TITLE: Silent Witness
AUTHOR: Helen Wills
EMAIL ADDRESS: Helen@wills2.demon.co.uk
DISTRIBUTION: Please forward/archive/whatever.
SPOILERS: None.
CONTENT: See notes below.
RATING: PG
CLASSIFICATION: T
SUMMARY: A clerical worker at the FBI accidentally gets involved in
internal corruption in the VCS, and turns to Mulder for help.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything to do with The X-Files.  The X-Files
belongs to 20th Century Fox and Chris Carter.  I'm not making any money out
of this story, which was written for my own amusement and hopefully for
that of anyone else who reads it.  Any characters you recognise probably
belong to CC and 20th Century Fox, while any you don't know are almost
certainly mine.  The title of this story has no connection to the British
TV show of the same name.

NOTES: This isn't really an X-Files story, but occurs perhaps a month
before Scully is assigned to work with Mulder.  The details about office
procedures I've taken from my own experience in British local government -
I really have no idea how the FBI manages it's filing systems, but it seems
reasonable to assume that they can't be *that* different - and as for the
cranky elevator, that came from my experience with a really old lift in a
building I used to work in, which was probably around the same age as the
Hoover Building.  I don't like lifts at the best of times, but that one was
a terror - every office block has one like that, doesn't it? <g>

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Thanks, as ever, to Gerry Hill for her help,
encouragement and editorial expertise.  A giant chocolate replica of DD
will be heading your way, Gerry, just as soon as I can persuade Thorntons
to make it for me <g>

Feedback would be very nice, and I will respond to all.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
SILENT WITNESS
By Helen Wills
Helen@wills2.demon.co.uk
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Part 1/3
 

The day started like any other, up to and including the occasional
annoyances of everyday life; the alarm clock not going off, oversleeping,
missing the bus, and consequently being half an hour late for work.

Elizabeth Tarvi shot through the revolving doors in the lobby of the J.
Edgar Hoover building like a stone from a catapult, her short hair standing
on end and her coat flapping over her arm.  It didn't really matter that
she was usually punctual to a fault, and had a few minutes owing her here
and there; she hated being late.

On top of everything else, she'd misplaced her electronic key-card, and had
to enter through the front doors, which meant all the fuss of stepping
through the scanners and metal detectors under the watchful eye of
Security.

Fortunately, the guard of the day was Larry, an old friend, and he only
grinned at her tempestuous entrance and wild appearance.  Lizzy flung her
bag, coat and lunchbox down on the side table and walked through the
scanner arch, then turned to pick up her belongings - only to feel Larry
touch her shoulder and nod to the flashing lights.

Something had set off the damned alarm.

Letting out a huff of breath and thinking evil thoughts, Lizzy stood
patiently while he ran the hand-held wand over her.  After several patient
moments, they determined that it was probably the little metal catch on her
bra.  Which amused Larry, but did nothing for her temper.

Finally, she was able to escape into the elevator and ascend to her office
on the third floor.  Lizzy was a mere Records Officer - a fancy name for a
filing clerk - but worked in the huge Records Office adjoining the Violent
Crimes Section, a job that unlike some of her colleagues she enjoyed.  It
made her feel useful to the Bureau, an organisation she had had ambitions
to join since childhood.

Of course, in those days no one had liked to disillusion the little girl
and tell her that she could never be an agent.  She was bright and
intelligent, but once she reached her teens she had known she could never
be accepted to Quantico Academy.

Lizzy Tarvi was profoundly deaf.

By the time she had finished college, she had accepted this fact, and had
looked for other ways to work at the Bureau, which had led to her joining
them as a clerical worker.  In actual fact the work was more varied and
interesting than it sounded; she had an interest in computers and a
naturally orderly mind which lent itself to maintaining the huge
floor-to-ceiling shelves of hard-copy filing, plus a natural ability to
find the apparently unfindable.

And being 'hearing impaired' had its own advantages, working around the
agents in Violent Crimes.  The turnover of Records staff in the VCS was
usually rather high; but after a successful - and rather boring - six month
stint in Personnel, Lizzy had found her niche.  The aggressive,
stressed-out, short-tempered and overwhelmingly male-dominated bullpen had
no effect on her.  Foul language and machismo went straight over her head.

The fact that she was generally treated as an automaton went over her head
too.  Lizzy was a loner by nature, happier in her cubicle in the corner,
surrounded by stacks of files, than with the chattering groups of other
female clerical workers.  She watched the world go by in pantomime, and was
left alone.  Most people couldn't talk to her properly anyway.  How many
people in the general populace knew sign language?  She could lip-read, and
better than most people guessed, but they still insisted on shouting or
talking as though she were mentally impaired.  Honesty compelled her to
admit that her determination not to speak probably had something to do with
this, but after an incident early in life (where it had been forcibly
brought home to her that her painfully acquired voice sounded "funny" to
the non-hearing-impaired) she had resolved to stick with ASL or the written
word.  And as she had grown older, the occasionally negative attitude of
others ceased to bother her.

She had come to see it as funny.

XXXX

Despite its unfortunate beginning, the day proceeded more calmly once she
had dumped her bag and coat and had a coffee.  On her desk was the usual
stack of messages and a forest of little yellow Post-It notes decorated the
face of her computer monitor.  Patiently sorting them out, Lizzy set to
work.

Most of the work in Violent Crimes involved finding things, and putting
other things right.  It was probably just as well that this section was big
enough never to fear being subjected to the dreaded "O & M" exercise which
every other team in the Bureau had every once in a while.  O & M (or
Operations and Management to give it its full title) was a process which
ranked only slightly lower than an Internal Investigation on the list of
Things To Be Feared and Avoided.  It involved a specialist team of
personnel officers subjecting everyone to a time and motion study, and it
usually happened after something vital had gone missing.

A kind of divine retribution administered from the Fifth Floor.

Lizzy wondered sometimes exactly how Section Chief Blevins had managed to
prevent the O & M team invading his sacrosanct bullpen.  The ideal
procedure with regards to files meant that an agent had to come to the
filing team, request a file, wait while it was brought to him, then sign it
out.  When he returned it, it was signed back in and returned to the
records officer, who filed it correctly.  It meant that files never went
missing, and if something went missing from the file, you could trace who
had last had it.

That was the ideal procedure.

In practice, the agents went in and out of the records office at will,
taking whatever files they wanted and rarely signing the book, because they
were in too much of a hurry to go through the formalities.  There simply
weren't enough records staff to keep up with the demands.  Files would then
come back to the system in a variety of ways; brought back by the agent and
dumped on whatever desk they came to first, handed to a passing records
officer if they remembered, or - which was more likely - collected by the
records officer during an evening search after the majority of agents had
gone home.

The latter job was very often Lizzy's, because she had no objection to
working late and had a talent for sniffing out which files could be taken
back and which should be left on desks as 'active'.  It was generally
acknowledged by the Senior Records Officer that it was Lizzy's abilities to
find the unfindable which prevented more material going missing in Violent
Crimes than actually did.

So this morning, most of the Post-It notes were from other records staff
asking her if she could find files that had disappeared.  Lizzy sorted them
out, mentally noting at least four whose whereabouts she already knew, and
set off to find a trolley and get started.

XXXX

The only gripe Lizzy might have had about working in her section was that
she worked with three other records officers.  Lizzy had a passion for neat
filing racks, and working with three other people, most of whom didn't have
her eye for precision, and a set of agents who had no respect for files at
all, drove her nearly crazy sometimes.  But she liked working in the big,
rather dark, musty room which stored the main racks of 'closed' paper
files, so by dint of silent disapproval she had managed to drive most of
her co-workers into leaving the paper side of things to her.  They all
preferred computer records anyway.

Generally she tried to avoid any contact with the agents, which wasn't hard
in the main filing store.  If one came in - and she could tell, either by
the smell of aftershave, sweat or, occasionally, perfume - she hid herself
until they were gone.  She would sometimes follow them on silent feet,
always out of sight, putting right the mess they left behind them, but she
preferred to stay out of their way.

What she didn't know, because no one had ever bothered to mention it in her
presence, was that the general lack of records staff in the main store, and
the strange tidying that went on around them, had led to the agents of
Violent Crimes making up half-joking stories about ghosts.

It was a story that was about to have very strange consequences.

XXXX

Lizzy's troubles started innocuously enough.

First of all, the 'record room ghost' story reached the ears of Chief
Blevins.  It was mentioned in a meeting and rather jokily put forward by
one of the junior agents, Cresley, as a possible explanation for Agent
Kausigan never having the right papers with him.  Since Kausigan's
forgetfulness was well known, it was perceived as a joke by everyone except
Chief Blevins, who was in a foul mood.  Cresley and Kausigan both got their
heads snapped off for their pains.

At another meeting later that day, having given one particular agent a
particularly savage reprimand, Blevins rather nastily suggested that since
the agent in question had a particular interest in such things, he could
damn well investigate the so-called ghost.

The agent in question let it go, not deeming the comment worth taking
affront to.  He was used to such things.  But he had a very good memory,
and the matter was filed away as a curious note for examination another
time.

XXXX

The second thing that happened was that Agents Lammerdale and Harvey, who
had been trailing a notorious rapist for six months, had a stroke of luck
and caught their man.  They had evidence connecting him to eight rapes and
one murder when they pulled him, and the entire Section was high on their
success.

There was just one problem.  The perp happened to know one or two things
about Agents Lammerdale and Harvey too, and he also had evidence.

Which was when the files and evidence on a selection of criminals went
missing.

XXXX

When a file goes missing, the first person to be blamed is the filing
clerk. It is, after all, their responsibility to ensure that it *doesn't*
go missing.  And in a typical human response, each of the filing clerks
tried to disclaim responsibility.  A massive search was launched to find
the missing material.

But oddly enough, no one thought to ask Lizzy Tarvi what her thoughts on
the matter were.  Not that Lizzy was usually asked the kind of questions
which required deep and meaningful answers, but had they thought to questio
n her, she might have been able to tell them that Agents Lammerdale and
Harvey had been spending more than their fair share of time in the storage
racks lately, and usually during periods when they might reasonably expect
not to be encountered there by other agents.

Lizzy chose not to tell anyone.  She hadn't *seen* either of them after
all, but she knew the peculiar combination of expensive cologne and gun oil
she associated with Harvey and no one else; he was a champion shot, and
spent a great deal of time at the ranges.

Why he should have been in the filing stores she didn't know; all the files
he was using were out on his desk, and the current evidence boxes and other
material wouldn't be in the big storeroom anyway.  But it did occur to
Lizzy that it would be very easy for one file to go missing among other
files.  Lots of them.

Lots and lots of them ....

Lizzy joined in the frenetic search, bearing that thought in mind.

XXXX

"Maybe it's this ghost everyone keeps talking about," Agent Llewellyn
suggested jokingly, as he made his selection from the lunch trolley that
was making its rounds of the bullpen and outer offices on the second floor.
He glanced around as he spoke, and noticed one solitary agent stood at the
water cooler, fighting the faulty spigot.  He raised his voice.  "Hey,
Spooky, what d'ya say?  You're the expert.  You think our resident
poltergeist lifted the files?"

The tall, lanky agent turned to look at the shorter man, and suppressed a
sigh, dumping his plastic cup unused.  "It's a possibility," he
acknowledged, a wry smile crossing his lips.

There were a few sniggers from the other agents, and Agent Rawson, a new
recruit to the VCS, stared at him incredulously.  He'd heard the rumours
about Fox "Spooky" Mulder, but still had that over-seriousness associated
with someone who has yet to prove themselves but wants to desperately.
Consequently, he missed the humour entirely.

"You can't be serious!" he blurted out.

Mulder couldn't resist pulling his leg a bit more.  "Sure I can," he
replied, raising a mocking brow.  "I can be serious as much as I like."

Rawson flushed, but couldn't think of what to say in response to that.
Llewellyn had no such difficulty.

"C'mon, Mulder - level with us," he said, waving his jam doughnut for
emphasis.  "Do ya think there really *is* a ghost in the filing stacks?"

Mulder gave him a strange look for a moment.  Then he grinned.  "Llewellyn,
I have no idea.  But I think that, like the culprit who took the files,
whatever haunts the filing stores is probably human.  In fact, I know it
is."  He dug his hands into his pockets and walked away.

"What did he mean by that?" Rawson demanded.

Llewellyn shrugged.  "That the 'ghost' is human, I guess.  C'mon, Mick, you
don't really buy into that ghost stuff, do ya?  Whoever it is in the filing
racks has gotta be human."

"So maybe they *have* got the files," Rawson pointed out.

"Maybe.  Who cares?  That's the Records Chief's problem, not ours."

XXXX

Lizzy was working at her desk, her head buried in a pile of brand new file
folders and sticky labels, when a hand appeared in front of her face.  She
raised her head, and saw the Senior Records Officer, John Carey, standing
in front of her desk.  His expression was grave, and when she glanced
around, puzzled, her other colleagues were avoiding her gaze.  She blinked,
and turned back to her superior.

Unlike most, he didn't exaggerate his words when he spoke directly to her,
so it didn't take her two attempts to understand what he was saying.

"Will you come with me, please, Ms. Tarvi?"

The new files she was working on were an urgent job.  Lizzy pointed at
them, but he shook his head and gestured that she should leave them.  When
she stood up, he also pointed to her jacket hanging on the back of her
chair.  She put it on, suddenly realising that this must be serious; she
would only need her jacket if they were going to see someone higher up the
chain of command.

It was only when they took the lift to the fourth floor and went to the new
Assistant Director's office that she realised just how serious it was.
They went straight in, and Lizzy's throat went dry when she realised that
not only was the AD, Skinner, there but also Chief Blevins and Agents
Harvey and Lammerdale.

Her superior shut the door behind them and gestured for her to take a seat
at the table.  Lizzy sat down, feeling everyone's eyes on her, and began to
get a very bad feeling about the forthcoming interview.

XXXX

Special Agent Fox Mulder, former golden boy of both the Violent Crimes
Section and Behavioural Sciences Unit, had been permitted to take up
residence in an old photocopier room in the disused basement offices of the
Hoover building when he took charge of the so-called 'X' files.
Ironically, at one time these offices had actually been the official home
of the Behavioural Sciences Unit, back in the less enlightened days when
they had led a shamefaced existence as one of the Bureau's crankier
projects.

Perhaps it was appropriate.

Mulder certainly had no objection to being down here.  For one thing, it
was quieter than up in the bullpen.  Nobody lounged around the desks,
drinking coffee and annoying busier agents; there was only the one
telephone, which meant he didn't have to answer someone else's when they
weren't around; there was none of the noise associated with twenty or
thirty other people all working in a cramped space; and he didn't have to
queue for the men's room at lunchtime.  Of course, he was several floors
away from the main filing stores and support staff, but the majority of the
files he needed were right here with him and he thought he could probably
manage without the assistance of the secretarial team.  And out of sight
meant out of mind, a definite plus where people like Blevins were
concerned.  Mulder wasn't too sure about AD Skinner; he'd only met the man
once, but he had a notion that *this* man kept those out-of-sight things
especially in mind, which wasn't a comfortable thought.

One other minor inconvenience was that down in the basement he didn't hear
as much of the rumour mill as he would have liked.  Sometimes that was the
only way to keep up with events in the Bureau.  If he managed to catch the
clerical worker who distributed the mail, he could sometimes engage them in
talk long enough to find out what was going on, but many of the clerical
staff seemed to deliberately go out of their way to visit the basement when
he wasn't around.  In the end, Mulder was driven to chatting up a girl on
the switchboard called Holly, just so that he had an excuse to call in once
or twice a week and find out what was happening.

Mulder rather hoped that he could sort out a better solution sometime soon;
Holly was a nice girl, but he really didn't want to go further than
chatting over the phone with her.  And these things had a habit of getting
out of hand where women were concerned.

In his experience, anyway.

Since Holly was enjoying a week's vacation time at the beach, it took a
couple of days for the news to filter down to Mulder.  He was rummaging in
a pile of files in the little storage room adjacent to his office when he
heard footsteps and a set of squeaky wheels walking quickly down the
passage outside and into the office.

Mulder peered around the edge of the racks and saw the rather sturdy legs
of Marge, a middle-aged woman who was one of the more approachable clerical
workers in the mailroom.

She jumped when he appeared behind her, then let out a spurt of jolly
laughter.  "Agent Mulder!  What a fright you gave me!"

He grinned at her.  "Sorry, Marge.  What have you got for me today?"

She rummaged in her little trolley.  "Couple of parcels, a few letters and
some of those magazines."

He gave her a quizzical look.  "*Those* magazines?"

She laughed again, and pretended to slap at his arm.  "Those magazines
about UFOs you have sent here."

He pretended to wipe his brow.  "Phew!  I thought for a minute you meant
some of my *other* magazines ...."

"Get away with you, Agent Mulder!"

"I wouldn't want to make you blush, Marge, gorgeous as it would make you
look - "

"Flatterer!"  Marge tidied her stack of mail, sorted out who she had to go
to next, and expertly manoeuvred the trolley around so that it was facing
the door - no mean feat, given that it had the obstinate wheels of a
shopping cart and listed slightly to the left.  "Son, I'll have to trouble
you to help me get this old mule back up the stairs."

"No problem.  Is the lift out again?"

"It is," she sighed.  "It held out 'til I got down here, then the doors
snapped shut and nearly caught me in them.  And when I tried the buttons,
they wouldn't open again for love nor money."

Mulder frowned, considering, although the problem was not a new one.  The
lift was old, one of the originals in the Hoover building, and although it
served all floors, it was hardly ever used because it was in an out of the
way corner at the rear of the building.  It probably got less maintenance
than the others did and as Mulder had discovered twice to his detriment, it
broke down quite frequently.  But there were other associated little
quirks, some of which occasionally caused problems.

"Did someone else call it?" he asked, as he helped Marge get the trolley
through the door and around one of the more awkward bends in the corridor.

"I didn't hear it move," she replied.  "The car seems to be just sitting
there."

Mulder grunted, resigning himself to a fight with the maintenance team
about getting the lift fixed again.  There had been an outside chance that
someone else had called it, or that the inner sliding cage doors weren't
quite shut - that sometimes caused problems - but he had bigger things on
his mind.  A particularly interesting file had turned up on his desk this
morning, and he was eager to get back to it.  He grabbed the two sides of
the wire trolley frame and began to haul it up the stairs, its owner
puffing a little behind him.

"Besides," Marge said, interrupting his thoughts, "the only person besides
you and me who uses that old lift is Lizzy Tarvi, and she won't be using it
to get to the stacks anytime soon, poor girl, if what I hear's true."

Mulder's head jerked up.  "Lizzy Tarvi?  The deaf girl up in VCS Records?
What's happened to her?"

Marge clucked sympathetically.  "Rumour says she's been suspended - they
think she may have misplaced those case files of Agent Harvey's."

Mulder's eyebrows nearly hit his hairline.  "Lizzy?  You've got to be
kidding me - nothing Lizzy puts her hand on *ever* goes missing.  She's
like Radar from "M*A*S*H"."

"That's what they're saying, Agent Mulder.  And since everyone knows that
Lizzy never loses anything ...."  She let her voice trail off and gave the
agent a meaningful look.  "AD Skinner's taken this one into his own hands,
but it doesn't look good.  If you ask me - those files don't turn up, she's
finished with the Bureau."
 

End Part 1/3
 

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
SILENT WITNESS
By Helen Wills
Helen@wills2.demon.co.uk
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Disclaimed etc. in Part 1.

Part 2/3
 

Lizzy Tarvi stood in the doorway of the main filing store and stared down
the long rows of  floor-to-ceiling shelves.  Impossible as it seemed to
her, the very place, which had been her best friend and favourite refuge
for the last couple of years, had suddenly turned on her.  She looked at
the neat rows, which had been her particular charge and passion, and felt a
terrible rage come over her.

She hadn't taken the files, nor had she misplaced them.  Therefore, that
left two options; that the files were genuinely lost, misplaced by someone
else, or ....

The second option was unspeakable, but Lizzy Tarvi knew which one was the
more unlikely of the two.  She had been blamed for the disappearance
because she was the only records clerk to have had the handling of the
files other than the two agents.  If she hadn't 'mislaid' them, Lammerdale
or Harvey must have.

Lizzy recalled smelling Agent Harvey's cologne in the filing store, where
he had no reason to be.  She also recalled that hiding a white sheep is
always easier in a field full of other white sheep.

Despite the lateness of the hour - her colleagues had all left half an hour
previously - she went back to her desk and re-booted her computer.  It
would be interesting to see what other files Agents Harvey and Lammerdale
had used over the past couple of weeks.

The file menu appeared, and Lizzy tried to open the electronic version of
the logging-out book.

*ACCESS DENIED.  THIS FILE IS IN USE.*

Lizzy blinked.  That file was only really used by the records team, and got
updated at the end of each day.  She peered around the dim records office,
but there was no one else there.  Just to be certain, she checked to make
sure no one had left their computer on by accident.

All the screens were dark.  She went back to her desk and requested further
details from the blinking message box.  The computer obediently brought up
details of the user.

* JTT047101111, MULDER, FOX, SPECIAL AGENT.*

XXXX

In his basement office, Agent Mulder was just preparing to come out of the
filing log when a neat little gadget provided by some friends of his
notified him - with a soft *ting* - that someone else had tried to open the
file and was questioning why they couldn't.

Now that was interesting ....  He typed in his own query, and the little
gadget traced the source of the query.  Normally Mulder used the device to
trace any attempts to hack into his computer, but it was definitely proving
its varied usefulness tonight.

A message box flipped up, detailing file pathways and various computerised
codes.  Then it disgorged the information Mulder was looking for.

*TARVI, ELIZABETH, FBI ADMIN - VCS.*

Mulder's brows rose and a small smile crossed his lips.  Now that was
*really* interesting.  He carefully extricated himself from the filing log,
flipped up his screen-saver, and headed out of the office.

XXXX

Failing to enter the filing log and therefore unable to utilise its search
facility to discover the information she wanted, Lizzy opted to do it the
old-fashioned way and went through the paper log book.

Paper tended to be more reliable than computers anyway.  A machine is only
as good as its operator, and in Lizzy's opinion a good fifty percent of the
operators around here were dead from the neck up.

Her finger traced down the pages patiently until she found Harvey's
familiar scrawl in the 'out' column, and she noted mentally the file
reference codes - there were about six or seven in all.  Then she slapped
the book shut and headed purposefully towards the filing rooms.

They were cool and still at this time of the evening.  Lizzy flipped the
light switches on and confidently looked up each file in turn.  They were
all in place.  Just to be certain, she checked up to ten files on either
side of each one, but everything appeared to be in order.

The missing documents hadn't been 'accidentally' filed in the wrong folders
then.  So much for that idea.  She paused for a minute, staring up and down
the rows with folded arms, tapping her fingers.  Everything was in place.
She would know if it wasn't.

Okay, fine.  She would have to check the archived 'dead' files in the
stacks, in that case.  Lizzy turned to go check the record books again, and
gasped sharply.

A tall, dark-haired male agent was leaning against the far wall by the
door, watching her with interest.

Fox Mulder.  She remembered him, although he'd left the VCS within days of
her arriving to work there.  He was rumoured to be something of a crank -
working on those weird files which had been stashed in the basement, case
folders full of rubbish about UFOs and God knew what else.

Seeing her expression, Mulder smiled lazily and pushed himself away from
the wall, walking towards her slowly.

//Hi Lizzy,// he signed.  //You're working late tonight.//

Lizzy recovered her composure a little and raised a cool brow at him.  It
was unusual to find anyone here who was competent in ASL.

//So are you,// she signed back.  //What's your excuse?//

Mulder chuckled.  //Habit.  Don't you know that all profilers are creatures
of the night?//

//Don't let me stop you turning into a bat and flying away, Vlad!// she
retorted, a little amazed at her own temerity for speaking to one of the
agents in such a way.

Mulder was only amused, though.  //Maybe another time.  Rumour has it you
were suspended.  Some might take your nocturnal habits the wrong way as a
consequence.//

//I'm not hiding the evidence, if that's what you mean,// she told him
bitterly.

Mulder studied the woman's face.  //I didn't think you were.  Doing a
little research?  What makes you think the files in question are still in
the building?  Chances are, Harvey or Lammerdale took them home and
accidentally threw them out with the trash.//

Lizzy shook her head decisively.  //They didn't leave this building.  Those
files got put back in the 'live' racks and only went missing after those
guys had been playing around in there more than usual.//

Mulder's brows rose.  //You think they hid them deliberately?//

Her shoulders slumped a little.  //I don't know.  I don't want to think
they did - //

His face hardened a little.  //It's a good bet.  I know Harvey from way
back.  They're not here, though, are they?//

//No.  I've looked everywhere.//

//So what's the next hiding place on your list?//

//The archive stacks.  You could lose anything in there.//

//Let's go then.//

XXXX

Taking the old elevator down to the stacks was conducted in silence -
although not for the obvious reason.  Each of them was prey to odd thoughts
about the other: Lizzy was annoyed with herself for not having realised
that Agent Mulder was in the filing room sooner, and was concentrating on
memorising his unique scent for future reference; and Mulder was thinking
about Lizzy's curious ability to find things.

When the elevator finally creaked to a shuddering halt outside the stacks,
Mulder gestured for Lizzy to go ahead and watched to see what she did.  It
was no secret within the Bureau that these days his primary interest was in
all things paranormal; and being an inquisitive man, the rumours of a
'filing room ghost' had tickled both his interest and his sense of humour.
A few minutes of sober reflection had told him that it had to be one of the
Records staff.  But until Fox Mulder had actually discovered that the
so-called ghost was in reality Lizzy Tarvi, he hadn't seriously considered
that there might indeed be a paranormal explanation for what was going on.

He hadn't had a lot of contact with Lizzy before, although he knew she was
profoundly deaf and was generally considered to be one of the most reliable
of the Records officers.  Rumour, as he had quoted to Marge the day before,
said that Lizzy never lost anything and could find the unfindable.  But
what really caught Mulder's attention was her method of finding things.  He
had watched her in the other filing rooms, and while she had picked very
carefully over a small number of files, she had spent the bulk of her time
simply standing and scanning the shelves.

Given the hundreds of thousands of files in the Violent Crimes Section,
most of them in identical buff folders, it seemed like an utterly lunatic
way of going about things.

Maybe.  Mulder wasn't so sure.  After all, in Lizzy's job results counted
more than methods.  And whatever method she used was borne out by her
success rate.

So he deliberately stepped back and watched as she did her stuff.

Once again, Lizzy headed directly for a small number of files.  Mulder was
particularly interested to note that she hadn't written the reference
numbers down for any of them, but had no apparent difficulty in finding
them.

It was a good thing he was already convinced of her innocence, because this
performance would not have impressed a less open-minded agent.

Then, failing to find what she wanted, she stepped back and started
scanning the racks again slowly.   She took about twenty minutes all told,
walking slowly up and down the long lines of shelves, before she finally
rejoined him and shook her head.

//Nothing?// Mulder asked.

Lizzy shook her head.  //No.  The racks haven't been touched since I came
in here two days ago.//

He raised a brow.  //You're sure?//

//Positive,// she signed, and genuinely didn't seem to see what an
extraordinary statement this was.  She looked tired and discouraged.  //I
must be wrong, they must have taken them out of the building after all.//

//Not necessarily,// Mulder replied calmly.  //The Hoover building's a big
place, plenty of hiding space.  We'll just have to give it some more
thought.//

//You mean you will,// she replied, and her expression was wry.  //I'll
probably be suspended tomorrow, after the inquiry board have finished with
me.//

Mulder couldn't think of anything to say to that.  He ushered her back into
the lift and pressed the button for the third floor.

The elevator shuddered into motion.

//Don't give up so easily,// he signed to her after a moment, trying to
bolster her spirits.  //They can't seriously pin this on you!//

Her look of mixed incredulity and amusement was sufficient answer to this.

Of course they could.  It was much easier to sack a sloppy clerical worker
than a fully-fledged Special Agent with a good record of arrests.

Any further comment was cut short by the lift suddenly shuddering to a
halt.  Mulder looked up at the row of floor numbers above the doors,
surprised, and was dismayed to see that the lift appeared to be stuck
between floors 1 and 2.

"Shit!" he muttered.  He should have known better than to use this clapped
out old elevator rather than the stairs.  Lizzy reached around him and
pushed the alarm bell, but he shook his head.  //Don't get your hopes up -
the alarm on this lift only routes to the caretakers' office, and they'll
have all left for the night by now.  The security guards won't know
anything's wrong unless they check the offices and find all the lights
on.//

Lizzy gave him a look of alarm.  //I don't want to be here all night!//

//Me neither.//  Mulder tried pressing the button for floor three again,
but nothing happened.  In frustration he started stabbing at the different
buttons at random, until finally he hit the "B".

There was a pause ... and the old lift reluctantly creaked back into
motion, this time heading downwards.  They both heaved sighs of relief and
grinned sheepishly at each other.

//Next time, I'll use the stairs,// Lizzy vowed.

They passed Ground and Lower Ground floors - and the lift came to a halt
again, between Lower Ground 2 and the basement.  Mulder swore roundly and
thumped the buttons again, but this time they were clearly stuck fast.

"This is stupid!" he said aloud, staring up at the numbers above the doors
accusingly.

//How close are we to the outer doors, do you think?// Lizzy asked.

//I don't know ....//

This lift was old enough that it had a concertina-ed inner door on the car
and heavy panelled outer doors at the lift exit on each floor.  Mulder
pulled the sliding door back but they could only see a foot or so of the
outer doors down by the floor of the elevator car, and although they tried
pushing them open, they were too heavy from that angle to open more than an
inch or two.

Mulder groaned and looked at the surrounding walls.  The car was less than
five feet square and about six and a half feet high.

Claustrophobically small.

Then he looked up at the ceiling.  There was a removable servicing panel.

//I guess this is where I get to do my world-renowned James Bond
impression,// he signed to Lizzy wryly.

She did a double take.  //You can't seriously be suggesting - ?//

//You got any better ideas?//

//No wonder they say you can't keep a partner,// she grumbled.

XXXX

Mulder had cause to be grateful that he was fit, because climbing out of an
elevator car wasn't nearly as easy as the aforementioned British secret
agent made it look.  It was also extremely dirty; for obvious reasons, no
one ever dusts the roof of a lift or cleans the cable and counter-weights.

The lift shaft was very cool and dark, and the enormity of what he was
about to attempt was suddenly brought home to Mulder.  Climbing the cable
was out of the question, for even if he managed to reach the next floor up
safely, it was still doubtful that he'd be able to get the doors open.

On the other hand, if he could get below the car - which wasn't a very
enticing idea either - he and Lizzy could maybe push the doors open between
them, she from the top and he from the bottom.  It all rather rested on
three things: getting beneath the car, praying that the car didn't suddenly
decide to start moving downwards again, and just how much space there was
left in the shaft underneath at this level.

There were no floors lower than the basement; even the boiler room was on
that level, making the basement offices some of the warmest in the entire
building during the winter.  Therefore, logically, the lift shaft should
also go no lower than the basement.

Mulder took a deep breath, got a firm grip on the cable and leaned out over
the side of the car, waving one hand in the air.  To the front and back of
the lift, he could just feel the walls of the shaft.  But to either side
there was a gap, and it felt big enough for a person.

Damn.

He leaned out further - and further - until his fingers brushed something.
It felt, incongruously, like the metal rungs of a ladder.  Then he thought
about it for a moment, and realised it made sense.  There had to be some
way to get in and out of the shaft to service the car, or make a closer
examination if there were problems.

Mulder breathed again, just fractionally easier.  This might actually work
after all.  Just for God's sake don't let that damn elevator start moving
again at the wrong moment!  He pulled himself back onto the roof of the car
and leaned through the hatch to reassure the very anxious Lizzy and explain
what he planned to do.

Then he took another deep breath and leaned out over the edge of the car,
this time deliberately feeling for the ladder.

The rungs were cold and rusty.  Mulder got the fingers of his left hand
wrapped around them and gave a sharp tug, praying they were still securely
bolted to the wall of the shaft.  There was a faint metallic creaking, but
nothing major, so he let go of the cable and made a sort of scrambling
jump.  For a moment, there was a lot of scrabbling as he snatched at the
ladder with his right hand and fought to find footholds.

Then he hung there, his panting breaths sounding very noisy in the confined
space, while he got his nerves under control.  This was hideous; he was
working blind, without even the small amount of light from the elevator
car, and despite how great the distance had seemed when he was leaning out
from the cable, the gap between the wall and the car itself was not so
great.  He could probably turn around, but that was about it.

Nothing for it but to go up or down.

Mulder had estimated that if the bottom of the shaft was where he thought
it should be, then the car was probably less than six feet in the air.
Never had six feet seemed greater; and yet he could easily tell how far he
had falteringly climbed by reaching out a few inches behind him and
touching the car.

Then he was past the car completely and moments later, unexpectedly, his
foot was hitting solid concrete.

Mulder let out a whoop of delight, before remembering that Lizzy wouldn't
be able to hear him.  Fumbling his way around the walls, hitting his head
painfully on the underside of the car and stirring up all kinds of rubbish
at the bottom of the lift shaft, he found the doors and threw his weight
against them.

Inside the car, feeling the vibrations though the floor, Lizzy did likewise
to the best of her ability.

The gap opened enough for Mulder to squeeze through, then he was hauling
the doors open from the other side and dragging one of the old-fashioned,
sand-filled fire buckets out of the corridor to prop them open with while
he got Lizzy out.

For the next five or ten minutes, Mulder busied himself by taking Lizzy
back to his office and making coffee for them both on his ancient
percolator.  Then he rummaged around in one of the old wooden cabinets he'd
salvaged, and dug out a rather battered flashlight.  Giving his bemused
guest a reassuring smile, he headed back out to the elevator shaft.

Five minutes later he returned to the office, bearing a handful of screwed
up and filthy papers, which he offered to Lizzy.

//Do you recognise these?// he signed.

She turned them over one by one, automatically straightening them up and
smoothing out the creases, then looked up at him, a troubled frown on her
brow.  //Where are the rest, Agent Mulder?//

Mulder crouched beside her chair for a while, thinking.  Finally, he
reached out and patted her hands.

//I'm not sure, but I've got an idea, Lizzy.  Don't worry about the inquiry
board tomorrow.//

And with that she had to be content, for he wouldn't say anymore.
 

End Part 2/3
 
 

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
SILENT WITNESS
By Helen Wills
Helen@wills2.demon.co.uk
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Disclaimed etc. in Part 1.

Part 3/3
 

The inquiry board - more of an informal panel really - convened at 10 am
sharp the next morning.

Lizzy Tarvi sat in uncomfortable silence as her superior, John Carey, tried
to argue her case for her in front of AD Skinner, Section Chief Blevins,
and Agents Lammerdale and Harvey. The AD had arranged for a translator to
sign the proceedings for her, but Lizzy didn't need that to recognise the
anger of Blevins or the ominous joint silence of his two agents.

Or, for that matter, the look of frustration and defeat on Carey's face,
although he tried to hide it.

Lizzy looked down at her hands where they were gripped tightly in her lap
and waited patiently for someone to state clearly, in words that she could
even lip-read, what was going to happen to her.

It was an art she had perfected during lifetime of utter silence.

XXXX

"Agent Mulder, you'd better had a damn good reason for dragging me up here
this early in the day, when I have a thousand other, more urgent jobs to
do."

Mulder raised a brow at the elderly British-born mechanic, known to the
white-collar workers at the Bureau only as Sid.  "Miss Tarvi and I could
have spent a pretty uncomfortable night in that elevator, Sid.  Are you
saying that's not important?"

Sid muttered something salty about what he would have done had he been
twenty years younger and in that situation, which Mulder pretended not to
hear.  "I still don't know why you want to see inside the plant room," he
complained, dragging the relevant keys out of his stained overalls pocket
and laboriously selecting one.

"I'm just weird that way.  Now can we get on with it?  I've got a meeting
to gatecrash at ten."

The mechanic sighed, but unlocked the door to the little room that housed
the machinery that worked the ancient elevator at the rear of the building.
He reached around the door without having to look and flicked the light
switch on.  Mulder was amused to note that the room appeared to have the
same ancient light fittings and yellowish bulbs as his basement office, but
it was enough to let him see the huge pulleys that worked the lift cables.
There was a soft hum of power from the machinery.  He could also see the
access hatch into the lift shaft.

Pushing past Sid, he went to inspect the machinery and hatch.  "When was
the last time you came in here?" he asked the mechanic.

"Couple of days ago, when you reported the lift was out again," the old man
replied.

"Did you have to climb into the shaft?" Mulder demanded.

Sid stared at him incredulously for a moment, then let out a rusty cackle
of laughter.  "Who, me?  At my age?  Son, you've got bats in your attic if
you think I'm going to climb down there!  That's a game for the young."

The agent grinned.  "No kidding.  So when was the last time someone
actually had to climb through here to service the car?"

Now the old man was giving him a look of genuine perplexity.  "I don't
think anyone ever has - at least, not as long as *I've* been looking after
the old girl.  There's never been any need to.  Any hiccups she gets, I can
deal with here."

Mulder nodded.  Just as he thought.  "And I don't suppose you dust this
room, do you?"

"No, and you won't get the cleaning staff up here of an evening, either,"
Sid retorted, beginning to grow tired of the questioning.  "What are you
getting at, anyway?"

"Nothing - nothing to get you into any kind of trouble anyhow.  But
someone's been in here and dusted this hatch off."  Mulder gestured to the
hatch, which was at variance with the rest of the plant room in that it had
a decidedly thick coat of dust.

Sid started in surprise, and ambled over to take a look.  "Why, in the name
of God - "

Mulder gave him a tight grin.  "I've got an idea, Sid.  Here - give me a
hand to get this open, will you?"

"You're never going down there, son - "

"I don't think I'll have to go far inside.  I've just got a notion I know
why this elevator's been playing up more than usual."

XXXX

AD Skinner turned to face Lizzy directly, and said clearly, "Under the
circumstances, Miss Tarvi, I regret that I'm going to have to place you
under paid suspension, pending further investigation.  Do you understand?"

Lizzy paused, then nodded reluctantly.  There wasn't much else she could
do.

"Very well," Skinner said heavily.  "I'll have to ask you to hand over your
passes for the time being.  I suggest you collect any personal belongings
you may have at your workstation.  Mr. Carey will advise you on contacting
your Union representative, I'm sure - "

He paused.  From the sound of it, his personal assistant was having a
rather noisy argument with someone in the outer office.  Blevins also
glanced up, frowning, and Agent Lammerdale shifted slightly in his chair,
wishing Skinner would get on with it.

Suddenly the door burst open and Agent Mulder stormed in, shaking off an
agitated Kimberley impatiently.

Skinner stood up slowly.  "Thank you, Kim.  That'll be all."  The
disgruntled PA backed out of the room again and shut the door.  "Agent
Mulder, what exactly is the meaning of this?" he demanded.  His eyes raked
over the younger man sharply and noted to his astonishment that the agent
was covered in a faint layer of dust.

"Sir, with all due respect, I have something here I think you ought to
see," Mulder said quickly, meeting Skinner's gaze without flinching.  And
he held up a fat bundle of files, somewhat the worse for wear.

There was a pause, then Carey got to his feet and relieved Mulder of the
stack, examining them.  He heaved a cautious sigh of relief.  "These are
the files," he said to Skinner.  "Most of the contents seem to be here, but
I'd have to go through them properly to be certain."

"And exactly where did you find them, Agent Mulder?" Blevins demanded
pointedly.

"Where they were deliberately hidden, Sir - just inside the lift shaft on
the far side of the building.  They'd been tucked inside a natural ledge in
the wall of the shaft, but enough was poking out to get caught in the
cables and interfere with the mechanism."

There was another pause.

"Sit down, Agent Mulder, and explain a little further," Skinner said
finally, taking a seat himself.

"I don't think there's anything to explain, Sir," Mulder said quietly,
sliding into the seat opposite.  "The files were obviously hidden in the
lift shaft deliberately.  At a guess, I'd say the person who put them there
didn't want to destroy the contents in case they needed them later.  So
they put them somewhere where they were unlikely to be found, but were
still reasonably accessible."

"No guesses who that was," Harvey murmured languidly, and shot a glance at
the perplexed Lizzy.

"Oh, I don't think there will be," Mulder observed cryptically.

"And how did you come to find these files, Agent Mulder, if they were in
such an unlikely place?" Blevins wanted to know.

"By accident, Sir.  Lizzy and I got stuck in that lift last night, and I
had to climb out into the shaft to get the doors open."

"Most people would ring the alarm," Skinner observed dryly.

Mulder smiled.  "Yes, but it was after hours and the alarm in that lift
only goes to the caretakers' office.  No one would have heard."

"I see.  Go on."

The younger man shrugged.  "There's not much else to say, Sir.  When I got
to the bottom of the shaft, I found a lot of debris there, so I took a look
with a flashlight and found a few of the documents from the files.  Lizzy
was able to identify them positively, and it got me to thinking about how
they could have got there."

"There's no mystery about that!" Lammerdale exclaimed hotly, and was all
but physically slapped back in his chair by a look from Skinner.

"I still don't understand what you and Miss Tarvi were doing in the
building, in that lift, at that time of the evening," the AD said curtly to
Mulder.  "Miss Tarvi's role is particularly opaque at this point."

"She was looking for the files herself, Sir.  I happened to catch her at it
by accident, while I was working late."

Agent Harvey made a disgusted noise in his throat, which everyone ignored.

"She was looking for the files single-handedly," Skinner said, staring at
Mulder.

"Yes, Sir."  Mulder hesitated, then added, "I'm sure you must be aware,
Sir, that Lizzy is the so-called Records Room Ghost.  She has an unusual
ability which she uses when she's working in the filing rooms, and I think
that's what has indirectly led people to think there's a ghost in there.
For obvious reasons she's happier working on her own, which has led to the
other records staff leaving the stacks to her."

"Are you trying to say Miss Tarvi is an X-file, Agent Mulder?" Blevins
asked dryly.

"No, Sir."  Mulder tried, with only partial success, to hide his irritation
at the remark.  "I was merely making an observation."

"What 'unique ability' are you referring to, Agent Mulder?" Skinner cut in
sharply.

The younger man hesitated again, unsure of how the AD might react to his
next statement.  "Actually, Sir, given how rare an ability it is, I think a
demonstration might be more helpful."

Skinner leaned back in his chair, staring at Mulder for a moment or two.
Then he nodded.  "Very well."

Mulder nodded and got up, going outside to speak quietly to Kimberley.
When he returned, he was carrying a paperback novel and a pad of lined
paper.  He put them down on the table and turned to Lizzy.

"Lizzy," he said, signing and speaking at the same time so that everyone
could understand what was happening, "I'm going to ask you to read a page
of this book chosen at random.  Will you do that for me?"

Her brow furrowed, but she nodded.  Mulder picked up the novel and without
looking at it, riffled through the pages, selecting one at random.  He took
a quick glance, noting the page number, and handed it over.  "That one."

There was an extended pause while she read through the page, then she
looked up and Mulder took the book back, holding it out to the AD.  "Can
you hold the page, please, Sir?"  He pushed the lined pad towards Lizzy and
took a biro out of his inside pocket, giving her that as well.  "Now, can
you write down, word for word, as much as you remember of that page."

Another pause, this time fractionally longer, as she wrote on the pad.
Skinner, watching this performance with a frown at first, slowly began to
think he might understand what Mulder was getting at, although the others
in the room didn't seem to have caught on.

Finally, Lizzy offered the pad back to Mulder.  He declined it, offering it
instead to Skinner.  "Would you care to check it, Sir?"

"Do I need to?" the AD asked, raising a brow at him.  But he checked it all
the same, then passed the book and pad wordlessly to Blevins.  "Your point,
Agent Mulder?"

"My point, Sir, is that Lizzy has a photographic memory," Mulder said
gravely.  "I doubt I would have realised if I didn't have a similar ability
myself.  I was watching her go over the filing racks last night - she was
just scanning them, so see if anything was out of place.  Only someone with
an extraordinary memory would be able to tell if something was missing just
by looking to see how the files were placed on the shelves.  And of course,
this also explains her reputation for being able to find anything that's
missing - things are never really lost, as far as Lizzy is concerned."

"There is another explanation for her knowing those files weren't in the
racks, Spooky," Harvey pointed out coldly.

"Well, I hope to have a definitive answer on that shortly," Mulder replied,
looking back at him equally coldly.

"What do you mean?" Blevins demanded, pushing the pad and book aside
impatiently.

"I mean, Sir, that I took the liberty of setting a fingerprint team to work
on the lift shaft where I found the files," Mulder replied.

Even Skinner was surprised at this.  "Do you honestly think they're going
to find anything?"

Mulder shrugged.  "I don't know, Sir, but it's worth a try.  Whoever
climbed into the shaft was careful to wipe the hatch afterwards, but the
dust up there is pretty thick and Agent Henderson seemed to think there was
a fair chance they may have tracked some of it into the shaft with them
without realising.  And they may not have been so successful in cleaning
off any prints they left inside."

There was a tense silence in which Lammerdale and Harvey began to look
increasingly uncomfortable.  Finally Skinner broke it, saying rather
neutrally, "I will be ... most interested to see those results, Agent
Mulder."

"So will I, Sir," Mulder replied quietly, and he was echoed by Carey.  He
looked across at Lizzy.  //Do you understand what's happening?// he signed.

She nodded.  //I think so.//   She gave him a wavering smile.

Mulder smiled back and reached across to squeeze her hand reassuringly.

XXXX

Monday morning came, and Lizzy was back at her desk in the VCS.  Things
were not the same, though.  For the first time, she was aware of an
atmosphere; not from her fellow records officers, who had all expressed
relief and pleasure at her acquittal for the crime of having lost a file,
but from the agents.

They were all very pointedly *not* coming to her desk to ask for
assistance.

Out in the bullpen were two newly emptied desks.  Agent Lammerdale had been
shipped out to work in a regional office, on desk duty until his
disciplinary hearing was held.  Agent Harvey was on unpaid suspension.
Their workload had been taken on by two granite-faced senior agents who had
suddenly appeared from Boston, and the Office of Professional Conduct was
maintaining a high profile in the division.

The VCS wanted someone to blame, and since Agent Mulder was already a
Bureau pariah down in his basement, Lizzy seemed like an ideal target.  She
had already been stared at in a particularly unpleasant fashion by Chief
Blevins that morning - after all, it reflected on him when his agents were
caught with their fingers in the brown sticky stuff - and something told
her that life was about to get harder for a while.

When the summons came from AD Skinner's office, she was ready for the
worst.

Ushered into Skinner's office by a cool and collected Kimberley, Lizzy was
depressed to note that her superior, John Carey, was sat in front of the
AD's desk, alongside the woman translator who had been present at the
inquiry.  This didn't look promising.

So she was rather surprised when Skinner actually greeted her in ASL.  It
was rather slow and clumsy, admittedly, but he was the first person other
than Agent Mulder to even attempt it.  Then he cleared his throat rather
apologetically, adjusted his glasses, nodded to the translator and went
back to normal speech.

"You'll be aware of recent events in the VCS, Miss Tarvi.  Agents Harvey
and Lammerdale have been removed from the section, but naturally there's
some ... ill-feeling going around about what happened."

Lizzy nodded cautiously.

"It occurs to Chief Carey and I that you may be the recipient of some
misdirected anger by the agents in the VCS, and that may affect your
ability to carry out your work to your normal high standards."

*Here it comes,* she thought regretfully.

"Under the circumstances, we feel that it might be helpful if you were to
be temporarily placed elsewhere within the Bureau, until the situation is
resolved."

Lizzy wondered if records staff could be transferred to remote field
offices, like erring agents.

"You may have heard of the X-files Division," Skinner continued.

Lizzy blinked.  X-files *Division*?  Since when had that mouldering heap of
crank-files been designated a division?  So far as she knew, it was still
Agent Mulder's 'special' project and part of Blevins' remit.

"... Despite appearances, the number of case files which actually fall into
the category of "X" files is considerable, and until now they have been
improperly administered ...."

She looked at the AD's humourless face and decided that this was his way of
delicately conveying that the files were in the most Godawful mess; a mess
which, if she wasn't mistaken, was as offensive to him as it was to her.
"X" files were *never* stored with the rest of the Bureau's files, nor were
they computer categorised or microfiched.  Mostly they got dumped in a dark
corner of the storage room in a heap.

"... And since Agent Mulder will shortly be assigned a new partner, it
would be of enormous help to him if someone were to go through the files
and put them in proper order."

Lizzy felt her mouth go slightly dry.  She signed hastily to the
translator, who turned to Skinner and said, "Miss Tarvi wants to know if
she'll have to set up the computer registry?"

Skinner shook his head at once.  "No, that won't be necessary.  Agent
Mulder will register files as and when they become active."

Well, that wasn't so bad.  Lizzy mentally tallied up what she knew of the
"X" files and decided that it might take her two or three weeks, if she
wasn't interrupted.  And she wasn't likely to be interrupted down in the
basement.

Skinner seemed to feel that this was all the briefing she needed.  "That
will be excellent, Miss Tarvi.  Once you've finished assisting in the
X-files Division, I feel sure that you will be able to return to the VCS.
Until then ...."

Well, it could be worse.  She wasn't sure how, but ....

XXXX

//I guess they're kind of in a mess,// Mulder signed uncomfortably, and
Lizzy restrained herself from commenting.

After all, saying they were "kind of in a mess" was a little like saying
the Pope had High Church leanings.  Mulder's ad hoc filing room looked like
a waste paper collection point.  He'd made some rather obvious and inexpert
attempts at sorting it all out, but given the general state of his office
Lizzy rather doubted neatness was high on his list of priorities.  When she
arrived, he was sat with his feet propped up on the desk, surrounded by
open files and scattered paper, reading what looked suspiciously like one
of the blue-bordered files from Personnel.

She hoped he had permission to read someone's personnel file.  Maybe it was
the file of that new partner AD Skinner had mentioned; she supposed he
*would* be the SAC to the poor soul.  Lizzy confessed to herself that she
was interested to see who they'd inflicted Mulder on, and decided - not
without a pang of from her conscience - to try and get a peek inside the
folder when he wasn't around.

Meanwhile, Mulder was shuffling his feet, obviously impatient to be
elsewhere.  //Well, I guess that's all I can tell you.  You'll want me to
get out of your way, I guess ....//

And he was gone.  Lizzy heaved a sigh of relief and stooped to pick a file
up from the floor.  She turned it around and squinted at the scruffy,
hand-written label: sightings of Bigfoot.  She should have guessed.

When she emerged from the filing room a couple of hours later, there was no
sign of Mulder, although there was a sticky Post-It note on his desk
addressed to her, inviting her to make use of his percolator if she wanted.
Lizzy inspected it gingerly and decided that she'd rather walk up two
flights of stairs to the coffee machine in Serious Fraud.  Then she checked
the tiny set of offices carefully, to make sure that he was really out.

No sign of him.  She sneaked over to his desk and poked around until she
unearthed the personnel file.  Maybe the prospective partner was someone
she knew.  Hmm ... it was a fat folder.

Lizzy nearly dropped the file when she saw the name on it, though.  Then
she was convulsed with silent, astounded laugher.

Oh my!  Was Agent Mulder ever in for the roller-coaster ride of his life!

Lizzy Tarvi had heard rather a lot about Agent Dana Scully, and she didn't
fancy his chances ....