Title: Built-in Mechanisms Author: Amanda Finch and FirePhile (Chaelysq@aol.com and FirePhile@aol.com) Category: SAH, Post-ep Rating: PG-13 (for allusions to drug use) Spoilers: Field Trip Summary: Mulder and Scully talk on-line after the events of Field Trip. Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully belong to CC&Co, 1013 Produtions and FOX TV. Archive: Yes, pertinent info attached. Author's Notes at end xxx Built-in Mechanisms xxx Mulder929: You're making me feel decidedly unspecial, Scully. DScully223: Now why is that? Mulder929: It's always ME who instant-messages YOU. I can be online for an hour, and I have to initiate everything. Is this one of those intriguingly aloof girl things? DScully223: I don't pay attention to my buddy list...and some of us go online to work. Mulder929: You and the other three prioritized people on this planet. Which disease is it tonight? Leprosy? Elephantitis? DScully223: Actually, LSD Mulder929: The only way to research LSD is to take it. DScully223: I was just thinking about the giant mushroom that we encountered. Mulder929: I was just thinking about my Oxford days. The music I saw, the colors I tasted, but I digress. DScully223: I thought Cocaine was the big drug in the 80s Mulder929: I refuse to incriminate myself further. Anything I do or say can be used against me in an OPR meeting. DScully223: And actually, you shouldn't say something like that on here... Mulder929: Never know when an FBI agent might be online. DScully223: Right, but back to the giant mushroom. Mulder929: I'm going to use that as my signature and attribute it to you. Mulder929: "Right, but back to the giant mushroom." - Agent D. K. Scully DScully223: I'm touched, but do you remember any of your visions? Mulder929: Only the one where I was trained by the Kung Fu masters to uphold the integrity of my country... no, wait, that was something different. Of course I remember them, all of them. DScully223: I mean the ones that just happened... Mulder929: You know me, Scully - I only forget the important things. DScully223: Have you been thinking about them since the incident? Mulder929: I've given them some thought, yeah. DScully223: and? Mulder929: I think you may be barking up the wrong tree with the LSD angle. LSD is all about screwing with neural firings and chemical reactions. These images were about as predictable as dreams (of the non-pharmaceutical variety) usually are: the biggest fears and grandest questions are those that are exploited. DScully223: Did the vision exploit your greatest fear, Mulder? Mulder929: Well, except for my fear of tarantulas coming out of the faucet in my bathtub... Mulder929: I'd say the grandest questions played the bigger part. DScully223: Did the dream actually reveal anything to you? Or just show you information you already knew? Mulder929: I would say the more bothersome aspect was that it didn't reveal anything, except maybe that if you said you believed me, I wouldn't believe YOU. DScully223: I believe you sometimes, Mulder...I just need the proof Mulder929 is not currently signed on. DScully223: For instance, this still isn't proof that Steve Case is an alien. Mulder929: I'm afraid I can't blame Steve Case for this one. Mulder929: Much as I'd like to, you understand. DScully223: You kicked the plug out of the wall again? Mulder929: I spilled my coffee on my modem. That's what I get for using it as a coaster. DScully223: I'm not going to ask. Mulder929: Probably a wise idea. DScully223: Okay, I'll bite, why are you drinking coffee this late at night? Mulder929: It's there, I wanted it, I found a clean coffee cup. Do I need more reason? DScully223: We have work in about six hours and you should be trying to sleep - not getting high on caffeine Mulder929: You're one to talk, Miss LSD. DScully223: I tried to go to sleep at a decent hour, woke up and now yes, I am putting some time in on paperwork. Someone has to have an explanation. Mulder929: You're implying that this case requires an explanation. DScully223: Every case requires an explanation -- otherwise, we are lost. Science was first created because man wanted an explanation for what was happening in their world. Mulder929: I'm starting more and more to believe that science was first created by woman. Adam Mulder said that there was no way a snake's testimonial on a tree was reliable, and Eve Scully said, Snakes can't talk Mulder and here we are. Mulder929: What I meant was -- mushroom. Fungus. Hallucinogen. That's the explanation. DScully223: I'm not looking for that kind of explanation. Mulder929: Okay, now I bite. What explanation are you looking for? And what other explanation could there be? Some mushrooms contain chemicals that can alter perceptions. This just happened to be... an unusually large variety. And the altered perceptions matched it by volume. Are you doubting that? DScully223: No, it's just that...okay, I'm not looking for an explanation, I'm searching for ways to get rid of the flashbacks. There, I've admitted it. Mulder929: Having trails, Scully? Getting a little too much appreciation from the citric acid in orange juice? Finally know all the words to "In a Gadda Da Vida"? DScully223: No, and I learned all the words to that song a long time ago. It's that, okay, I've been having nightmares. Mulder929: You usually don't? Please, if you find a way to get rid of those, tell me. You'll be a rich woman who can quit the Bureau. DScully223: These nightmares are different. I've heard from friends that the only reliable cure for nightmares is years of psychotherapy. Mulder929: I learned a few things about psychotherapy. It's a nightmare with a DSV handbook. What kinds of nightmares? DScully223: Well, Mulder, you do have a degree in psychology, I hope you know something about psychotherapy. Mulder929: I was being facetious. Answer the question. DScully223: I thought it was beautiful outside today, after all that rain we've been having. Mulder929: You really SUCK at changing the subject, if I've never told you before. The question, Scully. Answer it. DScully223: I heard the Knicks were doing well in the playoffs. Mulder929: That's my line. And who am I to tell you to open up? I'd be the last to know anyway. DScully223: What do you mean by that? Mulder929: Ah, the guilt method works again. Welcome back to the topic. I mean you're not the most forthcoming person in the world. You don't tell me these things until it's too late for me to help you. (Stop laughing.) It'd be like having one of the accounting degrees for a partner and still doing your own taxes. DScully223: Granted, you have a point, but I don't talk about how I feel or my thoughts all that often with anyone -- regardless of their psychological background. Mulder929: And how useful has that practice proved to be? DScully223: My mental health is fine, I'm fine. Mulder929: Have you ever given much thought to the possibility that we're all categorically insane when we're born, but it's recessive until the right sequence of events or a position at the post office triggers it? DScully223: I refuse to believe that. I believe that events can make a person not mentally sound but...they are not born that way, no. Mulder929: We're all a bomb that might or might not be activated, as life ebbs away. I'm not saying we're BORN insane, Scully. I'm saying we're born with the capacity and possibility of BECOMING insane. That's different. DScully223: Well, anything is possible...and it goes without saying that it's possible humans are born with the possibility that they will go insane sometime in their lives -- but it's not the same as a built in mechanism. Mulder929: In other words, you're saying not everyone has a breaking point. DScully223: I'd argue that a breaking point and a built in mechanism are not the same thing. Mulder929: Well, it's easy to give the intangible, incorporeal things like psyche a tag like "mechanism." Mulder929 is not currently signed on. Mulder929: MECHANISMS are computers that boot you right in the middle of your conversation. DScully223: And Mulder, I know you don't like it when I say this...but part of religion and the belief in God is the ability to raise our breaking points, disable the mechanism. Mulder929: Religion is an inside job. DScully223: An inside job? You make it sound like the mob. Mulder929: An inside job, as in a self-serving effect. I know YOU don't like it when I say this, but religion is only as useful as its placebo results make it seem. You may think you're raising the breaking point, and arguably, maybe you are. But there's no higher power at work, just the illusion of having one to turn to. DScully223: And that's your opinion. But the things that I've seen...have experienced, have strengthened my faith. Mulder929: My mother told me to never argue politics or religion with friends I wanted to keep, so how ARE the Knicks doing? DScully223: My mom taught me the same thing -- but since almost all of my conversations in college had to do with either politics or religion... Mulder929: You rebel, you. DScully223: But there is a reason I don't want to tell you about these nightmares -- and that is because...they involve you. Mulder929: I thought ALL your nightmares involved me. How nice to hear they don't. DScully223: Well, we have seen a lot, Mulder. And been through a lot. Mulder929: That's what I know. If it's something I do or do TO YOU in these nightmares that's upsetting you, then I'd like to know what it is. DScully223: It's nothing that you do Mulder, it's something that happens to you. Mulder929: Here's your club membership and towel. DScully223: Membership? Mulder929: You don't think I have at least one dream every time I go to sleep that involves something terrible happening to you? DScully223: I'm speechless. DScully223: Mulder - are you still there? Mulder? END xxx We just wanted to put our own spin on the IM story. The title comes from the REM song "Hope" (off the CD "Up"). Steve Case is the AOL head honcho and belongs to himself. (If he sues, could we pay our part of the settlement in $19.95 increments?) Thanks to Anna and Becky for archiving chores. Scully's part was written by Rachel, Mulder's part was written by Amanda. Feedback makes our worlds go 'round. You can find our other fanfic here: FirePhile: http://www.geocities.com/~annaotto/firephile.html Amanda Finch: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Chamber/7335/ficlist.hmtl