Antidote

by Rachel Howard & Karen Rasch
Snowrider5@aol.com & Krasch@earthlink.net


Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1998 04:29:06 GMT

<Rachel starts us off.>

Welcome to our little experiment. Neither of us had ever collaborated
on a story before, but, hey, first time for everything.  We played fast
and loose with the description of Gateway, which is a real place that
I've actually been to.  But it's all in a good cause - the further glory of
fanfic.  So please forgive me, and if you're planning on visiting western
Colorado - buy a good map.


<Karen>

Yeah, yeah, yeah.  So it took us a year to finally get this story to
ATXC.  You wouldn't want us to =rush= or anything, wouldja? <g>

Lots and lots of individual chapters here.  If you want to make your
life easy, head over to one of our webpages.  The zipped version of
this is ready for download on mine, and I'm certain will be added to
Rachel's page by the end of the night.

Thanks!  :-)


Disclaimer:  We don't own 'em, wish we did, we don't plan on making
money off of 'em, so don't sue.  [Okay, Karen, you want to write a
REAL disclaimer?]

Your turn.

<Karen assumes the podium.>

Real disclaimer?  Who the hell reads those things anyway?  Okay.  As
you guys probably know, this is a post as you go kind of thing.  I don't
think it'll wind up being as scary as it may sound.  Rachel and I went
to the trouble of hammering out an outline for this (something I've
only done once before when writing fanfic), so we have a pretty good
idea where we're headed.  We're taking turns writing chunks and then
going back and editing each other's work.  So far, it's been working
out really well.  But we reserve the right to go back and change things
between the time the story is posted on my page and it makes its
debut on ATXC.  Your feedback will help shape that process.  So,
feel free to comment.  The addys are above.

GOSSAMER INFO:

Classification:  XRA

Rating:  NC-17

Spoilers:  None to speak of.  Cancer isn't an issue here.

Summary:  Strange doings in a tiny western town bring Mulder and
Scully out to investigate.  Once there, they uncover a deadly experiment
that may cost both of them their lives.

**********************************************************

I believe in the refusal to take part.
I believe in the ruined career.
I believe in the wasted years of work.
I believe in the secret taken to the grave.

These words soar for me beyond all rules
without seeking support from actual examples.
My faith is strong, blind, and without foundation.

Wislawa Szymborska, "The Discovery"

**********************************************************

October 17
Gateway, Colorado

It smelled bad.

Worse, the damp chill of the garage was totally at odds with the
lovely, baking heat of the October afternoon.  After two days of
snow, all Norm wanted to do was sit on the front porch and roast
the stiffness out of his joints, just like the rest of the respectable
old farts in Gateway.

All the old farts whose wives hadn't been nagging for two months
about the state of the garage.  The garage, where the workbench,
groaning with the weight of fixable clocks, moderately rusted hand
saws, cans of rusty nails, three-legged waffle irons, and other
projects had somehow overflowed onto the floor.

Norm admitted privately that Mary had a point: when you couldn't
fit the truck in anymore, it might be time to take stock of things,
tidy up a little.  And, knowing that the coming weeks and months
would only bring more snowstorms to western Colorado, he could
easily see that putting off the garage clean-up would only bring
another problem: digging snowdrifts off his truck.

So, reminding himself that it was either dig out the garage today
or dig out the truck for the rest of the goldarn winter, Norm Orban
stood in front of the open garage door, peering into the semidarkness
and rubbing a hand absently through his thinning gray hair.

And wrinkled his nose in disgust as his eyes adjusted to the dim light.

A rat.  Dead one.  Not too dead, not dead enough for its shining eyes to
have sunk far back into the skull, but where there was one rat, there
were more, and probably more dead ones adding to that bad, damp-
rot smell that hung inside the garage.

He stepped inside, frowning as he nudged the small, stiff corpse
with the toe of his work boot.  It was a fat one, white, with a pink
hairless tail and pink-rimmed eyes.  Looked like a fancy pet-store
rat, not a wild one.  Which damn kid in town was keeping pet rats?
Norm mentally inventoried the handful of kids, all seven of them that
he could recall, and settled on Charlie Cutler as the likely culprit.

Damn kid.  Oughta get a dog.

Resigned, he rummaged in the back of the garage for a dustpan
and a broom, and settled for a hand-brush and a rusty piece of tin.
Wincing slightly, he bent to sweep the rat's body onto the metal,
walked a few yards behind the building and heaved the refuse into
the scrub.

Returning to his task, he forgot about the dead rat, even forgetting
when Bonnie Cutler stopped by to share news about her new grand-
niece with Mary, who ate it up with the same intensity she usually
reserved for Ding-Dongs and soap operas.  Seventeen year-old Linda
Cutler had gone to Grand Junction for a weekend last January and
stayed with some cousins, which would have been fine except little
Linda had gotten fond of a boy she met at a party and now, as Bonnie
was breathlessly reporting, Linda was talking about taking the baby
and going away, maybe to Glenwood Springs or maybe even Denver,
and becoming a waitress.

Norm half-listened, watching the Broncos take another pasting from
the Steelers, and scratched absently at his wrist, thinking again,
damn Cutler kids.

Not even Bonnie's visit reminded him of the rat.  Not until the
following afternoon, when a sprinkling of small red bumps had
become visible on his left wrist, did he remember it.  And then it
was only because over a beer John Soames was complaining that
you couldn't eat anywhere but home these days, what with bad
burger meat in the stores, and just yesterday, leaving the men's
restroom at Gateway's only diner-gas-station-convenience store he
saw a rat running off toward the pumps.

"Was it white? Pink eyes?" Norm asked, surprising himself nearly
as much as Soames.

"Yeah, y'know, it was," replied Soames, after a moment of
consideration. "It was."

And the following day, Norm was far too sick to worry about rats.
The little red bumps were receding, but the wrenching cough and
dull ache radiating from his chest more than took their place, and
before long the high, sweet humming in his head drowned out the
noise of the occasional car passing by, Mary's panicked voice on the
phone with the doctor, the sounds of lazy breezes ruffling the few
leaves left on the trees, the sounds of fall coming to an end.  

Of a long winter beginning.

        *    *    *    *    *

October 22
Basement of the FBI headquarters


"Hey Scully, you ever actually read 'The Lone Gunmen'?"

Dana Scully peered up from the notes she had been struggling
for the past several hours to decipher, shot Special Agent Fox Mulder
her most withering look, and murmured, "Are you referring to the
publication you gave me a subscription to last Christmas?"

Smiling ever so slightly, he nodded from his desk across the room,
his hazel eyes twinkling behind his wire-rimmed lens.

"That's the one.  Do you ever check out what the boys have to
say?  Or is their little periodical strictly liner for your birdcage?"

"I don't have a bird, Mulder."

"Figuratively speaking."

She hesitated for a moment, wondering at her partner's unexpected
interest.  "I look at it each month.  Every once and awhile, I'll even
read it cover to cover.  Why?"

"Just to be polite?" he asked, ignoring her question.  "Because I got it
for you?  Or do you do it because you think there might actually be
something to the boys' findings?"

"Mostly the former," she admitted, her confusion growing slowly
but steadily, "and partly because I can't bear to hurt Frohike's
feelings by admitting I haven't read the thing."

"You better watch it, Scully," Mulder advised playfully, stabbing
at the air with his pen for emphasis.  "You keep feeding his ego
that way and one day the little guy is going to show his appreciation
by making you the magazine's first centerfold."

She grimaced before she could stop herself.

Noticing immediately, he pounced on her reaction.  "You know, I
may even suggest that to the fellas myself.  I have a feeling their
readership would really go for a babe in Kevlar."

She cocked a brow.  Don't push it, Mulder, the look warned.

Smiling, he accepted her silent challenge.  "And little else."

Deciding to rein things in before they got utterly out of control,
Scully sat back in her chair, folded her arms across her chest and
drawled, "You want to explain to me why you're suddenly so
interested in my opinion of the 'Gunmen'?  I mean . . .  it's
October.  I'm down to my last few issues.  Are you fishing for  
ideas for this year's holiday gift-giving?"

"Not exactly.  I'm more of a Christmas Eve shopper myself,"
he said as he stood and snagged a sheet of paper from the printer
on his way over to her side of the office.  Perching a hip on the corner
of her desk, he leaned in just a touch and confessed in an innuendo-
loaded voice.  "I find I do my best work under pressure."

"Ah.  So that explains why you're always putting off paperwork
till the last minute," she said, not at all impressed by flirtatious tone.

"All work and no play . . . ," he softly murmured.

"Succinctly describes my life," she finished dryly.

"Which is exactly why I'm bringing this up."

"What?  Are you trying to tell me you're looking to play, Mulder?" she
queried with a lift of her chin, trying her own luck with the double
entendre.

"Ah, Scully, believe me--when it comes to you, I'd want to get right
down to business," he parried, a certain indefinable warmth in his eyes.

Biting back a smile, Scully slowly crossed her legs and studied her
partner.  Something was up.  He had been behaving strangely all day.  
It wasn't the bantering that had clued her in.  True, Mulder was being
a tad friskier in that department than he had been lately, but their
verbal sparring was nothing new.  And it wasn't his appearance.  He
looked just as he always did.   Starched white shirt, pressed gray pants
and coat that were excellent complements to her tailored navy suit.

Rather, it was the palpable energy she could very nearly visualize
rolling off him in waves.  When she had first made her realization
she had considered perhaps chalking up the observation to an odd
manifestation of cabin fever.  After all, they had both been confined
to the Hoover Building for the past week and a half.  And a little of
that went a long way.  Even for her.  Maybe what she was sensing was
simply a build-up of adrenaline, she had thought.  But, as the hours
wore on, and Mulder had sat rapt, first before his computer monitor
and then later bent over a succession of increasingly eclectic research
books, she had concluded that boredom wasn't to blame.  Excitement
was.  Something had him revved that morning.  Something decidedly
out of the ordinary.  He hadn't told her what it was.  Not yet.  But he
would.

Who else was there for him to tell?

But maybe she should help him out just a bit.  "So, what kind of
business do you have in mind?"

"Aren't you bored?" he asked, his gaze intent but not without the
humor that had lurked there since he had begun.

"With what exactly?" she feinted as, sitting forward once more, she
closed her pen with a snap, all thoughts of administrative details
banished in the face of Mulder's enthusiasm.  "With my life?  My
job?"

She leaned in on him, just as he had previously.  "This conversation?"

He placed his hand over his heart as if he were afraid the organ
might make a run for it.  "Scully, you wound me.  I was talking
about desk detail, about these endless mountains of official documents
we're expected to wade through when we're not in the field."

"Are you telling me we've got a new assignment?" she asked with
surprise.

"Not officially," he conceded.  "Not yet."

"I'm not so certain I like the sound of that," she mumbled ruefully.

Mulder grinned down at her for a beat before setting in front of
her the paper in his hands.  "This was emailed to me this morning.
Courtesy of our journalistic friends."

She glanced at the sheet, her eyes skimming the page with
practiced speed.  "What is it?  A letter to the editor?"

He gave a small shrug.  "In a manner of speaking.  The Gunmen
had an email account set up for the magazine over a year ago.  They
use it to drum up subscriptions, pick up anonymous information, that
sort of thing."

"And this letter came through that address?" she asked, reading
over its contents again, this time perusing it a bit more carefully.

"Yeah," he confirmed, watching her read.  "They received it
yesterday afternoon."

Coming to the end of the missive, Scully looked up at him, her
brow knit with concern and amazement.  "Mulder, this man says
that an entire town has disappeared."

The man seated on her desk nodded happily.

It was all she could do not to push him off of it.

"That's impossible," she said, tamping down on the urge to do
damage to her partner.  "Scores of people do not just suddenly
vanish."

"Don't forget the Lost Colony," he reminded her blithely.

She glared up at him.

"And anyway," he continued, heedless of her disgruntled expression,
"you can hardly consider Gateway, Colorado a booming metropolis.  
According to what the Gunmen have told me, the population hovers
just below 50."

"I'm not familiar with Gateway," she admitted with a small shake
of her head.  "Where's it located?"

Mulder rose and crossed to his desk to retrieve a road atlas.  "In the
middle of nowhere.  It's in far west-central Colorado, close to the
Utah border."

He strode back to stand beside her, and set Rand McNally's latest
edition on the desk.  Flipping quickly to the proper page, he pointed
out the mysterious Gateway.

"Boy, it really is out there all by itself," Scully murmured, studying
the map.

"If you were looking to get away with something, Gateway wouldn't
be a bad place for it," he murmured in agreement as he hunched
over her, one hand braced on the back of her chair, the other
pressed flat on the corner of the atlas.

"Get away with something?" she echoed as she peered over her
shoulder at him.  She didn't have far to peer, Mulder's face was
only inches from her own.  "What do you mean?"

He didn't draw away.  "Well, doesn't it strike you as odd that when
our letter-writer, a Mr. Vaughn W. Franklin, went into town for
his mail all the people had disappeared?"

She just looked at him.

The corner of his mouth quirked upwards.  "Seems to me that
'people stealing' would indicate that *somebody* is doing something
they shouldn't."

This made Scully pull back just a bit, a scowl crinkling her features.  
"Mulder, we know nothing about this Franklin guy.  This letter could
be a crank, or he might have simply imagined the whole thing.  Maybe
the missing postal clerk he referred to had just stepped outside for a
moment.  Franklin had to wait for his mail, he got upset, and that was
reason enough for him to blow the whole thing out of proportion."

Mulder picked up the letter, searching it for ammunition to refute
her theory.  "Just the mail clerk, Scully?  What about the gas
station attendant?  Or the guy at the convenience store?  According
to Franklin, no one--not a soul--was where they would normally be
at 10:00 on a Tuesday morning.  The streets were empty.  He heard
no noises, saw no sign of life save for a dog that scared the hell out
of him by running out in front of his truck."

Pulling the letter from his hands, she sighed and looked it over once
more.  "Mulder, when you read this, did you look past the whole
'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' thing?"

"I don't recall seeing any mention of pods," he murmured.

She pursed her lips.  "Pods or no pods, our Mr. Franklin is a poster
boy for paranoia."

"Just for subscribing to 'The Lone Gunmen'?" Mulder asked
with amusement.  "Don't forget, you and I are also on that list."

"And look what people say about us," she retorted.

"Just because you're paranoid . . . " he began meaningfully.

She shook her head.  "Mulder, by his own admission, Franklin is a
man who built himself a cabin out in the middle of the wilderness
because he no longer felt able to deal with 'society'.  It says so.  
Right here in black and white."

Reluctantly, Mulder nodded.

"Keeping that sort of acute anxiety in mind, delusions--particularly
those involving separation from other people--would seem to me not
entirely unexpected," Scully asserted reasonably.

Hands shoved in his pants pockets, Mulder seemed to actually
consider that argument for a moment before he said with a certain
relish.  "Would it make any difference if I told you that it now
appears Vaughn Franklin has also vanished?"

"What?"

He nodded, his eyes alight behind their lens once more.  "The
Gunmen have been emailing him non-stop since receiving his
message, but have gotten nothing back in the way of a reply.
They think he's disappeared like the rest of Gateway."

"Did you stop to think that if Franklin was as frightened as he says
he was, he might have simply taken off?" she queried dryly, her
small hands folded neatly atop the map of Colorado.

"I did," he said evenly.  "I considered that Franklin might be
scared enough to run."

She nodded.

"But I also questioned if perhaps poor Vaughn might not be the
latest in a series of disappearances."

"Mulder--"

"Aren't you curious, Scully?" he asked quietly as he squatted down
beside her chair.  This arrangement brought their eyes level with
each other.  Scully could see the silent entreaty shining in his.  
"Don't you want to know what's going on out there?"
    
"I'm not convinced that anything is," she murmured, struggling
not to fall victim to her partner's persuasive capabilities.

However, Mulder saw her slight weakening, and played upon her
vulnerability.  "But you don't know for certain, do you?"

She said nothing.

"Don't you want to be sure?" he asked softly, almost seductively.

She chewed on her lower lip.

He gently smiled.  "Don't you want to get out of this basement?"

"It'll only mean more paperwork when we get back," she
warned in jest, her decision having already been made.

"That is one risk I'm willing to take."

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

"Antidote" (2/18)
by Rachel Howard
& Karen Rasch

******************

October 23
Denver CO, Airport

"Mulder, wouldn't it have been closer to fly into Telluride?"  Scully
was studying the huge map on the wall.  The small airport lounge
where they waited for their connecting flight to Grand Junction was
only half-full.  "It looks like a much shorter drive."

"Hate to disappoint you, Scully, but it's not ski season yet.  What,
you thought we'd have time to get in a few runs before heading up to
Gateway?" Mulder teased.

"Seriously, Mulder, why are we flying into Grand Junction?"

Looking up, he took in her expression and realized that, as usual,
deflecting Scully's curiosity was a lost cause.  "It's actually about
the same drive-time, and renting a car is a lot cheaper in Grand
Junction."

She nodded, turning back to the map. Inwardly, he sighed in relief.  
The Telluride airport was also notoriously inaccessible; more than
saving the Bureau money on the car, he had been eager to save Scully,
always a nervous flier, the hair-raising descent onto Telluride's tiny
airstrip.  However, his solicitousness was more likely to earn him a
chilly rebuff from Scully than any thanks; it was lucky that she had
accepted the car-rental as an excuse.

As it turned out, even the commuter flight to Grand Junction was rough
enough to leave her a striking shade of green.  As usual, she hung on
gamely throughout the blessedly short flight, only giving a nearly
inaudible sigh of relief as they disembarked.  Brushing aside his
suggestion that she sit down and let him collect their luggage, she
resolutely carried her own bags to the rental counter, leaving him to
trail behind her like an errant puppy.  She did manage to fall asleep as
soon as he got onto the highway, however, leaving him to enjoy the
scenery in silence.

Though the dry slopes of the buttes and mesas decorating the landscape
were appealing, he found himself thinking about his sleeping partner
before long.  Adversity only stiffened Scully's backbone.  Had that
tendency always been there?  Had she always been this stoic, or had
joining the Bureau brought her to a point where she was acutely
uncomfortable letting any weakness show?  He guessed it was the job
that had done it; that, or being partnered with him.

He snuck another look at her sleeping profile.  Her red-gold hair,
luminous in the afternoon sunlight, floated slightly with the stale air
pushing through the vents.  She shifted restlessly against the car
upholstery pillowing her head, but slept on.

The rise and fall of the jutting mesas and buttes was giving way to
foothills.  They were climbing again, and the air was getting cooler.  
A half-hour after turning south onto 141, Scully woke up to a
completely different vista, the dark sweep of the Uncompaghres
swelling to fill the skyline.

Much later, Mulder would remember thinking, you could get lost out
here.  Really lost.

It was late afternoon when they saw the first bend of the Dolores
River ahead.

"Gateway's only a few miles from here."  She wasn't green anymore,
but she still looked tired.  "You feeling okay?"

"I'm fine, Mulder."

The roadblock was three-quarters of the way through a blind corner.
Mulder had to hit the brakes hard, bringing the car down from a
smooth seventy-five to a quaking, shuddering stop that left him white-
knuckled and angry.  A uniformed man waved at the sign:  "ROAD
CLOSED."

Mulder banged on the steering wheel twice.  "Shit.  We're five miles
from town and if we have to go around, drive up from the south, we're
probably a hundred miles out of our way.  I hope this is just an accident."

"I don't think so, Mulder.  Those aren't highway patrolmen over there."

She was right, he realized with growing alarm.  Two dark-suited figures
stood aloof from the rest of the group, their white shirts and ties as out
of place on the remote highway as Smoky the Bear would be at FBI
headquarters.  For that matter, the six or eight men in commando getup
looked pretty weird, too.  The few men in state trooper uniforms seemed
nervous, sipping from styrofoam cups, huddled together.

Mulder and Scully got out of the car.  Following his instincts, he headed
for the men in suits.  Flipping open his ID, he introduced himself.

"Special Agent Fox Mulder, FBI.  Why is this road closed?"

For a long minute, no one answered him.  Then, almost casually, one of
the suits replied, "Quarantine.  Got a contagious illness here."

"What illness?"

"Hasn't been determined yet."

"Then how do you know it's contagious?"

No answer.

Mulder tried again.  "My partner is a medical doctor.  Could we be of
any assistance?"

The man replied, "No.  The CDC is already here."

Scully had appeared at his side, silent as a shadow.  "Special Agent Dana
Scully.  How long has this town been under quarantine?"

"Since this morning."

"Could you describe the nature of the disease?"

Finally, one of the two men looked directly at them.  His gaze was
cold, and it crawled avidly, blatantly over Scully's chest.  "No."

She felt a quick wave of impatient anger but supressed it with the ease
borne of long practice.  "What agency?"

"What?"  The man was looking at her again, at her face this time. She
noticed that glaring at him required her to tilt her head back even farther
than an argument with Mulder at close quarters did. The man was tall
and lean, with disproportionately large hands that flexed unnervingly as
he looked down at her.

"Who do you work for?  And what right do you have to withhold
information from the FBI?"

She let her tone change, deliberately challenging him.  Scully thought
she saw anger and a more complex emotion flare briefly in his eyes, and
for a second he looked eerily familiar.  Then it was gone and he replied,
in the same even tone, "The CDC is here.  The FBI has been informed."  
He paused for a moment, then looked directly into her eyes.  She saw the
flare again in his before he said, in a low snarl, "You should go back
home, *doctor.*  Before you get sick yourself."

She knew where she had seen that look before.  Donnie Pfaster.

It was like standing on the tracks, looking down a long, dark tunnel at a
train coming fast.

Only murderers looked like that.

But she couldn't afford to dwell on that realization.  Not right at that
moment.  Not when watching Mulder's jaw set, she knew it was probably
time to back off before the conversation took a turn for the worse.  She
brushed her fingers against his sleeve, a gesture that he seemed to interpret
correctly, since he took a step backwards almost immediately.  When his
eyes met hers, she saw his growing frustration and silently implored him
to hold it together.

They left the men in suits and approached the state troopers.  Scully felt
a little of her tension dissipate as Mulder mildly asked the men, "Hey.
Looks like we're not getting any farther.  Any decent motels around
here?"

She watched him warily as he chatted easily with the men, staying close
until she was certain he was in check.  She had been equally offended
by the offhanded dismissal that had met their questions, and her
instincts were telling her that something was wrong here, very wrong.
But she didn't share Mulder's habit of doggedly pursuing unproductive
conversations.  He had probably been the kind of kid who had bugged
his parents about the mystery surrounding Santa Claus until they gave
in and told him it was a myth, she thought to herself, a child's story.

Then she remembered his parents.  No, maybe not, she amended.  Poor
Mulder, whose fine, searching mind had found so many closed doors.
No wonder he got angry when people refused to give him straight
answers.

"Scully?"

She looked up at her partner's quizzical stare.  "Sorry.  What?"

"We should get going.  There's a motel about a half-hour from here.
What say we head back up the road, grab some dinner, and fly back to
D.C. tomorrow?"

And as he had heard her silent plea to give up on the men in dark
suits, she heard his unspoken message:   Let's make it *look* like
we're leaving.

Mulder never gave up on anything.

"Okay," she said, her face deliberately expressionless.

Without another look back, they retreated to the rental car and turned
around.  The carefully neutral cast of Mulder's face disappeared as
soon as they rounded the bend.  "Dammit, Scully, did you see those
guys?  We've *got* to get into that town."  His eyes narrowed in
concentration.  "No ID--although I should have asked to see some,
just to see what they'd do--"

"No, Mulder."

"What?"

"You handled that just right."

"Oh."  He sounded partly miffed, partly flattered.  "Just right?"

She rolled her eyes, but said calmly,  "A confrontation with those
men would only have drawn attention to us and you wouldn't have
gotten any more information from them.  You were smart to walk
away."

He looked smug for a moment, then serious again.  "We need to get
into the town and find out what's wrong with those people.  I don't
think those guys were with the CDC."

"I suppose you want to try and sneak into Gateway tonight.  Through
the forest."

"Did anyone ever tell you you're sexy when you're psychic?"

She didn't smile.  "In spite of the fact that the town's under quarantine,
and from what we've heard, there probably *is* a nasty disease infecting
the townsfolk?  That would explain why our elusive friend, Mr. Franklin,
didn't see anyone.  They might all be sick.  Or dead."

"So we don't get too friendly with the locals, and we wash our hands
before we eat."

"Mulder."

"You *know* there's something going on there, Scully."

She did.  "All right.  Did you bring a compass?"  His blank look told
her clearly that he hadn't.  "Hiking boots?  Dark clothing?"

"Hey, do I look like an amateur to you?"

She snorted, but the curl of her lip answered him.

"Thanks, Scully, I'll remember that when I'm shopping for your
Christmas present."

"I already know what I'm getting for Christmas, remember?  A
renewal to the "Paranoids-'R-Us" newsletter.  And I didn't say you
were amateurish."

He peeked over at her, but her hands were folded in her lap and her
face gave nothing away.  "Okay, but you'd better look out when it's
time for your birthday present."

"Oh please, Mulder.  What am I getting this year?  Another keychain?"

"But I gave you a really *cool* keychain last year," he wheedled.

 "A pet rock?  A subscription to 'Celebrity Skin'?"

 "That's not fair.  You liked the keychain."

"Mulder, this is silly.  You win, okay?  You're a big sugar daddy, I just
never noticed."

"That wasn't fair either, Scully.  If we're going to have a dumb argument,
you might as well put some effort into it.  Otherwise, it isn't any fun."

"How far is this motel?"

He sighed, giving up.  "A ways."

"Well, before we're out of the neighborhood, why don't we stop by Mr.
Franklin's place?  With this map and the information we got from the
Gunmen, we ought to be able to find it fairly easily.  His place is
supposedly on this road that runs perpendicular to the highway."  She
studied the map.  "I think these dashes mean it's unpaved."

"How far is the road?"

She examined the map further for a minute. "Just before mile marker
41."

It took him two passes by the mile marker to spot the dirt track heading
into the forest.  The trail proved barely visible from a moving car.  
"Jesus.  This guy sure doesn't get out much.  Look at his driveway."

She murmured assent.  "It's about five miles from here."

Mulder thanked whatever gods were listening for the lack of snow.  The
bumpy road was nearly impassable in the rental sedan as it was.  Finally,
they spotted a cabin through a thick stand of trees.  A rusted-out pickup
truck with a gun rack was parked in front of the small rustic structure.

"Looks like Mr. Franklin's at home."

But he wasn't.  They knocked politely, waited, and finally Mulder tried
the door.  It wasn't locked.

The one-room cabin was cold and dark.  Mulder found the light, and
they both simply stood for a minute, taking in the place.

It was a puzzle, Scully thought, looking around.  On the one hand, the
computer set up on a long, low table was clearly a nice one.  A rack on
the far wall held four shotguns along with a crossbow.  So the man was
no Luddite.  But the wood-burning stove in the center of the room was
the only visible heat-source, and judging by the iron grill and pans set
up on the top of the stove, this was where he cooked, too.  Rows of
books filled the shelving on two walls, and more were stacked in piles
that threatened to topple over onto the wood floor.  A neatly made
double bed, covered by a wool blanket, was tucked into one corner.  It
would be cozy with the stove going, she mused.

She didn't see an entry leading to a bathroom.  So apparently the guy
had electricity, but no central heat; a phone line, but no indoor plumbing.
Walking back to the open door of the cabin, she peered out into what
passed for a yard, and immediately spotted a pump and, further off,
an outhouse.

Mystery solved.

Still . . . weirdness.

"Where do you suppose he..."

"Outhouse."  Mulder was looking out the window on the rear wall of
the cabin.  "And look in here."  He pulled back a checkered curtain to
reveal an old-fashioned iron tub.  He grinned at her.  "Soap, shampoo--
Breck!"

"Mulder, I was going to say, where do you think he is, not where do
you suppose he . . . bathes."

He was peering at the floor.  "I dunno, Scully," he said slowly, "but I
don't think this is a good sign."

Barely visible on the dark wood of the cabin's floor, blood had
spattered and smeared in streaks that had long since dried to an
opaque brown.  The streaks pointed towards the door.

Like something--or someone--had been dragged bleeding from the
cabin.

"With the guns on the wall, there's a good chance he hunts . . . "
Scully began softly, but her heart wasn't in it.

"The blood begins here," Mulder said, gesturing to the center of the
room.  "So unless he shot Bambi indoors and then lugged him outside
to gut him . . . ."

She nodded thoughtfully.  Mulder was right.  Franklin's gun rack was
fully stocked; his truck was parked outside.  Add to that the splash
pattern on the man's floor, and it appeared far more likely that the
cabin's occupant had been the shootee rather than the shooter.

"I guess we're figuring this guy probably isn't just off in Miami for the
weekend, or something."

When her eyes met his, they were somber. "No, probably not."

        *    *    *    *    *

With twilight, it had gotten cold.  The sky was darkening from a rich
tapestry of pinks and blues streaked with golden clouds to deep blue
sprinkled with stars.  Scully put her hand to the car window; it was
freezing to the touch.  I hope Mulder brought warm clothes, she
thought; then, why do I worry about him?  It's not that he's amateurish--
that isn't it.  He just doesn't care about himself enough.  He'll forget to
bring warm clothes, then suffer the cold like he deserves it.

He doesn't care about himself as much as I care for him.  That's why
I worry.

The Prairie Dog Motel wasn't glamorous, but it was Mulder's kind of
place.  The flickering neon glow was visible from several miles away
on the dark highway.  Mulder, driving in silence, brightened visibly as
they approached the motel.  He parked so haphazardly Scully scolded
him, but he was oblivious, eyes pinned to the sign as he unfolded his
lanky frame from behind the steering wheel.  She collected her luggage
and joined him.

He was in seventh heaven, gazing appreciatively up at the massive,
buck-toothed rodent outlined in yellow neon that leered down at them
from the motel's sign.

"Thank God we don't have a camera," she sighed, mostly to herself.

"Why?"

"Because you'd be asking me to take your picture under that awful sign,"
she retorted.

He stared at her for a moment, then let loose a yelp of laughter.  Still
laughing, he pushed his way into the motel office, leaving her standing
under the garish glow of the sign, grinning at his retreating back.

They got adjoining rooms, as usual.  She always felt a moment of
quiet satisfaction when they walked into two rooms next to each
other.  Usually, she glossed it over mentally by reminding herself that
it was safer to have him within earshot--look at all the times one of
them had gotten into trouble, alone and asleep or unguarded.  Tonight,
however, the justification rang false.  Why?

Why else would she feel such contentment at having him sleeping
nearby?

She pushed the thought away before it could cause any real trouble.

She was halfway into her jeans when Mulder knocked on the connecting
door.  "Hang on a second," she called out, but he was walking into the
room practically before she was done zipping up.  "Mulder, what . . . ?"

His fingers closed around her wrist and he tugged her unceremoniously
into his room.  "I called my voicemail.  You gotta hear this, Scully."  He
handed her the receiver, still off the hook, and pressed 3 to start the
message playing again.

The recording said, "Agent Mulder, this is Assistant Director Skinner.
I've come up with some new information on the case that you're
investigating with Agent Scully, and I don't think it's a wise use of
the Bureau's resources for you to continue with the investigation."
The voice paused, then added, "I want you both back here tomorrow.
Let my secretary know what time we can expect you at the office; I'll
need to speak with you as soon as you're back."  Another pause, and a
steely note was now present in the AD's voice:  "Tomorrow, Mulder.  
I mean it."

"Press one to delete this message," the automaton broke in smoothly.
"Press two..."

Scully hit one, and looked up at her partner, who was standing
unnervingly close.

"Wow."

"Yeah, wow.  Must be something good to make him sound that nervous,"
Mulder said happily. "You ready?"

"I don't believe you.  Two seconds ago, I was listening to Skinner, our
*boss*, give us a *direct* order not to investigate this case, to return to
D.C. *immediately*. . ."

"Scully," he entreated.  "Scully, there's no flights out of that rinky-dink
airport until tomorrow morning.  So we're stuck here for the night anyway.
And Skinner even said, and I quote, 'tomorrow,' unquote.  So we're on
our own tonight--shouldn't we do a little poking around?"

"Mulder..."

"It's either that or sit in this motel and watch dirty movies on the Spice
Channel.  Unless you'd =prefer= to stay here and watch dirty movies
with me," he teased.

She regarded him steadily.  "Okay."

"Okay, you're ready to go?"

"Okay, let's find out what's on the Spice Channel."

His jaw actually dropped slightly, she was pleased to see.  "Scully . . ."

"What's wrong, Mulder?  You all talk and no action?"

Now he was actually goggling at her, jaw slack, eyes wide as she
reached for the remote.  His expression did her in, though, and she
relented.  "Mulder, this is ridiculous.  What if Skinner talked to the
CDC and there really is something contagious in Gateway?"

"We don't even have to go *into* town, Scully.  We could just get close
enough to scope the place out, see if there's anything going on that we
could pick up through binoculars."

"You brought binoculars?"

"Yup."

"And if we get busted by the state police or those other guys, we're in
deep shit with our boss."

"C'mon, Scully, you *know* you're itching to find out what's going on
here.  What happened to Franklin."

And the simple truth was--she was.  Years at Mulder's side had made
her curiosity nearly as urgent as his own.  She sighed, ready to capitulate.

"Atta girl."

"I didn't *say* anything."

"Yeah, but you're ready to go.  I can tell."  He crouched in front of her,
leaning in with both hands on his knees.  "And you *know* it's got to
be big if I'm willing to pass up a night of watching skin flicks with
you."

She administered one careful push to the center of his chest and primly
watched as he toppled over backwards.  The astonished look on his face
was priceless, even better than when he thought she was serious about
the pornography.  That's twice in one night, she noted with a distinct
twinge of satisfaction.  Gotcha again, Mulder.

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *


"Antidote" (3/18)
by Rachel Howard
& Karen Rasch

Snowrider5@aol.com
Krasch@earthlink.net

********************************************

October 23
Just outside Gateway, CO

It was cold enough out to make her wish she'd brought an extra
sweater.  Unfortunately, she couldn't just dash back to the motel and
don another layer.  In a few more minutes, they would reach their
destination.  So the thin, black wool turtleneck she wore would have
to suffice.   

Oh well, Scully thought as she peered out the car window at the
inky landscape, at least she had had the foresight to pack jeans and a
pair of sturdy boots.  Of course, work alongside Mulder long enough
and a person learns to be prepared for any and all eventualities, she
wordlessly grumbled.  She might not have planned on a midnight visit
to a supposedly quarantined hamlet, but that didn't mean she couldn't
dress for it.

She glanced over at the man who had talked her into this little jaunt.  
He sat behind the wheel, staring straight ahead, his eyes narrowed
against the night.  He was garbed much as she was--jeans, navy blue
pullover, boots, and a dark, heavy jacket.  Hell, Mulder had even
remembered gloves, she realized with a lift of her brow, her gaze
dropping to her lap where she considered her own bare hands.  What
d'ya know?  And here she had been worried about him.  Damn.  What
she wouldn't give to have her nice, fleece-lined Isotoners with her
instead of sitting on her closet shelf back home.  She had almost
tossed them in her suitcase too; but the temperature had been over fifty
degrees when they had left D.C.  Bringing along such decidedly winter
accessories had seemed, to her practical mind, like overkill.

Thank God for pockets.

Mulder drove silently on, unaware of her dilemma, seemingly lost in
thought.  Two miles from the roadblock, he cut the headlights, and
they slowed to a crawl, navigating by moonlight.

A half a mile from the roadblock, he eased the rental car onto the
shoulder and let it crunch through the weeds in the dark.  "If we circle
around to the left, I think the woods will give us enough cover to use
a flashlight for awhile, at least."

She nodded her assent and they slipped out of the car into the frosty
night.  He slung the small backpack with their supplies over his
shoulders and they melted into the cover of the trees.

Mulder clicked the flashlight off when they were deep enough into
the woods for Scully to have lost sight of the road.  They stood silently
side by side, waiting for their eyes to adjust to the light.  Or lack thereof.
Even standing as closely as they were, all she could initially make out
of her companion was the ghostly oval of his face.  Searching for a way
to calm her nerves, she listened to Mulder's steady, even breathing.  
That simple sound, unnaturally loud in the silent forest, soothed her.  
She smiled softly to herself at that realization.  Then, her smile still
curving her lips, she felt her partner's fingertips brush the sleeve of her
jacket.  "Ready?"

"I wish we had some of those night-vision goggles," she admitted
ruefully.

"I bet those guys in the commando outfits have some.  Want me to find
one of them and steal his shit?"

"Just keep track of where we are, okay?"

"Right, boss."

They eased their way down the wooded slope toward the town as
quietly as they could.  She heard Mulder grunt softly as he tripped over
something on the forest floor, then heard a branch crack under her foot.  
This wasn't such a great idea, she thought.  If anyone is on perimeter
watch, we're as good as caught.  It was impossible to walk quietly in
the dark forest.

But no one stopped them as they approached the outskirts of town.  A
few more minutes of careful walking took them to the edge of a
backyard.  A gleam of white on the ground caught Scully's eye and
she began to bend down to see what it was only to recoil immediately
when a fetid odor reached her.

"What is that?"

"Something dead, from the smell of it," she whispered.  She nudged
the object carefully with the toe of her small hiking boot.  "A dead rat,
I think."  It shone dully in the moonlight.  "A white one."  A slight
frown crossed her face.

I wonder what the hell that's doing out here, she thought.

And then thought no more.  Because Mulder slipped his hand around
her upper arm, and leaning in so that his breath kissed her ear, he
whispered, "This way."  Treading cautiously across the treacherous,
leaf-covered ground, she followed her partner around the perimeter of
the property.

At first, she thought that Mulder was merely trekking blindly through
the brush, keeping just inside the tree line for cover, but having no
particular destination in mind.  Then, as she trailed slowly in his wake,
she saw what had captured his attention.  On the horizon, radiating
through the pines like a biblical star was a pale wash of light; high and
diffuse as if from an oversized street lamp.  

Stretching out her hand, Scully caught hold of his jacket.  Mulder
immediately pulled up and, turning, bent his head once more to hers.  
"What do you think that is?" she hissed, gesturing towards the glow.

"I don't know," he whispered in reply.  "Let's find out."  Together, they
set off towards the light.  

The forest thinned as they drew closer to the center of town.  Gradually,
the trees that had cloaked their approach were giving way to bushes
and tall, yellowed grasses.  Fearing that eventually the mysterious light
would bleed into the surrounding forest and betray their location, Scully
scanned the area for a vantage point that would allow them to see but
not be seen.

When a misshapen oak came into view, she was struck by
inspiration.

Tugging on Mulder's arm to gain his attention, she pointed to the
tree.  Still clinging to some of its resplendent fall color, it stood
outside the circle of light.  Twisted as if with a case of acute arthritis,
its bottom-most branches dipped low to the ground.  If the boughs
were sturdy enough, it would make an ideal lookout tower,
Scully thought.

Taking the lead, she walked quietly to the foot of the oak, her
partner on her heels.  "Give me a leg up," she murmured softly.
Understanding her intention, Mulder complied, knitting his fingers
together into a footrest.  Bracing her hands against his shoulders,
Scully stepped into his hand.  Smoothly, he lifted her towards her
target.  Grabbing hold of the branch overhead, she hoisted herself
up onto it.

Bark scraped her palms, burrowed beneath her fingernails.  Wincing
slightly, she swung her leg over the limb and, straddling it, pushed
herself into a sitting position.  Peering down at her partner, she gave
a little wave.  Don't look now, Mulder, she told him silently, but it
appears all those hours spent working my upper body have paid off.  
The notion brought her no small measure of satisfaction.  Shedding
his gloves and shoving them in his pockets, he smiled back.  

Her satisfaction was short-lived, however.  Because once he was
certain she was solidly ensconced on her perch, Mulder sprang for
the bough himself.  Moving with an easy, fluid strength, he first latched
on, then effortlessly swung his legs up and around the limb.  In no more
than a matter of seconds, he was seated opposite her.  Show-off, she
mouthed with an arch of her brow.  His mouth pulled up in a lopsided
smile, and he shrugged sheepishly.

Then, from the edge of town, engines roared.  It sounded like a fleet of
automobiles approaching.  One after another they rolled in, rocks and
gravel crunching beneath their tires.  Getting his feet beneath him with
the care and grace of a tightrope walker, Mulder stood, using the branch
above him for balance.  Turning, he climbed to the limb above theirs;
and finally, to the one above that.

Scully scrambled skyward after him, eventually taking the hand Mulder
extended to her, and settling beside him.  From this new, higher perch
they had a superb view of what she guessed the locals must once have
called Main Street.

But no longer.

Because if the scene before them was any indication, Gateway, Colorado
no longer had any residents.

"Oh my God, Scully," Mulder murmured breathlessly, his tone as
horrified as it was awed.

Scully not only understood, but sympathized.  

Beneath a harsh white spotlight, a platoon of haz-mat suited drones
were carting away what looked to be bodies.  Lots and lots of bodies,
zippered up tight in shiny black bags.  

"Mulder, what's going on here?" she whispered, her hand resting lightly
on his shoulder, her cheek nearly brushing his.  

"I don't know," he mumbled with distraction.  "I just don't know."

Apparently unaware of their audience, the clean-up crew continued.
They moved precisely, as a team, their fluidity suggesting the group
had worked in this capacity before.  Scully found herself praying that
their seamless efforts had been honed by drills, and not actual practice.
The squads went from building to building, exiting quickly; inevitably
bearing yet another bag on a stretcher.  Once outside, they would load
their cargo onto one of several large transport vehicles.  With the
distance, it was hard to be sure, but they appeared to be Army regulation
Hum-Vees.

"Military?" she queried softly, her brow furrowed.

"Maybe," he replied.  "There's not a uniform in sight.  But still . . .
that sure as hell isn't the CDC down there."

She shrugged thoughtfully.  "Well, we don't know that.  I mean . . .
the CDC may be involved.  Judging by the way those guys are dressed,
they must believe that there's *some* sort of contagion involved."

He turned to look at her in the dim light.  "Yeah, but what?  What kills
that quickly?  So quickly that no one other than Franklin was able to get
word to the outside world?  If it was simply some new, killer strain of
virus, this decade's Legionnaire's Disease, we would have heard.  We
would have been made aware.  But there's been nothing.  No news
reports, no warnings."

She shook her head, at a loss.  

"There's a cover-up going on here, Scully.  One of virtually catastrophic
proportions.  Something unnatural killed those people.  I'm sure of it.
And someone is trying to make just as sure that no one else finds out
about it."

She took a deep breath, wishing she could formulate some sort of
argument to dissuade him; but instead, coming up empty.  "So what do
you want to do?"

The corner of his mouth raised.  "Well, I suppose walking in and
flashing our badges is out of the question."

She smiled in spite of herself.  "I don't think we're dressed for it."

"So, that leaves us with two options:  one, go back to the car and use
our cell phones to call for back-up."

She nodded.

"Two, go back to the car, and play funeral procession."

"Play what?"

"Follow them."

"Mulder," she murmured, drawing out his name, almost as if she were
tasting it on her tongue, "you and I alone are not enough to go up
against that entire squadron.  It would be suicide."

"Only if we get caught," he said softly, anticipation gleaming in his
eyes.

She shook her head.  Judging by the number of men in the area and
the ferocity with which they were guarding their secrecy, capture was
an all too deadly threat.  "In which case, we'd be no good to anyone."

With that, she stepped away, and pinning him with her gaze,
whispered, "Come on.  Let's get out of here.  We can talk about it
in the car."

He hesitated for just an instant, and in that moment, Scully feared he
might insist on being left behind to continue their surveillance.  But
finally, he nodded slowly, the gesture screaming reluctance.

She smiled her thanks.  And saying nothing more, they began
making their way cautiously down the tree.  It was tricky going.  
Darkness draped the branches, making it difficult for them to judge
where best to grab hold or brace their feet.  It took them easily twice
as long to descend as it had to climb.  At last, they found themselves
both sitting on the bough they had started from.  Scully began swinging
her leg over the side in preparation for dropping to the forest floor
below.  But, Mulder halted her progress by placing his hand on her
shoulder.  "Let me go first.  I'll spot your jump."

Smiling at his unexpected chivalry, she nodded.  He smiled in reply,
and bending, hooked himself around the branch to hang from his hands.
A second later, he let go and landed without incident, although Scully
winced at the sound of twigs crunching loudly under his feet.  Looking
up, he gestured for her to take the plunge.  Following his example as best
she could, she leaned over and slid her lower body off the limb.  Dangling
from the bough, she was just ready to release, when she felt Mulder's hands
close around her hips.  She relinquished her grip and let him guide her
gently down.  Their bodies slid, one over the other, as he lowered her.  
The friction was minimal.  Slight, really.  But she could have sworn sparks
flew.

After they were both on solid ground once more, she looked up at
her partner.  They stood closely together, facing each other.

"Well, that wasn't so bad," she quietly commented, wondering why
the hell she felt the need to say something, but needing to just the
same.

Seemingly bemused, Mulder shook his head.

"Let's go," she whispered as she turned to head back the way they
had come.

"Just a minute," he said, grabbing hold of her sleeve.  She stopped in
her tracks and felt his fingers comb gently through her hair.  Lost in
the shadows, it was impossible to see his face.  Scully stood dumbstruck.  
What did he think he was doing? she wondered.  It wasn't that she
minded his touch.  She liked it.  Could, in fact, learn to crave it.  But
this was hardly the time or the place. . . . .

"Leaf," he murmured, effectively ending her silent tirade.

"What?"

"You had a leaf in your hair," he explained, twirling the offending bit
of plant life before her eyes.

A leaf.

"Oh," she mumbled, suddenly feeling beyond foolish.

"Come on," he whispered, his fingers closing around her forearm, utterly
unaware that she currently wanted to shoot one or the both of them.

Though somehow she suspected she was the one more deserving of it.

"Okay," she replied just as quietly, determined to forget all about things
like Mulder's hands and Mulder's body, and concentrate on the case at
hand.  

The exceedingly dangerous case at hand.

When all at once, it got much easier to focus.

Because a steely voice behind them ordered, "Put your hands up."

They halted in unison, their arms at their sides.

"I said, 'put your hands up.'  Now."

Stealing a glance at each other, they complied.

"Turn around.  Slowly."

Once more doing as they were told, they pivoted.  And discovered they
were face-to-face with three men, all garbed much as they were--dark
clothes, boots, parkas.  All holding semi-automatic rifles.

"You don't belong here," said the man standing center.  She couldn't
see him clearly.  From where she stood, shadows bathed his features.  
But there was something familiar about him.  Judging by his voice and
carriage, she guessed him to be Mulder's age, perhaps a year or two
older.  All evidence pointed to him being the man in charge.

"Would you believe we got lost?" Mulder ventured dryly.

"I believe you need to," the man countered.  "Get lost, that is."

He took a step closer.  As he drew near, Scully could just make out the
menace shining in his eyes.  The rest of his face remained hidden to her
gaze.

Slowly, the man looked them over, then smiled.  His expression was
anything but kind.  "And my friends and I are going to help you do just
that."

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

"Antidote" (4/18)
by Rachel Howard
& Karen Rasch

Snowrider5@aol.com
Krasch@earthlink.net

***********************************************

October 23
Gateway, Colorado

The men who had seized them worked just like the automatons toting
body-bags through Gateway's streets, Mulder thought.  Cold and precise,
and utterly ruthless.  

He got a look at the man behind him when the gunman turned him
around and frisked him rapidly, relieving him of his Sig Sauer and his
ID.  Visibility wasn't a problem.  Not when one of the other two men
had popped on an industrial strength flashlight the moment the guy
seemingly in charge had begun patting the agent down.  Instantly, the
small clearing had glowed as if lit by a particularly roaring bonfire.  
And in that light, Mulder made a positive ID.  The trio's leader was
their friend from the roadblock.  Same face, same sneer.

Same shitty attitude, Mulder silently fumed as their captor next turned
his attention to the lone woman in the group.  This bozo really needs
to take some classes on gender issues in the workplace, he thought
darkly, icy fury creeping up his chest as he watched the object of his
tirade advance on Scully.  Because Mulder detected a marked shift in
the big man's attitude.  Separating the male fibbie from his weapon
had been standard operating procedure, a necessary task, nothing more.  
But it appeared to Mulder as if Goon #1 was looking forward to
repeating the process on Scully; the heated anticipation he saw in the
man's gaze was enough to chill his blood.

Scully must have recognized in the man the same malicious intent.  
She never took her eyes off the guy.  Still, although her gaze narrowed
slightly, she didn't flinch when he spun her so that she stood in profile
to her partner, then began sliding his hands along her sides with unctuous
care.  You perverted son of a bitch, Mulder wordlessly railed, his eyes
shuttered as he watched the man stroke slowly along Scully's back,
pulling her gun from the holster resting just above her hip and handing
it off to one of his accomplices.  Yet, although the words were screaming
inside his head, he said nothing; instead he stood stoically by as those
treacherous hands then made their way around to the front of Scully's
slender form, intimately tracing the contours of her slender waist.  
Again, the gorilla took his time, allowing the woman under his control
to think about what was to come.  To worry about it.  Fear it.

What the man didn't understand, however, was that his delicate-looking
prisoner didn't scare all that easily.  So, despite his best efforts to
intimidate her, to reduce her to tears or trembling, she simply endured,
her face impassive as at last he pawed at her chest with all the subtlety
of a hormone-riddled adolescent.

Unfortunately, Mulder wasn't holding up nearly as well.  He clung
to his composure for as long as he could, breathing in harsh, short
pants, his teeth grinding viciously against each other.  Keep it cool,
he told himself over and over again, knowing that any outbursts on his
part would most likely accomplish nothing other than to embarrass
Scully.  But when that sick bastard had the fucking audacity to glide
his hands up the inside of her thighs, to cup one meaty palm intimately
around the juncture of her spread legs . . . .

Mulder lost it.  Letting out a low, ugly growl, he lunged towards the
pair before him.

And in the space of a breath, he found himself retching on the ground,
clutching his stomach.  The fist had come from the man holding him,
not the guy groping Scully.  But in the end, it didn't matter who had
delivered the blow; Mulder had accomplished what he had set out to
do.  The guy who had slugged him warned in a bored voice, "Let's go,
Carl."

And, just like that, Scully's ordeal ended.

So despite the fact that Mulder's middle burned as if someone had
driven a red hot poker through it, he was feeling pretty smug.  After
all, a single sucker punch wasn't so much to suffer.  Not for what he
had gained.  

He reconsidered that optimistic viewpoint when the men dragged him
to his feet and he saw Scully's stricken expression.  He mouthed "I'm
okay" at her as their hands were duct-taped behind their backs.  She
looked relieved.

As soon as the agents were bound, the man holding Mulder up shoved
him forward.  He stumbled, then righted himself quickly, anticipating
another blow if he couldn't walk.  Scully fell wordlessly into step beside
him; Mulder saw that the man who had frisked her trailed behind them
both.  

He tried to get a look at the town as they were marched past it, through
the thick scrub that marked the edge of the forest.  When his sightseeing
won him a hard jab in the side from the butt of someone's gun, he kept
his head down, able only to peer out furtively from time to time.

Gateway looked cold, awash with white light.  The few houses he
caught glimpses of were dark and still.  Mulder saw loose boards
curling up like jagged teeth on the back porch of a small home trimmed
in garish blue paint and thought, crazily, 'That's dangerous.  Someone
could trip.'

He spied a number of body bags laid out in neat rows, like playing
cards on a table.  He tried to look beyond the corpses, to the trucks and
equipment that had taken up residence on the street, but all he could
see were the shrouds of the dead.  Some -- a few -- were quite small.

They stopped beyond the edge of town.  Mulder estimated that they
weren't far from where they had parked their rental car at the side of
the road.  However, there was no sign of their blue sedan.  Instead, a
short convoy of military vehicles was lined up along the shoulder.  A
group of figures in haz-mat suits turned their bubbled heads towards
him, then incuriously away.  

He chanced a look at Scully.  Her face reflected little of the horror they
had seen on the short walk past the town, but her expression changed
quickly as she watched something happening behind him.  He turned
his head in time to see Carl's burly companion preparing a syringe.  He
struggled until he felt the sharp sting of the needle and then everything
faded into whirling gray, then blackness.

When he woke up, it was dark, and his arms ached terribly.

The steady, grinding noise beneath his ear slowly resolved itself into the
sound of an engine.  As his head cleared slowly, he took an inventory of
his tactile discoveries.  Rough carpeting under his cheek.  A dusty, filthy
taste in his mouth, like he had slept off a bad drinking binge.

The sweet smell of Scully's hair, the heat from her body.

Wiggling his hands, he found out why they hurt so badly; they were
still duct-taped behind his back.  His unconscious partner lay only inches
from him.  Twisting his head slightly, he saw that her wrists were tied
too.  But, by some miracle, her left hand looked to have slipped partially
free of the loop of tape.

Unfortunately, she was still out cold.

He laid perfectly still as he tried to figure out just where the hell their
captors had taken them.  It looked like they were in the back of a truck.  
A wide truck.  But not in the back seat.

No, wait.  Not a truck, a Hum-Vee, he deduced.  Like the ones they had
seen in Gateway.  Over the grumble of the engine, two voices were
discussing the Redskins' defensive line.  Mulder immediately recognized
the voices: Carl and his buddy.  Lovely.

Mulder flexed his toes experimentally and felt something solid.  We're
behind the bucket seats in the back, he realized, dumped in the vehicle's
long, low cargo area.  They had probably been tossed there hours ago,
bodies packed closely together to accommodate whatever supplies their
captors had stashed in the back

He didn't really mind the close quarters.  He and his partner laid cozily
front to back. The top of Scully's head was just beneath his chin.  If he
weren't tied up, half-stoned and aching horribly, he'd be enjoying her
proximity.  

As far as he could tell in his still muddled state, aside from their hands,
they weren't secured in any way.  He could still move his legs.  Geez.  
For an operation that was obviously well funded, the hired help's work
bordered on lackadaisical.  Then, mulling it over, Mulder decided
to give Carl and his cronies the benefit of the doubt.  We weren't
supposed to wake up, he guessed, his hope rising.  And if they think
we're still unconscious, that's a good indication that they're not really
paying attention to what's going on.  

Terrific.

Now if Scully would just come to, they'd be batting a thousand.

But her breath was flowing slowly and evenly and she looked like she
could stay out forever.

He needed to wake her up without alerting the Thug Brothers.  And
his options were somewhat limited, since they were within spitting
distance.

"Hey, turn that up."

Mulder sent a silent thank-you to whatever deity was watching them
as Carl leaned over and turned up the radio.  It wasn't much, but it was
a small break.  Mulder listened as the two men began talking again;
louder this time.  He took a chance and scootched down a few inches so
that his mouth was next to his partner's ear.  He breathed in the clean
scent of her shampoo for just a second before he murmured her name.

"Scully."

Nothing.  Not even a twitch.

A little louder.  "Scully."

Damn it, she wasn't moving and he didn't dare risk more than a loud
whisper, even with the radio playing.

He considered his options.  He was within easy reach of her ear, and its
delicate lobe was incredibly tempting.  He knew she was going to kill
him later, but this was too good an opportunity to pass up.

He stole another look at the oblivious pair in the front seat, then
stretched his neck out far enough to nuzzle Scully's ear.  He gently
tugged her earlobe into his mouth and bit down lightly.

That did it.  She made a soft sighing sound, then he felt her body go
rigid next to his.  He whispered, "Stay quiet and don't move." She
didn't say anything and he was worried that she wasn't fully awake
until he felt her hands move against his stomach.  

He murmured, "Sorry about that, Scully, but my hands are tied --
literally.  Your left hand is loose.  Can you get it free?"

She wiggled her hands again, paused, then moved them again.  He
kept his eyes nearly shut, but he could feel her working at the tape.

Eventually, these guys have to stop, Mulder thought.  To take a piss, if
nothing else.  If we can surprise them while they're getting out of the
truck, we've got a chance.  Not much of a chance, but it's better than
nothing.

Finally, he felt Scully shift against him, and her palms pressed flat into
his stomach.

"Good job," he whispered.  "I can't get my hands loose, though.  I had
the car keys in my front pocket.  See if you can dig them out and drop
them into my hands, behind my back."

She fumbled at the front of his pants until her fingertips brushed the
edge of his pocket.  At least a dozen sophomoric jokes flitted through
Mulder's mind, but remembering that talking was dangerous, he
squelched them.

Her index finger was inching back up the inside of his pocket, and he
felt the keys scrape the fabric.  Not bad, not bad at all.  But then, Scully
had wonderfully dexterous hands, doctor's hands.  

Now she was curving the hand with the keys over his hip, back toward
his hands.

"Gotcha," he murmured as the keys, warm from his body heat, dropped
noiselessly into his joined palms.

Turning the small objects around so that the serrated side was against
the edge of the tape was excruciating, with his nearly immobilized,
stiffened muscles screaming at him every millimeter of the way.  He
supposed he could have asked Scully to simply roll over and free his
hands from the tape herself.  But, he feared that too much movement
on the part of he and his partner would alert their captors.  No.  Despite
the discomfort, this was the tack to take.

If he only had enough time and mobility to make the effort successful.

To take his mind off the pain, he mapped out a strategy as he sawed.  
Carl was farther from him, but it would be easier to surprise the driver,
who would be distracted by the business of shutting off the engine.  So,
Scully could go for the man behind the wheel while he went after the
guy riding shotgun.  Mulder was almost looking forward to it.

He hadn't forgotten the way the bastard had groped Scully back in
Gateway.

He felt a slight give in the wad of duct tape, but his hands were
cramping.  Shit.  He stopped and bent his mouth to Scully's ear again.  
He whispered his plan to her, and felt her hands press into him again
in assent.

By the time the frayed edge of the tape loop parted, he had become
seriously worried about his chances of overcoming his lean yet strong-
looking nemesis.  His hands were nearly numb.  Oh well.  Work with
what you've got, Mulder.  He sized up the distance to Carl's neck.  
Okay, then.  If he could get an arm around the man's neck, at the
elbow, it wouldn't matter that his grip was useless.

"Gotta take a leak."

Yeah, you do.  Go for it, Mulder silently thought.  Wait 'till you see
what I've got for you, fucker.

"You want me to drive?"

"Nah.  We need to give them another shot, though."

Mulder shut his eyes, anticipating Carl's move a split second before it
came.  The seats creaked as the man turned around and looked at the
two prone agents, then turned back.  "They're still out.  Just as well.  I
gotta take a leak, too."

Nothing more was said, and Mulder prayed that Scully was ready.  It
was too quiet without the two men talking for him to risk another
whisper.

The Hum-Vee ground to a halt, and Scully, keeping low, had centered
herself precisely between the two bucket seats.  Without warning, she
moved first.

Silently, she sprang to her left and launched herself towards the
driver, drilling her elbow into the base of the his neck.  The element of
surprise now lost, Mulder threw himself over the rear seat, stretching
out his long frame, and locking his arm around Carl's throat.  Though
his attack was met with a satisfying gasp turned groan, Carl wasn't
giving up without a fight.  Battling for oxygen, the man's arms whipped
up and back, fingers digging into Mulder's scalp seconds later.  Wincing
with pain, the agent hung on grimly, like an angry terrier stubbornly
refusing to release its hold on a larger dog.  

Carl's breath whistled through his teeth in agonizing hisses, his chest
lurching as he desperately tried to suck in air.  But still the man managed
to wind one hand back to Mulder's shoulder, where his fingers sank in
again, this time digging for a nerve.  Mulder gritted his teeth and
tightened his grip on his adversary's throat.  Vision blurring with the
effort, Mulder heard a thud, and a male grunt.  Not Carl, though.  The
driver.  Did that sound mean Scully had clobbered the guy?  Or had her
opponent overpowered her?  He couldn't look to his left to check because
Carl chose that moment to wrap his hand around the back of Mulder's
neck.

Through what had to be dumb luck, Carl found the nerve ending he
sought and a sharp involuntary twitch ran through Mulder's back.  
Dimly, Mulder recognized a small snarl of pain as his own.  But even as
the agent suffered, Carl was weakening.  And just when the raw agony
shooting through Mulder's neck and shoulder threatened to make him
lose his grip, Carl's hand went slack and his head fell forward.

Mulder reached across for the gun resting on the console before he
completely released Carl's neck.  The unconscious gunman slumped
forward as Mulder pulled his arm back and at last turned his attention
to his partner.  

She was extricating herself from underneath the limp figure of the
driver.  Judging from their position, the man must have recovered from
the blow to his neck.  In the midst of their battle, he had apparently
crawled over the back of the seat and gotten on top of Scully.  But she
had somehow disabled him.

"Scully?"

She pushed her hair away from her face, and he saw that she was
grinning.   "Oldest trick in the book.  But it's a good one."

"Ooh, Scully, did you grab his nuts?"

"Yup.  He'll be singing soprano for a while.  A blow to the head finished
him off."  Crawling, she opened the back door and shoved the man
unceremoniously to the cold, hard ground.   Mulder opened the door next
to Carl and imitated her.  The man groaned but didn't move.

Standing over the unconscious body, he restrained a ridiculous urge to
high-five Scully.

"Looks like we got ourselves a Hum-Vee, Scully," Mulder said, grinning
evilly as he tried to catch his breath.

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

"Antidote" (5/18)
by Rachel Howard
& Karen Rasch

Snowrider5@aol.com
Krasch@earthlink.net

Do you think we'll get this done by 1998?  <Karen>
Not if you keep writing at your current pace, Rasch.  <Rachel>

**********************************************************

October 24
Somewhere West

Moving stiffly, Scully climbed out of the vehicle and frowned, looking
it over.  "Wow.  I think this is a genuine Army model."

"So, do we do the chivalrous thing and take them back with us, or do we
just leave them here?"

Scully considered this briefly. "Do you think they'll live?"

"Yeah, probably.  They can walk out of here - it'll take them awhile to
hike out to a road, but they should be okay.  I think.  Except for maybe
some frostbite if it gets any colder."  He glanced at his partner and saw
that she was giving him her special, patented Look.  "Scully, I'm sorry,
but you know as well as I do that these guys didn't drag our unconscious
bodies all the way out here just to give us a stern lecture."  She grimaced.  
"I just can't get too worked up about their welfare right now.  They were
planning on killing us.  I'm fairly comfortable with the idea of letting
them take their chances with Mother Nature."

Scully shrugged, then turned resolutely back toward the Hum-Vee.
"Okay, then.  Leave them.  Let's get out of here."

Nodding, he crossed around and settled into the front seat.  Flipping on
the interior lights, he examined the gears.  "Hey, Scully?  This would be
a good time to dazzle me with your navigation skills.  I see a compass,
but no map."

"Really?  So how did these guys know where they were going?"

"I have no idea, but it'd be nice if we had at least a general clue which
direction we're headed in."  He looked at his watch.  "Twelve-thirty.  I'd  
like to say we were only out of it for a few hours, but I don't think so, do
you?"

She shook her head.  "No.  Judging by how hungry I am, I think we were
unconscious for the rest of the night, then all day, and into the next night.
And I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I have no idea where we are.  My
navigation skills are a lot more useful when I haven't been out cold for
the entire drive."

"So pick a compass point."

"How about east?  If they'd driven west from Gateway, we'd be in
eastern Utah by now - which is possible, since it's pretty sparsely
populated."

"There's a river in the way.  But, yeah, it's a good theory.  They could
have taken I-70 part of the way."

She nodded, squirming slightly in the seat.

"Scully?  Got ants in your pants?"

She shot him a disgusted look before admitting with a touch of chagrin,
"Bathroom.  But would you mind driving a ways first?  I don't really feel
like answering nature's call with our two friends out there."

He grinned at her wry tone.  "Now that you mention it, I probably could
use the facilities myself."

Scully smiled in spite of herself.  "Yeah, well . . . if it's been as long as
we think it's been, I can't say that I'm surprised.  You get us going.  I'll
go look in the back and see if they've got any food."

Keeping a careful eye on the compass, Mulder put the heavy vehicle in
gear, and they trundled off slowly into the darkness.  

"Wait!"

He hit the brake hard, throwing his partner roughly against the back of
his seat.

"What?  What's wrong?" he queried, peeking over his shoulder at her.

Rather than immediately answering, she crossed away from him and
opened the rear door.  Bending at the waist, she retrieved a couple of
bottles of water and heaved them at the prone figures of their former
captors.  She then slammed the door shut once more, saying sheepishly,
"You can live without food for days, but they'll need some water."  He
smiled at her softhearted nature but didn't reply - a charitable gesture,
since he knew how easy it would be to tease her about her humanitarian
impulse.  He started driving again as she went back to rummaging in
the back.

After a while, Scully snaked around the gearshift and eased herself
carefully into the passenger side.

"Anything?"

"Lots of drugs.  Ibuprofen and Percocet and some stuff I don't recognize,
plus more sedatives and syringes. They had enough to keep us under for
another couple of days.  Also, a bunch of antibiotics and some first-aid
stuff.  They were pretty well prepared.  Plus, I found these."  She tore
open a box of crackers and dumped a handful into his lap.

"Wow."  With this bounty before him, Mulder suddenly realized that he
was starving.  Scully uncapped a can of Cheez Whiz and thoughtfully
doused a cracker for him, popping one into her own mouth.  For a time,
they chewed happily in silence while the Hum-Vee rumbled ponderously
over the rough, rocky terrain.  Mulder was just about to ask Scully to
pass him one of the bottles of water when he caught her flipping the top
off the bottle of ibuprofen and shaking a couple into her palm. "Scully?"

She gave a resigned sigh.  "I think I pulled a muscle when that guy
landed on me.  I kicked him in the gut and something didn't bend the
way it should have.  No biggie, Mulder."  Her steely gaze dared him to
make something of it.

He declined.  "Is that all the food there is?"

"Some apples, more bottles of water, chocolate bars, beef jerky, Cokes,
plus a few cans of baked beans, which should come in handy if we're
farther from civilization than we think we are.  A few other things."

"Scully, we have to go back to Gateway."

She took another sip of her water before answering him.  "I know."

They ate for a while, the silence interrupted only by the sounds of the
engine growling and tires churning.  In the small pool of light cast by
their headlights, Mulder could see faint, wide tire tracks.  Tire tracks
had to come *from* somewhere, he reasoned.  They were doing all
right so far.

"There're clothes back there, too," Scully said quietly.  "Plaid jackets
and daypacks.  Two sets.  I checked the packs - there's ID in there for
a Tom and Sally Parker.  I think they were going to make it look like
we'd gone hiking and gotten lost."

He winced.  "They knew we were here before they caught us, then.  
They wouldn't have had the IDs otherwise.  So the only question at
this point is, was Skinner calling to warn us, or. . . "

". . . Don't, Mulder," she broke in.  "Just don't.  He wouldn't have called
if he'd given our location to them himself."  He heard the worry in her
voice, but he couldn't stop himself.

"Maybe he didn't have a choice, Scully."

She didn't answer.

After a minute, he asked, "Any camping gear back there?"

"A couple of blankets.  Nothing else that I could see.  Why?"

"We need to get back into town and figure out what's going on without
anyone catching us.  If they think these guys already killed us and
dumped our bodies, they won't be looking for us for awhile.  But we
need enough time to investigate what's wrong in Gateway.  Obviously,
the motel is out - hell, with as remote as this place is I wouldn't be
surprised if Carl's buddies were staying there themselves.  So, I was
thinking we could camp near the town and try sneaking in again at
night."

"Well, I didn't see a tent back there.  But we can always sleep in the
back - there's enough room, I think."

At that, the corner of Mulder's mouth lifted.  Cuddling under a blanket
with Scully in the back of a truck.  Suddenly, things were looking up.

"Did we finish those crackers?" he asked, trying to push all those
terribly inappropriate thoughts to the outermost reaches of his
psyche.  Down, boy.

"Sorry."

"How 'bout the Cheeze Whiz?"

"No, but what are you going to put it on?"

"Just hand it over."

Scully lifted a skeptical brow, but did as he asked.

Keeping one hand on the steering wheel, he tipped his head back,
aimed for his mouth and pressed the little plastic button.

Stressful as the past couple of days had been, all his partner could do
was laugh.

        *    *    *    *    *

After two hours of driving at ten miles an hour in total darkness,
Mulder's eyes were crossing.  He looked over at the woman dozing
beside him and decided that enough was enough.  He coasted to a stop
and switched off the ignition.  Without the dashboard lights, the night
seemed nearly suffocating.  Only thin slivers of starlight found their
way in through the windows.

"Hey, Scully?  Time to check into Motel Hum-Vee."

She lifted her head and yawned.  "Hmm."

Smiling at the sleepy sound, he climbed carefully into the back, feeling
his way to the carpeted floor, and was totally unprepared when, before
he could get settled, Scully fell heavily on top of him.  "Scully, I didn't
know you cared," he began, then stopped when he heard her soft gasp.   
"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

Without another word, he fumbled for the ibuprofen tablets in the front
seat and, stretching out his hand like a blind man, passed them to her.  
She dry-swallowed two before he had finished twisting the cap off a
bottle of water.

Peering through the inky void separating them, he watched her tug
the blankets out from behind the seats.  "Anything I can do?" he asked,
hating the way the question sounded.

She surprised him, replying wryly as she handed him his portion of the
bedding, "Yeah.  Draw me a hot bath."

He grinned back in the darkness, settling down next to her under his
own blanket.  Disappointingly, there was enough room for both of them
to lie down without actually touching, although his legs were too long
to stretch out comfortably in the Hum-Vee's cramped interior.  He
astounded himself by falling asleep almost immediately.

However, at one point in the night, he woke up with a jolt.

A GPS.

Shit.

That's what Carl and the other guy had been using.

He grimaced.  With the exertion of the fight and the drugs in their
systems, neither he nor Scully had been thinking quite clearly enough.  
If they had, one of them would have undoubtedly come up sooner with
the answer to the puzzle.

When you're sending a couple of mercenaries out in the woods to
dump a body or two, do you rely on their navigation skills?  No way.  
That's why they hadn't found a map in the Hum-Vee.  He'd stake his life
that the two men had been outfitted with a Army-issue GPS, a Global
Positioning System.  A handy gadget that told them exactly where they
were at any given time.  And, unless it had fallen under a seat during the
struggle, Mulder was willing to bet that one of the two men they had left
behind hours ago still had it.

Lucky them.

Eyes closed, he debated waking Scully up to let her in on his reasoning.
Listening to her slow, steady breathing, he ruled against it.  Morning
was plenty early enough for the bad news.  

And it was bad news, he reminded himself wearily.  He had been hoping
that the tire tracks that he had been carefully following would eventually
lead to a road of some kind, so that he wouldn't have to rely entirely on
the compass and his skimpy knowledge of western geography.  But Carl
and Company wouldn't have needed a road with the GPS.

And the light snow that had begun falling outside the Hum-Vee's
windows would soon obliterate yesterday's tire tracks.

It was a long time before Mulder fell asleep again.

It was the sun streaming directly into her eyes that finally woke Scully
up.  She laid perfectly still at first, eyes shut, trying to remember why
she hadn't pulled the curtains shut before she went to bed last night.  
Then she smelled the musty wool of the blanket underneath her chin,
felt the steady in-and-out of Mulder's breathing, and remembered.

Hum-Vee.

Mulder.

And it was Mulder who was curled snugly against her back, one arm
wrapped around her middle, holding her securely, his body fitted as
closely as possible to hers from the curve behind her knees to the back
of her head.  His breath ruffled her hair.  She was perfectly warm, and
Mulder's other arm, pillowing her head, was divinely comfortable.

Altogether, it felt heavenly.

She considered her options.  One, struggle out of his arms, waking
him up in the process so they could get this show on the road.  Which
would certainly be the appropriate course of action.

Two, lie next to him and surreptitiously enjoy being held by her partner
until he woke up too.

Her conscience nattered dimly at her, but she wasn't completely awake
yet.  So, feeling only a trifle guilty, she ignored it.

Sighing with pleasure, she shut her eyes again and shifted slightly,
trying to avoid the bar of sunlight angled directly into her face, and
unwittingly made a small discovery.

Well, actually, . . . not small at all.

It's a normal physiological response, she reminded herself logically.  
All men get morning erections from time to time.  And Mulder
probably hasn't woken up next to another warm body for a long time.  
Clearly, this is nothing personal.

So why was she feeling an answering warmth spreading through her
own body?

Suddenly option one seemed like a much more viable choice.

Briskly, she plucked Mulder's arm off her midsection and began to sit
up, but with a small cry stopped dead at the white-hot bolt of agony
that seared through her right leg.

Mulder was instantly awake, and battling into a sitting position
himself.  "Scully?"

Stretching it would help, she thought, hitching herself over to the door
on her butt.  She opened the door and carefully swung both legs down
to the uneven ground, shivering with the bite of the cold air that rushed
up to meet her.

"Scully?"

"I'm fine, Mulder," she gritted out.  She took a step forward gingerly,
and almost cried out again at the fresh jolt of pain through the injured
leg.  Ow, ow, ow.  Probably just pulled the hamstring.  Walk it out,
Dana, she admonished herself, carefully hobbling a couple of steps.  
From out of nowhere, Mulder's hand clamped down on her upper arm
and she found herself gazing up into his tight-lipped face.

"I said, let me give you a hand."

She stared at him. "What?"

"What do you mean, 'what'?  You're obviously hurt, and it's got to be
pretty damn bad, judging by the way you're walking.  Or not walking.  
When are we going to get past this, Scully?"

What the hell was he so angry about?  "Get past what?"

"Get past your not being able to admit when you need help.  Get past
your being so unwilling to accept my help that you suffer unnecessarily
and make me feel like an asshole for not doing something for you.
I mean . . . =Look at you=."  He glared angrily at her leg.  "You gonna
tell me what's wrong with you?  *Were* you planning on telling me
that you couldn't walk -- before we get into a situation where we might
have to run?"

She gaped up at him. Mulder wasn't just angry.  He was livid.  He
loomed over her like a storm cloud, bed-head and all, his cheeks pink
with a combination of cold and fury.  Try though she might, Scully
couldn't remember if she had ever before seen him in such a state.  
Then, she recalled a one instance that came close.

When, alone,  she had followed Luther Lee Boggs' directions and found
Liz Hawley's bracelet.

Not sure what to do to diffuse the situation, she said, in a small voice,
"Mulder, I think I pulled a hamstring.  It's probably just stiff.  That's
all.  It's nothing life-threatening, nothing you need to worry about."

"Why not let me decide whether or not I need to worry?"

"I'm *fine*, Mul..."

His fingers clamped down painfully and he bent his head until he was
within an inch of her face.  "*Stop*, Scully.  Just stop saying that.
You're not fine.  In fact, if I never heard those words from you again,
it'll be too soon.  I want to KNOW when you're not fine.  Even if it's
not a big deal, even if you just have a pulled muscle.  I *need* to know."

She still couldn't seem to put together a complete sentence.  "Why?"

At first, he didn't answer her.  Instead, he just looked at her, his hazel
eyes boring into hers.  Finally, something seemed to loosen inside of
him, and he let go of her arm.  "I just do."

And before she could compose a reply, he wheeled away from her.  
Returning to the Hum-Vee, he dug out the ibuprofen and a water bottle
and handed them to her.  She took them without meeting his eyes and
swallowed two more.  She then stretched out the right leg cautiously.
This time, the pain was less intense.

Carefully, she walked back and forth, elasticity slowly returning to the
injured muscle.  Mulder was spreading one of the blankets on the
ground, which was lightly dusted with snow.  He dumped an armful of
food in the center of the blanket and went back to the Hum-Vee to grab
two Cokes.

"Breakfast?"  He asked as he drew next to her once more.  She tried
to catch his eyes, but he wouldn't let her.  Instead, he took a seat on
the blanket and ripped open a package of beef jerky.

Turning to him, she knelt painfully beside him, putting a hand on his
shoulder.  "I'm sorry, Mulder."

At last he looked up.  Covering her hand with his own, he squeezed it
briefly.  "I got carried away."

Normally, apologies such as these cleared the air between them.  But
this time a current of tension lingered.  She wasn't clear on exactly
what was going on in his head, but Mulder was obviously still upset.  
"I'll try, okay?" she said, hoping her offer might do the trick.

After a moment, he nodded.  "Jerky?"

Hmm.  Hard to tell.  His reply could be interpreted as a peace offering.
Or he might have simply wanted to change the subject.

Deciding to follow his lead regardless, she let the matter drop.  
Wrinkling her nose at the greasy strips of dried beef, she reached for a
bag of salted peanuts instead.

While he chewed on the jerky and Scully nibbled away at the peanuts,
Mulder told her his theory about the GPS.  She listened thoughtfully,
then shrugged.  "So they're not lost in the woods."

"Apparently not."

"Then I want our water back."

Mulder chuckled, though the effort was labored at best.  The men
would make it back to Gateway, he thought, but not until after he and
Scully did, thanks to the Hum-Vee.  Whatever investigating they wanted
to do would have to be done quickly, before Carl and his pal raised the
alarm.

"Maybe we should finish this in the car," he said.  Scully agreed.

They had been on the move again for almost an hour when Scully asked,
"How do we know we're not in Arizona, or New Mexico, or New Jersey,
for that matter?"  She was frowning.  "You know, we've both been
assuming that we were transported from Gateway in this vehicle.  But
we were out for such a long time, we could be almost anywhere.  They
could have flown us out in a helicopter, or even a small plane if they
went all the way to an airport."

He squinted at the view through the windshield.  A jagged line of peaks
was faintly visible in the distance.

"I don't think so, Scully.  The terrain looks a lot like it did when we
were driving down from Grand Junction to Gateway.   See those buttes?"
He gestured at the horizon.  

It was pretty, he thought as he looked out over the landscape, the
realization taking him by surprise.  Like something straight out of an
Ansel Adams photograph.  Only their view was in color.  He had been
so focused on following their almost invisible path, he hadn't really
noticed before.  The silvery green shrubs jutting up from the arid ground
were still frosted with last night's snow, but sunlight dappled the gently
rolling terrain, highlighting every swell and dip in the land.  Miles
away, a lone tree stood out like a sentinel.  He was steering them along
the contours of a dry wash, and where water had cut away the dirt from
its sides, waves of subtle color flowed through the exposed earth.  The
air was crisp and cold, and it made Mulder's head feel clear and sharp.

"Mesas, not buttes."  Scully delivered herself of this pronouncement
smugly.

"What's the difference?"

"Uh, I don't know.  Why don't you look in the glove box and check the
triple-A guide?"

He threw his head back and laughed.  "Did you take a couple extra
funny pills before we left D.C., Scully?"

Her answering smile left him feeling a little giddy.  Did Scully have
any idea what it did to him when she lit up like that?  That sweet curve
of her perfect mouth, that slightly knowing, teasing lift of her lips that,
when accompanied by a slight flutter of her lashes, left him completely
at her mercy?   She was the only woman he'd ever known who could
turn him on just by smiling at him.

On the other hand, maybe she *did* know, and that was why she hardly
ever did it.  "You should do that more often."

"Do what?" she queried as she turned to look at her, that killer smile
still clinging to her lips.

Think, Mulder.  You need to think.

And speak.

"Ah, . . . never mind.  Um . . anyway . . . I think we're still in the same
region.  Look at those."  He pointed at the mountain range in the
distance, her eyes followed his finger.  "Maybe Utah, maybe Colorado.  
But unless those guys made much better time than we've been making,
we're probably not more than one state away.  If they'd gone east, we'd
have gone through Colorado, and since the mountains are in *front*
of us, not behind, that kind of rules that theory out.  No, I think we're
somewhere on the western side of the Rockies."

"I guess I really did sleep through the whole car ride down to Gateway."  
She gave him a sidelong glance, and admitted, "The flight shook me
up a little.  I wasn't feeling so hot."

Startled, he glanced quickly at her.  She was pointedly not looking in his
direction.  Well, what do you know? Mulder mused with delight.  Scully
was admitting to a weakness.  Would wonders never cease?  It appeared
as if that morning's tirade hadn't fallen on deaf ears after all.  Good,
because he'd been kind of worried about it.  Berating the woman when
she had obviously been hurting made him feel like a school yard bully.  
But she couldn't do that to him, or do it to herself.  They only had each
other to depend on out here.  Secrets of any kind were a definite no-no.

He longed to thank her for her honesty, but feared she might misinterpret
the gesture as gloating.  So, he decided to show his appreciation with a
little confession of his own.  Taking a deep breath, he said, "I know.  I
know every once and awhile you have a hard time with flying.  That's
why I picked Grand Junction.  Telluride's airport is tiny and it can be
pretty terrifying even if you have an iron stomach.  So. . . . ."  He waited.
"You mad?"

After a long pause, she said softly, "No."

Phew.

Then after an even longer pause, he ventured, "It's too cold for bees."

Mulder knew that with anyone else, his comment would have earned
him an odd look and a disparaging remark.  But, as was typically the
case, Scully followed his train of thought as easily as if it were a line
she commuted on daily.  She sat silently for a minute, but he could
almost feel her making the transition back to pathologist mode.  And
as they slipped back into their accustomed roles, the tension left the air
almost immediately.  

Oh sure, we work beautifully together, Mulder reminded himself
sarcastically.  It's only the personal stuff that we can't handle.  Bugs
carrying a deadly virus are a lot less scary than discussing our
communication problems.

Still, they were getting somewhere.  Scully had opened the door for him
on the airsickness issue.  And he had returned the favor by confessing
to his airport scam.  He had a feeling, though, that he was going to pay
for demanding from her such disclosures.  Not that she was harboring
any resentment - Scully never held grudges - but that she'd expect some
kind of concession from him.  One that was instigated by him this time
rather than her.  What that might be, he didn't want to think about.

"What made you think of bees?" she asked at last, returning him to the
conversation at hand.

Other than the need to change the subject? he silently queried before
saying aloud,  "I don't know.  The Consortium.  I can't think of anyone
else who would want us dead, can you?"

She frowned, but he could tell her agile mind wasn't on the bees
comment any longer.  "Mulder, why not dump us someplace closer?  
This is a hell of a long way to go just to get rid of a couple of bodies.  
Why didn't they dump us closer to Gateway?"

A vision of the heavy forest surrounding the town flashed into his mind.  
"I think I know where we are."

"What?"

"I mean it. You're right, Scully, why not dump our corpses near town?
Because they didn't want them found too quickly.  So they went
somewhere that you might logically expect to find dead hikers -- in the
spring.  A national forest."

She was slowly shaking her head, the puzzle pieces not falling into place
quite as quickly for her as they had for him.

"Hiking and hunting," he explained.  "People go out in the fall, get lost,
die of exposure.  It happens every so often.  Then the bodies don't turn
up until spring.  Once the winter rolls in around here, there's not much
of a chance of being found until the snow melts in late spring.  Especially
if no one knows you're out here to begin with."

She nodded thoughtfully.  "So why do you think you know where we
are?"

"There are lots of national forests around here -- obviously, it's the West --
but there's one just the other side of the Colorado - Utah border from
Gateway.  I saw it on the map.  That would be the easiest one for them
to get to.  So they dump us, and no one catches on.  Even if, by chance,
someone *did* find our bodies, the fake IDs would throw them off, at
least for a while.  It was a pretty good plan, but Mike and Ike were too
lazy to shoot us up as often as they shoulda.  Or too stupid.  Anyway,
here we are."

"Which is where?"

"Somewhere southwest of Gateway, in Utah.  On the wrong side of the
Dolores River."  He looked at the mountains and turned slightly so they
were headed roughly northeast.  "With any luck, we're pointed toward
I-70 now."

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *


"Antidote" (6/18)
by Rachel Howard
& Karen Rasch

Snowrider5@aol.com
Krasch@earthlink.net

Rollin', rollin', rollin' . . . .

**********************************************************

October 26
West of Gateway, Colorado

As the day dragged on, Scully's leg, which had earlier stubbornly fought
her best attempts to put weight on it, continued to ache.  First, the pain
centered in the area surrounding her knee.  But as she and Mulder
bounced their way across the Wild, Wild West, the entire limb began to
cramp and burn.  She just couldn't get comfortable, couldn't figure out a
way to properly brace herself against their truck's incessant bucking and
rolling.  With a doctor's detached eye, she reminded herself that the
injury was still far from serious - with ibuprofen, moist heat and
stretching, the leg would be fine.  Unfortunately, she was currently
lacking two of the three healing elements her injury required.

To further darken her mood, they were making almost no time at all.
She understood why Mulder didn't chance urging the HumVee much
above 10 miles an hour.  After all, they were quite literally traveling
cross-country, without signposts or curbs to guide them.  Obstacles
were plentiful; boulders dotted the landscape like freckles on an
Irishman.  Thankfully, they hadn't been plagued with further snow.
What had already fallen was proving treacherous enough.  Almost
as if laughing at their attempts to see what lay beneath, the pristine
white stuff played hide-and-seek with the terrain, its feathery crystals
lifting and drifting on the whim of the wind.

And that wind appeared to be picking up, she noted with thinned lips.
The brush rippled with it; the HumVee shimmied and creaked.  The
sunlight that had awakened her had long since said its farewells,
having been swallowed by a menacing grayscale sky; its clouds piled
one on top of the other, like mounds of dingy mashed potatoes.  A
front was blowing in.  All signs pointed to it.  And this time of year
that usually meant one thing.

Snow.

Or rather, more snow.

Brow creased, she pondered exactly how far they were from civilization.

"How's the gas gauge?" she asked, stealing a look at Mulder.  Without
any discussion of the issue, he had done all the day's driving.  She
wasn't complaining, not with the way her leg was bothering her.

He glanced down at the dashboard.  "Not bad.  We're still above
three quarters of a tank."

She nodded, her frown easing just a bit.  "Good.  Something tells me
the nearest Gas-n-Go is a ways yet."

The corner of his mouth lifted.  "The reservoirs on these things are
huge.  We should be okay.  Besides, our two friends were going
to have to return from wherever the hell it was they planned on
disposing of us.  I can't imagine even they were dumb enough to drive
out here without making sure they had enough gas to get home."

"No.  I guess not."

Reassured, she settled back in her seat, striving once more to find the
angle at which her leg would stop reminding her it was attached to
her torso.  Unfortunately, despite her most imaginative contortions, it
seemed a losing proposition at best.  Still, she made no mention of her
discomfort to Mulder.  The topic wasn't exactly the best conversation
fodder.

So, they drove for a time, saying nothing.  Scully couldn't tell for
certain, but she thought the temperature might have dropped a few
degrees.  The draft seeping in through the floor was more pronounced
than it had been when they had first set out.

Idly, she wondered if the moonsuited men labored still in Gateway's
streets.  And just how much protection their hi-tech garments afforded
them from such bitter cold.

"So how do you think it's transmitted?"

Chuckling mirthlessly, she slowly shook her head.  Who needed
Psychic Friends when you had a partner like Mulder?  Once again,
her thoughts and his were on convergent paths.  And yet, she supposed
she shouldn't be surprised.  Journeying across the windswept, empty
West, it was too easy to envision Gateway's future -- as Colorado's
newest ghost town.

"My guess is it's not airborne," she murmured, her eyes trained
not on her companion, but on the still landscape before them.

Mulder cocked his head, mulling over her statement.  "Why do you say
that?"

"The guys who caught us.  They weren't suited up."

"So?"

"So, we weren't that far from town," she said reasonably, turning to
look at him at last.  "Not far at all, really, from where the bodies were
being collected.  If there was any chance of contagion by inhalation,
I can't imagine Carl and his men would have agreed to be on perimeter
guard without some form of protection.  A gas mask, if nothing else."

"True.  The clean-up crew was fully shielded from any sort of contact
with Gateway and its citizens.  I suppose that points to whatever killed
those people being spread by contact--"

Without warning, the HumVee's right front tire slammed against a
half-buried boulder.  The vehicle lurched, then rolled up and over the
obstacle.  Hand grabbing for the dashboard, her good leg shoved firmly
against the floor mat for balance, Scully was jerked first one way, then
another upon her perch.  When her sore hip slapped against  the console
separating her seat and Mulder's, it was all she could do to hold back a
whimper.  Jaw clenched, she felt the impact shudder all the way down
her already throbbing limb.

"Wow."  Mulder whistled appreciatively, his fingers locked around the
jittery steering wheel.  "That's amazing.  That would have broken
the axle on a regular car, but this thing just rolled right over it."  He
belatedly turned to his partner, who only just managed to hide a grimace.
"You okay?"

"Fine," she assured him softly, wishing she could get out and stretch,
or even just take a moment and massage her damned leg.  But if she
broke down and admitted the need for such indulgences, Mulder would
only blow the whole thing up to way more than it actually was.  Besides,
it wasn't as if they had time to dawdle.  Nightfall was probably only a
few hours away.  They had to take advantage of what little light the
overcast sky provided.  Dark was =dark= out here in the middle of
nowhere.  It would be far too easy to miss a particularly dangerous dip
in the terrain and wind up with a flat tire - and who knew if this thing
had a jack?  She could deal with the pain.  Although perhaps it was time
for a couple more ibuprofen.

"So, if what we've got here =is= a disease transmitted by touch, what
do you suppose it is?" Mulder queried a few moments later, once their
way had grown easier to navigate.

Scully's lips curved with indulgent humor as she dug in her coat
pocket for the ibuprofen she had secreted there hours ago.  Leave it
to Mulder to get right back to the business at hand.  The man's power
of concentration was ferocious when he chose to exercise it.  Good.
If he kept his attention on the case and the tricky driving, she might
actually be able to swallow a few painkillers without his noticing.

Yet even as that thought registered, their morning conversation
replayed inside her head.  He needed to =know=, he had said.

Why?

What difference did it make?  His knowing that her leg was sore wasn't
going to change things.  He couldn't just magically cure her or really
even alter their course.  They had to get back to Gateway.  Time was of
the essence.  And in the greater scheme of things, her pulled hamstring
was of little consequence.

So why make him feel badly?

Guilt assuaged, she successfully palmed two of the tablets, then searched
for a third, taking care to make her efforts as inconspicuous as possible.
What the hell, she cavalierly reasoned, the extra pill only brought the
dosage up to prescription strength.  "Well, it could be a lot of things,"
she said, continuing their conversation as much to cover her actions as
to answer Mulder's question.  "Some highly toxic or mutated form of
bacteria.  Perhaps some sort of organic poison like those found in arrow-
poison frogs.  There are even several forms of pesticides that are lethal
once they're absorbed into the skin."

"So what--are you suggesting that someone crop-dusted poor Gateway?"
he asked with a wry, lop-sided smile.

She shrugged, her fingers straining inside her pocket's slippery interior.
Ah, there we go.  Pill number three.  "I don't know.  One thing is for
sure--whatever killed those people wasn't a natural occurrence."

"You think it was planned?"

She shook her head.  "Not necessarily planned, but engineered."

"Oooh, I love it when you talk semantics," he murmured, leering
playfully.

She smiled in spite of herself.  "What I mean is that what we witnessed
had all the markings of a manmade disaster.  Those men might not
have meant to kill the entire town.  But I'd bet my life that they're
directly responsible for the deaths."

Mulder nodded his head vigorously.  "I agree.  But why would they
target such an insignificant community?  Gateway has no strategic
value.  There was no industry to speak of.  No famous citizens--"

"Maybe that was the point," she said, reaching beside her for her half-
empty bottle of water

He turned to regard her, his hazel eyes shadowed in the muted light.
"What do you mean?"

Scully thought before she spoke, taking advantage of the pause to
swallow down the pills she had popped in her mouth while Mulder
had been focused on the road.  "What if what happened to Gateway
happened specifically =because= it's in many ways so unimportant?
It's like you said back in D.C.--if someone wanted to get away with
something, a town like Gateway isn't a bad place to do it in.  It's
inaccessible.  It has no local media.  No attraction that would normally
draw outsiders.  It's the perfect place to stage a cover-up."

Restlessly, he gnawed on his lower lip, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
"So what are you suggesting, Scully?  Do you think that Gateway was
used as a kind of testing ground, a laboratory of sorts?"

She sat there stunned.  She hadn't actually been postulating anything
specific.  She had only been brainstorming aloud, airing out her
impressions of the case thus far.  What Mulder implied was awful.
Like the Tuskeegee experiments all over again.  And yet, given
the evidence they had, such a hypothesis made a sort of sick sense.
Stomach slightly queasy, she allowed, "I suppose such a thing would
be possible.  With its population being as small and as varied in age
as it was, Gateway's citizens would be a sort of ready-made sampling."

Then, almost angrily, she shook her head; negating the notion before
it could even fully take shape.  "But why, Mulder?  Why ruthlessly
slaughter more than four dozen people?  What could the ones
responsible for such a thing ever hope to learn by doing so?"

"How to kill more efficiently," he answered, his voice hoarse, his
words echoing around the suddenly hushed cabin.

For a moment neither said anything.  Then, Scully whispered
faintly, "God."  And looking out at the endless horizon, she couldn't
help but feel as if the darkness that threatened them with close of
day not only represented night, but evil.

An evil that grew nearer and more dangerous the longer they drove.

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

Continued in Chapter VII