By Parrotfish
tamarw@gateway.net

 
Rating --- NC-17 ( sex, violence, language)
Classification -- X (X file), R (Mulder-Scully romance), A
(Angst)
Summary -- Mulder and Scully go undercover to rescue a
kidnapped child from a white supremacist militia group. Success
could mean the salvation of the duo's partnership -- if it doesn't
destroy them first.
Completed -- 6/1/97
WARNING -- This story is about people with reprehensible
beliefs. Their racist ideology is presented without sympathy but
in great detail. If you can't bear reading about such things, please
turn back now.
 
Author's Note -- When I wrote Caught in the Act, it was meant
as a stand-alone story, part erotica, part musing on society's
double standard when it comes to sex. I got a lot of e-mail asking
for a sequel. Caught in the Act II: No Win Situation was more of
the same. But when I sat down to write the story before you now,
I found that a lot of other interesting questions had come up
along the way. Questions about sexuality and identity; about the
way we see ourselves and our actions as opposed to the way
others see us; about the relationship between our inner lives and
our external lives. Next thing I know, I've got 160k. There's still
some erotica here, but it's coupled with a huge dose of angst and
some very brutal character exploration. I found it fascinating to
write, and I hope you find it interesting to read. While you are
more than welcome to read the first two stories on the archive,
this one can be read on its own.
 
And by the way: I am actually a sad little gnome sitting in a box.
Nothing ever happens in my box, and my life is an endless
misery of isolation. But every so often, through a tiny crack
somewhere just above my head, a little note drops in saying
somebody read my story, and my tragic existence is momentarily
transformed into one of great joy and fulfillment. In the
meantime, I just sit here in this box all alone, waiting...
 
Thank yous: To Chris Carter for creating The X-Files; to David
Duchovny, Gillian Anderson and the entire cast and crew for
bringing this marvelous series to life; and to Fox for putting it on
the air.
 
________________________________
 
 
Caught in the Act III: Sub Rosa 1/8
by Parrotfish (parrotfish@ibm.net)
 
 
"Whatever you do, don't look at the painting."
 
"The painting." Hugh Lester looked at his partner with mingled
disbelief and disdain.
 
"That's right. The painting over the mantle in the dining room.
It's a portrait of his grandfather. Don't look at it."
 
"Is it that bad? Maybe we should call the NEA for backup."
 
"I'm not kidding, Hugh!"
 
"All right! All right! Let's just get this over with."
 
"Okay. You take the back door. If I haven't let you in within two
minutes, break it down. Let's go."
 
Fox Mulder got out of the car and approached the front of the
large, Victorian house as his partner circled around back. He
waited a minute to give Lester time to get into position, then
rapped sharply on the door.
 
"Open up! Federal agents!"
 
He was met with dead silence.
 
Mulder tried the doorknob. It turned easily, and the large wood-
and-glass door swung open. He entered and found himself in a
spacious, wood-paneled foyer.
 
"Sheffield? Sheffield! I know you're here!"
 
Silence.
 
Mulder headed toward the back of the house to let his partner in.
He didn't make it.
 
A large man with a startling mass of white hair and a jagged scar
across his forehead stood in Mulder's way. He'd been standing
there all along, Mulder guessed, waiting.
 
"I know it's you, Sheffield. I know how your cousins wound up
dead."
 
A loud crash came from the direction of the kitchen.
 
"We're here to arrest you and take you out of this house,"
Mulder said.
 
For a moment, he saw fear in the big man's eyes. Just for a
moment. He watched as the fear turned into gleeful hatred.
 
"Lester! Get out of there!" Mulder yelled.
 
Too late. He tried to close his eyes, but he had lost control over
them. And then the blue bolts seared them. Like twin lasers, the
fiery beams leaped from Sheffield's eyes into his, and an
agonizing pain overwhelmed him. Another couple of seconds,
and his brain would simply shut down under the assault.
 
"NO!" He could no longer see, but from somewhere behind the
burning pain, Mulder heard a voice scream the single syllable.
 
And then the pain stopped.
 
He sank to his knees, dazed, blinking back the tears that poured
out in the aftermath of the attack. His vision was still blurred
when he looked up, and at first he thought he was hallucinating.
As his eyes cleared, a surge of relief washed over him.
 
Sheffield lay face down on the floor. Scully had her knee in his
back, and she was snapping on the cuffs.
 
 
"What are you doing here?" Mulder croaked with whatever
voice he could find.
 
"When you told me you thought Sheffield's mother was coming
here and that she was in danger, I knew you'd try something like
this," she said. "I thought you could use some help."
 
"Lester -- go check on him. I'll keep an eye on Sheffield."
Mulder got to his feet.
 
"Where is he?"
 
"Dining room. He must have looked at the painting."
 
Scully dashed out. It only took her a minute to find him.
 
"Mulder! Call an ambulance!"
 
____________________________
 
It was just like old times -- sitting side by side in Assistant
Director Skinner's office, prepared for the worst.
 
"Agent Lester is in intensive care," Skinner was saying. "He's in
a coma, and the doctors can't find any cause. No trauma. No
pathology. Nothing. I suspect you have a theory...?" This last
was addressed directly to Mulder.
 
"I know what happened to him. Not that it's going to make any
difference."
 
Scully gripped the arms of her chair tighter. Mulder was
throwing all the bad attitude he had in Skinner's face, flipping
him a mental bird. He'd always been prone to disrespectful
behavior, but ever since he'd lost her as a partner, he'd been so
flippant that Scully feared for his job.
 
"Agent Mulder," Skinner spat through clenched teeth, "I have a
severely injured agent who may not survive the night. I'm in no
mood for your snide comments. Tell me what happened. NOW!"
 
"What happened? Hugh Lester refused to believe me. If he had,
he'd be here talking to you now."
 
"What do you mean?"
 
Mulder sighed, knowing he was about to sound crazy. Again.
 
"Sheffield has the ability to channel one person's psychic energy
and use it against another person. But he can only do it by means
of an intermediate device -- a painting in his house. I told Lester
not to look at the painting. He ignored my warning. Scully found
him collapsed in front of the painting."
 
"You mean to tell me that Agent Lester is in a coma because
Sheffield sapped his psychic energy in order to attach you?"
 
Mulder merely nodded sullenly.
 
"Agent Scully, what were you doing at Sheffield's house last
night?"
 
"I thought Mulder could use some help," she replied cryptically.
 
"Agent Scully has the ability to balance the outrageousness of
my ideas with the empirical evidence of their validity," Mulder
said.
 
"In other words, she believes you?"
 
"Not always. But she trusts me, just as I trust her." Scully
glanced at her former partner, thinking he had gone too far. He
was flaunting the special nature of their relationship, and that
was a dangerous card to play. Their superiors didn't understand
that, together, she and Mulder made a whole that was so much
greater than its parts. She didn't think there was any point trying
to explain it to them.
 
"I know this will come as a shock, Mulder," Skinner said, "but
I'm convinced that this episode provides compelling evidence
that you cannot be effective on your cases with any partner other
than Agent Scully."
 
Well, what do you know. Skinner was quite a surprising man.
Then again, Scully knew he would never have broken them up if
it hadn't been for the scandal. Hell, Skinner would happily have
turned a blind eye if it would have helped. But when that boob,
D'Amico, had walked in on her and Mulder in bed and had filed
an official report, there hadn't been much Skinner could do about
it.
 
Until now.
 
"I'm temporarily assigning you a new partner, Mulder." The six-
foot-two FBI agent slumped down on his chair and hunched his
shoulders like a defiant teen-ager told he'd have to spend time in
detention.
 
"You'll work with Agent Scully until a permanent arrangement
can be made."
 
Mulder sat up in surprise.
 
"But sir, the Internal Affairs Committee said..."
 
"You leave the IAC to me. Last I heard, they preferred our
agents alive -- almost as much as I do."
 
"Sir," Scully began hesitantly, "is there any chance these events
might be presented in such a manner as to alter the committee's
decision and make the arrangement permanent?"
 
Skinner took a long moment before answering.
 
"I don't know," he said.
 
_______________________________
 
The snick of a door latch woke Mulder from a deep, dreamless
sleep. He bolted upright, startled, but a look around calmed his
instinctive reaction. Scully must be home.
 
He'd gone straight to her place after work. She hadn't arrived yet,
and, having slept little the previous night in the wake of events at
the Sheffield house, he'd thrown himself, exhausted, onto
Scully's bed.
 
He stretched languidly and got up. The room was dark. It must
be late. Scully's last-minute autopsy must have been a
complicated affair.
 
He padded barefoot into the hallway and was about to turn to the
living room when he heard the water go on in the bathroom.
Turning that way instead, he saw Scully kicking off her heels as
she reached for the bubble bath.
 
"S..." The barest whisper of her name escaped when he clamped
down on it. She was reaching back for the zipper of her skirt.
 
Mulder stood in the dim hallway and watched through the open
bathroom door as Scully unzipped herself and slid the skirt off,
folding it neatly and laying it on top of the hamper. Then she
pulled her panty hose down and off, bending over to remove
them, her richly rounded, silk-encased bottom turned toward
him.
 
Oh, God.
 
He and Scully had been intimate long enough now so that he
could generally watch her undress without completely losing it.
But standing there in  the dark, unbeknownst to her, watching
her prepare for a bath, was too much.
 
One small part of his mind told him to step forward, to say
something, to announce his presence. The other ninety percent
was taking instructions from somewhere south of his belt.
 
She sat on the closed toilet, her blouse hanging loosely to her
thighs, and bent one leg to take her foot in her hands, massaging
the sole with her thumbs. He took note of the way she began at
the heel and worked up toward the ball, digging hard at the high
point of the arch along the way. He filed it away for future
reference. He would do it for her just that way sometime.
 
He leaned against the wall as she started on the other foot, her
head bent forward so that a sweep of auburn hair veiled her face.
 
With a final wiggle of her toes, she released her foot and sat up,
her hair falling back to reveal her striking profile: the tiny nose,
the high cheeks, the lush lips. She looks so delicate, he thought.
 
Yeah. Delicate enough to take down a 250 pound  man and cuff
him before he knew what hit him, he mused, smiling.
 
Scully stood, turned toward the mirror and began unbuttoning
her blouse. She seemed to be eyeing herself critically, crinkling
her forehead and baring her teeth. Mulder wondered if she was
considering some imagined flaw that no one but she would
notice.
 
She slid the blouse off and stood before him in white silk bra and
panties. He became aware of the pressure growing in his groin.
She reached back and unhooked the bra, throwing it on top of
the hamper with the rest of her clothes. Still watching herself in
the mirror, she raised her hands to her breasts and cupped them,
pushing them up so that the valley between them became an
invitingly tight crease.
 
I should say something now, Mulder thought guiltily. This is too
good.
 
He said nothing.
 
He watched, riveted, as she lowered her hands and smoothed
them across the tight skin of her belly, hooked her fingers at the
waist of her panties and bent to lower them.
 
Mulder was rock hard inside his suit pants at the sight of her,
nude and unaware of him.
 
Lazily, she raised her arms high and stretched, then turned to the
bathtub and leaned over to shut the water off, offering another
beautiful view of her now naked ass.
 
She turned and sat on the edge of the tub, facing him. He was
sure the game was up. She would see him standing there. He
should say something now.
 
But instead of calling to him, she closed her eyes, moved her legs
apart and began stroking lazy circles against a silky thigh. Oh,
sweet Jesus. The hand was creeping higher, heading into the red
flesh nestled inside the curls between her legs.
 
Slowly, enticingly, her middle finger disappeared.
 
Mulder was quite sure he had never been so rigid without first
experiencing any actual physical contact. Not since he was
sixteen, anyway.
 
Scully drew the finger out slowly and then pushed it back in,
bringing the other hand to her breast to pinch the nipple. When
her finger withdrew completely and she touched her clitoris, he
reached for his own zipper, slowly pulling it down, careful to
make no noise as she began her steady stroking, her head falling
back to bare her long, ivory throat.
 
Mulder stripped silently, never removing his eyes from the
spectacle of her self-indulgence. Her head rolled from side to
side as she increased the pace, dipping a finger inside herself
from time to time to capture the moisture she needed.
 
He held back, watching as droplets of sweat beaded her brow in
the steamy bathroom.
 
She took a nipple firmly between thumb and forefinger, rolling
and pulling at it hard enough to make her bite her lip in exquisite
pain.
 
Still, he held back.
 
Her hand reached a rapid machine gun-fire pace across the
swollen flesh of her clitoris, and a low moan escaped her. A
sheen of sweat covered her chest, and every muscle grew taut
with anticipation.
 
He dug his fingernails hard into the palms of his hands and held
back.
 
The low moan became a guttural yell as her hips bucked, and
she plunged two fingers deep inside.
 
He surged forward, reaching her in three long strides. He
grabbed her hand in an iron grip and pulled it away. As he
dropped to his knees between her legs, her eyes sprang open in
shock.
 
Before she could speak, he had rammed himself in to the root,
his hands holding her hips firmly in place so that she wouldn't
slide back away from him. Her already-orgasmic cunt clenched
hard around him, the sensation wrenching a scream from her.
 
He gasped at the feeling of pulling out while her strong muscles
worked to suck him in, then rammed himself home again. Her
climax, which had begun before he'd even entered her, continued
to build. She was twitching and writhing in his arms so that he
could barely hold her still as he slammed into her again and
again in a ball-tightening frenzy of hot, hard flesh inside hot, wet
flesh.
 
His blood seemed to rush straight from his heart to his cock to
his head, pounding in his ears to the rhythm of his hips and the
melody of her keening orgasm, and then his insides surged
through and out, streaming into her fiery depths, pumping a
white-hot stream of desire and need and infinite pleasure.
 
She ground her pelvis against him in a circular motion, milking
the last drop from him as his head fell onto her shoulder.
 
God. Could he possibly want anything more from life?
 
This was perfect.
 
She nuzzled his ear.
 
"Hi, partner," he whispered.
 
___________________________

END 1/8

Caught in the Act III: Sub Rosa 2/8
by Parrotfish (parrotfish@ibm.net)
 

"No, Mulder!"
 
"What do you mean, 'No?'"
 
"It's a pretty simple concept. Which part were you having trouble
with?"
 
"The part where you refuse an assignment."
 
"Assignment? Now you're handing out assignments?"
 
Scully was furious. In the past ten days, Mulder had dragged her
on two of the wildest goose chases of her career. First, they'd
spent three miserable, mosquito-bitten days in the Louisiana
bayous, tracking down rumors of zombies. Zombies! And then
there had been the four straight days slogging through freezing
New Hampshire rain, investigating allegations of human
sacrifices conducted at one of the nation's most bizarre tourist
traps, known to the locals as "America's Stonehenge."
 
Needless to say, both cases had been dead-ends.
 
And now Mulder wanted to re-open a thirty-five-year-old file on
a haunted house.
 
"What the hell is wrong with you, Scully?"
 
"There is nothing wrong with me, Mulder, other than the fact
that you're taking advantage of me."
 
"Excuse me?"
 
"Don't expect me to swallow every crackpot theory of yours just
because I'm not Hugh Lester!"
 
"Crackpot?"
 
Scully was on a tear, and she wasn't about to let him get a word
in edgewise.
 
"I'm going home, Mulder. Alone. I don't want to see you or hear
from you tonight. I need one night of sanity before I can cope
with your skewed world view again. We'll talk about this
tomorrow."
 
With that, she stormed out.
 
"Shit!" Mulder cursed aloud to the empty room.
 
It wasn't supposed to be like this. They'd fought hard for the right
to work together again, but now that they were doing it, it was a
disaster.
 
Okay, maybe he was trying to cram a lot of the more
unconventional cases into a short period of time. But their
partnership was only temporary. Who knew what kind of
starched shirt with a pole up the ass he'd be paired with next
time?
 
Why couldn't Scully understand that?
 
The worst part was that it hadn't just been their professional
relationship that had suffered. They hadn't made love since the
night Skinner had teamed them up. Sure, they'd been on the road
a lot, and they'd stuck by their hands-off-while-on-a-case rule.
And, on the couple of nights they'd had off, they'd both been
bone-tired. But Mulder was afraid there was more to it than that.
 
Shit.
 
He didn't want to admit it, but he was really scared.
 
They'd always said they could pull it off -- balancing their
professional and personal relationships. Had they been wrong?
 
He couldn't afford to think about that. Because that would mean
he'd have to lose Dana Scully, either as a partner or as a lover. If
things got bad enough, maybe even as both.
 
Any way he looked at it, the operative word was, "lose." That
was not a prospect he cared to consider.
 
_________________________
 
When Scully came in the next morning, she wasn't surprised to
find Mulder looking haggard and exhausted. She knew he
wouldn't sleep well after she'd walked out on him. But what
choice did she have? If they'd seen each other after work, they
would only have argued, and the result would have been the
same -- separate beds.
 
Still, the sight of his tired and anxious face tugged at her
heartstrings. She took her coat off.
 
"Mulder ... I'm sorry. It's just that ..."
 
"No, Scully, it's all right. I know you ..."
 
The phone rang, cutting them both off mid-sentence.
 
"Mulder ... Okay. We'll be right up." He hung up. "Skinner
wants us."
 
Scully tensed. So soon? They hadn't even had time to settle into
a rhythm. She was sure they could, given just a little more time.
 
They just needed time.
 
That was the problem, really. Knowing it was temporary.
Feeling rushed. That's why Mulder had chosen the screwiest
cases. He knew he wouldn't be able to pursue them once he got a
new partner who, like Lester, would think he was one fry short
of a Happy Meal.
 
And that was why she had no patience with him. It was hard to
have patience when you were always hearing a clock ticking in
the background.
 
Her eyes softened as she looked at him. "Okay, let's get it over
with."
 
He followed her out of the basement office with his hand resting
lightly on the small of her back. They entered Skinner's office
the same way. He waved them into seats and picked up the
phone.
 
"Hold my calls, Kimberly," he barked.
 
The two agents exchanged glances.
 
"This isn't about reassignment, is it?" Mulder asked.
 
"No." Skinner eyed them before continuing, looking as though
he were running some complicated calculations through his
mind. "It's about a case," he said, seeming to have arrived at an
answer. "A very important case."
 
He paused to collect his thoughts, then continued.
 
"Before I give you the details, I must warn you that when you
walk out of this office, several things will have changed. First,
you will be undercover, with false identities. Second, you will
have information that you will not be permitted to discuss with
anyone but each other and myself, ever. And third, the fate of a
vital piece of American foreign policy that could affect not just
national, but global security will be in your hands."
 
"Our hands?" Mulder repeated incredulously.
 
Skinner ignored him and went on.
 
"As you know, the Chinese Foreign Minister was killed in an
explosion six months ago during a visit to the U.S. The public
story was a gas leak."
 
"A lot of people didn't buy that," Mulder said, remembering a
conversation he'd had at the time with the Lone Gunmen.
 
"A lot of people were right. It was a bomb. The CIA had reason
to believe that the attack was carried out by a right-wing, white-
supremacist militia group called the White Hand, based in
Pennsylvania. But they needed evidence. To get it, they sent a
man undercover to infiltrate the organization. He succeeded in
making contact with a disgruntled member of the group who
agreed with the White Hand's political aims, but not with its
violent tactics. This man agreed to turn state's evidence."
 
"So where do we come in?" Scully asked.
 
"There's been a ... development. The informant's position has
been compromised. His contact with the CIA was discovered by
members of his group."
 
"Did they kill him?"
 
"No, surprisingly. It would seem that the group's leader, a man
by the name of George Flood, has a rather twisted sense of
justice. Instead of silencing the informant the old-fashioned way,
he's chosen a more sadistic but equally effective method.
Skinner's voice tightened. "Flood has kidnapped the informant's
six-year-old son. He's holding the boy as insurance."
 
"But that doesn't make any sense," Scully said. "Once the boy is
either released or killed, the informant would have no reason to
remain silent. Flood would be implicated."
 
"They're not going to release him or kill him, are they?" Mulder
said quietly.
 
"No."
 
"I don't understand," Scully said.
 
"They're going to hold him indefinitely. The boy is a hostage for
life," Mulder explained.
 
"Oh my God."
 
"We've managed to extricate the informant from his situation.
He's safely hidden away. But we can't pursue conventional
avenues to retrieve the boy. Nothing must compromise the
investigation of the bombing. Any premature information leak
that could affect Sino-American relations must be avoided at all
costs. For that reason, we cannot involve local law enforcement.
You two are going to have to find that boy entirely on your
own."
 
"You want us to find the kid," Mulder said.
 
"Yes. And you must retrieve the boy at a moment when all our
suspects' locations are known so that they can be immediately
apprehended. If any of them were to slip through our fingers, and
they knew their insurance was gone, they would disappear and
probably flee the country. We cannot allow that."
 
"You're kidding."
 
"No, Agent Mulder. I'm not."
 
"And they say I'm crazy. This is an impossible assignment."
 
"Not entirely," Skinner said. "You have one major advantage."
 
"Which is?"
 
"The perfect cover. Last week, a black minister, his wife and two
children were murdered, their bodies mutilated with swastikas
carved on the faces. We managed to nab the killers -- a man and
a woman, Robert Gorman and Mary Deene -- with absolutely no
publicity. They're on deep ice. They -- you -- are exactly George
Flood's kind of people. Gain his confidence. Discover where
they're holding the boy."
 
"Yeah, and while we're at it, we'll just use our Spidey powers to
make everyone give themselves up and confess."
 
"That would be acceptable," Skinner deadpanned.
 
There was a long silence.
 
"You said this was a matter of global security," Scully said at
last.
 
"The Chinese know damn well that was no gas explosion that
killed their man. They believe it was a CIA hit. What very few
people know is that before the incident, the U.S. and China were
very close to announcing an agreement on nuclear disarmament.
The Chinese halted those talks immediately after Xia Feng was
killed. The only way to get them back to the table is to nail the
real killers. And that won't happen unless you retrieve the
kidnapped boy. You'll have one contact -- a phone number. You
will not use it unless absolutely necessary."
 
"But why us?" Scully asked.
 
"Let me put it this way," Skinner said, his eyes locking on hers.
"If you pull this off, the most powerful people at the White
House, the CIA, the NSA, the State Department and the FBI will
owe you an enormous debt. They will give you anything you
request to repay it."
 
His meaning was clear.
 
"Here are your instructions," Skinner said. They took the folders
and left.
 
__________________
 
Back in the safety of the basement, the two agents sat staring at
the walls for quite some time.
 
"Have you ever gone undercover?" Scully asked at last.
 
"Once. You?"
 
"Never."
 
"It was terrible. I was terrified I'd slip up and blow my cover.
And this ..."
 
"This is insane."
 
Mulder turned to look at her. Her face, her posture, everything
about her was tense, drawn tight as a violin string.
 
She was right. This was insane.
 
It was incredibly dangerous. Incredibly difficult. Incredibly
unlikely to succeed.
 
It was one step short of suicide.
 
"We don't have to do this, Scully."
 
"We don't?"
 
"No."
 
"It's an assignment. Last I checked, following orders wasn't
voluntary."
 
"Come on, Scully. You know why Skinner gave this to us. It
would take something of this magnitude to get the Bureau to
reinstate our partnership. But..."
 
"But what?"
 
"But the way things have been going these last couple of weeks,
maybe it's just as well if they don't. Partner us, I mean. We could
probably tell Skinner it's not worth it to us, and he'd let us off the
hook."
 
Scully was thunderstruck. What was he saying? Not worth it?
She looked at him in shock. Her mind whirled around the words,
"Not worth it."
 
Not worth it?
 
And then she understood. It was a question. He wasn't telling
her. He was asking her.
 
She rose, crossed the room and knelt before him.
 
"Oh, Mulder. Of course it's worth it."
 
He searched her eyes.
 
"Do you think we can pull this off, Scully?"
 
"We have to, Mulder. Even if there were no disarmament treaty,
no CIA operation, no chance to collect a debt of gratitude." She
paused, placing a hand on his arm. "There's a six-year-old boy
facing life in hell."
 
_________________________
 
For once, Mulder was happy to let Scully drive. It wasn't that he
was tired, or that he needed to review the case. He didn't have a
headache, and there was no need to read the map.
 
It was the miniskirt.
 
Last night, they'd carefully studied their profiles, memorizing the
details and using their imaginations to fill in the rest. Included in
their necessary preparations was the choice of a wardrobe in
which to play the parts. For Mulder, it had been easy -- jeans and
T-shirts. What else would a high school dropout auto mechanic
wear? But when Scully had started to pack, she dug out articles
of clothing he'd never dreamed she owned.
 
Halter tops. Hot pants. Skin-tight jeans. Motorcycle boots.
 
And the tiny scrap of denim she'd told him was a skirt, which she
now barely wore as she drove. It covered her crotch and no
more.
 
Mulder was quite satisfied with his role as passenger-observer.
 
"We're almost there," Scully said, interrupting a particularly
spicy fantasy that would have worked much better in a car with
a stick shift. "Mulder? Did you hear me?"
 
"What? Yeah." Neither spoke again until they passed the sign
that welcomed them to Lemington, Pennsylvania.
 
"We're going to some very seedy dives. Are you sure you want
to be wearing that?"
 
"This is exactly what Mary Deene would wear."
 
"That's not exactly terribly reassuring."
 
"Look, Mulder. Things are going to get a lot uglier than a few
drunken passes in a sleazy bar before we get through this. And
the only way we'll get through this at all is by being as
absolutely credible in these roles as we can be."
 
"I know that," he replied peevishly and lapsed back into silence.
 
A few minutes later, they pulled up in front of a place called
Willy's Bar. Scully turned to Mulder.
 
"This is it. From here on in, you're Bobby and I'm Mary. You
ready?"
 
"I'm ready."
 
"You sure?"
 
He grinned broadly. "As sure as a homicidal grease monkey can
be."
 
She smacked his leg and got out of the car.
 
As they entered the bar, Mulder surprised her by draping an arm
across her shoulders, his hand hanging carelessly over her breast.
 
The transformation had begun.
 
_____________________________
 
The Five Spot was their third bar. Scully was amazed at how
many such places there were in a town the size of Lemington.
One ought to have been more than enough.
 
She and Mulder wove their way to the bar and ordered bourbons,
just as they had at the previous two places. She was just slightly
tipsy, having finished only half of each drink. The trick was to
walk into each place looking like you'd had three at the last one.
 
At Willy's Bar and The Station House, all she and Mulder had
accomplished were a couple of loud, suggestive conversations
that no one seemed to notice. In the car, they'd agreed they'd
have to do better.
 
Fate handed them their chance.
 
A middle-aged black man wearing jeans and a work shirt
perched himself on the stool next to Scully's. She waited several
minutes before starting.
 
"Get your filthy hands off of me!"
 
The man looked at her, startled.
 
"I said, get your filthy hands off of me!" Louder this time.
 
"I didn't touch you," the man replied, surprised.
 
Mulder took up the game. He stood and moved to invade the
man's space.
 
"If you touch her again, I'll kill you, nigger."
 
Scully swallowed a surge of nausea.
 
The man stood and squared off with Mulder. "I suggest you
watch your tongue," he said threateningly.
 
"I don't think so -- nigger." This time, Mulder emphasized the
foul word, throwing it out as a purposeful challenge.
 
"If you don't apologize," the man said with barely restrained
fury, "you will regret it."
 
"Apologize?" Mulder barked out a harsh laugh. "I don't
apologize to niggers. Me and Mary, we know how to teach
niggers like you a lesson. If you won't go back where you
belong, we'll just have to get rid of you. Like we done before."
 
Mulder was braced and ready when the first blow came, but the
man had at least fifty pounds on him. He managed to come back
with a few solid punches to the stomach before the enraged
stranger brought him down and kicked him five or six times for
good measure, then stormed out.
 
Scully could do nothing but watch.
 
"Come on, Bobby," she said, helping him to his feet when it was
all over. "Let's get out of here. This place makes me sick."
 
_________________________
 
She washed the blood off his split lip and checked to make sure
nothing was broken. He'd been lucky.
 
He was lying shirtless on the queen-sized bed in a seedy motel
room she'd found for them while he'd lain groaning in the back
seat of the car. Sitting beside him now, she realized this rat hole
was going to be home for a while.
 
"Jesus, I feel filthy," she said quietly.
 
"Me too."
 
"Do you think it worked?"
 
"Who knows? Depends who happened to be there. We'll have to
go back tomorrow and see if anyone takes the bait."
 
"That poor guy," Scully sighed.
 
"Him? What about me?"
 
"You started it."
 
"Actually, as I recall, you started it. Buy I have to admit, it was
a stroke of genius."
 
"Yeah, just like Hitler was a genius. Maybe tomorrow we can
invade Poland and launch the Final Solution."
 
"Come on, Scully. It wasn't really you."
 
"That man doesn't know that."
 
"We can't help that. Come here." He reached for her and drew
her down on top of him, instantly regretting it when his bruised
ribs complained. She rolled off him and lay on her side, propping
her head on one hand and resting the other gently on his chest.
 
"Thank God you're here," she said. "I don't think I could do this
alone."
 
He grinned, then winced from the pain.
 
"Actually, I quite enjoyed watching you do it alone the other
day."
 
She returned his wicked smile. "Yeah, but it was even better
when you got in on the act."
 
He rolled over and hooked one long leg over hers, pulling her
hips firmly against his.
 
"This time, you don't have to start without me," he said.
 
"You sure you're up to it?"
 
"What do you think?" He thrust his hips forward so she could
feel the hard bulge in his jeans.
 
"Your spirit is willing, but your flesh..."
 
"...is begging you to go for the zipper."
 
"Begging, huh? I like that."
 
Despite his bravado, Scully could tell from his stiff, awkward
movements that he was still in pain. She determined to take his
mind off it.
 
"Lie back," she whispered, pushing gently on his shoulder.
 
With careful fingers, she stroked his bruised torso, running up
his side, across the slight double slope of his chest, down his
stomach and around again.
 
A low vibration that sounded like a cat's purr began deep in his
chest. She leaned in and pressed her lips firmly into the soft flesh
where his neck met his collarbone, then tickled the spot with the
tip of her tongue.
 
The sound grew louder.
 
She licked her way up his neck, savoring his unique blend of salt
and musk, stopping at the corner where his beautiful lower lip
was just starting to swell with its injury, planting a light kiss
there.
 
The quality of the sound changed. At first, she thought she'd hurt
him.
 
The she realized it was a snore. He was sound asleep.
 
She smiled and whispered in his ear, "Sweet dreams, grease
monkey."
 
_________________________
 

END 2/8

Caught in the Act III: Sub Rosa 3/8
by Parrotfish (parrotfish@ibm.net)
 

On the streets of Lemington, working stiffs were wandering out
to lunch counters, McDonalds, Roy Rogers, ATMs, the post
office, wherever they needed to go during their midday break.
 
Two men sat together on a bench in a small park near the
construction site where they'd worked all morning.
 
"I tell you, it was them," the younger man said.
 
"How can you be so sure?" the other man asked suspiciously. He
was older, in his 50s, balding.
 
"What they said. How they acted. You get a feeling about these
things, y'know? And besides, the man said they'd done it before."
 
"Done what? Did he say?"
 
"Not exactly. But the way he was telling off that nigger, it don't
take no Einstein to figure it out."
 
The other man glared at his companion with hard, calculating
eyes. "No, it don't take no Einstein. Which is lucky in your
case."
 
"You leave it to me," the younger man said, untouched by the
point of the barb. "I'll get to the bottom of it." The two men
packed up their trash and headed back to work.
 
_________________________________
 
A lanky man in a nearby motel room whose handsome, sensual
features were distorted by ugly bruises and a swollen lip stirred
for the first time that day. He raised his arms over his head to
stretch, and the motion wrenched a surprised moan from him.
 
He opened his eyes cautiously, as though fearful that even such a
small movement might hurt. It didn't, but  his next action -- the
smile he attempted as twin dots of blue and a splash of rich red
resolved themselves into Scully -- did.
 
She held a glass of water in one hand and reached out to him
with the other. "Ibuprofen," she said.
 
"Thanks," he managed, struggling to sit up.
 
"How bad?" she asked as he downed the pills and took the water
from her.
 
He moved his arms and legs and rotated his torso, first one way
and then the other, testing.
 
"I've had worse."
 
"That's not saying much," she replied, grinning.
 
"You've got a point." He set the glass on the night table beside
him, reached for her hand and pulled her onto the bed next to
him. "I fell asleep on you last night, didn't I?"
 
"Well, next to me."
 
"Sorry." He leaned forward and nuzzled her elegant nose with
his much larger and, he thought, uglier one.
 
"You're forgiven," she whispered just before his teeth nipped at
her lower lip, then worked past her chin and down her neck to
her shoulder. "Shouldn't we hit the streets?" she asked, trying to
back away.
 
"Uh-uh." Mulder pulled her back. "Bobby and Mary drank a lot
last night. They'd stay in bed all day."
 
"Lucky Bobby and Mary," Scully murmured.
 
Mulder reached for the belt of her robe and pulled. The robe fell
open, revealing that she wore nothing underneath. He leaned
forward and wrapped his lips around a hardened, red nipple.
 
Scully pulled back again, this time pushing forcefully against his
shoulders and standing up.
 
"Wait...stop," she said, panting lightly.
 
"What?"
 
"It's just ... well, I woke up thinking, and I thought maybe we
shouldn't. Not while we're here. I mean, we're on a case, and we
have that rule..."
 
"That rule doesn't apply, Scully. We're alone in this. Besides, last
night..."
 
"Last night I wasn't thinking."
 
"This morning you're thinking too much."
 
"Mulder..."
 
"No! Don't you dare, Scully. I won't let you."
 
"What? Let me what?"
 
He reached out to her where she stood by the bed next to him
and wrapped his arms around her, resting his face on her bare
stomach.
 
"I'm not going to let you punish yourself for someone else's sins.
You're not Mary Steene. I know how pretending to be her makes
you feel. But you're not her."
 
Scully stroked his hair, marveling at his ability to leap wildly to
a conclusion. A perfectly correct conclusion.
 
"God, Mulder, this is so hard," she sighed.
 
"I know. And it's going to get worse. But remember, Scully, that
I always know exactly who and what you are, no matter what
you say or do."
 
"Do you?" she asked.
 
He felt rigid tension in the muscles pressed against his face. How
could she doubt it? He forced the thought away, forced himself
to assume a lighter tone. "Now, where was I?" he murmured.
"Oh, yeah. Right here."
 
He turned his head and took her breast in his mouth again. This
time, she arched her back as he pulled at her with his lips and bit
down lightly.
 
"Doesn't that hurt?" she asked, remembering his split lip.
 
"Yes," he mumbled into her flesh.
 
She put a hand on either side of his head and gently pulled him
off her nipple.
 
"Then don't do it."
 
"I don't mind."
 
A mischievous glint appeared in her eyes. "Let's see if we can
find something else you don't mind."
 
She pushed him down onto the bed, then slid the robe off her
shoulders. Nude, she kneeled on the bed beside him. He reached
for her, but she stopped his hand, bringing it to her face and
kissing the tender flesh at the inside of his wrist, then the palm,
then the tip of his middle finger. The kiss became a suck as she
slid her lips down to the knuckle, then back up to the tip. She
repeated the motion, her eyes locked on his. He didn't realize her
hand had been moving until he felt her warm palm brush the tip
of his erection as she pushed his boxers down.
 
"I thought you didn't want to," he said, already losing himself in
the sensation of her touch.
 
"I didn't say that," she replied, removing her mouth from his
finger. "I said maybe we shouldn't. Well, maybe we shouldn't.
But I will anyway."
 
With that, she drew his finger back into her mouth and took
another trip down it, wrapping her hand firmly around his cock
and stroking at the same time. She did it again, hand mimicking
lips, down and then up. And again.
 
Mulder gasped at the twin sensation, the movements of her hands
and lips eroticizing his finger as much as his stiff penis. He
stared into her foggy blue eyes in rapt fascination, giving himself
over to her, telling her with his eyes and his body that he was
hers to do with what she would.
 
That was one of the things he loved about sex with Scully -- the
giving over. Until the day she had first touched him in the heat of
passion, he had never experienced the fullness of his own
sexuality. Oh, he'd had sex. Lots of it. And he was pretty sure no
one had ever left his bed complaining. But he had never totally
given himself over to the experience. Surrendered to it. Because
that would have meant giving himself over to someone. And
until Scully came into his life, that had clearly been impossible.
 
But now ... now, his body, his heart and his mind were hers to do
with as she pleased. And her pleasure was most definitely
pleasing to him.
 
His thoughts floated as she shifted position, releasing his finger
from her mouth. She stripped his underwear off with a vicious
tug and straddled his thighs, lacing her fingers through his,
pinning his hands at his sides. Leaning over until the heavy
softness of her breasts rested on his legs, she kissed, then licked
the head of his cock.
 
He closed his eyes and felt her. Knew her.
 
He understood that euphemism now. To know someone.
Because that's what this was. The woman he knew opened her
mouth and slipped her wet heat around him.
 
The keen intelligence of her brilliant mind slid along the length
of him.
 
The iron band of her courage wrapped itself firmly around his
sensitive, engorged flesh.
 
The gentle tremors of her fear vibrated against his sweat-
dampened skin.
 
The blazing heat of her passion sucked at him.
 
The cool grace of her inner and outer beauty blanketed his
overwhelmed senses.
 
And the magnificent, blinding light of her love carried him over
the edge, swallowing the hot stream of his very essence as
readily as he urgently offered it to her.
 
He knew her. He would always know her. Even when she didn't
know herself.
 
___________________________
 
Standing at the door of The Five Spot, Scully took a deep breath
and let another woman's personality settle over her like a wet,
mildewed blanket, close and heavy.
 
She had convinced Mulder to let her work the place alone for an
hour or so before he showed up. He'd fought like hell at first, but
in the end, he'd known she was right. A lone woman was much
more approachable. If someone wanted to establish contact, he'd
be far less cautious about it if Mulder were absent. And besides,
after yesterday the bartender might not even let Mulder in.
 
The place was pretty empty -- it was barely 5:00 -- and she had
her choice of seats. Deciding a booth would most inviting of
strangers' confidences, she headed across the room, letting the
part she played flow through her and control the sway of her
hips, the way her eyes roved, the sultry set of her mouth.
Wearing this alternate identity, she felt acutely aware of her
body -- the way her thighs tensed with every high-heeled step;
the exact line of skin just a couple of inches below her crotch
where the hem of her skirt lay; the light tickle where the tip of
her pony tail brushed against the back of her neck; the weight of
her breasts resting inside the lacy black bra she knew was quite
visible beneath the sheer fabric of her blouse. It was as though
her mind were trapped inside someone else's body, causing it to
take a constant, detailed inventory of its unfamiliar host.
 
She slid into a corner booth and ordered a bourbon from the
waitress. For half an hour, she found herself nursing the drink in
an odd, state of combined boredom and hyperawareness.
 
She startled when a voice suddenly addressed her from behind.
 
"Hello there, gorgeous."
 
She forced her mouth into a coy smile before turning her head.
 
"Hello yourself."
 
She sized up the man who had spoken, all the while carefully
preserving a vacuous expression on her face. He was thirty or so,
white, squarely built and obviously well-muscled, his body hard
with the effects of years of manual labor.
 
She let her eyes wander over him, knowing what motives he'd
ascribe to her, willing to let him. Her pulse quickened when her
gaze fell on a large tattoo that was partially hidden by the sleeve
of his T-shirt.
 
"Mind if I sit down?" he asked.
 
"No. Go right ahead."
 
He surprised her by sliding in beside her instead of taking a seat
across the table.
 
"Buy you a drink?"
 
"Sure."
 
He signaled the waitress, who returned quickly with another
bourbon and a Southern Comfort.
 
A regular, Scully thought. She knows what he takes.
 
"I just love tattoos," she purred after downing her drink in two
gulps. "Can I see?"
 
The man reached his right hand across to lift his left sleeve to the
shoulder, flexing his biceps just inches from her face. She took a
good look at the green image of a fierce eagle. It had a small
swastika on its breast.
 
Paydirt.
 
"Weren't you in here yesterday?" he asked. She brought her eyes
up to his face as he pulled his sleeve down.
 
"Yeah."
 
"I noticed you didn't much like that guy pawing you. Was it just
him, or are you like that with all the men?"
 
Not very bright, she thought He was testing the waters, and none
too subtly.
 
"No. Only with guys like him."
 
"Like him?"
 
"Yeah. You know. I prefer white meat."
 
The man grinned broadly. "Me too," he said. "So where's your
boyfriend?"
 
Here goes, Scully thought. I'll have to play it out.
 
"I don't know. What, am I supposed to keep him on a leash?"
 
"The real question is, does he keep you on a leash?"
 
"Hell, no!"
 
"Well now, that's what I call a healthy relationship. Umm, what's
you name?"
 
"Mary."
 
"Mary." He raised his tattooed arm and brought it down along
the back of the seat behind her. "I'm Frank."
 
"Well, Frank, you gonna buy me another drink?"
 
"Anything you want." He signaled the waitress again. The drinks
showed up as fast as they had the first time.
 
"So, Mary, you new in town? I would've noticed you if you was
around."
 
"Yeah. Just got here yesterday."
 
"You don't say?"
 
"Seems like a sleepy little dump."
 
"Oh, there's plenty of action, if you know where to look." Frank
put his big, rough hand on her thigh under the table. Scully
willed herself not to flinch.
 
"Oh yeah? That's good to hear. I was afraid nothing around here
would get me very excited."
 
A predatory gleam lit Frank's eyes, and he leaned in closer to
whisper in her ear, his hand sliding up her leg so high that his
fingertips brushed the elastic of her underwear. Scully bit the
inside of her cheek to control her reaction, fighting the reflex to
jerk away and slap the bastard.
 
It was at that moment that Mulder appeared from nowhere,
standing next to the table at a vantage point from which he could
see it all. She offered up a silent prayer that their usual ability to
communicate with their eyes was up to the task at hand.
 
His message, at any rate, was clear.
 
<I'll kill him.>
 
Jesus, she thought, timing doesn't get any worse than this.
 
<You'll ruin everything.>
 
<But...>
 
<I'm fine, Mulder.>
 
Realizing Frank had finished whispering some crude sexual
remark in her ear, Scully forced herself to giggle.
 
"Well, look who's here," she said aloud. Mulder took her cue and
sat down across from them.
 
Frank looked momentarily alarmed, like a boy caught with his
hand in the cookie jar.
 
"This is one pretty lady," he said with feeble bravado.
 
Scully held her breath, afraid that their entire mission could end
right then and there.
 
<Play the game.>
 
He glanced at her, then back at the beefy man beside her. A
wide, toothy grin split his face. "Hell, she's the best damn piece
of tail in the state!" he bellowed.
 
Scully felt Frank relax beside her. Crisis averted.
 
"You don't look so good .... What's your name, anyway?"
 
"Bobby. And you're...?"
 
"Frank. You took a hell of a lickin' yesterday." Mulder just
shrugged. "I saw it all. I saw that nigger kick you when you was
down. Ain't it just like 'em to fight dirty?"
 
"Yeah. Sure is."
 
Within minutes, more drinks were ordered, and Scully was
relieved that Frank seemed to have decided to keep his hands to
himself in Bobby's presence. The conversation rambled on,
mostly between the two men, mostly about nothing in particular:
sports, cars, dirty jokes. It was going nowhere. At last, Scully
piped up.
 
"Bobby, honey, I gotta eat something. Wanna get outta here?"
 
"Sure, baby. Let's go."
 
Mulder stood up and slid out of the booth, adding as though it
were an afterthought, "I'm glad you know who was right
yesterday, Frank."
 
"Of course, man! White is always right." Frank stood to let
Scully out. "And listen, baby, any time you need some
excitement, you know where to find some pure white meat. I'll
be happy to cook."
 
Scully's breath caught as she glanced over to see Mulder's
reaction.
 
"Mary's got such a big appetite," he said, catching her eye.
"Sometimes one cook just ain't enough for her."
 
Frank leered at her as she turned and walked away, staring
blatantly at her tight, round ass.
 
Mulder lingered until she was out of earshot. Then, in a voice as
vicious as it had been jovial moments earlier, he said, "Touch
her and you'll wind up as dead as a nigger preacher. You hear
me?"
 
And he sauntered after her.
 
__________________________
 
"It's them! I'm sure."
 
"You're sure."
 
"Yeah. Gotta be. Can you believe the luck?"
 
Frank squirmed under the older man's piercing gaze. "That's
quite a piece of luck," his companion said at last.
 
"I always said I was lucky," Frank boasted, missing the other
man's implication.
 
"What makes you so sure?"
 
"Only that Bobby just about told me in so many words."
 
"He told you? What did he say? 'Hi, I killed a family of
niggers?'"
 
"No!" Frank was at last catching on to the other man's
skepticism. "In fact, he wasn't gonna say nothing. I kind of
pushed him into it."
 
The older man took a bite of his sandwich, chewed and
swallowed before resuming the conversation. "And just how did
you 'push him into it?'"
 
Frank suddenly became reluctant, remembering that his motives
the previous evening had not been all business. "I got him mad."
 
"How clever of you. And how the hell did you do that?"
 
"You don't have to get sore, George. I'm telling you. I just kind
of admired his lady friend. That's all. He took offense and told
me I'd better look out or I'd end up dead as a nigger preacher.
That's exactly what he said."
 
George Flood said nothing, chewing on this bit of information
along with his lunch. "Where are they staying?" he said at last.
 
"Uh...I don't know."
 
"You didn't ask?"
 
"I was..."
 
"You were thinking with your dick again! Jesus, Frank, how can
you be so fucking stupid?"
 
"Fuck you, George! I found 'em for you!"
 
"That's exactly what has me worried."
 
The younger man's face clouded over with anger and a bright
blue vein bulged in his forehead as he worked his jaw in
frustration. "I don't have to take this shit!" he stormed, rising
from the bench. "You better apologize or..."
 
"Or what?" Flood rose slowly and squared off with Frank. His
voice was quietly menacing, like a snake's warning hiss. "Or
you'll do what?"
 
"I'll...I'll... do something.," Frank finished lamely, his body
folding in on itself in a clear signal of defeat.
 
"I'll tell you what you'll do," Flood replied in the same calmly
dangerous tone. "You'll do exactly what I tell you to do. You'll
find them tonight, and you'll bring them to me. And you won't
talk to anyone about this. You got it?"
 
"I got it," Frank sulked.
 
Flood turned on his heel and walked away without another word.
 
_____________________
 
Mulder woke with a start and reached reflexively to his right.
The bed next to him was empty. He turned his head and saw her
standing at the window, staring at a gray drizzle. Swinging his
feet to the floor, he rubbed his stubbled face and rose to join her.
He came up behind her and put his hands on her hips, pulling her
back against him, pushing his morning erection into her back.
 
She squirmed out of his grasp and sidestepped away.
 
"Scully? What's wrong?" His voice was thick with sleepy
sandpaper.
 
"Nothing."
 
He reached for her again. She evaded him.
 
"Come on -- what is it?" he asked, more awake now.
 
"Nothing. I just... I don't want to."
 
"Don't want to what?"
 
She heard the amusement in his voice, and it irritated her. "Just
don't, okay?" she snapped.
 
"Did you sleep?" More gently now. He could tell she was really
upset.
 
"Not much."
 
"What were you thinking about?"
 
"Nothing. Mary."
 
Her barely articulate reply actually clarified things for him. She
was, after all, the straightest of arrows. Scully might not be
especially good at confronting her own fears head-on, but she
was singularly true to her own beliefs. She had a code of ethics
that was built on a rock-solid foundation, and she was
unwaveringly true to it. It got her through everything. It was
what let her sleep at night, even when her life was being torn
apart by threats of violence, betrayal and chaos.
 
This assignment was the most difficult thing anyone could ever
ask of her. It forced her to abandon herself. Item by item, her
most closely held values had to be swapped out for their exact
opposites. For justice, bias. For fairness, hatred. For truth,
subterfuge. And knowing her, she was punishing herself for it.
 
All right, then. He would be patient. He would wait until she
was ready. But, God, he hoped she'd allow herself time off for
good behavior.
 
"Let's get some breakfast," he said.
 
She smiled gratefully. "Yeah. I'm famished."
 
__________________

END 3/8

Caught in the Act III: Sub Rosa 4/8
by Parrotfish (parrotfish@ibm.net)
 

"Maybe you should hit me."
 
"What?"
 
"Or grab me."
 
"Excuse me?"
 
They had been sitting in Malone's for an hour and a half, trying
once again to drink slowly without being obvious about it.
They'd agreed not to go back to The Five Spot. Another visit
there would look like they were on a fishing expedition.
 
Mulder had been trying to keep himself amused watching the
ebb and flow of humanity that came through the place. He would
pick someone out and observe him or her carefully, mentally
building a psychological profile as though every passerby were
a potential serial killer. It was a morbid habit he had.
 
But as the alcohol had slowly soaked through his brain, his
alertness, and then his interest, had waned. They couldn't afford
to get seriously drunk, but they were forced to get bleary just
keep up appearances.
 
So for the last half hour, he'd been morosely watching ice melt,
seeing too much of himself in the fate of the shrinking cubes.
 
And then Scully piped up out of the blue.
 
"Bobby doesn't usually treat Mary so well," she said under her
breath.
 
"Oh, gimme a break, S..." She shot him a warning glance.
"Gimme a break," he repeated.
 
"We're too quiet. Too well-behaved," she muttered.
 
"Too bored is more like it," he replied.
 
She laughed, but it was loud and grating.
 
"Stop it," he hissed.
 
"Fuck you!" She was getting louder.
 
"Shut up," he whispered urgently.
 
"Make me!" She was yelling now.
 
"No."
 
"You're such a coward, Bobby."
 
"Stop it!"
 
"Fuck you!"
 
<Do it.>
 
<I can't.>
 
<You have to.>
 
"I'm warning you, Mary. Stop talking like that."
 
"And I suppose you're gonna make me?"
 
<Do it.>
 
<I can't.>
 
<You can.>
 
Mulder sprang to his feet. The sound of glasses clattering as his
legs hit the table was loud, but it was nothing compared to the
ear-splitting smack of his palm on the soft skin of her cheek.
 
Scully raised a hand to touch the place he'd struck. "You
bastard!"
 
<Are you okay?>
 
<I'm fine, Mulder.>
 
God, she said it even when she didn't. Conversations around
them resumed as Mulder sat back down.
 
"Hey, I'd be glad to take her off your hands."
 
Mulder turned to see Frank standing behind him. "Try it and I'll
kill you." The words came out with all the anger he felt at
himself for what he'd just done, for the situation that had made
him do it. For the fact that, for some disturbing reason, it had
actually made him feel better. Judging from Frank's reaction, he
was behaving quite convincingly. Damn Scully for being right.
Frank certainly looked like he believed Bobby to be a very
dangerous man.
 
"Sit down," Mulder said.
 
"Actually, I was gonna spring you from this lousy dive."
 
"Who says we need springing?"
 
"No one. But I got a friend wants to meet you."
 
"What are you, the social director on this cruise?"
 
"C'mon. I think you'll really like him."
 
"I don't wanna meet your fucking friend!"
 
Mulder caught a flash of fear in the beefy man's eyes. So. He
was under orders to produce them.
 
"Look, we can have a little party on the way. I got some great
blow."
 
Frank's ploy was so feeble, his tone so pleading, that Mulder
doubted Bobby would go for it.
 
Fortunately, he didn't have to.
 
"Oh, c'mon, baby. I haven't had any coke in ages," Scully put in.
 
"I said no!"
 
"Please?"
 
"Oh, okay."
 
The three of them headed for the door and emerged from the bar
into the soggy night.
 
"C'mon. This way." Frank led them into the sheltered doorway
of a nearby building. Huddled together in the dim yellow light
that spilled from a naked bulb just inside the door, Frank
produced a small glass tube from his shirt pocket. A tiny gold
spoon was attached to the cap by a short chain.
 
"Give it here," Scully said impatiently.
 
"No way. Last time I handed my stash to someone in the rain, he
dropped it and I watched $300 worth of Panama Blue melt into
the sidewalk." Frank unscrewed the cap himself and dipped the
spoon into the vial, then held it out to her.
 
Damn, Mulder thought. She could have faked it if he'd handed it
over. She didn't have much choice now. He wondered if she'd
ever snorted cocaine before.
 
She leaned over Frank's hand, closed her left nostril with her
finger and inhaled the little pile of white powder from the end of
the spoon.
 
Well I'll be damned, Mulder thought.
 
Frank dipped again and held the spoon out to him.
 
"No thanks," Mulder said.
 
Frank shrugged and offered it to Scully. She glanced sideways at
Mulder as she efficiently snorted the second dose.
 
Frank helped himself to two nostrils-full, and the tube
disappeared back into his shirt pocket.
 
"My car's this way," Frank said, starting off.
 
"We'll follow you." Mulder hoped that didn't sound too
suspicious, but he didn't relish getting stuck God knew where
with no means of transportation.
 
Frank just shrugged again. Obviously, all he cared about was
fulfilling his mission of bringing them to his "friend." He walked
off in the direction he'd indicated as Mulder and Scully headed
the other way.
 
"Where did you learn to do that?" Mulder asked when they were
out of earshot.
 
"I haven't always been an FBI agent, you know," she replied.
 
"You all right?"
 
"Fine. But I don't think I'll sleep for the next eight hours or so."
 
Twenty minutes later, they were pulling up in front of a
nondescript little house on an even more nondescript little street.
Frank was already out of his car and waiting for them.
 
"Oh, this looks really exciting," Mulder said with hostile
sarcasm. He was finding he had no trouble at all projecting a
really mean attitude tonight. He suspected that was exactly why
Scully had done what she'd done in making him hit her. It had
put him in one incredibly foul temper.
 
"Trust me, Bobby. You're gonna thank me for this. George
Flood is someone you wanna know."
 
They followed Frank to the front door and waited as he knocked.
A woman opened it, stepped aside wordlessly and admitted
them. She was middle-aged, tired-looking, worn at the edges,
with an air of studied detachment.
 
They entered the living room where a balding man of medium
height awaited them. At first glance, there was nothing in the
least remarkable about him. The man said nothing by way of
greeting.
 
Mulder took advantage of the momentary stand-off to observe
his surroundings. The place was as drab and shabby as the
people in it. The furniture was neither old nor new. It had that
ageless, Sears-Roebuck-tacky look. The room was lined with
bookcases that were filled floor to ceiling with volumes of every
description. Nowhere did Mulder's roving eye encounter a
television set.
 
Without introduction or preamble, the man walked up to Mulder
and stopped just inches from him.
 
"Did you do it?"
 
"Did I do what?"
 
"Did you kill those people?"
 
Mulder was caught off guard. He hadn't been expecting Flood to
come to the point so quickly.
 
Think. What would Bobby do?
 
"What the fuck kind of question is that?"
 
"One with a yes or no answer." This guy was good. Really good.
 
"Fuck you!" Mulder turned on his heel and headed toward the
door. "Come on, Mary. We're leaving."
 
"Stop!"
 
The one-word command yanked Mulder to a halt. There was an
almost irresistible authority in that voice, one that demanded
obedience. It was all he could do to keep from turning around.
 
"I'll take that as a yes," Flood said.
 
"Nobody asked you to take nothing," Mulder said, his back still
to the man.
 
"Why'd you do it?"
 
"Fuck you!"
 
"Oh, come on, Bobby. You can trust me." Flood's voice dripped
charm now, projecting a warm invitation to intimacy. Mulder
turned slowly.
 
"Why should I trust you?"
 
"Tell me why you did it. Don't worry. Nothing said here tonight
will ever leave these four walls."
 
Mulder shot a nervous glance in Frank's direction. Flood
understood, and Mulder thought he saw a glimmer of respect
flare in the man's eyes.
 
"You've done your job, Frank," Flood said. "You can go."
 
"But..."
 
"Now!"
 
Frank looked from Flood to Mulder, who just glared at him.
Defeated, he made his exit.
 
"You too, Alice." The woman disappeared upstairs.
 
"Now tell me," Flood said.
 
Scully had been standing off to the side, taking careful note of
everything. She was surprised when, in answer to the man's
question, Mulder moved behind her, his body pressing up against
her.
 
"I did it for her," Mulder said quietly.
 
"You mean to tell me a minister made a pass at your girl?"
 
"Not exactly." Mulder reached around her and cupped her face
in both hands, tilting her head up so the ceiling light shone full
on her. "What do you see?"
 
"She's quite lovely."
 
"Exactly. Look at the red of her lips. The deep blue of her eyes.
The perfect, white skin. This is a woman that makes a man want
to sire children on her, to see beautiful babies suck life from her
breast."
 
Scully's heart beat furiously. Mulder's voice had taken on a
hypnotic, singsong quality that frightened her.
 
"So you see," he went on, still holding her face tightly, "I had to
do it. That man ... that nigger ... I heard him on the radio. He
was talking about tolerating the mixing of the races. About
cross-breeding the colors. Now you look at my Mary. What
would the thought of a dark animal mounting her clean, white
body do to you?"
 
Flood approached the two of them and looked first in her eyes,
then in his.
 
"You have the calling," he whispered.
 
"I know what I know," Mulder replied. He suddenly realized
how hard he had been gripping Scully's face. Forcing himself to
relax, he slid his hands down to her shoulders. Only then did he
feel that she was trembling beneath his touch.
 
"It is a calling," Flood was saying. "And if you have it, I can
show you how to use it."
 
"We been getting along fine without you."
 
"But you're not making a difference. Do you think stopping one
nigger's mouth will change anything?"
 
"Well, it sure shut him up."
 
"Let's get out of here, Bobby," Scully interrupted in a voice as
smooth as glass despite the nervousness Mulder sensed in her.
"All this fancy talk is making me thirsty."
 
"Okay, baby." They headed for the door.
 
"Bobby," Flood said with the same authoritative tone he'd used
earlier. "You're not alone. There are others who feel as you do.
You and Mary could join in something that is much greater than
the sum of its parts."
 
"I don't know," Mulder said, suddenly eager to get out into the
bracing rain.
 
"Where are you staying?"
 
Mulder was strangely silent. Scully looked at him.
 
<Tell him.>
 
"Sunset Motel," Scully said as Mulder opened the door. He was
halfway down the path before she caught up with him.
 
__________________________
 
Scully stared at her reflection in the night-blackened car
window, the rain seeming to run down her somber face. She took
a deep, shaky breath. It's just an act, she told herself. An
elaborate game of make-believe.
 
But he had been so damn believable.
 
It hadn't really been a surprise. She'd seen this ability of his
before, this uncanny talent for tuning his mind to the wavelength
of madmen and psychopaths. She'd witnessed it a number of
times. And each time, it had scared the shit out of her.
 
Before she'd come along, before he'd begun work on the X files,
it had had been his life's work. His talent had been sharpened
like a straight razor to a brutal edge so that he could profile
serial killers with frightening -- and useful -- accuracy. From
time to time since then, he'd been called upon to do it again as an
expert consulted in especially difficult cases.
 
But never had she seen him become the madman so completely.
And never had the intensity of the madness been turned full on
her. The heat of the hatred he'd projected so convincingly had
burned her soul.
 
But the most disconcerting part was that it had been a stroke of
pure genius. The creativity of his little display, its shockingly
unconventional daring, had been utterly compelling. It had been
exactly what was needed to get past George Flood's suspicions.
 
She turned to look at him as he drove. He was wrapped up
entirely in himself, shielding himself from his own actions. Like
the survivor of some great disaster, he had entered a state of
shock --  not physical but moral.
 
She closed her eyes, trying to erase the memory of his iron grasp
and his foul words. She shook her head. No. They would be with
her forever.
 
She knew it was just as well. Because their success in this insane
endeavor depended entirely on their ability to act like -- no, to be
-- Bobby Gorman and Mary Deene.
 
All right, then. She would watch and learn. She knew what it
took out of him to do this. It wasn't like this was a walk in the
park for him, becoming a monster to snare a monster. He never
entered that moral gray area without maiming some part of his
soul. She marveled at his ability to overcome his terror and
plunge head first into a nightmare. She vowed not to let him go
there alone.
 
But she would never tell him he had become her guide in this. It
was a skill he'd never meant to teach her.
 
_______________________
 
Mulder listened to the sound of the shower, hearing the volume
and pitch change as Scully moved in and out of the water's flow.
 
If only she could wash away the stain of the words he'd poured
over her tonight. But that was impossible.
 
Long ago, he'd learned a secret, a key that could unlock the door
to any mind. Human motivation could be so well understood that
it could be used to anticipate action. Simply put, by knowing
what made someone tick, you could know what he'd do before
he did it. It was necessary to understand not only how that
person saw the world, but also how that person saw himself.
 
He had, it turned out, a genius for it. Still, it wasn't all talent. It
took practice. And Mulder had gotten lots of that by crawling
into the minds of psychopathic serial killers, necrophiliacs,
sadists, pedophiles and the like. The experience had taught him
the most frightening thing he would ever learn. Something more
shocking than the existence of extraterrestrials and malevolent
government conspiracies. He'd learned that no one, not even a
man who rapes, kills and mutilates small children, sees himself
as evil.
 
And to do the job, Mulder couldn't afford to see him that way,
either.
 
He'd tapped into that knowledge tonight in order to convince
Flood that Bobby Gorman and Mary Deene were his kind of
people. He'd allowed the passion of utterly righteous conviction
to take hold of him, and he'd use it to espouse a deeply rooted,
murderous hatred.
 
But what the hell had made him turn it all on Scully?
 
God. He'd spent most of his adult life avoiding intimacy for fear
that someone would notice that he had some really fucked up
personal boundary issues. He could sympathize with anyone,
even people who kept a few severed body parts in the freezer.
 
Then came Scully. He'd thought that side of him would
somehow disappear, or maybe she just wouldn't notice. Who the
fuck had he been trying to kid?
 
Shit. And he was going to help her through this nightmare? That
was like Jack the Ripper offering spiritual guidance to Joan of
Arc.
 
The shower stopped. She would be drying off in that efficient,
brisk manner of hers. She'd be out in under a minute, wrapped in
a terrycloth robe, a towel around her head. She'd open the
bathroom door, maybe say something  to him. He'd have to
answer. He'd have to decide whether to go to her or not; whether
to talk about it or not; whether to lie down in bed with her or...
 
Not.
 
As Scully opened the bathroom door, the room door closed
behind him.
 
_____________________
 
The ringing of the phone roused Scully from a not-very-restful
slumber. She had the vague sense that her dreams had not been
pleasant ones, though she could remember nothing about them.
 
She opened her eyes and felt a rush of anxiety as she realized
where she was, and that Mulder was not beside her. The phone
was still ringing. Maybe it was him.
 
"Hello?"
 
"Mary, this is George Flood."
 
She bolted upright, panicky. This was unexpected. She took a
moment to tell her heart to slow down, to force her mind to
focus.
 
"Mary? Are you there?"
 
Say something. "Umm ... yeah. I was sleeping."
 
"Oh. I'm sorry for waking you. Shall I call back?"
 
"No. I mean, I'm up now."
 
"Well, I felt that we didn't really finish our conversation last
night. And I was finding it very interesting. But I realize that you
and Bobby weren't expecting to be cross-examined. How about a
more relaxed meeting tonight?"
 
The door opened, distracting her. Mulder entered. When he saw
her on the phone, he threw her a quizzical look.
 
"Tonight?"
 
"Yes. You could come over for dinner."
 
"Umm ... yeah. I guess that would be okay. What time?"
 
"How about 7:30?"
 
"Okay. See you then." She hung up.
 
"That was Flood. We're invited for dinner." She caught the
guilty look that crossed his face. "You been out all night?"
 
"Yeah."
 
She got up and headed for the bathroom without another word.
 
________________________

END 4/8
 

Silently, they retraced their route of the previous night, having
said little to each other all day. Scully had spent a couple of
hours in the afternoon running errands, ostensibly to give Mary
something of a public life. She'd even had her nails done,
something the real Scully had avoided for at least a decade.
 
Mulder suspected it was all more for the sake of getting out of
their oppressive motel room, where the morning had been spent
in such stimulating pursuits as reading, pacing, fidgeting and
avoiding conversation.
 
Ready to crawl out of his skin with the discomfort of it, Mulder
spoke. "Will you be okay tonight?"
 
"What's that supposed to mean?"
 
"Nothing. Just ... y'know ... can you handle it?"
 
"What makes you think I can't?" Her voice was strained, cold.
 
Damn. He wished he'd kept his mouth shut.
 
"Of course you can. It's just that last night I was ..." His voice
trailed away, and he just shrugged.
 
"You did your job. So did I. And we'll do it again tonight."
 
The job.
 
Other people had jobs. They went to an office and typed on
keyboards, or they went to a factory and put things together.
They taught, they talked, they drove, they dug, whatever. And
then they went home.
 
What he had wasn't a job. More like a curse.
 
They pulled up in front of the house and got out. Scully started
up the walk.
 
"Wait!"
 
She stopped, and he caught up.
 
"What?"
 
"Look ... whatever happens ... I ..."
 
"Not here," she said firmly, quietly.
 
"But I want you to know ..."
 
"Not here!" Her eyes darted toward the house. He looked up and
saw Flood's face watching them from a window.
 
As he closed the distance to the front door, he had a sneaking
hunch that he was about to learn the market value of his soul.
 
__________________________
 
It was getting late.  The evening had been grueling, not because
the conversation had been strained, but because it hadn't. Flood
had actually been rather amusing, talking knowledgeably about
auto racing, Lemington gossip and his various hobbies:
gardening, cooking, woodworking. He'd avoided asking them
much about themselves. Mulder found it hard to stay in
character when the conversation lulled him into complacency.
That was probably the point, he reminded himself.
 
Scully, he noted, had performed her part flawlessly. She'd
laughed at Flood's jokes, complimented his dinner (his wife,
who'd spent most of the evening on her feet serving, had
apparently prepared none of it), and chattered on about food,
cars and the boredom she found in towns like Lemington. All the
while, she'd maintained a coarseness, an inarticulateness that
were so utterly unlike her normal manner that he could almost
forget who was sitting across from him.
 
Flood's wife served coffee and disappeared into the kitchen, from
where sounds of dishes being washed emanated. Mulder was
beginning to think Flood had planned this evening merely to
observe them when the older man wrenched the conversation
around sharply.
 
"So have you thought about what I said last night?" It came out
of the blue, forcing Mulder to shift gears suddenly.
 
"Not really," he said.
 
Flood snickered. "Well, at least you're honest."
 
There was a long pause. Wait it out, Mulder told himself. Let
him lead. Don't appear eager.
 
"We need people like you," Flood said at last.
 
"Who's 'we'?"
 
The conversation had become convoluted, like one of those
video-game mazes, Mulder thought. If a player picks up the right
items along the way, takes the correct route, has enough energy
stored, the secret door will open.
 
"A group I belong to. The White Hand."
 
"So what is it?" Mulder asked, stepping through the suddenly
revealed opening and into the game's next level.
 
Flood began to speak, abandoning the cautious, cat-and-mouse
cadence of clipped queries for long, mellifluous, almost poetic
phrasing. Mulder let the tide of words carry him out, his mind
skimming along phrases like "reclaiming the nation," "restoring
the natural order," "defending racial honor."
 
It wasn't all that difficult, really. Flood was indeed good at this,
reminding Mulder of the first time he'd witnessed another classic
-- Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," the Nazi propaganda
film so compelling it had the power to stir the heart of the most
virulent anti-fascist. Like that film, Flood's words created
compelling images of power, belonging, order, community.
Mulder blanked his thoughts, dropped his guard, let the
monologue soak through his porous mind.
 
It took him a moment to realize Flood had stopped speaking.
 
______________________________
 
Scully was of two minds at the dinner table.
 
One mind she kept firmly anchored, using it to gauge the
meaning and intent of George Flood's words and to send
instructions to her body to respond accordingly.
 
"...wrest control of our lives from cowardly forces who murdered
our allies at Waco..."
 
Nod, head.
 
"...when we will summon the masses to defend their birthright..."
 
Lungs, take shallow breaths.
 
"...united effort to restore the rightful place of white
womanhood..."
 
Shine brightly, eyes.
 
Her other mind floated free, observing, measuring, calculating,
interpreting, determining how much rehearsal such a monologue
must have required, what effect it aimed for, the level of its
author's intellectual powers. With this other mind, she also
watched her partner resonate responsively, as though he were an
emotional tuning fork humming to life with sympathetic
vibration.
 
When Flood stopped speaking, nothing remained in the room but
a gentle hum in Mulder's mental key. He looked for all the world
like a man whose soul had just been stirred -- probably because
it had. He could open himself up to any experience. Ever since
she'd figured that out about him, it had frightened her. But never
more so than tonight.
 
She glanced at Flood and saw that he, too, was keenly aware of
Mulder's response. You've got him, boy.
 
One mind was relieved. The other was horrified.
 
"Join us," Flood was saying. "We are already soldiers in the
same cause."
 
"I wish I could put it like you do," Mulder said. "You just said
everything I been thinking."
 
"Then join us. Work with us. We could use you. Both of you."
His eyes darted to include her as an afterthought. She realized he
assumed she would follow wherever her man led.
 
Love those old-fashioned family values, she thought.
 
"If I say yes, what exactly would I be saying yes to?"
 
Scully realized she was grinding her teeth in frustration. Christ,
he was drawing this out. She wanted to get it over with, make
the deal, learn the secret club handshake and get the hell out of
there.
 
"The same kind of work you've been doing -- like the service
you did with that preacher. Only there'd be a purpose ... an
organization. You'd be a soldier in a powerful army. An army
that needs you."
 
"I'd like that. I'd like to be part of an army that I could believe in.
I want to believe."
 
She couldn't help it. She sucked in her next breath so hard she
coughed.
 
"You all right, Mary?" Flood asked.
 
"Yeah," she croaked, taking a sip of water. "It's just ... this is all
so exciting."
 
"Yeah," Mulder said, glaring at her. "It sure is." He turned his
attention back to Flood. "So when do we start? What do we do?"
 
"Something to symbolize the bright blaze of your new
commitment. A fire..."
 
Scully felt her stomach turn over.
 
_________________________
 
"What the hell were you thinking, Scully?" Mulder raised his
voice as he paced the length of their motel room agitatedly.
 
"Just doing my job." She hadn't meant to throw it in his teeth, but
it came out that way.
 
"We can't fake this. He'd catch on in a minute. He's not stupid."
 
"I know that. We're not going to fake it. At least, not entirely."
 
"We're not."
 
"No."
 
"We're going to torch an orphanage."
 
"Yes."
 
Mulder stared at her, and for the first time in a very long time,
she couldn't read what was behind his eyes. Fear? Certainly a
possibility. Mulder was terrified of fire. Anger? No doubt,
although she wasn't sure why, exactly. Disgust?
 
She forced her train of thought to derail.
 
"It won't be enough to destroy the building, y'know. If no one
gets hurt, he'll be suspicious."
 
"So we make sure it doesn't look suspicious."
 
"How?"
 
"We make sure someone dies in the fire."
 
"You want to plant a body."
 
"Yes." She suspected he'd known what she had in mind all along.
 
"And where do you plan to get it?"
 
"Mulder, we're working with the CIA here. These guys have
pulled off some of the biggest deceptions in history -- or so you
would have me believe. You don't think they can provide the
body of an African-American child and make sure the autopsy
shows smoke inhalation as the cause of death?"
 
He made no reply, just stood staring at her, his arms crossed,
shoulders held high and tight, face drawn into a slight frown. His
body language telegraphed a level of anxiety she had not
expected. Why was he so shocked?
 
Her own words came back to her. The body of a child. Of
course. Mulder, who had lost an eight-year-old sister to an
unknown fate, recoiled at the notion of intentionally desecrating
the body of a child.
 
It was ironic, she thought. She, with her Catholic-school
upbringing, had less trouble with it than he. How could it bother
her? She cut up dead people for a living, and all because she
believed that science and pragmatism took precedence over
personal belief or religious conviction. She'd long ago concluded
that the attachment of any significance whatsoever to an empty,
lifeless shell was mere superstition.
 
But not Mulder, who lived every day of his life in terror that a
small body would turn up somewhere and be identified as
Samantha. In a way, the loss that lay at the heart of his character
took the form of a child's body that was neither alive nor dead.
Just gone.
 
"It has to be done, Mulder," she said quietly. "You've hooked
him. Now we have to reel him in."
 
She saw him struggle to swallow, imagined the dry, choking
sensation in his throat. She thought for a moment he might gag.
 
"Fine," he said at last, his voice utterly devoid of emotion. "Call
the contact."
 
____________________
 
Scully lay on the motel room bed, one arm bent across her eyes
to block out the glare of the bright ceiling light. She was tired,
her body limp and slightly sweat-dampened.
 
"Again," Mulder said from his place next to her.
 
"I don't think I can," she said. "I haven't recovered from the last
time."
 
"You wanted to do this, Scully. It was your idea. We'll do it as
many times as it takes to get it right."
 
They'd been reviewing the plan step by step through most of the
night, until the words had ceased to mean anything to her. They
had no choice. Flood had given them very little time to prepare --
just 24 hours. That had been clever of him. He obviously wanted
to make it difficult for them to do exactly what they were doing -
- organize a deception. She could only hope he underestimated
the resources at their disposal.
 
But even if they pulled this off, there was still so much left to
chance. Would Flood confide in them the boy's whereabouts? If
he did, then what? They'd have to...
 
"Scully? I asked you a question."
 
"Hmm? Oh, sorry. What?"
 
Mulder glared at her evenly with the same cold eyes he'd turned
on her ever since they'd started planning this little bonfire party.
 
"We pull the alarm. What's our next move?"
 
So it had been going throughout the night, drilling the details
over and over. So it continued into the early-morning hours, both
of them reciting their lessons mechanically, taking care to put
into the exercise only as much thought as was required to get the
job done and no more. More could be dangerous, and they had
no time for that kind of danger right now.
 
Except she was so tired, and her mind had started to wander.
 
"I ... I ... For God's sake, Mulder, I need to get some sleep. I'm
not going to be any good to anyone if I can't see straight."
 
"Not until it's perfect." His voice was cold and sharp as a razor's
edge.
 
"But..."
 
"Do it!"
 
"All right!" she said, her voice raised nearly to a yell. "All right."
She forced herself to speak more calmly. "After we pull the
alarm, we go upstairs...."
 
She doubted the invasion of Normandy was planned any more
carefully than the attack on the First Baptist Home for Children.
But she had to admit it -- Mulder was right. He had said with
certainty that Flood wasn't likely to rely on media reports and
word of mouth. He would be at the scene somewhere, hidden,
watching. Any deception would have to be meticulously planned
and flawlessly executed in order to succeed under his very nose.
 
She took a deep breath and dug down deep, searching for some
hidden reserve of energy.
 
"I go upstairs to the main hallway..."
 
The first sliver of red-gold sun peeked over the horizon at that
moment, but neither agent noticed.
 
________________________
 
They walked the quarter-mile from the diner in silence, each
carrying a small backpack. They could have parked closer, but a
strange car on a semi-suburban street stood a much greater
chance of being noticed than one in the parking lot of an all-
night eatery.
 
They arrived at their destination at 3:02 AM exactly, by
Mulder's watch. The large, old house was dark, except for dim
hall lights that glowed faintly through a few small, centrally
placed windows. Just enough illumination to guide little feet
safely to the bathroom and back to bed, Mulder thought.
 
He glanced up and down the street. No sign of the observer he
felt sure must be there. Still, he could almost feel Flood's eyes on
him.
 
The back door lock made easy picking. All was still and silent
inside. Nothing suspicious. For a moment, Mulder felt a surge of
panic. They had left instructions on the supposedly secure voice
mailbox at the contact number. They had no way of knowing
whether those instructions had been received, let alone followed.
 
They moved toward the kitchen, twin, narrow flashlight beams
showing the way. They had studied the blueprints carefully and
could have found the basement door in the dark, had it been
necessary.
 
Scully reached it first and tried the knob. It turned easily. Mulder
released a tiny sigh of relief. Under normal circumstances, the
door would have been locked to prevent small children from
wandering through and tumbling downstairs.
 
They walked noiselessly down. Mulder could see nothing of
Scully ahead other than the beam from the light she held, her
black clothes blending in totally with the pitch darkness around
her. She didn't hesitate at the bottom of the stairs but walked
directly to a far corner of the basement. He followed.
 
She stopped, shining her light left and right. It should be right
here. Where...
 
There.  Her light fell on a lumpy tarp covering something on the
ground. Leaning down, he pulled it back to reveal the form of a
small, lifeless child. A boy, he noted. Maybe five years old.
Somebody's son.
 
"Go," came a whisper in the dark. He realized he'd been standing
and staring.
 
She was right. He lifted the little body gently. It weighed
nothing. Less than nothing.
 
"Go," came the whisper again. He headed for the stairs. As he
reached them, he heard a zipper being opened behind him, then
the sound of a liquid gurgling from a can. The plan called for
Scully to do the basement first. There had to be some smoke
before the alarm went off to make it look convincing. And there
was no point in him doing it. When they'd worked the whole
thing out, Scully had stated it matter-of-factly: "I'll start the
basement while you plant the body upstairs." He'd known what
she was thinking. No point putting him anywhere near open
flames any more than was absolutely necessary.
 
And he hadn't argued the point. She was right.
 
He reached the second floor and nearly dropped his small load
when a nearby shadow seemed to move. He ordered his
pounding heart to slow down as he recognized the shape to be a
large, matronly black woman. She'd obviously been waiting for
him. She nodded to him as their eyes made contact in the
dimness.
 
Good job, central casting, Mulder thought. He knew that what
passed for large and matronly in a housecoat and slippers was in
fact a strong, capable rescue specialist, in position and ready to
move at a moment's notice.
 
The dim hallway was lined with doors, all closed. He went
straight to the third one on the left, shifted the slight weight he
carried and turned the knob. This door, too, opened easily.
 
This time, he didn't jump at the silent figure waiting inside -- a
young man, also black. This home was, after all, sponsored by
the black Baptist churches in the area. It was a place where kids
with no families to care for them could find safe haven.
 
Safe haven...
 
He gave himself a mental shake. Stop it. No thinking. Stick to
the plan.
 
He noted with satisfaction that one of the two beds in the room
was empty but rumpled. Later, it would be assumed that the little
boy in his arms had occupied it. He could barely make out a
small form breathing steadily in the other bed.
 
He crossed the room and quietly opened the closet door, knelt
down and gently laid the body in the corner. The closet had been
Scully's idea. As a forensic pathologist, she knew that people
tended to panic in fires and try to hide themselves in tight,
enclosed spaces. Nice touch, he thought wryly.
 
He stood, closed the closet door, nodded to the watching stranger
and left.
 
Downstairs, he ran into Scully coming up from the basement,
their timing perfect. Together, they moved to the front room,
which was used as the main play area. They had chosen this
room as the only one they would ignite on the ground floor
because it was farthest from both the front and back exits.
Mulder took off his backpack and removed the can of lighter
fluid. Scully still had hers out. They squirted the furniture
carefully so as not to wet the floors or walls. The upholstered
items would create a lot of smoke, but it would take a while for
the room itself to catch, giving the house's occupants extra time
to escape.
 
When they were done, Mulder reached into his pocket for the
matches. He pulled one from the book and stood holding it. Only
when Scully came up and took it from him did he realize he
hadn't yet struck it. His heart was pounding furiously. His
darkness-adjusted eyes saw her head nod toward the hallway. He
went and stationed himself by the alarm box.
 
The sudden flare of light that jumped through the playroom door
startled him with its brightness, and for a moment he felt a
profound terror that Scully wouldn't be coming out. Her
appearance in the doorway did little to still the rushing blood in
his ears.
 
He collected as much of his wits as he could muster and pulled
the lever. A shrill whoop split the air, and bright emergency
lights shattered the night. He imagined the fright on the faces of
the suddenly awakened children upstairs.
 
The last step had to be accomplished in the space of a minute.
He and Scully ran for the stairs.
 
The young man Mulder had seen earlier stood in the now
brightly illuminated hallway, holding a small, crying boy tightly
in his arms -- no doubt the one Mulder had seen earlier sleeping
peacefully. Up and down the hallway, doors were beginning to
open. An adult stood in each. Mulder heard snippets of clear,
firmly spoken words. "Put your shoes on  now ... Put your
sweaters on ... Wait for instructions ..."
 
The two agents dashed into the third room on the left and
emptied their cans. Quick as a flash, Scully struck a match. The
bed went up in a lick of flame. Mulder was frozen to the spot.
The next thing he knew, he was being shoved hard, and then he
was through the door and out of the room.
 
As he ran for the stairs, he saw the adults standing in the
doorways, watching. Behind each of them, he knew, stood some
terrified children eager to flee. They were being held back in
order to allow the two arsonists to make their escape first.
 
He and Scully were down the stairs and out the door in five
seconds flat.
 
Fifteen seconds later, they were crouched in the bushes.
 
And ten seconds after that, people began pouring out of the
house.
 
"Oh my God! Fire! Help! Fire!"
 
The men and women who had stood so calmly in the presence of
the flames moments ago now sent up hysterical cries as they
herded the children outside. Mulder noticed the contrast between
the organized way they evacuated the children and the sharp
panic in their voices.
 
Damn, they were good. They might just pull this off after all.
 
________________________

END 5/8

Caught in the Act III: Sub Rosa 6/8
by Parrotfish (parrotfish@ibm.net)
 

The pavement pounded his body with every step. He focused on
the pinpoint of pain behind his right kneecap, willed it to grow
and envelop his body and his mind, to blot out all  memory and
thought. His legs pumped like jackhammers, as though they
would break the cement surface if it didn't break him first. Sweat
streamed down his face and neck, the rivulets tickling his chest
hairs beneath the soaked T-shirt. It had been dark when he'd
started, but now a thin, watery light crept from the eastern sky,
not so much an assertion of day as a recession of night.
 
He had no idea how many miles it had been or what he had
passed along the way. But now the glaring motel sign was
coming up fast, and he knew it was over. He couldn't run
forever.
 
As he slowed to a walk and approached their room, he hoped she
was asleep. He couldn't stand to see her as she had been when he
left, looking at him with hurt betrayal as she realized he was
going to run, to leave her alone again. He was supposed to be
there for her, to be strong for her. To know her even when she
did not know herself. You fucking hypocrite, he thought. You
don't even know yourself.
 
He opened the door and saw her sitting cross-legged on the bed,
wet from the shower, wearing only panties and T-shirt.
 
Looking at him.
 
Stop looking at me.
 
The television was on, and he gradually became aware of the
images on the screen. Fire. People running. Flashing lights. He
heard the urgent authority of the reporter's narration. Orphanage.
Arson suspected. One victim.
 
He crossed the room and turned it off.
 
"I wanted to see it."
 
"I didn't," he snapped.
 
"Mulder, we should know what they're saying. Bobby and Mary
would watch it."
 
"Fuck Bobby and Mary."
 
"Mulder..."
 
"Stop it, Scully! Stop it!" He was yelling at her, advancing on
her, edging closer to the bed, looming over her with his rage and
his disgust and his shame and his panic. He'd thought he could
do it. Whatever it took. But when the time came, where was his
strength? Where was his confidence?
 
Why wouldn't she stop looking at him like that?
 
"What do you see, Scully? What are you looking at?"
 
"What? Nothing."
 
"Nothing? That's right. Nothing." There was a rage building in
him, both blind and blinding. He felt it start with a twist in his
gut and blossom out, knotting muscles as it went, making him
rigid and hard. He stood glaring down at her and realized the
hardness had crept into every part of him.
 
His right hand shot out and grabbed her arm, gripping it hard.
 
"Nothing!"
 
His left hand followed, gripping her other arm, and he pulled her
up onto her knees facing him.
 
"Nothing." He was not shouting now.
 
"Nothing matters," he hissed. "We didn't do a damn thing
tonight. Nothing."
 
And then he moved a hand to her hair and gripped it just as
tightly as he'd held her arm, pulled hard, yanking her head back,
and then he was kissing her, but it wasn't so much kissing as
demanding, devouring.
 
He felt her tense, try to struggle away from him. To his horror,
he found his hands gripping tighter, pushing her backward onto
the bed, following her down. He groped for her wrists and
yanked them up over her head, gathered them into one strong
hand and held them with all his might, pinning her. His body
pressed down on hers, an immovable wall against which she
squirmed. Vaguely, somewhere in the back of his fogged brain,
he was mortified to find her movements aroused him even more.
 
He brought his mouth back to hers and plunged his tongue
inside, half expecting her to bite him. If his thoughts had been
clear he might not have taken that chance, but he was beyond
caring, beyond worrying.
 
Nothing.
 
He raised his hips slightly, opening a small space between them,
slid his hand in and pushed her panties aside. Without pausing to
think, he shoved three fingers inside her. The hot, soft walls of
her cunt wrapped around half his hand and made him grunt
urgently into her mouth.
 
He rotated his wrist so his fingers moved inside her, pressing
against the sides of her tight passage. He moved his head down
to her breast, wrapped his lips around the tip through the thin
cotton fabric, and bit.
 
Her hips bucked against his hand, and a gush of creamy heat slid
into his palm.
 
It was more than he could stand.
 
He pulled his hand from her and grappled with the string of his
running shorts. His clumsy, wet fingers finally managed to undo
the knot and yank the elastic waist down his hips. His erection
sprang free.
 
Don't do this don't do this don't do this don't do this his brain
screamed, even as he yanked her panties aside again and pushed
himself into her with all his force.
 
Stop this now, he thought. This wasn't one of their little control
games.
 
But it was too late. Mind and cock both hardened by pure rage,
he pumped himself into her. After the first, wildly uncontrolled
few thrusts, he slowed somewhat, set up a deliberate, forceful
rhythm.
 
And he watched her. She lay beneath him like a taut rubber
band, arms pulled up, legs splayed wide. Eyes wide open.
 
Come on, he thought. Show me.
 
Pump.
 
Show me what you really think.
 
Pump.
 
Let me see it in your eyes.
 
Pump.
 
Give it to me.
 
Pump.
 
Hate me. Fear me. Pity me.
 
Pump.
 
Show me, damn it, show me, I dare you, show it to me. Throw it
back at me the way I'm pumping it into you the way I'm pushing
it into you the way I'm fucking it into you the way I'm doing it to
you show me show me show me DAMN IT!
 
He came inside her and still he watched her watching him.
 
And then his balls were empty and his cock was done twitching
inside her, and he realized one hand ached with the iron grip he'd
kept on her wrists, and the fingers of the other hand were curled
into the soft flesh of her thigh, holding her open, and his jaw hurt
from clenching his teeth, and she was still looking at him, just
looking, and...
 
Oh, Jesus Christ. Oh God. Oh God. What have I done?
 
He backed off of her and stumbled to his feet.
 
"Scully ... oh my God ..."
 
Reeling, he lurched toward the bathroom, barely making it
before heaving the meager contents of his stomach into the toilet.
It felt like he might regurgitate his own heart. He wished he
could.
 
__________________________
 
>From nowhere, a warm, strong hand touched Mulder's forehead,
lifting it up and away from the toilet seat. He jerked away,
rolling on his side into a corner of the bathroom.
 
"Don't touch me," he rasped through a throat raw with the
burning of his own stomach acid.
 
"Mulder..."
 
"Get out now. Go call the police."
 
"Jesus, Mulder, you're such a piece of work. We can't call the
police, remember?"
 
"Then do it after. When we're done." He wasn't making much
sense, and he knew it. But why wouldn't she leave?
 
Scully sank to the bathroom floor, her back to the wall, legs
crossed. He could see the wetness of what he'd done to her
soaking through the crotch of her panties.
 
"Get out, Scully," he mumbled.
 
"No! I'm not going anywhere. Stop this, Mulder. Stop it now."
 
"Stop what? It's too late. God, what have I done?"
 
"What did you just do, Mulder? Go on, say it."
 
"I ... Oh, God, Scully, what don't you just go?"
 
"Say it!"
 
"I ... raped you."
 
"You raped me?"
 
There was absolute silence as the words bounced off the tiled
walls. He didn't answer.
 
"Define it," she said at last.
 
"What?"
 
"Define rape, Agent Mulder. Come on. Can't your superman
memory come up with something as simple as that?"
 
"Rape..." He began to speak mechanically "...the crime of
forcing another person to submit involuntarily to sexual
intercourse..."
 
"Involuntarily!" She threw it back at  him angrily. "Mulder, did I
just resist you?"
 
"You ... at first..."
 
"If someone raped me, Mulder, do you think there would be any
doubt about the involuntary nature of my participation? Do you
honestly think I would just lie there? You know me better than
that." Her voice had softened. She crawled across the floor to
him, gently lifted his head and lay it on her lap. "The real
question is, why is that what you thought it was?"
 
His eyes slid shut as he soaked in her presence with guilty relief.
"God, Scully, don't you see? It would have been. I couldn't have
stopped myself."
 
"Bullshit." She said it angrily, but even in his addled state, he
heard a weary resignation behind it, as though she didn't really
expect to convince him. "You don't know that, Mulder. The fact
is, I wasn't resisting. Okay? I was willing. I consented. It wasn't
rape."
 
He sat up slowly, painfully, his gut still twisted with nausea, and
faced her.
 
"But why didn't you, Scully?"
 
She wondered for a moment whether it was confusion or regret
she heard. Did he really hate himself so much that he wished she
had resisted him, just so he could punish himself with even more
self-loathing? Just so she would abandon him, leave him alone to
suffer?
 
"Because I didn't want to resist. Because you needed something,
and I gave it to you. Although I think maybe what I really did
was take something from you. Something you would have used
to hurt yourself."
 
He sat staring at her, just staring, for a long time, until she
thought his gaze would bore a hole through her head.
 
_____________________________
 
They had barely fallen into an exhausted slumber when the call
had come. At the time, they had had only the vaguest notion of
what to expect.
 
But the moment Scully entered George Flood's living room that
evening, she knew.
 
The banner on the wall. The circle of seats. The gathering of
men. The table and chair at the center. The compressor.
 
Mulder was whisked away by two men as soon as they arrived.
She stood in the doorway, unsure what to do, when Flood
approached her.
 
"Welcome. You did very well last night."
 
"Thank you."
 
"I hope you won't be offended that Bobby will be the center of
attention her tonight. It's not that we don't appreciate your good
work, but we have no intention of turning our women into
footsoldiers. You understand."
 
"Sure."
 
Oh God, she thought. Not this. Don't do this to him. Anything
but this.
 
"Won't you have a seat?" He waved toward a chair on the rim of
the circle, and she sat. The others followed her lead. She was
barely aware that Frank sat beside her.
 
"This is a big night," he said.
 
A dark night, she thought. But his words served to shake her out
of her daze. She reminded herself there was still a job to do.
 
She looked around the room. About fifteen men sat around the
circle. She was the only woman. She forced her eyes to pause on
each face, trying to commit it to memory. She wished she could
do it as easily as Mulder did.
 
The men were silent and wore serious expressions. Most were
young, in their 20's, and looked like they belonged to a blue-
collar world.
 
Her observation was interrupted by Flood's entrance into the
center of the circle. He carried a plain, wooden staff, which he
tapped three times on the floor.
 
"Let's begin," he said.
 
Two men appeared in the doorway and led Mulder into the
circle. He was stripped to the waist, wearing only his jeans. The
men left him there and went to stand against the wall. Scully
wondered what the group would make of the gunshot scar in his
shoulder -- the one she had inflicted on him when he'd been
ready to shoot that rat bastard Krycek. They'd probably see it as
an enhancement to his image as a formidably dangerous man.
 
"Sit down," Flood said, indicating the chair by the table in the
center of the circle. When Mulder was seated, Flood moved to
stand before him and held the staff out.
 
"Place your left hand on the rod of authority," he instructed.
Mulder complied, grasping the stick just below where Flood held
it. His face was blank.
 
Rod of authority, Scully found herself thinking. Boys with toys.
 
"Do you pledge yourself to your country?" Flood began.
 
"Yes."
 
"Do you pledge yourself to your race?"
 
"Yes."
 
"Do you pledge yourself to victory?"
 
"Yes."
 
"Do you pledge yourself to the White Hand?"
 
"Yes."
 
Four times Mulder said "yes," the word falling from him
lifelessly, his tone and manner betraying nothing.
 
"You have shown your loyalty in deed and pledged it in word.
Now you will bear it on your body as a mark of honor."
 
Another man entered the circle carrying a chair, which he set
down to Mulder's left. He was a surprisingly mild-looking
fellow, middle-aged, with crinkly eyes and thick glasses. He
looked like someone's favorite teacher or the nice storekeeper
who handed out free penny candies. He reached over to the tray,
picked up a tool and set to work on the arm Mulder still
stretched before him, grasping the staff.
 
For nearly an hour, the room was dead silent except for the whir
of the machine. For nearly an hour, Mulder stared straight ahead
without moving a muscle. For nearly an hour, Flood stood
before him, his hand resting on top of the staff.
 
For nearly an hour, Scully watched in carefully veiled horror as
the shape of an eagle formed on Mulder's skin, and on its breast,
a swastika.
 
When it was over, the other men surrounded him, offering hearty
words of welcome and slaps on the back as though he'd just
made it through a fraternity hazing and was now one of the boys.
He said very little, just nodded and shook hands and drank what
he was offered.
 
Later, as they drove back to their motel, she tried to think of
something to say.
 
You can have it removed. The laser procedure is totally
effective, especially when the tattoo is fresh. At least the needle
was clean. I saw him rip the seal on the package. Thank God
that's over with. It's just a tattoo, Mulder. It isn't you.
 
In the end, she said nothing. Neither did he.
 
___________________________
 
Boozing alone -- again. Whatever would your mother say, Dana
Katherine?
 
A couple of days earlier, she might have smiled at the thought.
Now it was just unnerving. She was tired and anxious and sick
to death of the whole damn thing.
 
And worried. Really worried.
 
Mulder had stayed out most of the night after his "initiation." He
wouldn't tell her where he'd been when she asked -- just replied
with a vague, "Around." She suspected that was true. He'd
probably spent the night driving, listening to his inner demons as
they fed noisily on the rotted remains of his self-respect.
 
And then, with the daylight, four men had arrived who'd said
they were taking him for "training."
 
God knew what that meant. But it couldn't be good.
 
So she'd come out alone tonight, if for no other reason than
because that's what Mary would do.
 
God, Dana Scully was getting to hate Mary Deene with every
ounce of her being. Which was especially ironic considering that,
at the moment, Dana Scully was Mary Deene.
 
No. I'm not.
 
Aren't you? She thought about that. Here she was, sitting where
Mary would sit, drinking what Mary would drink, wearing what
Mary would wear. If someone were to speak to her, he would
address her as Mary, and she would reply as Mary.
 
And, of course, given half a chance, she would espouse the white
supremacist ideology that Mary held dear.
 
So what difference did it make if she wasn't really Mary Deene?
No one else knew that.
 
Jesus, Dana, she thought, slugging back some more of Mary's
bourbon. You're not making any sense.
 
She hadn't really realized how hard this was going to be on her.
How much of herself she'd lose in it. And if it was this difficult
for her, how hard must it be for Mulder?
 
Mulder, whose uncanny ability to internalize the thought
processes of others made him a crack criminal profiler.
 
Mulder, who had been forced to do things that terrified him in
order to prove that he was in fact the homicidal racist he made
himself out to be.
 
Mulder, who was now branded with the mark of that person.
 
Mulder, who was losing himself right before her eyes.
 
God. The poor son of a bitch had actually promised to be her
anchor through all this. And she fully believed that's exactly
what he had intended to be. The only problem was that, as
anchors went, he was a lightweight. In fact, once you factored in
his self-doubt, low self-esteem and massive guilt complex, you
were left with an acorn tied to a string.
 
Not that she had expected anything different, she mused,
polishing off the last of the bourbon in her glass. She knew all
this about him, weighed it against his selflessness, his loyalty, his
passion and his humor, and found in the mix a man she could
accept and love despite himself. The trouble was that he couldn't.
 
"Penny for your thoughts?"
 
Scully nearly jumped out of her skin when a voice intruded on
her very private musings, almost as if she were afraid she'd
spoken them out loud.
 
"Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. Mind if I sit down?"
 
Before she could answer, Frank slid into the booth. She was
thankful he chose the bench across from her this time.
 
"You worried about Bobby?"
 
"Umm ... yeah," she stumbled, disconcerted.
 
"Well, don't be. He'll be fine. We've all been through the
training. It's just to make you feel a part of the whole thing,
y'know?"
 
"Yeah. I guess so," she said, recovering somewhat. "He's a big
boy. He can take care of himself."
 
"Yeah. Try not to worry. Bobby's not an ordinary guy." Scully's
eyes snapped to his. There was something about the way he said
it -- an odd sincerity -- that alarmed her. Had he meant anything
beyond the obvious? Did he suspect something?
 
Before she had a chance to think it through, he was speaking
again, distracting her with idle chatter about some party that was
planned for the weekend. She forced herself to make the
appropriate responses.
 
"Y'know, you and Bobby should come. A lot of people are
gonna be there."
 
"Oh yeah? Like who?"
 
"Oh, y'know. A lot of the guys who were there last night. And
some others."
 
This was getting interesting. A party might be just the place to
pick up some stray information. People drank, their tongues
were loosened.
 
"I suppose I could stand a little celebration," she said, trying to
sound enthusiastic at the prospect.
 
She figured she must have succeeded when Frank smiled
broadly. "Great! Y'know, all the guys have been wanting to meet
you. It's not like there are too many girls who can do what you
did the other night. Especially not ones who look as hot as you."
 
"Yeah, well, that's why I don't hang around with girls too much.
They're wimps."
 
"Yeah. I know what you mean. Like, I was just talkin' to this one
guy, Joey Francis, and he was asking me about you. Wanted to
know if a girl with balls is still a girl."
 
Scully laughed. "What did you tell him?"
 
Frank crooked a finger at her, inviting her closer. She leaned
across the table, and he brought his lips to her ear. "I told him
you was all woman," he whispered. "One hundred percent."
 
She laughed again and leaned back. "Damn straight," she said.
 
Frank suddenly turned serious again and looked her straight in
the eye. "You'd like Joey," he said. "George likes Joey. Trusts
him. Tells him stuff he don't tell the rest of us. Joey could really
go for a girl like you."
 
And then Frank was off on other topics, and the strange light was
gone from his eyes. Scully wondered if she'd really seen anything
there at all.
 
_________________________
 
White is right.
 
He'd repeated those three words at least a hundred times in a
day. He'd shouted them on the top of his lungs, replied to a dozen
questions with them, chanted them in time with the rest of the
"trainees."
 
Three stupid little words that now refused to leave his head.
 
White is right through the obstacle course, pushing you up and
over the wall, through the mud, across the rope.
 
White is right in hand-to-hand combat, the reason you get up off
the mat after slamming it really hard.
 
And on the shooting range...
 
BANG!
 
White is right.
 
BANG!
 
White is right.
 
BANG!
 
Enough already.
 
As a psychologist, Mulder had little difficulty recognizing basic
brainwashing techniques. A message repeated over and over
again while the mind and body are hammered to the point of
exhaustion is wedged under the protective layers of
consciousness and conscience.
 
Mulder didn't believe the words now any more than he did in the
morning, but he couldn't stop thinking them. The technique must
be really effective with men who more or less already believed
them, he thought.
 
The ceaseless repetition of that infernal phrase hadn't even been
the worst of it. Every step of the way, through each and every
event of the day, Mulder had been battling the reflexes
developed through years of FBI training lest he give himself
away. After hundreds of hours of extensive weapons training, he
was forced to handle automatic and semi-automatic guns as
though he'd never used one. Despite endless practice in unarmed
self-defense, he'd had to fight as though he'd learned everything
he knew on the street.
 
The constant self-monitoring had given him a nasty headache.
 
All told, his day at the farm -- which was wh