. I believe he's taken a shine to you. That, or you have some article of chocolate in your pockets."

Scully slowly reached into her coat pocket and produced a carton of Milk Duds. She reached into the box to offer one to Diefenbaker, but Fraser stopped her. "I wouldn't recommend that. Give him one, and he'll never leave you alone about it."

"What are you doing over here, Benny?" Vecchio asked.

"Well, Ray, my shift at the consulate doesn't begin until three, so I thought I'd check in and see if there were any new developments in the Vincenzo case."

"The only new developments is that there are no new developments. As I just finished telling our friends from Washington here, I've been all over this city and no one knows any more than we do."

Elaine stuck her head around the corner of the cubicle. "Hi, Fraser," she said, smiling.

"Hello, Elaine." The Mountie tipped his hat. Mulder smiled faintly. Just like Elvis, chivalry was alive and well and living in Canada.

"Ray," Elaine said, growing more serious, "dispatch just called. They found another one." The detective all but leaped out of his chair.

"What, you mean like Vincenzo?"

"Burn mark on the chest in the shape of a hand?"

"That's our man. What's the address, Elaine?"

"2518 Clinton. Alley between a liquor store and a pawn shop." Vecchio turned and began scribbling this down on a post-it pad on his desk. Elaine cleared her throat. "You're welcome, Ray."

"Yeah, yeah, thanks, Elaine." Vecchio waved a hand absentmindedly.

"Thank you kindly, Elaine," the Mountie added as she walked away.

"I'd like to go with you to the crime scene, Detective Vecchio," Mulder told the detective, grabbing his coat.

"Fine by me," Vecchio replied, turning to regard Mulder's partner. "What about you, Agent Scully?" Was it Mulder's imagination, or did the detective's voice have a hopeful note in it?

"Thanks, but I'd like a chance to do an autopsy on Vincenzo, try to determine the cause of death," Scully replied.

"Agent Scully, would you mind if I observed the autopsy?" Fraser asked.

Scully's face showed mild surprise. "Do you have any medical training?" she asked.

"Formally? No. However, my grandmother back in Tuktoyaktuk had an extensive collection of texts on anatomy and forensic medicine, so I'm reasonably familiar with the subject. During blizzards, when I was unable to go to school, my grandmother would bring in animals that had died from the cold, and we would dissect them as part of my science lessons. Of course, there was the case of that unfortunate doe who wasn't quite as frozen as we thought. Naturally, it didn't react well to being the subject of an anatomy experiment. Eventually my grandmother had to punch out the poor thing to keep it from destroying our kitchen..."

The Mountie stopped in mid-sentence, slowly realizing that all three of his companions were staring at him oddly. "Well, it was a rather long time ago, and it was a large deer, and I was very young, and... it's a long story."

"I see," said Agent Scully slowly. "Will he be coming along as well?" she continued, pointing at the wolf.

"Oh, no," Fraser sighed, "I'm sure he'd rather hang around the snack machines begging for handouts." As if on cue, Diefenbaker turned and trotted off across the squad room. "He's rather shameless about it," Fraser continued. "I worry that he's lost his hunting instinct."

Scully looked at Mulder briefly. "I suppose you can observe," she told the Mountie reluctantly.

"Mind if we take your car?" Mulder asked Vecchio innocently.

"I thought you Feds always took your own cars," the detective asked warily.

"Federal carpooling regulations," Mulder lied.

"Don't let him put anything in his mouth," he heard Vecchio tell Scully as they headed for the door. Judging from the expression on her face, it wasn't exactly a comforting statement.

COOK COUNTY CORONER'S OFFICE
10:07 AM

Scully wasn't sure what to make of the Mountie. On the surface, he seemed too good to be true: articulate, intelligent, polite-- he actually held the door for her on the way into the building, something Mulder never seemed to do-- and undeniably charming. On the other hand, there was an odd stiffness about his speech and actions, something a little too perfect, almost compulsive, about his behavior. It seemed to her as if Constable Fraser bought into the entire Dudley-Do-Right ethic a bit too much.

"When's the last time you visited a coroner's office?" she asked, by way of conversation, as they followed the signs on the wall to the examining room. The hallway they walked through was lit with dim, unpleasant fluorescent strips. The harsh glow bounced oddly off the white cinderblock walls and the worn chartreuse tile floor.

The Mountie tilted his head slightly, his eyes turning ceilingward in momentary recollection. "I believe that would have been about two and a half years ago. Just before I received my permanent assignment here."

"Who was the lucky stiff?"

"A caribou."

"A caribou?"

"Not just any caribou. This particular animal had died from drowning."

"A drowned caribou?" Scully tried to keep a straight face. It didn't work. "Victim of foul play?" she asked.

"In a manner of speaking. Actually, it turned out to be quite a fascinating case."

"I'm sure." They had reached a door labeled EXAMINING ROOM. A set of shelves holding coroner's supplies teetered next to the entry. Scully reached up and removed two sterile smocks from a box on the top shelf. Handing one to Fraser, she next took out two pairs of rubber gloves, sterile caps and face masks from boxes on the lower shelves, and gave one of each to the Mountie.

"I feel rather silly," Fraser told her from behind his face mask, looking down at his gloved hands.

"You get used to it," replied Scully, pulling open the door to the examining room. "After you."

"Thank you kindly," said the Mountie, and walked through the doorway.

They entered a cold, bright, gray room that gave Scully unpleasant half-memories of her abduction. Bare, low-watt light bulbs dangled from the ceiling, suspended by black wires. Square steel hatches, marked with numbers, lined the far wall-- the cadavers' next-to-final resting places. There was a sink on Scully's right as she walked in, next to a metal cabinet that held the examining equipment. A pair of metallic gurneys had been herded against the left wall.

Fraser wheeled one of the carts into place as Scully collected the proper tools-- scalpel, rib spreaders, calipers, bone saw-- from the proper drawers of the cabinet. She then walked over to cell number 98, bearing the label VINCENZO, ELLIS, grasped the handle, and pulled. The door swung open, and Scully slid out the chilly steel slab on which the body lay.

"Oh my God," she said.

"Indeed," said the Mountie quietly.

Vincenzo's body was undoubtedly the one lying on the slab-- besides the charred handprint on his chest, Scully recognized the nose and the line of Vincenzo's jaw from the photos she had seen the day before. But those photos showed a young man. The corpse had gray hair, the skin on its face and chest deeply lined with wrinkles. The body before her looked at least eighty years old.

TWENTY MINUTES EARLIER

It didn't take Ray long to decide that there was something spooky about this guy. The Fed, Mulder, sat quietly in the passenger seat, fingers of one hand drumming on the dash, staring straight ahead out the windshield. He'd barely said three words the entire time they'd been driving. It was very different from having Benny in the other seat, making his odd circular conversation about Canadian money or moose or the Inuit or stuff like that. Not necessarily worse, he told himself, but different.

"So," Ray ventured, trying to get a conversation going out of sheer boredom, "what's your field? I mean, narcotics, murder, kidnapping, what?" Ray was wondering exactly whom this guy had killed to be partnered with an incredible woman like Scully. In the back of his mind he desperately hoped she would prove immune to the Fraser Effect, that mysterious form of magnetism that seemed to draw women to his friend like moths to a bug zapper.

"Agent Scully and I are assigned to the X-Files," Mulder replied in that flat, creepy voice of his.

"What-- you mean you bust pornographers?" Ray asked. A smile crept across Mulder's face.

"The X-Files," the agent continued, "as in unexplained. Agent Scully and I investigate paranormal phenomena, especially reports of alien abductions."

"Hey, I think I've heard of something like that," Ray said. "Yeah, Frannie gave me this book about it for Christmas-- 'From Outer Space' by Jose... aw, geez, it's on the tip of my tongue... well, Jose Whatshisname. You read it?"

Ray could have sworn he saw Mulder grimace slightly. "Never heard of it," the agent replied quickly. "Who's Frannie?"

"My sister. I got two of 'em. The less you know about her, the better, believe me." Ray rolled his eyes. "What about you? You have any brothers or sisters?" He saw Mulder's face darken.

"My sister was abducted when I was twelve years old," the Fed said quietly, staring out the window. Ray thought of Francesca.Yeah, some guys have all the luck, he told himself.

"Looks like we're here," said Mulder, pointing out the window at a group of police cars clustered around the mouth of an alley up ahead. Ray parked-- legally, this time-- and the two stepped out onto the streets.

A light snow fell, the wind growing colder by the moment. Ray pushed his way through the crowd of curious residents, ducked under the POLICE LINE-- DO NOT CROSS tape and flashed his badge to the uniform that approached him.

"I'm Detective Vecchio, and this is Agent Mulder of the FBI. Where's the body?"

The beat cop was a young guy, tall, with a broad dark face that at the moment was clouded with unease. "Right over here, Detective," he said, pointing to a figure sprawled in a patch of half-melted snow next to a pair of overturned garbage cans.

A young man, perhaps in his early twenties lay on his back in the snow. Just like Vincenzo, he stared up at the gray sky with wide, frightened eyes. His hands, down by his sides, clenched tightly into claws. Beneath an unizipped Bulls jacket he wore a iridescent blue silk shirt, torn open from the top. A number of thin gold chains encircled his neck-- in this neighborhood, Ray was amazed they hadn't been stolen before the cops got here-- and below them Ray saw a grisly burn mark in the shape of a human hand. It still steamed in the winter air. That wasn't what got Ray's attention, though.

The snow next to the body had been stained red in the letters FRASER.

"Either our killer likes his Must-See TV," Mulder said gravely, "or your Canadian friend is involved with this more than he thinks." A baseball-sized knot slowly settled in the pit of Ray's stomach. Trying to ignore it, he turned his attention back to the victim's face. He recognized it.

"Poor Thad," Ray said to the body without much pity. "I always thought you'd get it in the back."

"You knew this man?" asked Mulder, pulling on plastic gloves as he crouched by the body.

"Thaddeus Montrose," Ray told him, "junior entrepreneur. He was low-level, but very slick-- we couldn't get anything to stick to him. Check his pockets." Mulder gently reached into the right pocket of the victim's jacket; when he withdrew it, there were several small glass vials in his palm, each with two or three small white pebbles in it.

"And to think-- in my day I had a paper route," Mulder said, replacing the vials. He reached over and gently dipped a gloved finger into one of the red letters in the snow, then sniffed the crimson residue.

"Aw, not you too!" cried Ray, turning away in disgust. "What, did I miss some chapter in the handbook that requires all detectives to smell their evidence?"

Mulder didn't seem to notice. "Blood," he said, standing up. "And judging from the lack of cuts on the body, I'd say it was written in the killer's, not the victim's."

The beat cop walked up behind them. "Detective Vecchio, Agent Mulder, you might be interested in this. I think we found a witness."

Ray looked over his shoulder to the figure who crouched against a wall, flanked by a pair of uniformed cops. "You have got to be kidding me!" he said. "This is our witness?" The woman seemed little more than a hunched collection of rags. As Ray approached, he could see stands of white hair poking out from beneath a faded shawl. Her hands trembled beneath the pile of ragged blankets wrapped around her, and her eyes were unfocused and bleary. Years of hunger and exposure etched furrows in her face. Her lips moved constantly, but no words came out. From the looks of her, Ray doubted even Fraser could get anything out of her.

"Let me talk to her," Mulder told Ray.

"Be my guest." Ray watched as Mulder knelt down in front of her and began speaking in a soft, gentle voice.

"Hi. My name's Fox," he said, looking her in the eye. "What's yours?"

"Ma-- Mary..." Her voice was barely a whisper.

"Mary, I need you to tell me something.Can you tell me what you saw happen to that boy over there?" Mulder let her gaze follow his finger until it pointed to the body.

"A man... dark-- dark man..." she said, fear in her voice. "Hair, long dar' hair. Hurt him..." She pointed to the body in the snow.

"What did he do, Mary?" Mulder's voice was soothing. The old woman slowly reached out a gnarled hand. The agent did not move.

"Put his hand... here, right here," she said, placing her hand over Mulder's heart. "Boy fell down, fell down dinn't move. No. Dinn't move." She shook her head fiercely.

"Did the dark man say anything to you, Mary?"

"No. Uh-uh. Jus... looked, looked at me. Right inna eye. Smiled." She turned her head away. "Don' want to talk no more."

"That's OK, Mary. Thank you for your help." Mulder rose and let the two uniformed officers attend to her. "What do you think, Detective?" he asked Ray.

After watching Mulder in action, Ray wondered if perhaps he shouldn't have immediately used that copy of How To Make Friends And Influence People that Fraser had given him for Christmas to prop up the wobbly leg of his dad's pool table. "How the hell do you do that?," he asked. "Talk to people like that, I mean, so they can understand you and everything?"

"Years of explaining things to Congressmen," Mulder replied. "Any thoughts on the case?"

"Right about now a nice, easy purse-snatching is starting to look real good to me," Vecchio said, glancing once more at the victim's body. He had to squint a bit-- it almost looked like the dead kid had a few white hairs appearing on his head. Must be the snow. He heard Mulder's phone ring.

Mulder reached into his coat and flipped open the cellphone. "Mulder." Ray watched the agent listen silently, occasionally nodding to himself, for perhaps thirty seconds. "Okay, Scully. We'll meet you there." He flipped shut the cellphone, stuck it back in his coat pocket, and looked over at Vecchio.

"Don't look now, Detective, but this case just got a whole lot more interesting."

27TH DISTRICT HOUSE
1:25 PM

"It's a scientific fact that the hair and fingernails continue to grow after death.," Scully began, pushing a manila folder of files and photographs across the table at Vecchio and her partner. "However, this seems to be one of the first known cases of a body actually aging after the vital functions have ceased."

"Vincenzo had the normal bone and muscle mass for a man in his late twenties," added Fraser, sitting on Scully's side of the conference room table. The conference room was small and shadowed, with a shaft of sunlight filtering through the lone window to illuminate the dark green walls. "However," the Mountie went on, "the existing tissue had undergone a deterioration to the approximate condition of that of an eighty-year-old man. In addition, his hair turned gray, and his face appears considerably aged, as you can see from the photos."

Scully's face was a portrait of perplexion. "As for the cause of death, the nearest I can determine is that everything just... stopped, simultaneously. Usually, when a person dies, one or more organs shuts down initially, and the rest follow gradually. In this case, not only did the heart stop at the moment of death, but as near as we can tell the lungs, kidneys, liver and all other internal organs failed at the exact same time."

"As if someone had flipped off a switch inside him," Mulder said softly.

"Exactly," Scully replied.

"All this is very educational," interjected Ray, "but it doesn't get me any closer to finding my killer. All we got is some bag lady talking about a man with long dark hair, which in the Chicago area narrows our suspects down to about, oh, I'd say three million or so."

"Actually, Ray, I believe your calculations are a touch off," Fraser said. "Now, if we multiply the occurrence of dark hair in the population in general by--"

"Not now, Fraser," Ray cut him off.

"Detective Vecchio does have a point, though," Mulder said. "We know at least something about how the killer operates, but not why. Or more importantly, who. And there's still the question of your name"-- here he pointed to Fraser-- "written in the snow."

"I'm quite at a loss to explain that," Fraser told him. "To the best of my knowlege, my only association with serial killers is a strictly professional one. However, may I suggest we take some time to regroup? Granted, there is the possibility that our killer may strike again in the interim, but taking a day to collect our wits would allow for the final test results on Montrose and Vincenzo's body to be compiled."

"Yeah, and I don't know how things work in the federal government, but here in the real world I'm up to my armpits in paperwork from Vincenzo alone," Ray added.

"Sounds reasonable," Scully said. "What would you suggest, Constable?"

"Dinner," said Fraser. Scully blinked. So did Ray.

"I beg your pardon, Constable?" Scully asked.

"I suggest that the four of us regroup at my apartment tomorrow night to discuss the facts of the case over dinner." An audible sigh of relief came from Ray's side of the table, but it seemed to go unnoticed.

"That's a rather... unorthodox suggestion," was the best that Scully could manage. She glanced over at Mulder, who seemed equally surprised.

"What, don't you Feds ever eat dinner with other human beings?" Ray shot back. "Next you'll be telling me you sleep on the couch all the time. Come on, it'll be fun. You know, fun? As in, something not proscribed by government regulations?"

"I don't see why not," Mulder said at last.

"Excellent," said Fraser, writing the address out on a slip of paper and handing it to Mulder. "Eight p.m. sharp."

"Eight it is," said Scully, gradually warming to the idea, as the agents rose to leave. "Thank you for all your assistance, Detective Vecchio, Constable Fraser."

"Anytime," said Ray, smiling like a sap. The agents left, and the door closed behind them. "She's amazing, isn't she, Benny?" Ray sighed.

"Indeed. She's extremely professional, with a sharp deductive mind, and her postmortem technique is remarkably efficient. You know, she handles a scalpel quite deftly, Ray." Ray stared at his friend for several long seconds.

"You're completely hopeless, Fraser, " he said at length.

"Thank you, Ray."

"Don't mention it."

THE WATERGATE HOTEL, PRESIDENTIAL SUITE
WASHINGTON, D.C.
10:24 PM LOCAL TIME

It was slow going. He would tap out a few words, stare at them for a few seconds, take a drag on his Morley, then tear the page out of the typewriter and toss it back in the trash can. Then he'd tap out the ash from the cigarette, run a fresh sheet of paper through the rollers, and try again.

The wastebasket nearly overflowed with rejects. His ashtray wasn't much emptier.

It was almost a relief when the phone rang. He picked it up and spoke into the receiver. "It's me," he said, putting a practiced air of annoyance into his voice. He listened, then replied dryly, "Chicago was... cold. Cold and gray. Thanks for asking. I checked on Patterson while I was there. Yes, development is on schedule. How are our test subjects? ...that's odd. But you say the others are still worsening, as predicted?"

He frowned.

"I wasn't aware of that. Does their staff know what they're looking at?...Good. No, no, let them go ahead and make the shipment. This was supposed to be a simple design anyway, just a trial run. Barring the few anomalies you mentioned, I'd say it was a success. Patterson and his team are preparing more sophisticated projects as we speak. They should be able to bypass that problem all together in the final product. Now, about the other northern project-- are you certain you destroyed all the hives? I want plausible deniability. Good. What about the children?"

At the reply he smiled thinly. "All of them? Well. Your thoroughness is admirable. Now, how goes the engineering?" He scowled, and his voice grew sharp and irritable. "Yes, I know you're waiting for the latest design. Patterson should have it finished soon... well, I'm afraid you and all your little buzzing friends will just have to be patient... no, I'm not going to-- no. This discussion is over." He hung up abruptly, took a deep nicotine-laden breath, and forced himself to be calm.

He lit a fresh cigarette, turned back to the typewriter, and stared at the blank paper for a few minutes. All of a sudden, he reached up to the keys and typed quickly for a matter of seconds. He sat back, looked at what he had written, and nodded.

"COLONIZATION: A NOVEL BY RAUL BLOODWORTH," the paper read.

A small grim smile of satisfaction curled his lips.

FRASER RESIDENCE
JANUARY 8 12:54 AM

Fraser took a deep breath. He could smell the crisp, clean Arctic air filling his lungs. A chilly, invigorating wind blew against his face, and the smell of pine trees hung faintly in the air. He opened his eyes.

He wore his red uniform, standing ankle deep in a field of blinding white snow perhaps a hundred yards in diameter. A dense pine forest ringed the snowfield. He looked up, and the sky was a clear blue, so perfect it nearly broke his heart.

"The children are dying." The voice was that of a grown man, but when Fraser looked down he saw before him the figure of a young, black-haired Inuit boy, perhaps in his early teens. The features of the boy's face seemed to be shifting constantly, rippling like the surface of a winter lake, so that Fraser could not identify him positively.

"What children?" Fraser asked, his voice echoing strangely. "Why are they dying?" Something about the child was hauntingly familiar.

"The branches," replied the boy. A pair of pine trees sprouted from the ground between them and stretched upward toward the sky, entwining like serpents in a double helix pattern. As he craned his neck upward, Fraser could see the helix split and unravel into a thousand smaller branches, each multiplying almost to infinity.

"I come to heal the children," the boy told Fraser. "I come to find the evil that has sown these seeds." The boy gestured to the tree trunks, still pouring up out of the earth toward the heavens. Then he held out his hands, palms out, to Fraser. They were burning. Fraser stared into the orange flames that enveloped the boy's hands and saw the same pattern branded on each palm: a stylized G with a circle around it.

Fraser sat bolt upright in bed, the fabric of the dream dissolving around him, revealing the familiar shapes of his apartment. His heart felt like it would jump out of his chest. Despite the cold of his apartment, his face and neck were clammy with sweat.

Diefenbaker looked up from his blankets in the corner and whimpered in concern.

"It's all right. Just a nightmare. Go back to sleep," Fraser said. Dief whined a bit, put his head back down, and shut his eyes. Fraser let his head fall back to the pillow and waited for the pounding of his pulse in his ears to subside. He watched the pattern of shadows swirl on his ceiling and listened to the muted street sounds outside his windows.

"It took place about thirty years ago, up near Richman's Pass," his father's voice said. He turned his head and saw Fraser Sr. standing at the window , staring out at the falling snow. "A logger named MacKenzie had gotten drunk one night and driven his truck through an Inuit village near his logging camp. Two children were killed when he plowed through a wooden shack on the edge of town." He turned his head toward his son, and in the half-light from the window the old man's face looked tired.

"I found his truck stuck in the snow three miles outside of town. He was still in the cab, not moving; I assumed he had frozen to death. I was wrong." Fraser slowly propped himself up on one elbow.

"His hair was white," the younger Fraser said, "and his eyes filled with blind fear, and a handprint had been burned into his chest."

"Yes," said his father quietly. "MacKenzie's face... the man died terrified out of his mind, son. He'd torn out out the upholstery of the seat with his fingers. I went back to the village that afternoon. The villagers all said they knew nothing, but I could see in their eyes that there was something they were holding back from me. I heard whispers, that they had sought out someone to punish MacKenzie for the death of the children... but nothing more. I wrote in my report that he had indeed frozen to death, and arranged for the body to be cremated and sent to his family in Alberta. I never wrote any of this in my journals. It was the only time I ever tried to keep a secret from anyone... including myself."

"Dad, why didn't you say something earlier?" Fraser asked.

"Because, son," his father replied, "I had hoped that when I died, I would be able to forget what I saw in that man's eyes. It appears I was wrong."

The younger Fraser was silent for a few long seconds. At last he said, "We'll find him, Dad."

"That's exactly what I'm worried about," Fraser Sr. told him. "Be careful."

"I will, Dad."

"Good night, son," Fraser Sr. said. His son rolled over and shut his eyes again.

"Good night, Dad." Fraser slept.

The dead man stood at the window for a long time, watching his son.

ROSWELL'S DINER
DOWNTOWN CHICAGO
1:23 PM

Mulder bit into his hot dog, minced onions and tomatoes dribbling out of the far end of the bun and onto his plate. "I would think," said Scully, gesturing with her fork, "that after the Chaco Chicken incident, you'd be a little reluctant to eat one of those things. From some of the FDA reports I've read, 'where's the beef' has hardly been more appropriate as when applied to hot dogs."

"The beef is in here, Scully."

"Among other things, yes."

They sat in a greasy spoon, tucked away on a corner among the towers of downtown Chicago. Mulder's Ditka Dog was rapidly disappearing, while Scully's salad sat untouched. Traffic noises filtered in through the large glass windows that faced the street.

"Ah, Chicago," Mulder waxed, wiping stray mustard off his lips with a paper napkin. "You know, Scully, maybe we should pack up and relocate our center of operations here. In many respects, this is the perfect city to house the X-Files."

Scully raised an eyebrow. "Mulder, I hardly think one baseball team's supernatural losing streak would make this city a magnet for the paranormal."

"But think, Scully: where else have the dead risen from their graves and voted for John F. Kennedy?" Scully didn't seem amused. "You said the lab results came in?" Mulder asked quickly.

"Yes," said Scully, pulling a manila folder from a satchel on the seat beside her. "According to Agent Pendrell's analysis, the other victims, including Montrose, all showed similar signs of aging. The calcium in their bones had rapidly deteriorated in the hours following their death. Cell samples from each of their internal organs showed striking similarities to those of men as much as sixty years their senior. In addition, tests showed that the bodies' electrical resistivity--"

"The weak electrical field that surrounds all of us?" Mulder asked, with his mouth full.

It took Scully a while to decipher what he'd said. "Exactly," she replied slowly. "Usually, a dead body will maintain some of that residual electrical field for at least several days after death. But all the bodies, including Montrose, had zero resistivity. The electrical field around their bodies had completely vanished."

Mulder chewed thoughtfully for a while as Scully poked at her salad. The glimpse she'd gotten of Agent Mulder's partially chewed Ditka Dog had not done wonders for her appetite. At last Mulder asked, "What about the burn marks?"

"As odd as it sounds, Mulder, they were made by the imprint of a human hand, or some metal object cast from life in that shape. Even the fingerprints were burned into the skin. Apparently, whatever burned these men was so hot, it created a layer of carbonized dead cells in their dermis and epidermis that prevented damage to the internal organs. The prints and a DNA sample from the blood found at the scene are being run through FBI databases, but no matches have turned up yet." Scully speared a tomato with her fork, ate it, then looked up at Mulder as he dug into the slice of sweet potato pie the waitress had just brought. "Mulder, what's your take on the Mountie?"

"Constable Fraser?" he replied between bites. "I had an RCMP branch in the Territories fax me his service record. Scully, the man is practically a saint. He's been decorated many times over, including special commendations for saving the life of an ambassador and-- get this-- stopping terrorists bent on the nuclear destruction of Chicago." Mulder swallowed and cut off another chunk of pie with his fork. "It seems like the only thing he doesn't do is leap tall buildings in a single bound."

"Which makes the appearance of his name in the snow next to the latest victim all the more puzzling," Scully said skeptically, chewing on some lettuce. "Constable Fraser seems very competent, I will admit, but there's something... unnatural about him. I get the feeling he's not telling us something, Mulder."

"Congratulations, Scully-- you've just earned your membership into the Junior Paranoiac's Society. Your secret decoder ring is in the mail. Seriously, I think he's all right. I'd be more likely to trust him than Detective Vecchio." Mulder scooped the last crumbs of pie crust into his mouth.

"Detective Vecchio?" Scully looked genuinely surprised. "Why do you say that?"

"He seemed to be a little too cooperative with us. I was expecting more resistance, especially from a Chicago cop. I think he's trying to distract us from something. Besides which, aside from his taste in cars, the man gets on my nerves."

"I don't know," said Scully with a small, reluctant smile on her face. "I found him sort of endearing." Mulder looked at her in disbelief. "A little brusque, perhaps," Scully went on, "but endearing." She finished her salad, returned the manila folder to her satchel, and began fishing through her wallet to pay the tip.

Mulder shook his head and put down a few bills to cover the check. "Scully," he said, rising from the table, "I think you need to get out more often."

FRASER RESIDENCE
7:54 PM

"My God, Fraser, do you have any idea of the destructive force you've unleashed?"

"Well, she's your sister, Ray."

"I heard that!" came an angry voice from the kitchen. Ray winced. The two men stood in Fraser's sparse living room, Fraser in a red flannel shirt and jeans, Ray still in his snow-sprinkled overcoat.

"Why on earth did you invite her over here? And why the hell didn't you at least warn me?" Ray said, whispering this time. He took off his overcoat, reached about in vain for a nonexistent coat rack to place it on, and at last resignedly let it drop on the floor.

"Well, Ray, I consulted the contents of my kitchen cabinets and realized that our guests might not be too impressed with a meal of canned soup," Fraser replied somewhat sheepishly. He reflexively picked up Ray's coat and began neatly folding it. "So, I borrowed some pots and pans from Mr. Mustaphi and asked Francesca if she'd be kind enough to help prepare dinner."

"That's what pizza delivery is for, Benny," cried Ray, shaking his head mournfully. "I just know she's going to find a way to mention the Barbie Incident at dinner, too."

"I believe you mean the Hamster Incident, Ray."

"That too. No, there was a Barbie Incident as well."

"I beg your pardon, Ray?" Fraser furrowed his brow in puzzlement.

"She was six. I cut the heads off her Barbie dolls with a pair of scissors. She considers herself scarred for life. End of story," Ray said quickly.

"Ah." The Mountie nodded. "Well, I could certainly see how that could engender resentment."

"Hey, I had a perfectly good reason at the time!" Ray retorted.

Francesca Vecchio emerged from the kitchen, balancing a dollop of tomato sauce in a wooden spoon. She was wearing an apron that read KISS THE COOK in bright red letters. Ray felt a headache coming on.

"Fraser, taste this," she said sweetly, ignoring her brother. She stuck the spoon in Fraser's face. "Careful-- it's hot."

Fraser gingerly blew on the tomato sauce, then carefully sipped it. He let it roll around on his tongue for a moment before replying, "Quite good, Francesca. However, if I may say so, it could do with a bit more oregano."

"She never puts enough oregano in the sauce," Ray muttered.

"I didn't ask you," Francesca told him, dripping venom. Then she turned back to Fraser, smiling beatifically. "More oregano? Really?"

"Well, if you see fit..."

"Coming right up." She vanished back into the kitchen. There was a knock at the front door, which, lacking a lock, immediately swung open. This left a surprised-looking Agent Scully with her balled fist rapping on empty air.

Fraser moved briskly to the door. "Good evening, Agent Scully, Agent Mulder."

Mulder, stepping through the door, surveyed the bare walls and floors of the near-empty apartment. "This is quite an apartment, Constable. All that's missing it's the lava lamp."

"Oh, I left that back in the Territories," the Mountie replied.

Francesca reemerged from the kitchen, wooden spoon once more bearing

sauce. "Here, Fraser, now see what you--" She caught sight of Agent Mulder. In one smooth motion she handed off the marinara-bearing utensil to a rather startled Ray, and made like a guided missle toward her unsuspecting target.

"Oh, hello! You must be Agent Mulder!" she said, fluttering her eyelashes coquettishly at a rate somewhat approaching the RPM of a Ferrari engine. "Funny, I thought you'd be... shorter."

"Platform shoes," replied Mulder with one eyebrow cocked. Scully covered her eyes with one hand and shook her bowed head embarrassedly. First the entomologist, now this...

Ray stood aghast at this spectacle, one hand still bearing the wooden spoon aloft. Scully took this opportunity to slurp some of the sauce from it. "Not bad," she said thoughtfully, "but it could use some more oregano."

"She never puts in enough oregano," Ray murmured absentmindedly, his eyes still on the Fed and his sister. Seeing the two of them together had the same diabolical fascination as a train wreck. Snapping out of it, he pulled Fraser aside by the sleeve and hissed in the Mountie's ear.

"Did you plan this, Fraser?"

"Well, Ray, you can't exactly plan that... all things being relative... you might say that..."

"Did you or did you not?"

Fraser took a deep breath. "Yes. Yes I did."

Ray stared at his partner with newfound respect for several long seconds.

"You have a brilliant criminal mind, Benny," Ray said at last.

The Mountie considered this. "Thank you, Ray-- I think."

Scully did a remarkable thing: she smiled. "Yes, I actually shot him," she said. Ray laughed in disbelief. The two were standing by one of Fraser's window, watching as the snow continued to fall. A delicate, slippery layer of feathery white covered the streets.

"You're kidding! You shot your partner, too?" Ray asked. "Did he ever forgive you? I mean, I know he knows it was an accident and all, but sometimes I worry about what Benny thinks and all."

"Who says it was an accident?" asked Scully, taking a sip of red Italian wine from Fraser's fine disposable Dixie glassware. Hearing this, Ray, in mid-sip, made a small choking noise and swallowed with difficulty. Scully noted this and tried to explain.

"Well, you see, they'd been putting LSD in his water supply, so he wasn't quite himself. And he was going to shoot a suspect we were attempting to capture, and so I shot him in the shoulder to keep him from killing the..." Scully saw the expression on Ray's face. "Oh, never mind," she said, and took another sip of wine.

She's incredible, Ray thought.

"So," asked Francesca breathlessly of Agent Mulder in another part of the apartment, "what exactly is it that you do in the FBI? It must be very... exciting." Her intentions were about as subtle as full-scale thermonuclear detonation.

"You could say I'm an expert in the paranormal," Mulder said, sipping wine. At this, Fraser Sr., who had been watching the entire proceedings from a corner, gave a derisive snort.

"For years I've investigated the darker corners of the human psyche," Mulder went on. Fraser Sr. walked over and waved his hat in front of the agent's face; Mulder didn't see a thing.

"I have seen things that ninety percent of Americans don't even believe in," Mulder continued. "Sometimes I almost think I can sense the presence of the forces of the unknown."

"Horsefeathers," harrumphed Fraser Sr., intangibly tweaking Mulder's nose. "You have an affinity for certain... forces all right," he said to the unhearing agent, indicating Francesca, "but I'd hardly say they were unknown." The dead man stalked off, muttering unkind opinions of American law enforcement.

"So, if you were tracking a suspect who, say, cut the heads off his sister's Barbie dolls at a young age," Francesca asked not quite innocently, "what would that indicate to you about the suspect's state of mind?"

Mulder looked grave. "Violence toward proxies of the subject's anger, of that severity, in his youth, is a bad sign. I'd say the suspect is certainly mentally unbalanced and has the potential to become dangerously psychotic."

"That's what I've been saying for years," Francesca said. Mulder looked confused. "More wine?" Francesca asked sweetly.

In the kitchen, Dief lay by the window, keeping one eye on the pot of savory red sauce and licking his chops occasionally. Fraser adjusted the heat on the stove and continued stirring the marinara. "I know what you're thinking," he said to Diefenbaker. "I suggest you be patient and wait for the leftovers."

Diefenbaker gave him an innocent look, then went back to watching the pot.

"Son, that man is a damned fool!" Fraser Sr. said indignantly, walking into the kitchen. "Expert in the paranormal, my foot! Why, he wouldn't know an unexplained phenomenon if it went up and shot him." Fraser Sr. thought about this for a moment, then drew his service revolver purposefully. "You know," he said, " that's not such a bad idea."

"Dad, no, I will not have you shooting the guests!" Fraser said in exasperation, snatching the gun away from his father. "Especially not with an imaginary gun." Fraser dropped his father's nonexistent revolver in the pot of sauce and continued stirring.

The ghost sighed, defeated. He leaned over to catch the aroma of marinara sauce wafting up from the stove. "Hmm. Not bad. Seems a little too strong on the oregano, though."

At the window, Dief began to growl softly. Fraser looked over, concerned. Dief's growling grew louder, and the wolf got to his feet and began slowly backing away from the window, ears flattened.

"What is it?" Fraser asked, moving to the window and staring out at the night. The street below was empty. Across the way, in an alley, someone stepped into the light.

The man with long dark hair looked up to Fraser's window. And grinned.

Fraser recognized him.

The man stepped back into the shadows and was gone.

"Ray!" Fraser yelled, as calmly as he could. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end. "He's here!" He grabbed his hat from the kitchen counter and opened the window.

Ray, the agents and Francesca made it to the kitchen in time to see the Mountie climbing out onto the fire escape. "Who, Fraser? Who's here?" Ray asked.

"The killer. Take the car and follow me. Agents Mulder, Scully, if you'll excuse me." With that, he vaulted over the edge of the fire escape and was gone.

"Does he always leave through the window?" Scully asked.

"Only if it's real important," Ray said, picking up his coat from a chair. "Come on." He saw his sister heading for the door. "Not you, Frannie. Stay here. This is serious stuff."

"Ray--" she began to protest, but her brother was out the door and running, followed closely by the two agents. Mulder paused at the door, turned and looked back at her as if he was about to say something, and then just smiled sheepishly and shut the door.

With slumped shoulders, Francesca walked back to the kitchen and shut off the heat under the marinara sauce. Dief looked up at her and whined.

"All right," she said, ladling some of the sauce into Diefenbaker's doggie dish. The wolf began lapping it up eagerly.

"At least someone appreciates my cooking," she sighed, and downed the remaining wine in her Dixie cup in a single gulp.

Fraser ran down the alley at full speed, following the fresh footprints in the thin layer of snow. The cold air stung his lungs, and his breath exploded from his lips in thick clouds of locomotive steam. Through the fat snowflakes blowing into his eyes, he could just make out the dark figure of his quarry, maintaining a steady lead about thirty meters ahead of him.

He burst out from the gloom of the alley and into the flat orange glare of an old streetlight. The killer was vanishing into another alley across the street. Fraser followed, skidding across the white-covered road and vaulting a pair of overturned trash cans. Fraser pursued the footprints doggedly, heart hammering with exertion. Up ahead, the alley branched off into a T-intersection; Fraser noted the prints in the snow and, grabbing a steam pipe on the corner of one of the brick walls, used his own momentum to swing himself around the corner.

He emerged from the alley to a blinding light and a blaring horn at his left. He turned to see a large white meat-delivery truck, wheels churning in the muck as it attempted to brake, hurtling toward him.

The wind roared past the open windows of the Riv as Ray took a corner on two wheels and sped onward in the direction Fraser had taken. The portable siren Ray carried for emergencies wailed away from the Riv's dashboard, sliding back and forth precariously with each turn the car took.

Scully sat in the front seat, her auburn hair dusted with passing snowflakes. Squinting, she caught a flash of red through a passing alley. "I think I see him! Turn right!" she yelled. Ray jerked the wheel hard to the right, wincing as he heard the tires squeal and murmuring apologies to his pride and joy for working her so hard.

Mulder, tossed around in the back seat, had "Hill Street Blues" flashbacks.

Fraser leapt, planting his left hand on the hood of the car and curling up his body for a crisp forward roll off his left shoulder and over the hood. He landed on his feet, shouted a quick apology over his shoulder to the driver, and kept running. Behind him, the driver replied in a less courteous fashion.

The footprints led down the street to his right. Fraser followed them around the corner and under the icicle-dripping steel skeleton of an El track to a four-way intersection. Letting his gaze move up the street to his right he saw a tiny figure silhouetted in the glare of a streetlight. Fraser ran harder, pumping his arms, feeling his boots slap against the wet slushy layer of snow covering the ground. He saw the killer duck into an alleyway ahead on the left and gave chase.

The Riv skidded under the steel support beams of the El track, its headlights making snow-globe prisms of dancing yellow flakes, and swerved to a stop. Mulder peered out the windshield through the slashing wiper blades, then craned his neck to look backwards. "There!" he said. A figure in red raced down the street in the opposite direction as the Riv was pointed.

"Hang on," said Ray grimly, slamming his foot on the clutch, shifting the Riv into reverse and accelerating backwards with a lurch. He rolled the wheel left, sending the car skidding clockwise, then shifted back into first and, rapidly spinning the steering wheel to the right, straightened the car and took off after Fraser.

They were gaining on the Mountie when he suddenly cut left and darted into an alley. "No way this car is fitting in there," said Ray, eying the narrow opening as the Riv rocketed past.

"Is there another way around?" asked Scully.

"Looks like we're going to find out," replied Ray, turning left at the end of the block.

Fraser entered the mouth of the alley. Up ahead he could see a tall chain-link fence stretched between the two grimy brick walls; beyond it, at the other end of the alley, a shadow flitted around a corner to the right and vanished.

Fraser put on a last burst of speed and leapt, his fingers latching into the chain mesh. He got one booted toe planted into one of the diamond-shaped openings in the fence and pushed off, using his arms to swing himself up and over the fence in a dizzying, exhilarating arc. He landed hard enough to feel it as a dull iron tang at the back of his nose, hitting the ground with both feet and dropping into a full crouch to cushion the impact. At that moment he heard the scream.

It rose in wailing intensity, echoing off the walls of the alley. It rattled Fraser's teeth and raised fine hairs on the back of his neck. It was a scream of pure, hopeless terror and anguish. Then, abruptly as it began, the cry was cut off, and the alley was silent once more but for the moaning of the wind.

Fraser rose and ran.

He rounded the corner of the alley less than fifteen seconds later and found himself in a parking lot, closed in on three sides by brick buildings. In the center of the nearly empty lot sat a small blue Toyota, draped in white. A middle-aged man in a long white coat lay in the snow next to it.

Fraser sprinted for the car and dropped to his knees, pulse in his ears throbbing like a gong from the long run. The man was dead, his eyes wide and horrified, staring blankly up into the orange-tinged clouds covering the night sky. Save for Fraser's, and a set of prints leading from a nearby building to the spot where the man had fallen, there were no footprints pressed into the neat white snow covering the lot.

Headlights-- the Riv, driving into the parking lot from a street entrance-- swung on to him and illuminated the body. There was a fresh, sizzling burn mark on the man's exposed chest in the shape of a human hand.

Fraser looked up at the building the man had come out from, squinting in the fierce glare of the headlights. There was a gray metal door with a security lock set into one whitewashed brick wall, and above it a recent-looking aluminum sign. The sign bore a single logo: a stylized "g" surrounded by a circle. The same emblem from his dream.

For the first time since he had begun running, Fraser felt cold.

Scully pressed three fingers to the victim's cheek. The skin, which should have still been warm so soon after death, was ice cold. Peering closely at its face, lit up in ghastly circus colors by the swirling red-and-blue siren lights surrounding her, Scully could see the hair was already mostly white, and deep lines were appearing under the eyes. She consulted the security tag from the body. The photo of CRENDALL, WILLIAM, smiling blandly from underneath the lamination, showed a man with thick brown hair and a smooth,open face. In the lower right corner of the tag was a stylized "g" logo and a company name: GENOMICS RESEARCH, INC. She stuck the tag in an evidence baggie and rose to address the FBI technicians hovering nearby.

"All right, do you have the camera ready?" Scully asked. One of the blue-jacketed forensics team, a young woman, nodded and held up a large gray video camera. "Good. Keep the body in cold storage, but make sure the camera is filming it for at least the next 36 hours. I want to see the aging process in effect." She left them to prepare a gurney for the body and walked over to Mulder, who'd had the head of the company dragged out of bed and brought to the scene for questioning. The man, standing in the snow in pajamas and a winter coat, didn't look happy about it.

Mulder was taking notes on a small pad, listening. "As I told you before, Agent Mulder," the other man was saying, "we are strictly a research facility-- a registered participant in the Human Genome Project. I can't see why anyone would want to murder any of our scientists." His voice rose slightly in annoyance. He was tall and slender, but powerfully built. His reddish hair was beginning to recede over his high forehead, and his round spectacles caught glints of the colored police lights. His long fingers absentmindedly wrung a white handkerchief as he spoke.

"Did Dr. Crendall have any enemies you can think of?" Mulder asked calmly.

"You have to interact with other people to make enemies, Agent Mulder," the man said sharply. "He wasn't married, and he spent most of his time at the office anyway." Mulder nodded and flipped the notebook closed.

"Well, thank you for your time, Dr. Patterson. If you can think of anything else that might help us--" here Mulder produced a business card from his overcoat and handed it over-- "please give us a call." Patterson scowled and trudged off to a waiting squad car to be taken home.

"Pleasant fellow," Scully said, walking up beside Mulder.

"Yup," Mulder replied. "Dr. Roger Patterson. I'm not exactly up on my biotech, Scully-- you heard anything about him?"

Scully's brow scrunched in thought. "The name sounds familiar, but I can't place it. How's Constable Fraser?" Scully followed Mulder's gaze over to the green Riviera. Fraser sat framed in one of the open rear doors, wrapped in a police blanket, staring down into the snow with his hat in his hands. Ray hovered around him with a concern Scully found touching.

"He seems shaken up about something. I haven't had time to ask him what, though," Mulder said.

"Mulder, what he said to us at his apartment... it's almost as if he recognized the killer from somewhere."

"Let's find out." Mulder stepped aside to let a police photographer pass, then headed over toward the green sedan. Fraser did not look up as they drew near. Scully looked to Vecchio, asking him silently for an appraisal of the Mountie's condition. Ray tilted his head uncertainly and looked down at his friend, worried.

"Constable Fraser," asked Mulder, "are you all right?"

"Quite, thank you," replied Fraser quietly. He looked at the snow.

"Were you able to identify the man you were chasing?" Scully asked gently.

"While I was chasing him, no. I never got more than a glimpse of him, and he maintained a good lead on me. From the apartment window, yes."

"How is it that you can identify this person?" Mulder asked. For the first time Fraser looked up at them. Scully saw something very much like pain in his eyes.

"Because," Fraser said, "I've known him since I was ten years old."

27th DISTRICT HOUSE
JANUARY 9, 1:28 AM

Ray hadn't seen Fraser so shaken up in a long time. Not since Victoria. Whatever this is, he thought, resting his head against the reflective side of the two-way mirror, it's worse for Benny than she ever was.

In the mirror he could see Fraser sitting at the other end of the room, in a metal chair, leaning forward on the old wooden table with his fingers encircling a cup of hot tea. Scully, still managing radiance at one in the morning-- at least to Ray's eyes-- placing a small tape recorder on the table in front of him. Mulder leaned up against one of the side walls, yawning from the late hour. Ray turned to face them as Fraser began to speak.

Somehow, Ray knew in his gut that this would turn out to be another Inuit story.

"When I was young, Harold Carries Clouds was my one of my best friends in Tuktoyaktuk," Fraser began. "All the way up through the first year of secondary school, that is. His parents were Inuit-- his father worked as a fisherman and his mother was a trapper. I met him in the fifth form.

"We got our lunch bags mixed up one day," Fraser said, chuckling wearily at the memory. "I was expecting peanut butter and jelly and found seal blubber and wild raspberries instead. So, I sought him out to return his lunch and found him laughing at the note my grandmother had tucked in with my lunch. I found nothing laughable about it, so I gave him a few choice words in Inuit. He responded in kind, the situation degenerated into fisticuffs, and thanks to my grandmother's teachings I was able to best him. He was so impressed with this that he ended up teaching me several more novel ways to express one's less charitable opinions in Inuit. After that, we were fairly inseparable.

"One summer when I was fourteen we went hiking in the forest a few miles outside Tuktoyaktuk. There was an old tree that had fallen across a ravine, a narrow but fairly deep ravine, and Harold being naturally adventurous tried to cross the ravine by walking on the log. He was showing off, and his foot slipped, and... I couldn't reach him in time. He struck his head on a rock at the bottom of the ravine and was knocked unconscious. Following something I'd seen in one of my grandmother's books, I fashioned a travois out of branches and pine boughs and dragged him back to town.

"Somehow he'd been lucky; his skull wasn't fractured in the fall and he seemed to recover fairly quickly. But shortly after he got up and about again, he began acting strangely. He would go off and walk in the woods alone for hours, skipping school. He would tell me he could see people walking along the street who had been dead for years. He would have fits and seizures. His parents told me he sang strange chants in his sleep.

"A month after the accident, he collapsed at school and slipped into a coma. His parents refused to take him to a doctor; they brought him home and consulted the tribal elders. From what I could guess at the time, the elders decided something about him, something important; Harold's parents followed their advice and did not take him to a hospital. I was never told what they had said about him, though.

"He spent three days in the coma, often near death. At one point his parents began making arrangements for him to be buried. I came to visit him every day. I was there when he woke up screaming. He was incoherent... refusing to look at me, and going on and on about seeing..." Fraser paused, rubbing his eyelids with thumb and forefinger.

"... about seeing his own death.

"He eventually recovered his health, but he was different after that. He wouldn't say more than a few words to me or to anyone else. His parents seemed almost afraid of him; they pulled him out of school and moved away from Tuktoyaktuk. He never wrote me or contacted me again. And then tonight I saw him looking up at my window, and... I just knew it was him. I could see it in his eyes." Fraser took a deep draught of the tea and closed his eyes wearily.

"What you've just described," said Mulder quietly, "is a classic example of shamanic initiation."

"Satanic what? " asked Ray.

"According to folklore," Mulder continued, "a shaman is a native healer with the power to detach his soul from his body. Once his soul has left his body, the shaman can travel great distances, ascend to heaven, descend to hell, or even kill a man at a great distance.

"There are three main ways to become a shaman-- inherit the position from ancestors, be chosen by the gods or spirits, or suffer a traumatic accident, like Harold did. During the period of initiation, the chosen shaman's behavior changes drastically he may suffer absent-mindedness, isolation from others, frenzied seizures, speaking in tongues. The final stage of initiation is a coma, often almost indistinguishable from death, lasting three days; while in a coma the shaman is taken to Hell and flayed down to the skeleton by demons, after which new flesh is made to cover his bones."

Sounds like my last audit, Ray thought.

"Mulder, you're not saying this man has undergone some sort of supernatural initiation, are you?" Scully asked incredulously. "What Constable Fraser has described is, if anything, a classic example of brain damage brought on by extreme head trauma. Seizures, changes in behavior, a coma-- there is nothing spiritual about it."

"Hear me out, Scully," Mulder replied. "A shaman's most important duty is healing. When someone grows sick, the assumption is that their soul has been stolen from their body. The shaman's duty is to search for the missing soul and restore the victim to health-- but if he can't, he has the power to remove someone else's soul and use it as a replacement for that of his 'patient.'"

"So what, this guy is going around sucking people's souls out of their bodies?" asked Ray. "What, does he have a demonically possessed Hoover or something? This is nuts."

"The soul is a quantifiable thing," Mulder went on. "Scientists have calculated its weight by measuring the fraction of an ounce of mass that the human body loses at the instant of death. Now we have corpses that are aging after they're dead. They're ice-cold the instant they hit the ground. They're drained dry of any residual electrical field. The only explanation I can think of for this, rational or not, is that their souls have been violently yanked from their bodies that the sudden and complete termination of their life force is so traumatic that it causes an accelerated deterioration in the bodies of the victims even before the decomposition process begins."

"Harold is not evil," Fraser spoke up. His voice was tired, but there was an edge of determination in it. "There must be someone he needs to heal."

"Or a whole lot of someones," Scully said, running her fingers back through her hair wearily.

"Aw, Benny, come on! Don't tell me you believe this bunk," Ray said, throwing his hands up in exasperation. At that moment there came a knock on the interrogation room door. "What?" yelled Ray.

Elaine opened the door, rubbing sleep out of her eyes, and held out a printout to Ray. "Your background check on Dr. Roger Patterson. Just came in." Ray snatched it out of her hands, stopped, thought better of it, and said, "Thanks, Elaine." He didn't know; perhaps there was some equally mysterious Scully Effect that was putting him on something approaching his best behavior. At the moment he was too tired to try figuring it out.

"Don't mention it," Elaine said. "'Night, guys. 'Night, Fraser." She yawned.

"Good night, Elaine," the Mountie said politely as she closed the door.

"What does it say?" Mulder asked.

"Oh, what the hell. You give it a read," said Ray, handing it over somewhat reluctantly. "At this hour, I can't work with words of that many syllables till I get some coffee in me." Scully and Mulder consulted the printout.

"'Ph.D. in virology'-- that's where the name sounded familiar," Scully said, realization dawning in her voice. "I remember reading one of his papers a few months ago; something about the genetic markers of smallpox viruses. If I remember right, Patterson and his team have been acclaimed for their advancements in genetically engineering a possible cure for the influenza virus."

She yawned hugely and handed the printout to Mulder. "I don't understand," she went on, her first words garbled by the yawn. "All the other victims were small-time criminals. What would Carries Clouds want with a virologist?"

"And since when do noted research scientists keep their research operations in one of the most impoverished and crime-ridden neighborhoods of Chicago?" Mulder asked, suspicion in his voice.

Ray looked over at Fraser. The Mountie was staring straight ahead into the two-way mirror, an idea forming on his face. His lips were moving, and Ray could hear him whispering something softly to himself.

"The children are dying..." Fraser said.

"What, Benny? What are you talking about?" Ray asked him

"Something I dreamt, Ray. But it all makes sense."

"What do you mean, Constable?" asked Scully.

Fraser looked her straight in the eye. "I believe I know why he's here."

CANADIAN CONSULATE
10:02 AM

"Why is she here?" hissed Inspector Meg Thatcher to Fraser, indicating Scully with her eyes. Thatcher had pulled Fraser over to a corner of her office and was eying the federal agent, who stood somewhat uneasily in the center of the room, with something that Fraser could have sworn was jealousy. He quickly reassured himself that was a ridiculous notion.

"Agent Scully is a trained medical doctor, and if it's all right with you, Inspector, I believe that I will require her expertise in interpreting some of the information I hope to recover," Fraser told her. She looked him in the eye for a moment, then nodded curtly and turned away from him, apparently satisfied with the constable's answer.

"Please sit down, Agent Scully," she said briskly, indicating a chair in front of her desk. "Now, I understand you'd like to access some of our computer systems?"

"Actually, Inspector, that was Constable Fraser's idea," Scully replied, taking a seat. "However, I am curious to see what he intends to find."

"If I may, ma'am," asked Fraser, indicating the Powerbook on Thatcher's desk. She nodded, and Fraser bent over and began tapping away at the keys. "This should only take a few moments."

Scully leaned over to Inspector Thatcher, hoping to break the awkward silence between them, and said quietly, "Constable Fraser is... quite a remarkable officer. You must very glad to have him here at the consulate."

"I beg your pardon?" said Thatcher defensively.

Scully, puzzled, went on. "I just meant that he seems to be quite skilled and diligent at his job, and I assumed you'd welcome such a capable and pleasant person on your staff."

"I'm not sure I know what you're talking about," Thatcher replied, a little too quickly. "Within the boundaries of my... strictly professional relationship with Constable Fraser, my evaluation would be that he is at best a competent member of the RCMP, who completes his duties satisfactorily." With that, Thatcher turned her head to study the vertical blinds with what appeared to be intense concentration, leaving Scully to speculate upon the possible presence of mind-altering substances in the Canadian water supply.

"Ah. Here we are," Fraser spoke up. "I've been granted special access to the medical records at the Pinset Medical Center near Tuktoyaktuk."

"Where the shipment of antibiotics from Chicago Hope was sent?" Thatcher asked.

"Exactly, Inspector," the Mountie replied. "They arrived yesterday."

"Wait," Scully said. "Antibiotics? For what?" Fraser hit a few more keys and swiveled the screen towards her. It was a list of names, dates and medical statuses.

"For an outbreak of an unknown strain of the flu that so far has infected forty-three children between the ages of five and fourteen, mostly Inuit, in Tuktoyaktuk," Fraser told her with the utmost seriousness. "According to these records, since the first victims fell ill five weeks ago, seven children have died. A sample of the virus was sent to Chicago Hope Hospital for analysis, where their virology department was able to discover a combination of antibiotics that may be strong enough to hold the virus in check until the body's immune system can adapt and defeat it. "

"Then what about these children?" Scully asked, indicating six names on the list of victims whose medical status was marked RECOVERED. "They're listed as having made full recoveries, but all before the shipment of antibiotics arrived."

"These records indicate that the children in question all made sudden, almost miraculous recoveries, each going from near death to almost complete health in a period of less than twelve hours," Fraser noted.

"Look at the dates," Scully said, realization slowly dawning upon her. "The first recovery took place the first week of December. Then there were two more about two weeks before Christmas. After than, the next recovery took place on January 5th--"

"The same day Ellis Vincenzo was killed," Fraser said.

"-- and another on the 7th, and most recently just yesterday. The dates of the recoveries all coincide with the approximate dates that each of Carries Cloud's victims were found," Scully went on.

"'I come to heal them...'" Fraser said quietly.

"This doesn't make sense, though," Scully continued. "Why would the virus strike only children? And why in Tuktoyaktuk?"

"Let me see that," Thatcher commanded. Fraser obligingly moved away from the keyboard. "Notice the date of each child's last recorded immunization-- all the same day, approximately six weeks ago," she said, scrolling down the list of names.

"I saw that," Scully told her, "but I assumed it was something like our federal immunization initiatives here in the U.S.-- a day set aside for parents to bring in their children for booster shots ."

"You're correct in your assumption, Agent Scully," Thatcher replied, "but as I recall, the last scheduled government-sponsored immunization drive in Tuktoyaktuk took place in September. And the next one is scheduled for..." She consulted a desk calendar. "... the end of February."

Thatcher began entering commands on the keyboard. "The local RCMP branch should keep a record of immunization drives... ah. According to the notes that the watch officer made, six weeks ago a special team from the Ministry of Health arrived in Tuktoyaktuk; the official explanation here is that they were issuing booster shots for Cotswold's disease-- apparently some relative of the measles."

"I like to think I've kept up with the medical journals, and I can tell you, there's no such thing as Cotswold's disease," Scully said incredulously.

"A former colleague of mine works at the Ministry of Health," Thatcher recalled, moving over to her phone and dialing. "Hello... yes, Douglas MacArthur, please... Hello, Doug... yes, it has been a long time. No, I haven't forgotten... yes, it was a rather large moose, wasn't it? What's that? Stuffed and mounted on your office wall? A plaque to mark the occasion? How... delightful." Thatcher grimaced.

"Listen, Douglas, I'd love to chat but right now I'm in a hurry. I need you to check on something for me... yes... a vaccination drive in Tuktoyaktuk... no, this one was six weeks ago. Cotswold's disease."

Thatcher waited, her face inexpressive. Fraser and Scully watched her closely. At length she spoke into the phone again. "I see. Yes... thank you, Doug. No, that's quite all right... you don't need to send pictures. I remember perfectly well what the antlers looked like. Yes... all right. Goodbye." She hung up the phone and rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Go moose-hunting with a man once, and he never lets you forget it," she muttered under her breath.

"What did he say?" asked Scully. Thatcher looked up at her, her face even more serious than usual.

"The Ministry of Health," Thatcher told her, "has never heard of Cotswold's disease. And they have no record of sending any team to Tuktoyaktuk in the past three months."

APARTMENT OF WILLIAM CRENDALL
TWENTY MINUTES EARLIER

"It's locked," said Mulder. He bent down on one knee in front of the late William Crendall's apartment door, face-to-face with the lock mechanism. "Unless I mistake my Popular Mechanics, it's a fingerprint analysis unit electrically wired to a deadbolt lock-- looks homemade, too."

"You read Popular Mechanics?" Ray asked. With only Agent Ford as an example, he always figured federal agents spent all their time poring over the latest government regulations.

"Among other things. I just can't get enough of those homemade flying cars," Mulder replied flatly, resting one hand against the wood of the door. "As for the lock, I think I can get it open, but I'm going to need to take it apart first."

"Don't worry about it," Ray said nonchalantly. "I got a skeleton key."

"For a fingerprint scanner?" Mulder asked.

"Stand back," Ray said. Mulder stepped aside.

Ray pulled out his pistol, fired four shots through the lock, and kicked the door open. "One skeleton key, Chicago-style," Ray announced, and walked into the apartment. Mulder followed, waving the gunsmoke away from his face.

The apartment was lit in murky grays that filtered in through the curtains on the far wall, shut fast against the late morning light. The air was chilly and thick with the mustiness of closed-up spaces. The air conditioner hummed softly.

Bookshelves lined the walls, overflowing with hastily jumbled volumes and sheaves of papers which seeped out and covered the floor. There was a computer pushed up against the windows, buzzing faintly. Dead potted plants, pushed into the corners, had tipped over, bleeding out a fan of brown dirt onto the carpet. A door on one wall afforded a glimpse of a tiny kitchenette, its sink overflowing with dirty dishes.

"Someone hasn't been keeping up with their subscription to Martha Stewart Living," Mulder said under his breath. His eyes scanned the bookshelves. "I see Dr. Crendall was a Thomas Malthus fan."

"Malthus? Didn't he play for the Blackhawks a few years back?" Ray asked.

"The Reverend Thomas Malthus," explained Mulder, plucking a book from the teetering shelves, "was an 18th-century philosopher who theorized that the world's population rate grew exponentially, and that if its current rate of growth was left unchecked, humanity would grow too large for the earth to support. " He studied the back cover, then held up the paperback for Ray to see; the cover read An Essay on the Principle Of Population. The book was tattered, its cover creased and its pages dog-eared from years' worth of readings and rereadings. Mulder opened the book; notes, scrawled in tiny cryptic handwriting, covered the margins of every page.

"According to Malthus," the agent went on, "nature's four main ways of controlling the human population were war, famine, vice... and disease."

"The Population Problem, The Coming Catastrophe, A Concise History of Ebola..." Ray read off from the spines of the books. "This guy must have been fun at parties. Looks like every book here has something to do with widespread death."

"What, no Jackie Collins?" asked Mulder, moving to replace the Malthus book on the top shelf between Darwin's Origin of the Species and The Hot Zone. The imitation-wood shelf backing was cracking; Mulder thought he saw a glint of metal behind the crack.

"Wait... look at this, Detective," Mulder said, dumping the books from the top shelf to expose the crack in the shelf backing. "Got a pocketknife?" he asked Ray. Ray fumbled in his pockets and came up with an old Swiss Army Knife; Mulder grabbed it, flipped the blade out, and began cutting a large square in the shelf backing. He peeled the backing away, reached behind it, and came out with a flattened plastic bag containing various papers, an ID tag, and a blue-and-silver Zip disk.

"What is this... a fake ID?" Ray fished the identification tag bearing Crendall's photograph out of the baggie. "It's Crendall all right, but the name says Gordon MacDougal-- Canadian Ministry of Health?" A look of disgusted bewilderment crossed Ray's face. "Why would anyone want to impersonate a Canadian, for God's sake?"

"Maybe it was the overwhelming temptation of half price admission to Buffy Sainte Marie concerts," Mulder replied, lifting out some papers from within the bag. "These are travel documents-- visa authorizations, shipping itineraries, airplane ticket confirmations-- all conducted either on official Canadian Ministry of Health stationery or in the Ministry's name," he went on, flipping through the other documents that had been stored in the bag. "Look at this registry of an air freight shipment of vaccines for something called Cotswold's disease to Tuktoyaktuk, Canada. It's dated about six weeks ago." Mulder dipped into the bag and retrieved the disk between two fingers. Tapping it against his chin thoughtfully, he turned and let his gaze fall on Crendall's computer. There was a Zip drive standing up on its side next to the tower unit.

"I have a feeling that whatever we're looking for is on this disk," Mulder told Ray, sitting down in front of the computer and sliding the disk into the external drive. He tapped a key and the screen snapped to life. They waited a moment as the disk loaded, and then new windows began appearing on the screen. Mulder scrolled through a text window.

"These look like journal entries... it says here Crendall was instructed to destroy all the evidence in that bag, but that he kept it all to preserve for posterity... apparently he thought he'd be remembered as a pioneer of science one day."

"Really? And here I thought he'd be remembered for his dust bunny collection," Ray replied, running a finger along one of the bookshelves and coming up with a layer of gray fuzz a quarter-inch thick.

"Listen to this," Mulder told him. "'I consider it absolutely necessary to reduce the world's population by whatever means possible. It is my sincere hope that design number 1, currently being tested up north, will have less than ten percent survivability; if not, I shall consider myself disappointed. At any rate, my hope is to have survivability down to one tenth of one percent by the implementation of design number 5. '"

Ray stared at the screen in disbelief. "That is unbelievably sick." He reached out and poked at a line on the dusty screen with one finger. "What's he mean here, 'design'?" Mulder opened up some of the other files on the disk. The screen filled with chains of letters, all A, T, C or G, scrolling rapidly.

"These appear to be DNA sequences, presumably for whatever design Crendall was working on. Can't say if I recognize any base pairs, though," Mulder mused. "Let's see... here are some 3D files." Mulder opened the one named "Unmodified Influenza" first; a red-and-blue double helix, linked by yellow base pair rungs, appeared, spinning slowly in space. He then opened the file marked "Design #1": a similar helix appeared, except its two intertwining strands split and re-split into hundreds of smaller helixes, repeating infinitely like a fractal pattern.

"That's branched DNA," Mulder said quietly.

"You mean there are different varieties?" Ray asked him, perplexed. "Like Coke and Cherry Coke?"

"Traces of branched DNA were found in Agent Scully's bloodstream following her abduction. They nearly killed her."

"Abduction? What abduction? When did this happen?"

Mulder looked through the list of files on the disk with a growing feeling of horror. "There are ten potential 'designs' here-- each one must represent a newer and deadlier strain of the influenza virus."

"Wait, do you mean abducted, as in some psycho, or abducted abducted, as in those TV alien shows?"

"Both," Mulder said absentmindedly. "Crendall and the scientists at Genomics aren't working to cure the flu-- they're trying to make it deadlier."

"Did they-- you know-- do experiments?" Ray shivered.

"But why?" Mulder asked the image on the screen, lost in thought. "And where would they get access to branched DNA?"

"Is it true that when you're abducted by aliens they stick big needles in you? I read that somewhere." Ray shivered again. Something in the computer began to buzz.

"Wait-- that noise...?" Mulder said. The buzz became a series of beeps, then a crackle of static.

"Sounds like an internal modem," Ray responded, not quite sure what was happening. On the screen a window appeared:

===REMOTE ACCESS GRANTED. DOWNLOADING APPLET.===

"Shut it down!" Mulder yelled, sending his chair clattering to the carpet as he frantically searched for a power switch on the back of the computer. "Shut the computer down!"

A creeping curtain of random characters descended down the screen, scrambling the images. The whirring of the Zip drive rose in pitch, and smoke began to emanate from it. Ray grabbed the computer's power cord and yanked it from the wall. The screen winked off and, with a shower of sparks from the front slot, the external drive's whirring died away. Mulder popped Crendall's disk out of the drive; it was burning hot, and Mulder could see a hole bored in the magnetic disk.

"Damn it!" Mulder slammed the useless disk down onto the computer desk.

"What happened?" asked Ray, thoroughly bewildered.

"Someone with remote access to Crendall's computer sent a virus through the modem while we were looking at the disk." Mulder said bitterly. "There must have been some warning program-- like a booby trap-- to automatically dial the number and alert whoever was on the other end if the contents of the disk were read. The virus must have sent a power surge to the drive, causing the it read one single area of Crendall's disk until the drive arm bored a hole in the disk itself."

Ray was beginning to understand. "In other words, the disk got fried."

"Exactly. And I'm willing to bet that the hard disk was erased, too. Someone didn't want us looking at this disk."

"Tell me something I don't know. Maybe Patterson?" Ray gingerly picked up the disk and examined the hole in it.

"That's a possibility. Let me check with the phone company-- see if they can trace the last number dialed from this apartment." Mulder opened his flip phone and dialed. "Hello... this is Special Agent Fox Mulder of the FBI. I need an emergency trace of the last phone call made from the apartment of a William Crendall." He gave the operator his badge number and the address and waited in stony silence for about a minute. "You're sure?" he said at last. "Okay. Thanks." He folded up the cellphone and stuck it back in his coat pocket.

"Well?" asked Ray impatiently.

"According to the operator, the number the modem dialed has been out of service for fifteen years. It shouldn't even have been able to connect. Somehow I don't think even Patterson could pull off a trick like that."

"Who, then?"

Mulder looked over at the computer. A hint of a smile appeared on his face. "I'm not sure, exactly. But I think I know who to ask."

OUTSIDE THE GRASSY KNOLL CAFE
DOWNTOWN CHICAGO
12:29 PM

Scully leaned back gently against the tinted window of the diner and checked her watch. It was nearly half past. She was standing at the corner of Haggis and Carter Streets, as Mulder's phone call had instructed; Constable Fraser, who had accompanied her from the embassy, was busy at the moment helping an old lady cross the street. Diefenbaker, who had waited patiently in the hall during their conference with Inspector Thatcher, sniffed at a candy wrapper on the grimy sidewalk. Though the sun was out, it was still bitterly cold; even inside her coat, Scully shivered slightly at the relentless wind.

Mulder's call had filled Scully in on what he and Ray had discovered at Crendall's apartment, and together they had been able to put most of the pieces in place. Mulder then gave her cryptic instructions to meet him here at half past noon to talk with someone who might be able to provide them with more answers.

His elderly companion having safely made her way to the opposite curb, Fraser jogged back over to Scully, neatly stepping over the grayish snow piled in the gutters.

"Still no sign of them," she said to him in way of greeting, her breath billowing out in pillowy white clouds. "Is she going to be all right?" Scully pointed to the old woman, ever-so-slowly making progress down the next block.

"I believe so," the Mountie said crisply. A puzzled look came over his face. "However, she kept inquiring how many merit badges I had earned, so I can't entirely be certain." Despite her best efforts, Scully had to smile at this.

Dief, she observed, was now attempting to chew on the wrapper. "Your wolf has quite a taste for chocolate," Scully remarked, trying to pass the time.

"Unfortunately so. I'm beginning to wonder if he'll ever be able to go back to raw caribou. I keep telling him that there are precious few candy bars north of the Arctic circle, but I don't think he believes me."

"I had a dog once," Scully told him. "Actually, I sort of inherited him."

"I notice you said 'had.' If I may ask, what happened to him?"

Scully sighed. "As far as I know, he was eaten."

Fraser's eyebrows lifted in surprise. "Oh dear," he said.

"Actually, it was sort of fitting, for him," Scully replied a touch ruefully.

Dief lifted his head and sniffed the air. He barked. At that moment, the Riv slid around a corner at the far end of the block and pulled up next to them. Mulder got out from the passenger side and walked toward the entrance of the diner.

"What is this about, Mulder?" Scully asked, moving to join him.

"I would have gone alone, but your presence was insisted upon, Scully. They're waiting inside," he responded. Fraser began to follow Scully, but Mulder stopped him with a glance. "You'd better wait in the car," Mulder said to the Mountie. "They probably wouldn't trust you." Fraser was slightly confused by this, but complied, sliding into the Riv's passenger seat after Dief had hopped in the back.

"Hey Benny, you got any idea what this is about?" Ray asked.

"None whatsoever, Ray. "

"That makes two of us," Ray said. He shook his head gently, stretching a stiff neck, and tried to peer into the darkened windows of the diner. "Whoever they're meeting, I bet it's someone really important."

The diner was dim and mostly empty. Mulder and Scully made their way to a booth in the back where three men sat, casting nervous glances around the room.

"Remember," said Byers as the agents approached, "you never saw us. We were never here. This conversation never took place." The Lone Gunmen, out of their element here, looked stranger than ever: Byers in his impeccable suit and tie, Langly looking like Garth Elgar's stunt double in faded jeans and a T-shirt that read GO KISS A VORLON, and Frohike wrapped in an wrinkled brown raincoat.

Frohike looked up from last month's issue of Starlog. "Hello, Agent Scully," he said expectantly. Scully managed a weak smile. She no longer had any doubts as to why her presence had been requested, or who had requested it.

"Thanks for helping us out on such short notice," Mulder told them. "Say, boys, what brings you to Chicago? Get a hot tip as to the location of Jimmy Hoffa?"

Langly shook his scraggly blond locks. "Nope. Babylon 5 convention. JMS himself is in town. Wouldn't miss it for the world."

"Say, Mulder, I noticed you had an altercation with a Mountie outside," Frohike remarked suspiciously.

"It's OK, Frohike. He's with us," Mulder replied.

"Don't be so certain," countered Frohike. "They called it a licensing deal, sure, but the truth is that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police now function as the quasi-military arm of the Walt Disney Corporation."

Mulder grinned in disbelief. "Mickey Mouse as Big Brother? I would say you need to get out more, but I think that would be stating the obvious."

"Laugh now. When you wake up one morning with a pair of mouse ears stitched to your head and red-suited men on horses patrolling in your street, you'll see." Frohike sullenly went back to his magazine.

Scully cleared her throat. "What information do you have regarding Genomics Research?"

"Well, your partner there didn't give us much time," Byers said reproachfully, producing a laptop computer and placing it upon the grimy Formica tabletop. "However, we were able to do some digging on the Internet, and we found some things that might be of use to you." A Web page materialized onscreen, bearing the Genomics logo.

"Genomics Research, Incorporated," began Byers, "was founded in 1991 by Dr. Roger Patterson, a citizen of Canada. Before that, Patterson did research on AIDS at Cornell University, and spent ten years working for the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. Seven of those years he was part of the CDC's elite Level 10 unit, working with some of the deadliest and most infectious diseases known to man."

"Really nasty stuff," Langly chipped in. "The kind where one rip in your containment suit can pretty much kill your plans for retirement."

"Patterson assembled a team of thirty other researchers," Frohike added, "including Dr. William Crendall of Northwestern University, an award-winning virologist who studied some of the early outbreaks of Ebola in Africa back in the '70s and was an advisor to the team that attempted to contain Ebola Reston in 1990. Crendall left the university under controversy after publishing a paper that advocated the genetic engineering of viruses to weed out the genetically inferior portion of the population. We can send you a copy of the paper if you like. Scary stuff."

"Now, for all intents and purposes, Genomics looks completely innocent," Langly said. "We checked for you, Mulder, and it's true-- they're official members of the HGP. They've also been working on sequencing the genetic code for the smallpox virus-- we dug up their request for samples to the World Health Organization-- and they were even in the running for a Nobel prize for their work in defanging the flu removing parts of its genetic code so that it lost the ability to replicate. They'd even like you to believe that they're a private company."

"What do you mean?" Scully asked.

Frohike displayed one of his twisted little subversive smiles as he spoke. "Remember how the CIA used to have a 'black budget' that even Congress couldn't get a peek at? And remember how they just declassified it last year? Well, they were pretty well hidden under a pile of endowments, but guess who we found?"

Byers opened a spreadsheet file titled "CIA Budget" and turned the screen toward the agents so they could get a closer look.

Mulder was the first to spot it, midway down the screen. "Genomics Research, Inc?" He let his eyes move across the row until he found the amount of funding allotted them, and gave a low whistle. "Hey, I wish we got this kind of funding."

"Maybe if we did, we could afford to buy a second desk," Scully remarked pointedly. The Gunmen looked at each other quizzically. Mulder pretended not to notice.

"That figure is only about forty-five percent of Genomics' annual budget," Byers told them. "Near as we can tell, ten percent comes from aboveboard federal grants and private contributions."

"Where does the rest come from?" Scully asked, brushing a lock of red hair away from her eyes.

Langly grinned. "That's where it gets really weird. Ready for this? The other part comes from Canada."

"Canada?" Mulder asked.

"That's correct," Byers told him. "Buried similarly deep in the budget of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Spooks from two nations funding a humble little research organization that is very quietly located in one of the less appealing neighborhoods of Chicago."

"The better not to draw attention to itself," Scully mused.

"Or what was going on inside," Mulder added gravely, moving towards the door. "Thanks, boys. Remind me to send you the latest photos of crop circles in Oklahoma."

"Hey, if you finish up this investigation you're welcome to come with us to the B5 convention," Langly said.

"Both of you," Frohike added, a little too quickly.

"I don't know-- I've always wanted to get Bill Mumy's autograph," Mulder replied deadpan. "What do you think, Scully?"

"No thanks," she said with a completely straight face. "I've always been more of a Battlestar Galactica fan." And, followed by Mulder, she walked out the door.

"Battlestar Galactica?" Byers said incredulously to no one in particular. Langly gave a snort of derision.

"Well, I didn't think it was that bad," offered Frohike, without much conviction.

THE SOUTH SIDE OF CHICAGO
12:43 PM

A lean, tall man lay on his back on the snow-covered roof of a narrow three-story apartment building. He did not seem to be breathing. Had someone else been present to lay an ear to his chest, they would not have heard the beating of his heart... quite simply because his heart had stopped. For all intents and purposes, he was dead.

He had weathered, light-brown skin, a flattish nose, high cheekbones and a strong chin. His almond eyes were shut tranquilly, as if he were sleeping. A mass of long dark hair was bunched under the back of his skull, collected in a neat ponytail. Black gloves covered his hands. He wore blue jeans, battered combat boots, a Grateful Dead t-shirt and a thick black leather jacket.

His name was Harold Carries Clouds.

The wind whipped softly over the roof, lofting delicate whorls of snow and spinning them to glitter in the hard sharp sunlight. A thin plume of white vapor curled lazily from a heating vent far to one site of the roof and billowed skyward. Every so often the wind blew hard enough to rattle the rickety television antenna next to it. Harold lay as still as death in the center of the rooftop, spread out as if he preparing to make a snow angel.

His entire body jerked suddenly, as if an invisible elephant had sat on his chest. The spasms continued for several seconds, radiating outward into his limbs. He drew breath in short, quick spurts, like the gasps of a drowning man. At last the fit passed and his breathing became slow and regular. His eyes gradually blinked open and he sat up gingerly. He lazily brushed snow off the sleeves of his jacket, squinting in the sunlight.

"It never gets any easier," he said to the wind. But he'd really had no choice in the matter. The child had been deathly ill, worse than the others, and if he'd waited any longer for delivery she might have died. He had solemnly promised the parents, when they came to him with frightened eyes and hushed tones, that no more children would die. And though it had meant taking more than he'd planned to, sooner than he'd planned to, he had kept that promise.

The city here was low and even, and his eye could travel for miles across the pattern of rooftops before it hit the peaks of the city towers, golden in the early afternoon sun. He swept his gaze slowly to his right, past smokestacks, the ad-painted hulks of old factories and the El tracks, and saw it again. The three-story building he'd visited last night. Sort of a test run.

It had been good to see Ben again. Poor guy was still as much in his dad's shadow as ever, but Harold hadn't really been surprised at that. He had actually been embarrassed to find out, after he'd retrieved what he needed from Vincenzo, that it was actually his old friend in the front seat of the car, and that he'd unknowingly caused Ben so much trouble. At the time it had just been a matter of convenience; yet another of the children had slipped into critical condition, and right there across the street from him, asleep, had been another black heart just waiting to be put to better use. Oops.

He hated to tease Ben so, allowing himself to be seen and then pulling a vanishing act, but it was too much fun. Reminded him of his carefree younger days. Before the Sight. He'd put Ben's name in the snow-- at the thought he gingerly ran a finger along the bandaged cut he'd made on the back of his right hand-- as his sort of way to say, hello, I'm in town, long time no see. It was a rather strange calling card, true, but then again he wasn't exactly in an orthodox line of work.

Anyway, he felt he'd kind of made up for the vanishing act by leading Ben right to Genomics. If he'd been any more obvious on that score, he might as well have stopped and drawn Ben a map. If for any reason he wasn't able-- or didn't need-- to complete his job here, it would be nice to know that some sort of justice would still be done.

Harold took a deep breath, flexed his arms and legs to work the kinks out, and wobbled to his feet. He brushed the snow off the seat of his jeans and just stood for a moment, breathing in the fresh air blown in by the wind and feeling the sun warm upon his face. He looked back down across the row of housetops to the Genomics building, five, maybe six blocks away. He would wait until nightfall. Then, he would finish what he'd started here. And then he'd catch a flight home. Catch up on the football games he'd missed. Maybe have a beer.

But first things first.

27TH DISTRICT HOUSE
3:06 PM

Coffee-stained yellow sheets of legal pad, evidence folders, chewed-on pencils, computer disks, empty donut boxes and crime scene photos covered the beat-up wooden table. After nearly three hours, every facet of the case had been argued, reasoned, wrestled, plotted, puzzled and sorted out to the best of the four participants' abilities.

"I just want to know one thing," Vecchio asked of Agent Mulder, rising from his chair and pacing around the tiny conference room. "How the hell do you expect me to explain this to my boss?"

Lieutenant Welsh leaned back in his desk chair until it groaned in protest and let out a long, thoughtful rhinoceros sigh. His face bore an expression of mild amusement, struggling to conceal itself as he looked back across the desk at the two men before him. "Does the wolf come into this anywhere?" he asked them

"Only in a peripheral capacity, Leftenant," the constable replied.

"Well. That's very good to know." Welsh leaned forward and glared. "Vecchio, this is the most cockamamie science fiction story I've ever heard. If the Feds can get a warrant, fine, have a ball, but no judge I know is going to believe this. I want hard evidence, Vecchio. If there is a soul-sucking Inuit, I want to see him here, in my office. In handcuffs. Or else I'll have a story of my own to tell you. One about a promising cop who screwed up protecting a witness and was busted down to directing traffic for the rest of his natural life. Do I make myself clear?"

"Crystal, sir." Vecchio swallowed hard. Welsh took silent joy in seeing him squirm.

"Good. Then get out of my office." They left, the unflappable Fraser nodding crisply to him as the door closed. From outside his office, Welsh could make out the Mountie's chipper tones: "Well, I don't think that went all that badly." Something like a disgusted grunt from Vecchio followed.

Welsh shook his head. Soul-sucking Inuits, indeed.

FBI HEADQUARTERS
WASHINGTON, D.C.
4:10 PM LOCAL TIME

"What is it you need from me?" Assistant Director Walter Skinner asked. He'd been nearly finished with the day's paperwork when the phone rang.

"We'd like a warrant to enter the research facility," Agent Scully replied, on the other end of the line. "I've sent you an encrypted e-mail with all the relevant details." Though she'd finished explaining the situation several minutes ago, that skeptical hesistance he recognized any time she had to advance one of her partner's theories had yet to ebb from her voice.

Skinner thought carefully for a few seconds. Top-secret genetic engineering, a homicidal shaman with quasi-mystical powers, soul removal... it seemed to him a wildly improbable story. He'd have to be out of his mind to believe any of it. Which, coming from Mulder and Scully, meant that there was probably some truth to it. At least Agent Mulder hadn't gone and disappeared on them again.

"I'll have a copy of the warrant faxed to you in three hours," he sighed, trying to think of how he should phrase this all to the judge.

"Thank you, sir," Scully said, and hung up.

"Just another day in the FBI," Skinner muttered to himself as he replaced the handset and went back to his paperwork. He wondered what he should have for dinner.

THE WATERGATE HOTEL
WASHINGTON D.C.
5:37 PM LOCAL TIME

While he listened to the phone ring, he snuffed out the stub of his old Morley in the ashtray and lit a fresh one. He sucked the smoke greedily into his lungs, held it for one long, satisfying moment, then let it drift lazily out from between his tight, pinched lips. The first two chapters of his final draft were neatly stacked on the desk beside him, liberally marked in blue editing pencil.

Finally, the person on the other end picked up the phone. "Patterson here," the small tinny voice said into his ear.

"Roger," he said to the voice. He was trying to sound jovial, but he'd been too long out of practice. "How are you. I heard about Dr. Crendall's death. I'm calling to see how that's affected your progress."

"If you think this has made us slip, you're sadly mistaken. Losing William has... unnerved the staff somewhat, considering the manner in which he died and the attention it's garnered from the police and the FBI, but I'm happy to report that we continue to make progress. The second design is nearly perfected, and we're preparing to implement the third."

"And you've managed to eliminate the first design's... shortcomings?," he asked the voice on the other end of the phone. "The ones the doctors at Chicago Hope were able to exploit?" He tapped his fingers thoughtfully on the large manila envelope sitting on the corner of his desk.

"Absolutely," came Patterson's reply. "We predict less than one percent survivability with the second design. The material your organization has provided to this end is quite remarkable. Very deadly."

"I should hope so. What about your other project?"

"The other project? Oh yes. Very good news on that. Using what we learned from the first and second designs, we've been able to complete the other project ahead of schedule. We need to run some tests, determine its effectiveness, and then it should be able to ship in, oh, maybe a week."

"Glad to hear it, Roger," he said, taking another puff on the Morley. "Just wanted to let you know I have complete confidence in you. Keep up the good work."

"That's what I'm paid for," he heard Patterson reply. He hung up and slid the manila envelope in front of him with the tips of his fingers. There was a single sheet of white paper inside, which he took out and read once more.

Across the top it was labeled U.S. Department of Justice-- Confidential. It was an intercepted fax copy of a federal search warrant issued at the request of the FBI. The names of two all-too-familiar agents were listed on the form, as was Genomics, Inc.-- as the party to be searched.

It was truly a shame, he thought, shaking his head slightly. A lot of money on both sides had been invested in Genomics. But when a mess like this was made, it had to be cleaned up. He picked up the phone again and dialed.

"It's me," he said at length. "I need you to do some housecleaning." He took the burnt-down cigarette out of his mouth and crushed it resolutely in the tray.

THE SOUTH SIDE OF CHICAGO
5:51 PM

Around sunset, a white van bearing the logo of the local utility company drove slowly around the far end of the block and pulled up adjacent to the chain-link fence surrounding the Genomics parking lot. Its engine cut off and, several seconds later, the back doors opened. A not-too-tall man in a blue jumpsuit and yellow hard hat stepped out of the back, a leather tool belt slung around his waist. He was pale and somewhat gaunt, brown hairline receding beneath his helmet. His eyes were as clear and focused as a rifle scope. He'd been sent to fix things.

The fixer found the nearest telephone pole. Planting his spiked shoes into the wood of the pole and wrapping his leather belt around it, he began to shimmy to the top. There was a large cubic transformer unit at the top of the pole. The fixer noted the thick black wires running from the transformer into the outer wall of the Genomics building. Cautiously, he unlatched the access panel and swung it upward to reveal the humming white cones of ceramic-coated wire.

He reached into one of his jumpsuit pockets and, scanning the block in both directions to make sure no one was watching, slipped out what looked like half a golf-ball's-worth of grayish putty. A small digital device had been pressed into the putty, with tiny wires running from a minuscule green circuit board into the doughy mass. This the fixer stuck onto the inside of the access lid, making sure it would not slip off. He then closed the lid securely and shuffled back down the pole. He closed the rear doors of his truck and, moments later, started the engine and drove away.

From the deepening shadows of a nearby alley, Harold Carries Clouds watched the van's departure with great interest.

The van drove two more blocks, pulled into an empty, trash-strewn lot, and parked. In the back of the van, the fixer stripped off his jumpsuit to reveal a tidy black suit and tie underneath. He reached under one of the toolbenches bolted to the inner walls of the van and dragged forth a large black duffel bag in which many objects clanked together mysteriously. From beneath the other toolbench, he produced a slim steel-encased briefcase, which he opened almost reverently. Inside, gently cushioned in porous black foam, was a silver 9mm handgun, an assortment of clips, and a silencer attachment.

The fixer filled his pockets with all but one of the clips. He then picked up the 9mm and checked the safety. He screwed on the silencer, feeling it click snugly into the grooves of the barrel. Then he lifted the last clip, slid it into the butt, turned the safety off and cocked the gun. He heard a round click into the chamber.

Now all he had to do was wait.

6:51 PM

The four of them and the wolf walked through the deepening winter twilight, plumes of breath trailing from their lips like unanswered questions.

Ray felt the weight of the 9mm in his coat pocket as it gently thudded against his rib cage. The butterflies that visited his stomach every time he got ready to do a raid like this were back in full force. Some part of his mind hoped that no one stole the tires off the Riv back where they'd parked it, but in this neighborhood that was no sure thing. Mulder had insisted they leave the car so it wouldn't be recognized; let's see him cough up for vintage chrome hubcaps when they go missing, Ray thought sourly. It helped take his mind off the anxiety.

Scully shivered, unused to the cold. She turned her head to study the blank windows of the empty buildings they passed, and saw the CONDEMNED signs half-falling off rotten wooden doors. This practice of just walking up was something new. She wondered if they could just go to the front door and say, hello, FBI, we're here for the killer virus specimens. And oh yes, keep your heads down, there's a homicidal Inuit dropping by any time now. There were times after three and a half years of working with Mulder that she wished for simple, ordinary cases involving armed robbery or drug trafficking.

Mulder thought mostly of dead and dying children north of the Arctic Circle. In his mind's eye they all had Samantha's face. In the back of his brain, near the reptile part he guessed, something reminded him that his latest issue of Celebrity Skin ought to be waiting in the mailbox when he got back to Virginia. It was the college issue.

Fraser was the only one unarmed, out of uniform save for the hat, feeling the wind sting his cheeks. He carried a large duffel bag slung over one shoulder. He wouldn't have wanted a gun even if he'd been legally allowed to carry one. Not with Harold about. He thought of the Halloween when he was twelve and he and Harold had hidden in the woodshed wearing homemade monster masks and waited to scare his unsuspecting grandmother when she went out to get fuel for the fire. They hadn't reckoned on her carrying an axe when she did. In retrospect, Fraser thought, it was rather a good thing she recognized them before she could take a swing.

Dief trotted along, tongue hanging out gamely, and thought of small furry running things and chocolate bars, the good ones with the little crunchy things in them.

They paused at the mouth of the alley across the street from the Genomics building. All along the street, lights were coming on within dilapidated windows. Mulder reached into his coat and produced four small radio headsets, which he gave to the others.

"All right," Ray said quietly, slipping the headset over his head, "let's go over the plan again." Mulder took out a small, well-folded set of blueprints to the building.

"You and Constable Fraser take the side entrance here, in the parking lot," he said. "Get to the offices here, on the third floor, round up as many researchers as you can, and keep an eye out for Carries Clouds. We don't know who he's going to target next. Scully and I are going to the basement to try to find evidence of the virus."

Mulder put the blueprint away, and motioned to Constable Fraser. The two stepped aside for a moment. "Constable," Mulder told him quietly, "I know this man is your friend, but if he shows up I need to know that you're not going to hesitate. Whatever his motives are, the fact is that he's killed six people and he most likely intends to kill more if we let him."

Fraser nodded. His face was devoid of any emotion save for an intensity as cold and cutting as Arctic wind. "Understood," he replied.

Ray moved closer to Scully. He caught her eye.

"So..." he began.

"Yes?" she replied.

"Did they, um-- did they stick you full of big needles?" Ray asked. "I hear they do that."

"What?" She looked at him strangely.

As usual, it took about two additional microseconds for Ray's brain to process the colossal stupidity of the remark his mouth had just made. Please, God, he prayed silently, anything to change the subject.

The top of the telephone pole across the street exploded with a loud snarling clap. Diefenbaker yelped at the loud noise. The lighted windows on the street blinked out instantly.

Ray directed a wordless thank-you heavenward.

Mulder's head snapped around and saw the flames licking at the remains of the electrical transformer box. "Looks like someone's started the party early," he said, switching on his radio headset.

Without another word, they drew their guns and ran for the Genomics building.

Fraser cleared the fence around the parking lot easily, landing crisply in the snow. He turned to see Ray clambering over somewhat shakily. Dief wriggled through a small gap in the bottom of the otherwise well-maintained fence.

"You'd think they could at least have opened the gate for us," Ray grumbled, dropping to the ground less than gracefully.

"Well, yes, Ray, but that would imply they knew we were coming."

"Point taken."

They sprinted to the side door Fraser had first seen upon finding Crendall's body the previous night. Flattening his back to the wall, Fraser reached out and tested the door handle; Ray took up a position on the other side of the door, pistol at the ready. The handle didn't budge.

"Great," sighed Ray, stepping into position and aiming his gun at the handle. "Stand back, I got a skeleton key."

"I wouldn't advise that, Ray. From the texture and--" Fraser put his ear to the door and rapped briefly with his knuckles-- "resonance of this door, I'd say it has a titanium coating, about, oh, half an inch thick. Such protection would render it virtually bulletproof."

Ray snorted in exasperation. "That's all well and good, Mr. Wizard, but can we go inside and arrest people or not?"

"Oh. Certainly, Ray." Fraser unslung the duffel bag from his shoulder. From inside, he began removing a large metallic clawlike device and a lengthy spool of thin, high-tensile line.

"Is that a grappling hook, Fraser? You brought a grappling hook?"

"Well, of course, Ray. My father once told me never to undertake anything important without a compass, a grappling hook, and a clean change of underwear."

"And the clean change of underwear..." Ray began.

"Oh, that's in the bag as well, Ray," Fraser replied obliviously, testing the heft of the grappling hook and gauging the distance to the roof of the building. He swung the hook around rapidly and let it fly up the windowless wall. It arced smoothly over the snow-covered edge of the roof and landed with a barely audible thump. Fraser gave the rope a few sharp tugs to make sure it was secure, then turned to Ray.

"After you, Ray."

"Me? Hey, how come I have to go first?"

"Well, you're the one with the gun, Ray." Ray thought about this for a second.

"Point taken."

Ray tucked his pistol back into his coat and began climbing laboriously. Meanwhile, Fraser quickly fashioned a sling and looped it about Diefenbaker's four legs. The wolf whined nervously.

"Now, don't give me any of that," Fraser told the wolf sternly. "You were the one who begged to come along in the first place."

The sling snugly fitted into place, Fraser began his ascent. As he climbed briskly up the rope, he looked up to see Ray nearing the rooftop. "How's it going, Ray?" he called up .

"I thought I put this behind me when I graduated sixth grade gym class," Ray groused, and heaved himself over the top of the roof. He quickly rolled, drew his gun, and came up into a kneeling position. The rooftop was empty. There was a lone open skylight in the center of the roof.

Fraser reached the top a minute later. He rested for a moment, then began hauling in the rope. Diefenbaker was lifted off the ground, yelping slightly, and slowly pulled up the building. The wolf gave a short, unhappy whimper.

"Now what are you complaining about?" Fraser asked as he continued to pull. "You get to go up the easy way."

Dief gave a brief bark.

"Well, the whole process would be much faster if a certain wolf-- who shall remain nameless-- ate fewer fattening foods," Fraser replied, grunting with exertion.

The wolf hung his head in embarrassment.

Ray was kneeling at the edge of the open skylight, trying to make out details in the darkness below, when Diefenbaker and a mildly winded Fraser finally joined him.

"Something tells me a bunch of Ph.Ds aren't going to leave their skylight open in the middle of the coldest month of the year," Ray whispered. "I think your pal got here before us. See, anything, Fraser?"The Mountie squinted into the gloom.

"I'm afraid not, Ray. Still, there's only one way to be sure." With that, Fraser knelt down and dropped through the skylight. Dief hopped in after him.

"Fraser! Are you nuts?" Ray hissed, hearing his friend's boots thud on something solid below.

"All clear, Ray," came the voice from below.

"There could have been people with guns down there!" Ray called down to him.

"Well, yes, Ray, but that's a purely academic question now. Besides, Diefenbaker would have smelled them."

Ray sighed and plunged into the building. He landed in a crouch on something hard and wooden-- a desk, he guessed, from the mug full of pencils he'd just sent clattering to the floor. He could barely make out Fraser a few feet in front of him, staring off into the darkness, Diefenbaker by his side. The wolf whined softly. Ray climbed down off the desk and withdrew a pocket flashlight from his coat.

"Let's see where we are," he said, his thumb poised on the "on" switch.

"Uh, Ray," Fraser began, "I don't think you want to--" Ray flipped the switch, and a strong flashlight beam cut through the dark, illuminating the figure at Fraser's feet.

It was a woman, late thirties, wearing a white lab coat and a Genomics identification tag. Her eyes bulged in horror. There was a charred burn mark on her chest in the shape of a hand. Ray jumped a little, unintentionally, and the flashlight beam hit another figure several meters away, slumped over a desk, with the same terrified eyes and the same burn mark, black and clearly visible in the yellow light. Ray slowly swung the flash around the room. From where he stood he could make out at least ten bodies, crumpled over, under or around the grid of desks in the large open office. Ray swallowed hard, feeling his lunch churn and jostle in his stomach.

"Your friend's a fast worker," he told Fraser, trying to keep the shakiness out of his voice. Fraser took the dead woman's coat and respectfully draped it over her body. Dief turned in circles, making little agitated noises.

Ray tapped the microphone button on one side of his headset with a trembling finger. "Pomeranian, this is Caribou. Come in. We've got--"

"-- at least ten bodies up here, maybe more," came the voice in the agents' ears.

Mulder swore softly. "Carries Clouds?" he said into the microphone.

"No, a completely different killer who just happens to leave burned handprints on his victims' chests," he heard Vecchio reply, in a voice that was half irritation and half nerves.

"Are any of them Patterson?" Scully asked. The agents waited in silence for several seconds, poised in the dim blue light that filtered through the glass front doors and into the Genomics lobby. Plastic plants wilted in their dirt-filled pots next to austere, tastefully upholstered chairs that would have been at home in a dentist's office. Low tables were scattered with the latest scientific journals; one or two had pictures of Patterson and other Genomics researchers on the cover.

At last they heard the Mountie's voice."No, I don't believe so. If I recall the blueprints correctly, his office was on the second floor."

"All right," Mulder told them, "we need you to do a floor-by-floor sweep of the building. Work your way down, try to find Patterson or anyone else Carries Clouds hasn't gotten to yet. I'm willing to bet your Inuit friend is still in the building."

"Will do. Caribou out," he heard Fraser reply, and then the headset clicked to silence.

Mulder turned to his partner as she studied the blueprints with a small pen flashlight. "Which way to the basement?" he asked.

"There's a stairwell down... that corridor," she told him, pointing off to a corridor to their right, garishly lit in red emergency lights. They set off in that direction, scanning the shadows with their flashlights.

The hallway was long, empty and eerily silent. Scully gripped the butt of her pistol with sweat-slicked palms. She grew intensely aware of little sounds: the scuff of her pumps against the thin, rigid carpeting, the faint shuff shuff of the air conditioning system, the buzzing of the emergency lights. As she passed a door labeled SUPPLY CLOSET, she heard a soft shifting from within. Her head snapped around in the direction of the sound and she motioned wordlessly to Mulder. He nodded and covered the door with his pistol.

Slowly, cautiously, Scully turned the handle--

And jumped back as something large and heavy came spilling out of the closet amidst a clattering pile of mops, brooms and cleaning supplies. It was a body-- a gray-shirted security guard, male, late forties. When she rolled him over, there was a neat red-rimmed hole several millimeters in diameter between his eyes.

"He's been shot," Scully told Mulder as she knelt beside the body. "Looks like one bullet, at close range, with a small-caliber weapon." She examined his gun belt. "Look, his holster hasn't even been unbuttoned. Whatever happened to him, he wasn't expecting it."

"A bullet between the eyes-- not exactly Carries Clouds's M.O.," Mulder replied quietly. He looked up toward the stairwell door, noticing the thin sliver of light that peeked through the crack where the door had been propped open. "Someone else is here."

In contrast to the gloom of the rest of the building, the fixer found the basement lab to be harshly, eerily bright. He had known when he blew up the power line that the lab had its own power source-- an organization storing deadly viruses would be downright stupid not to have backups in the right places. He picked his way through the maze of lab tables, computer banks, and humming gene sequencers toward a hermetically sealed, glass-walled enclosure on the other side of the spacious rectangular room.

He paused at the entrance and, with a gloved finger, keyed in a sequence of six numbers on a keypad mounted into the doorframe. The outer door swung open, and he stepped inside just before it closed again. He was inside an airlock of sorts; through the glass of the inner door in front of him, he could see a metal-walled room with a large safe, about six feet square, on the wall directly opposite from where he stood.

"You are now entering the storage unit," a calm, pristine computer voice told him. "Please don a containment suit now." He glanced at the rows of blue-hooded suits hanging on racks to his left and right, but made no move to put one on. "Preparing for air filtration. Please stand by." Fans overhead whirred to life, filtering and purifying the air in the tiny chamber. They ran for perhaps thirty seconds before dying down. "Air filtration complete. Please enter your six-digit access code."

He moved to a similar keypad set into the wall next to the inner door and punched in the second code he'd been given. The door hissed open, and he stepped into the vault. The room had the faint, pervasive chill of a meat locker. He moved to the safe and, withdrawing a magnetic access card from inside his coat, swiped it through a slot on the door of the safe. It opened with a loud PSSHH, and thick mist from the internal coolant spilled out from the edges of the door before he could even pull it completely open.

Inside, rows of test tubes-- built from shatterproof plastic, he knew, and tightly sealed with metal caps-- lined up like soldiers, suspended in a steel mesh. As he slid the mesh on its rails out into the light of the vault, he could make out the labels on each of the tubes: INFLUENZA DESIGN #1, #2... there were, in all, five tubes each of the first three designs and two more tubes labeled INFLUENZA DESIGN #4.

He ignored them.

The fixer reached into the very back of the mesh and carefully drew forth one small tube. He studied the label carefully. It read SMALLPOX DESIGN #1.

From within his coat he produced a metallic cylinder labeled with the familiar biohazard symbol. He twisted the cap on one end until it popped off. From within the tube three triangularly arranged prongs, surrounded by black shock-absorbent foam, emerged. He carefully placed the smallpox vial so it fit securely in the middle of the prongs, then gently pushed the vial back into the cylinder until he heard it click into place. He then screwed the cap back on, hearing it seal shut with a hiss. The cylinder disappeared into his coat.

He then stooped to unzip the black duffel bag at his side. Reaching inside, he picked out two of the many silver baseball-sized spheres that filled the bag. He placed them in the open safe, thumbed a button on each to arm them, picked up the clanking bag, and left the room.

Emerging from the airlock, he heard voices echoing faintly from the stairwell where he'd entered. Someone was coming.

The conference room was on the second floor of the Genomics building, an elongated rectangle set squarely in the center of the floor plan. The walls, papered with a pleasant turquoise design, were hung with whiteboards and generic motivational posters in cheap metal frames. An RGB projector uncoiled from the ceiling, aimed at a retractable screen on the far wall. A hardwood table dominated the room, richly brown and gleaming faintly in the beam of Ray's flashlight. There was an expensive high-backed upholstered chair at the narrow head of the table near the entrance, and ten identical chairs stretching back along either side.

The chair nearest the exit was vacant, as was one that had been pushed into the far corner of the room. All the other chairs held bodies.

"If this guy was your best friend," Ray said quietly to Fraser, unable to take his eyes off the rows of the dead, "I sure as hell don't want to meet your worst enemy. Looks like he took out--" Ray did a quick count-- "nineteen people before they even knew what hit them."

"I'm well aware of that, Ray," Fraser responded in a voice just louder than a whisper. He had removed his hat out of respect for the dead; his fingers clenched the brim tightly.

"If I remember what the Feds told us, the ten upstairs and these poor guys are all of them."

"Not quite, Ray," Fraser replied, laying a hand on the empty chair and spinning it around. "Dr. Patterson is still missing."

"Then I guess we better find him before Harold does," Ray replied. "Harold. What kind of a name for a serial killer is Harold?"

"If I recall correctly, it was his grandfather's English name," Fraser said.

"Oh." Ray closed the door to the conference room. "So where do we find Patterson?"

"From the glimpse I got at the blueprints," Fraser mused, closing his eyes in concentration, "his office was... this way." Fraser turned right and began walking purposefully. Ray followed, with Diefenbaker bringing up the rear. They rounded the conference room and headed for the northern side of the building. Fraser stopped in front of a door bearing the nameplate ROGER PATTERSON.

Dief began to whine. Seeing this, Fraser paused and shot a glance at Ray, who drew his gun. Ray tested the doorknob-- locked. Backing up a little, he turned his shoulder toward the door and charged. It flew inward with a loud crack, and Ray found himself inside a spacious office with a carved wooden desk, an excellent view of the skyline-- and no Patterson.

"Great," sighed Ray, taking a few more steps into the room with Fraser at his heels. "Now what?"

"Well, Ray, we could always" Fraser began, when an arm reached around from the other side of the open door and shoved the muzzle of a .45 automatic into his temple.

"We can always take hostages," came the calm and measured voice of Roger Patterson, stepping out from his hiding place behind the door. He cocked the pistol.

Ray whirled and leveled the gun at Patterson. "Hey! Let him go now, germ boy, and I might just wound you."

"Oh, yes, that's a wonderful idea," Patterson responded acridly. He wore a dress shirt, black slacks and a long white lab coat. His tie was disheveled and sweat gleamed on the rims of his glasses. "I'll just lower my gun like a good little boy and give up my only bargaining chip. Do you actually use any of that wet gray mass between your ears, Detective?"

"Hey, I used to beat up on guys like you in grade school," Ray shot back. "You sure this guy's a Canadian, Benny? He doesn't seem polite enough."

"I believe that's what was on his records, Ray," Fraser responded, remarkably cool considering his situation. "Although if I remember correctly, he spent his formative years here in the United States, which could explain a lot."

"I realize I'm inexperienced in this entire hostage-taking business," Patterson said irritably, jamming the gun harder into Fraser's temple, "but as far as I know, there's not a lot of talking that goes on." Diefenbaker snarled, and Patterson turned to place Fraser between himself and the wolf. "Call off your animal, now, or he'll get the next bullet after yours."

"Where'd you get the gun, Patterson?" Ray asked. "I didn't figure you for the NRA type."

"I'm not stupid, Detective. I knew when I accepted their job offer that they would come for me one day, when I had outlived my usefulness to them. I know too much. But I planned ahead. Hence the firearm that I'm going to use to make a very large hole in your friend's head if you don't put that gun down-- now."

"You're bluffing," Ray said between clenched teeth, drawing a bead on the center of Patterson's forehead.

"Oh really, Detective? I go to work every day and I play with viruses that can kill a normal, healthy person in eight hours. Germs that dissolve some of your internal organs and cause others to burst with fluid. I've stared down the Ebola virus and made it blink first. I face death for a living."

"I never knew you needed a pocket protector for that," Ray snapped.

"Do you think I'm kidding?" Patterson asked levelly. "I'll count to three. One. Two."

"Okay!" said Ray, kneeling down carefully to lay his gun on the floor. He did not take his eyes off Patterson. "You win. Now let him go."

"Not just yet. I need you two to catch bullets for me. I know the others are dead, but they aren't going to get me."

"Who, Carries Clouds?" Ray asked.

"Who?" Patterson asked, genuinely confused.

"If I may say something," Fraser spoke up, "whoever you feel is after you, Dr. Patterson, we can offer you protection."

"Long enough to throw me in jail, I'd imagine," Patterson replied dryly.

"Well, yes, that goes without saying, but I guarantee you'll get a fair trial," Fraser told him. Patterson laughed hollowly.

"You really don't know who you're dealing with here, do you?" the scientist said. "Assuming I was stupid enough to surrender to you, and assuming we did make it out of the building alive, they'd find a way to get to me long before I ever made it to trial."

"Who is this 'they' you keep mentioning?" Ray asked. "The CIA or something?"

"You're thinking too small, Detective," Patterson sighed, as if he was explaining this to a young child for the third or fourth time. "Which, in your case, doesn't really surprise me. The men who hired me are to the CIA what Bobby Fischer was to a chess piece."

"You mean the men who hired you to create multiple strains of deadlier influenza viruses?" Fraser asked calmly. "The men for whom you tested those viruses on innocent children?" Patterson's face grew even colder.

"I'm not sure how you discovered that, although I can guess," Patterson said. "William always was too much of an egotist to let himself go uncredited for his achievements. You know, Constable-- yes, I recognize you from the unpleasantness in the parking lot last night-- I might have let you both go before. But now, it appears you know just a little bit more than is healthy for you, and thus your usefulness to me is of a very temporary nature."

"If you plan to escape from the building with Detective Vecchio and myself as your hostages," Fraser told him, "I feel obligated to advise you of one major obstacle to your strategy."

"And that is?" Patterson asked.

"Your shoelaces have been tied together," Fraser said.

Patterson glanced down for a half-second. Unfortunately for him, a half-second was all Fraser needed to duck, grab the scientist's wrist and twist it back sharply, causing Patterson to cry out in pain. His fingers opened reflexively as his body twisted and the gun-- unnoticed by the other two men-- dropped into an inner pocket of his lab coat.

Patterson squirmed free of Fraser's grip and turned to face the Mountie. This was his second mistake. Fraser punched him solidly in the jaw, and the scientist sagged and crumpled to the floor, unconscious.

Ray scooped up his own gun and knelt down beside the sprawled scientist.

As he snapped a pair of handcuffs around Patterson's wrists, he happened to glance at the man's feet.

"Hey, Benny, his shoelaces."

"What about his shoelaces, Ray?"

"Well, they're not tied together."

"I know that, Ray."

"But you told him they were."

"Yes, I did."

"So you told him they were... but they really weren't. You lied to him, Fraser."

"Technically-- yes."

"You never lie, Fraser. How could you..."

"Well, you have to consider that Dr. Patterson is a Canadian citizen, and as such he falls under the bylaws of the Mulroney Rules."

"The Mulroney Rules?"

"Yes, the unwritten rules of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. According to section 15-B, paragraph 27 of the Mulroney Rules, it is permissible to tell a man his shoes are tied together if he's holding a gun to your head."

"I've never heard of the Mulroney Rules."

"Yes, well, they're actually quite secret, Ray. I really shouldn't be telling you-- you don't even know the secret moose call."

"Secret moose call?" Ray's eyebrows furrowed in bewilderment.

"Absolutely," the Mountie replied.

Something fell over with a loud THUD out in the hallway.

"You hear that, Benny?" Ray whispered, turning his head and his gun in the direction of the sound. The Mountie nodded. Diefenbaker, ears flattened forward, bounded into the hallway. Ray charged after him, rolling out the door and coming up in a firing crouch. "Freeze!" Ray yelled.

"Ray? It's a potted plant," Fraser said, calmly walking into the hallway. In the gloom Ray could now make out that his gun was indeed aimed at a large potted plant which had fallen over, spewing black dirt across the pristine off-white carpet. Dief was sniffing at the dirt as if it was made of ground chocolate.

"I knew that," Ray said, lowering his gun. He and Fraser stepped toward the plant. Fraser knelt down next to it. "Please tell me you're not gonna taste any of that," Ray said.

"Of course not, Ray-- that would be silly. I was just noticing that the base of this pot seems rather heavy and stable, and the plant itself, if I recall correctly, didn't lean in any one direction."

"Yeah? So?"

"Well, based on these observations, I'd say it's highly unlikely that this plant could just fall over all by itself. Unless of course it were a diversion of some sort..."

The thought hit them both in the same instant. Fraser and Ray rushed back into Patterson's office and stopped cold.

A long-haired man in a black leather jacket was sitting on Patterson's desk, his booted feet kicking gently against the side of it. The fingers of his right hand were drumming idly on Patterson's Rolodex. With his left hand, he was holding a still-unconscious Patterson by the throat. Patterson's feet dangled in the air, a foot off the floor.

"Hello there, Ben," the man said cheerily. Fraser swallowed hard.

"Hello, Harold," he replied.

TEN MINUTES EARLIER

"Mulder, what are you talking about?" Scully asked. "This is a numerical keypad lock. How could you possibly have a--"

Mulder stood back and fired once into the keypad set into the wall next to the basement door. It crackled and squealed fiercely, emitting sparks, and then the door unlocked with a whoosh of escaping air and slid open a few centimeters.

"... skeleton key," Scully finished quietly, staring at the smoking keypad with wide incredulous eyes.

Mulder grabbed the edge of the door and, grunting slightly from the effort, shoved it the rest of the way open. "After you," he said.

Scully thumbed off her flashlight as they stepped into the light of the lab. The fluorescent tubes overhead hummed gently, and their hard flat glare fell upon row after row of lab tables, computer workstations, and busy gene sequencer machines. In the back of the room, to her left Scully could make out a glass-walled area which she guessed was the cold storage facility. On the right rear wall of the lab an EXIT sign glowed faintly red above double doors like the one they had just passed through. She guessed they led to an emergency exit.

As far as she could tell, the room was empty.

"You're the doctor, Scully," Mulder told her. "Where do we begin?"

"One of these workstations may have information about what Patterson and his team have been working on," Scully began, running a hand through her hair contemplatively. "That looks like the storage unit back there," she said, pointing toward the glass-walled vault. "We're going to have to figure out how to get inside, and once inside, how to safely retrieve any samples it might contain."

"Sounds easy enough," Mulder said dryly. "Maybe there's a--"

At that moment, the floor trembled and a blinding ball of fire blossomed within the storage area. The ignition caused the air pressure within the sealed vault to drop rapidly; large cracks formed on the panes of glass, and grew.

"Scully! Get down!" Mulder yelled, as the two ducked behind the nearest lab table. An instant later, the glass walls of the vault imploded with a deafening crash, and tongues of fire erupted from within, spewing flaming debris across the lab. Several of the fluorescent tubes nearest the vault shattered in a shower of white sparks. Fire suppression systems in the ceiling activated, shooting plumes of vapor into the roaring blaze, but they met with limited success.

"I suppose that takes care of one of our problems," Mulder said, as soon as the ringing in his ears had diminished. The two rose cautiously, guns drawn, and studied the flaming wreckage. The fierce heat made them squint. "I'm guessing that was some kind of firebomb," Mulder added, "hot enough to kill any of the remaining virus samples and erase any other evidence we might find."

"Maybe not, Mulder," Scully said, moving down the row of tables to a workstation that dangled by its power cables from the top of the lab bench. In the blast it had been knocked off the tabletop, but somehow its cables had held together, its monitor casing hadn't cracked, and the whirring of the disk drive was still audible. Rather than try to lift it back on top of the lab bench, Scully knelt down and managed to straighten the computer somewhat. She laid its keyboard flat on the tiled floor and began typing. A desktop blinked to life on the monitor.

"It's possible that Patterson and his team may have stored information about the genetic or molecular makeup of their virus designs on one of these computers," Scully said, as Mulder's eyes scanned the lab warily. Scully fished a disk out of her pockets and slid it in the computer's drive slot. "If I can transfer any of those files to disk, we may still have enough evidence to prove that Patterson and his men were conclusively involved in the manufacture of these viruses."

"Assuming there's anyone still alive to prosecute," Mulder muttered, mostly to himself. He was still wondering this when he heard a soft vip and something whizzed past his ear and embedded itself with a thud in the wall behind him. His head snapped around to see a neat bullet hole in the plaster. He had his gun up and aimed as another bullet shattered a beaker on a table a foot away. On the far side of the room, between one of the rows of lab tables in front of the smoldering vault, he saw a short, nondescript man in a black trenchcoat and simple dark business suit. The man held a pistol expertly in one hand and leveled it at Mulder. What unnerved Mulder most was the placid, immutable calm on the man's face.

Mulder ducked. Another bullet burrowed into the back of the table behind him. "Scully? You might want to hurry now."

Crouched behind the cover of the lab table, Scully did not take her eyes off the screen. "I managed to decrypt one of the directories on the network server," she said quickly. "The computer network appears to be running off the auxiliary power grid as well. Looks like the directory has memos, sequencing data, 3D models-- everything we need. If you can hold him off long enough for me to make a copy..." She hit a sequence of keys on the keyboard and a dialog box appeared. The letters TRANSFERRING TO DISK stood out in red above a scrolling progress bar that began creeping only too slowly to the right.

Scully tapped a finger to the microphone button on her headset. "Vecchio! Fraser! Someone else is down here! We have shots fired! Repeat, someone else is here!" She was answered with a crackle of static-- the thick walls of the lab, or the distance between her headset and theirs, might be interfering. As far as she knew, they were completely cut off.

Mulder stuck his head up, sighted their assailant and fired twice, forcing the assassin to drop from view momentarily. The dark-suited man resurfaced a few feet away from his original position, aiming at Mulder.

Scully rose from behind the lab bench with her pistol drawn, blazing three shots that chipped and tore at the table inches from the man in black. She then dropped back to monitor the progress of the file. It was a little more than an fourth complete.

When the fixer rose again, he had the pistol flaming in one hand, forcing Mulder to keep his head down, and in the other Mulder caught a glimpse of a silver sphere. From his vantage point behind the table, he saw the sphere come arcing through the air, bearing down on top of Scully and him. Without thinking, he wrapped a hand around one leg of the nearest lab stool and swung the stool upward like a baseball bat. Stool and sphere connected, and the silver globe clattered and bounced across the top of the bench in front of the one Mulder hid behind, then dropped over the far edge.

There was a loud whump and all of a sudden, the aisle two rows ahead of them was a roaring inferno. Mulder stuck his head up, feeling the intensity of the heat on his face, and through the flames saw their attacker reaching into a large dark duffel bag. He's got more of them, Mulder thought in horror.

Scully tried to block out the flames and concentrate on the monitor. The file was almost at 50%.

Mulder rose just as the man in black withdrew his hand from within the bag, another gleaming firebomb clenched in his fist. Mulder aimed his pistol-- not at the assassin, but at his bag of tricks. The fixer looked first at Mulder's gun, then traced its line of fire back to his bag, all in a matter of instants. His eyes widened slightly. He moved to hurl the bag away from himself.

Mulder fired.

Fraser did not take his eyes off Harold, not even when his radio headset crackled to life. Through a shower of static he heard frantic snatches of Agent Scully's voice.

"Vecchio! Fras... one else is down here!... shots fired! Repeat, someone else..." The rest was hissing white noise, and a crackling roar that sounded like fire. Fraser heard Ray suck in an anxious breath between clenched teeth.

"Go, Ray," Fraser told him quietly. "They need your help."

"But Fraser..." He could hear the conflict in Ray's voice. Harold watched all this with something very much like amusement.

"I'll be all right, Ray," Fraser repeated. "Go." After a few tense moments, he heard Ray's footsteps slowly back out into the corridor, and then take off running. Four paws scampered out after him.

"Nice wolf," said Harold amiably. "Where'd you find him?"

"In a hole in the ground," Fraser answered. "Let him go, Harold."

"Who? This guy?" Harold turned and looked at Patterson, still dangling in midair in Harold's grip, almost as if the Inuit hadn't noticed him before. "Nope. I'm afraid I can't do that. So anyway, how've you been, Ben?"

"Just fine, thank you," Fraser replied uneasily.

"That's good, that's good. Glad to hear it. Hey, I see you took up the family business," Harold said, indicating Fraser's hat with his free hand.

"Yes," Fraser answered, his insides swirling with a strange mixture of awkwardness, anger, nostalgia and fear. "And I see that you seem to have killed at least twenty-nine people in the last half hour, not to mention six others in the last four months, which, if I'm not mistaken, automatically puts you well within the ranks of the top ten international serial killers of all time."

Harold nodded. "Looks that way," he said matter-of-factly.

"What happened to you?" Fraser asked. For the first time since he'd entered the room, Fraser saw Harold's eyes cloud with something like sadness.

"The Sight happened," Harold said quietly. Then his eyes snapped up to Fraser again. "But you're looking at this all wrong. You think I paid a visit to these pieces of slime to get my jollies? Wrong. I just work a trade-- their lives for the lives of the children they used as guinea pigs and left to die."

"What gives you that right?" Fraser asked. Harold chuckled softly.

"And here I thought we could have a friendly get-together without letting our jobs come into the conversation," he said, shaking his head so that his long black ponytail whipped gently from side to side. "Do you think I'm indiscriminate about this?" he asked. "Hey, which reminds me-- sorry about that whole Vincenzo mess. Had I known it would get you and your buddy in trouble with the boss, I would've been hands-off. No pun intended. Anyway, mea culpa." Harold grinned sheepishly before continuing.

"But as I was saying, do you think I just picked anyone in the building who happened to stroll by and said 'Well, you must be guilty by association?' Come on, Ben, give me a little credit. Most of the staff-- the receptionists, the paper-pushers, the janitors-- were let off early today so the researchers could have their little progress meeting. Patterson--" and here he gave the groggy scientist a shake-- "and his thirty trained monkeys, including Bill, whom I believe you met in the parking lot last night, were up to their necks in this project. All thirty of them were having a pow-pow this evening so they could pat themselves on the back for how well they were killing children. I knew that. I waited for that."

"What about their families, Harold?" Fraser asked. "Surely some of the people in that conference room, or up on the third floor, had parents, brothers, sisters, children."

"You want to talk about families, Ben?" Harold asked, anger flaring briefly in his black eyes. "Let's talk about the parents of the kids in Tuktoyaktuk who came to me when their kids were lying in a hospital, burning with fever, and no one could do a damn thing about it. They were scared out of their wits to even look at me, but they came anyway. If you had seen their faces..."

"I would have been just as angry as you are," Fraser said. "But I wouldn't have done what you have. What gives you the right to take these people's lives?"

"The Sight, Ben. That's what gives me the right." Harold said. He sounded almost weary.

"You keep saying that. What does it mean?" Fraser asked him.

"You remember that conk on the noggin I got when we were fourteen?" Harold began, grinning ruefully. "You saved my life that day, and I never thanked you for it." He looked down at the floor. "Sometimes I wish you hadn't bothered. After that day I started... hearing things. Seeing things. You ever held a conversation with a dead man, Ben?"

"More often than I'd care to," Fraser sighed.

Harold just laughed. "For a moment there I thought you'd lost your sense of humor," he told Fraser. "After I was in the coma, my parents took me to the tribal elders. They explained to me that I'd been given a gift. I'd been given the Sight." He looked away, and there was bitterness in his voice when he said, "Some gift. You remember what I said I wanted to do when I grew up, Ben?"

"Join the Ice Capades?"

"Oh, geez, that was in sixth form. I was hoping you'd forgotten about that. Besides, I've since learned I can't skate. I mean what I wanted to be when we were in secondary school."

"You always said you wanted to be a doctor."

"That's right. I didn't ask for this. But I got it, and now I get to use it in whatever way I see fit. So I use it to take care of sick kids."

"The Hippocratic Oath says 'First, do no harm,'" Fraser told him evenly.

"I never took that oath," Harold replied, his voice quiet.

Still held in the air, Patterson groaned and began to stir. His cuffed hands swayed feebly.

"You mentioned something about respect for human life?" Harold asked Fraser. "Let's see what our friend here has to say about that."

Patterson's eyes flickered open.

In the instant after he pulled the trigger, Mulder could swear he heard the gentle pff as his bullet tore through the fixer's duffel bag.

The fireball was searing, blinding, knocking Mulder to the floor. Scully reflexively turned her eyes away from the blast, but she felt the blistering heat from across the room. When Mulder looked up again, the back half of the room was a solid wall of fire. Ventilation systems had kicked in, sucking out most of the smoke and poisonous gasses, but the fire suppressant systems were severely overtaxed, and their feeble jets of foam were doing little more than preventing the inferno's spread.

Scully stuck her head up and surveyed the damage. She turned to Mulder, wide-eyed: "I take it this means I don't have to hurry anymore?"

Mulder slumped against the lab bench, exhausted from the tension. "Nope," he said. Suddenly his head jerked up and swiveled in the direction of the door through which they'd entered. He heard footsteps coming down the stairs.

Scully, still kneeling, turned away from the computer and leveled her pistol in the direction of the noise. Mulder flattened himself against the lab table behind him. He brought his gun up and listened carefully. The footsteps proceeded down the stairs, entered the lab, and stopped dead. There was a pause that seemed to go on for an eternity.

Then an-all-too familiar voice bellowed, "What the hell happened here?" Ray Vecchio stood in the doorway, staring at the wrecked lab and the roiling wall of fire at the far end of the room. Scully sighed with relief and lowered her gun; Mulder wiped sweat from his forehead.

"We're okay," Mulder said, standing up slowly.

"Whoa," Vecchio marveled. "And here I thought the Feds reserved this level of firepower for gun-toting separatists in log cabins."

Mulder let that one pass. "Where's Constable Fraser?" he asked.

"We've got him," Vecchio replied.

"Who?" Scully asked. "Patterson or Carries Clouds?"

"Both of 'em," said Vecchio.

"You have them in custody?" Mulder said.

"Well... not exactly. Fraser has them cornered."

"You left Fraser alone with Carries Clouds?" Mulder asked, alarm rising in his voice.

"I didn't really have a choice," Vecchio shot back. "I got your distress call, and I wasn't exactly in a position to drag all three of them down here with me. Look, Benny can handle this. Carries Clouds used to be his pal, remember?"

"That's exactly what I'm afraid of," Mulder said grimly. Without another word, he turned and raced out of the lab and up the stairs.

"What's his problem?" Ray wondered, staring after the departed agent. Scully bit her lip, trying to find a tactful way to put it.

"Agent Mulder... has a little problem with trusting people," she said at last. She shot a glance back at the computer screen. The progress bar was about three-fourths complete. "You're sure Constable Fraser has the situation under control?"

"Considering the situation?" Vecchio asked. "Um... yeah, sure he does." Somehow his response did little to calm Scully's anxiety.

"As soon as I finish copying this disk we can go help your friend," Scully explained. She nervously eyed the fire suppressant foam jets-- was it her imagination, or were they growing weaker? The heat was already brutal.

"Where's the wolf?" she asked Vecchio, squatting down to examine the disk's progress on the computer monitor.

"Aw, I lost him a ways back by the candy machines," the detective said. "I'm sure we can pick him up on the way back."

The progress bar filled up, and the words TRANSFER COMPLETE flashed on the screen. Scully popped the disk out of the drive and was about to stick it her pocket when she noticed the foam jets had stopped. Sparks were bursting from the ceiling, and the fire was beginning to spread ravenously. She heard ominous groaning sounds from above her, as if the girders that held the ceiling up were warping.

"Let's get out of here," she said, heading for the door.

"My thoughts exactly," Vecchio replied.

Three rows of lab benches away, a black-gloved hand holding a silencer pistol surfaced from behind a countertop and took careful aim.

Scully was about halfway down the aisle between the lab benches when she heard it again-- the tiny, distinctive vip. There was a cry of pain, and she spun around to see Vecchio crash to the floor, clutching his shoulder. A red stain appeared on his coat and began to spread.

Her gun was up in a flash and her eyes whipped around the room rapidly. The lab was empty. Where did that shot come from? she thought. She quickly knelt down and examined the wound. Ray was cursing profusely.

"Son of a..." she heard him mutter. "He shot me in the same shoulder... the same shoulder!" She holstered her pistol, stuck the evidence disk in an inner pocket of her coat, and began digging through her pockets.

"You were shot before?" she asked him, trying to take his mind off the injury. She took out a handkerchief and pressed it to the wound with both hands.

"Yeah," Ray responded, grimacing, "I didn't tell you? Oww! Geez, you'd think these people would have the decency to shoot me someplace where I haven't already been wounded."

She was about to smile at this when she saw Ray's eyes fill with alarm. She snapped her head around to her right and gasped involuntarily. The dark-suited man, covered with soot but very much alive, was advancing calmly down the far end of the aisle toward the both of them. His eyes were cold and emotionless.

He emptied one clip out of the butt of his pistol and prepared to snap in another one.

Harold yawned loudly, politely covering his mouth with his free hand. He looked up at Patterson, who was struggling for breath a little, but otherwise quite composed. "Hi," he said to Patterson. "I don't believe we've met. I'm Harold, and you're the putrid lab weasel who infects little kids with killer flu for a living."

Fraser felt helpless. He was fairly certain Harold wouldn't harm him, but he didn't think that assurance extended to Patterson. Nothing he could say seemed to get through to the man who used to be his friend. Harold turned and regarded him with a mock-stern expression.

"I wouldn't try it, Ben," he said, almost as if he knew what Fraser was thinking. "This isn't fourth grade, and I've learned how to block punches since then. I can leave this guy a smoking husk-- now isn't that a pleasant image for you, Rog?-- before you could lay a hand on me. And I know that's the last thing you want."

"I suppose," said Patterson, wheezing a little but losing none of his reserve, "that you expect me to grovel now. Plead with you. Beg for mercy."

"Nah," Harold replied. "I know all about you, Rog. You're a cool cucumber. I don't expect you to beg. I expect you to sweat it out a little bit."

"Let him go, Harold," Fraser said. "If you kill this man in cold blood, you're in effect stating that his life is less important than your own objectives. And that makes you no better than he is."

"Wrong, Ben," Harold replied, no trace of doubt or hesitation on his face. "What I do, I do for a righteous purpose."

"And I'm sure some of the people whose lives you've taken believed the same thing about what they did to those children," Fraser replied. "In his own rather distorted fashion, the man you killed last night-- Dr. Crendall-- thought he was doing his part to help mankind. Can you honestly say you're any different?"

While they argued, Patterson became aware of the weight pulling at the inner pocket of his lab coat. He very slowly tilted his eyes down. In the pocket, just a few inches from his dangling hands, he caught a glimpse of metal. His gun.

"There are antibiotics that can stop the virus, Harold," Fraser told the Inuit. "They arrived in Tuktoyaktuk this morning. The children will recover. You don't need to take this man's life to save them."

"No," Harold replied, "but I think their parents will sleep better knowing he's dead. I know I will."

"FBI! Harold Carries Clouds, you're under arrest," came a voice from behind Fraser. He turned to see Mulder framed in the doorway, eyes narrowed in anger, his pistol aimed at Harold. "Put Dr. Patterson down. Now." Mulder cocked the gun. "I'm not going to ask again."

Ray couldn't believe it. The creep in the black trenchcoat was just about to load a fresh magazine into his gun, and Scully was charging at him! She had guts.

Of course, she was probably going to get killed, too.

The searing pain in his shoulder momentarily forgotten, Ray watched as Scully slammed into the fixer with her shoulder, knocking him off balance. She brought her knee up into his solar plexus and he doubled over. The man in black landed a punch on her jaw and she moved back a little, but she managed to grab his gun hand. Frantically, she banged his wrist against the hard black edge of the lab bench, again and again until his fingers opened involuntarily and the gun skittered away across the top of the bench. Ray heard it slide along the surface of the lab bench and drop off the edge.

His own gun had flown out of his hand when the bullet hit him; he looked around but couldn't see it anywhere. Ray tried to push himself up to a standing position, but pain flooded through his shoulder and he slumped down again. His vision filled with red, and he had to fight not to pass out. He tried again, bracing himself with his legs and using his good arm to cling to the top of the lab table. Slowly, painfully, he began to rise.

The dark-suited man kicked her viciously in the ribs, and Scully staggered backwards. She could feel a thin trickle of blood running down from her swelling lip. He swung a punch, but she blocked it with one forearm and drove the other hard into his windpipe. While he gasped, she spun and nailed him on the jaw with the point of her toe, and his head snapped back in a way Scully found oddly satisfying. She risked a quick look over her right shoulder at the far side of the room; the fire was spreading fast, and coming their way.

Too fast for Scully to block, the man in black landed a punch on her ribs and she cried out in pain. He brought his fist down on the base of her neck and her knees buckled. He landed a roundhouse to her jaw and she sprawled to the floor, sliding a short distance on the dusty black-and-white tiles. The momentum of her fall caused both her pistol and the disk to spill out of her pockets and go twirling and skidding across the floor. They came to rest just inches away from her outstretched fingers.

Ignoring the agony in her side, Scully strained her arm outward, reaching for the gun. A black dress shoe stomped on her forearm and she yelled. Her assailant kept his foot on her arm and slowly, deliberately reached down and picked up the disk. She watched helplessly as he toyed with it, turning it in his fingers. Then he snapped in half and tossed it in the direction of the fire. Her head slumped in defeat.

The fixer reached down again and picked up her gun. He checked the safety, cocked it, and leveled it between Scully's eyes. Grim satisfaction was written on his bruised, bloodied face. Scully stared down the barrel, and for a moment, the world became absolutely silent.

Suddenly, the man in black lurched forward, stumbling over Scully, and staggered. Ray Vecchio was on his back, shouting curses in Italian and pounding on the man in black with his uninjured arm for all he was worth.

Ray's shoulder hurt like hell and he didn't care at all. He just kept squeezing his arm tighter around the fixer's windpipe. The man in black jerked suddenly, throwing Ray off his shoulders, and came up with Scully's gun in both hands. Ray grabbed the gun with his good hand and forced it up and away from himself. The two of them struggled, one hand against two, both men's foreheads trickling with sweat as the all-engulfing wall of fire approached. Inexorably, the dark-suited man forced the muzzle of the gun down toward Ray's head.

A snarling white blur seemed to come out of nowhere, leaping between Ray and his adversary, and the man in black shrieked in pain. Diefenbaker had arrived. Dief sunk his teeth deeply into the man in black's wrist, and from the looks of it the wolf had no intention of letting go anytime soon. The fixer roared again, flailing his arm wildly. He succeeded in tossing Dief off, but in the process the pistol slipped from his fingers and skidded down the length of the lab table behind them.

Ray took advantage of the wolf's distraction and punched the man in black in the face with all he had. Ray's opponent reeled, but he didn't fall. The fixer brought his hand up, silver flashed out of his sleeve, and all of a sudden there was a wicked-looking knife in his hand--

"Freeze!" Scully barked. Both men's heads turned down the aisle to where she stood, her pistol raised. She aimed at the man in black and her hands did not shake. Fury blazed in her eyes; her lip was swollen and bleeding, her cheek was cut, her red hair was matted and disheveled, and she had the beginnings of a beaut of a shiner.

To Ray, she had never looked better.

"Drop the knife!" Scully shouted to the man in black. "Drop it! Keep your hands where I can see them!" Before she could react, the man in black let the knife clatter to the floor, pushed past Ray and leapt up onto the lab bench. He sprinted from bench to bench, faster than Scully could track him, heading for the wall of fire.

He dove straight into a gap in the wall of flames.

"Geez," Scully heard Ray said quietly. She saw the man in black when the swirling flame parted for a moment; he was racing for the back of the room, where she'd seen the emergency exit earlier. Then the flames closed again, and she saw only flickering orange fire and thick smoke.

An eerie wail of rending metal echoed through the room. The fire had melted the girders holding up the ceiling. The back half of the ceiling shuddered, dropped a few feet, stopped precariously, and then collapsed into the flames in a shower of bricks, steel and acoustic ceiling tiles. The flames roared hungrily and continued their advance. Between the fire and the collapse of the ceiling, Scully didn't see how anything could have survived.

Ray slumped back against the lab table, once again becoming aware of the throbbing pain in his shoulder. Dief circled around his legs, looking up and whimpering occasionally in concern.

"What are you looking at?" he asked the wolf. "You know, you sure took your sweet time getting here."

Dief whimpered guiltily.

All at once Scully's legs wobbled with exhaustion, but an equally shaky Ray was there to catch her. "I don't feel like being barbecued? You?" he asked with a battered smile. She shook her head wearily. He slung one of her arms over his shoulder and, each helping the other to stand, the two of them headed for the stairs.

"I feel awful," she said philosophically, touching a finger gingerly to her bleeding lip.

"Yeah," he grinned, "but you should see the other guy." With Diefenbaker leading the way, they walked up the stairs.

"Constable Fraser, get away from him now," Mulder ordered, keeping the gun trained on Harold.

"I'm sorry, Agent Mulder, but I'm not going to do that," Fraser replied quietly.

"Attaboy, Ben!" Harold said cheerily. "Way to stick up to authority."

"Shut up!" Mulder snapped at him. He looked at Patterson, held up in the Inuit's grip. "Don't kill him, Carries Clouds."

"And why not?" Harold asked. He seemed to notice Mulder's neckwear, which was adorned with little flying pigs. "Oh, hey, nice tie."

The remark caught Mulder off guard for a second, but he recovered quickly. "If you kill him, that's it. You have your revenge and nothing else gets accomplished. If he lives, we can use him to bring down the men he works for."

Patterson was slowly, imperceptibly moving his hands over toward the pocket inside his lab coat. "I don't suppose I get a choice in all this," he remarked.

"No," the other three men replied simultaneously.

"Let us bring him to justice," Mulder said.

"I'm bringing him to a higher justice than you ever could," Harold replied, conviction strong in his voice.

"Patterson's employers will stop and nothing to disguise the truth," Mulder told the Inuit, his anger rising. "They've murdered hundreds of people. They've deceived and manipulated an entire country for decades. These men killed my father. They took my sister!

"And there's no way I can get either of them back."

He fixed Harold with a burning glare. "So I want to see them rot in Hell as much as you do. But if you kill Patterson, then we lose one of the only conclusive piece of evidence of what he did. There will be no proof to connect the infection of those children with what took place in this building. It'll be just like the whole thing never happened. And that's just what the people who ran this experiment would want."

"And what if lab weasel here is right?" Harold shot back, shaking Patterson slightly. "What if his employers get to him before you can make him cough up any information? Where does that leave you?"

"The way I see it, I don't have a choice," Mulder told him. "And neither do you." He raised the gun. "Put him down." His finger tightened on the trigger.

Fraser stepped into the line of fire.

"Constable Fraser, get out of the way," Mulder said, his voice cold and even. Fraser turned his head and met Mulder's eyes with an equally determined stare. Then he turned back to Harold.

"Do you remember Francis Hale?" Fraser asked. His hands were in the air in a gesture of sincerity, and he began taking small, slow steps toward the desk where Harold sat. "The school bully back in the sixth form?" Harold nodded.

"Do you remember how he was the terror of the schoolyard?" Fraser continued. "How he would steal the weaker children's lunches, tear up their books, beat them up for looking at him the wrong way?"

"Yeah. Heard anything about him lately?" Harold asked.

"I believe he sells insurance in Saskatoon," Fraser remarked. "But that's not why I brought it up. Do you recall that day we refused to surrender our lunch bags? How he chased us into the woods after school? I still remember hearing him behind us, shouting curses and threatening all sorts of pain upon us. I had never been so terrified in my life." Fraser took another step closer.

Patterson's fingertips touched the hem of his coat pocket, and brushed over something metallic and hard.

"Then all of a sudden," Fraser went on, "he wasn't behind us any more. We stopped reluctantly, fearing some sort of trick. We retraced our steps. And there he was, lying on the forest floor. He had tripped over a fallen log and broken his leg. He was crying, very quietly, from the pain, but still cursing us.

"I saw him there, helpless, and despite all that my grandmother and my father had taught me, my first impulse was to attack him. To punish him for all he'd done while he was incapacitated, while he couldn't fight back. I picked up a stick.

"And then you stopped me. Do you remember what you said, Harold?" Though the Inuit's grip around Patterson's neck did not loosen, Fraser thought he could see Harold's face slowly begin to lose some of its hardness, its determination. Fraser took another step closer.

"You told me," Fraser continued, "to show him pity. You said that he deserved mercy, even as he cursed at us and spat on us. And I knew that you were right."

"I remember," said Harold softly. His face broke into a grin. "We got a doctor and had him patched up. No sooner did he get better than he was after us again. So you got some more pugilism lessons from your grandmother and cleaned his clock."

"Well, yes, and my knuckles were sore for a month, and you went around calling me 'Rocky,' but that's beside the point," Fraser said. He reached out a hand and placed it on Harold's left arm, the one that held Patterson aloft. "The point is that I believe you're still the same person now that you were that day. That no matter what has happened to you, no matter what course your life has taken, deep down inside you're still the kind of person who believes in mercy-- in forgiveness. And I'm not going to let you ignore that."

Fraser met his friend's eyes. "Let him go, Harold."

Patterson's fingers closed around the butt of the gun.

Mulder held his breath.

Harold spoke. "Ben, I..."

Patterson brought the gun out of his pocket up under Fraser's arm. Harold looked down and saw the muzzle of the gun rising. With his free hand, he shoved Fraser with surprising strength, knocking the Mountie to the floor.

Mulder saw the gun. "No!" he yelled, shifting his aim to Patterson.

Patterson fired three times into Harold's chest. Fraser heard the gun roar in perfect clarity, followed by the wet thud of each of the bullets as they went in. Harold jerked, stumbled forward off the desk, wobbled unsteadily but stayed on his feet. Patterson moved to fire again, but Harold was faster. His free hand whipped around and planted itself on Patterson's chest, right over his heart. Fraser saw Harold close his eyes tightly.

A delicate nimbus of blue fire erupted where Harold's hand met Patterson's chest. The scientist screamed, so loudly and horribly that it seemed his lungs might explode from his open mouth. Patterson's body jerked and spasmed, and in a matter of seconds, he fell silent. Harold released what remained of the scientist; the corpse dropped, the fresh burn mark steaming on its chest.

Harold wavered at the kness, then collapsed on the floor next to Fraser, his t-shirt blotched with growing red stains. Fraser surveyed the gunshot wounds and turned to Mulder, who still stood in the doorway, his pistol now lowered. A weary, desolate sort of grief was etched in the agent's face. "Call an ambulance!" Fraser shouted to him.

"No," Harold said weakly. "Too late..." He smiled at his friend, blood trickling from the corners of his mouth, and laid a feeble hand upon Fraser's shoulder. "Remember... remember how... after the coma... I said I saw...?"

"You said you saw your own death," Fraser answered quietly. Fraser's vision blurred; something hot and wet and stinging filled his eyes and trickled down his cheeks.

"I never... never talked to you after that," Harold rasped. "I'm sorry... I just couldn't... couldn't tell you... I saw this. I saw all this... Patterson... the gun. All of it. And I knew... I couldn't tell you...because I knew... you'd never forgive yourself." Harold coughed, and red droplets spattered the collar of his t-shirt. "Ben... I'm sorry. Tell them all... I'm sorry." His eyes closed, and his head fell backwards. His chest rose once, then fell, and then was still.

Tongues of fire sprouted from the corners of the room, spreading across the ceiling and along the walls. Fraser didn't see it. He clasped the hand that rested on his shoulder and studied the look of perfect tranquility that had descended like snow upon his friend's face.

Mulder came and knelt by the two of them, even as the fire devoured the wallpaper and licked at the desk. He put his fingers to the Inuit's neck. No pulse. "Come on, Constable," he said gently. "We have to go."

At last Fraser nodded. He rose, slung Harold's body over his shoulders in a fireman's carry, and left the room behind Mulder. Neither of them looked at Patterson's body as they passed through the doorway.

The fire followed behind them at a respectful distance as they ran out of the building. It consumed everything, cleansing, purifying. Forgiving.

EXCERPT FROM THE FIELD REPORT
OF AGENT DANA SCULLY

Unfortunately, with the destruction of the computer disk that contained evidence of Genomics' viral engineering, their connection to the infection of the children in Tuktoyaktuk has been all but erased.

The Genomics complex burned completely to the ground by 3:27 AM this morning; the basement lab was buried beyond recovery when the metal beams supporting its ceiling collapsed. Though arson investigators have found traces of thermite in the rubble of the basement, which may point to the type of incendiary device used, the level of charring on what little remains of the upper floors indicates a level of heat beyond that produced by any known chemical accelerant. Evidence of organic matter consistent with human remains has been found in the ruins, but none of the thirty bodies reported by Constable Fraser and Detective Vecchio has been recovered intact.

Though official reports will contain the whole story, the families of the dead have been told a fire caused by a surge from an overloaded transformer on a nearby power line started around sundown last night. They were informed that the research staff of Genomics, most likely overcome by toxic fumes, perished in the blaze. Agent Mulder wishes it to be noted that he participated in this fabrication under protest, but the other parties involved, including myself, thought it best to spare the families. Sometimes the truth is too much.

The cause of the second fire, which according to eyewitness reports started on the second floor, is still unknown. It is possible that the strain placed on the fire suppressant systems in the basement caused the auxiliary electrical circuits to overload, but little evidence exists to support that theory at this time.

The documents recovered from the apartment of the late William Crendall, implicating him in the infection of the Tuktoyaktuk children, have disappeared from the evidence room of the 27th District House the same day the building received its annual fumigation. An investigation into the theft of the documents is ongoing.

The man who attacked Agent Mulder, Detective Vecchio and myself in the basement lab-- and who, presumably, started the fire in the virus storage area-- remains unidentified.A computer-generated sketch of the suspect is being tested against every photograph in the FBI database, but so far no positive matches have been found. The suspect is presumed to have died when the roof of the basement lab collapsed, though investigators have as of yet found no human remains during excavation.

Reports from Tuktoyaktuk indicate that the antibiotics shipped from Chicago seem to have worked spectacularly well. Early observations indicated that the antibiotics were making slow but effective progress in battling the virus. However, like six of the previous victims, the remaining thirty infected children all made inexplicably rapid recoveries within a twelve-hour period beginning late last night. All are now listed in stable condition, and doctors can find no trace of the virus in their bodies, nor any concrete cause for their recovery.

Following my examination of Harold Carries Clouds at the scene, I pronounced him dead of multiple gunshot wounds at 10:02 PM last night. According to city officials, his body was transported to the Cook County coroner's office approximately two hours later. Around 3 this morning, a security guard found the morgue door open and Harold's body, which was supposed to be awaiting autopsy, missing. A review of the security tapes reveals an inexplicable six-minute camera blackout beginning at 2:17 a.m. None of the coroner's office employees on duty at the time can recall seeing or hearing anything suspicious.

Like many other aspects of this case, the location of Harold's body and the motives behind its theft remain a mystery.

--SEND--

27TH DISTRICT HOUSE
JANUARY 10, 8:27 PM

The report sent, Scully folded the screen of her Powerbook down until it clicked shut. She absentmindedly rubbed her bruised forearm, shaking her head slightly to try to clear out some lingering fatigue. Her blackened eye still throbbed somewhat, but the swelling was already beginning to go down. Her bruised ribs protested a little as she rose to slide the computer into its carrying case. Wasn't I on the winning side of the fight? she thought, glancing around the tiny office where she'd been given some time to file her field report. She couldn't help but feel a sense of incompleteness. So much had been left unanswered about this case-- not that unresolved questions were a novelty in her line of work.

"Hey, you better get your partner away from my car," came a voice from the doorway. "He's getting fingerprints all over it." Ray Vecchio stood there, his arm in a sling, grinning in a way Scully found equally goofy, obnoxious and charming.

"How's your shoulder?" she asked, slinging the carrying case carefully over one shoulder to favor her tender ribs.

"Well, the docs say it's a clean wound," Vecchio answered. "Three, four weeks and I'll be good as new." He looked down at the sling irritably. "Seems like I just got rid of one of these things a couple months ago, too. How you feeling?"

"I've felt worse," Scully replied with a weary smile. He accompanied her as they walked through the bullpen towards the front door of the district house.

"So, when does your flight leave?" Ray asked. Scully checked her watch.

"In about two hours," she replied. "With the snow and the traffic, we'll be lucky to make it to O'Hare on time... Are you finished with any of the Carries Clouds paperwork yet?"

"Paperwork? Don't I wish," Ray replied. "At least I'm out of hot water with the lieutenant, now that Fraser and your partner are willing to testify that our friend Harold confessed to the Vincenzo murder."

"So what are you going to do about the Capellis now?"

"I dunno. Vincenzo was our only real lead. I guess we'll have to wait until another one comes along. Figures. Hundreds of thousands of crooks in this city, and that stupid Inuit has to off the one that could've helped us the most."

They reached the doorway. Through the glass she could see snowflakes swirling in the streetlamps. Down on the sidewalk, Mulder was gazing forlornly at the green Riviera, much like a small child at a toy store window.

"Hey," Ray began somewhat embarrassedly, his hands stuck in his coat pockets, "I'm, uh, I'm sorry about that "big needles" question. Your partner there-- hey! I told him to keep his hands off the hood! I just had it waxed... Anyway, he told me about everything you went through." Ray looked at the floor. "I guess that was a pretty dumb thing for me to ask."

"Don't worry," she told him good-naturedly, "I've gotten questions that are much more stupid than that." She was thinking in particular of the 500-question alien abductee survey that had arrived in the mail from Frohike a few weeks after she'd gotten out of the hospital.

Ray's face brightened a little. From one of his coat pockets he produced a small card, which he handed to Scully. He had written his phone number on it in blue ink. "Well, if, uh, if you're ever in town on a case or something, and you need a hand..."

She smiled at him, feeling strangely flattered. She held the card for a few seconds, tapping her finger against one edge of it, not quite knowing what to with it. "Thanks," she said at last, sticking the card into her own pocket. "I appreciate it."

Vecchio opened the door and held it for her. She adjusted the shoulder strap on her computer case, and pulled her coat a little tighter around her.

What, are you a doorman now or something? Why the hell are you holding the door for her? the little nagging voice in the back of Ray's head asked him. You never hold the door for anyone. That's the Mountie's job. He told the voice to shut up.

"Goodbye, Detective Vecchio," Scully said.

"Goodbye, Agent Scully," he replied.

And with that, Dana Scully stepped out of the district house door, and out of Ray Vecchio's life.

UNITED AIRLINES FLIGHT 3798
EN ROUTE TO DULLES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
11:37 PM

Mulder leaned his forehead against the cool plastic of the window, watching the beacon on the tip of the wing flash brilliant white. Outside, silver clouds rolled lazily by in the light of the moon.

In the seat beside him, Scully worked on the final report Skinner had asked for before they left Chicago. Her mind wandered a little, and when she looked at the screen again she saw she'd typed the word "ray" when she mean to type "report." She frowned and corrected the error.

"What's the matter, Mulder?" she asked, looking up from the screen. "Upset that we missed the Bulls game?"

"Just thinking, Scully," he muttered. "Did you read the report from the coroner's office?"

"Not entirely," she replied, reaching down to dig through her bag. "I've got it in here somewhere, but I only had time to flip through it..."

"According to the report," Mulder recalled, closing his eyes, "both the freezer where Carries Clouds' body was being kept and the door to the morgue showed evidence of being forced open."

"That's not surprising, Mulder."

"Forced open from the inside."

Scully digested this for a while. "You're not saying that--"

"I don't know, Scully." The two of them were silent.

"We almost had them," Mulder said at last, more to himself than to Scully. "So many times we get close-- they let us get close-- and then they slip through our fingers again. We keep letting them win." He closed his eyes again. Scully put a hand on his shoulder reassuringly.

"The only way we'll let them win is if we give up, Mulder," she said. "They can't run from us forever."

Mulder ran his hands through his hair. "I want to believe that, Scully. I want to believe that..."

THE REFLECTING POOL
WASHINGTON, D.C.
JANUARY 11 2:23 P.M. LOCAL TIME

Mulder stood at the edge of the pool, halfway between the Lincoln and Washington monuments. As he waited, he turned over in his fingers the small card he'd found planted in his coat pocket back at the district house in Chicago. In flowing, flowery handwriting, it listed a Chicago phone number and the words, "If you're ever in town, call me." It was signed, "Francesca." Mulder grinned in spite of himself. Maybe he would.

"Agent Mulder," came the crisp, chilly voice behind him. "You wished to see me about something?" Replacing the card in his pocket, he turned to see the piercing eyes and smooth, perfect features of Marita Covarrubias. She began to walk quickly along the edge of the reflecting pool, and Mulder followed.

"That's right-- 43 children in Tuktoyaktuk, Canada, seven of whom are now dead."

"Approximately seven and half weeks ago," Covarrubias began, keeping her eyes straight ahead as she walked, "a confidential memo from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service was sent to an official in the higher echelons of the Canadian Ministry of Health. Two lower employees, sworn to secrecy, were ordered to fabricate documents authorizing a immunization team to travel from Chicago, Illinois to Tuktoyaktuk to administer vaccinations for Cotswold's disease. Those two employees are now dead; one appeared to have shot himself in the head about a month ago, and the other was involved in a fatal hit-and-run accident in Vancouver a week later.

"Seven weeks ago a U.S. military transport jet took off from Chicago Midway Airport bound for Northern Canada. If you were for some reason able to obtain a copy of the passenger and cargo manifests-- which have subsequently vanished, along with the flight plans the pilot filed with the tower-- you would see that it listed six fictional Canadian citizens and several crates full of medical supplies."

"The scientists from Genomics and their virus samples," Mulder said. Covarrubias did not answer him, but continued to speak.

"The vaccinations took place with the unwitting cooperation of the RCMP, who received official orders from the Ministry of Health to assist the emergency inoculation team sent to Tuktoyaktuk. 45 children were vaccinated the morning of November 21; the vaccination team was gone by the afternoon. Of that group, 43 manifested flu-like symptoms beginning the last week of November. Seven died, 36 have since made a miraculous recovery, and the two who never experienced symptoms have no trace of the virus in their bodies. Doctors suspect a natural immunity. Is there anything else you need to know?"

Mulder almost wished he had a scorecard to keep track of all this. "Where does this all connect to the actions of our government?" he asked. "Genomics was jointly funded by the CIA and the SIS. There has to be a link somewhere."

Covarrubias still did not look at Mulder. "As far as you're concerned, Agent Mulder, there is no link. Not a provable one, at any rate."

Mulder was silent for several seconds. "And that's all you can tell me," he said at last.

"Agent Mulder, may I remind you that I'm telling you as much as I have of my own free will," she said with glacial calm. "Don't for one second delude yourself into thinking I have any sort of obligation to you. I believe this conversation is over now." She quickened her pace and Mulder, getting the hint, stopped and watched her go.

"Thank you kindly," he called to her as she walked away. She stopped at that, swiveled her head toward him, and fixed Mulder with a puzzled expression.

"I beg your pardon?" she said.

"Oh, just something I picked up while up north," Mulder replied, his face deceptively blank. He turned and headed back toward the Lincoln Memorial. This time it was Covarrubias's turn to watch him walk away.

WASHINGTON, D.C.
7:29 PM LOCAL TIME

He tapped out the ash from his Morley, took another long drag on it, and looked across his desk at the fixer. The man he'd sent to take care of things at Genomics looked like something the cat dragged in: a black eye, a bandaged nose, and a swath of gauze and medical tape wrapped around one wrist. Still, the fixer's medical condition was not so important to him at this time as one other crucial matter.

"Do you have it?" he asked the fixer casually. The other man grunted and handed him a metallic cylinder with a biohazard symbol stenciled on the side. He took it gingerly, feeling the weight of it in his hand, and then handed it back to the fixer.

"And you're sure you retrieved the correct sample?" he asked. The other man nodded. "Good," he said, taking another puff and letting the smoke curl out from between his lips. "Deliver it personally. That will be all." The other man moved wordlessly toward the door.

"One last thing," he added before the other man left, stubbing out the cigarette in the ashtray on his desk. He picked up a manila file folder from his desktop and leafed through it. "It says here in your report that the injuries you sustained included--" he paused momentarily to study one page-- " '... bruised windpipe, first-degree burns, wolf bite.'" He shut the folder and looked up. "Do you mean to tell me you were bitten by a wolf?"

The man at the door nodded.

"A wolf. In the middle of the South Side of Chicago."

The man at the door nodded again.

"I... see," he said at length to the fixer. "Very well. You may go." His office door opened, then closed. He was left, as always, alone with his thoughts.

The Cigarette-Smoking Man lit a fresh Morley and permitted himself that rarest of luxuries: a moment of confusion. "Funny," he said to himself, shrugging. "I never heard anything about a wolf."

  CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
9:23 PM

"You know, I had a-- a rather strange dream last night, Dad," Fraser began.

"Dreams," his father said from the back seat. "I remember those. I miss them."

The Riv idled alongside the sidewalk outside Louie's Pizza. The heat was on inside, not entirely successful in keeping out the winter chill. The rear windows were fogged up. Diefenbaker, sitting beside the elder Fraser in the back seat, pressed his nose to the window and stared out at the NO PARKING sign on the sidewalk next to the car.

"I was in the morgue where Agent Scully and I examined the unfortunate Mr. Vincenzo," Fraser began, idly fiddling with the window knob on the passenger-side door. "I was wearing a surgical mask and cap made out of cabbage leaves."

"Cabbage leaves. Now there's a bad sign, son."

"Let me finish, please. There was a body on the table-- it had a sheet over it, and I went over and lifted up the sheet, and it was Harold.

"And then his eyes opened, and he sat up and grinned at me, just like always, like it was some sort of practical joke, and he said... I believe he said, "We've got to stop meeting like this." And then he hopped off the table and walked out the door."

"Hmmm. Anything else, son?"

"Well, from there the dream sort of shifted into a retelling of that incident from my childhood-- you know, with the gold mine, the boomerang and the tank of gasoline."

"Ah yes, I remember it well."

Fraser turned a little in his seat to look back at his father. Fraser Sr. wore his warmest parka, mukluks and fur-lined hat. "Harold was my best friend, Dad," Fraser told him. "And when I saw him again, after so many years-- it was like nothing had changed, and everything had changed."

"I only met him a few times, son, but he seemed like a good boy. A bit of a showoff at times, but a good boy. Reminded me of Buck Frobisher now and then."

"I couldn't save him, Dad."

"Save him from death, you mean? No, son. You can't save anyone from that, in the end. Besides, I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't have too many complaints. Now, did you save him from himself? Maybe." Fraser's father looked him in the eye. "Vengeance is a terrible thing, son. We both know that. It's a hard thing to let go of-- sometimes you need some help to do so. I think you gave him that help."

The driver's side door opened, and Fraser suddenly found a steaming cardboard box thrust into his hands. The interior of the car filled with the savory aroma of Chicago-style pizza. Dief licked his chops.

"Here, hold this, wouldja Benny?" Ray asked, climbing in behind the wheel. "One large pie with the works, compliments of the house. Louie's eternally grateful to us since all those cops came out to clean up after Vincenzo and kept coming back for the pizza."

"It smells delicious, Ray," Fraser said. A ghostly hand reached for the pizza box from the back seat and Fraser slapped it away. He heard his father sigh.

"There are times," Fraser Sr. told Dief, "that I truly miss being alive." The wolf just grinned at him, knowing there was at least one slice in the box with the name "Diefenbaker" on it.

The Riv pulled away from the curb and began slushing through the snow-covered streets. "Well, I guess by now, Agent Scully and her partner are back in Washington," Ray said. He let out a titanic sigh. "She was great, wasn't she?"

"I suppose so, Ray," Fraser answered, somewhat hesitantly. "You know, for someone who expresses such dislike of officers of the federal government, you certainly seem to be... well, enamored of several of them."

"Hey!" Ray shot him a look. "Two of them. Just two of them. That's just coincidence."

"What about the State's Attorney, Ray?"

"Louise doesn't count."

"Why not?"

"She just doesn't, okay?" Ray shot back, growing annoyed.

"If you insist, Ray," Fraser said. He was not entirely successful in stifling a smile. They drove in silence for a while.

"The Lieutenant has Huey working on the disappearance of your friend's body," Ray said at last. "I, uh, I checked with him before I left work... no leads yet. I'm sorry."

"That's all right, Ray," Fraser said quietly. "I just wish I'd had more of an opportunity to say goodbye to him."

"Hey, you never know, Benny," Ray replied, not sure what that was supposed to mean but trying to sound as cheerful as he could. "You just never know." Fraser stared out the window and said nothing.

The Riv passed an alley, and for just a second, in the glare of a streetlight, Fraser thought he saw someone back in the shadows. Someone with long dark hair and a black leather jacket. Someone grinning at him like a Cheshire cat. Fraser started a little, tried to look closer, but the Riv had moved on.

"Anyway," Ray was saying, "something will turn up. We'll get a lead on whoever took the body. You'll see." Fraser nodded slowly. Could it have been-- no. Of course not. That was just silly.

"You may be right," he told his friend. "After all, the truth is out there, Ray."

Ray looked at him oddly. "Oh no, don't you start with that too. I got enough of that from Agent Mulder."

"Start with what, Ray?"

"Don't give me that."

"I wasn't aware I'd given you anything."

"Right now you're giving me a headache."

"I'm sorry, Ray."

"Yeah, yeah, just gimme a slice of pizza."

They drove onward into the winter night.