10 X 10: CANARY By Martin Category: Casefile; sequel Rating: R Spoilers: Soft Light, Synchrony, Nothing Important Happened Today E-mail : rossprag@fgi.net From Season Nine: Mulder must solve a murder, break a conspiracy, and save the future, all without a gun, badge, or Scully...

Dedicated to my friend Vickie, who dwells in another universe

Earth
31 million B.C.

The craft re-entered the atmosphere openly – previous scouting parties had found no evidence indicating that any organism yet existing on this planet possessed even a rudimentary intelligence.

The presence of sentient intelligence demanded a strict protocol. Based upon their own fears – and one horrific episode that had occurred 200 stellar rotations earlier and some 3.5 light-years away -- the crew of this craft and those who had dispatched them stringently avoided establishing any contact or leaving any evidence of their visit on any planet possessing such advanced knowledge or technology.

To date, that protocol had proven unnecessary. The seeming lack of any rational, thinking life form other than their own in any of the galaxies they had explored elicited no emotion: There was no universal deity to worship or fear, and thus no need to prove their dominion over this universe. The idea that they were alone among the "intelligent" species was neither depressing nor reassuring. The principle of academic curiosity was as alien to them as would have been the concepts of a centralized nervous system or symmetrical appendages.

But they continued the search nonetheless, as they had for more than 300 generations of their species. Carefully scanning each planet and scrutinizing its radiation and potential transmissions before attempting a surface approach. Painstakingly removing any clues to their arrival or departure.

Had they any sense of humor, in the sense of the beings that someday would come to govern this planet, they might have enjoyed the Earth National Parks Service credo, "Take only pictures. Leave only footprints." However, their kind would disappear in a supernoval cataclysm a good 25 million years before any terrestrial creature reached the point of formulating catchy clichés. And leaving footprints would be considered a disastrous breach of their native protocol.

What had happened on this mission was far more disastrous. As any sentient creature that had ever existed in this universe had been inclined, the crew formulated elaborate rationales to absolve themselves of direct responsibility for what had occurred. Their scientists at home had taken insufficient pain to ensure the genetic integrity of the probe organisms. They had conducted these missions for many star rotations, and it was accepted that these biologically engineered probes would function as they were designed.

Or, in one important respect, fail to function. Of the 77 probes distributed in this world’s oceans, all were retrieved by telemetric reconjunction. Five were wholly non-functioning, victims of attack by the odd, ravenous creatures of the planet’s roiling seas. Seventy-one were intact, their artificial storage structures an encyclopediae of the planet’s chemical and physical makeup.

And, despite the guarantees of the most brilliant minds of its home planet that sterility was irrevocably bred into the probes, one was heavily laden with eggs. From the distension of its purportedly useless reproductive organs, it was clear that this was not its first brood

As would any sentient being that had ever breathed oxygen, nitrogen, ammonia, gaseous neon, or magnesium plasma, the crew killed the creature, logged it as non-functional, faked its reports, and wrote off this planet as little more than a curious biological sideshow, though of course sideshows did not exist in their galaxy or time.

Myrtle Beach, N.C.
May 2001
3:38 p.m.

 The Sweating Man caught Abby LaFavre’s eye the second he entered the mini-mart. His dark eyes swept the store’s three aisles of snack foods, sunblocks, cheaply produced T-shirts, and semi-pornographic postcards before leaving the doorway. He offered Abby a single glance, a peek into the darkest eyes the girl had ever seen, ringed with gray flesh and broken capillaries. He neither nodded nor smiled, showed neither fear nor congeniality, false or otherwise.

In the three years Abby had worked the counter, the shop had been robbed only once – it was located right on the main drag, across from the beachfront hotels, and the crime had occurred in the off-season, when the thousands of tourists who normally milled the streets outside were shoveling snow or milking cows or whatever they did up north. Abby was a native Carolinian who had spent her entire life in this tourist trap, and her ruminations of northern life were as imaginative as the tales Marco Polo had fetched back from his Chinese odyssey.

Though it was the height of Summer Break, it was still too early on a Saturday morning for the vampiric swarm of visiting students to have broken the spell cast the night before by Jack Daniels and Jose Quervo. The Sweating Man was too old for that crowd, and he didn’t have the domestic look of some househusband sent out to buy sunblock. Too much focus for a homeless guy.

He reconnoitered the store quickly, and, determining he was alone (except for Abby, who was starting to feel a little creepy), he moved quickly into the depths of the shop.

Abby smiled forcibly as the Sweating Man emerged a moment later. Standing well back from the counter, he hastily slapped a bag of Cheetos and one of the store’s more expensive pairs of sunglasses before the young clerk. With three twenties. "Mister, that’s ‘way more than I—" she protested.

The man held up a hand, a phantom smile playing at one corner of his mouth.
"The rest is for you. If you’ll do me a favor."

Abby’s smile froze. A lot of guys came down south thinking drugs and sex were as plentiful here as crappy souvenir shops and seafood buffets.

"I need you to send a Fed Ex. Can you do that?"

Abby exhaled. "Guess so. Aren’t you staying at a hotel? Most of ‘em have Fed Ex or UPS service..."

The Sweating Man placed another twenty on the counter, quickly withdrawing his hand before Abby could reach for the bill. He glanced at the door. "Can you do it?"

"Nothing illegal, right?"

"Not unless sending snack food across state lines is illegal." He smiled briefly. It didn’t work on his lined, haunted face.

"Huh?"

"The Cheetos and the glasses – put ‘em in a padded mailer and send them to this address. You got a pen?"

Abby finished prepping the envelope five minutes after the Sweating Man left, closely following the building front and disappearing onto a side street. The bell above the door chimed again as she was sealing it. A pair of men in flamingo-pink polo shirts and khakis strolled in, the alpha male beaming broadly and leaning on the counter with one tanned elbow.

"Ma’am, how’re you this fine morning?" he boomed in a homegrown accent. He was tall and lean, slightly balding, with a compass-precise brush mustache. The blue eyes above it were considerably cooler than the air-conditioned shop, and he smelled of something you bought at the men’s counter at Dillard’s. A North Carolina roadmap was half-inserted in his shirt pocket, its upper half drooping over his neat shirtfront. "Wonder could you help us out?"

The second man stood silently, beaming as broadly, arms folded over his chest.

"Sure," Abby got out.

The alpha male nodded and pulled a photo out of his pants. It was Sweating Man, his curly hair neatly combed, his face relaxed in an easy smile. Nice conservative tie, a pair of suited shoulders to either side, their bodies cropped out. Sweating Man during happier times.

"Uh uh," Abby shrugged with mock regret. "Looks like a nice guy. He done something?"

The stranger shrugged back. "We’re security with one of the hotels down the strip. Guy’s been working women on the beach, especially some of the old gals. Old-fashioned tourist-town grifter. We’d like to shut him. Sure you haven’t seen him?" Abby put on her best blonde beach bunny smile and shrugged again, more elaborately. Their story was for shit, and if the kind of money this guy smelled like was chasing Sweating Man, she had to throw in with Sweating Man, creepy as he’d seemed.

"Well, you have yourself a fine day, then," the alpha male crooned, jerking his head for his crony to follow.

The sun hadn’t yet reached the yardarm, as the old salt types said, but Abby nonetheless robbed the refrigerator for a couple of wine coolers.

Journal of Fox Mulder
August 2001
Myrtle Beach

"Don’t hang on.../Nothing lasts forever but the Earth and Sky.../It slips
a-way.../And all your money won’t another minute buy..."

 I shifted in my beach chair as Boston chanted away. The kid had been playing his boom box too loud for a couple of hours now, despite the expensive phones around his poultrylike neck. I hadn’t said anything, because the whispy-chinned teen had a taste for Journey and Boston, and I hated to discourage youthful interest in the classics.  But the tune was getting to me. I was at loose ends – a checkered career with the Bureau over – and I had too much time to think. I’d been sliced open by an old friend of the family, then kept on a lab tray somewhere in the Milky Way for several months before being used as a human petri dish for alien Jello.

Scully had been used as a similar alien science project, and we’d both agonized over whether the new life she had carried within her was a product of love and friendship or of technology and domination. When William was born with the proverbial 10 fingers and 10 toes and the requisite number of human chromosomes, I was ready to come to an understanding with the cosmic forces.

 But now, in forced self-exile, separated from Scully and William until God or whatever supreme authority knew when, I wondered. Was Boston right? Are we all merely dust in the wind, $6.25 in chemicals, as some scientist had calculated a few decades ago? I stared into the crisp afternoon sea, lapping under serene Cerulean blue – a briny stew of primitive invertebrates eating and preying and defecating and screwing and killing, with a smattering of fish and mammals thrown in for evolutionary flavor. Were we humans merely bags of talented chemicals with loud shirts and cell phones?  "Dust in the wind/All we are is dust in the windddd...."

 "Kid," I called, reaching into my windbreaker.

 He looked up curiously as I brandished a ten. "Here, go buy some Britney Spears or something," I offered.

 "Fuck you," he offered, cranking up the box.

 Kids. Gotta love ‘em. It was about time to get out to Roger’s place, anyway, so I gathered up my stuff. I waved to my friend the metalhead. His greeting lacked creativity, but he exhibited a certain flair, at least for using only one finger.

**

 Roger Kedrick lived on the edge of town, behind a flea market/strip mall and trailer park, in a ‘60s-something ranch-style house half-concealed by pines and shrubbery.

 Inside, Kedrick had probably at least a half-million in equipment and biological specimens. He was one of the world’s premiere marine biologists, and like many whose IQ came dangerously close to turning over the odometer of human knowledge, he was almost totally incapable of communicating about anything as mundane as the day’s headlines or the NBA draft. But Roger and I had been a couple of Yanks at Oxford suffering together for two years, and he was a closet cryptozoologist forever in search of sea serpents, giant worms, and squids the size of whales.

 When he’d called a few months back, pumped about some mystery find he’d made in a remote Carolina cove, I should’ve shared in his excitement, tried to draw him out of his paranoid secrecy. But I’d been dead for awhile, Scully was pregnant, the human race was facing the impending threat of extraterrestrial colonization, and I was about to wind up on the unemployment line. Could you call back later, Rog? Things are kinda hectic right now.

 Roger was deeply disappointed, but very sympathetic and concerned about my lack of intellectual vigor. His discovery wasn’t going anywhere for a while, and if my schedule cleared within the next few months, drop on down. Now, a few months later, with my professional schedule permanently cleared, Mom’s inheritance leaving me financially independent, Scully safer with me gone and under the invisible eye of a trio of baby/partner-sitters, and the X-Files seemingly secure in the hands of the dogged John Doggett, I decided to drop on down.

 The strange envelope Doggett had delivered to me shortly before William’s birth
had motivated me, as well.

 "I’d rather not discuss this on public telephone lines," Roger’d apologized yesterday, when I’d hit town. "I’ve always suspected the feds have all those tourist trap motels wired for sound, the drug dealers and such."

 "What are you into, Roger?" I probed, half-amused by his cosmic distrust and supermarket tabloid fears. "Anything I should be worried about?" \

 "No, no, no. A potential shift in everything we believe about paleontology, evolutionary science, maybe even life in the universe. But no threat to national security. Hey, you want to grab a couple jugs of Bone’s Farm Strawberry on your way out? I’m gonna be on the run."

 "Maybe if we used pig Latin, you could give me a clue...?"

 "Look, this symposium at the college could go a little long, so if I’m not around when you get in, nuke a frozen pizza, watch a video, whatever. The key’ll be under the coconut mat in front of the back porch door."

 "Ixnay on the onephay, Roger. Aren’t you afraid the CIA or the ATF will find
your key and make a bunch of collect calls?"

 "Shit."

 "Roger, chill. See you tomorrow."

"Mm," he had acknowledged, still ruminating on his breach of security.

The door was slightly ajar, my first clue something was wrong. I pushed in, and my shoe hit water and a dead Portuguese man-of-war. I looked around the front room, which resembled a Petco superstore hit by a band of Jihad terrorists. The cheesy carpet was satured and littered with aquarium glass and marine fauna, a few still twitching in the deadly oxygen. My chest tightened, and I hoped Roger had merely been the victim of juvenile homebreakers, taking advantage of his apparent absence.

Roger was on the dirty kitchen floor, blood from his skull pooling around an abandoned meat hammer speckled with something years with Scully had taught me to recognize. I fell back against the counter as I studied the corpse of my old college buddy, and then my brain kicked back into gear.

Roger had always hated pizza back in school – thought it was a lethal ingestion of fat, sodium, and grease. I stepped delicately over the puddle of blood, and, with my elbow, nudged open the freezer door. A Stouffer’s French Bread Pizza, sausage, was alone with a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey and three cans of Minute Maid concentrate. I pulled out the pizza box, which was far too heavy to contain the labeled pizza.

Roger’s fear of Ma Bell and Big Brother. He’d left me a coded message last night, which meant he suspected something might happen. What could a marine biologist have found that would have spurred such mayhem?

Watch a video. I sloshed back into the living room, and scanned a meager wire rack of videos next to a nearly antique Magnavox. Three or four Jacques Cousteau documentaries, the entire Jaws series, a naked aerobics tape (all ichthyology and no play, I thought sadly). And an old movie I recognized from my insomniac channel-surfing: A noir classic of the late ‘40s, starring Edmond O’Brien. D.O.A.  A little obvious, maybe, but Roger had considered Caddyshack an antique. I yanked the tape from its cardboard sleeve and ran a finger along its spine. The hole at one end felt tacky – Roger’d taped over it so he could record something over O’Brien’s search for his own killers. He’d probably taken these safeguards a while back, so he’d have to hide his last testament somewhere where the right person might find it.

Maybe like me.

I went out to the car, stowed the tape and the pizza box, hoping its contents would stay frozen for a little longer, and got out my cell phone...

**

 Det. Phil Maron was old enough to eye me with momentary suspicion and young enough to know when to let it go. "Where were you on the job?" he asked, watching the forensics guys slog between the corpses of dead vertebrate and invertebrate life.

 I looked at him with new eyes. "What makes you think that?"

 "Well, first you called us on the cell phone, instead of risking any prints on the living room phone, which of course might’ve just been force of habit. Then the call itself – no sloppy hysterics or useless information. Just enough to let us know where to find the vic – sorry, your buddy – and what kind of crew to bring. Of course, maybe you just watch a lot of NYPD Blue.

 "Guess it’s mainly the way you’re watching my guys, what they’re doing, even though your buddy’s lying with his head stove in in the next room. I make you for ex ‘cause you were still on the job you would’ve popped with that piece of data first thing. Ex-fed, maybe, cause you talk real good."

 At that last, I smirked. Maron talked as "good" as I did. "I just left the Bureau."  The cop waited for more; I didn’t give him any. He nodded. "So? I’m not some shit-heel redneck Buford T. Justice. You got any thoughts about the scene, I’d appreciate them."

 Det. Maron most definitely was no shit-heel redneck. Waiting to see what I wouldn’t say, what I thought but wouldn’t say. "Well, all this wreckage would seem to say a break-in gone wrong, maybe some hopped-up kids, but everything’s confined pretty much to the living room. The murder was messy, but nothing else in the kitchen looked out of place. If I had to guess, they destroyed all the aquariums to disguise something they took, something that’s no longer here. Your guys might look for Roger’s notes – maybe he kept some kind of inventory."

 Maron nodded, waved a fat compatriot over, and directed him to do just that. It had been a risky "deduction" on my part, given the object thawing in my car. But fortunately, the detective was thinking just one slim twist behind me.

 "So you’re just at loose ends, thought you’d drop down and see your old buddy Kedrick," he recapped. "You know him long?"

 "Well, we went to college together, and he helped me on a couple of cases." I hoped Maron wouldn’t want to know what kind of cases.

 "You maybe want to stick around town a few more days, see the sights, have a little of our famous seafood?"

 "Like you said," I shrugged. "I’m at loose ends."

**

 It was, at least to my limited expertise, like nothing else on Earth. A tubular, roughly segmented worm body terminating at one end with a tailfin-like appendage similar to a squid’s but topped with a sort of dorsal fin. The other end of the creature featured an odd set of feelers, pincers – I couldn’t tell because it was still frozen despite the ride in my trunk. Eyestalks projected from either side of the upper (?) third of the body. It looked as primitive as it did alien. It was about eight inches long from head (?) to tail (?).

 Staring down at the thing laid out on the cracked formica counter of my hotel kitchenette, I had no trouble believing that Roger had indeed found something earthshaking, though in what way I could not begin to fathom. How this grotesquely primeval specimen could have contributed to Roger’s murder was an even greater mystery.

 I took digital shots from all angles, and slid the thing back into its pizza box and the box into the glaciated freezer compartment of the ancient hotel Frigidaire. Unless the housekeeper decided to have a nosh while she was watching Springer on my TV, my secret likely was safe. My guess was that Roger’s killers had made off with a living, breathing version of my Good Humor Monster. The video, I was guessing, would answer a lot of my questions.

 I popped the Smart Card from the digital camera and inserted it into my laptop. Within 10 minutes, I’d modem-ed a set of .jpgs to Chuck Burks.

 The geek at the video store had hit me for a $100 security deposit on the VCR, granting me a heavy-lidded look that told me he expected me to flee the jurisdiction with the machine and that he probably hadn’t gotten any for several months. I hooked it up as best as I could to the Gilligan-era TV and nudged in the tape.

 A second or two of noise, then Roger – plump, leathery, Jerry Garcia beard – sitting at his dining room table.

 "I hope somebody with half a brainstem has found this," Roger began with his customary tact. "If this is some cop or bureaucrat, hit the Stop button this instant and get this and the pizza box in the freezer to Dr. Steven Kashian at North Carolina State University-Myrtle Beach’s paleontology department, or FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder.

 "Five months ago, a major tropical storm swept through the mid-Atlantic. That’s what I think dislocated the organism you’re hopefully now looking at from its natural habitat. Based on fossil evidence, I believe this organism to belong to the genus Tullimonstrum – a genus believed to be extinct for at least 30 million years. Prior to now, the sole species of the genus, Tullimonstrum gregarium, has been found only in fossil form within a small region of the Midwest. In fact, if you’re given to such trivia, Tully’s Monster, as the creature is popularly called, is the state fossil of Illinois.

 "However, on April 4, 2001, while surveying crustaceans at a nearby cove I choose not to identify, I discovered a group of six Tullies in an isolated tidal pool that I presume had been formed during a spring storm. Two were in failing health, and died a few days after I transferred them to one of my tanks. The others survived, and following the guesswork of the paleontological community, I found them to thrive on a diet of shrimp and other small crustaceans.

 "One of the deceased Tullies I’ve kept in deep freeze for an occasion like this. The other I dissected for clues as to its place in the zoological universe. If this is you, Fox," – I felt a rush of cold prickles as my dead friend spoke to me – "you might be interested to know that Tullimonstrum belongs to the Phylum Problematica – a catch-all classification of animals generally reserved for now-extinct creatures about whom we can determine little because of the lack of solid fossil remains. Tullimonstrum, however, is a genuine heir to the title. Scientists to date have been unable to link it evolutionarily or physically to any known group of animals, I suspect for good reason."

 My "living room" wall shook as the couple next door returned from their day’s adventures. Before the echo of the slammed door died, the husband, who I’d dubbed Earl, let loose with a torrent of profanity that might have been inappropriate even for a rap recording session. A feminine voice responded with weak defiance, and something "fell" over. I ran the tape back, tuning out the domestic melodrama.

 "...I suspect for good reason. My autopsy of the Tully revealed several anomalous anatomical structures uncommon to the invertebrates we know." Something in Roger’s phraseology made me sit up in my cheap dinette chair. "Plus, there was an unusual set of vestigial structures that I can’t explain in evolutionary terms. To the best of my scientific judgment, the Tully I dissected appeared to have ‘modified’ for a specific purpose. Modified seemingly by artificial means. The problem is, these modifications appear to have been made thousands, maybe even millions of years ago. Fox, if this is you listening, I believe you have been right all along. We aren’t alone."

 My shoulder blades hit the back of the chair with Roger’s revelation. Cutting through the scientific rambling, my friend was suggesting that some long-gone visitor to this planet had tinkered with prehistoric genetics. Possibly millions of years ago. More thumping next door. Ignoring the instinct to call the front desk, I craned to hear more.

 "What I found inside our ancient friend were a series of chambers, attached to the animal’s digestive and respiratory systems but sealed to prevent accidental release of any materials stored in them. Within these chambers I found relatively high volumes of water minerals, sand, vegetative matter, and, in one case, air. These materials were perfectly preserved, and appeared to have no relation to the Tully’s diet."

 A triple-wave of snow swept across the video screen. "Observing the live Tullies, I soon discovered that they periodically purged these materials, only apparently to collect more. Putting this together with the evidence of genetic engineering, I theorized—" More static. "—were designed to...for analysi—"

 I yelped as Roger disappeared in a crackling sea of snow and the tape abruptly clicked off with a horrible electronic digestive sound. Ricki Lake took his place, talking to overweight teens who’d cheated with their stepfathers. I jabbed at the VCR, which finally regurgitated the cassette and a snarl of electromagnetically coated afterbirth incapable of telling me who killed Roger or why.

 I sighed heavily, trudged into the bedroom, and pulled the FedEx from my suitcase. I’d never opened the bag of Cheetohs, never taken the tag off the cool sunglasses. I’d kept the envelope, which had arrived at my office within weeks of Roger’s big find. I studied the three objects once again. Nothing came. I trundled back into the living room to get the VCR, preparing for battle with the video store geek.

**

 Elvis was in fidgety, hopped up, sweating form this evening. The guy was good, even though he was playing the pharmaceutically challenged ‘70s Elvis for a largely senior crowd I was pretty sure was expecting the fresh-faced kid of the early ‘60s. From my own very unique perspective as a former cadaver, the site of this dead icon gyrating on the stage with interning dance students and flirting with elderly Iowans was a little unsettling. Roast beef was pretty moist, though.

 Giants was located on the east edge of town, a mix of pop music revival and dinner theater that appeared to pack in the tourists. It was also where Abigail LaFavre currently was employed. LaFavre had mailed the cheesy poofs and the Ray-Bans Doggett had delivered to me. The Internet People Finder had yielded A. LaFavre’s number, but she’d failed to return any of my calls. A few other calls, and I’d learned LaFavre had recently left her day job as a mini-mart clerk for a full-time gig dancing behind Fake Little Richard and Phony Shania Twain and Bogus Buddy Holly.

 Finally, after I’d called the theater, identifying myself as an FBI agent, Abby had agreed to grant me an audience. Some 15 minutes after the final curtain fell, the former clerk emerged from her dressing room, flung her purse over her shoulder, and jerked her head toward the exit. "Mulder, right? Let’s go to the place across the street – I don’t need everybody knowing my business, and I could use a couple margaritas."

 I trailed the swiftly moving dancer to a Jamaican-themed bar across the busy boulevard. Myrtle Beach was like a cheesy Disneyland for adults who couldn’t afford or wouldn’t risk real adventure. Steel drums pounded as Abby LaFavre called familiarly to the bearded bartender. A few minutes later, she was licking salt contentedly from the rim of her glass, the tequila dulling the tension in her voice.

 "Shoulda figured there was something screwy about that guy," she murmured. "Should never have sent that package for him. He was creepy, like somebody out of one of those teenage slasher movies."

 "Creepy how?" I asked, sipping at my decaf.

 "I dunno, it was like he was scared of people, of making contact with people, that make sense?" Abby shrugged. "He comes into the store, checks out the joint like President Bush’s about to come in for a photo op, and then stands like a couple feet away from the counter. When he, um, paid for his stuff, he reached over, slapped the money in front of me, and backed off like he was afraid I had that Enola virus."

 "Ebola. What’d he look like?"

 "Uh, maybe late 40s, early 50s, kinda curly hair, black with a little gray coming in. The eyes were real spooky – he didn’t blink, and it looked like he hadn’t slept in maybe 20 years."

 I put my coffee down. "Out of curiosity, if this guy was so creepy, why’d you send that Fed Ex?"

 Abby looked at the fake thatched ceiling. "I dunno. It was probably the guys who
were looking for him."

 I nearly spilled my coffee as my elbows hit the table. "Looking for him? Cops?"

 "Nah. I don’t know what they were. Slick-looking guys, real polite, and they were dressed alike."

 "Uniforms?"

 Abby sucked on her lemon. "Not like security guards or anything. Flamingo pink shirts and khakis. I think there must’ve been some kind of logo on the shirt, cause they were hiding, you know..."  She waved a hand over her left breast. "The way the first guy was acting, the way these guys were acting, I just felt, I dunno, like the guy needed some help. Like that FedEx was some weirdass SOS or something."

 Abby grinned weakly, as if her own humanity was somehow embarrassing to her. "So, uh, you’re an FBI agent, huh?"

 I grinned weakly back. "Former, actually."

 She arched an eyebrow, startlingly like someone else I knew. Then Abby laughed, shaking her head. "Jesus, fake town, fake dead stars, now fake Feds. By the way, what’d you think of the show? Pretty sucky, huh?"

 I smiled. "You were pretty decent. And Elvis. Almost scary: I expected to find him dead on the toilet when I went to the men’s room."

 "Oh," Abby dismissed, picking up her drink. "That’s just Steve."

**

 "Palmetto Logo and Design," the deep-fried female voice chirped, a little too cheerful for 9 a.m. I’d finished off a bagel with Philly and two cups of French roast from the Red Lion a few blocks away, and I was still barely functioning.

 "You guys do company shirts, right?" I inquired in a businesslike tone, scanning the beach beyond my balcony and the infinite ocean beyond the beach.

 "Yes, sir – monogrammed, silk-screen, patches. Jackets, too – we got a deal going this week, free stitching with each order of—"

 "Yeah. I’ve got a small firm, professional degaussing, and we’re thinking of getting the old corporate logo put on some polo shirts and windbreakers. I saw something like what I’d like downtown yesterday, and I was wondering if you could help me."

 "I’ll try, sir."

 "Well, I was talking to a client, and I didn’t have time to talk to the guy. But he was wearing like a pinkish sort of polo shirt. You know, that kind of orangy pink."

 "Salmon? Flamingo?"

 I snapped my fingers. "Yeah, Flamingo. That ring a bell? I liked the material and the stitching. Real sharp."

 "Flamingo, huh?" I heard her flip through some papers. "Well, we got a catering service in South Myrtle Beach. But those are carnation, you know, kind of light pink. Oh, wait – how could I forget? You know Envirogy, big high-tech firm just outside of town? They special-ordered some sport shirts and caps for their support staff. Smoked Salmon. That’s almost like flamingo."

 "Oh, sure, Envirogy," I responded, slapping my forehead for effect. "Stupid me. That’s the company color. Hey, thanks. You got a rate sheet you can send me?"

 "Yes, sir," she said, bubbling to a new boil. "I can FAX one right over, if you’d like."

 I rattled off Deputy Director Kersh’s FAX number. That should keep him guessing.

 "Y’all have a great day now," she sang as she hung up.

 "Sure as hell try," I assured the empty line.

**

 "You know, Roger mentioned you to me on several occasions, Agent Mulder," Dr. Kashian said quietly, fumbling with the petrified remains of some ratchet-jawed fish that had foraged the teeming seas of a millions years past. "He and I had several spirited debates about cryptobiology, and he cited several of your investigations. Fascinating stuff.

I had no idea the FBI was involved in such matters."

 "You can call me Fox or Mulder," I smiled. "I’m off the federal payroll now. However, when I found Roger’s body, I also discovered something I think you’ll find even more fascinating."

 I slid back the lid on the Coleman mini-cooler I’d loaded with ice for the trip to the university. Kashian, a short, bald man with a precise red beard, peered inside for a long moment as his jaw dropped. He looked up at me, wide-eyed, his lips twitching for a few seconds before words would come out.

 "Tullimonstrum gregarium," he whispered. "This is absolutely incredible. You are aware, of course, that this creature has been extinct for millions of years."

 "Like the coelecanth," I reminded him, referring to the large lobe-finned fish, known to have inhabited Earth 350 million years ago and captured live off the coast of Africa in the late ‘30s. "Which belonged to the same Paleozoic Era as the Tully Monster. Roger believed the colony of Tullys he found may have been forced from their natural--"

 "Colony?" Kashian nearly shouted. "There were more than one specimen?"

 I shrugged. "This was the only one left at Roger’s house. I believe whoever killed him may have gotten some of the others. I have no idea why. I’m hoping maybe you can tell me."

 Kashian reluctantly broke eye contact from the grotesque animal in the cooler. "How so?"

 "If you could dissect it," I ventured. "Roger thought there was something odd about its anatomy. Almost like it had been genetically engineered. A long time ago."

 If it was possible, the paleontologist’s eyes grew even wider. "Genetically engineered. Why, man’s only been able to genetically engineer animals for, oh, maybe a decade or two..." He trailed off as the potential ramifications hit him.

 "Yup," I replied.

**

 "So who did Roger hang out with beside you?" I asked Kashian as he applied his scalpel to the Tullimonstrum’s midsection. As he pried the corpse open, I glanced at the pickled reptiles on the far wall.

 "Ah, well, you know the academic personality," he murmured. "Roger was a few steps ahead of the average guy in the big brain department, but back in the Devonian Period socially. A bunch of us geek types – scientists from the area universities and tech companies – get together for expresso, pizza every Friday night. Call ourselves the Mensa Cases – guess you had to be there. Shoot the bull, theorize about the topic du jour – black holes, the nature of time, The Sopranos... Roger was even seeing one of the others in the group. Lisa Ianelli, researcher over at Envirogy. Hot. ‘Course, Roger hadn’t been coming the last few months – he’d landed some major new funding, and was planning an expedition to the Marianas Trench."

 I looked at Kashian in stunned amazement, not because his characterization of Roger’s squeeze was so uncharacteristic, not just because of the Envirogy connection.

 "Oh, my." Kashian straightened.

 "What?"

 "Roger was right. I can’t think of any natural rationale for what I’m seeing here. A series of sealed chambers, muscular sphincters to keep the contents intact."

 "If you had to guess," I asked, "what function would you say those chambers might serve?"

 Kashian scratched his beard. "I can’t.... Um, storage of materials. There’s what appears to be saltwater in one chamber, sand in another. Another is empty and clean."

 "Or maybe it was an air compartment."

 "Even so, what purpose would that serve? Flotation? But what about the water, the sand?"

 "What if these are samples?"

 "Samples?"

 I leaned forward. "You know how miners used to send canaries or other small birds into mineshafts to test the safety of the air? Well, what if this was a canary – an organism genetically engineered to collect environmental samples?"

 "Engineered by whom?" Kashian laughed nervously. "Or what?"

**

 It took a couple of lattes in the campus grill for it all to come back to me. Lisa Ianelli had been a principle in a case some five years ago – a triple homicide that had went down officially as unsolved. Ianelli had nearly become the fourth victim of her own boyfriend, a scientist who, according to what evidence Scully and I could gather, had come from the future to prevent himself, a colleague, and Ianelli from developing the technologies that would enable human time travel.

 The case was effectively closed when the future Jason Nichols murdered the Jason Nichols of our timeframe. Ianelli, who had contributed to Nichols’ research a knowledge of cryogenics – the rapid, non-destructive freezing of living organisms – survived a potentially icy death at the hands of the time-traveling scientist, and left the university where she’d been working soon after young Nichols’ death.

 And now she again had turned up at the scene of the crime.

**

 Ianelli lived in a condo complex in North Myrtle Beach, and judging from the vanity plate on the Camry below her apartment – "QWKFRZ" – she was still involved in her major area of research.

 After I’d gotten her voicemail at Envirogy, I realized she wouldn’t have went in to work today, not if she was as close to Roger as Kashian had said. Ianelli’d remembered me from the Nichols investigation, and if it hadn’t been like the Brady Bunch reunion special, her invitation to stop by was cheerful enough.

 "Agent Mulder," she smiled as she stepped out of the doorway. She looked nearly the same as she had five years ago – lanky, slightly unkempt, attractive in an offbeat way.

Ianelli’s eyes were rimmed with red, no doubt for Roger.

 "My sympathy," I murmured as I walked into an airy living room stacked with scientific journals, diskettes, and legal pads.

 "Thanks," Lisa said. "It’s so horrible – a man of Roger’s brilliance murdered most likely by a drugged-up pack of kids."

 "I’m not so sure of that," I said.

 Ianelli stared at me for a second, then blinked. "Ah, you want a beer, some sun-tea? I’ve been learning to make it the Southern way – it’ll put your pancreas in full arrest."

 "Yeah, tea’d be great." No art on the walls, a 25-inch TV sitting on an old-fashioned metal stand. The complete scientist/nerd.

"Why don’t you think Roger was killed by burglars, intruders," she called from the kitchenette.

"Roger was being very secretive about his recent work," I responded. "He’d implied he was onto something very big, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was."

Ianelli came back into the room and placed a tumbler of hazy brown liquid before me. I sipped; it would have went well with pancakes.

"I knew he was very hyped about some creepy thing he’d found in the ocean," she said casually. "The Tunny Monster or something."

She recognized the significance of the Tullimonstrum . Lisa Ianelli was a scientist, and she wouldn’t have talked about a fellow researcher’s major find as if it were a dead bird she’d found in the swimming pool. At the same time, had she been involved in Roger’s murder and the likely theft of a live Tully, she wouldn’t have brought up the creature’s existence. Roger hadn’t told Kashian, his best friend, so there would have been no reason for her to admit knowledge of the beast to me.

Something was up, but Ianelli was merely on the ground floor of it. She studied me for a moment, her strong jaw locked in a host’s smile. "Well, you know the company is pretty diverse, but our major thrust is development of environmentally sustainable corporate and industrial systems. You know, help companies get ahead of the EPA regs, state enviro statutes. At the same time, we have some strategic partnerships with a few life sciences companies. I’m working with germplasm and organism preservation systems."

"Cryonics?" I ventured, beaming cordially. "I thought that was your specialty."

"That’s a major part of it – I’ve been continuing to work on tissue freezing technologies that minimize the chances of cell damage," Ianelli said, casually. "I seem to remember you were getting pretty close to that point at the university."

She stared at me for a second, then leaned forward, elbows on knees. "Are you trying to get at something, Agent?"

"Not an agent, any more."

"Are you trying to dredge up that bullshit with Jason? Time travel? Quick-freezing compounds? Jason killing his younger self to save the future?"

"Did you think it was bullshit when Nichols Senior turned you into a Good Humor bar?"

Lisa closed her eyes and sighed loudly. "All right. I guess I know something unnatural was going on, and it probably had something to do with Jason and Lucas’ work. All right – my work, too. But I’ve learned my lesson about playing Frankenstein, Mr. Mulder. I’m focusing my scientific efforts on making a better future."

"Ah. How so?"

The smile hardened. "That’s proprietary – Envirogy would can my ass if I discussed it. Not that it’s anything that earthshaking."

I shrugged and took a sip. "Whoosh – you weren’t kidding about that tea. So how do y’all like it down south here?"

**

 The Boston Kid was gone today, scoring a toke or two on the bad side of town or checking the classics at Sam Goody’s. The Atlantic was mine this afternoon, and the lapping waves helped frame my thoughts as I soaked in deadly solar radiation.

 Point A: Roger Kedrick had been violently murdered in his home, his aquariums destroyed, possibly during the theft of or search for a creature that supposedly hadn’t existed for hundreds of millions of years.

 Point B: Said creature was seemingly an impossibility of nature. It had defied human classification when extinct, and now appeared to be the product of some ancient process of genetic engineering. Two respected scientists backed the contention that this primitive organism was modified for some greater purpose. But what?

 Point C: Roger had been intimate with Lisa Ianelli, a brilliant researcher who in a theoretically alternate future had held the key to unlocking time and its mysteries. She worked for a major company involved in genetics research, and was trying to conceal her knowledge of Tullimonstrum .

Point D: The Fed Ex, mailed from the same town where Roger had lived and Lisa had worked. Delivered by a mysterious dark stranger pursued by two men possibly working for Envirogy, Lisa’s company. A bag of Cheetos and a pair of sunglasses. All it needed to be a real story was a cigarette-smoking assassin, a couple of shape-shifting alien bounty hunters, and a touch of sinister black oil. I picked up the Ray-Bans, tried them on, and studied a hang-glider suspended over the horizon.

"For a guy in town just to look up an old buddy, you sure are hard to find," an amiably aggrieved voice announced as a shadow fell over me. I squinted up to see Det. Maron, in shirtsleeves, checking out a thong and a couple of framing buttocks at 2 p.m. "Been trying to reach you since 9 a.m."

"Took a little drive," I provided.

"And wound up at the vic’s girlfriend’s place. Don’t look surprised. It ain’t no X-File. Yeah, I did a check on you, and it was pretty interesting, lemme tell you. Anyway, one of our guys was staking Ianelli’s house and saw you arrive. You know her? You didn’t ban---?" He stopped.

"Bank where she banks? Ban lettuce in honor of Cesar Chavez? She was a principal in a case years back, and when it turned out she was dating Roger, I went over
to find out what she knew."

"I can check that, too," the cop murmured, more a personal notation than a threat. "What was the case?"

I told him in abridged detail. Maron nodded and looked out to the ocean’s edge. "I was told this X-Files Department was into some real Twilight Zone shit. That what you’re thinking here, with your buddy?"

"I haven’t formed any conclusions, yet, Detective."

"Ianelli tell you anything?"

Nothing I could explain to Maron in fewer than 14 tidal cycles or so. "Just that she’s buying into the mysterious intruder theory, too."

"Buying into, huh?"

"You buy it, Detective?"

Maron toed the sand. "I guess there’s no harm in admitting there are some hinky elements to it. You sure there isn’t anything you could tell me might point me somewhere else?"

"I’ve been trying to reason it out, myself."

The detective sighed, looked up and down the mid-day beach. "Well, you and Chester have a great afternoon, then."

"Chester?" I asked.

He nodded at the Cheetos on my towel, at the cool cat with the sunglasses and the 1,200-kilowatt grin on the bag. As Maron crunched away through the sand and shells, I pulled off the sunglasses that had come in the mail with the cheese puffs and stared at the earpiece.

I’m on the run, probably from some heavy characters. Maybe I don’t know who I can trust, or maybe there’s only one person I know I can trust. If I try to contact him or her, I might place them at risk, might place myself at risk. Maybe they’ll intercept any direct message, even use it to track me down. So I do the best I can, with what I have handy.

Chester. Ray-Ban. Now it made sense. Except for the parts that made no sense.

**

 Dr. Chester Ray Banton had been an accomplished physicist researching "dark matter" – theoretical subatomic material that behaves according to an entirely different set of physical properties than ordinary matter. After becoming trapped in a particle accelerator chamber. Banton discovered to his horror that his shadow had transformed into what could best be described as a black hole, reducing matter – including several human beings – into pure energy.

 Banton finally had surrendered to Scully and I, but he was spirited away from the psychiatric hospital where we’d stowed him, I’d always suspected by a man I’d known simply as Mr. X. X was as cryptic as his alias, a functionary of some covert agency who apparently had inherited the role of Fox Mulder’s protector following the death of my equally mysterious friend, Deep Throat. X had few moral or ethical limitations, and my suspicion had been that Dr. Banton was a prisoner of a branch of the government that had little to do with Thomas Jefferson or The Bill of Rights.

 "Dr. Kashian?"

 "Mr. Mulder? Hey, I’ve found some more extraordinary sensory structures within
the Tullimonstrum’s--"

 "Doctor, I’d advise you to find a good, secure place to stow the Tullimonstrum. I think it had something to do with Roger’s murder."

 "My God."

 I switched the phone to my other hand, shoving an En-Cor Chicken Parmesan into the kitchenette oven. "Dr. Kashian, these conversations you and your scientist friends had? You said you talked about black holes? You remember specifically who brought it up, and what was said."

 The line was silent for a moment. "Jesus, that was so long ago. Oh, wait, yeah, it was Lisa. Lisa Ianelli – Roger’s girlfriend. She was asking about tachyons, quarks, the Higgs boson – those are all subatomic particles with some very weird characteristics. I don’t know too much about it – the inorganic sciences bore me, frankly.

 "I do remember, though, that Lisa was very intrigued about the idea that some subatomic particles actually may travel backwards. I’ve read a little about it, a little Steven Hawkings, a little Einstein’ Theory. Great if it were true – maybe I’d be able to go back and check my theories about bipedal saurians, firsthand."

 I peered in the oven door as the elements began to glow. "When was this?"

 "Gawd. I dunno – last winter some time. I remember Roger asked Lisa why she was so hung up on it, and she laughed the whole thing off. Look, am I in some danger? Not that I care: Finding the Tullimonstrum is the paleontologist’s equivalent of an all-nighter with Pamela Anderson."

 "Down, boy. I can’t imagine anyone could know I brought the Tullimonstrum to you. Just put it somewhere safe, and don’t tell anybody else what you’ve found out."

 "Oh, no, absolutely not."

 "One last thing, Doctor."

 "Mm."

 "You told me Roger had come into some major new project funding. Know where from?"

 Kashian chortled. "Well, I hate to say it, but I think Lisa helped him there. The money was from the New Science Foundation. That’s a non-profit arm of Envirogy."

 "Thanks, Doctor."  I hung up, grabbed the ice bucket, and headed for the vending machine bank. The motel’s upper deck was fairly empty – it was about 8, and most of the touristas were still out scarfing crabs and clams or watching Elvis rise from the dead. As I started to fill my bucket from the vintage ice machine, I heard the elevator bell ring around the corner.

 "Get off my fuckin’ ass," Earl growled, his speech slurred. "You been watchin’ too fuckin’ many a’ those designated drivin’ commercials."

 "You almost got us killed over by the mall," noted a quiet female voice, trembling on the cusp between fear and anger.

 "Listen," Earl snapped, and I heard her cry out. "Listen here. You can drink your fuckin’ O’Doul’s and keep your goddamned self-righteousness to yourself. Hear? OK, then. C’mon, I don’t wanna miss SportsCenter."

 The door next to my room slammed as I emerged from the ice machine. I’d toyed with intervening, but I didn’t need the trouble, particularly given the apparent magnitude of what I was onto. I mulled the permutations possible with Banton, Ianelli, Roger, and Envirogy – until I saw my door was hanging wide open.

 I knew I’d locked my door – years of federal paranoia had become habit. That same paranoia also had prompted me to pack a gun, which was now securely stowed under my Fruit-of-the-Looms in the bedroom dresser. As I pondered the possible moves, I saw a shadow shift in the doorway. I edged a few yards closer.

 Ice touched the back of my neck. "We made ourselves at home, sir," a pleasant voice chirped. "Hope you don’t mind, but we’d like to have a little chat. OK?"

 "If you’re hawking time-shares, I gotta warn you I’m between jobs."

 The man with the gun laughed. "Are you really? Looks to me like you’ve been very industrious. Please, let’s step inside."

 Miss Manners’ kid brother. I wondered if this was the same guy who’d grilled
Abby LaFavre about Chester Banton.

 A small but well-built man was going through the fridge, tossing cartons and
bottles onto the linoleum.

 "Anything but the breakfast burrito," I pleaded.

 The man behind me chuckled again. "Good. Cool heads prevail, nobody loses theirs."

 From the look on the short guy’s face, that wasn’t the philosophy to which he prescribed. But the man with the gun in my neck appeared to be in charge.

 "What is your interest in Roger Kedrick’s death?"

 "Limited?"

 "I wish I could believe that, Agent Mulder," the Polite Man said with what seemed like sincere regret. "Or should I say, Ex-Agent Mulder?"

 I took a flyer, probably an unwise one. "C’mon, guys; it’s Double Melon Margarita Night down in the bar. You must be off-duty, ‘cause your buddy’s not wearing his Envirogy gear."

 The little guy’s eyes widened as he looked over my shoulder. His partner sighed. The silent one then shifted his head as I heard a bump from down the hall. The polite one gently nudged his gun into my flesh. "Go check it out."

 Joe Pesci nodded and vanished behind me.

 "A man of your experience wouldn’t given himself away like this if he didn’t have backup," Polite Man suggested. "Who are you really wi—?"

  A scream from the bedroom jolted us both. The room was suddenly plunged into darkness, and I instinctively threw an elbow into the Polite Man’s ribs. I heard the gun skittle off and the Polite Man scramble from the room.

 I felt for the gun, located it, and edged along the wall toward the bedroom, trigger cocked, sweat rolling into my left eye. When I reached the threshold, I threw on the switch.

 "No," an agonized voice yelped. I flipped the light off, simultaneously erasing Dr. Chester Ray Banton’s shadow.

 But not before spying the blackened, man-sized scar in the cheap carpeting where Polite Man’s former partner apparently had been.

**

  "They had no idea what forces they were trying to contain," Banton began in a calm voice that told me he’d made his peace with madness years ago. "They just knew it was something powerful and destructive and deadly, and that if they could harness it, it held the key to controlling everything. And not just here, not just now."

 I tried to make him out in the darkened corner of my bedroom, caught the slightest glimmer of perspiration on his forehead. I had some vague idea where this was heading, but Banton’s words chilled me anyway.

 "....They prodded me, shot flashing lights and radiation at me and my shadow... Me and my shadow," Banton  murmured, choking down a giggle. "But they needed my expertise to understand the phenomenon. See, it was a swirling mass of energy and subatomic activity, very unstable. But after I quit resisting them and began offering theories, we started to understand a few things. We were able to isolate more than a dozen previously hypothetical particles, as well as a few that seemingly defied the laws of physics. At least the laws we had been permitted to know.

 "They were particularly intrigued by a particle they called the Banton gluon – as if I were someday going to be free to enjoy the credit, after all I’d seen. I won’t go into scientific babble, but this particle had one astonishing trait: It appeared capable of moving backward within a temporal framework."

 "In time," I murmured.

 "Yes. The quantum mechanics of it would merely confuse you, but the proof was scientifically incontrovertible. We had discovered the root source of time as energy, as a natural force. What a dangerous discovery in the hands of children. I knew these men very likely could bring about the end of our universe tampering with such knowledge.

 "But by this time, they had let our mutual scientific camaraderie and wonder blind them to the threat I comprised. They were lax in security one day, following a computer crash, and I killed five of their scientists before taking a sixth hostage. He’d been trained to face death rather than reveal classified data, but what I threatened him with frightened him far more than merely leaving his physical shell. He told me his agency was working secretly with Envirogy on some application of the Banton gluon."

 "What," I croaked, my mouth dry. "What did you do with him?"

 Banton ignored my question. "Once I was free, I headed here. I had hidden some assets after my original ‘accident,’ and I was able to safely arrange some accommodations near here. But I’d left a clearer trail than I had imagined, and the two men here tonight – former CIA operatives now on the Envirogy security staff – located my apartment. You were the only option I had available – you and your partner seemed to be the only people I could fully trust, and you were the only one who seemed to believe me."

 I almost smiled at the memory of Scully the Non-Believer -- a title she'd relinquished a few years and one pregnancy ago. "But you were on borrowed time, and afraid the feds or the Environ goons would trace any obvious message to me. Thus the cryptic clues. But what, if anything, does Tullimonstrum gregarium have to do with Envirogy?"

 "I knew you could put it together. I still had friends in the research community, even at Envirogy, and I had been able to learn that Envirogy reportedly had perfected the technology to use the gluon as a mechanism for chronoteleportation -- time travel. Dr. Ianelli simultaneously had developed a cryonic technique that Envirogy theoretically needed for living organisms to survive the intense energy of the trip. Then, I'm guessing Ianelli must have told someone at Envirogy about Dr. Kedrick's discovery. By now, I'm sure you must have recognized the 'Tully monster's unique qualities."

 "The canary," I murmured, the realization coming to me in an instant. "They'd found the canary to send into the mineshaft."

**

 We'd had a hard time coming up with a safe way to transport Banton to Lisa Ianelli's condo: One wrong streetlight or set of headlights into the car, and I would be subatomic toast. Finally, the scientist laid on the backseat floor, a blanket rolled up and stuffed under the driver's seat to prevent his shadow from seeping up front.

 "Wherever they were intending to go -- past, future -- they were uncertain what environmental conditions they might find," I suggested. "The Tullimonstrum had been built, I'm guessing by some extraterrestrial culture, as a potentially disposable environmental surveying tool. It would be the perfect guinea pig to test the time machine, pardon me, Doctor, chronoteleportat--. Oh, shit, time machine."

 "But the cost of developing gluon technology, the shielding equipment, the cryonics would be exorbitant," Banton's voice noted. "Why would Envirogy or the government spend such money for such a science-fictional project? What would they hope to gain?"

 "The government, I can only imagine," I said, turning into the condo complex lot. "A chance to alter history, maybe a peek into the future." Maybe see if "we" eventually won, I thought. "Hold on, Doctor. I think somebody’s got a hot date tonight."

 Ianelli was sprinting down the sidewalk, her bag banging violently against her leg. I braked crossways behind "QWKFRZ" as she got to her car door, and I hit the passenger window button.

 "Dr. Ianelli, we need to talk," I called out.

 She looked up, her expression frantic. "I don’t have time for this, Agent. Tomorrow."

 "You may not have time tomorrow," I warned.

 Ianelli stared, baffled, at me.

 "You perfected the cryogenic compound, didn’t you? Roger made a deal with your bosses for his Marianas Trench expedition, one of the Tullimonstrum, and now they’re testing the time travel technology. How’m I doing?"

 Her purse dropped to the pavement. "There’s, there’s something wrong at the lab. An emergency. I have to get down there."

 I slumped back in my seat. That was the last piece: Something must’ve gone horribly wrong with Envirogy’s project, something that could blow wide open, and Envirogy or its government clients were mopping up all the loose ends. Including Roger.

 "They killed Roger, Lisa," I said, flatly. Her eyes went wide, and she leaned against her car. "If you go to your lab, they may kill you, too."

 "Let’s go inside," Ianelli whispered.

**

 "After Jason...died...I knew we’d stumbled -- I guess I should say, would stumble -- on something terrible." the young cryobiologist began, her hand shaking as she raised a tumbler of wine. "I can’t explain it, but even after that nightmare, I couldn’t resist the temptation to see it through -- to see if I could accomplish what I seemed fated to accomplish."

 Dr. Banton had stayed in the car, and Lisa didn’t know he was with me. There were enough questions without making introductions all around.

 "Anyway, I get a call one day from Pate Woodrow, the CEO of Envirogy. He’d read about my work, and wanted to interview me for a job. Well, I’m sure you’ve seen Woodrow on the news. The ‘Venture Ecologist’ -- making the world a cleaner, better place while making a profit for his investors. He realized a long time ago that any social movement has to have both capital and science behind it. I was impressed -- after the Orwellian future I almost created, this was my opportunity to make a greater future for everyone. I jumped at the chance.

 "I don’t know where he got so much information about Jason and I and the case, but after I got here, he wanted to know all about the compound -- the organic freezing compound. It wasn’t for another five months that he let me in on the technology the company’d developed."

 "The company didn’t develop it," I corrected. "The government hired Woodrow to develop knowledge they’d stolen, probably for millions."

 "I can’t buy that," Lisa protested, gulping her chablis. "Pate despises the government, the environmental abuses they’ve tolerated, even perpetrated. He planned to use Envirogy’s new technology to chart the course of pollution control, atmospheric and oceanic sciences over the next century. If we could draw air, water, soil, and biological samples from a future Earth and analyze the hazards and contaminants of tomorrow, we could focus our energies on prevention and regulation. We could halt the lethal destruction of the planet in its tracks."

 "That’s neat," I said, sounding far more sarcastic than I’d intended. Woodrow obviously believed, or wanted to believe, that his deal with the devil was instead a contract with the angels. Or maybe the idea of harnessing time and controlling the fate of the planet was the ultimate turn-on for the savvy corporate capitalist in him. Why couldn’t he buy a sports team like everyone else? "It didn’t occur to him that the government must’ve had some kind of stake in this, more than just saving the butterflies and whales?"

 Lisa’s jaw tightened, her eyes glinting with defensive fury. "Pate decided the environmental payoff was worth whatever petty use the bureaucrats wanted to put the technology to. I told you I’d learned my lesson, Agent: I won’t take the cryogenic technology any further than the invertebrate stage. Human time travel won’t be possible if I can help it, at least in the foreseeable future."

 Lisa had spent too much time in the lab to perceive the irony that she and her employers already had created a foreseeable future. "So, you developed the compound to the point where it could be used to safely freeze starfish or cockroaches for a trip on the Quantum Leap Express. Except starfish and cockroaches can’t be controlled and don’t have the manual dexterity to take core samples. Roger wouldn’t have been able to restrain himself once he’d discovered his colony of Tully monsters -- creatures genetically tailor-made for Envirogy’s purposes. He told you, and you must’ve said just enough to Woodrow to make him realize he had his canary."

 "Canary?" Lisa frowned. "Look. You knew Roger, what an environmentalist he was. When Pate offered to finance his next several expeditions in exchange for one Tullimonstrum, just one, with the promise Roger would be helping protect the future, he leapt at the opportunity." She began to breath more rapidly. "But now you’re saying Roger was killed because of it? That makes no sense: We had the technology to clone an endless supply of Tullys for the project. Roger had agreed to sit on his discovery for a few months, until we could conduct the first successful tests."

 "Something must’ve gone wrong. When was the last time you were back at Envirogy?"

 "I was taking a few vacation days before Roger’s death, and Pate called me personally to tell me..." Lisa’s voice trailed off.

 "Not to come in for a week or so, so you could deal with your grief? Why did they say they wanted you to come in tonight?"

 Her eyes were now filled with horror. "Pate said he couldn’t discuss it on the phone. He wouldn’t have killed Roger -- he just wouldn’t..."

 I shrugged. "Maybe not. But his new friends might’ve. Let me ask you, has Envirogy taken on any new security in the past several months?"

 "A couple of guys were hired. Pate said he had to up the security to prevent any proprietary information about the project from getting out to corporate competitors. They didn’t interfere too much with day-to-day operations. In fact, the one guy seemed really nice, almost too polite, I guess."

 I stood up. "What kind of security system do they have at Envirogy?"

 Lisa reached over to an end table and grabbed a thick plastic card attached to a lanyard. "You scan this to get into the building, but the inner labs work on a thumbnail scan and numerical combination codes."

 "So much for my Discovery card and a lock pick. Lisa, I need that card and the lab combinations."

 "And me, it would seem," she said, quietly, locking her hands on her knees in nervous determination.

 "No. If anything happens to you, this whole thing disappears and pops up five years later somewhere else. You need to get in your car and start driving. I’ll give you my cell number so you can contact me -- or some guys I know in D.C. -- within a week or so."

 "You need me."

 I thought about Banton, the power he wielded. "I’m not sure I do," I told Lisa. But Banton’s circuits had been fried by years of captivity, guilt, and fear of his own uncontrollable power. He was perhaps the maddest of the mad scientists in the midst of Myrtle Beach’s bustling tourist community. I sighed. "All right, c’mon."

 I was trying to formulate the best approach to getting into Envirogy when Lisa opened the front door and the Polite Man stepped in, gun leveled at her forehead.  "I’d call ‘shotgun,’" I told him, "but I guess you already did."

**

 Banton had vanished. When the Polite Man had steered us to my car, I’d seen potential salvation, and stayed several cautious feet from the Envirogy/federal assassin. But Banton failed to leap from the back seat and send Polite Man’s molecules flying, and we climbed in for the ride to the stylish salmon-and-teal Envirogy complex.

 P.M. wasn’t as chatty or genial now. We rode quietly after he mutely ignored my questions and proddings. When we pulled into the Envirogy lot, I noted only one car was parked toward the front, in a posted slot. Woodrow’s, no doubt. A corporate emergency, but only the head man present. Unlikely. I suspected there were several more people inside -- people whose fates had been sealed and whose vehicles had been towed to belay any unwanted public attention.

 The marble lobby was desolate as P.M. carded us in. The sole light other than the glow of the outside parking lamps was a glow emanating from a brushed aluminum security console opposite an elevator bank. Polite Man waved us to the console and, keeping his gun steadied on us, picked up a phone and rapped off a three-digit number.

 "Dr. Woodrow? Woodrow?" he called into the receiver.

 "You brought Lisa and Mulder?" an eerie voice demanded, echoing all around us. P.M. jumped slightly, but recovered quickly. "I’m using the P.A. -- I, ah, can’t operate the phone any longer."

 "Woodrow?" I ventured. "What happened?"

 "Is that Agent Mulder?" the weak voice perked. "I’ve kept up with your exploits over the years." Pate Woodrow coughed, a liquidy sound far more horrible than the result of any mere 24-hour virus. "Well, Mr. Mulder, I guess you could say we fucked the puppy. Royally. Haskins, you want to turn on the lab monitors?"

 The Polite Man flicked a few switches beneath a bank of TV monitors, and three screens blinked on. Even in scratchy grays, the sight made me want to turn away. Three bodies in lab coats, one in a metallic hazmat suit, lay behind the man peering directly into the camera, motionless. A woman, or what appeared to be one, was on the floor nearby, twitching and convulsing.

 Woodrow’s face, up close and personal, was even more ghastly and otherworldly. I’d seen a face like that only once, through the window of a sealed passenger car, on a train that ultimately had reached Hell with another payload of mad scientists.

 "What’d you bring back?" I rasped, finding my voice at last.

 Woodrow smiled, I think. "Just the death of us all, Agent Mulder, just the death of us all. A couple of months ago, we made our first successful ‘launch’ using the Tullimonstrum. Sorry, Lisa, but I decided to keep things on a need-to-know basis for awhile." The environmental capitalist hacked, and something dark erupted from his mouth and "nose." "Everything went beautifully. Your compound performed perfectly, Lisa, and the retrieval equipment worked without a hitch. And our little homing pigeon had a bellyful of valuable data."

 "How far did you go?" I probed, my own intellectual curiosity getting the better of the horror.

 "This isn’t Christopher Lloyd’s DeLorean in Back to the Future, Mr. Mulder -- there’s no odometer with a date stamp. But based on Dr. Reissner’s calculations," Woodrow said calmly, jerking his head toward one of the diseased corpses behind him, "we calculated the Tullimonstrum had been relocated from 2,500 to 3,000 years in our future. Interesting results: We’d sent Tully 1 to an obviously marine environment, and although oceanic mercury levels were several points lower than the existing pollution baseline, we detected several heavy metals present at harmful levels, along with some apparently chemically based mutations in plankton and other marine microbes. The atmospheric samples contained strikingly low levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, but traces of some unfamiliar elements that could be interpreted as radioactive decay byproducts." Woodrow coughed out something I recognized, to my nausea, as a bitter laugh. "Maybe we learned our lesson, huh? Or maybe we simply switched from one dirty energy source to another."

 "So what happened?" I cut in.

 "Tully I died soon after its trip, so we continued the project with Tully II, a cloned Tullimonstrum. After a series of trials, we were able to calculate a method for geographically pinpointing Tully’s destinations, and we’ve collected an amazing volume of data--"

 "What happened, Mr. Woodrow?"

 "Yeah. Well. Last week, after we’d retrieved Tully II, we found it had brought back an unknown pathogen we hadn’t anticipated. An apparently highly-evolved, highly-adaptable viral strain. To be precise, a strain of the HIV virus. An...airborne strain."

 Lisa gasped. I leaned against the counter.

 "It’s contained, for now," Woodrow assured me. "The lab is sealed, and none of us have been outside. I was hoping we could figure out some solution, but as you can see, we’re out of answers. Haskins, I’ve called your people, and they’re going to biosecure the site. Lisa?"

 "Yes, Pate?" she whispered.

 "We failed. I understand, now, that this is something far beyond our ability to control. You have to understand. Stop. Now. Go into cancer research. Find a cure for AIDS -- God knows we’re going to need it. Just leave this al--"

 Woodrow began hacking again, and blood gouted from his nose and ears. Veins stood out on his forehead, and he coughed up something solid, most likely a part of himself.

 "Jesus," the Polite Man breathed, flicking off the video feed. He fumbled for the P/A switch. "OK, we better get out of here. I’m sure it won’t be long now."

 "We just get to...go?" Lisa asked, incredulously.

 "I don’t think so, Lisa," I replied, looking at P.M.

 "I’m sorry," he said, somehow managing to sound sincere. "You’d better come with me."

 Before we could comply, the lobby was flooded with light. We squinted toward the plate-glass building front, where a pair of headlights blazed dead-on. P.M. moved around the console. "Stay here -- there’s no other way out."

 As he edged toward the door, gun straight-armed at his side, I craned to see any detail of the car. My eyes adjusted to the glare, and, as P.M. reached the window, I made out the license plate.

 QWKFRZ.

 A figure stepped in front of the headlights, casting a broad shadow that engulfed the Polite Man. He became non-existent in a nanosecond.

 The headlights clicked off, and Chester Ray Banton stood in the window. I rushed to the door, swiped Lisa’s card, and let him in.

 "Dr. Banto--" I began, before he swung something large and hard and I hit the floor.

 "My God!" Lisa gasped. "What’d you do to him?"

 "Dr. Ianelli?" I heard Banton inquire, calmly, before I plunged into a darkness of my own.

**

 I came to in the driver’s seat of my car, my temple throbbing, in the parking lot of the Red Lion near my motel. I clicked on the dome light and cautiously surveyed the interior. My cell phone warbled.

 "Mr. Mulder," Banton greeted.

 "Where are you?" I asked. He must’ve seen the lights pop on, and I scanned the
shopping plaza. "Where’s Lisa?"

 "Did you ever see Fantasia?" the scientist asked.

 "What?"

 "Fantasia. It was one of my favorite movies, you know, before. Do you remember the scene where Mickey Mouse, the sorceror’s apprentice, conjures the conquering army of brooms and washbuckets? The sorceror comes to the rescue at the last minute, banishing the brooms, and bring order back to his universe?"

 "What did you do to Lisa?" I almost screamed.

 "You know what bothered me about that story? The sorceror left his apprentice to ponder his nearly tragic error. Do you believe the apprentice could hold that kind of power in his hands and never feel the temptation to hold it again?"

 "She was innocent!" I yelled. "She didn’t know what Haskins and his bosses were up to!"

 Banton chuckled. "You may understand the scientific mind, Mr. Mulder. You don’t know anything about the hunger. It’s done -- not for long, I’m sure -- but it’s done."

 The line went dead.

**

 It was all over the tube the next morning, on CNN and FoxNews. Envirogy’s South Carolina headquarters turned into a pile of ashes, the president/CEO feared to be among the incinerated dead, faulty electrical circuitry and volatile chemicals strike again. I chewed my bagel as the news boys recycled the same 30 seconds of fire scene footage.

 I’d expected to be roused in the middle of the night by Maron, somebody. It might have proven a relief -- I sat awake on the patio all night, staring at the Atlantic and thinking about time, space, mortality, Scully, and William. Envirogy’s temporal tampering, the Pandora’s box that had nearly unleashed the new Black Plague, Roger’s death – it would all go down as a line of red in some agency’s covert ledger. The brooms had been swept back into the closet. For now. And not another minute will your science buy, I mused, tipping my cup to Boston and Lisa Ianelli.

**

 I hefted my computer into the trunk, trying to figure out where I was heading next. There was an old buddy down in Tallahassee I hadn’t seen for years, an ex-SETI technician who’d scored a federal grant to analyze stray atmospheric radio signals. I’d caught a wire story about a lake monster reportedly surfacing in Central Mississippi. Maybe Disneyland – friends had told me of a huge rodent capable of high-pitched speech who hung with a violence-prone duck and a low-functioning dog.

 "Got-DAM-it!" the familiar male voice shook me out of my meditation. "You packed my fucking cell phone again?!"

 "Well, maybe if you – Hey! HEY!!"

 My head snapped up and around. Earl was about five cars down, his fingers wrapped tightly about his wife’s forearm. She cringed as he shook her and growled at her in a quiet but unmistakably threatening voice. We were alone in the underground parking structure.

 I’d expected some simian redneck in a beer company t-shirt and sporting a permanent five o’clock shadow that matched his single eyebrow. Earl was an immaculately groomed professional man, wearing a teal polo shirt and khakis he most definitely had not purchased at the mall. His spouse wore a flowered sundress and a "do" several notches beyond the capabilities of Great Cuts.

 No, Mulder, I cautioned. I stood silently, watching the drama unfold. She miscalculated, making a sarcastic remark that strengthened his grip. Her knees nearly buckled as he turned her elbow. My feet took control.

 "Everything OK here?" I asked, smiling disarmingly as I approached. Earl looked irritably at me, as if I’d gotten his Starbucks order wrong. He maintained his hold on his wife’s arm, but tried to turn it into something domestic and harmless.

 "We’re fine. Thanks."

 "’Cause it looks as if there’s something wrong..."

 "No, it’s—" she began, a fake smile cutting through the pain.

 "Fuck off, bud," Earl interrupted. "This is actually none of your fucking business, so go take a swim in the goddamned Atlantic."

 "Well, actually," I drawled reluctantly, reaching for my wallet, "it is kinda my business. FBI." I flashed the ID I’d sort of forgotten to turn in with my firearm.

 Earl read the card carefully. "So fucking what? You guys do family counseling now? I don’t think you have any clout here."

 I felt pressure form behind my eyes, in my ears. "I’m just saying… Uh, what’s your name?"

 Earl’s jaw tightened. "I don’t have to tell you anything without a lawyer."

 "Let’s slow down here," I said calmly, keeping the tension out of my voice. "Ma’am, I’ve been staying here at the hotel the last few days, next door to you, and I believe you have a serious prob--"

 "You talk to me," Earl growled. "No, wait – we’re done talking. C’mon." He seized his wife’s wrist and yanked her toward the passenger door.

 Something exploded in my head; my foot shot out, ripping Earl’s ankle from under him. I grabbed his arm and slammed him over the hood of his pricey SUV.

 "Listen, asshole," I whispered in his ear. "I’m sure you’re a big deal back home in Septic Tank, Ohio, or wherever, master of your domain, but listen to me. You’ve heard of Big Brother?"

 "I’ll have your fucking job," Earl shrieked, clearly frightened.

 "You heard of Big Brother? ‘Cause that’s who I work for. The IRS, who with a word from me can decide to study your creative tax deductions for the last 10 years. The FBI, who can call their buddies at your state attorney general’s office, who can call your friends at the Septic Tank Police Department and ask them to look into a domestic violence case, maybe come by the office and rattle your boss’s cage."

 "This is America," he panted, weakly. I glanced up at his wife, who looked terrified. It took a split-second to realize her terror was directed at me. I froze, wordlessly.

 "The hell we got here?" a new voice intruded. A huge man in a security uniform, hand on his belt, was standing behind the car, a dead look on his face.

 "He’s threatening my husband," the woman blurted. "We didn’t do anything."

 "You got a badge, Mister? You local?" the hotel guard asked.

 "FBI," I said, releasing Earl. I flashed the ID again, knowing that this time it could bite me fiercely on the ass – something I couldn’t afford right now. Something Scully and William couldn’t afford. "This man was assaulting his wife."

 The guard nodded slowly. "Uh huh. That right, sir?"

 Earl straightened his now-dirt-streaked shirt with shaking hands. "I m-may have lost my cool a little. But this man’s totally overreacting."

 "That right, ma’am?"

 "He’s had a stomach flu the last few days," she said quickly, borrowing, I was certain, from a file of well-worn excuses. "We’ve both been a little irritable. Please, Mister, give Larry a break."

 The guard turned to me. "What you want to do, Agent? Seems a little small potatoes for the federales. Maybe what we got here’s a little simple misunderstanding. Maybe Larry here wouldn’t think of hurting this lovely lady, his gut wasn’t fucking with him. Sorry, ma’am. That maybe the story, Chief?"

 Larry nodded hastily, running his fingers through his hair and looking at the
cracked parking garage concrete.

 "Simple misunderstanding, Agent. What you think?"

 I breathed deeply. "Whatever. Guess I may have lost my cool a little bit, too."

 "Sub-tropical heat," the guard suggested, his features still solemn. "Mess with your gut and your head, sometimes. Temper a horrible thing, ain’t it, Larry? Never know when it’s gonna take you down the wrong alley. Well, you folks have a safe trip, now."

 Larry silently edged around me and climbed into the driver’s seat. The wife glanced at me, as if she wanted to signal me, then opened her door.

 The guard stood, feet apart, arms crossed, as he and I watched the couple exit the garage.

 "You ain’t really a fed, are you?" he asked. "Least not anymore, right?"

 I stared at him. "How’d you know?"

 "Fed wouldn’t admit he’d screwed up any, not in public. Old Larry wasn’t so busy holding his sphincter, he coulda got some judge to sign over your next thousand paychecks. Fed woulda told a fat rent-a-cop like me to self-fornicate. And you pardon my cynicism, I don’t think a fed would give a rat’s ass some Jaycee wants to tenderize his woman. Ticket looks real, though – you makin’ a career change?"

 My shoulders relaxed. "Didn’t handle that so great, huh?"

 He made a very slight shrugging motion with his lower lip. "Man got a permanent hard-on. You start a pissin’ match you can’t finish, he takes it out on her the next rest stop. Less you gotta red ‘S’ on your ches’, you can’t save the world, you know, Bro?"

 The guard saw me grin, and his features momentarily changed from concrete to titanium. "It’s not you," I assured him. "Inside joke."

 His face loosened up, and he nodded once, touching the visor of his cap. He began to walk away with a military gait, then turned.

 "’Course, I don’t get to meet that many fellas ain’t afraid of kryptonite, my line of work," he considered. "Seems like a man would try deserves a little something cold for his trouble, or maybe just something to rehydrate their brain. I’m off the clock in a few minutes -- maybe my duty to keep you off the road ‘til I’m sure you’ve chilled out."

 Maybe all we are is animated dust, to be scattered eventually by the chilled winds of an unmerciful universe -- $6.25 or so in chemicals, living only to be recycled. But we do hang on, even if nothing lasts perpetually beyond the earth and sky. Even if it’s a just a couple of puny hominids hoisting a few beers in honor of the indomitable human soul. The rock-and-rollers don’t always get it right. All the drugs, probably.

 "Let me lock up," I said.