Title: karass Author: Ashlea Ensro Feedback: to theconsortium6@hotmail.com. Flames will be used to ignite large gatherings of alien abductees. Rating: PG - nothing too bad, just the usual sex, swearing and smoking you've come to expect from me. Category: XA Keywords: CSM/Other, Scully/Other UST (slash) Spoilers: Season 5 Disclaimer: Anyone you recognize belongs to the Great Surfer and the nice people at Fox. The gratuitous quotes are from Tom Waits, David Mack, William S. Burroughs, Leonard Cohen, the Sisters of Mercy and Edward Ka-Spell, and the concept of the karass is from the novel "Cat's Cradle" by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. The song that Isis quotes is "The Partisan" by Anna Marly and Hy Zaret (translation at the end if you're interested...) In the true spirit of plagiarism, I've lifted a few lines directly from "Patient X" - you'll recognize them. Isis, Kelly, Lee, Agent McAlpine and anyone else you DON'T recognize belong to me. Summary: How come Mulder's the only one who gets cool shadowy informants? Hugs and fishes go out to Anna, tyger1013, Manik, Laura, Cigarettes-R-Us, and all the cool cats at the XF Intelligence Discussion Board. Ramblings: Ooookay, so I promised Anna I wouldn't let Mulder point his gun at CSM...again. He won't. Really. They don't even appear in the same scene in this story. (Imagine that!) So this story basically came about because I wanted to do something different. The gang over at Mulderoo's site were discussing the big gender gap in the X-Files - why is it that there are so few strong, intelligent female characters on the show? Which of course led me to wonder what kind of strong female character I would LIKE to see on the show. So I came up with the idea for Isis, and the rest just fell into place. Oh yeah, and it's set between Redux II and Patient X, in case you were wondering. "Strange, a woman tries to save All that a man will try to drown..." -- Tom Waits _Strange Weather_ CHAPTER I: A KISS BEFORE DYING "So what happened with Prince Charming?" "Jen shot him." "What?!" "Yeah, he was hit. When we were dancing...He tried to kiss the lips of my mask. It reminded me that I wore a mask, and I pulled away. After I saw what Jen did to him, I wished I let him have a kiss before dying." -- David Mack __Kabuki #4: A Kiss Before Dying_ This is my mission. Dressed in black, I will drive a black sedan with tinted windows and the headlights turned off to an undisclosed location, where I will meet with a man who is also dressed in black. Without a word he will slip into the passenger seat of my car, and we will drive in silence to a second undisclosed location, this one being a cabin somewhere in the Laurentian mountains. After seeing that he makes it to the cabin alive and in one piece, I will leave him there and return to my car. Then I will kill myself with a single bullet to the head. This is my mission. I have no qualms about dying for the Project. I do not question why a hundred people should die for the life of one man. I am not the first to sacrifice myself, nor will I be the last. I will do it quietly, calmly, and willingly. It has all been arranged perfectly. I am only called upon to play my part. The fear of death is something I left behind a long time ago. In the first undisclosed location, two men wait for me. One is my employer. The other is the man for whose secrets I will die. I have only caught glimpses of him, although I have heard all the stories. Word gets around even in the most close-lipped of circles. He looks different tonight, the red ember of his cigarette barely visible beneath the shadow of his black hat. It suits him, in an odd way. He could be a colleague of mine - a Man in Black. But he is not. My employer is standing, thin, elegant fingers twitching nervously. Perhaps he would like a cigarette as well? He is not happy about the exchange - my life for the life of a man he despises. Until now, I have played my part well. With one glance backwards at my employer, I touch the other man's shoulder, indicating for him to stand. He leans heavily on a wooden cane, still barely able to walk. I lead him outside to where the car is parked. I feel the slightest tap on my arm - one delicate, perfect hand on the sleeve of my overcoat - and I shiver with a sudden overflow of words, images; all these things which I have come to associate with physical contact. My employer has followed us out, frowning in a vague expression of concern. He should know better than this. "I'm sorry," he says. I nod wordlessly, pulling away from the thoughts he unwittingly sends me - I do not want to know these things. I turn away from him, helping the other man into my car. He does not speak until we are both inside and I have started driving. "Have you been followed?" "No." "Are you sure?" My eyes flash towards him in anger. I am good at what I do. "Yes." "No bugs in the car?" This I cannot be certain about, but I shake my head. No bugs in the car. He sighs, leaning back against the seat of the car. He flicks ashes out the window and closes his eyes. If all goes well, he will sleep until we reach the second undisclosed location. If all goes well. *** We have crossed over the border to Canada before he wakes again. "How much did they give you?" he asks. "It doesn't matter." I maintain the same cold, distant voice that I use with everyone else. "They've taken care of me. What would I do with money?" "Why, then?" "Why do you do it?" "I believe in the greater purpose." I nod. "So do I." He offers me a cigarette. I quit years ago, but I suppose I don't need to worry about lung cancer anymore. "Thank you." "Do you have any family?" he wants to know. "I have one child. A daughter." "Is that why?" "In part." "What about the father?" "Dead." No explanation - I don't want to go into it. He is wondering whether that might also be part of my reasons. He is wrong. I do what I do because I believe in the Project, and in the future. There is no other reason. This is a strange way to be spending the last few hours of my life. I suppose he is lonely, still in terrible pain and frightened, but his conversation with me is the equivalent of a cat talking to a captured mouse as the rodent sits between its paws, waiting to become dinner. Still, it seems oddly fitting, that I should end my life like this, in the company of a near-stranger, a man who, like me, gave up his identity and his existence for the Project. I believe in the game. I tell myself over and over again: I believe. I believe. But there is one thought I cannot shake from my mind, the wisp of a thought that fluttered towards me from the elderly British gentleman. He tried hard to contain it, but I caught it nonetheless, as I was just about to leave. The Project is not the real reason for my death. *** I didn't expect him to invite me in. I have been trying not to pay much attention to anything he thinks. It comes as a surprise, then, that he wants to spend any more time with a woman who has, at most, another hour to live. Not knowing what to say, I go inside with him. He sits down on the ratty couch by the fireplace, smoking a cigarette, and he motions for me to sit beside him. Awkwardly, I comply. We sit in silence for awhile, watching the flames dance, casting swaying shadows over the walls and floor. He asks me if I would like a scotch, pouring one for himself, but I decline. "I should leave now," I tell him. "Should you?" "I can't...afford to lessen my resolve." "You don't really want to die, do you?" "Nothing wants to die." I shrug, trying to maintain my ambivalence. It's getting harder and harder. "You'd do it." He nods. He would. They would never require it of him - he's too important to the equation. It's why his life was spared, despite his treachery. "Do you have a picture of her?" "Who?" "Your daughter." Blinking, I hesitate, then reach for my wallet. I pull out the picture to show him. He holds it gingerly by the edges, staring at the gap- toothed grin. It's the only picture I have of her. She was seven when it was taken - that was ten years ago. "She's beautiful," he says, "Like her mother." "Thank you." She looks nothing like me, in fact, having inherited her white-blond hair, sapphire eyes, her fragile, almost ethereal beauty from her father's side of the family. I am thankful that she looks nothing like me. "They've promised to take good care of her," I add. "I'm sure," he replies, "They always keep their promises." A heavy pause settles over the room - I shudder despite the warmth from the fire. He lights another cigarette. "You had better go and do it, then," he says finally, "Otherwise I'll have to." I don't move. He stubs out the cigarette, barely smoked, reaches across to pull me close to him. Before I have a chance to close my eyes I can feel his lips on mine. His breath tastes like tobacco and scotch, but also like something unidentifiable, sweet and intoxicating and electric. With all of my strength I push away from him, and he sits there, looking towards the fire. His face is as emotionless as before. "What was that?" I ask. "A kiss before dying." I stand, slowly. Another man's thoughts are still turning over and over in my head. "This isn't why they want me dead. It isn't to keep your location a secret. That's not why." His eyes flicker towards me - for the first time I notice that they are the same pale blue as my daughter's. "Oh, really?" "I know something about you." "What do you know?" Now it is time to turn the tables. "Everything." I lean over and snatch the picture of my daughter from his hand. "Everything," he repeats. "I know your name." "Do you?" This catches his interest, it appears, but the tone of his voice doesn't change. "Yes." I take a deep breath. This is a gamble. I must be certain I have read my employer's thoughts correctly - I must be certain I have read this man's thoughts correctly. "What is my name, then?" "You don't have one." I take a cigarette out of the open package by the couch. Without me asking, he lights it and I inhale a lungful of smoke. "You were found abandoned, literally left on someone's doorstep, raised in an orphanage as a John Doe. You were never adopted and never given a real name. You didn't remember your parents, and no records of your birth or family history existed. You were recruited into the Project when you were barely out of your teens, partially because you had no past to conceal." For the first time, he offers me a taut smile. "I'm impressed. Might I inquire as to how you know?" I sit back down on the arm of the chair. "Take a guess." He is studying my face closely. "You don't look like the other hybrids. Why was I not informed of your existence?" "I'm not a hybrid. I don't fall under the jurisdiction of the Project." I shift closer to him - his gaze now completely trapped by mine. "Not everything falls under *your* control." He swears under his breath. "Does *he* know?" "My employer?" He nods. "Of course he does. Why do you think he wants me dead?" "You know too much," he says, half to me and half to himself. "I can help you." "What makes you think I would need your help?" "What makes you think they'll stop at ousting you from power?" Now the mouse has turned to chase the cat. "They want you dead, don't they?" His blue eyes narrow. "Perhaps we might come to some kind of agreement." "I want to see my daughter again," I tell him, "I want more time. More life." "That can be arranged." "What do you want?" He thinks about it for all of half a second. I know he had his mind made up a long time before this. Asking is useless, really, I just want to hear him say it. Somehow that makes everything more real. "Three things," he says at last. "First, no one learns of my location. No one. If you breathe a word to anyone, you're a dead woman. Understood?" I nod - I was expecting this. "Secondly...I'm sure you've heard of Agents Mulder and Scully of the FBI." "Yeah." Right. Who hasn't? "I need you to get information to them. To lead them to the truth - and away from it. Can you do that?" He wants me to be an informant. Sure. As if I don't know about the average lifespan of one of Mulder's informants. Still, I'm dead anyway, so what does it matter? "And the third thing you want?" Now he smiles, a real smile this time, and a spark of humor comes to his cold eyes. His hand grabs my hair - a powerful grip for someone who seemed so weak and frail a moment ago. He runs his fingers over my jaw, lifting my face to meet his. And I'm not trying to read his thoughts now - I'm not thinking of anything, really, the room is suddenly spinning and I barely hear his whispered response. "You." *** Lying on the bed, I blow smoke rings up towards the ceiling with the dull realization that since I am now going to live, I'll have to quit smoking again. My arm has fallen asleep under the weight of his head. I watch the twin wisps of smoke entwine as they climb closer to the wooden beams of the roof, twisting, coiling together before evaporating into thin air. I know that after tonight, I will probably never see him again. But unlike the men who would have us both dead, I will keep my promises. At least the ones I made to him. "There's been a series of unexplained deaths..." he begins. I press my finger to his lips. "Can't that wait?" He laughs. "I'm sorry. It takes awhile...the realization." "What realization?" "That there's...time. That you're going to live." "There isn't time, not really. But I think I know what you mean." This is the opposite of coming to grips with one's mortality. And it is no less confusing or momentous. I know without asking that this is the first time he has made love to a woman since he was shot. And I have not given myself to a man since my husband was murdered by the same people who now claim control over my life and the life of my daughter. Love is dangerous for even the most inconsequential of people - for us it is a virtual death sentence. So now we lie in each other's arms, curled close together for warmth, the promise and threat of the future seeming so very, very, far away. And although at times the name his heart cried out was not mine (how could it be?), although I am technically as dead as I was before, although we only cease to be strangers for a short time until the past catches up to us... Despite all of this, I can see us sitting in the living room watching my daughter play with my grandchildren, holding hands and knowing that the lights in the sky above us are only airplanes and stars. Yes, even I have dreamt of an ordinary life. "How much do you know?" he asks. "Your thoughts?" I shrug. "As much as I want to know." "You can turn it on and off?" "I have to be touching the person." "Then you're luckier than most." "In a way." I grin. "Maybe I could quit my job with the Consortium and start up my own psychic service." It is a difficult thing, reconciling oneself to the future. Tomorrow I will leave him up here, alone, in the snow. Tomorrow, a million worlds away, an experimental drug with deadly potential is being randomly tested on heroin addicts in Washington DC. And tomorrow, my daughter and his son will be walking those same streets, our children and another man and woman to whom both our lives are inexplicably connected. But all those are tomorrow's concerns. Now I lie in the arms of a man who has watched presidents die, listening to the howling of the wind outside. CHAPTER II: HONORABLE BARGAINS "There are no honorable bargains involving exchange of qualitative merchandise like souls for quantitative merchandise like time." -- William S. Burroughs _Words of Advice for Young People_ A copy of the Washington Post, slipped under the apartment door, was waiting for Dana Scully when she left for work in the morning. Squinting, she took it inside, a disconnected part of her mind noticing the pervasive smell of cigarettes that clung to the paper. She thought that she would very much like a cigarette right now, then decided against it. She hadn't smoked in two or three years. An article on the second page was circled in permanent black marker. Scully came very quickly to the assumption that she was supposed to read the article. It seemed nothing out of the ordinary - another death in the inner city, a young man named Gerald Cameron. He had died from what police took to be a bad batch of heroin that had resulted in several deaths already. She read it several times, but the only thing unusual about it was the black circle around it. It might have been a prank, but she didn't think so. Five years of working with Fox Mulder had taught her that few things happened without reason, no matter how bizarre or inconceivable those reasons might be. Still - she could think of no reason why a heroin overdose should fall under the jurisdiction of the FBI. And unless whoever had given her the paper decided to also give her the name of the dealer who had been providing the bad batch, there was no reason to investigate, either. She tore off the page, throwing the rest of the paper in the trash, folded it up in her purse, and went to work. If she had been paying attention, she might have noticed the black sedan trailing her on the expressway. But she wasn't paying attention, and she didn't notice. *** She hadn't been planning to tell Mulder about the article - in fact she had put it out of her mind by the time she got to the office. Mulder was telling her about some conference he had been roped into attending when he stopped abruptly. "Scully, have you been smoking?" The urge for a cigarette was back with a vengeance almost before his words were out. "No...it's, um..." She fumbled around in her purse for the article. "It's this." "What is it?" "I don't know. Someone left it underneath my door." His eyes skimmed over the article briefly. "I thought *I* was the one with the secret contacts." "Looks like I've got one too now." "I'm jealous, Scully." She smirked. "Seriously, though. You have no idea where this came from?" "No idea. It was just-" "Under your door?" "Yeah." She took another glance at the now-crumpled paper, wondering if she should ask Mulder to send it to the Lone Gunmen for analysis. She decided against it. "I'm sure it's nothing," she said after awhile. "Nothing," Mulder agreed. Neither of them sounded entirely certain. *** It was late when Scully arrived back at her apartment - there had been piles of paperwork that had accumulated after their last few cases. She pulled into the underground parking garage, slid out of the car and slammed the door behind her. And heard footsteps, echoing in the near-empty garage. She could smell smoke. The footsteps were getting closer. "Agent Scully?" She breathed a sigh of relief. It was a woman's voice, unfamiliar, but not *his* voice. As the stranger stepped out of the shadows, Scully turned to face her. The woman was perhaps in her late forties or early fifties - it was difficult to be sure. Her face was still relatively untouched by the creases of age, but her long mane of wavy black hair was peppered with silver. She was dressed entirely in black, her eyes shaded by sunglasses even though the garage was dark. She was tall, slender, beautiful - but it was a cold, remote sort of beauty, the beauty of icicles and knife blades. The woman exhaled a cloud of smoke, temporarily blurring her sharp features, and took another step towards Scully. "Who are you?" Scully instinctively felt for her gun. "Perhaps I chose the wrong truth-seeker, Agent Scully. Mulder would have tried to get a 302 by now. Maybe he wouldn't even wait for that." "What are you talking about? How do you know my name?" "I'm in the business of knowing people. You seem disinterested in the case." "What case?" The woman took another puff of her cigarette and said nothing. "Who are you?" Scully tried again. "I am..." The woman hesitated, considering the question. "I'm no one in particular. Someone who has taken an interest in you. Someone who wishes to prevent needless death." "Whose death?" "Four have died already. There will be others." "Were you the one who sent me that article?" Silence. Scully took it as an affirmation. "What do you know?" Scully asked. "I know why they died." "So do I." "Do you?" She turned, slightly, away from the younger woman. "I suppose it isn't of much interest to you. Another dead junky, am I right? Not the FBI's jurisdiction. I suppose it doesn't really matter, does it?" "What are you trying to tell me?" "That none of those people died from heroin overdoses." "Then what did they die of?" The woman extinguished her cigarette, then ran a hand through her mass of hair. "Well, that would be the question now, wouldn't it?" "What do you want from me?" A pause, then, "I want the truth." "That sounds familiar." "I can help you. If you let me." "Help me find the truth?" The woman took off her sunglasses. Her eyes were dark and ancient. "Perhaps I haven't made myself clear," she said, "I know the truth. I want you to expose it." "Why me?" The woman reached into the pocket of her black trench coat and pulled out a package of cigarettes. Even in the shadows, Scully could make out the red and white logo. "Because all of Agent Mulder's informants end up dead." The woman turned and started to walk away. "Wait," Scully called after her. She stopped abruptly. "I've told you all I'm willing to tell you. Go solve the case." "What's your name?" The woman was silent for what seemed like a very long time. "You can call me Isis," she said, vanishing into the darkness before Scully could utter another word. *** Isis was the sister and wife of the Egyptian god Osiris, and was said to have fallen in love with him while they were still in their mother's womb. When their brother Seth slew Osiris and cut his body into fourteen pieces, scattering them all over Egypt, Isis, ever the faithful wife, traveled across the land in search of them. She found all of the pieces and reassembled them, except for the phallus, which she reconstructed out of clay. She breathed enough life into the dead god so that she was able to conceive by him her son Horus, who would one day challenge his uncle Seth and take his father's place as the rightful king of living things. In this mortal life, I have aspired to know such love. It is said that the Cult of Isis was among the last pagan cults to have died out with the advent of Christianity, and in fact was so ingrained in the hearts and minds of the common people that the Church eventually incorporated many of the cult's symbols into its own doctrines. To this day the mythology haunts us, a wife's grief, a mother's devotion, the patterns repeated over and over again for all of eternity. Did Isis doubt herself as she walked barefoot across burning sands to seek her husband's dismembered body? Was she afraid, late at night, as she huddled in the marshes with her infant son, hiding him from the wrath of his uncle? Did she weep as she clasped her lover's half-living body to her own, mourning her sacrifices as the future was created within her? The ancient artists depicted her with a calm, stoic face, eyes sad but determined, painstakingly carved into stone. And it is this image which remains still, strong and solid, when inside I suspect she must have been crumbling to dust. *** Scully surveyed the cracked pavement, the broken windows, the small gatherings of dirty people, barely identifiable as male or female. She knew that Mulder would have had no difficulty in gathering eyewitness accounts in a place like this - he would have just stood on the streets and shouted. But Mulder wasn't here - he was speaking at a conference on UFOs - and she was investigating the case alone. Ironically, Skinner had authorized the 302 without any objection - after all, it came from sensible, rational Scully, not Spooky Mulder. There was little ground to warrant an investigation, but he didn't even comment on it. She approached several people, none of whom were at all willing to talk to her. She was terribly conspicuous here. It was a block away from where Gerald Cameron's body had been found. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of movement. She turned to see a girl of about seventeen, half curled under a worn sleeping bag, her skinny arms revealing lines of needle tracks. Her hair was a badly dyed black, chocolate brown roots glinting in the sun. Her sunken eyes stared up at Scully from beneath heavy lids. "You a cop?" the girl asked. "No...I'm with the FBI." Scully flashed her badge, feeling more than a little awkward. "I'm investigating the death of Gerald Cameron. Did you know him?" The girl gathered her sleeping bag tighter around her emaciated form, pulling her knees up to her chest. "Yeah, I knew him." Her eyes darted around nervously, never lighting on Scully for more than a split second at a time. "He's - he *was* my boyfriend Lee's best friend." She bit at her dry, cracked lower lip. "How come the FBI's investigating a heroin overdose?" Scully crouched down to be at eye level with the girl. "I received some information that Cameron's death might not have been an overdose." "Yeah?" The girl looked vaguely interested. "So what was it, then?" "I'm not sure." Scully shifted uncomfortably as the girl scratched at her scarred arm. "What do you know?" "I dunno," the girl said, "Gerald knew his limits. He never got out of control. He was trying to kick it, too." Her last sentence was interrupted by a burst of hacking coughs that wracked her thin body. "We were all real surprised when we heard." She coughed again. "You should talk to Lee. He was there." "Lee is your boyfriend?" "Yeah. He's at the clinic, though." The girl yawned, running a hand through her scraggly black hair. "You ain't gonna find nothing out, you know." "Why not?" "'Cause no one's gonna tell you nothing, that's why." "People are dying." The girl coughed again. "Listen, lady. You don't care about us and we don't care about you. People die all the time out here. You wanna do something about it, you can give me some change so I can eat tonight." Scully reached into her purse, then hesitated. "What's your name?" she asked. The girl, still staring at Scully's purse, shifted uncomfortably. "Kelly." she said in a soft voice. "My name's Dana." Scully shook the girl's thin hand. "C'mon. Why don't I take you out for dinner and we can talk some more." *** Scully had never seen anyone pack in as much food as the scrawny teenager sitting in front of her. Still, she wasn't about to begrudge Kelly her dinner. The fluorescent lights hanging above their table in the diner made the girl's pasty face glow with a sickly luminescence, accentuating her sunken eyes and cheeks. She looked as though she hadn't eaten in days. "How long have you been living on the streets?" Scully asked. "Two years...three..." Kelly's words were muffled, spoken through a mouthful of hamburger. "Where are your parents?" The girl shrugged. "Probably right where I left them." She grinned at her own joke. "Aw, don't get all maternal on me. I'm okay." "Are you?" "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine." She stared hard at Scully. "You got kids, I bet." "What makes you think that?" "I can tell. 'Cause of the way you look at me." Scully blinked, her eyes meeting Kelly's for a brief instant, then she looked away. "What can you tell me about Cameron?" "He was a nice guy." Kelly took another massive bite out of her sandwich. "I mean, the kind you really don't wanna see die. We were all really sad about it." Her eyes darted towards the window, seemingly captivated by the darkening sky. "You think he was murdered or something?" "I'm not at liberty to discuss the details of the case." "I don't know why anyone would want to hurt Gerald. He didn't have no enemies." "I never suggested that he was murdered." "Yeah, you did. Otherwise why would the FBI even care?" Baffled by the girl's logic, Scully was silent. "What's your kid's name?" For a moment, out of the corner of her eye, Scully saw her lost daughter sitting across from her under the flickering light in the diner, dressed in Kelly's faded black, grimy sweatshirt with the hood pulled almost over her eyes. She shook her head and then the image was gone - it was only the young heroin addict in front of her. Suddenly weary, Scully ran her hands through her hair. "Emily," she said softly. Her reverie was interrupted by another choking cough from the girl. Kelly didn't even bother to cover her mouth - she just turned her head slightly away. "Are you all right?" Kelly's smile looked more like a wince. "Yeah...I guess so." She looked down at her bony arms, and for the first time Scully noticed the dark blemishes on her skin that she had originally taken to be bruises. "I figure I've got, what, six months...would you say?" "I'm sorry," Scully said. The girl swallowed, watery eyes glaring up defiantly. "Don't be." She shrugged again, the gesture practiced, effortless. "I gotta go. Lee might be worried." She stood up abruptly. "Thanks for dinner, Dana. It was nice meeting you." "Nice meeting you too." Scully wondered if she should shake Kelly's hand. "Um...I hope you find the guy who did Gerald in." Scully nodded, biting her lip before she said, "I hope so too," or something similarily awkward. Before she could think of what it was she did want to say, Kelly had vanished. CHAPTER III: I KNOW YOUR WINDOW "I know your window and I know it's late I know your stairs and your doorway I walk down your street and past your gate I stand by the light at the four way You watch them as they fall They all have heart attacks They stay at the carnival But they'll never win you back..." -- Tom Waits _Downtown Train_ The body of Gerald Cameron lay stretched out on the autopsy table. The lab technician - barely older than the victim, fresh out of the Academy, was ready to start - but Scully was hesitant. She wished she could put a sheet over the face; anything to avoid reminding herself that this young man was a friend of the dying girl with whom she had dinner less than an hour ago. She wished she could do something to avoid reminding herself that the dead boy could have easily been Kelly...and that Kelly could have easily been Emily. she thought, "Can we get going here?" the lab technician - Agent McAlpine - asked. "Uh...yeah." Cameron was young, and he looked younger in death, his face sheet pale and devoid of any emotion. Her hand trembling, she put scalpel to flesh, wondering how this dead thing could possibly become any more dead. "What is it that we're looking for?" McAlpine asked for what seemed the fiftieth time. She made a note to learn his first name. "I'll know when I see it," she muttered, wondering exactly when it was that she had started to sound like Mulder. McAlpine had been mumbling into a tape recorder - so far, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. They determined almost immediately that the boy had died of what seemed to be a heart attack, presumably brought on by a heroin overdose. Nothing that couldn't have been anticipated. "I don't see what's so special here," he said, turning off the tape recorder. "No, neither do I." Scully stared at the boy's pale face. There had to be something there. She found herself wishing for one of Mulder's hunches. Why would they go to such great lengths to drag her into this case if there wasn't *something* waiting to be found. "What the hell is that?" The technician's voice shot up an octave, and he took a staggering step backward, his metal probe pointing at a growth on the victim's superior vena cava. The lump, smeared in blood, was pale green and the size of a marble. McAlpine poked at it. "Don't!" He drew back immediately - her tone left no room for argument. "It's toxic." Scully said in a quieter voice. "You're telling me you know what that thing is?" "I've seen it before." She sighed, probing at the lump. "Or something like it, anyway. I want this bagged and further analyzed. Make sure you don't cut into it, though." McAlpine proceeded to remove the growth and the surrounding flesh with more caution than he had ever used in his life. "Now let's flip him," Scully said. "You know what you're looking for?" "More or less." They rolled Cameron's body over - no difficult task, as the boy was emaciated from years of drug use. Scully lifted his hair up, feeling the back of his neck for an implant. She felt nothing. "What is it?" McAlpine asked. "I'm not sure." She shaved the back of the boy's head, looking for a scar, anything that might yield a trace of evidence. Nothing. "What's wrong?" "I almost had a conclusion. Never mind." "Care to tell me what you're looking for?" Scully shrugged. "Something that isn't there, evidently." *** I came to the realization many years ago that I am not an active participant in my own life. It is my fate to stand outside to watch as the world falls to pieces around me, helpless to intervene. And I watch them, both so very young, so unaware of the higher purpose, seeing only sketches of the vast game into which they have stumbled. I watch them, and wonder if I was ever that innocent. When I hit puberty and the visions began, my parents believed I was possessed by Satan. It was a different place, a different time - they tried to beat the Devil out of me. That failed, and so I spent most of my adolescence in a psychiatric institution, under sedation that blurred the visions, but never eliminated them. I wonder how my parents would feel now, if they were alive to see what I have become. I wonder how they would react to my present situation. I am owned by the Devil, body and soul. It is such sweet, painful bliss. I have not wept in forty years - and I will not weep, not tonight. Still, watching the two innocents struggling for answers over the corpse of a dead boy, I am closer to tears than I have been for a very long time. I wish that he were here, beside me, to see the damage he has already done. My intellect curses him; my body craves him. He is the only one who could understand this - we are walking dead, he and I. And though we claim to be satisfied with distance, with this shadow play, we also long to take back control, to rejoin the world of the living. Breathing a deep sigh, I turn off the monitor. They will act out their roles; I can trust them to do so. There is one more window I must stand outside tonight. *** I turn up the collar of my coat against the bitter cold - it is already March, but there is a chill in the air, a midnight wind. Lace curtains veil this particular window, translucent white through which I can see her sleeping form, unaware of my presence outside the house. Even if she were to wake, to look outside, she would see nothing. I have made a career out of being invisible. So she sleeps, a different kind of innocence altogether. She is seventeen, the age I was when the two men came to see me. One would be my husband; the other would order my death. I wonder if she feels it too - the electric shock at the touch of another human being, the frightening knowledge that comes so unwillingly, unbidden. I dream, when I am alone, that one day I will leap out of the shadows, rip off my mask and tell her that she is my daughter. Though I know it is too late, that the truth will make no difference in the wake of what is to come, I still yearn to reveal it. He would sympathize, I am sure. She is the only reason I still live. And she will never know. Bent against the cold, I pull away from the window, and I keep walking. *** Scully had driven halfway home when she noticed the black car trailing hers. She slowed down - the sedan behind her slowed - sped up and it matched her speed. She turned the radio off, continuing for another three minutes before she pulled off to the side of the road. She heard the squeal of tires as the sedan pulled off as well, turned to see the black-clad figure emerge from the door. Isis. "Why are you following me?" The older woman approached, her dark hair lifted slightly in the wind. "I came to congratulate you, Agent Scully." "On what?" "You've found it, haven't you?" Scully noticed that her thin hands were twitching and her eyes were red-rimmed, as if she had been crying. "Did you quit smoking?" "For now." "Who do you work for?" Isis laughed. "Do you expect me to answer that?" "You knew what I would find, didn't you?" "Of course I did." "What is it?" "Really, Agent Scully, don't you think I've given you enough? I risk my position - and my life - by speaking with you." "Then why come at all?" "Have you called Agent Mulder yet?" "He's at a conference." "I'm impressed. I underestimated you. Your...ability to go at it alone. Still - that's better, in a way. Or at least it will be, in the long term." "I don't know what you're talking about." Isis stared at her for awhile. "Good." "Vagueness doesn't become you." Isis smiled. "I like you, Agent Scully. That's why I'm helping you." She paused, reconsidering. "Well, that's really *not* why I'm helping you, but it's what I'd like to believe. Makes the day more bearable." "You're not helping me." "There's a war going on." Suddenly the dark eyes were focused on Scully with such intensity that the younger woman took a staggering step backwards. "You probably don't even know it - that's how subtle it is. A true art form, the battles of powerful men. This war is so invisible that we take it for granted, or we don't notice it at all. But make no mistake - it is a deadly war. And it is leaving the bodies of innocents in its wake." "Isis..." Scully started, "Or whatever your name is. What was it that I found?" "An experimental virus, engineered in a top secret laboratory. You've come across it before. It was synthesized by the people for whom I work, but its origins..." Isis shrugged, running a hand through her silver-streaked hair. "What are you telling me?" Scully watched the woman, looking for any trace of emotion, but even the trembling of her hands had ceased. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?" "You draw your own conclusions, Agent Scully. I'm not here to answer your questions." "Then why *are* you here?" Isis turned back towards her car. She began walking, stopped, then tilted her head to shoot a final glance towards Scully. "I was in the neighbourhood." She lifted her gaze towards the sky. "Someone is always watching you, Agent Scully. Don't ever forget it." She slipped into her car with one fluid motion, slamming the door behind her. Dust clouded up behind the sedan as it spun out onto the highway, disappearing into the ink-black night. Scully stood where she was, immobile, unwilling to turn away. *** She hesitated, her finger poised above the button. Number one on the speed dial of her cellular phone. The most important person in her life. She hesitated, and she wondered how the hell that had happened. Scully pressed the button and raised the phone to her ear. It rang four times. "Mulder." "Hello?" "Hello?> Scully hung up. She sighed heavily, barely able to summon the strength to return to her car. *** I can still remember being seventeen and mad. It is true, even now I could hardly be called sane. But it is different. The distinction is there. Today I am insane and useful - thirty-three years ago, I was merely insane. Until They came. The man who would have me dead for the secrets I know was the same man who gave me my life back. He was a visitor to the place where they kept me, sedated and bound. He and his partner arrived unexpectedly, two well-dressed gentlemen who seemed entirely out of place in the stark white of my personal hell. I stared at them out of dilated pupils, my husband and my killer. Two sets of eyes were staring straight into my soul. They knew; they understood as no one else could. They had a use for me, just as they have a use for everyone. Knowing this, I clawed and scratched at them, screamed until a nurse came with a needle, and when I woke up again I belonged to them. I was a possession, an animal to be tamed, transformed into a civilized creature that could be put to use. So simple, so practical, the rules by which these people function. Thirty-three years have passed, and I have not grown to love them. I may respect them, I may believe in their cause, but a part of me still wants to slash at their faces with my nails, tear away the veil of lies that shrouds them, destroy their immaculate masks. I have killed for them but their own hands are clean. Bastards. I can never decide whether to kneel in gratitude before them, or take them down to hell with me, shrieking as we fall. *** "What am I looking at?" Scully bent over the microscope, adjusting the magnification. "Wish I could tell you." Agent McAlpine ran his hands through his short dark hair. "It's organic...at least we *think* so." "What do you mean, you think so?" "Well...I've never seen anything like it. The cellular composition appears to be unclassifiable." She felt his hand on her arm, and she turned to look at him. "But *you* know what it is, don't you?" Scully swallowed, then nodded. "I've...seen something like it, yes." "Where?" "There was a lump like this on the back of my daughter's neck, at the base of her skull. She...um...she suffered from a rare form of anemia, which eventually killed her." Scully struggled to maintain the cool, even tone to her voice, searching the lab technician's eyes to see if it was working. McAlpine paused for a moment, then said, "I'm sorry, Agent Scully." She nodded, turning back to the microscope. "What you're telling me, then, is that this thing has killed four people." "Five." "Five people?" "There was another death last night. A forty-five-year-old male, also a heroin addict. A similar lump was extracted from the body." "You did an autopsy already?" "Partial...should I have?" Scully met the younger agent's gaze, looking in vain for something that might give her a clue as to what was going on in his mind. "Yes...the more we know the better." "Do you have any leads?" McAlpine asked. "Not yet." She switched the microscope off. "But I think there's someone I want to talk to." *** "Look, I already told you everything I know." Kelly was dressed in the same dirty sweatshirt, unwashed black hair visible beneath the hood. She was sitting on a street corner beside a man who looked to be in his twenties, holding the leash of a mangy black dog. The animal was wearing a studded collar, matching the collar around the young man's throat. "There's been another death," Scully said. "So?" The young man yawned, listless eyes staring up at the grey sky. "Who was it?" Kelly asked. "The body hasn't been identified." "We didn't know him," the young man said, with a confidence that seemed vaguely inappropriate. "Um...Agent Scully, this is my boyfriend Lee. Lee, this is Dana Scully." "You a narc?" Lee asked. "I'm here to help you." "Yeah, well we don't need your help, thanks." He cast a glance at Kelly, then glared defiantly at Scully. "There's going to be more deaths. These aren't random occurrences." "So they *were* murdered?" Kelly's eyes widened. Scully shifted uncomfortably on her feet. "Yes," she said. "We don't know anything," Lee said. Almost at the same time, Kelly piped in, saying, "What do you want?" "I need to know where Gerald got his heroin supply." "She *is* a narc." Lee's voice was almost a snarl. "She's nice." Kelly curled her arms around her knees, absentmindedly petting the dog. "She took me out for dinner." "Yeah?" Lee's eyes narrowed. "How much did ya tell her, Kelly?" "Look, I'm not interested in arresting you," Scully interrupted, "I want to prevent further deaths, and I can only do that by pinpointing the person responsible." "We *can't* help you," Lee said, "Understand?" "I think I do," Scully replied, turning away. *** She had only walked a few blocks before she heard someone call her name. Scully turned to see Kelly, gasping for breath, limping towards her. "Are you all right, Kelly?" "My leg hurts." The girl caught up to her, and they walked in silence for awhile. "I can take you to him." "Why?" "Lee doesn't understand." Kelly glanced around, biting at her lip. "He doesn't have it, y'know, not as far as I can tell. We play it safe. He still...well... he still has a chance." She brushed at her eyes, blinking back tears. "You still have a chance too, Kelly." The girl tried to smile, but it came out more like a pained grimace. "Who're you kidding? Look at me." "Maybe I could get you into some kind of treatment program. There are all kinds of new drugs that slow the progress of-" "Shut up." Scully was taken aback by the girl's sudden viciousness. "Sorry... I didn't mean to yell...I know you're just trying to be nice." Kelly looked down, picking dirt from under her nails. "Sometimes I just think I'd rather get it over with." She turned down a narrow side street. "This way." Scully followed the girl as daylight disappeared into the shadows cast by graffiti-scarred buildings. "His name's Dax. He's a shithead. The only reason Lee wants to protect him is because he has good prices. But he's a big-time asshole. You think he's behind this?" "No." Scully shivered, remembering her last conversation with Isis. "No, but he may be able to lead us to the person who *is* responsible." She was silent for awhile, watching the girl's ghostly form slip through the shadows. "You wouldn't know if the other victims obtained their substances from Dax, would you?" "Oh, I'm not sure about that. I didn't know any of the other ones. Maybe...why?" "Just wondering." They arrived at a run-down factory, abandoned, the windows nailed shut with wooden boards. "Someone *lives* here?" Scully asked. "A lot of people, yeah." Kelly knocked on one of the boards. There was no response. She walked around to the front door and tried the handle. "Locked?" "Uh huh. Guess they're not home." "Wait a second." Scully drew her gun, fired at the handle, then kicked open the door. "Cool!" she heard Kelly say as she crept inside. It was dark, illuminated only by a few shafts of light edging through the cracks between boards. Scully was struck immediately by the unmistakeable smell of human waste. She already knew what she would find - but she was still startled when she heard Kelly trip over something lying on the floor. She was not at all startled by the scream that followed. Scully braced herself as the girl catapulted into her arms, shaking and sobbing. Awkwardly, she pushed Kelly's hood back to stroke her hair. "Shh...it's all right, Kelly, it's okay..." Scully's eyes wandered to the outstretched hand, dead pale beneath a stream of light from a gap in the boarded window. "Is that Dax?" Kelly tore herself from Scully's arms and fled the building. CHAPTER IV: THIS WICKED WORLD "It's a hand that offers courage It's the hand that calms me down And brings me to a land that we discovered Countless lives ago Still young enough to change this wicked world..." -- Edward Ka-spell _Prithee_ "If I'm not mistaken, that would be your suspect." A new light filled the room, shining across the corpse on the floor. Scully looked over to see Isis standing by the wall, barely visible in the glow of the flashlight. "How long have you been here?" "About an hour. He was dead long before I arrived. It's unfortunate - had you arrived a day earlier perhaps you could have busted him for possession. He had quite a stash underneath the floorboards." Isis took a step forward, her eyes focused on the body. "I can tell you now that no traces of the compound that killed this man and the other victims were present in these drugs." "He died the same way as the others?" Isis nodded. "Probably late last night, judging from a cursory examination of the body. I was wondering how long it would take you to find it." "Why don't you tell me now why I shouldn't have you brought in on suspicion of murder?" If Isis was concerned at all, it wasn't apparent on her face. "Oh, really, Agent Scully - you know I didn't kill him. Or any of them." She smiled slightly. "I was...out of the country when the first four murders took place. But regardless, even if I was your killer, you could never press charges. You know that, don't you?" "What's your real name?" "Isis." "Bullshit." The older woman's smile widened. "I'm surprised at you, Agent Scully." "I want a name." "You've got one. And you should be thankful for that." "I meant your name." "Jane Doe." "You must have a name." "I did, once. But not anymore. It doesn't matter...I'm not the focus of your investigation." "Then...the organization you work for..." "Is responsible, yes." "Why are you working against them?" "Who says I'm working against them?" Isis leaned against the wall. "Never mind. There are some of us who wish to expose the truth." Scully felt the woman's vice grip around her wrist. "Don't misunderstand me, Agent Scully. I believe in the game. I'm no traitor. But these deaths are excessive and needless, and they must be stopped at any cost." "So there is dissention, within your organization?" "You thought otherwise? It is only due to dissent that you and your partner are allowed to live, to continue with your work." She switched off the flashlight. "Call for back-up." "What?" "You're not just going to leave him here, are you?" She gestured to the body. "Go on. I'll be in touch." When Scully looked up, Isis was gone again. She took out her cell phone and started dialing. *** "There's something you're not telling me," McAlpine said. "Huh?" Scully looked up from the microscope. She had been staring at a sample taken from the green lump they had removed from the body of Daniel King, a.k.a. Dax. "This man died the same way as all the others." McAlpine's face was flushed - he reminded her for a brief instant of Pendrell. she thought, "What makes you think I'm hiding anything?" Scully asked. "No one seems to know what this green gunk is. It's like nothing I've ever seen before. It might be some kind of virus...I don't know." He turned to look at her. "But you know what it is." "I told you I've encountered it before," Scully said slowly, "We were never able to determine its origin." McAlpine was silent for a moment, his eyes on the microscope. "Is it alien in origin?" he asked finally. "Why would you think that?" "Because of what you and your partner investigate." He looked almost embarrassed. "I didn't understand at first why Skinner let you have this case...how you would even come to suspect a homicide. Unless you knew already that these people had been murdered." "I received some information that foul play might have been involved." "Information from whom?" She had a sudden, irrational urge to protect him, to stop him somehow from asking these questions. His curiousity would get him killed. He seemed too young, too naive to play the game in which she had been involved for five years. If he pushed the issue, if he insisted on asking, he would get killed in the crossfire like so many others. "I'm...not quite sure," Scully said, honestly enough. "Do you believe in the existence of extraterrestrials, Agent McAlpine?" "I don't know. I never really thought about it...I suppose it's possible..." He offered her a taut smile. "All I know is I never saw anything like *this* at Quantico." Scully laughed, then turned back towards the microscope. *** Scully sat in the darkness, listening to the recorded voice for what seemed like the hundredth time. Either Mulder had turned his cellular phone off, or it had run out of batteries. Knowing him, the latter was the more likely option. Unless this phone, too, had succumbed to an unusual and untimely death. She smiled faintly, imagining a series of bizarre scenarios. Still, she wished she could reach him. He would want to know about this. McAlpine's questions only confirmed her suspicions, although she hadn't wanted to admit it to him or anyone else. Phrases were running through her head - ideas about which she might have scoffed five years ago - they now seemed all too likely. Alien in origin...random testing...unknown virus... it seemed almost commonplace after everything she had seen. She wished he was here. Scully dialed again. Sighing, she slammed the receiver down. Outside the window of her apartment, a car's brakes squealed, a flash of light illuminated the room. She closed her eyes, and the noises outside drained away into silence. *** I watch the cockroach scuttle across the wall, but tonight I can't summon the energy to do anything about it. It crawls along the ridge formed by peeling white paint, then burrows into a crack in the corner of the floor. Out of sight, out of mind. I turn my attention to the flickering light of the neon sign reflected in the window of the motel room. This is a good place to be among the ranks of the undead, a cold, dreary afterlife with cable TV. I have slept in a different motel every night since my return, still hiding in the cracks, waiting to live again. The phone is just out of reach - by the morning I will be gone and they cannot trace me here. I could call him - but I don't need to do that. I feel very close to him right now. We're a good pair, John and Jane Doe. The unknown soldiers. I light a cigarette, aiming the remote at the television screen. On one channel, an African child is covered with flies, on the next, a woman confronts her cheating husband to a round of applause from the audience. All of this, all that is - everything is because of us. It is a terrible burden we bear. I switch off the TV - I never thought much of mass culture anyway. The scraping of the roaches behind the walls is more interesting. I never thought I'd end up in a place like this. It's the sort of place where *he* would be. When I was seventeen, before They came for me, I tried to kill myself by slashing my wrists. And on nights like this, alone in a dark place, I wish I had succeeded. He has only wished to die once. He told me about it as we lay together in the cabin. I don't remember if he used words or not. It was back when he was in the army - when They were all together. They were young men then, men with names, and faces, and children and lovers - Bill and Ronald and my employer and the others - a covert unit composed of men with ideals and aspirations. John sat in his bunk writing a novel while the other men wrote home to their families. He was the only one who had no one waiting for him back home. And he thought that if the situation ever arose he would throw himself into the path of a bullet for any of them - it was the only way he would ever be remembered. The situation never arose. Most of them are dead now, and he has not wished to join them since. I tease a thin flame from the lighter, a pale mockery of the neon sign outside. I light another cigarette - what does it matter? - it is a coward's suicide. A thin stream of music drifts up from the apartment complex across the street, an old song, vaguely familiar. I lean back and listen. "J'ai change' cent fois de nom, j'ai perdu femme et enfants mais j'ai tant d'amis; j'ai la France entie`re..." "Oh, the wind, the wind is blowing, through the graves the wind is blowing, freedom soon will come; then we'll come from the shadows..." I lift the phone, dial his number before realizing it. "Who is this?" His smoke-ravaged voice is suspicious, paranoid - there are so few people who it could be. "Give me hope," I whisper. CHAPTER V: THE SERPENT "And when we fell together, All our flesh was like a veil That I had to draw aside to see The serpent eat its tail." -- Leonard Cohen _Last Year's Man_ She felt awkward, standing there on the street corner. "Hello, Kelly," Scully said softly. The girl looked up, her eyes bloodshot. "Oh, hi." "I..." She stumbled for words, not knowing quite how to proceed. "I'm sorry about the other night." Kelly shrugged. "So Dax is dead, huh?" "Yes." Lee, who had looked to be asleep a moment before, glanced over at his girlfriend, then up at Scully. "He died the same way as the others?" Kelly asked. "That's what we believe." The girl swallowed, absentmindedly running her hand through the fur of Lee's dog. "I'm...uh...I'm sorry I freaked out like that." Scully felt her heart give a peculiar twist. "Anyone would have." "You didn't." "I'm-" "Right." Kelly shot her a gap-toothed smile. "You're used to it, right?" Scully nodded. "I didn't like Dax or nothing." Kelly said, "But...um...I never seen a dead body before. Guess you prob'ly see lots of them." She didn't answer, her silence as good as an affirmation. "Some FBI agent you are," Lee said. "Why do you say that?" "'Cause." He grinned. "Six people are dead and you ain't got no idea why." Kelly started hacking again, then gave Lee an almost violent shove. "Don't be an asshole." "It's true." "We have...our ideas." Scully couldn't believe she was standing on a street corner arguing the details of her case with a couple of heroin addicts. "You ain't got nothing," Lee replied, "You don't know nothing." "What do you know?" Scully asked. "I know that the FBI don't normally give two shits about a few dead junkies." The young man's narrow eyes darted towards Scully. "So what do ya want from us?" "The truth. Same as you do." Lee laughed bitterly, stopping only when Kelly launched into yet another fit of coughing. "You okay?" he asked gently. "Yeah..." She gave another short bark, then managed to catch her breath. "I'm fine." "Look...um...Lee, Dana, I gotta go, 'kay?" Lee nodded. The girl struggled to her feet, and staggering against the brick wall, headed off down the street. "Where's she going?" Lee paused, considering, then said, "The needle exchange down the street. Not like it's gonna do her any good." He kept watching her. "Hey. Ain't you supposed to be investigating the case?" He made a shooing motion with his hand. She nodded curtly and walked away in the direction where Kelly had disappeared. She had gone halfway down the street when she felt a hand on her shoulder. "Who is she?" Scully did not turn, recognizing the soft, husky voice. "Just...someone. A witness." "She reminds you of your daughter." It wasn't a question. "How do you know about-" "Quiet, Agent Scully. I told you already that I won't answer your questions." "You don't give me any answers." Isis laughed. "Do you expect me to?" "Why did you even approach me in the first place?" "Perhaps I was wrong to do so." They walked in silence for awhile. "I didn't think you appeared in daylight," Scully said. Isis bent against the wind, lighting a cigarette. "Only occasionally." "Do They know you're here?" The older woman smirked. "They, Agent Scully?" She blew out a puff of smoke into the cool air. "Who do you think sent me?" "Why?" "Look, you don't understand the arrangement, and you're not meant to understand it. The only important thing is for you to stop the deaths. The rest is...irrelevant." "Maybe to you." Another dark chuckle. "You're my eyes and ears, Agent Scully. I don't work for you. If anything, it's the other way around." She took a drag of her cigarette. "I don't want to die." "Then why come here at all?" "There are certain risks I'm willing to take." Isis ran her long fingers against the side of the brick wall. "The girl - the one you were about to follow - you care for her, somehow." "I like her." A short pause; Scully could feel the woman's eyes on her. "She's dying." A beat, then, "I know." Isis stared straight ahead. "Don't tell me that you hold my organization responsible for her condition as well." "I wouldn't put it past you." "You overestimate our power." She kept walking - Scully had to almost run to keep pace with her long strides. "Look, I've done all I can, and more than I should." Her mouth curled up in a wry grin. "You have no idea what you're dealing with here. Who you're dealing with. Do you?" "Why don't you tell me?" Isis shook her head. "There's nothing more I can do." At once, Scully felt the older woman's hand press against hers - she opened her curled fingers slightly to receive a crumpled piece of paper. And then Isis was gone without a word, her dark form slipping effortlessly into the shadows of an alleyway. *** Scully looked at her watch, then at the note for what seemed like the hundredth time. It was cold, and she would have given a year's supply of red hair dye to find out why she was waiting alone on a park bench at 12:03 in the morning. Isis was late. Very late. It wasn't as though Scully expected her to be on time, but she was irritated nonetheless. She wondered how often Deep Throat had been late for his midnight meetings with Mulder. Probably not very often. X seemed more of the tardy type, if she was any judge of character. She laughed softly at her train of thought, blowing puffs of frosted breath into the darkness. A shape slipped towards her from somewhere in the shadows - the unmistakeable smell of smoke. Did all of those dark conspirator types smoke Morleys? Maybe it was a required trait for admission into the Consortium. Maybe they got some sort of bulk rate. "Are you alone?" Isis' whispery voice floated from the amorphous shadow-shape in the bushes. "Who else would be with me?" The red glow of the older woman's cigarette bobbed up and down. Slowly, the form became visible as Isis sat down on the bench beside Scully. "I thought you weren't going to help me anymore." "Someone...changed my mind." She sucked in a deep breath of smoke. "Orders from above, you could say." They were both silent for a long time, each waiting for the other to speak. "I couldn't tell you anything earlier today. I must take the most extreme precautions. They don't know I'm alive." "Who?" Isis' eyes flashed. "You know who." "Do you work for *him*?" Scully gestured at the cigarette dangling from the older woman's lips. Isis removed it for a second, staring at it as if it were the strangest thing she'd ever seen. "Haven't you heard? He's dead." "I've heard." "And you don't believe it." No response. "It's a relief to see that some of Agent Mulder's paranoia has rubbed off on you. I'll say I work for someone we both know, and we'll leave it at that. No use in alerting the others as to the identity of a dissenter within their ranks. They don't take kindly to any difference of opinion." She extinguished the cigarette against the arm of the bench. "He died for you, you know. So that you might live." "Why?" "Even if I knew, I wouldn't tell you. Perhaps you mischaracterized him as well." Isis looked up at the sky for a moment, the light of the stars catching in her dark eyes. "Never mind. I didn't come here to talk to you about him." "You didn't come to talk to me about the case, either." "I told you everything I know. I was not directly involved with that particular project. That isn't my job." "What do you do, then?" "It's irrelevant." "Are you a Man in Black?" The sound emerging from the dark shape beside Scully might have been a giggle, had it come from anyone else. "I'm certain there's no need to remind you, Agent Scully, that the Men in Black are a fabrication of imaginative conspiracy theorists and Hollywood directors." She lit up another cigarette. "Besides - I don't really look like a man to you, do I?" "You know what I mean. You go around, destroying evidence..." "Yes." "Covering the truth..." "Yes." "Killing people..." "On occasion, yes." A breath in, then more smoke. "If you believe that I like what I do, you are sorely mistaken. I do my job because it is ultimately a necessity...I am as willing to die as I am to kill." "Then why this concern over six dead heroin addicts?" "As I've told you, Agent Scully, I do not deem these deaths to be necessary." "And you've chosen me to stop them." "I have my uses for you." "At least you're honest." Isis leaned back against the bench. "Honesty is one of my few virtues, Agent Scully." She blew a long stream of smoke into the air. "I wish that I could be like you." "How so?" "Innocent. Ignorant. You don't see the bigger picture...everything is so simple for you." She shrugged. "It's only a matter of time, of course. You could easily be me in a few years - that's the way it always seems to work." "How did you..." Scully trailed off, unable to find the right words. "...get involved with them?" she finished lamely. "It's a long story." "We have time." "We don't...have time." Isis sighed. "I...I have a gift. A curse. I can see into people's souls. Only when I touch them...then it all gets transmitted. I don't choose to...I just do." "And they found out about it?" "They have their ways. It was back in the early stages of the Project - psychic phenomena were even less understood then than they are now. I grew up in the Deep South - Louisiana - my parents were religious. They tried to beat it out of me... they thought it was the Devil making me see these things. When nothing worked, they had me committed." Scully drew in a quick breath. "I'm sorry." Isis smiled. "It was a long time ago." She hesitated for a moment. "Two men came to me... I was only seventeen...they came and they knew right away what I was." She reached over to touch a strand of Scully's hair that had fallen in her face. "You see things too, sometimes, not as strongly as I do, but you see them. Maybe that's why you were chosen." "Chosen?" "It doesn't matter right now." She pulled back abruptly. "Everything has a purpose, a reason. Nothing is unintentional, with Them." "You never had a choice." "No. No one does, ever, really..." Isis shifted uncomfortably. Her face was turned away - all Scully could see was a sliver of her profile in the moonlight, veiled by the wisps and curls of smoke. "I eventually married one of those two men. They killed him, partially to keep me silent." "You have children." "You can tell?" Isis sounded amused. "I have a daughter. I...had a daughter." "Did they take her from you?" "No. I gave her up - it was far too dangerous." She swallowed hard. "We all make our sacrifices, Agent Scully." "Dana." "Sorry?" "Call me Dana." Isis nodded. "Dana." Another moment of silence, broken only by the sound of an exhale. "Ag...Dana?" Isis said. "Yes?" "Have you ever read Kurt Vonnegut Jr.?" Startled, Scully struggled to think of an answer. "In college, I think. 'Slaughterhouse Five', right?" "I was thinking of another novel. 'Cat's Cradle'." "I don't think so, no. Should I have?" "It's a great book, really." Isis' voice was deceptively light. "He talks about something called a *karass*." "A wha-" Isis didn't allow Scully to finish the sentence. "A karass. It's a group of people who are somehow connected...in purpose, by means that are beyond comprehension. Friends, family...they don't count. It's a group of strangers...you may never find out who belongs, or why or how you are linked. But when you meet one of these people...you know it." "Are you saying that we're part of the same karass, then?" "I'm not saying anything. I'm simply making a literary recommendation." Isis shrugged. "Personally, I believe that we are *all* connected." "A circle repeating..." Scully said. Isis finished her cigarette and flicked it onto the ground. A split second later, Scully felt the older woman's hand lift her shirt up slightly to touch the small of her back. "Interesting tattoo you have there. The serpent eats its tail. A depressing sentiment, when you think about it." The contact was gone as quickly as it had come; Isis stood up, reaching into her black trenchcoat for the pack of Morleys. "Stop the killing, Dana. You have the knowledge and the means. All you need is the source - and you're closer than you know." "What-" "Shh..." Isis pressed her cool palm against Scully's lips. "No more questions." She drew away - this touch as brief and fleeting as the last. "Dana?" "Yes? Scully had no idea what to call the woman. "You know that deep-sounding philisophical garble that your informants give you?" The curl of her smile disappeared. "Well, sometimes it's just deep-sounding philisophical garble. Nothing more than that." To Scully's sleep-deprived eyes, the flap of Isis' coat as she turned to leave the park looked like the wings of a raven, soaring up towards the pale yellow moon. CHAPTER VI: NAMES ARE JUST FOR SOUVENIRS "And I know the world is cold but If you hold on tight to what you Find you might not mind too much though Even this must pass away and Memories may last for years but Names are just for souvenirs Some kind of angel let me look into your eyes..." -- The Sisters of Mercy _Some Kind of Stranger_ Lee was sitting alone, holding his head in his hands, when Scully approached. "Go away." "Lee?" She tried to meet his eyes. Had he been crying? "Where is she, Lee?" He did not respond at first. Finally, he whispered, "Hospital." "Which hospital?" He wiped his nose with one dirty sleeve. "St. Mary's." She started to leave, then stopped. "Do you want to come with me?" "No..." He bit his lip. "I can't...take it. You go. Take care of her." She nodded, then began the walk back towards the car. *** The girl was conscious, though barely, her face pale and small without the frame of her hood. She was staring listlessly at the IV needle in her arm, a perfect parallel to the tracks that ran across the pallid skin. "Kelly?" A pair of round, frightened eyes darted up towards Scully. "I didn't think you'd come." "Lee's sorry he couldn't make it." "I know." Scully pulled up a chair beside the girl's bed. "How're you feeling?" "Shitty." Kelly coughed, her thin body wracked with spasms. "Sucks, y'know, but there ain't nothing they can do." She swallowed hard. Scully leaned over to stroke the girl's dark hair. "Right?" Scully didn't answer. Couldn't answer. Kelly smiled weakly. "They told me. I'm dying." Her gaze went to the gold cross at Scully's throat. "You believe in God, Dana?" "Yes." Kelly closed her eyes. "You're...lucky, then. I don't." Scully took the girl's small hand in her own. With relief, she realized that Kelly didn't expect her to speak, to give words of comfort. At seventeen, the girl had a sharper sense of reality than most adults Scully had known. It saddened her, somehow. "Did you find your killer?" Kelly asked, her voice hoarse and cracked. Scully shook her head. "Not yet." "You'll find him. You're a good FBI agent." "Thank you." She sighed. "There's a connection somewhere...I know it." It suddenly occurred to her that she was confessing her concerns about a federal investigation to a dying street youth - somehow it didn't seem to matter anymore. "Just...keep looking." Kelly coughed again. "Okay?" Scully squeezed her hand. "Okay." "Funny...some serial killer's trying to bump off every junky in the city, and here I am, dying of boring old AIDS. Don't you think that's funny, Dana?" "Not exactly." A thought churned over in her head - there was something she was missing here. Something important. Kelly gave a lopsided grin. "Wish I could help you." Scully began to reply, "So do I," but the realization struck her before the words got out of her mouth. Yes. That was it. "I think you just did," she whispered, "Excuse me for a moment." *** "McAlpine." She had to smile at the way he answered the phone - she had thought that she and Mulder were the only ones who did that. "It's Scully." "Oh." He sounded almost weary. "Do you have anything new?" "I might. I want you to check the records of all the victims." "For what?" "I want to know how many of them were HIV positive." "You think those people actually bothered to get tested?" Scully winced at the trace of distain in the technician's voice. "I think they were relatively health conscious, yes." McAlpine snorted. "You've got to be kidding." A pause, then. "Never mind. I'll get back to you." "Thanks." She hung up. A doctor had stopped in front of her on his way into Kelly's room. "Are you-" He peeked inside the room, then looked back at her. "Any relation?" Scully shook her head. "Close friend?" "She's just...somebody." Scully flashed her badge. "FBI." "That kid's in trouble with the law?" He didn't sound particularly surprised. "No - no, she's a witness." Scully lowered her voice. "How long does she have?" "It's hard to say, really. She's got pneumonia, numerous other infections - not to mention malnutrition...we can be hopeful..." "I'm a doctor. Tell me." "A few weeks, at the most." Scully closed her eyes and nodded. She had figured as much. "Do you want to go back in and see her now?" Scully hesistated, then said, "Yes." She followed him back inside the room. *** I bow my head, laying fresh flowers over the grave. The headstone is white - pure. He was not. Still - still, I miss him. A breath of wind stirs the fallen leaves, tears petals from the already-wilting flowers. Arlington Cemetary is nearly empty today. And Isis will not weep - carved from the same stone as these cold, impassive monuments. The name they have carved into the stone is false, as was the name under which he married me. It might not even be his corpse that is buried here. So many l ies - so many secrets under the cold ground. When I finally die, there will be no stone, and no name. I trace my hand over the letters, false though they be. And I whisper, "Forgive me." By tomorrow, or perhaps the night after, I will sleep again in the arms of his killer. And tomorrow, and the next night, and for countless other nights our daughter will sleep in blissful ignorance, and I am helpless to bring her back. He would have. He would have forgiven me. At least I might believe in this. By tomorrow I will have betrayed everything for which he died. *** It was late afternoon before Agent McAlpine called. Scully sat by Kelly's bedside, opening her cell phone before the ring could wake the girl. "Scully." "It's me." When she did not respond right away, he added, "McAlpine." "I found the records. You were right, Scully, they'd all been tested for HIV in the past six months." "How many tested positive?" "None." "None of them?" "Not that I could find. Agent Scully - what is this supposed to mean?" "It means we might have a lead. Can you be down at St. Mary's in ten minutes?" "Yeah...why?" "The virus isn't being transmitted through the drug. It's coming from the needles themselves." "I don't get it." "You will. Just get here - fast." *** Scully shook the girl gently awake. "Kelly?" Kelly stirred, rubbing her eyes. She winced as the IV jerked in her arm. "Yeah? You're still here?" "I have to go for a bit, okay?" "Did you find the killer?" "I think so." "Go get him, then." Kelly smiled. "Good luck." Scully leaned over to plant a soft kiss on the girl's forehead. "I'll be back soon, I promise." "Um...thanks." "For what?" "For being here. You didn't need to come." "Yes," Scully said, "I did." Kelly's hand slipped out of hers. "Dana?" "Yeah?" "How old was your little girl, when she died?" Scully sighed. Were there no secrets anymore? She marvelled at the girl's powers of perception - wondered how long she had known. "Three." Kelly swallowed, "If there's a Heaven, I'll take care of her, 'kay?" McAlpine was at the door before Scully could respond. *** Amanda Darrow didn't look like a serial killer. She stared at Scully and McAlpine out of sunken grey eyes. "Can I help you?" Scully flashed her badge, staring at the white van. The local needle exchange. Unmarked, subtle. Every junky on the streets knew what it was. Six people had escaped the ever-present threat of AIDS to meet with a far darker fate. "We'd just like to ask you some questions," McAlpine said. "Listen, if this is a bust, I'm not answering anything. We're just trying to save lives here." "Glad you see you have a social conscience," Scully retorted in a dry tone. "Where do you keep the needles?" Darrow rolled her eyes and slid open the door on the side of the van. She disappeared for a moment, returning with a box of empty syringes. "Five hundred needles, all new, all clean, all sterile..." McAlpine lifted one of the syringes, staring at the almost unnoticeable black tip. "And all infected with a toxin engineered in a government laboratory - a deadly virus." He glanced at Scully, as if looking for approval. "I don't need to answer any questions," Darrow said. "Ms. Darrow, you're under arrest. You have the right to remain silent, anything you say-" "Can it, Agent Scully. Do you think it will be over if you put me in a cell? This goes higher up than you can possibly imagine." She offered her wrists in a gesture of surrender. Scully cuffed her - tried hard to keep her face devoid of all emotion. "It's a start," she said finally. "They'll kill me, you know. They won't let me live. If you take me in-" "We'll protect you." Darrow laughed bitterly. "You think you can stop them?" "I think I can try." "You don't have any evidence. They'll clean it up the second you take me out of here." "Not this time." Scully motioned to McAlpine, who began bagging the syringes. "Let's go." She could hear the sirens building in the distance. Darrow said nothing as Scully walked her outside. *** She is sitting outside of the J. Edgar Hoover Building when I approach, the wind lifting her red hair slightly, deep in thought. "Dana?" She looks up, startled to see me here. "Oh...hi." "I heard you arrested someone. Amanda Darrow." "That isn't her real name." "I'm not surprised. Congratulations." She moves aside so that I can sit down. We are an incongrous pair - but soon it will no longer matter if I draw attention to myself. "She's the one," I say, "I met up with her, in the courthouse. She brushed by me and I saw everything. She was Their tool - not a major player - but important nonetheless." Scully watches me closely, her electric blue eyes softening with sympathy. "It must be very hard," she says. I remember the nights in the asylum, alone, screaming. "Yes," I say, "It's very hard." For a long time, neither of us speak. "I have looked into the hearts of those who claim innocence, and found them to be tainted and corrupted and wicked. And I have seen the soul of the darkest of men, and found nothing but purity." I smile, try to mask the sadness implicit in my voice. "And that makes it bearable?" "Sometimes." I lean forward until my face is almost touching hers. "Dana. The only difference between you and I is knowledge - what I know makes me the thing I have become. You have so little time left to remain ignorant to the truth. Enjoy it while you can." I cup her face in my hand - my lips brush hers before she has a chance to resist, to think, to protest. She collapses into my embrace for a brief moment before pulling away, almost violently. I stand slowly and light a cigarette. "We are all connected." And then I disappear back into the shadows. I am going home. They are ready to take me back. *** Scully awoke from troubled dreams to the sound of the phone ringing. She reached over, fumbling, her eyes focusing on the clock. Seven in the morning. She groaned and picked up the phone. "Agent Scully?" McAlpine said, "Sorry to disturb you." "It's all right." Her voice said the opposite. "I'm awake now." "I thought you would want to know. There was a break-in half an hour ago. The vials, the syringes, all the paperwork - it was all stolen." Scully sighed, then nodded. Realizing that he couldn't see her, she said, "At least we still have Darrow's testimony." "I'm afraid not. We found Amanda Darrow dead in her cell early this morning." "Suicide?" "How did you know?" "Just a guess." "I can assure you, a full investigation is underway..." "Forget about it. They've gotten away clean again." "You don't sound surprised." "I'm not." He paused for a moment. "There's...one other thing, Agent Scully." "Yes?" "That girl...Kelly Thompson...the witness..." "Yes?" "She...um...she's dead as well. Acute pneumonia - they tried everything they could to save her, but she never regained consciousness. I'm sorry, Agent Scully." Scully closed her eyes, drew in a deep breath. "I know," she whispered, "So am I." CHAPTER VII: AND CAIN WAS JUST THE MAN "Some women wait for Jesus, and some women wait for Cain so I hang upon my altar and I hoist my axe again. And I take the one who finds me back to where it all began when Jesus was the honeymoon and Cain was just the man. And we read from pleasant Bibles that are bound in blood and skin that the wilderness is gathering all its children back again..." -- Leonard Cohen _Last Year's Man_ He doesn't flinch when I blow smoke in his face. I suppose he's accustomed to it. "You know," I say, "I sometimes wonder who is worse: the one who kills without remorse, without guilt - or the one who regrets it, who knows the measure of his sin, who mourns for his victims but kills them, regardless." He glowers at me - before he can respond I speak again. "You don't look particularly surprised to see me alive," I tell him. He folds his hands in that gesture of his - it shows off his nails remarkably well. So calm, so cultured - he makes me sick. "I might have known." I smile - somehow I can never look quite menacing enough. "Will you take me back?" "Tell me why I should." I lift the plastic bag, slowly, exposing the blackened syringe inside. "I have proof." "Of what?" "The latest tests. Agent Scully knows what this is. There is so much that can be revealed with a simple phone call." "How much does she know?" "Enough." I stare at him. "You wouldn't want her hurt, would you? After all you've done to protect her..." I read a mild disapproval in his face. I play dirty - yes - but so does he. It's just another part of the game. He has protected her, just as the smoking man has protected Mulder - their reasons so complex that I can only begin to understand, even with what I know. "She could come dangerously close to the truth," I tell him, "All it takes is my word." "We had an arrangement, did we not?" "Promises can be broken." I put the bag away. "Do we have a deal?" He considers this, but only briefly. Despite his calm veneer, it is a genuine threat. Exposure. Worse than death in Their eyes, though I have never quite figured out why. "For now." I turn to leave. "Where are you going?" "To ensure that this time, the promises will be kept." "I hear Canada is cold this time of year." I stop. Has everyone turned psychic? "I'll send you a postcard," I tell him, and walk out the door. *** He was sprawled out behind the desk as if he owned the place. Sighing, Scully hesitated a moment by the door before entering and tossing the newspaper on his desk. "Shouldn't that be my picture next to the headline? Mulder stared at the article without emotion. "Or is that just you having a little fun?" "Do I look like I'm having fun, Scully?" "You look constipated, actually." "That makes sense. I've had my head up my rear end for the last five years." It wasn't a good time to be funny, she thought. She had initially hoped he would come back and they could talk over the recent developments - all the changes that had happened since he had gone to the conference at M.I.T. - but it appeared that there were more changes than she had previously been aware of. The man sitting behind the desk, his cocky demeanor barely masking the horrible, wrenching self-doubt - this man was not the one she had once known. And she couldn't tell him. Not now - perhaps, not ever. "Well, I guess I'm done here," she said, "You seem to have invalidated your own work. Have a nice life." After he left, she sat alone behind the desk that wasn't hers. Slowly, she buried her face in her hands. She stayed like that for a long time. *** It is after midnight when I arrive. I unlock the door and let myself in, throwing my coat over the arm of a chair. The fire has burnt down to ashes. I slip into the bedroom, quietly, not wishing to wake him. He looks different now - it seems as though I've been done for a very long time. The frail creature dressed in black is gone - I can't decide whether or not I like this change in him. He has fallen asleep reading, still dressed in a flannel plaid shirt and blue jeans. He stirs as I climb into the bed beside him, lifts his arm over me and holds me close. I am not the one he loves - but I will do. For tonight. "I have it," I murmur. "What?" "The means to your reinstatement." I hand him the plastic bag with the syringe inside. "Proof that could expose them." He nods. "Don't you need it?" "I'm back in the game." He turns it over in his hands, staring. "Careful. Didn't anyone ever tell you not to play with needles?" This amuses him. He places it on the night table, about two inches from my head. He lights a cigarette, wincing only slightly as he inhales. He offers me one. I have my own. "How is Agent Scully?" he asks. He doesn't sound particularly concerned. "She isn't terribly convinced of your death." I am silent for a moment, playing with a strand of his hair. It has turned almost completely grey. "When are you going back?" "When they require my services." His pale blue eyes turn towards me. "And you?" "I was...thinking of taking a vacation, for awhile." "The mountains are beautiful this time of year. Cold, but beautiful." "Yes," I say, "That's what I thought, too." He takes a final puff of his cigarette, stubs it out and draws me closer. I feel his lips brush my forehead. "You know..." he whispers, "I've always believed that the most important choices in our lives...the ones that affect us...are not the choices we make ourselves." "Perhaps." I nod against him, suddenly exhausted, overwhelmed. For the past week I have been in the presence of people who believe that there is a future. It hasn't been such a long time since I last allowed myself the luxury of hope. I think that hope will be the hardest thing to give up. I feel his hand fold around mine. "Welcome home." Welcome back to the game. Welcome back to life, such that it is. And maybe in this life, I will be able to sleep. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX End Notes: The lyrics to the sound "The Partisan", by Anna Marly and Hy Zaret, are translated roughly as follows... "J'ai change' cent fois de nom, [I have changed names a hundred times] j'ai perdu femme et enfants [I have lost wife and children] mais j'ai tant d'amis; [But I have so many friends] j'ai la France entie`re. [I have all of France]" Or, at least, I think so. :-)