By J. Millington
varmstro@earthlink.net
 

Please add this story to the archive.

Rating - R for violence and unpleasant sexual situations
Classification - XA
Spoilers for Herrenvolk and Terma - nothing after that

Summary - Mulder and Scully become intimately involved in the affairs of a
faction within the consortium. Mulder finds himself to be an important part
of their plans for a new future for mankind.

* * * * *

DONORS - Part 1
 

It was nine o'clock in the morning and Scully was beginning to get angry.
Of all the mornings to be late he had to pick today. Mulder knew they had a
meeting with Skinner. She had tried his apartment once again and his cell
phone one more time and still got no answer.
 
She was just about to call Skinner's office and let him know they were
running late when the phone rang.

"Scully."

"Agent Scully," the AD's voice sounded grim.

"Sir, I was just about to call land let you know that we're running late and --"

"Scully, I need you to meet me at Georgetown University Medical Center.
Agent Mulder was picked up last night, unconscious, by the Lincoln
Memorial."

She felt her heart skip a beat. "I'm on my way."

She replayed last night's events in her head. The past two weeks had been
grueling, compiling evidence  on a particularly nasty case until they had
enough to convince a judge to issue a search warrant. When they finally
assembled the back up team to conduct the search, they found the suspect
dead in his living room, by his own hand. Case closed, no real resolution,
no justice for the victims.

Pressure had been applied, none too subtly, to go by the book. Mulder had
only just been cleared for field assignments after his brush with death in
the Arctic. If he even thought about taking off on some wild crusade for
the truth, both his partner and Assistant Director Walter Skinner would
have had his ass. But if he had pushed it just a little more, bent the
rules ever so slightly, their suspect might have apprehended alive. He
hadn't needed to tell her how he felt, the slump in his shoulders and his
dead gait as he walked around the crime scene told her all she needed to
know.

She and Mulder had walked back to her car, leaving the remnants of the
investigation to the  DC police. Sensing her partner's need to be alone,
Scully had laid her hand on his arm just be fore he opened the car door.

"Look, it's almost five, let's call it a day. We can write the report up
tomorrow."

He'd nodded in agreement. Exhaustion and disappointment had sapped his
energy. And to tell the truth, his stamina still wasn't back to normal. She
srove him back to his apartment. The sat there, silent, for a moment before
he slowly climbed out of the car.

"Night, Scully."

"Get some rest. Remember that meeting with Skinner tomorrow, nine o'clock."

What could have happened between last night and this morning?

* * * * * * * *

Mulder lay back in his hospital bed, trying to piece together his memories
of the previous evening. Skinner waited for him to sort through the mental
fog. They both looked up as Scully entered the room.

"So, what was it this time." Her expression was a mixture of anger and
relief. He didn't look too bad, just a little tired and pale. "I thought
you were going to stay home after I dropped you off."

 "Agent Scully, if you will please sit down, Agent Mulder was just about to
tell me what he remembers."

She took the empty chair closest to the bed.

"I did stay home.  I ordered a pizza. There was a Knicks game on. I
remember about the first half of it, but I think I fell asleep after that.
That's all I remember, until I woke up here half an hour ago." He turned
toward Skinner,  "Maybe you can tell me what's going on."

"You were found unconscious at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial about six
this morning. Your wallet was missing, so the police suspected that you
were the victim of a mugging. One of the doctors in the ER recognized you
from your most recent visit and notified the Bureau. On examination, there
don't appear to be any injuries consistent with a mugging, no concussion or
bruises. But there is a small puncture wound on the back of your neck and a
larger one in your arm, and your hemoglobin level is extremely low. It
appears that someone accosted you in your home, rendered you unconscious
and removed about four pints of blood. Can you tell me anything about
that?"

Mulder just stared. He had no idea.

* * * * * * * * * *

In a large and well equipped lab, technicians were just finishing the
preliminary testing on the sample that arrived earlier in the morning. The
researchers were unaware of the source, didn't really care to know where it
came from. All they were concerned with was finding a specimen that
displayed a large quantity of the unusual immune factor. This work was
decades beyond any other research in the field. Find a carrier of this
factor, isolate it in sufficient quantities for study and find a way to
alter DNA to simulate its effects in vivo. It was one thing to get good
test results in the lab, what they really wanted was a live carrier of the
antibodies.

A cheer rang out from one of the researchers. "Break out the champagne.
This is the one."

* * * * * * * * *
 
Eighteen months later
May 13

        When Scully entered Mulder's basement office she found him puzzling
over his computer. Next to him lay a sheet of yellow paper ripped from a
legal pad. He looked up when he heard her come in.

"I'm glad you're here. I need you help."

"Mulder, you always need my help. What is it today?"

He grinned at her, briefly and handed her the piece of paper. "This came in
the mail today, no return address and the post mark is here in Washington."

"A list of names." Across the top of the list the words 'start with these'
were written in plain block letters.

"Twenty of them, to be exact. No cities, dates, ages, nothing to give me an
idea of who they are or how they might be connected. I thought we could
split it up, find out as much as we can and compare notes."

"Before I invest my entire day on a wild goose chase, what's the point?
This might just be someone's idea of a joke or an attempt to make you look
foolish by wasting your time. How do we know where this came from?"

"We don't. Look, the least we can do is run through the names and see if we
can come up with anything significant."

They worked their way through lunch, eating in the office. Out of millions
of Americans, it was astonishing how many individuals shared names. They
found  hundreds of matches for the twenty names on the list. This was the
drudge work of law enforcement, tedious and boring. Mulder took all the
information they unearthed and submitted it to the NCIC database, looking
for some common parameters. They still had no idea what the names
represented. They could be victims, criminals, witnesses or just about
anything.

By the end of the day they were both exhausted.

"I don't know about you, Mulder, but I'm beginning to think that we're
trying to find a pattern in chaos where no patterns exist." He grudgingly
admitted that she might be right.
 

In the morning he checked on the computer search. When Scully arrived he
was still pouring over the report.

"Eighteen out of the twenty names matched with men who had been reported
missing within the past year. But they came from a four-state area in the
Midwest. The police reports concluded that some of them may have met with
foul play, but they believed that several might have left of their own free
will, and some of the disappearances are still unexplained. There's a
striking similarity in some of them with abduction cases here in the
X-Files. "

Abductees, of course he would go for that angle first. She picked up the
report to read it for herself.

"But there are also forty-seven men whose names match those on the list,
men who are wanted by the police in thirty-two different states. And I'm
sure if we looked hard enough at this data, we could find other
possibilities as well. There just isn't enough evidence here to formulate
any kind of rational theory."

He grabbed the papers from her and shoved them into the file. For the
remainder of the day he plowed through a pile of paperwork, sullen and
silent. He thought about what she had said. Maybe she was right. Until he
had something more solid to go on, Mulder decided to keep this file on the
back burner. There were other, more tangible crimes to solve. By the end of
the week he barely thought about it at all.

* * * * * * * *

>From the outside the building looked like an abandoned warehouse, an
impression that was been reinforced by the overgrown weeds along the fence
and the absence of truck traffic in and out of the main gate. But anyone
observing the back gate might have come to a different opinion. Passenger
cars and vans, plain, dark-colored and outwardly unremarkable, entered the
compound periodically throughout the day. In one of these cars Bill Jordan
arrived for another day at work. He liked to think that the project was
his, although he knew that he answered to shadowy figures in Washington.

Last week they had stepped up the program to level 2 protocols. Out of the
initial thirty test subjects, fifteen had survived the implantation of
genetic material. Ten of those displayed the altered response they were
looking for. It was exciting research, cutting-edge and unfortunately
highly illegal. And the research it was built upon was anonymous and beyond
anything else in the field. But Jordan was convinced of the ultimate
benefit of the project. He only hoped that the outcome would be in time.

As he entered the building he nodded to the receptionist and stepped up to
door which only he and the security guard could open. His swiped his
keycard through the slot and punched in the code. The door swung open and
he entered what looked like a vast intensive care ward.

There were forty beds, each one surrounded by an array of medical
equipment. During the initial stage all of the test subjects would have
died without the advanced life support. As it was, three-fourths of the
beds were empty.

A tall man in surgical scrubs walked up to Jordan with a grim look on his face.

Hamilton Alexander, Ham to his friends, was one of the best infectious
disease men Jordan knew. The fact that Alexander was also well-versed in
immunology made him a valuable addition to the project. Jordan had started
off his practice as a urologist, switched to genetic research and then
carved his niche in the medical community as an expert in male infertility
and reproduction.

"Ham, it makes me nervous when you aren't smiling."

"I wish I could say that I had good news, but numbers 5 and 12 suffered a
relapse during the night. I don't think they'll last the day."

"What about the others?"

"The remaining subjects show no adverse response to the innoculant and are
responding well to the clomiphene and tamoxifen. The electrode implantation
sites have healed nicely. I think they are over the hump. Damn, if those
other two hadn't relapsed, I would have recommended moving all of them to
the long-term facility today."

"Don't get discouraged. You know we expected to lose a few more. Let's give
it a couple more days, and if these eight look stable, I'll transfer them.
In the meantime we need to select the next batch."

"Yeah, I've got the list in the office. There are some really great
prospects in this bunch. I'd like to change the level 1 initiation
protocols a little bit, I think we can get a better survival rate."

This was what Jordan liked about Alexander. The man was an eternal
optimist. Knock him on his ass and he rebounded in no time.

"In the mean time, you might as well terminate 5 and 12 and the other five
who didn't respond adequately. We've learned all we can from the failure.
Might as well empty the cold storage unit. Get a crew to take them to the
disposal site."
 

May 21

It was with some regret that Bill Jordan reflected on exactly how much the
long-term facility resembled a prison. Not on the outside, of course.
Anyone who might travel down this isolated road would undoubtedly mistake
it for a small manufacturing plant. The squat square building was encircled
by a tall chain link fence, topped with a bit of razor, almost as an after
thought. There were no guard towers, no vicious barking dogs. The manicured
lawn and beds of seasonal flowers gave the place a rather benign
appearance.

The decor of the reception area was tasteful and expensive. But beyond that
point the state-of-the-art security left little doubt that the purpose of
the building was to keep its inhabitants securely, if comfortably, inside.
The four wings were laid out in a square with a hidden exercise yard in the
middle. The north side held the administrative offices, the east end was
given over to shipping and receiving. There were no windows facing outward
on the south and west sides, these were devoted to the housing and testing
facilities.

The housing unit awaited the arrival of the eight program survivors. Here
they would serve mankind, become the fathers of a new generation, a
generation able to live comfortably in the world which was to come.

All they hey had been told was that they had been gravely  ill with
something rare and contagious that prohibited contact with their friends
and families. They had also been told that were being moved to a new
hospital now that they were well on the road to recovery. None of them had
asked about the strangely renewed virility which accompanied their return
to health. After being so sick, each man was privately grateful to have
enough energy left for that. The specter of sterility and impotence
followed a debilitating illness, they were actually relieved.

Jordan's assistant nodded to him, the bus had arrived.

Eight men, dressed in loose pajamas walked slowly through the door. As
those first in line got a good look at the interior they balked. The
guards, dressed as orderlies, pushed them forward. In front of them were
armed guards, weapons raised.

Jordan approached the young men and spoke, "Welcome to your new home
gentlemen."

A long row of cells faced the inside of the corridor. Each man was forced
into a cell, the doors swung shut behind them.

"Now that you have each been assigned a room, let me assure we will do
everything in our power to make your life here as comfortable as possible.
I hope you note that the furnishings, while a bit spartan, are comfortable.
There is a television outside each room, just let the guards know what you
want to watch, he will be glad to accommodate you. There are ample exercise
facilities, a well-stocked library, and the food is excellent. There is one
hard and fast requirement that will be met. Specimens will be required
three times a day, every day. If you will look at the rear wall of your
room, you will see a dispenser."

Eight pairs of fearful eyes turned toward the back of the cells.

"You there in Number 1, I think you will demonstrate for the others what to do."

The young man cringed and shrank to one corner of the cell, unsure of what
was coming next. A guard opened the door to the cell.

"Come on young man, take a package from the dispenser."

The inmate moved toward the slot in the wall and pressed the button. A
small foil wrapped package plopped down into the chute. His hands shook as
he tore it open. The condom dropped onto the floor.

"These are specially made. . .pick it up so I can show your fellow residents."
Jordan walked up to the cell and took the condom from the man's shaking
hand. "I want you to notice, the little pouch on the end. This will hold
all the specimen you can produce. Surely you have noticed a rather more
copious than normal output recently?"

Eight faces blushed, they hadn't thought anyone had observed their
activities quite that closely.

"Don't worry about it. There is a reason both for the increase in your
libido and the quantity of the ejaculate. You see we now control that
impulse." He handed the condom back to its owner and pulled a small device
from the pocket of his lab coat. "Before each meal you will receive an
electrical charge through an electrode implanted in a certain area of the
brain. Don't try to resist it , it would be utterly useless."

As he spoke, he depressed a series of keys on the device and the inmate in
front him began to shift rather uncomfortably.

"Don't be shy boy, they need to see what's going on." Two guards entered
the cell and pulled back the fly on the pajamas to reveal the erection the
man had tried to hide. They held his hands back while dragging him out of
the cell to face the others.

"You will find the impulse quite strong, quite impossible to resist."
Jordan slid the condom into place. "Whenever you feel the urge you will
cover it with a condom, extract a specimen and signal a guard to pick it up
immediately. Failure to cooperate is useless, specimens will be obtained
with or without your cooperation."

The guards held him fast while a technician slipped a odd pumping device
over the subject's penis. In a few moments the act was completed, the
technician retrieved the device and the specimen. The exhausted young man
was pushed back into his room. He sat down onto his bed and began to cry
softly to himself. Dear God in Heaven, what was going on here.

Jordan pressed another sequence of keys on his device and one after another
the new residents of his facility felt the beginning of a new way of life.
 

END PART 1
 
 

DONORS - part 2
 

* * * * * * * *
PART TWO
Three months later
August 10

Just outside of Platte City, Missouri a hunter walked with his dog along
the perimeter of the abandoned  farm. He had his rifle slung over his
shoulder and carried a bag for the game he hoped to take that day. It
didn't bother him that the property was posted, 'No Trespassing.' It didn't
even bother him that it wasn't officially hunting season. He never bothered
with a hunting license, anyway. If he got the taste for some game he just
called his dog, Bubba, and took off hunting.

Bubba stop stopped suddenly, put his nose to the air, then took off like a
shot. When he finally caught up with him, his dog was acting excited,
digging at the dirt. Well, maybe there was a burrow there. He'd had his
mind set on rabbit today, his wife had a way of stewing them with mushrooms
that was heavenly. He kneeled down to get a closer look. Something was
sticking up out of the ground. He scooped the dirt away with his hand and
recoiled at what he found. A charred skull grinned up at him, the flesh
burned away.
 

August 11
7 a.m.

Scully had just stepped out of the shower and was trying to decide on what
to have for breakfast when the phone rang.

"CNN. John Cooper. Harold Johnson "

The caller hung up and she was left listening to the dial tone. Those names
sounded familiar. . .now she remembered, they were on Mulder's list. If
this was his idea of a joke. . . But it hadn't sounded like Mulder, or any
of the Lone Gunmen. What could it hurt. She turned on the television and
stood gapping at the live coverage of  murder scene. The caption beneath
the picture read, 'Mass Grave Unearthed.' She picked up her phone.
 

When she stepped through the door to his office, he was already hard at
work. Skinner had approved his request to go to Kansas City and Mulder was
on the phone finalizing the travel arrangements.

He looked up as she walked in. Placing his hand over the receiver he  said,
"The  Kansas City office is going to to fax us some more details on this."
He turned his attention back to phone, "No, I said the first flight out
today, not tomorrow."

Scully turned her attention to the incoming fax. In a small ravine in rural
Missouri an unknown number of bodies had been dumped and burned. The
remains, brittle and charred, were so jumbled together that investigators
had yet to determine the exact number of victims, let alone identity,
gender or cause of death. How did their mystery informant fit into all of
this? Were the names on Mulder's list victims or were they responsible for
the atrocity? She was so engrossed in the report that she didn't hear him
hang up the phone.

"So, what have you got there."

She handed him the fax. As he read through it, his face clouded. "It looks
like we're back to the missing persons interpretation of that list."

"Mulder," she sighed, "You're not going to suggest alien abduction this
time. There is absolutely no evidence to support that theory."

"Believe it or not, I agree. No, I'm not ready to jump to any conclusions yet."

But she didn't believe for a moment that he didn't already have a theory.

* * * * * * * * * * *

It was a beautiful summer day and Bill Jordan felt like whistling as he
walked from his car to the level 1 testing facility. His primary interest
was in the procedures under way at the long term facility and things there
couldn't have been better. Now he just wanted to check in with Alexander to
make sure this new batch was ready for transfer.

He found the younger man making his rounds. The vast room held a long row
of beds on each side of the wall. It was easier to handle the test subjects
if they were unconscious Their cooperation was not really needed at this
stage; in the secondary stage cooperation was inevitable, Jordan had seen
to that.

"Hey, Ham."

His friend looked up and smiled. "Bill, glad to see you back here. I've got
a good batch for you this time."

"So I hear. Twenty-one survivors out of thirty, pretty damn good. How many
show the positive cellular response and chromosomal changes?"

"Fifteen. And no relapses this time. I really think we have this
fine-tuned. I started the first stages of the level 2 meds last week. I was
going to start implanting the electrodes today. If you'd like to give me a
hand, I bet we can have this batch ready for transfer by the first of next
week."

"Now that's good news. The first eight are really doing good. We've doubled
seminal fluid volume and increased sperm percentage to twenty-five per
cent. We've begun to distribute to a number of different locations."

The two men chatted amiably. Behind them fifteen young men drifted on in
dreamless drugged sleep with no idea of the hell their lives were to
become.

* * * * * * * * * * *
August 12

The two agents who met Mulder and Scully at the Kansas City airport were as
different as night and day. Ahmad Raghami was a cheerful man, his black
hair and dark complexion were exotic, but his accent was pure Midwest. In
contrast, George Anson was taciturn and pale; his blue eyes  and pasty
complexion gave the impression of a man who rarely ventured into the light
of day. But the two men, different as they were, were the best of friends
and a highly effective team of agents out of the FBI's Kansas City office.

"Agent Mulder, Agent Scully, I'm Ahmad Raghami, this is George Anson. I
don't have to tell you, we are really glad to have you here."

"What have you got so far?" Scully was anxious to get started.

"We've photographed the scene and combed the surrounding area for
additional evidence. To tell you the truth, Agent Scully, we've been
waiting on you to give us some idea on how to proceed on the grave itself.
Wait 'til you see, it's a real mess." He turned toward her partner,  "Just
got off the phone with AD Skinner back in Washington. Agent Mulder, he
wants you to call him as soon as possible, but this is no longer a local
matter. We're taking over the investigation, and I think he wants you as
AIC."

Mulder stopped and opened up his briefcase. He extracted copies of the list
that had been mailed to him weeks before. "In that case, the first thing I
need you to do is check the names on this list against missing persons
reports here and in surrounding states."

Scully shot him a look of exasperation, "Mulder, you don't know for sure
what the significance of that list is yet."

"Just go along with me on this. I have an idea."

Anson and Raghami each took a copy and looked it over. The looked at each
other and Anson spoke up first, "Where did you get this?"

"It's a long story and I only want to go over it once. Let's get the rest
of team together. I'd like to assemble everyone about four this afternoon.
It's ten now. Can you take us out to look at the grave?"

"Sure."

The two local agents exchanged another glance. They hadn't quite sure what
to expect from this team, they did have a certain reputation, this
take-charge attitude was not what they had expected.
 
* * * * * * * *

The burial site was filled with bones, or to be more precise, fragments of
bones. As the body burns and the fatty tissues sizzle, the skeleton twists
and and bones become brittle and break. The charred remains of bodies
pilled upon bodies had shifted and mingled. In death they were so mixed
together that finding out which fragment of tibia and skull and clavicle
belonged together looked to be an overwhelming chore. Scully stood on the
edge of the mass grave and groaned inwardly. She would need help with this.
 
* * * * * * * * * * *

The team consisted of the two agents from Washington, Anson, Raghami and
four additional agents from Kansas City. Representatives from the State
Medical Examiner's Office, the State Crime Lab and the local police
department attended the early portion of the meeting, each one presented
their findings up to that point.  Mostly, it all added up to the simple
fact that they had little to go on besides the skeletal remains. Their best
guess, judging by the amount of vegetation that had grown up,  was that
they bodies had been there for several months Any tire tracks or lingering
evidence had long since disappeared in the late spring rains.

After the locals had left, Scully began her report. When there was nothing
left besides bones the services of a forensic anthropologist  were needed.
Dr. James Forster, a professor at the University of Kansas, would be
arriving in the morning with a team of graduate students. "I need to warn
you all that removing the bodies and getting a proper identification is
going to take a very long time. I'm not talking about hours, probably not
even days. It might take weeks to sort out this mess." She looked over at
Mulder briefly before she continued, "If the names on the list of potential
victims check out, we may be a little bit ahead of the game."

Mulder cleared his throat and all eyes turned towards him. "Raghami, did
you and Anson check out that list of names?"

"Yeah, there were reports out on all of those names from Missouri, Kansas,
Iowa and Nebraska. They are all white males between the ages of 22 and 28.
We've requested dental records, quietly, we didn't want news of this to get
too far ahead of us. Where did those names come from?"

He hesitated just a moment, then began, "I know the press is screaming for
answers, but what I'm going to tell you now does not leave this room.
Several months ago those names were sent to me in the mail. No explanation.
There were no ages or dates or locations. Some of them were in the NCIC
database, some weren't. There was no indication of what I was supposed to
be looking for. At the time I received the list, these men were probably
already dead. There is a reason these men were abducted, a reason why they
were killed, and I believe, a number of men who may be missing and are
still alive. They are still being held, somewhere. To find them we need to
establish a link between the victims, what ties them all together. But
first we need to positively identify them"

A murmur broke out in the room. Everyone was talking at once. Scully just
looked across the table. Her partner wasn't giving them everything,
whatever it was that troubled him the most, he was keeping to himself.

As the uproar settled down Anson once again spoke, "So what are we looking
for here."

"I'm not quite sure, yet. What I want you to do is to compile a list of
missing persons reports for the past year. Men from 20-30 in Missouri,
Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska." The rest of the meeting was devoted to sorting out
job assignments. Anson and Raghami would help Mulder gather the records for
the men on the list. Scully's team of specialists would retrieve, sort and
identify the remains.  The remaining agents would compile the missing
persons list.

* * * * * * * *
August 13

Over breakfast the next morning Scully laid out her plans for the day. The
waitress watched them from across the room. She had no idea what the
redhead was so excited about, but it was nice to see people who started out
the morning in such a cheerful mood. As she made her rounds giving refills
on coffee, she tried to listen in on their conversation. Most of it was
medical jargon, way over her head. But she almost dropped the coffee pot on
the floor when she heard,

"Really, Mulder, if you really want to make a body hard to identify, you
have to keep the fire at extremely high temperatures long enough to burn
out all the organic matter. You know you can't do DNA testing from cremated
remains.The fat in the body isn't enough to fry it that thoroughly, someone
would have had to stand around and keep stoking the flames until the bones
were thoroughly calcined. The bone color changes from white to yellow to
black and eventually back to white."

The stunned waitress tried to make a get-away, these people certainly had a
strange notion of breakfast-table conversation. Mulder motioned her over.

"Excuse me could we get a little more coffee here?"

"Uh, certainly sir." She poured as quickly as she could and hurried off.

"Well, the help in here leaves a lot to be desired."

"I don't know, Scully, maybe they just aren't used to discussions of fried
bodies along with the bacon and eggs."

She laughed, "I'm sorry. I guess I'm just eager to work with a team of
scientists for a change."

"You mean in contrast to working with us mental Neanderthals." They both
laughed. This was Scully's chance to shine. He only hoped her enthusiasm
didn't wane as the case drug on. As a matter of fact, he hoped the monotony
of field investigation didn't wear thin for him, either. The down side of
being in charge was not being able to plunge ahead whenever the urge took
him in some new direction. He watched her as she ate her breakfast. I bet
that's part of what has her so excited. I'm so tied down on this case,
there's no way I'm going to run out chasing shadows at the drop of a hat.

"When is Forster's team supposed to get here?"

"I'm meeting them out at the grave in half an hour. We're going to set up a
make-shift morgue in the community center, but most of our time is going to
spent out at the site. I've got to run. Where will you be?"

 "At the police station. The command center is going to be there, for the
time being."
 

* * * * * * * * *

By the middle of the afternoon Mulder was getting restless. It's not as if
there was nothing to do. As a matter of fact there was an overwhelming load
of tedious record checking, but Mulder decided that if he had a team to
work for him, he might as well keep them busy with the drudge work. What
kept eating at the back of his mind, was the fact that he had been singled
out somehow, that he was supposed to have the key to unlock this puzzle.

He got up from the table where he had been working and paced around the
room, ostensibly checking up on everyone's progress, but in reality pacing
helped him think. This whole mess had government cover-up written all over
it. Scully was convinced that the bodies were burned to keep them from
being easily recognized. All right, he could agree that was a factor. But
destroying the DNA evidence could also mean something much more sinister.
What if the DNA had been tampered with? If these victims had been subjected
to biological testing, maybe their DNA was not just the key to identifying
the victims, but also to figuring out how  or why they had been killed.
What if they were the rejects of experimentation, test subjects whose life
no longer held meaning to their captors and whose death hid the nature of
their captivity?

He brooded and stared out the window. Lost in thought, he hadn't heard
Raghami approach until he felt a tap on his shoulder and jerked back in
surprise.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you, but  I'm going out to the crime scene
and I thought. . . .well, maybe you would like to-"

"Sure, I'm at a stand still here until the rest of the medical and
dental records come in."

Mulder let Raghami drive; it gave him time to examine the possibilities.
The younger man babbled on and on. It was beginning to get on Mulder's
nerves. It was like having a puppy yapping at your heels. The situation was
annoying, god this guy was so enthusiastic. Had there ever been a time when
he had had that much exuberance? Maybe, back before Duane Berry, before
Scully's abduction, before his father had been killed, before he had been
forced to lie in a chicken-wire age and infested with some alien substance.
The world had become such a dark and threatening place, Raghami's simple
excitement in the pursuit of justice seemed alien to Mulder's dark world of
the X-files.

END PART 2
**************

PART 3
 

The small ravine was bustling with activity, Forster's assistants were
painstakingly documenting the location of each tooth and bone fragment
before removal. Mulder scanned the crowd until he spotted Scully. She was
holding what looked like half of a femur in her gloved hands and nodding in
rapt attention as the man beside her kept up a steady stream of dialogue.
Short, balding and middle-aged, this had to be Forster. He left Raghami to
check with the investigators who were scouring the nearby woods for
physical evidence and went to join the diggers.

"So, aren't you going to introduce me?"

She hadn't heard his approach, but on hearing his voice she looked up and
smiled. "Dr. Forster, this is my partner, Special Agent Fox Mulder."

The older man held out his hand and Mulder reciprocated. The academic's
handshake was firm and confidant.

"I want to thank you both for inviting me out to consult on this. It's a
rare opportunity, finding this many skeletal remains, especially in a
situation where the local authorities knew not to violate the integrity of
the site. It reminds me of a case that one of my colleagues was called in
to investigate. They had dumped all of the bones in one body bag, two
humans, two dog skeletons and several more small animals. all burned in the
same house fire."

The man was unstoppable, his relentless monologue swept his listener's up
in its wake and carried them away into Forster's world of bones. Mulder
found himself fascinated, by the man's ability to screen out the rest of
the world and narrow his focus to the task at hand.

Currently that task was the examination of the tip of the femur.

"As I was showing Agent Scully, this is a particularly lucky find. Do you
the see the tip of this screw here? Well this particular fellow has had a
bit of orthopedic surgery. Each pin and screw is adapted to fit the needs
of that particular patient. Comparing orthopedic devices to x-rays provides
an excellent means of identification. Let's hope that more of these young
fellows have been clumsy athletes, it would certainly make our job much
easier."

"You said young fellows. Are you saying that these victims are all young
and male?"

"Well,  it's still a bit premature to make that determination at this
point, but a few of these are definitely young and male. You know that the
local police have set up a temporary morgue for us in the basement of an
old church? I'm really quite anxious to get set up there, we'll be able to
tell a lot more once we get organized."

Mulder motioned to his partner and the two of them excused themselves.

"I know it's going to be a while before you ID the victims, how long before
you can determine a cause of death?"

"We may not not be able to make any kind of determination from these
remains." He frowned and opened his mouth to interrupt, but she continued,
"Look, all the soft tissue has been completely burned away. All we have
left are the calcined bones and teeth. If the cause of death didn't leave
any kind of evidence in the skeleton, we may not find that answer in these
bone fragments."

"Okay then, how long before you don't find a cause of death?"

"There's no way to tell, definitely not for several days, possibly weeks."

Not what he wanted to hear. Neither of them wanted to be stuck here for
that long. Scully changed the subject.

"Were you able to get the medical and dental records for the names on the list?"

"Most of them."

"Maybe that will give us a head start, if we know who they were, maybe we
can find out why the killer singled them out."

Or why they were chosen for experimentation. But he kept that gloomy
thought to himself.

 * * * * * * * * * *

Dinner that evening was brief and unsatisfying. What Mulder really needed
was to bounce a few ideas off of Scully. Instead he had to settle for Anson
and Raghami. The forensics team was busy getting the makeshift morgue set
up. His dinner partners kept the conversation going without him.

Two of the victims had been tentatively identified, both were on the list,
they were the men identified by Scully's mysterious caller. John Franklin
Cooper, 25, married, a cellist from Kansas City. And Harold Peter Johnson,
28, also married and owner of two prosperous video rental stores in
Lawrence, Kansas. Both men had been in good health and young, perfect
choices for medical testing. He didn't bother running that theory by Anson
or Raghami.  He could ask Scully tonight. She would give him some
scientific and rational reason why this was a garden-variety serial murder,
something to balance the dark thoughts which were tipping him downward,
leading him leading down the path to shadowy conspiracies.

"Hey, are you coming or not?"

"What?" Mulder snapped out of his dark reverie, to find the pair had paid
the check already and preparing to leave.

"I said, I'm going to drop Ahmad off at the hotel and go check out the
morgue. Want to come along?"

"Sure, why not."

At first the old church basement had seemed like a strange place to house a
morgue. But Scully had insisted on a nearby location, that way they could
be close to the crime scene if they needed to check on anything. And it was
better than the gym at the local school, the only other place in town with
the space they needed.

Hastily constructed bins lined one wall of the facility, numbered cubicles
in neat rows. A few of them already housed  remnants of bone and teeth
identified as belonging to a distinct individual. In the middle of the room
long tables had been laid out and these were also marked off into separate
spaces with strips of masking tape, one space for each victim.

Scully and Forster, along with a few of his doctoral candidates were
silently at work, examining each fragment with the utmost care, trying to
fit the myriad fragments into a complete picture of identity. The balding
professor gingerly tried fragment after fragment, trying to find the right
piece to fit the gaping hole in the cranium in front of him.

Anson let out an amused grunt, "Kind of like a jigsaw puzzle from hell."

Mulder looked at the gruesome scene. This was one puzzle he needed to solve.

Hearing Anson, Scully looked up and smiled at them, "At least it doesn't
smell bad, which is more than I can say about the bodies I usually get to
work with."

"When are you going to call it quits tonight?"

"I'm not sure, thought I might give it a few more hours. Why?"

Mulder just shrugged, "No reason, just wanted to see how things are going."
She wasn't buying it.

"What is it?"

"Just had a few ideas. Thought you might want to give me your opinion."

"I really can't get away. Why don't we meet over breakfast, seven in the
morning?"

"Sure, that'll be fine." But she could tell it wasn't fine. There was an
idea growing in his convoluted brain, and she definitely wanted to hear it
first before he opened his mouth in front of the entire task force.

* * * * * * * * * * *
August 14

Breakfast had been a disaster. Scully had overslept. By the time she found
Mulder in the coffee shop, Anson and two other members of the task force
had already joined him. They never got a chance to talk things over alone.
The task force met at eight  and she needed to be back at the morgue at
nine.

Anson and Raghami were going to interview the families of the two victims
who had been positively identified. The rest of the team divided their time
between putting together more detailed reports for the other names on
Mulder's mysterious list and finishing the missing persons search.

In the middle of it all, Mulder tried to arrange all the elements as they
poured in.  Once they narrowed the search to missing men of the right age
group a pattern began to appear. In the past eighteen months there had been
two distinct peaks in men reported missing. It might just be a statistical
anomaly, but every instinct told him that it was significant.

He was hunched over a stack of papers, a cup of coffee cooling, forgotten
in his hand, when a touch on his shoulder made him jerk, spilling the black
liquid over the desk.

"Shit."

"Sorry, Mulder. Didn't mean to startle you. How would you like to take a
break for supper or were you planning on working all night?" Scully smiled
at him. She enjoyed working with the forensics team, but she also missed
the verbal sparring her partner and felt a little guilty about missing
their breakfast meeting.

"Supper? How late is it?"

"Just past six."

He hesitated but shook his head reluctantly. "I want to, really, but Anson
and Raghami are supposed to meet me here with the tapes and transcripts of
the interviews with the victims' widows. They already gave me a rundown,
but I need to hear exactly what they said."

She pulled up a chair and sat down. "What did they find out?"

"Not much we didn't already know. Cooper and Johnson were happily married,
professionally successful, no reason to just vanish and nothing specific to
link them together. There is one thing, though. What have you found out
about the victims so far?"

"Not much yet, its such a specialized field, I'm out of my depth really."

He smiled at her modesty. She might not be an anthropologist, but as a
criminal investigator, he had every confidence in her.

"Have there been any outstanding abnormalities, any skeletal anomalies you
might not have expected?"

"Not so far. What are you looking for?"

"I don't know." He paused briefly before continuing. "You said that the
bodies were cremated to destroy the DNA evidence to delay identification of
the bodies. What if there were some other reason to obscure the DNA? I
mean, what if. . .what if the DNA had been altered somehow and cremation
was the only means possible to hide that alteration when it came time to
dispose of the bodies?"

She should have expected this. "Mulder there is absolutely nothing to point
to human experimentation here. All of the men we've seen so far are similar
in age, race and gender. Serial killers choose their victims within a
narrowly defined population, they stick to a pattern, you know that. That
is entirely sinister enough without chasing after some shadowing link to
alien abductions."

"But if you were going to chose a target population for medical testing,
wouldn't you also set specific limits on the age and gender of the test
subjects?"

They continued bouncing ideas back and forth until the rest of the
Forster's team showed up and drug Scully off to the restaurant.

* * * * * * * * *

Ham Alexander sat sipping on his coffee and watching the technicians going
about their business. The electrode implantation had gone well, with Jordan
here to help they had finished ahead of time. And that was actually the
problem, the subjects were ready for transport, he wanted to get them
shipped off and proceed with a new batch, but Jordan had come up with a few
additional parameters he wanted to check out.  The need to alter the
chromosomal structure of the subjects was undeniable, these men would sire
a new generation of children with unprecedented immunity. In performing
this task, it was also logical to try and increase the output of genetic
material. More viable sperm in each specimen meant more live births after
insemination. But Jordan was having trouble maintaining the proper
detachment.

Two of the subjects had been brought out of sedation. For the past few days
they had been stimulated to the point of ejaculation multiple times
throughout the day, the resulting specimens collected and examined for both
quantity and quality. And the results had bee amazing. Each one could
donate successfully six times the first day with no significant
deterioration in the specimens. After the eighth specimen the reservoirs of
sexual fluids were depleted, but their recovery was so quick that they were
both performing up to speed after only one days rest. He understood the
nature of most of the medications that brought about these results, but two
of those drugs were a mystery to him and, he suspected, to Jordan.

The young man restrained in the chair looked dazed. At first he had
struggled, cried out, tried to resist what was happening to him. Now he
simply sat there allowed them to go about their business. He did groan
aloud as the technician finished collecting  the sample. Bill Jordan
excused himself abruptly and disappeared into his office.

Alexander took another sip from his mug. What really bothered him was the
way in which his colleague broke out into a sweat while supervising the
testing. The man needed to get himself under control. Either that, or find
himself a discreet partner among his fellow researchers.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Without seeing her, Mulder could tell that the young woman on the tape was
numb. When the FBI contacted her early in the day, she had allowed herself
to hop. Maybe there was a new lead, maybe someone could tell her where her
husband was. But one look at the agents' faces had been enough, she knew
John was dead. Anson stayed in the background during the interview, letting
Ahmad Raghami try and coax relevant information from the distraught woman.
Mulder flipped through the transcript while he listened to the tape.

"Mrs. Cooper, had your husband been acting in any way abnormally before his
disappearance? Did you have any reason to think that he might left
willingly?"

"No. Well, maybe at first. But I was still upset about what the clinic had
told us?"

"And what was that?"

"That it was my fault. That we couldn't get pregnant, I mean. We had been
trying for two years to start a family. So we went to see an infertility
specialist. We thought maybe it was just a matter of low sperm count or
something, that we could just have in vitro fertilization or I could take a
fertility drug or something. But there was no hope. John was fine, but
there was no way I could conceive. So those first few nights when he didn't
come home I thought I had driven him away."

"But you don't believe that any more?"

"No. I was still in shock, to see our dreams for kids and a family crumble
like that. But John had been so supportive. He told me that we could look
into adoption if I wanted to." The woman let out a sigh and the tape rolled
on silently for a several long seconds before she continued. "The night
before he disappeared he told me that he would have married me anyway, even
if we had both known from the start that we couldn't have a family. No
whoever killed my husband must have been the same person who took him away.
John would never have left me alone."

Mulder paused the tape and picked up the transcript of the second
interview. He scanned down the pages, flipping through them until he found
what he was looking for. There it was, the link. Out of habit he started
for the door to run this information by Scully. Until he saw the clock
beside his bed. One a.m. This could wait until the morning.

* * * * * * * * * * *
August 15

The task force met at seven the next day, coffee and donuts taking the
place of a real breakfast. Since they needed to split up it was really the
only time they could all get together and Mulder considered it vital that
that each member of the team keep in touch with the rest.

Scully sat back and watched him direct the meeting. She  smiled to herself.
He was good at this, drawing out the most vital facts from each member of
the team and finding the key links between the diverse bits of information.
If he didn't watch out,  he might find his career advancing in spite of
himself. She caught his glance as he looked around the room. What now? He
held her gaze for just a moment, but under his controlled facade she could
tell that he was excited about something. He paused after the last person
finished his report, and when he had everyone's full attention, he began
his assessment.

He started with a question. "Anson, how many of the men on the list of
twenty names were both married and childless?" He already knew the answer.
 

Anson scanned the assembled information and looked up. "All of them."

"And for some reason that's important to the kidnappers. They have taken
the time to seek out men are married but haven't yet started a family. I
need for everyone  to go back over the missing persons list and eliminate
the single men and the married men with children. And Anson and Raghami,  I
want to work with the two of you, to go back over the list and set up
interviews with the families.  Scully can you get away from the forensics
team this morning? I need to find out if any of these men have had a recent
physical examination and I would like for you to go over the results with
me?"

She looked over at Forster. "I understand the need for a professional
evaluation of any medical records, but we are just beginning to get things
sorted out." This wasn't a guess on his part, he expected to find medical
reports for all the men on the list, but she had no idea where he was going
with this.  "Assuming these men have had recent medical work-ups, it will
take time to request the records and have them sent over. Why don't I keep
working with Forster's team until the results come in?"

He frowned slightly, she had a point. Her time was valuable and it would be
wasted just sitting around waiting for the information to come in, but
after years as a team he missed working side-by-side with her. "Sure,
that's probably a good idea." As he finished handing out the assignments,
Anson was called away for a phone call. When he came back his face was
creased with worry.

"Mulder, that was the Kansas City police department. My wife's been in an
accident. They don't know how bad it is yet, but--"

"Go, you need to be with her. Raghami and I can take care of the interviews."

"Thanks."

* * * * * * * * * *

In a shabby apartment a few blocks away, a tape recorder whirled picking up
the last moments of the task force meeting before the agents broke up to
pursue their assigned tasks. The man monitoring the surveillance equipment
reached for the phone.
        "Sir, you asked me to call if their was any progress in an unwanted
direction. I believe Mulder has the scent. . . .No, I don't think he has
confided in her yet, her work with the forensic anthropology team has kept
them separated. . . He hasn't told anyone else what to look for, but he is
pushing to find medical records. . . Only Mulder and Agent Ahmad Raghami. .
. They'll be using Raghami's car and we have an ear there as well. . . Yes,
something can be arranged. . .This afternoon."
        He hung up and immediately dialed a new number. Time to set the
wheels in motion before Mulder's insight brought down the whole operation.
 
 

* * * * * * * * *

PART 4

Mulder let Raghami drive while he called family after family setting up
interviews. With just the two of them it looked like they would be working
late into the evening and all day tomorrow. He could have assigned some
additional agents to the interviews, but he needed to get this information
first hand. They would start with Mrs. Johnson in Lawrence this
afternoon.There was something strange going on and he was sure it was tied
into the infertility work-ups.

"Damn it this is why I wanted Scully to come along."

"What?" Raghami was curious.

"Trust me on this, you don't really want to know. You wouldn't believe me
even if I told you."

"Don't worry, Mulder, your reputation precedes you. What are you going to
say, that these men were abducted by aliens?"

Mulder ignored the question. He knew he should wait and run this by Scully
first, but so what if the kid laughed at him, he'd been ridiculed before.
"Okay, what do you know about gene therapy?"

"Not much, it's been a long time since college. Um. . . they make a virus
with the gene they want to add, hide the virus in a bacteria and then
introduce that into the host. What, these men were the subjects of
extraterrestrial genetic experimentation?"

"Close, but I think the scientists involved in this case are very much human."

"Oh, come on."

"Hey, you begged me to tell you, now hear me out. Both Cooper and Johnson
had recently undergone testing to determine their fertility status. They
had a wide range of tests done, blood work as well as semen analysis."

"But they saw different doctors, one in Kansas and one in Missouri. Are you
trying to say that both of their physicians were in on this conspiracy?'

"Not necessarily. Doctors don't do these tests in their own office, they
send it out to a reference lab. Maybe they used the same one. Or the lab
may not be actively involved either. What if someone had access to their
computer records and monitored them to compile a list of suitable test
subjects?"

Raghami stared straight ahead. Was this guy for real? He'd heard that
Mulder was a little paranoid about conspiracies and cover-ups, but did he
actually believe a group of researchers lay in wait like scientific
predators, skimming their victims from the database of some unsuspecting
test facility? A chill went up his spine when he thought about that pile of
charred bones in the ditch. What if it were true?

They stopped for lunch in a diner just outside of Lawrence. Raghami's
appetite had disappeared, but Mulder was hungry and they still had an hour
to kill before their interview. Both men were silent, lost in thought.
Neither one noticed the cars that pulled up on either side them until it
was too late.
 
* * * * * * * * * * * *
8:30 p.m.

Scully didn't notice how late it was until she felt a chill as the warmth
of the setting sun suddenly vanished from the window beside her. She rolled
her head from side to side and shrugged her shoulders back in an attempt to
ease the tightness that settled after so many hours hunched over her little
pile of bones. After so many long cases working as a two-person team team
with Mulder, it was gratifying to have so many agents on this case. It
allowed her the freedom to dive deeper into the medical-scientific aspects
of the crime.

That reminded her, Mulder should have some of those medical reports for her
to look at by now. She retrieved her phone from her briefcase and dialed
his number. No answer. That was strange, he was going to be on the road all
day today and needed his phone to keep in touch with the rest of the team.

After trying his number again, just in case she had misdialed, she called
the office where the task force had set up shop. Allen Harris, the agent
who answered, did nothing to alleviate her growing sense of dread.

"No, the last time Mulder called was just before noon, they were in Kansas,
on their way to Lawrence. He wanted to check on how the investigation was
doing. As a matter of fact we were just about to call you. Both the Cooper
and Johnson widows called and wanted to know why Mulder and Raghami missed
their appointments. And Anson has been trying to get ahold of partner,
apparently his wife wasn't badly injured, after all, and he wanted to know
where he could hook up with Mulder and Raghami to lend them a hand."

Scully fought the panic that was beginning to rise. "Harris, I need you to
do two things for me. First call the Kansas State Police and give them a
description of Raghami's car. And second, call the members of the team
together. We'll meet in an hour."

"You think something's happened to them?"

"I hope not." But every instinct was screaming, she was scared. And she
hadn't taken the time to let him fill her in on where he was taking this
investigation or what wild plot he suspected. Now it looked like his
suspicions had caught up with him. Had she been so caught up in her role as
scientist that she had neglected the criminal investigation going on around
her? Without her to rein him in, had Mulder stumbled onto the truth,
brought it crashing down on his own head and left her no clues where to
begin to look?

* * * * * * * * * * * *
Earlier that evening

Mulder tugged one more time on his bound hands, without any real hope of
freeing them. They had been so stupid, not to be wary. Six gunmen in dark
suits had overpowered them outside the restaurant. He had been loaded in
one car and Raghami in the other. Blindfolded and cuffed, they had ridden
in discomfort for what felt like hours before reaching their destination.

He glanced over at the young man tied to the chair next to him. Raghami was
scared; sweat beaded his brow and his breathing was too rapid, on the edge
of panic. He wanted to say something to reassure him, but any words of
reassurance would have been false and unconvincing. Mulder was also afraid,
he just had more experience at it.

He surveyed the room in which they were held. From the look of the
expensive office furniture, the plush carpeting and the tasteful art on the
walls,  the room belonged either to a corporate executive or a successful
doctor. Given the nature of the case, Mulder bet on the doctor.

The sound of the door startled both of the prisoners. A middle-aged man in
a white lab coat entered,  paced around the bound figures and then walked
over to take a seat behind his desk. He picked up a folder and held it up
as if offering it to the older agent.

"Mr. Mulder, it is a pleasure to finally meet you. My name is Dr. Jordan
and I want to welcome you to our little project. Without you and your
rather unique immunological make-up, I'm afraid we would have been far
behind schedule."

Raghami stared at Mulder, wide-eyed. Mulder shrugged , "I'm sorry, you must
have me confused with someone else."

Their host watched him with some amusement. "I know that you are aware of
visitors to our planet; visitors who have planned, with powerful figures
from around the world, to rearrange the political scheme of things. From
one of your encounters with an envoy of these beings you came into contact
with certain biological agents which proved to detrimental to your health.
Ah, I see by the puzzled expression on his face, that Mr. Raghami had no
idea what I am talking about."

He got up and came around the desk until he was directly in front of the
young man. "Colonization from outer space, you don't believe it do you?
Well, Mr. Mulder is walking proof that such a plan exists. But there are
two things necessary for their survival which are directly hazardous to
human life. One is a retrovirus which exists as a part of their normal
bodily flora. The other is a pollen substance which is quite necessary to
their health, but quite lethal to humans. Mulder is one the few survivors
to the exposure of the retrovirus."

The doctor glanced at his watch. "It's almost evening collection time. Why
don't I show you the what we are doing here at the project. So much more
effective than trying to explain it to you."

He motioned to the guards and the prisoners were released and ushered into
the hallway.  As Raghami was lead past him, the doctor stopped him and
grasped the handsome face in his hands. "The project has plans for Mulder.
And I have plans for you."

They were led into a windowless hallway bordered along one side with cells,
each with a single occupant. Most of them ignored the newcomers, but a few
tracked their progress with fear or open hostility. On some silent signal
each one went to the back of his room and proceeded to take a condom from
the dispenser. Mulder and Raghami stared as each one collected his specimen
and handed it to the waiting attendant who sealed and labeled them.

"You see, Mr. Mulder, these young men have been genetically altered, they
all possess a built-in resistance to the retrovirus which almost killed you
in Alaska."

"Genetic engineering is a bit extreme, don't you think? Why don't you just
develop a vaccine?"

"Oh, we have a vaccine already. Key persons in our little faction have all
been vaccinated. But just think of a new generation of soldiers and
statesmen, young men and women who can live side-by-side with the visitors
with no inherent weakness or disadvantage. Men and women who can seize
positions of power and influence in the hegemony that is to be."

Guards ushered Mulder and Raghami into the last two cells. The doors swung
shut with a resounding clang.

"I'm sure you will both be quite comfortable. There is an extensive book
and videotape library at you disposal. If we don't have what you want, just
ask and we'll make every effort to accommodate you. Rest tonight and we'll
begin tomorrow." He saw the younger agent visibly shudder. "No, Mr.
Raghami, you'll not be joining the project. I have other, more personal
plans for you. And as for you, Mr. Mulder, I hope you have a sweet tooth,
we have something special planned just for you."

As Mulder watched the Jordan and guards walk away, he was filled with a
deep sense of foreboding. How in the hell was he going to get out of this?
Shit, Scully, I hope you find us soon.
 

* * * * * * * * * * * *
 August  18
9 a.m.

In the midst of the crowd and noise at the riverbank two figures stood
still, their turmoil internal and unseen. Two days had passed with no
leads. Two days of bitter coffee and no clues. Two days of wondering, of
hope and fear. Then a  farmer had seen a car almost totally submerged in
this swirling, muddy river, the license plate was all that was visible.

Anson and Scully stood side by side, a matched set, pale and grim, dark
circles under their eyes. Neither one wanted to look at the car as it was
was hoisted out of the river, but neither one of them could possibly turn
away. As the vehicle was winched out of the water, both agents held their
breath until one of the workman cried out, "It's empty."

Scully closed her eyes and drew a breath.

"They still have to drag the river." Dour as ever, trust Anson to look on
the dark side of the situation. But when she turned toward him, she saw he
was a little less tense, not quite as stiff.

She was still very afraid, but at least now there was some hope. What made
it all the more frustrating was the fact that she hadn't let him fill her
in on the investigation. Later, she had told him, thinking there was plenty
of time. There were so many bone fragments that needed piecing together and
she really had believed her role in this investigation would be the
scientific one. "I should have been there for him. Instead I was off
playing the scientist, letting Mulder and the other FBI agents do the
mundane work of tracking down clues and interviewing suspects."

"Don't be ridiculous," Anson scolded her,  "A team consists of two
partners, because two can cover more ground than one. Sometimes you need to
work together and sometimes the best strategy is to split up. At least you
were working, I was off on personal business and my partner is gone, too."

"Your wife needed you."

"Yeah, but it was nothing really, she was shaken up, but not really hurt.
She was more upset about the car than anything else."

"But even if we had gone with Mulder and Raghami, who's to say that we
wouldn't have been just two more victims."

Anson ran his hand through his thinning hair and groaned aloud in
frustration. "I wish to God Mulder had filled us in on what he was on to."

"I know what you mean. We have all the information Mulder had, we just need
to put it all together, to find out what the key to it all is." Before she
could continue the chirping of her phone interrupted.

Anson wandered over to the riverbank and stared at the dripping car. He
might try to offer support to Scully, but he knew just how she felt.
Raghami was gone. In the two years they'd been partnered, he had grown fond
of the naive kid. On the verge of burn-out, the youngster's enthusiasm had
rubbed off. Anson found, if not  passion, at least a new diligence. He
looked up as Scully approached.

"There was a ten car pile-up in the fog north of Kansas City. Twelve dead
and seventeen injured. In the middle of it all was a van, the driver dead
and one passenger dead at the scene, two more passengers in critical
condition." She paused, trying to piece it all together in her mind, Anson
was impatient.

"So, why do we need to know about a traffic mishap in Kansas City?"

"The police contacted the Bureau when one of the injured men identified
himself as Craig Farmer. One of the men on Mulder's list."

"Let's go. "

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

Anson was about one step short of punching out the policeman outside the
ICU. The man insisted that the FBI had already assigned an agent to the
case and no one else was to be admitted to see the victims. Anson settled
for glaring at the man while Scully went to clear up the misunderstanding.
But glaring proved to be less than satisfactory. The guy could have been a
guard at Buckingham palace for all the emotion he allowed to show on his
face. The frustrated agent looked up as he heard Scully coming back down
the hall.

"We've been called off the case."

"What?" He couldn't believe it.

"Well not called off, exactly, but apparently neither one of us is being
asked to take over Mulder's position on the task force. Norma Maglione's
been given the honor."

"It could be worse."

"Thanks for the heartfelt endorsement, Anson." Norma Maglione stepped
through the doors of the ICU. Two grim faces greeted her, she didn't really
mind. If it was her partner missing she would feel the same way. "Look,
let's go get a cup of coffee so you two can fill me in on what's going on
here."
 

Over bad coffee and stale sandwiches Scully presented the case up to that
point. The forensic evidence from the skeletal remains was still
inconclusive. Several more complete sets of remains had been pieced
together, a few of them had even been identified, but there was no clear
cause of death, no clues left on the bones and teeth. The medical records
for the young men who fit Mulder's victim profile, married and childless,
ages 20-30, showed a strange correlation. By looking for common elements in
the medical records they had been able to identify two distinct waves of
missing men, all of whom had recently undergone fertility testing.

"So what does that tell us about the kidnapper? Does he work for the doctor
who did the testing?" Maglione was trying hard to make some sense out of
all of it.

"That might be a possibility if they had all consulted the same doctor or
been seen at the same clinic, but these men were seen by physicians in four
separate states. Family interviews are still incomplete at this time."
Scully was frustrated and made no effort to keep the strain out of her
voice. "I know Mulder had a theory, we were going to discuss it after he
got back from the interviews the day he disappeared."

"And what might that be? Did he have a profile of the killer?"

"I don't know! I just don't know. I looked through his notes but they
didn't tell me anything. I should have made the time to talk to him about
it, but I just brushed him off."

"Are you through castigating yourself now?"

"What?"

Maglione looked Scully straight in the eyes. "What's done is done. You and
Anson can blame yourselves all you want to but it won't change anything.
Let's just concentrate on where we go from here. Ten additional agents have
been assigned to the task force. I've got someone working on getting ID's
on the two dead men in that van. There's also a team going over that van
inside and out, if we can learn anything there we will. Farmer's wife is on
her way here now, we'll see what relevant information we can get out of
her. I'm going to have the rest of the team concentrate on interviewing the
families on all the potential victims that fit our victim profile.  This
other victim in the ICU is in a coma, his prognosis isn't that good, but
I'm going to release his picture to the press, see if we can find out who
he is."

The older woman paused for a minute and then learned across the table and
put her hand on Scully's arm. "You don't know this, but I know and respect
Fox Mulder. He's a good man and an outstanding agent and I am willing to
turn over heaven and earth to get Raghami and Mulder back in one piece."

Scully placed her hand on top of Maglione's and squeezed. "Thanks." She
turned her face aside, her eyes brimming with tears.

END PART 4

* * * * * * * *

PART 5

August 18
6 a.m.

Mulder awoke to the sound of footsteps outside his cell. It must still be
night out, the hallway lights were still dimmed, but he was no longer
sleepy. The past two days he had done little besides sleep.

The first morning he had been led into an examination room and strapped
down to the table.  Jordan entered the room, engaged in a lively
conversation with another doctor. "Mr. Mulder I would like you to meet Dr.
Hamilton Alexander."

"You'll pardon me If I don't shake hands."

Jordan chuckled at Mulder's response. Alexander began to prepare an
injection while Jordan addressed his patient. "When I was  a little boy my
grandmother used to say that the surest way to beat hay fever was to eat
the honey from bees who fed on the plants that you were allergic to. I
always regarded that as just a bit of quaint folklore until recently. Of
course what we are trying to duplicate here is much more sophisticated than
that"

Alexander turned to Mulder and injected him without warning. The older
doctor continued his narration. "That medication should moderate your
response to the antigen and help you develop a resistance to the substances
found in the honey."

Mulder had visions of a dead Canadian lineman, his face covered in bee
stings. He struggled briefly but it was useless.

"As you may have surmised, we are a smaller faction within a much larger
consortium, a few key humans and aliens who plan to hold the crucial
positions of power when the time comes. We have been helped with our plans
by our non-human allies, but they have not been forthcoming with all of
their secrets. Resistance to the pollen is just one of those things we plan
to work out on our own."

He signaled to the guard who grasped Mulder's jaw and forced his mouth
open. Jordan picked up a medicine cup and scooped out a small and precise
dose of honey. Mulder tried to bite down, to close his mouth but it was
useless. The doctor smeared the sticky sweet on the roof of his patient's
mouth. The guard let go, but before Mulder could spit, he found his jaws
clamped tightly shut.

Mulder tried not to swallow, but the damage was already done, the mucous
membranes of his mouth absorbing the alien chemicals in the honey. His eyes
began to water and he felt his throat constricting.

"You don't need to worry, we have every precaution ready to handle
anaphylactic shock should it come to that."

And it did come to that. It felt as if his throat was closing up, each
strangled breath became harder to suck in than the one before. Just before
he passed out Mulder saw the Alexander reaching toward him with the
life-saving injection.

The rest of that day was a blur and the one that followed wasn't much
better. Another session in the treatment room, but this time his body
didn't react quite as strongly. As Mulder woke to his third day in the
facility his mind was clearer than it had been for almost 48 hours. Clear
enough to start worrying in earnest.

Scully would surely have initiated a search by now. If only he had tried a
little harder to let her know exactly what he suspected. The hints were
there, she knew he believed the victims were being subjected to DNA
testing. Once she got her hands on all of the medical records she would
discover that they had all undergone fertility testing, he trusted her to
make the connections. But even he had no idea exactly where he and Raghami
had been taken. He had no idea how she would find them.

Raghami. Mulder felt a pang of guilt, he had barely thought about him until
now. There was something so innocent about Ahmad Raghami, Mulder grieved
for the man. That innocence was most likely quite dead by now.

He tensed as the guard paused outside his cell. Following close behind him
was Ham Alexander who swept into the room as the door was opened. But his
morning instead of proceeding to the treatment room, Alexander prepared to
give Mulder his dose in his room.

"You have been progressing quite nicely, Mr. Mulder." This was the first
time Alexander had spoken to Mulder directly. He motioned to the guards to
be ready in case the patient gave them any trouble.

Mulder decided to save his strength, any struggle would be a hopeless sign
of weakness on his part. He winced as they gave him the injection and
opened his mouth obediently to accept the dose of honey. But underneath the
facade of acceptance, his heart was beating much too fast, fear and rage
gripped him at the idea of being anyone's guinea pig.

Alexander calmly watched his patient for outward sign of distress. Although
the agent tried to hide it, the increase rapid pulse and respiration were
noted. The sneezing, red-rimmed eyes, and some congestion that followed
were all within the acceptable parameters. And today there appeared to be
no signs of breathing difficulty. He took his patient's vital signs and
duly recorded them in the chart.

"Bring him."

The guards nudged him forward. Mulder protested.

"What now? Where are you taking me?"

"All our other residents are kept busy with regular activities throughout
the day, it's time you made yourself useful as well."

Mulder grabbed the bars at the front of the cell and refused to budge. The
guards pried his hands loose and led him down the corridor. They stopped in
front of cell 13.

"Don't worry, we don't need your contribution to the future of mankind."
Alexander laughed. "We just have a little project for you."

The resident of this cell stared blankly at the wall as one of the medical
technicians finished extracting the morning sample. Mulder's heart ached
for the young man who sat on the bed staring off into the distance, seeing
nothing, feeling nothing. He barely looked twenty years old, just a kid who
couldn't comprehend what was happening to him, who found it easier to tune
out the world than to deal with it.

'What we want you to do is to take care of 13 here. We will take care of
specimen collection. What you will do is make sure he eats, take him to the
exercise yard, engage him in conversation. If his mind gives up, if he just
decides to die, we will lose  a valuable source of genetic material.
Genetic material, I might add, that owes its existence to your unique
make-up. You might say that you are the father of this new generation of
men, in an indirect sort of way."

They shoved him into the room and clanged the door shut behind him. Mulder
stared at the blank face in front of him. Wouldn't it be kinder to just let
this kid detach himself from his surroundings, to let hiim deny the hell of
his existence? Or should he try to show him a modicum of human compassion?
The truth was, he really had no choice in the matter. Someone had to feed
him and clean up after him.

Shit, Mulder thought to himself, it's my fault he's in this situation, at
least it will be better for me to take care of him than some asshole of a
guard. Speaking softly to the young man he began to wash his face.

Later that day Mulder escorted his charge to the courtyard that served as
an exercise facility. It was Mulder's first time outside and he had
expected some dismal square of packed dirt like every exercise yard in
every prison movie he had ever seen. Instead it was more like a small
formal garden. There was a path around the perimeter for running and a
covered pavilion with exercise equipment for anyone who wanted to get a
good workout. No free weights, however, nothing that might be pried loose
and used as a weapon.

Cameras in each corner panned constantly across the yard.

"So, do you want to just take a walk or would you like to work out a little
bit.?" He kept up a steady stream of one-sided conversation. The very least
Mulder wanted was to coax the man into telling him his name. He flatly
refused to call him by a number.

"Fine, why don't we just take a little walk."

The silent man allowed himself to be led around the path, but when Mulder
released his grip on his elbow Number 13 stopped dead in his tracks.

"That's O.K., let's just stand here for awhile."

Mulder made use of the his time by looking for some weakness in the
defenses of the facility. It didn't look too hopeful. He was about to
suggest that they go back inside when the door opened and a small group
fellow prisoners entered the courtyard. They eyed Mulder suspiciously and
kept their distance. All except one, who detached himself from the group.
Raghami.

Mulder was shocked. After just a couple of days the younger agent looked
beaten down, defeated.

"Raghami, what happened?"

"Hey, Mulder, nothing much." Raghami was being evasive he clearly didn't
want to talk about it. "What about you? You look like shit yourself."

"Just a few tests. I'm fine, the worst is probably over. At least until
they think up something new." Mulder's charge stared off blankly into space
taking no interest in the newcomer or the conversation.

"So, who's you talkative friend?"

"Just a neighbor who decided to take an afternoon stroll."

"Got a name?"

"He likes to keep it to himself. What about you, Ahmad, they haven't
started you in on any tests have they?"

"I'm fine, just drop it." He took a long shuddering breath, "Look, I don't
think Dr. Jordan is planning on including me in the project and that's all
I'm going to say."

"Hey, I'm sorry, I was just worried about you."

Raghami positioned himself between Mulder and the cameras, he didn't think
they could pick up the conversation but he was becoming so paranoid he half
believed they might be able to read his lips.

"Mulder, have you had a chance to look for a way out?"

"When you consider that I've barely been conscious for the past two days,
no, I haven't." He stopped himself, Raghami didn't deserve to be on the
receiving end of his frustration. "What about you. Have you seen more of
the compound? There are two doors into the courtyard, do you know where
that other one leads?"

The younger man hesitated a moment before responding, his face strangely
flushed. "Um. . .yeah, that leads to the kitchens and laundry, I think. You
need a key card to get in and out, only the guards have them. The guards,
the doctors and maybe some of the kitchen staff."

The door to the residential corridor opened once again and Jordan came out
scanning the patients until he saw Raghami. The doctor's face lit up and
Raghami's face took on a look of dread. Mulder had a sick feeling that he
knew what Jordon's *special plans* for his friend were.

END PART 5

* * * * * * * * * * *

PART 6

August 19

The entire task force met at eight in the morning. They were using a
meeting room in the town hall, the enlarged team was too big to meet at the
police station. Maglione wasted no time in getting down to the bad news.
Farmer had died during the night. Of the two men found dead at the scene of
the accident, one had been reported missing by his wife several months
before, the second man seemed to not have existed at all.

"There is no match on his fingerprints, his Kansas driver's license, under
the name of James Broadnax is fake, and there has been no luck so far
finding any information on him in the NCIC  database. The van belongs to--"
she paused while shuffling through the papers in front of her, "here it is,
BioMed Industries in Jefferson City. Apparently they went out of business
almost twelve months ago. Supposedly all of BioMed's property, including
this van, is supposed to be in storage, pending auction. We were able to
get in touch with a lawyer for the firm who says the vehicle must have been
stolen out of their storage facility, but they had no idea it was missing.
No useful prints have been lifted from it so far. Harris, where are you on
identifying our last living victim?"

"His picture went out last night. It was picked up by all the major wire
services and the TV networks. Nothing concrete so far. Fingerprints were a
dead end."

"Great. Let me know when you have anything." Maglione hesitated before
proceeding. She had been urged to remove both Anson and Scully from the
task force, but she believed it would be better for both agents to keep
them involved, to give them a focus, some semblance of control. "Agent
Scully, you've been going over the medical records for all the men on Agent
Mulder's potential victims list and  for our mystery man. What have you
turned up so far?"

"All of the men tagged as potential victims underwent a fairly
comprehensive battery of medical tests prior to their disappearance. They
were all healthy, all nonsmokers, no evidence of chronic or recent acute
disease. They all exercised regularly, none were overweight. But the most
intriguing finding is that each one had gone through fertility testing
prior to their disappearance. It is my belief that Agent Mulder, before his
abduction, found this common factor and that whoever was responsible for
the string of kidnappings knew about his discovery. I believe that he and
Agent Raghami were abducted before he could relay this information to the
rest of the team."

There was a murmur around the room, only Anson, Scully and Maglione had
known about this.

"Come on people, let's have a little order in here." Maglione silenced them.

"But the only way anyone would have known what he was thinking--" Harris
refused to let the subject drop. Maglione cut him off.

"Yet another reason to move the meeting from the police station to the town
hall. We found listening devices in the police station and in Agent
Raghami's car after it was pulled from the river. I don't believe we're
looking at a serial killer anymore."

There was dead silence in the room. Agent Harris finally spoke up. "Just
what is it that we're looking for? One of Mulder's conspiracies?"

Maglione stared at him, froze any further comments from the rest of the
room. "You tell me. We have the systematized abduction and murder of
perhaps dozens of young men from four states, covert surveillance of
federal law enforcement activities, the abduction of two federal agents,
one dead suspect who doesn't seem to exist in any database, and no clear
leads or evidence. Somehow I doubt that this is the result of one or two
crazed individuals acting alone." She let her summation of the case sink in
before continuing.

"Now, Agent Scully, I believe you were detailing the medical evidence to date."

Scully drew in a deep breath, her hands clenching the report in front of
her. She willed her nerves to be calm, to maintain a professional demeanor.
Then she continued. "Based upon the direction Agent Mulder was going with
his investigation, I plan to order a series of tests on the unidentified
dead passenger, on Craig Farmer and on the unidentified victim still in
ICU.  All three autopsies are scheduled for later today.  I should have the
results later this afternoon."

"Let me know what you find out. Dr. Forster, what have you come up with so far?"

"So far nothing there has been no evidence to indicate a cause of death. We
may have two more of the victims identified, I have my assistants checking
the remains against the dental records and X-rays."

His hands shook a little. It wasn't as if he was unaccustomed to horror,
but the tragedies he investigated were always firmly in the past, completed
events. This time the crime was ongoing, involving people he knew, people
who might be well on their way to joining the piles of bones in his
make-shift morgue. He squelched that thought. "Unfortunately this kind of
work is slow, painstaking. It's just going to take a little more time."

"I know you're doing the best you can. I just wish we had more time to give
you." Maglione looked around the room, the tension was palpable. "Okay
everyone, you have your assignments, we'll meet again at five this
afternoon. Let's get to work."

* * * * * * * * * *

Miles away the morning was off to a shaky start for Mulder. After his daily
dose the guard escorted him to the shower. Normally there were a couple
other men occupying the shower room at the same time, but everyone pretty
much kept to himself under the watchful eye of the guards. This morning,
however,  the guard who stayed in the shower room was called away, leaving
only the guard at the door. As soon as they were alone, the other prisoners
turned toward Mulder.

"I heard what the doc said yesterday, that they used your DNA, that this is
all your fault."

Mulder didn't bother to correct him, the project would have proceeded
without him, albeit at a slower pace. But without what they had learned
from Mulder's blood, these particular men would not be here now. Maybe
given more time, he and Scully could have tracked down this operation and
shut it down before it ever got this far. Maybe, in a way, it was his fault
after all.

Five men advanced slowly toward him, forcing him into a corner of the room.

"Hey, I've changed my mind, I think I'll skip the shower today."

Mulder tried to walk past them but someone tripped him and he landed hard
on the cold tile floor. He struggled to get up but a foot reached out and
kicked him in the ribs. Followed by another. All he could do was curl up in
a ball and make as small a target as possible.

In Jordan's office the two doctors watched the fight on the monitor.

"Bill, don't you think it's time to break it up?"

"Not just yet, Ham, let them blow off a little steam. It might be good for
them to have a focus for their anger."

"True, but their punching bag seems to be having a little trouble breathing."

Jordan listened more closely. Yes there was a distinct wheezing sound.

When his attackers were pulled off him, Mulder struggled to sit up and to
breathe. This wasn't like the first day, when his throat closed up, today
it felt like his chest was held in a vise. He gasped for all he was worth
but couldn't quite get enough air into his lungs. He felt hands lifting him
up and guiding him toward the infirmary, but he paid no attention to them,
he coughed and focused on sucking in each breath.

They poked and prodded and gave him stuff to inhale into his lungs. They
took more blood samples, they took X-rays and they took their time about
answering his questions. By the time he was breathing easier, Alexander
finally came back into the room and handed a small object to Mulder. It
looked like an inhaler.

"That's for your asthma. Keep it with you. The nurse will show you how and
when to use it."

"There must be some mistake, I don't have asthma."

"Maybe you didn't, you do now. This morning we mixed a little pollen in
with the honey. We were hoping for a milder reaction. But we can work
around this."

"You can work around it. You sons of bitches, you do whatever-the-hell you
like with people, like the whole world is your own personal laboratory."
Despite his wheezing, inadequate breathing he started to get up off the
examination table. The nurse and guard pushed him backed down. It wasn't
very hard, he was too wiped out to struggle.

Alexander ignored his troublesome guinea pig and turned to the nurse. "Let
him stay here until after lunch. His breathing should be improved by then.
Have the guard take him to cell 13, he's behind in his chores."

Mulder closed his eyes. His life was turning into a bad science fiction
movie and damn if he was going to stick around to play this supporting
role. Maybe it was time to rewrite the script.

* * * * * * * * *
Scully was fuming. The lab techs at this regional office were so slow she
could probably have gotten the test results back quicker if she had sent
them all the way back to DC and let Pendrell and his cohorts take a crack
at it. She strode into the lab, eyes blazing with a cold fury that demanded
answers.

"Can I help you, Agent Scully, isn't it?" One look at the furious agent who
had just invaded his domain convinced Michael Garcia to intercept her
before she could lay into his staff.

"You can start by explaining why a few routine tests I ordered yesterday
are still not available?"

"That would be the toxicology screens and blood workups on the victims from
the motor vehicle accident yesterday, right?" He continued without giving
her a chance to break in. "That is a strange one. The results on the driver
were no problem, the tox screen came up clean and the rest of the results
were within normal limits. But we had trouble getting answers for the other
three. There seemed to be some interfering substance in the specimens, we
couldn't get  a valid reading. We've just now completed all the tests you
ordered. But I have to tell you, I think there still might be something
wrong with the tox screens. These subjects were all young males, but we're
showing high levels of tamoxifen, clomiphene and another drug which we
can't identify."

"Tamoxifen and clomiphene?"

"Yeah, that's what's so strange. Why would otherwise healthy young men be
taking medication for breast cancer  and female infertility?"

Scully thought for minute, something she had read. . . . "Those are the
most common applications for those medications, but I remember an article
that proposed using them together to increase the sperm output and
fertility of male patients, as well." She was beginning to get a bad
feeling about this. "What about the other tests, you said there was some
kind of interference?"

"Like there was some kind of abnormal antibody, here see for yourself." He
handed her a stack of print-outs.

As she looked them over them over there seemed to something familiar about
this particular pattern, if she could just put her finger on it. Mulder,
this was the same problem he had with some of his labs after the exposure
to the retrovirus. "That's it. I think it is an antibody, and a rare one. I
need you to run a few more tests.These men may have been exposed to a rare
antigen."

Just as she finished explaining what to look for her phone rang.
 
 

George Anson scrubbed at his eyes with both hands. He was so tired the
report in front of blurred when he tried to read it. He didn't hear Harris
walk up to him, so when the younger man tapped him on the shoulder he
almost jumped out of his chair.

"Jesus, Allen, are you trying to give me a heart attack?"

"Sorry." But he didn't look sorry, he looked excited.. "We've got someone
coming in to ID our mystery patient. Says she's his sister. We can meet her
in the hospital in half an hour."

"Have you told Scully and Maglione?"

"They're already on their way over there."

"Then let's move it." Anson felt, well, not hopeful, but maybe a little
less grim.
 

END PART SIX

 * * * * * * * *

PART  SEVEN

It was early afternoon when Mulder finally found himself back in cell 13.
The young man inside stared at the bruises on Mulder's face for a full
minute before he turned away. Maybe he was making a connection with the
kid, that was more interest he had seen him display for anything so far. He
kept up a one-sided dialog, trying to draw more of response.

Mulder read to him for awhile. They told him that he could request anything
he wanted to read. The Lone Gunmen might not be happy to know just where he
was reading their magazine. He skipped the article on covert medical
experimentation, that hit a little close to home right now. The kid didn't
bat an eye at crop circles or newly uncovered evidence in the CIA plot to
bring crack to the inner city. Even reading out loud, Mulder found himself
nodding off. He needed to get up and move around. He needed to go outside
for some fresh air.

He was supposed to take his charge for a walk every day, but he really
wanted to avoid another confrontation. As they stepped out into the
sunshine Mulder scanned the courtyard for potential attackers. They were
alone, except for Raghami and Doctor Jordan.

Raghami stood still, not moving an inch while Jordan reached out and
caressed the agent from behind. Except for an almost imperceptible shudder,
the agent might have been a statue. He did not move, did not flinch, tried
not to react in any way. But today his feet were shackled and his hands
bound.

The doctor finally left and Mulder walked across the yard, leaving Number
13 sitting on a garden bench. Raghami refused to meet his eyes, at first.

"I tried to escape last night. They were leading me back to my cell after
and. . .well,  I just broke and run. It was stupid, but I couldn't take it
any more. You know, I never thought of myself as being particularly
homophobic, but I swear if that man touches me again I'm going to kill
him."

"Ahmad, I. . ." Mulder was at a loss for words.

"You know what's really dumb is now that I can barely hobble around the
exercise yard I think I've come up with a way out of here." He lowered his
voice. " The door that opens onto the kitchen and laundry, there's a
loading dock about thirty feet off to the left. Have you noticed how every
afternoon about three they bring snacks and beverages around to the cells?
The send the serving cart out through here from the kitchen, I guess it's
shorter to cut through the exercise yard than to go around the perimeter of
the compound. If someone was to rush the door before it closed maybe you
could surprise them and get out into the hallway and make your way to the
loading dock."

Mulder looked around the yard. The way in which the cameras were placed
pretty much guaranteed every corner was covered. "It might work, but would
they even open the door if anyone was standing that close." He regretted
saying that much when he say the look of hopelessness on the other man's
face. "Listen, let's keep our eyes open. We'll be able to work something
out."

They broke off their conversation when a guard ambled over in their
direction. The late afternoon sun was getting too hot. The shadows had
shifted but Number 13 still sat where he had been left, his face turning a
bright shade of pink. Mulder took him by the arm and led him back inside.

It was almost supper time when Jordan and Hamilton came to check up on
them. Whether they were more concerned for Mulder's latest health problems
or his success or failure with his babysitting assignment wasn't quite
clear. As they approached the cell Number 13 drew back in fear.

"Damn it, why don't you just leave him alone." Mulder was angry. Angry at
this whole situation. Angry at forces that presumed to play god with other
people's lives. Angry at the two doctors who were so insensitive to the
young man huddled in fear in front of them.

"You still don't get it, do you Mr. Mulder?" Jordan was in an expansive
mood. "Events have proceeded beyond the point of no return and your friend
there is a vital cog in the machine of the future. Specimens from our
donors here are gradually and surreptitiously replacing the stocks of
stored specimens in sperm banks across the country." He motioned to the
figure cowering in the corner. "This one individual alone has already been
responsible for thirty confirmed pregnancies. It's ingenious really. The
fertility clinics draw only patients with sufficient funds for their
services, thus assuring us that the children will be raised in a prosperous
environment. They will receive all the benefits of a good health care, good
education and the emotional benefits of a caring family. Our organization
will be spared the expense of raising and caring for the soldiers and
leaders of the next generation of mankind."

"But how do you know that they will cooperate with you in the end?"

"We are not as short-sighted as you might think. A college education is an
expensive proposition. What parents could possibly turn away a generous
scholarship to a prestigious college? Where better to set up a structured
program of indoctrination than in the closed atmosphere of a university
campus?  The plans are in motion. Our records here are private and secure.
There is no way some nosy hacker can access paper files. There is no way to
stop us."

Hamilton frowned at his colleague. It bothered him to have so much of the
plan out in the open. Not that it mattered, these men were here for life.
He signaled to the guard. "Escort these men to the shower room. Mr. Mulder,
you missed taking the boy to the showers this morning. No one is going to
do your job for you, take care of it now. And you better hurry up about it.
Evening collection time is only an hour away."

As the doctors walked away, the young man still cringed in the corner.
Unbidden, an image came to Mulder's mind of a twelve-year old boy,
frightened and overwhelmed by events beyond his control, and of a father
who coldly refused to offer any comfort. He put his arm around Number 13's
shoulders and murmured, "I'm so sorry. I don't know how, but it will be all
right. I'll take care of you, it's going to be okay."

The tension in the young man's body relaxed a little until the guard
outside impatiently shouted, "Come on you two, I haven't got all day"

"Let's get going." Mulder found the kid's clean clothes and led him to the
door of the cell. "It would be nice to know your name. Hey you seems a
little impersonal."

"Tim. Call me Tim."

* * * * * * * * * * *

Scully had about all she could take for one day. The van was a complete
dead end, obviously stolen. A check of the warehouse where BioMed's
equipment was stored turned up obvious signs of forced entry. One van was
missing along with a great deal of expensive medical equipment.

But on the plus side, the victim's sister had indeed been able to identify
her brother as Jeff Steinberg, medical student, age 24, reported missing
along with his roommate since late last May. He had reportedly been having
problems at school and had recently broken off a long term relationship
with another man. Yes, she was absolutely certain her bother was openly and
unapologetically gay. Never married and no desire to be a parent. When they
had asked the women if Steinberg had ever undergone fertility testing she
had stared at them as if they were crazy.

As Scully sat in her motel room, the room service menu lying forgotten on
her lap, she wondered if the whole world hadn't gone a little crazy. All of
the other victims had definitely had fertility testing. Steinberg had to be
the key. The three passengers in the van showed signs of recent
hospitalization; bruises from IV sites and the odd drugs administered to
bring up their sperm counts. If she could figure out what link Steinberg
had to the others they should be able to find the rest of the missing men.
And hopefully Mulder and Raghami as well. On top of it all there was the
strange antibody.

But the worst news of the day, the thing that still made her hands tremble
and her guts turn to water when she thought about, was the discovery of the
implants. Each of the dead victims had a tiny fragment of metal buried
precisely in the same location in his brain. Steinberg's X-rays showed that
he had also been implanted. She had frozen when she found the first one,
took time to steel herself, time to steady her nerves enough to make the
incision to cut it out. And when she dropped the tiny object into the
stainless steel pan she should have been able to breath a sigh of relief,
it was clearly a simple electrode, not a microchip.

So what if it wasn't a microchip, like the one Duane Berry had, like the
MUFON women, like her own horrible implant. It still represented the
sinister manipulation of the innocents, the use of the unwitting to serve
some dark cause. Every fiber of her being screamed at the outrage. And in
the darkest corners of her imagination it was Mulder on that autopsy table
and his sensitive, quirky brain laying there dissected in front of her.

She picked up the phone and ordered a bowl of soup. Her stomach was in a
turmoil and she probably wouldn't be able to keep down much more than that.
All day long she had kept her emotions in check. She had restrained the
worst of her fury at the regional FBI forensics lab, the best way to slow
down requested test results was to piss off the technicians. And there was
absolutely no way she was going to show any weakness in front of Maglione
and the rest of the team. If the ASAC believed she couldn't handle the
pressure she would remove Scully from the team. Anson, who understood what
she was going through, also tried to keep a stern facade, but Scully saw
the cracks in it. She couldn't lean on him or he would crumble under the
weight.

She felt so alone, so bereft of comfort. She threw her head back and drew
in a deep shuddering sigh. Picking up the phone she started to dial a
number, then slammed the receiver back down. She had to be strong. Who was
she kidding, she knew she was strong, but what she needed right now was to
here a friendly voice someone to tell her that it would be all right.

Picking up the phone again she dialed the number almost by instinct and
trembled as she waited for the answer at the end of the line.

"Mom? Oh, Mom, I'm so scared."

END PART SEVEN

* * * * * * * *

PART EIGHT
 

August 20
3:00 am

Mulder woke with a start, shuddering and sweating in the dark. He sucked in
a breath trying to calm his nerves after the old, familiar dream. But the
air wouldn't come. On the edge of panic he forced himself to wake up. The
inhaler, Hamilton had left him one to use in case of an attack. He fumbled
in the dark and found it.
 
 

Miles away Dana Scully jerked awake with an overbearing sense that
something was very wrong. As sleep receded, so did the the sense of
foreboding. Hang on, Mulder, she thought to herself. I'll find you.

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

August 21

If it wasn't for Tim, Mulder would have spent the day indoors. It was one
of those late summer days when the heat was oppressive.  But Tim wanted to
get outside. In the courtyard he could sit in the shade and close his eyes
and pretend he was somewhere else. Somewhere else where the sound of birds,
the feel of the hot wind on his face, the smell of sunshine on the flowers
along the border would not be interrupted by guards and cells and
collection times.

Mulder stared at the skinny young man. Maybe it would have been better not
to reach out to him, to draw him back to reality. But there was no way he
could see the boy in pain and withdrawn and not reach out to him.

The door from the cell row opened and Raghami shuffled out into the
sunshine, squinting his eyes against the sun. He was still shackled, but at
least the handcuffs had been removed. Spotting Mulder and Tim sitting in
the shade, he gave them a thin smile and made his way slowly to them.

"Mulder." He slid against the wall to sit down next to them.

"Missed you yesterday."

"Yeah, I was . . .busy." He dropped his eyes to the ground, there was
nothing else he wanted to say about that. Mulder let it go.

"I wanted to introduce you to Tim." He nodded towards his companion. The
young man glanced up at Raghami and then backdown at this feet. "Doesn't
talk much, but he's all right."

The three of them sat in silence for several minutes. It was too hot to
move around, almost too hot to think.

"Did you think anymore about what I told you?" Raghami kept his head down,
his quiet whisper was almost inaudible.

"Yeah, you might be right. That might be the best way out. But the timing
has to be just right. We need to get out together." He patted Tim lightly
on the arm. "All three of us."

"Mulder, if you get the chance, go without me. The only time they take
these ankle chains off is in Jordan's office." His voice started to rise.
He drew a breath to get control of himself.  "I don't know if I can make it
out with you."

"Come on--"

"I'm serious. If you get your chance, take it."

They let it drop. The guard was making his rounds, getting a little too
close. Before he could bring it up again, Raghami got up to leave.

No one else came outside that afternoon, it was just the two of them, and
their ever present guard. Tim gave no indication that he had heard what the
two agents were talking about, he continued to stare at nothing at all.
Mulder sat, dozing, listening to the buzz of insects in the sweltering
heat.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

August 22
 

George Anson was experiencing a serious case of deja vu. One week ago it
had been Fox Mulder seated at a similar conference table in a similar room
swamped on all sides by stacks and stacks of files and reports and
paperwork.

Today the head that bent over the table was coppery-red. The investigation
had been moved to the Kansas City regional office. There was nothing left
in Platte City but dry bones. Dr. Forster could handle that on his own.
Most of the task force focused now on combing though the interviews with
the families of victims and presumed victims. No new leads had come up.
Jeff Steinberg was still in a coma. The doctors had elected to leave the
electrode in place, removing it would be a delicate operation and the
purpose of the implant was still unclear.

Because she was a doctor, Scully's assignment was to review the medical
records and the interviews with the victims' personal physicians. Anson was
supposed to help her any way he could. In reality, he thought Maglione was
trying to keep them too busy to worry about their missing partners.

She jumped as he pulled out a chair to sit down.

"Sorry."

"No problem." She looked up. "Anson, you look like hell."

"And just how much sleep did you get last night, Dr. Scully?" He reached
for the pile of reports and paused. "Dana, I'm a little out of my league
here. Where do you want me to start?"

She thought about it a moment, then answered, "I've already been over the
medical records, I don't think the answer is there. We need to concentrate
on the doctor interviews. There has got to be a common link that I'm just
not seeing."

"If you don't see it I'm not sure I can either." He reached for a stack of
papers and began reading.

By noon he was getting restless. He skimmed the interview in front of him
and almost put it on top of his 'done' pile when a name he had just read
clicked into place. "Do we still have that information on BioMed
Industries?"

"I don't have it here, but I can get it. Why?"

"Just a name that sounded familiar. Have you seen the name William Jordan
mentioned in any of those interviews, maybe as a consulting physician?"

She shuffled the papers in front of her until she came up with the right
one.  "For John Cooper, the physician mentioned that he asked Dr. Jordan if
he wanted to see the test results. Cooper was fine, I assumed the consult
was for his wife, she has some serious gynecological problems. What have
you got?"

"On the Board of Directors for BioMed, I'm pretty sure there was a Dr.
William Jordan. It might not be anything, but I want to check him out."

"Why don't you go pull the file on BioMed, I'll do a little digging around
and see what I can come up with on Dr. Jordan."

By the time Anson came back, Scully was staring with obvious fascination at
the computer screen. "You were right. Dr. William R. Jordan was on the
board at BioMed. And you want to see something else interesting, until
recently he was teaching at the medical school at the University of
Missouri in Columbia."

"Where Jeff Steinberg and his roommate were first year medical students.
Where is he now?"

"I'm not sure, he's on a sabbatical to pursue private research." She froze
for a minute and then a look of astonishment passed over her face. "First
year medical students, why didn't I think about that before."

"What?"

"When I was in med school, there was a doctor who came and spoke to all the
male students at the beginning of the year, offering them a chance to make
a little money and further the cause of research by being paid sperm
donors."

"And you think Steinberg and his buddy-"

"I'm sure of it. We need to split up the list of doctors. Call them back
and and see if they knew Jordan."

"And get somebody over to the Columbia campus to interview friends of the
victims. Male friends. That's something Steinberg might not have shared
with his sister."

* * * * * * * * *

The thunderstorm rolled across the prairie, growing in strength as the
remnants of the summer heat wave clashed with the mass of cool air swarming
southward. But in the courtyard of Dr. Jordan's testing facility the
horizon was blocked by the four walls of the compound.

There was no breeze in the exercise yard and Mulder was having a hard time
drawing a breath. He suspected there was a little more pollen mixed in with
his dose of honey that morning, he hadn't felt this sick in days. The air
was hot and thick and he wanted nothing more than to lie down on his bed
and feel the air conditioning blowing across his forehead.

But Tim wanted to come outside everyday. The kid asked for so little, he
could hardly refuse him this one small favor. At least it was almost three,
maybe he could coax an extra iced tea from the kitchen staff when they came
around.

Mulder sneezed and rubbed his face, a sudden breeze invading the stillness
had kicked dust into the air, irritating his already burning eyes. He felt
in his pocket for the reassuring presence of the inhaler. He hated his
dependence on the thing, but the alternative would be worse.

The guard walked past barely offering them a second glance. Of all the
residents of the place, Mulder with his wheezing and lethargy, and Tim, who
barely responded to anyone but Mulder, seemed the two least likely to cause
any trouble. The man looked at his watch and slowly made his way to the
door.

"Come on, Tim, I'm thirsty and its almost three." The cart from the kitchen
always cut through the courtyard on its way to the residential wing. Anyone
outside got first shot at whatever food and beverages were being served.

Mulder, Tim and the guard all made their way to the closed door. If anyone
else would have been in the yard besides them, the guard would not have let
them come close, but these two he was sure he could handle.

A tiny dust devil swirled briefly into life in the corner. A rumble of
thunder drew Mulder's attention to the sky. Black clouds were just visible
over the edge of the wall. The guard briefly considered taking them back
inside, but the door opened from the kitchen and the kitchen worker began
to wheel the cart outside.

All of them froze when a blinding flash of light was immediately followed
by the boom of thunder and an even louder explosion as the transformer blew
throwing the corridor beyond the door into sudden darkness.

Before the guard could react, Mulder was on him. He punched the man
brutally and shoved him roughly to the ground, rummaging through his
pockets for the key card. The kitchen worker grabbed his cart, trying to
make a quick get-away back into the darkened hallway, but Mulder lunged for
the cart and wedged it into the opening. He grabbed the cook and pulled him
outside. A few large raindrops splattered into the dusty yard

"Give me your key card, too. Stay there and shut up." The man did as he was
told, no one paid him enough to fight with maniacs like this.

"Tim, Tim, come on."  He ran into the hallway dragging Tim behind him. They
almost certainly had backup generators and Mulder intended to find the
loading docks and get out before they got the power back on.

The hallway was black and empty, too dark for anyone to still be working
back there. Raghami said the loading dock was to the left. A thin stream of
light was just visible, daylight seeping in from the bottom of a sliding
door.  Mulder was thankful for the thunderstorm outside, the pounding of
rain on the roof drowned out the echo of his harsh breathing.

They paused at the door, he tried the knob. It didn't budge. Damn, damn, he
had the keycard but the electronic lock wouldn't work if the power was out.
Tim stood trembling next to him, scared but trusting that Mulder could get
them out.

Mulder felt along the bottom of the sliding metal door until he found the
handle. He jerked it up and the door slid open. Rain blew into the hallway,
puddling on the floor. Once they got the lights back on it would be obvious
that someone had gone out this way.  But the torrential rain had also
forced everyone off the loading dock. No one saw the two pajama-clad
figures as they hurried down the short stairway and ran off across the
muddy field.

END PART EIGHT
* * * * * * * * * *

PART NINE
 

When the task force met  that afternoon, Anson and Scully looked jittery,
almost excited, and that mood was contagious. By the time Norma Maglione
got the meeting underway, she felt a distinct current of optimism in the
room. She smiled to herself, about time the good guys got a break.

"Okay, people, tell me what you've got. Anson, if I didn't know better, I'd
swear that's almost a smile on your lips."

He glanced over at Scully. She gave him a nod, these were his colleagues,
it was time to let him shine a little.

"Agent Scully and I have found what could be a promising lead. In going
back over the interviews of all the doctors who treated the victims for
fertility problems, we found a couple of notations about sending results to
a Dr.William Jordan for review. We had Harris give us a hand and he
reinterviewed ten of the doctors. Each one has admitted to sending test
results and patient profiles to Dr. Jordan as part of a study on fertility
in young white males. This information didn't make it to the medical
records because it was part of an academic study and had no impact upon the
patients' diagnosis or treatment.

"After doing a little more digging, we found that Dr. Jordan was, until
recently, on faculty at the medical school at the University of Missouri at
Columbia, the same institution where Jeff Steinberg and his roommate, Tim
Fielding, were students. Ah, but it gets better. I called up Pat Turner,
he's in Columbia wrapping up his bank fraud case, and asked him to
interview some of the missing boys' friends. They maintain that both of the
students were recruited by Dr. Jordan as paid sperm donors. We want to get
a court order to pull the records for the sperm donor program. Scully and I
believe that is the link between the unmarried men and the students. The
key factor in victim selection is this study conducted by the elusive Dr.
Jordan. The same Dr. Jordan who was also on the Board of Directors at
BioMed."

The room was silent. This was an entirely new direction of inquiry. All
eyes were upon Maglione as she considered the request.

"No. No court order."

The room exploded into chaos as they protested her decision. Over the top
of it all the ASAC yelled, "I will have order in this room. Now." When the
room was once again silent she continued.

"Do I have to remind all of you that our investigation has received its
share of unwanted attention in the past couple of weeks? Surely the absence
in this room of Agents Mulder and Raghami is all the proof we need to tell
us that we must proceed with caution and the utmost discretion. A request
for a court order would tip our hand. As it is, I hope the two of you have
been careful. I need more information about Jordan, about his links to the
victims, about his ties to BioMed and, above all, about where he might be
now."

Everyone in the room expected Scully to be outraged at Maglione's foot
dragging. Instead she said, " She's right. If working with Mulder the past
few years has taught me nothing else I have learned one thing. You can
never overestimate the power of these men. These men who operate above the
law, who care only about their own secret agendas."

She considered her next move, but there was no real question in her mind
where she should go from here. "If I may, there are certain sources outside
the Bureau that Mulder and I have used from time to time when trust and
secrecy were at a premium. I would like to use these channels to find out
more about Jordan's connections in all this."

Maglione knew that Mulder had a reputation for being paranoid. If he
trusted these sources, they must be secure. "Get me results and get them
quietly. I would prefer evidence that we can use in court. The rest of you
go on about your duties as previously assigned. Do not openly pursue
Jordan. Let's keep them in the dark about where we're going on this."
 

As the meeting broke up most of the agents stuck around. Everyone wanted to
talk to Scully and Anson to find out more about Dr. Jordan. What Scully
really wanted to do was get out of the room and get away from the crowd and
the noise. The lead she had was so new and so fragile, she needed to think
about it for awhile and consider the possibilities. All the questions and
demands drained her energy and diverted her attention. She was saved when
one of the secretaries came to the door to tell her she had a phone call.

She stepped to the side of the room and picked up the phone.

"Scully."

"Scully, it's me." She crumpled into the chair behind her. The buzz of
voices in the room was so loud, she could barely hear his voice.

"Mulder? Mulder, where are you?"

Anson, overhearing, motioned to the team to be quiet so she could hear.

"We're at a small hospital just outside of Kansas City. I need you to come
and get me." He was cut off by a fit of coughing.

"Are you all right? Is Raghami there with you?"

"I'm fine. Look I'll tell you everything when you get here. We need to
mobilize a strike team. I found them. I know where they're holding the
missing men and we have to raid the place before they have a chance to
clear out."

She transferred the call to the speaker phone and let Mulder tell the
condensed version of his escape. Maglione furiously scribbled notes, taking
down enough details to get a search warrant from a judge she could trust.
After several minutes Mulder broke off his narration in a renewed fit of
coughing.

"Mulder, this is Norma Maglione. I'm sending Scully and Anson to pick you
up while I get things organized here. Are you sure you're up to this?"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world."
 

As soon as she hung up, Maglione called her secretary into the room.
"Barbara, I want you to do me a favor and drive Agents Anson and Scully out
to pick someone up." Both of the agents protested but she refused to back
down.

"I've never thought of myself as a particularly paranoid person, but it
never hurts to be careful. Barbara drives a big custom van with tinted
windows. There's plenty of room for the two of you and Mulder to hide."

"You've got a point." Scully wasn't about to argue over who drove, she just
wanted to get going. Mulder was waiting. She was so relieved she wanted to
shout for joy, but one look at Anson, his face set in grim determination,
cooled her excitement. There was still so much at risk, so much that was
still unclear.

Just before Scully left the room Maglione pulled her aside. "I don't like
the way Mulder sounded on the phone. He said he was only at the hospital to
get the kid he rescued checked out. But I'm not going to let him in on a
raid if he's not up to it."

"If you think you could possibly keep him away, you don't know Mulder that
well at all."

"Just make sure he gets checked out."

"If you think I'd let him out of that hospital without a complete exam, you
don't know me either." She flashed her superior a smile and left to join
her partner.
 

The tiny treatment area in the emergency room only had four beds, Scully
saw what she was looking for immediately. Disheveled and dirty, Mulder sat
in one of the beds, his eyes closed. He had an IV in one arm, his face
half-covered by a mask that delivered the medication to his tired lungs.

He didn't react, must not have heard her until she was almost next to the
bed. His eyes flew open in alarm, but when he saw her standing there a grin
split his face. He started to take the mask away from his face to talk to
her but she reached out to stop him.

"Don't. What's this for? Are you all right?"

He evaded her questions and pulled the mask free anyway. "Scully, you don't
know how good it is to see you, but we've got to get going."

"Mulder, we're not going anywhere until you tell me what's going on. What
happened to you?"

"Nothing. I'm fine, it's just an asthma attack and I lost my inhaler
somewhere in the woods."

"Asthma? You don't have asthma."

"It's a long story." He turned and pulled the curtain back from the bed
next to him. A slender young man lay there, his eyes fixed on Scully, wary.

"It's O.K., Tim. This is my partner, Dana Scully. She's here to take us
somewhere safe."

The man didn't react, just tracked Scully with his eyes as she walked
towards him.

"Tim? Is your name Tim Fielding?" That brought a flicker of emotion to his
face. "I can take you to Jeff Steinberg. He's in a hospital in Kansas
City."

"That's not true. Jeff's dead. He never made past the first testing place.
He never showed up. He died like the others."

That was more words at one time than Mulder had heard from Tim in the
entire past week. Now it was Mulder's turn to be confused. He threw his
partner a questioning look but she ignored him and concentrated on Tim.

"Jeff was in an accident. He was with three other patients and a driver in
a van. He's the only one left alive. That's why he never made it to the
place where they held you. He's very ill, but the doctors think he'll pull
through."

Tim looked from Scully to Mulder, hoping for reassurance. Maybe the
nightmare was really going to end. Mulder seemed to trust this woman, maybe
he could, too.
 
 

It wasn't as if Anson wasn't glad that Mulder had escaped and Scully had
her partner back. He was really happy for both of them. But that didn't
stop him from being angry. Angry at Mulder for not getting Raghami out.
Angry at himself for not keeping his partner safe in the first place. He
left Scully in the ER and went in search of the doctor's lounge to find the
resident-on-call.

He knocked on the door but went on in before anyone had a chance to
respond. Inside a man in green scrubs sat hunched over a stack of charts.
He looked up as the agent entered.

"George Anson, FBI. I'm looking for the ER doctor who treated Agent Mulder
and the young man with him."

"That's me, Matt Jensen." He reached out to shake Anson's hand. "You don't
know how glad I am that you guys actually showed up. When those two hitc