Into Thin Air
By Jennifer Renfro
SolangeRay@aol.com
Date: Fri, 28 Nov 1997
Rating: PG
Category: X
Spoilers: E.B.E. (intro of the Lone Gunmen)
Keywords: --
Summary: Mulder investigates a robbery with an unusual subject and finds more
than he bargained for.
Disclaimers: Mulder, Scully, Skinner, and all the others from 'X-Files'
aren't mine; they belong to Chris Carter and 1013 Productions. No
infringement is intended. Nicole Alexander, on the other hand, IS mine, so
don't take her without asking pretty please. Please don't sue me; I'm
already in debt past my ears and I have to be able to feed my kids. No
profit is being made from this or any of my other stories (boy, ain't THAT
the truth!).
DO NOT FORWARD TO ATXC
Part 01/03
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This is the first time I've shown anything to anyone else, so be gentle.
Positive feedback & e-mail welcomed (but keep flames to yourself!)
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March 10, 1994; Washington, D.C.
"Here, Spooky. This one's right up your alley."
Fox Mulder looked up with a frown. He had never liked Agent Arnold Stone,
and counted himself lucky that circumstances had never thrown them together
on an assignment before. Rumors around the office had it that Stone was
crooked. *But if those rumors were true,* Mulder considered, *Stone would no
doubt be on suspension pending an investigation.* He grimaced at the thought
of going out alone on what was probably--knowing Stone as he did--a wild
goose chase. With Scully taking time off from the office after the deaths of
her father and Jack Willis, he was catching up on some long-neglected
paperwork. Mulder regarded the videocassette that Stone had tossed down on
his desk with distaste.
"What is it?" he asked at last.
"The comptroller's office at the 32nd Street Naval Base in San Diego was
robbed Thursday night. Someone took some of the payroll cash right out of
the safe. No forced entry, no fingerprints; the safe wasn't blown open.
Security cameras caught it all; looks like the intruder didn't care who saw
her."
"Her?" Mulder murmured, picking up the cassette and sliding it from its
case. Stone nodded, a gleam in his eyes.
"Yeah, some girl," he growled. "Have fun, Spooky; I've got *real* work to
do." He marched out of the office, and Mulder turned to his TV, turning it
on and sliding the cassette into the VCR.
The picture flickered on instantly, showing the well-lit hallway outside the
comptroller's office, then switching after five seconds to the view granted
by a second videocamera inside the office itself. The tape, he realized, had
probably been edited together from four or five separate tapes to show just
those two angles--suspicious in and of itself. he two viewpoints alternated,
and he watched as a woman appeared at the end of the hall, hurrying to the
office door before whoever was monitoring the cameras saw her and set off the
alarm. Mulder paused the tape and studied the slim, black-clad figure,
making some initial notes. She appeared to be extremely petite, even shorter
than Scully--barely five feet tall, if that. Her weight was proportionate,
making her perhaps ninety pounds. Neither her facial features nor hair color
could be seen because of the black ski-mask she wore, but the eyeholes did
give him a glimpse of her eyes, which were a very bright green. He scrawled
the words *Caucasian* and *contact lenses?* on his notepad, added his
estimates of the woman's height and weight, then frowned. There was
something unusual about her eyes beyond their almost artificially-bright
color--but the low-grade resolution of the video made it impossible to get a
clear look. He scowled. *It's going to take experts to clean up the low-end
interference on the tape and digitize the image to get a better look.* He
was suddenly glad that Scully *had* taken time off; if she were here, he
would feel obliged to ask her to accompany him, and he had little doubt that
Frohike's comments would do nothing but annoy her again.
With a minute shake of his head, he unpaused the tape and let it roll
forward again. The woman on the screen glanced around as a flashing light
mounted on the ceiling indicated that the alarm had gone off, revealing her
presence.
Then she stepped forward and walked *through* the wall.
"Unbelievable!" Mulder blurted, and swiftly rewound the tape. Again, before
his eyes, she slipped through the solid wall like a ghost. He let the tape
play on, and in a second, the camera view changed again to show him the
interior of the office. The woman had gone straight over to the office safe,
a huge wall vault large enough to use as a bedroom. As he watched, she
rushed forward and slipped into it, through the three-inch thick steel door,
then came back out holding a plain cloth bag of the type that money was kept
in at banks. *Probably dark inside the vault,* he speculated. She opened
the bag and checked inside; Mulder saw the flash of twenty- and fifty-dollar
bills and then the girl pulled the drawstring tight on the bag before walking
back into the safe through the door. She did not come back out. Bare
seconds later, MPs burst into the office, guns drawn--but the thief was gone.
The tape ended and Mulder rewound it to watch it again, fascinated. The
girl's clothes were plain--a black sweater and jeans and running shoes--and
offered no clue to who she was or why she had robbed the Base office. She
wore gloves, he noted, though since she could apparently move through any
surface, she hardly had to worry about leaving fingerprints.
When he had finished watching the tape a second time, he shut the TV off
and
reached for the telephone, dialling the number of the Lone Gunmen from
memory. *And,* he told himself, *when I'm done with them--unless they can
prove the tape is an elaborate hoax--I'd better make a reservation for the
next flight to San Diego.*
**************************************************************
San Diego
Nicole Alexander stared at the withered, frail form laying in the hospital
bed. *It isn't fair,* she thought despairingly. The fifty-one-year-old man
looked ninety, and she knew he wouldn't live to see his next birthday. Tears
welled up in the corners of her eyes and she wiped them away angrily,
reaching into the heavy canvas tote bag that hung over her shoulder for a
tissue and stopping herself just in time. *Dammit, Dad, why'd you let them
do this to you?!?* She whirled and strode out of the room swiftly, afraid if
she stayed even another moment longer, she'd break down.
The bag she carried seemed to weigh a ton as she stalked out of the
hospital's cancer ward and took the elevator down to the administration wing
of the building. Her feet knew the way to the office she sought by heart
now, having taken that path many, many times in the past. *But I'll never
have to do it again,* she thought distantly. *What I did the other night was
wrong--but in a way, it was right, too--and there was, after all, no other
choice.*
She noted the line of people that led to the billing counter, but passed it
by; her father's treatment costs were well over the petty sums that made
those wretches stand guiltily shuffling their feet. The hospital's assistant
administrator had threatened to cut off her father's chemotherapy if the
overdue account was not attended to, and soon. *The bastard!* Nicole fumed.
She turned down the hall that led to his office and shoved the door open
with a slender arm.
The prim-looking receptionist looked up from the letter she was typing with
one lifted eyebrow. "Good morning," she trilled sweetly. "Can I help you?"
"Please inform Mr. Dunsany that Nicole Alexander is here regarding the
payment of her father's treatment costs," Nicole said stiffly. The
receptionist's other eyebrow went up in surprise and Nicole had to stifle a
giggle at the woman's startled look. *It's good to know I can still laugh,*
she thought as the woman relayed her name over the intercom, *although it's
been damn hard to find things worth laughing about lately.*
"Go right in," the receptionist said after a moment. "Mr. Dunsany is
waiting."
Nicole stared at the door with dread gluing her feet to the floor, but
finally marched across the room and into the office beyond.
Mr. Dunsany looked up from the papers he was going over behind his
immense,
slick-looking desk of teak and green marble. Nicole just barely managed to
hide the disgust she felt as the stocky, balding man leered at her with
unconcealed lust in his eyes. "Ms. Alexander," he purred smugly, pursing his
sluglike pink lips into a self-satisfied smile. "Nice to see you so soon
after our last little discussion. Have you come to begin payments on your
father's bill?" She could sense the rapacity in his crawling gaze and knew
he was just waiting to see her break down and cry.
She merely stared at him, not bothering to hide the contempt she felt. "No,
I haven't," she said quietly, pulling the tote bag off her shoulder as his
grin widened. "I've come to pay it in full." As the smirk on his face
faltered, she pulled a single slip of paper out of the bag, a cashier's check
for the full amount of the bill. As emotionally satisfying as it would have
been to simply dump the cash from the Navy vault all over his desk, she had
known such an act wouldn't be wise. *Randy might not know fidelity if it bit
him,* she thought with detachment, *but when I told him about Dad's illness,
he was only too happy to help however he could.* She suppressed a wistful
smile at the memory of the look on her ex's face when she had pulled the cash
out of her bag and handed it over to him. They had broken up amicably enough
over six months ago but still kept in touch. *Because--let's face it--it's
handy to know someone whose parents are richer than God.* He had taken the
cash and promised to deposit it into his own account over a period of several
months, so not to draw the attention of the Government, then provided her
with the check in return. She let the grin surface as Dunsany gaped.
*He thought I wouldn't be able to pay it; he thought he'd get to see me beg
for him not to turn my father out into the streets.* Dunsany picked up the
check and looked at her in stunned incomprehension. "But...how did
you...where--" he stammered.
"I borrowed it from a friend," she told him coldly, the words not a complete
lie, not really caring, at that moment, whether he believed her or not. "And
my friend will loam me as much money as it takes to keep my father's hospital
costs paid, so I don't want to hear another word about terminating his stay."
She fixed him with an icy glare. "One more thing. I'll be staying with my
father during visiting hours from now on. He needs a familiar face around
him instead of all these strangers, and I've got plenty of free time now that
I've had to quit classes because of your bullshit." She was angry, angrier
than she could ever remember having been in her life, and Dunsany knew it.
He frowned at her outburst, but--as she had known he would--prudently held
his tongue.
**************************************************************
March 11; San Diego
"--so you have no idea who this woman is?" Mulder asked, armed with an
enlarged and computer-enhanced print of the thief, copied from the security
tape. The picture had been cropped to frame the woman's black-masked face,
especially the eyes.
Byers, Langly, and Frohike had done an exceptional job of clarifying the
images on the tape, and Mulder was still amazed by what the photograph
showed.
Brilliant green irises framed ebony pupils that--so far as he knew--had no
parallel in any other creature on Earth. *Wish Scully was here,* he thought
darkly. *She might have more information on this than I do. Could that have
been caused by a disease or some sort of birth defect?* Instead of round,
normal, human pupils--or even the vertically slit pupils of a cat or
snake--the thief's pupils were *diamond-shaped.* Like a square turned on its
side, the eyes stared out from the ski mask, an anomaly unlike any he had
ever seen before.
"That's what I said, Agent Mulder," Lieutenant Terrell said sourly. "I've
never seen her before. She's certainly not base personnel." The comptroller
flipped the photo back to Mulder dismissively. "And I'll be happy if I never
have to see her again. Now, if you don't mind, I've got a group from Naval
Intelligence due in ten minutes, and I have to get my shit together. If I'm
lucky, I won't end up in a stockade for this."
"Do you mind if I talk with the Marines who were guarding the building the
night of the robbery?" Mulder asked mildly. Terrell rolled his eyes.
"Sure, whatever you want," he snorted. "But they're in custody pending
debriefing and possible arrest. They're being kept in isolation until NIS
can talk with them. Seen the tape?" he questioned. Mulder nodded and
Terrell laughed. "Right now, the spooks are all over talking to the FX boys
at Industrial Light and Magic. I mean, it's got to be some sort of illusion,
a hoax--right?"
"Could be," Mulder admitted neutrally. Terrell pulled a pack of cigarettes
out of his pocket, then glanced up at the NO SMOKING signs bolted to the
walls of the office in compliance with the military's recent policy changes.
With a scowl, he jammed the pack back into his pocket and looked up at
Mulder with level eyes.
"Frankly, I hope those damn jerks who were on guard end up in
Leavenworth.
I think they left their posts--hell, had to've. I mean, no one could've
gotten past them if they'd been doing their jobs."
Privately, Mulder doubted that very much, but he thanked Terrell and left.
************************************************************
Five of the six guards who'd been on duty in the Administration building
were of no help to Mulder, but the sixth gave him a place to start.
"Those eyes..." the man--a lean, sharp Marine named Chapman--muttered
thoughtfully. "Something..." Mulder waited patiently, some sixth sense
within telling him to stay silent. At last, the man looked up, face lighting
up as he remembered. "Shit, yeah. I was in the VA hospital here in town a
little more than a year ago; I was painting the barracks and fell off a
ladder, breaking my hip. While I was waiting in the emergency room, a girl
came in and started arguing with the nurse at the front desk about..." He
trailed off, brow furrowed as he strained to remember. "Her dad, if I
remember right. She wanted to know why they wouldn't take care of his
treatment."
"Do you know what he was in for?" Mulder asked him.
Chapman shrugged. "Nahh. I got the impression it was somethin' pretty bad,
though. The lady at the desk said the girl had to discuss it with Dr.
Romaine. Sounded like a bunch of crap to me. If her dad was a vet, he had
as much of a right to be there as I did. Anyway, the girl looked pretty
upset; she was wearing dark glasses and she put one hand through her
hair--you know how women do when they're pissed--" Chapman demonstrated,
raking one callused hand through the half-inch stubble on his pate, "--and
knocked the glasses off. That's when I saw her eyes. The lady at the front
desk stared, and the girl stormed off."
"Do you remember anything else about the girl?" Mulder asked, intrigued.
"How old she appeared, what she looked like? What was the color of her
hair? How was she dressed?"
"She was blonde, young--college student, I think. Long hair--down to her
back. Wore jeans and a t-shirt and had one'a those bags the college kids
take with 'em everywhere," Chapman told him. Mulder scribbled the
description down and nodded.
"And this was more than a year ago?" he asked.
"New Year's Day, last year," Chapman replied promptly. "I remember it
'cause I was hungover from the New Year's Eve party I went to when I fell off
the ladder." He grinned and shrugged.
Mulder rose and shook the man's hand. "Thank you for your time, PFC
Chapman. You've been very helpful." The guard by the door let him out and
Mulder headed for his car. The VA hospital was only a fifteen-minute drive
away.
**************************************************************
Washington, D.C.
"It's that time again," LaSalle sneered, his voice thick with anticipation.
Stone grimaced, glad that his only contact with the man was over the phone
and not face-to-face.
"You'll get your money," he growled flatly, struggling to keep the rage he
felt from entering his voice, glancing around to make sure that no one was
listening. The advantage of a pay phone over the ones at home or the office
was that he was fairly certain they weren't tapped; on the down side, there
was always a chance that anyone wandering past could hear him no matter how
low he kept his voice. "But this is the last payment I'm going to make."
"You might want to rethink that idea, Arnie," LaSalle laughed. "So long as
I've got those pictures of you pulling the trigger on that 'missing' mob
informant, you're going to keep passing me the green. Should've thought
twice before agreeing to take care of that witness for your friend Don Paolo.
You know where to leave the envelope. If it's not there in an hour,
tomorrow those pictures will be on your boss' desk." There was a click as
LaSalle hung up.
Stone slammed down the receiver, fighting down the fury that turned his
heart to a blazing furnace inside his chest. *If there was any way I could
get my hands on that bastard--!* He forced himself to calm down, and a nasty
smile crept over his face as he thought of the case that Mulder had gone to
investigate. He had watched the videotape before turning it over to Mulder,
and though he--like most of the other agents at the Bureau --ridiculed the
agent's beliefs, he was canny enough to accept the evidence of his eyes even
when there was no rational scientific explanation for it. *The girl walked
through walls,* he mused, a possessive glint in his eyes. *If Mulder finds
her, she might be just the thing I need to take care of LaSalle once and for
all. After all, I might not be able to get close to him, but a woman who can
walk through walls--?*
His grin widened coldly as he turned away from the pay phone to go drop off
the envelope that contained the most recent installment for his blackmailer.
*I think I'll call Mulder out in California and see how he's doing,* he
thought, stepping out into the cold air and heading for his car. *With Agent
Scully out for the week, he could probably use some help on this case.
Knowing him, it's only a matter of time before he finds the girl; no matter
how much of a freak he might be, he's good. A dangerous criminal like that
thief might 'accidentally' kill him--and then I'll be there to sweep in and
pick up the pieces.*
He laughed, unlocking the door of his car, and slid behind the wheel with a
grin.
**************************************************************
"Mr. Alexander is located in room 716 on the seventh floor, in the Oncology
ward," the dark-haired nurse told Mulder. He smiled in thanks and turned
away, walking down the hall toward the elevator.
The hour he had spent at the Administration office at the VA hospital had
been more fruitful than he'd dared hope, though it had been like pulling
teeth to get information from the Hospital's administrator. A search of the
VA's records had located four cancer patients at the hospital on January 1,
1993--and of those four, only one had been turned away for advanced
treatment. The man's name was Stephen Alexander, and he had served from 1964
to 1982--first on the cruiser Long Beach, then on other ships until his
retirement. In 1995, the retired seaman had developed a rare and virulent
form of lymphatic cancer that had spread swiftly to his skeletal system. He
had originally applied for treatment at the VA hospital and turned away for
reasons the hospital administrator wouldn't divulge; currently, he was
registered as receiving inpatient treatment at the Sisters of Blessed Mercy
hospital halfway across the city from the base, near the University of
California at San Diego. Records showed that Alexander's wife had died in
1983 in a fire, but Mulder had learned that there was a daughter, born in
1973, who had been a student at the University until just recently. His
first stop had been the college; a search through the yearbooks had netted
several pictures of the girl. Nicole Alexander was 21, platinum blonde, with
dark glasses hiding her eyes in every photo. There had been a few candid
shots of the girl scattered through the books, and he had been pleased to see
that her build matched the build of the woman on the surveillance camera
tape.
He reached out to press the elevator button, a thoughtful look on his face
as he contemplated his next move. *Even if I find the girl, I have no real
proof that she's the thief,* he pondered. *Chapman's story isn't enough for
an arrest; by his own admission, he was hungover and in pain when he saw the
girl. Even if her eyes match the eyes of the girl on the video, it's going
to be difficult to get an arrest warrant.*
A young woman in faded jeans and a black sweater came hurrying out of a
corridor intersecting with the main hall, and she bumped into him as she
skidded to a halt in front of the elevator. "Sorry," she apologized
distantly, running a hand through moonlight-colored hair. The motion
dislodged the dark glasses she wore, revealing eyes as green as spring's
first leaves with bizarre, diamond-shaped pupils. She jerked the glasses
back into place with one hand as the elevator door opened.
Mulder stood stunned for less than a second--then reached out and grabbed
the girl by one slim wrist. "Hey!" she yelped, trying to pull away from him
as nurses, orderlies, and a doctor filed past them through the open elevator
door. The staffers frowned, concerned, and Mulder reached for his ID.
"Ms. Alexander, I'm Agent Fox Mulder of the F.B.I.," he stated firmly. "I'd
like you to come with me; I have some questions for you regarding the robbery
at the Comptroller's office on the 32nd Street Naval Base last Tuesday
night."
The girl froze, eyes wide and terrified, the heavy canvas bag slung over her
shoulder slipping down her arm and landing on the floor at her feet. Then
she shook her head mindlessly and pulled away.
Mulder knew that he had not relaxed his grip, but suddenly the girl was free
and dashing back down the corridor toward the emergency entrance. He
snatched the girl's bag up off the floor and ran after her, realizing that
she had slipped away from him in the same way she had gone through the walls
at the Comptroller's office. *Like a ghost,* he thought as the girl darted
through the automatic emergency doors. "Ms. Alexander, halt!" he yelled
after her, rushing to squeeze through the doors as they began to close.
Nicole Alexander was gone.
With a curse, Mulder slid his ID back into his pocket and stalked angrily
toward his rented car.
End of Part 01/03
Part 02/03
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Again, this is the first time I've shown anything to anyone else, so be
gentle. Positive feedback & e-mail welcomed (but keep flames to yourself!)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Mulder knocked on the door firmly, but there was no answer. "Ms.
Alexander?
Open up, F.B.I.!" he called into the early evening silence. He had stopped
at the Naval Base's administration office again and requisitioned Stephen
Alexander's file. They had--grudgingly--provided it for him, and the address
in the retired seaman's file matched the more current one in the phone book.
When there was still no reply, he scowled and glanced around furtively.
There was no one else in sight, no cars coming up the street, and he put his
shoulder to the door and bashed it open, wishing like never before that
Scully was with him. Though nothing had indicated that the Alexander girl
was dangerous--in fact, she had seemed outright scared to him--she *had*
robbed a United States naval base, and he would have liked to have back-up
with him.
He went inside with his gun drawn, expecting to be jumped at any moment.
But the house was quiet, the room only dimly-lit by the fading sunlight
coming in through the windows. Feeling sheepish, Mulder lowered his gun and
flicked on the living room light.
The room was shabby but comfortable, and had a lived-in feel to it. There
was a couch and two faded green easy chairs opposite the TV, which was at
least eight years old. Behind the chairs, on the mantel of the
fireplace--which had long ago been bricked up--was a silver-framed photograph
of the man he had seen in the Personnel Office's file--a picture obviously
taken in earlier and happier times. A young-looking Stephen Alexander stood
half-embracing an even younger woman, who could not have been more than
twenty years old. Both of them wore Naval uniforms, and Mulder guessed that
the woman in the photograph was Alexander's late wife Michelle.
"She's dead and he's dying," came a voice from behind him. Mulder spun,
dropping the picture, the hand that held his sidearm coming up. The girl
stood framed in the open doorway, poised to flee, looking as skittish as an
abused horse; he had not heard her come in behind him. She glanced at the
picture he had dropped and spoke again. "He's dying, and all the money in
the world won't prevent that. But the hospital was going to dump him in the
street like an empty coffee cup if they didn't get their money." She
clenched her fists in anger. "He'd be dead in minutes if they took him off
life-support and the drugs. At least this way, he'll have--I'll have--a few
more days. I never got the chance to say goodbye to my mother. And it's
only right that the Navy should pay for his hospital costs. They should have
done so from the start. After all, they're the ones who made him sick."
Mulder stared at the girl, then slowly lowered his weapon. "What do you
mean?" he asked, though he had the beginnings of an idea after his talk with
Chapman.
She didn't answer right away, and he could see the last dying light of day
glinting off the white-blonde hair, tears shining in the depths of her eyes
over the dark lenses of the sunglasses she wore. "In 1969, before I was
born, my father was assigned to the CGN Truxtrun, a nuclear-powered cruiser
that saw duty in the Pacific as part of the escort group to the carrier
Enterprise. That was during the Vietnam war." She paused. "There was an
accident with one of the reactors--just a little one. It was hushed up, of
course. The Navy has the cleanest record with nuclear materials in the
world, you know." Her smile was as bitter and as cold as October frost. "No
one died, but my father and three other men were exposed to varying degrees
of radiation during the cleanup--not enough to kill them outright, of course.
When my father got sick, I requested the records of those three other men.
My request was denied, even when I applied via the Freedom of Information
Act. So I asked a friend to hack into the computers at the Military
Personnel Records Center in St. Louis. The other men are all dead--one from
a helicopter crash during the evacuation of Saigon, one in a car accident in
1979, and one, like my father, from runaway lymphatic cancer. But the other
two had also been in and out of the hospital for the three years before their
deaths; Seaman First Class Berg, who died in Vietnam, had to have a cancerous
lung removed; he was being evacuated from the hospital when the helicopter he
was in crashed and died." Her smile twisted. "He would have been retired on
disability if he had lived; the lung cancer saw to that. Interestingly
enough, he never smoked a day in his life." She shrugged. "Chief Petty
Officer Koerner, who died in a car accident in Seattle in 1979, was
undergoing outpatient chemotherapy for leukemia. The conclusion drawn by the
coroner who performed the autopsy was that the drugs he was taking for his
cancer caused him to black out while driving, though it was the crash that
actually killed him. I made a trip up to Seattle several months ago and
broke into the Medical Examiner's office to check the records." She shook
her head. "All four men who helped clean up that spill later contracted
cancer of one type or another. That's proof enough for me that the accident
on the Truxtrun was what eventually caused my father's illness, but it wasn't
enough for the Navy, I guess. My father received an honorable discharge in
1981; he first became sick eleven years later. He should have been able to
receive treatment at the city's VA hospital for his illness, but they snarled
him up in paperwork for months and then finally turned him away without a
reason. Since then, he's just gotten sicker and sicker. He's spent the last
two years in and out of the hospital, and hasn't even been able to walk for
the last ten months. He might as well be dead already, but so long as I can,
I'll make sure that he received treatment, no matter what I have to do to pay
for it." Her eyes shone with adamant determination, and impulsively, he
holstered his Smith and Wesson.
"Why did you come back here, if you knew I was searching for you?" he
asked curiously.
She shrugged, studying him. "I'm not sure. Maybe because I wanted to be
able to talk to someone about it all--including what I can do. No one else
knows, not even my father. When you grabbed me at the hospital, I almost
didn't run. I felt I could tell you everything and you would understand. I
felt I could...trust you." She sighed, the sound weary and beaten. "I've
been holding it inside for a long time, but--" she paused, flushing, "--you
have the kindest eyes I've ever seen."
Mulder smiled wryly at the compliment and sighed. "Look, if you promise
not to run away again, I promise not to arrest you until you're done talking. I
am interested in what you can do; it's my job to investigate any strange
cases that the Bureau gets, and this one qualifies."
Nicole eyed him appraisingly. "I won't run away, but you're *not* going to
arrest me."
"You *did* rob the Naval base, didn't you?" Mulder pointed out.
"They deserved it!" she snapped sharply--then let out a deep breath and
nodded. "Even if you tried to arrest me, you couldn't. I can go thin--"
"Is that what you call what you do?" Mulder asked, and she nodded again.
"I could go thin and you wouldn't be able to grab me, or keep handcuffs on
me. No jail in the country could hold me; I haven't yet found a substance I
can't go through while thin. You couldn't even shoot me--"
"I wouldn't," Mulder corrected quietly.
"--because while I'm thin, a bullet would just pass through my body without
doing any harm. But--" she gestured toward the kitchen, "--let's sit down
and talk, and we'll pretend for a while that we're friends." She smiled, and
Mulder blinked when he saw how the smile erased the fear and stress from her
face. She was *beautiful*. "I'd like to be your friend, Agent Mulder."
He digested her comment in silence and they paced into the kitchen in
silence. She opened the refrigerator and took out two cans of soda, handing
one to him, then sank into a chair at the table. "I've been able to go thin
since I was twelve--at right about the time when I hit puberty." She smiled.
"I took biology--genetics--as my major in college, hoping I could figure out
why I can do what I can do. I think it's a benign mutation that came about
from the changes the radiation induced in my father's DNA during the accident
on the Truxtrun. Like my eyes." She slipped the sunglasses all the way off
and stared directly at him, the pupils contracted to narrow slits at the
center of the irises. "Junior year, when I thought I understood that, I
switched my major to physics to figure out the how of it. I haven't got it
all figured out--that's a lot harder to decipher--but I think it has
something to do with a subconscious relaxation of the energies that bind the
atoms of my body together. The atoms slip apart a bit and can pass between
the atoms of other objects. All solid matter, no matter how dense or porous,
is mostly empty space--even steel or stone." She opened her pop and took a
sip. "I can make my whole body thin, or just a specific part, like my arm or
hand. And the longest I've been able to stay thin is for almost three
minutes."
"Where did you go when you left the hospital?" Mulder asked.
She grinned. "I hid inside one of the big palm trees that border the
sidewalk," she told him. "I can't do it for very long--I have to breathe
some time, and can't while I'm thin because immaterial lungs can't draw in
air--but you didn't look around for more than a minute before leaving."
Mulder nodded, storing her words for later consideration. He reveled in
being able to simply sit and talk to the object of one of his investigations,
rather than ferreting out government cover-ups or trying not to get shot.
*Though,* he mused, *if Scully were here, she would be criticizing me for
not having arrested Ms. Alexander the moment I found her. The girl DID
commit a crime.*
"When you took the money out of the vault at the Comptroller's office, you
went back into the safe. How did you leave?"
"Oh, I just went through the outside wall. The alarms had gone off, you
know, and I didn't want any of the guards accidentally shooting each other
trying to get me." She smiled softly.
His pocket-pager beeped at him and he started, pulling it out of his pocket.
"I need to find a phone," he murmured.
"Use mine," she said with the overconfidence of the young. "I'm not worried
about anyone else finding me."
"What, you've never heard of a call being traced?" he asked dryly as he
picked the receiver off its cradle on the kitchen counter. He dialed the
number that scrolled across the pager's screen, a number he recognized as a
Bureau extension. The phone was answered on the first ring and Mulder heard
an odd double click in the breath of silence before whoever was on the other
end spoke.
"Agent Stone," the man answered. Mulder scowled, knowing from the click
that the call was, indeed, being traced.
"Stone? This is Mulder. What do you want?"
"Hey, Spooky, just calling to see how you're doing," Stone replied
exuberantly.
"I've made some progress," Mulder told him warily. "But nothing concrete so
far."
"Too bad," Stone sighed. "Well, maybe you'll get a little further with some
help. With Agent Scully out of the office, I've been assigned to fly out and
aid you. I'll be there in the morning."
"Why you?" The question slipped from Mulder's lips before he could stop
himself, and he frowned, but Stone seemed not to notice the rudeness.
"'Cause the case landed on my desk in the first place," he answered. "I'll
be arriving at Lindbergh Field around ten tomorrow. See you then, buddy."
And the line went dead.
Mulder bit back an oath and hung up the phone. *So much for luck,* he
thought irritably. *Guess it couldn't last forever.* He turned and saw
Nicole regarding him with an unreadable gaze.
"Trouble?" she asked finally, looking edgy.
"Another agent is being sent out tomorrow with the investigation," Mulder
answered. "I don't particularly like the man, but I don't have much choice
about working with him."
Nicole nodded. "Then why didn't you just tell him you'd found the thief?
It's the truth, isn't it?" She looked nervous again, had risen from her
chair, and Mulder frowned in surprise when he realized that he was actually
wishing he could do something to take the hunted expression from her face.
"This case isn't just about finding a thief," Mulder said with a sigh. "The
cases that I work on are designated X Files, and they're about learning more
about the unknown, solving mysteries that don't seem to have rational
answers. If you'd been the usual sort of thief and I'd tracked you down,
you'd no doubt be in jail right now, pending arraignment. But the waters
here are muddy. If there was an accident and a cover-up, then the Navy had a
duty to take care of your father's medical costs, which might be counted as
mitigating circumstances where the robbery was concerned." *And,* he thought
darkly, *if you were taken into custody and it was proved beyond any doubt
that you can do what it appears you can do, you'd vanish--either to end up in
an unmarked grave as 'too dangerous' or 'recruited' by an agency such as the
C.I.A. or the N.S.A.* He knew how the government's various intelligence
agencies worked, and a person who could do what Nicole Anderson could
apparently do would be viewed wither as a terrible threat or an unbelievably
valuable asset.
"Ms. Alexander--" he began, but she waved one hand at him negligently.
"Call me Nicole," she said. "After all I've told you, you might as well
call me by my first name. I think we're past false formality by now."
Mulder sighed, not wanting to step outside of the bounds of his role as
agent, hers as suspect, but she made it hard to stay within those bounds. *I
don't want to like her if I'm going to have to arrest her,* he admitted to
himself, *but she's making it hard to stay impersonal.* She favored him with
a sweet smile and he allowed himself to relax just a bit.
"Nicole," he began again with a wry grin, "do you think you could
demonstrate 'going thin' for me?"
She grinned. "Oh, I could do better than that, if you like," she said.
"Would you like to go with me?"
Mulder sat up abruptly, his eyes wide. "Can you DO that?"
"I experimented a lot to learn my limits when I first found out what I could
do," she answered. "I can take a certain amount of excess mass with me when
I'm thin--otherwise I could only go thin while I was stark naked, and I
couldn't have taken that money with me." She chuckled. "How much do you
weigh?"
"About one hundred and seventy pounds," he replied honestly. "Too much?"
"No, I can take up to two hundred pounds." She cocked her head, a
thoughtful look on her face. "You should probably take off your shoes and
jacket, just in case...and maybe your gun." She wrinkled her nose in
distaste. "I've never thinned a gun before, or anything involving a chemical
reaction. I won't even carry matches along for that reason, and I don't know
whether or not the process might make your ammunition discharge--or worse.
Now, as for what you should expect--well, have you ever seen the movie
Ghost?" Mulder nodded, shedding his shoes and blazer and--reluctantly--his
sidearm. He laid them on the table and turned to her. "Well, that's about
what it looks like when you pass through a solid object. I couldn't possibly
describe what it *feels* like."
"How do you do it? Does it require concentration?" Mulder asked.
"Not really," Nicole replied. "I really only have to will it. It doesn't
take more of an effort than seeing does--to see, you just look. Speaking of
which, if you get dizzy or nauseous when we step through the wall, just close
your eyes and keep walking. I'm only going to take us through one wall--a
very short trip. You'll want to take a deep breath--" she turned toward the
wall that separated the kitchen from the living room with a smile, "--and
you'll have to take my hand."
It occurred to him that he would be totally vulnerable to her if he let her
make him thin; all she had to do to kill him would be to let go of his hand.
*I can't do what she does; I'd solidify in the middle of a plaster-and-lathe
wall, and that would kill me just as surely as if someone shot me in the
heart.* But he stared into her eyes for a moment and then took the hand she
offered. *I didn't come out here--didn't take over the X Files in the first
place--to play things safe.*
"Ready?" she asked. He took a deep breath and nodded, and they stepped
forward--into the wall.
Every part of his body tingled as though he had grabbed a low-voltage
electrical line. A miasma of white and brown particles suspended all around
him like floating soup filled his field of vision--the atoms of the wood and
plaster wall, he assumed. Though he knew he was in a state of immateriality,
he could still--somehow--feel Nicole's hand gripping his, as she guided him
through the wall and out the other side.
They came back out into the living room, free of the wall, and she released
his hand. Mulder staggered a step, shaking his head sharply to confirm that
it had really happened, then took a tentative breath and turned.
Nicole was holding his blazer and sidearm out for him. He stared at her
uncertainly and then took the gun, sliding it back into its holster, and
pulled the suit-coat on over his arms. "What did you think?" she asked.
"Was it what you expected?"
"Frankly, I wasn't sure *what* to expect," Mulder said. "But it was
different." He sighed as he went back into the kitchen and sat down at the
table to put his shoes back on. "I need to return to my hotel. I'm going to
make some inquiries about the accident on the Truxtrun and your father's
medical benefits."
"You won't get anywhere," Nicole said, her brow creasing in a frown.
"Maybe, maybe not," Mulder agreed. "But if I can find evidence that your
father was wronged by a cover-up, the military might drop the charges against
you in exchange for your silence. I'd like your word that you won't go
anywhere before I can talk with you tomorrow morning."
"I'm not leaving while my father is still alive," Nicole promised, her eyes
regretful. "But you know as well as I do that even if the Navy drops the
charges, there's no way I'll be allowed to live a normal life when they learn
what I can do. People like me are just tools to people like them, Agent
Mulder."
He met her eyes steadily, feeling angry and faintly ashamed. "I know that,"
he said at last. "I just didn't realize you knew it, too."
She shrugged. "When my father is dead, I'll vanish. No one can hold me
against my will--unless maybe they keep me sedated for the rest of my life,
and then I wouldn't be of much use to them. There's lots of places where a
person can just vanish. Canada, maybe." She smiled awkwardly. "Lots of
places." He stood and she took the two cans of pop over to the sink, letting
the dregs drain before turning back to him. "I don't know how much you'll be
able to help, but thanks for letting me talk."
He nodded and she walked with him quietly to the front door. "I'll come by
in the morning and let you know if I've learned anything," he assured her.
She nodded. "Thank you for trying." He marched down the sidewalk to
where his car was parked and turned around to look before unlocking the door to get
in. She had gone back inside, shutting the front door behind her.
Part 03/03
Nicole watched Mulder drive away, then let the curtain fall back into place
over the front window. *He's a nice guy,* she reflected, *one of the last of
a dying breed.* She walked over to the fireplace and picked up the picture
of her mother and father, setting it back up on the mantel. *They look so
happy,* she thought wistfully, staring at the photograph. *Frozen in time,
back before any of this nightmare ever happened, before--*
The phone in the kitchen rang and she flinched in surprise, tensing. She
hurried into the other room before it could ring again and plucked the
receiver off its cradle.
"Alexander residence; Nicole speaking," she answered anxiously, expecting to
hear the voice of Dr. Marks on the other end, telling her that her father had
passed on at last. But the voice that filled her ear was that of a stranger.
"Ms. Alexander? This is Special Agent Arnold Stone, F.B.I. Is Agent Mulder
still there?"
Nicole went rigid, realizing that Mulder had not been paranoid after all.
*If I say yes, he'll want to speak with Mulder--* "No, he's gone," she
confessed nervously.
"Good," Stone purred. "I checked in with the Bureau branch in San Diego
and backtracked all of Mulder's stops, Ms. Alexander. That--and tracing the call
he made to me after I paged him--were how I was able to locate you. You're
the woman he's after, aren't you? The one who robbed the Naval Base?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Nicole denied, frightened now.
Some sixth sense was telling her not to trust the man she spoke with--*not,*
she thought anxiously, *that I needed to rely only on my own judgment.
Mulder said he doesn't like this man, and now I know why.*
"Yes, you do," Stone contradicted. "It doesn't matter, Ms. Alexander. You
don't have to worry about this call being recorded; I shut off the tape deck
before dialling. I'm arriving in San Diego tomorrow. I know about what you
can do and I know about your poor sick father. I have a little job I want
you to do for me back in D.C. If you don't--" she could hear the harsh edge
of violence tainting his already-coarse voice,
"--then I'm going to kill your father."
The gasp that escaped her lips was choked. "You stay away from him!!!" she
cried, feeling tears prickle behind her eyelids. "Isn't it enough that he's
nearly dead already because of people like you! *GOD!*" The tears spilled
down her cheeks, but she made no effort to contain them or wipe them away.
"I'll talk with you tomorrow morning, Ms. Alexander," Stone reiterated.
"What I want isn't really any harder than the robbery you pulled. Just one
little task and then your old man can die in peace." The connection was
severed and the dial tone hummed in her ear, and Nicole slammed the receiver
down with a sob. *What can I do?* she thought wildly, ready to crumple to
the kitchen floor and break down. *I can't call the hospital; they'd never
believe me unless I show them what I can do! And I don't know where Mulder
is staying--but I can't let that animal hurt Dad!*
It was a minute before she could get her feelings back under control, but
she finally stood up, grabbing her car keys before heading for the front
door.
**************************************************************
March 12
Mulder leaned back against the wall as the passengers of Flight 204 from
D.C. came streaming in through Gate 12. He kept his eyes peeled for Stone,
but as the last passenger disembarked, he realized his unwanted new partner
was not here.
"Damn," he muttered under his breath, pulling out his cell-phone. He
punched in the number to the main office in Washington; the phone was
answered on the first ring.
"Assistant Director Skinner's office," the receptionist chirped.
"This is Agent Mulder. Let me talk to Skinner," he growled.
He was connected instantly. "What's the problem this time, Agent Mulder?"
Skinner answered, his tone clipped and brusque as usual.
"I'm still in San Diego. Did Agent Stone decide to take a later flight
out?"
"Out where, Agent Mulder?" Skinner responded. "Agent Stone is on
vacation.
He left yesterday and will be gone for two weeks."
"What--?" Mulder sputtered, his hand tightening around the receiver as he
realized that Stone was up to something--something dirty, no doubt. "Never
mind. I'll call later with details."
He hung up before Skinner could say more and quickly dialed the Anderson
house, letting it ring a dozen times before hanging up again and racing out
of the airport to the lot where he had parked his car.
*************************************************************
Nicole shifted in her chair at her father's bedside, holding his withered
hand gently. She smiled down at him, even though she knew he could no longer
see her. She had sat there all night, holding his hand, hiding in the
shadows when the nurses had come in at their scheduled times to check on him.
Though she was weary, she was determined. *I won't do whatever it is that
Stone wants,* she thought for the hundredth time. *Even though I don't know
what it is, it can't be anything good, or he wouldn't have to make threats to
force me to do it. But neither will I let him hurt Dad. Dad doesn't have
much time left, and I've gone without sleep for longer than this back in
college when I was studying for finals. Her smile deepened. If Stone shows
his face here, I'll thin HIM; Stone can't shoot or strangle or smother Dad if
he can't touch him.* She tried not to think about how long it would take to
stop him, or what would happen if Stone weighed more than two hundred pounds.
*But no matter what it takes...*
"Nicole?" came a puzzled voice from behind her. Nicole turned without
letting go of her father's hand and sighed in relief as she saw Mulder
standing in the doorway. "What are you doing here?"
"That may who you called yesterday called me back after you left," Nicole
informed him, barely able to believe that she had been forced into this
position. "He said he'd figured out that I was the person you'd been
tracking, and he threatened to kill my father unless I did something for him.
'A little task', he called it, but he didn't say what. I don't think
whatever it is, is legal."
Mulder's eyes went dark with anger. "Damn him!" he swore. "I went out to
the airport to pick him up and he wasn't there. When I called the Bureau,
they told me that he had not only not been assigned to help me, but that he
had started his vacation yesterday."
Beside Nicole in the bed, Stephen Alexander's chest rose, fell, and did not
rise again. Nicole bent her head stiffly as she realized what had happened,
and slowly let go of her father's hand. "It...it doesn't matter... not any
more," she choked.
Mulder hesitated for only a second and then moved to her side to check the
old man's pulse. He nodded quietly and stepped back as two doctors and a
nurse rushed into the room. "Come on," Mulder said softly, taking Nicole's
hand and pulling her to her feet. "There's nothing more you can do for him
now."
She nodded and followed him out of the room, biting her lower lip in an
attempt to keep the tears in her eyes from overflowing. Mulder handed her
the canvas tote bag she had dropped at the elevator the day before, and she
took it without really seeing it. "I guess I'd better get out of here," she
said hoarsely as he led her downstairs to the hospital's basement level,
where the parking garage was located. "Stone will be after me--and so will
everyone else." She looked up at him, troubled. "I did say that I wouldn't
leave until after my father died. I wish I could stay, but--"
Her words were cut off the minute they stepped out of the stairwell as a
dark-clad form grabbed her around the neck and dragged her away from Mulder.
Mulder drew his pistol, then snarled as he saw Stone holding the girl
tightly, one arm locked around her neck, holding his sidearm to her temple
with his other hand.
"Back off, Mulder!" Stone ordered. "And put your gun down or the girl's
worm food!"
"You won't shoot her," Mulder coaxed, knowing if he tried to shoot that he
might hit Nicole--*but I won't!* he realized abruptly. *A bullet will go
through her without hurting her if she's thin!*
"Yes, I will," Stone spat. "She's going to kill someone for me, someone
who's been a thorn in my side for too long!"
"I won't kill anyone!" Nicole cried. "Don't drop your gun, Agent Mulder!
He'll shoot you if you do!"
"I'll shoot her if you don't, Mulder, I swear it!" Stone yelled.
Mulder stared at Nicole and all of a sudden she shoved backward, knocking
Stone's arm awry. Stone's finger tightened automatically on the trigger, but
the bullet passed through her harmlessly even as Mulder fired his own weapon.
Stone stumbled backward and Nicole slipped from his grasp, thin, as Stone
pawed at the spreading splotch of blood on the front of his chest. His eyes
were wide and stunned, and Mulder realized that Stone had not considered all
the ramifications of Nicole's ability--that, since she could pass through
solid objects, solid objects could pass through her. Stone fell with a
gurgle and Nicole stepped to Mulder's side, re-solidifying.
"Is he dead?" she asked hollowly. He nodded and her head jerked up as they
heard sirens, coming closer. "I have to get out of here before it's too
late."
"Nicole, wait--" Mulder said, but she shook her head and, before he could
react, stepped up on tiptoes to plant a swift kiss on his lips. He fell
back, stunned, as she jerked away.
"I wish I'd had more time to get to know you better," Nicole said as she
raced toward the far wall. "Maybe--maybe I'll see you again some time."
And then, as the police and Naval Intelligence cars roared into the basement
parking garage, she slipped through the wall and was gone.
End of part 03/03