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10 X 21: DOMINION The Windy City becomes a city of terror when an unknown denizen of the deep surfaces in Lake Michigan... |
“‘…but he must’ve been hard of hearing, ‘cause I wound up
with a 12-inch pianist,’” Jack
Bales concluded with a flourish. “Then I go off, you know, on listening, you
know, the importance of listening when you’re closing the sale. Know your
customer, blah, blah, blah, all that happy bullshit. So? What d’you think?”
Barry Tremont’s own listening equipment had shut down right
before his colleague’s punchline, as he discovered a spot of the keynote
luncheon’s hollandaise sauce on the lapel of his cobalt blue Millennium 3
realtor’s blazer. The Southwest regional manager resisted the urge to scratch
at the now-crusty stain, and laughed absently at the payoff he hadn’t heard.
“Jesus, Jack,” he then chuckled worriedly. “You think, this
day and age, you wanna tell a penis joke, all the ladies in the crowd? Especially
with Marci Glickman getting the Most Valuable Promoter plaque?”
Jack, M3 senior VP for marketing, sucked at his prominent
white teeth in annoyance. “No, see, that’s the beauty. I don’t say penis
anywhere in there. The guy wanted a 12-inch penis, but the leprechaun gave
him a pianist instead, get it? Everybody knows what you said, but nobody
can get their
“I don’t know, Jack,” Barry
drawled, glancing around the hotel corridor outside the crowded ballroom.
“I don’t think you can even suggest a penis any more. I think they still
call that harassment.”
“I have never once touched any of these broads, even though
if you ever saw the rack on Marcie—” Barry winced, and Jack stopped dead,
a look of pure disgust on his deeply tanned features. “OK, OK, no dick humor,
all right? Jesus, the pussies have truly come to rule this planet. I got
a back-up icebreaker, anyway, so fuck ‘em.”
The thought of his colleague’s potential icebreaker brought chills to Barry,
and he glanced quickly at his watch. “Hey, man, we’ve only got about 20 minutes,
so I better get out there. Don’t forget you have to intro
“Yeah, yeah.” Jack waved as he glanced distractedly at the nearby
bar set, which, of course was tuned to the war. “Just go on in – I gotta
practice something I can tell these pussies that won’t get my ass sued by
the ACLU or the feminazis.”
Apartment of Monica Reyes
The doorbell buzzed, and Monica glanced irritably at the
time clock to the lower right of Aaron Brown’s lapel. She lamented the death
of “Thirty minutes or it’s free” on the pyre of public safety and pushed
herself from the couch.
“You the large garden, extra cheese, side of sticks?” the
pizza guy muttered. He looked like the comic book store guy on
The Simpsons, without the haughty demeanor or really much of any personality
at all, and a beat-up Corolla rumbled and belched EPA-violative particulates
at the curb.
“Busy night, huh?” Monica inquired, smiling.
“Naw,” the Jenny Craig dropout grunted.
“Keep the change,” the agent informed him, handing him the
precise amount of her order.
“Hey, than--” she heard the delivery man murmur as she shut
the door and threw the bolt. Monica conveyed her pizza one-handed to the
living room and deposited it on her coffee table. She glanced at CNN as she
dropped to the cushions, then froze.
The face inset on the screen above Brown’s bespectacled
face was stolid – strong Latino features framed by a buzz-cut and a Desert
Storm collar.
“…Army public information officials reported to be Private
First Class Paul Reyes, who had been assigned to a tank command unit near
The anchor transitioned to Wolf Blitzer with details, but
Monica was too dazed to register them. She fumbled on the couch for the remote,
but it had disappeared. Had she carried it to the kitchen? To the door to
collect the pizza? She banished the ridiculous speculation, bounding over
the table to silence the CNN crew.
Hands shaking, Monica snatched the portable phone from an
end table and hit her second program button. The handset buzzed insistently
as Monica cursed her parents for refusing to succumb to the miracles of call-waiting.
She chastised herself – of course, Antonio and Rina, Paul’s folks, were probably
on the line, seeking consolation and answers and sanity.
Monica dropped back onto the couch, impotent, ineffectual,
heart pounding. Suddenly, she was overtaken by memories of her tall, machismo
nephew, the long
She hit redial, and quickly disconnected. Monica punched
the first programmed number.
“Come on, John,” she begged. To no avail – her partner’s
answering machine kicked in, and she irrationally hung up.
Monica stared at the blank TV screen, and then at the plastic
face of her phone. She sighed, and hit the third button, the one that had
been reserved for the absent Dana Scully for nearly a year until the present
– and Monica’s more pressing needs – had intruded. A cheerfully tinny answering
machine voice popped on, and Monica hiccupped in frustration.
“Jan, it’s me,” she greeted tremulously, struggling for
control. “Something happened. If you can call me, or come over or something.
I really need, you know…”
Monica lapsed into silence, and she jumped as Jan’s machine
beeped. She tossed the handset on the table.
“No,” she murmured. “No, no.” She retrieved the phone, redialed,
hung up on Jan’s machine with a curse,
and dialed her parent’s number. The busy signal shrieked at her, and she
threw the phone across the living room.
You’ve got good reason, a dark voice assured her. “No,”
Monica said. Anyone would… “No, no.”
He’s dead, he’s God knows where, the dark voice whispered
with an irony that had haunted Monica Reyes for months.
She stumbled from the couch toward the kitchen…
Ernie’s Cincy-Style Chili
Calvin Welles dumped another handful of onions on his chili
5-way, savoring the cloves and other spices that differentiated
Calvin surveyed the glaring interior of the out-of-the-way
smalltown diner. They hadn’t refilled his coffee in a half-hour, but that
was all right with him, as everyone in the restaurant – the owner, two waitresses,
the cook, and five customers – had died about 15 minutes before that. Their
bodies littered the filthy linoleum – Health Department violation, for sure,
he mused.
Calvin hadn’t killed any of them directly – he didn’t do
that any more. Too hands on, too pedestrian, as the prison shrink would’ve
said. Instead, he had merely introduced the supper crowd to a few of his
friends from the other side, and simply set his gun on the counter near the
register. Strange what people couldn’t take, how easily that thin shell around
their sanity cracked like an M&M when they were exposed to ideas they
couldn’t comprehend.
It was a somewhat childish hobby – Calvin recognized the
significance of what he knew, what he could do, what laughably simple truths
he had been made privy to, but he was man enough to admit what he was. Which
was a sociopathic, inhuman killer who enjoyed watching the life leave others.
Nothing to be proud of, certainly, but he had some 85 kills under his belt
– 85 after his brief confinement in that lab in
Before his conversion, Calvin had murdered a few dozen people the old-fashioned
way, but it somehow had been more pleasurable then, when he believed he was
single-handedly erasing each soul, each life. Now, he had the means to wipe
out busfuls of souls in one sitting, but the knowledge that he was merely
transferring energy, rather than obliterating it, left him less-than-satisfied.
Like sitting down to a bowlful of pussy-assed Cincinnati-style chili when
he was used to jalapenos and habaneros.
Something big, he reflected, absently swallowing beans and meat and cheese.
He had a plan, but it hadn’t yet taken full form.
Calvin Welles’ only earthly concern was the gaps – the dark holes of time
into which he occasionally descended. His watch – a Rolex lifted off a Mafioso
who’d been persuaded to shot-gun his entire family over Sunday dinner – would
skip minutes, hours, a day or so sometimes, and he’d wake up someplace, usually
in the universe of his birth, with no idea how his body had hauled him there.
A bright light suddenly cast sharp shadows throughout the diner. It wasn’t
like the high beams of one of the jacked-up pickups men around here wore
like a surrogate dick. It was more like the cold halogens of a dozen floodlights.
Calvin wondered if someone had been able to get through to the sheriff’s
department before they had perished, if maybe a farm neighbor had heard the
gunshots and called out Andy and Barney to investigate.
He sighed, tossed down his napkin, and slid out of his booth. This ought
to be interesting.
But as Calvin shoved the glass door open with a departing jingle, he saw
no cop cars, no Mounties, no smokies, no pigs of any description. Only that
cold, blinding, consuming light. Then he made out its source, high above
the cornfield which bordered Ernie’s to the west.
“Kee-rist almighty,” Calvin murmured.
John Doggett residence
“Shit!” Doggett yelled as he heard his own voice across
the dark living room. He ran for the phone, barking his shin on a chair before
hearing the tone that informed him his party had declined to leave a message.
He’d just left Monica a few hours before, wasn’t likely
her. Besides, she or Skinner would call his cell if they needed him. Kersh
would’ve left a chilly, ostracizing missive on the machine, convinced John
had stepped out to the grocery just to vex him.
Barbara? Doggett dismissed the thought immediately. After
he’d stumbled onto the solution to their son’s absurdly tragic murder, he
and his ex-wife had parted on quietly final terms. She’d e-mailed him a month
ago that she was marrying some man she’d met at a city council meeting –
Barbara had filled her void with civic responsibility – and Doggett had typed
out a quick congratulatory note and not communicated with her since.
The agent shrugged, and spent the next 10 minutes poring
over bills, the law enforcement journals the former NYPD cop still received,
and a letter from an old Marine buddy he’d known in
Doggett retrieved a Bud Light from the kitchen, and flipped on the TV. ESPN
was his natural instinct, but like most Americans over the last month – even
jaded federal employees privy to detailed military intelligence – he was
drawn to news of the war in
A weary, grim Wolf Blitzer was standing in the center of
a stark Middle Eastern street swarming with tanks and
Doggett’s head whipped toward the set. “Holy shit,” he whispered as he spied
the face hovering above the CNN anchor. “Aw, Jesus, Monica.” He silenced
the set and plucked his phone from its base.
Busy. Of course. Her folks must be in shock. Doggett fought the impulse to
throw on his jacket and run over to Monica’s apartment. No; this was family
time. He turned the set back on to learn all he could about Pvt. First Class
Paul Reyes’ death.
When the phone jangled 15 minutes later, he leapt for it. “Doggett.”
“Yeah, John? I don’t know if you remember me. Jan Roosevelt? I’m a friend
of Monica’s…?”
“Sure,” he acknowledged. Friend. Jan was Monica’s AA sponsor. “I saw the
news about Monica’s nephew. You talked to her yet?”
Jan paused. “I’m not really
certain I should even have called you. I’m, you know, Monica’s…”
“I know,” Doggett interrupted, suddenly anxious. “Is she OK?”
“I don’t know, John. She left
a message on my machine, said she felt like a drink. I ran right over, but
nobody’s answering the door and the TV’s blaring. I thought about calling
911, but I know she’s FBI, and I didn’t want to get her into any trouble
if I was wrong. More likely if I was right, I guess I mean. So I thought
maybe her partner… She’s told me you know about AA…”
“Ten minutes,” Doggett barked, grabbing his jacket.
**
Doggett had a set of keys: He’d watched Monica’s mail and
papers several times, and as their relationship began to edge toward some
interesting new dimensions, they’d decided he should just keep them. Jan,
a petite black woman in her mid-thirties, waited impatiently behind him,
and stayed back a few paces as he moved into the apartment.
The guy with the glasses, Doggett never could recall his
name, was loudly highlighting the day’s developments in the
She looked up, and beamed at the intruders. “John, Jan.
John, Jan, ha.”
“Monica?” Jan ventured, a tone of resignation tinging her
concern. Monica’s eyes were bleary, and she fumbled toward the remote at
her knee, making several unsuccessful passes at retrieving it. A bottle of
Smirnoff’s was open and half-drained on a nearby end table
“Sorry to start without you, Jan,” Monica shrugged, a little
too loosely. “I’m guessing neither one of you wants a drink, huh?”
“Monica, I’m sorry about Paul,” Doggett said simply, sitting
beside his partner and squeezing her hand.
“Oh, well,” she said in a ghostly voice, turning again to
the electronic face on the TV. “Oh, well.”
Jan joined the pair and took
the other hand. “Baby, I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you called. I was, well,
I guess it doesn’t matter. I’m so sorry about your nephew. It’s a terrible
thing, and I know it’s rough on you. I only know what my mother would’ve
said. Your Paul is in…”
Monica yanked her hand from Jan’s grasp, and stared at her
incredulously. “In a better place? Is that what you think? That Paul’s somewhere
in the clouds, at the left hand of Jesus, looking down at us all with a beatific
smile? Or maybe in eternal torment, his flesh searing on his bones for all
the pot he used to smoke, all the girls he’s screwed? What if there is no
Higher Power, Jan? What if it’s all dirt and worms, huh?”
“Monica, honey…”
“No. None of that Twelve-step, holy roller crap tonight.
No, no, no.”
Doggett held tight to her fingers, despite Monica’s efforts
to retrieve them. “Monica, she’s just trying…”
“John, it’s OK—” Jan assured him. She’d heard it, hell,
done it.
“I know!” Monica shrieked, wrenching free and pushing wobblingly
from the couch. She fell back, breathing raggedly and looking wildly at the
photos of dead soldiers being recycled on CNN.
“A better place,” she finally breathed.
**
“I thought she was doing pretty good,” Doggett murmured
as Jan returned from the bedroom. She’d tucked his partner in and called
Monica’s adoptive parents – she’d never known her real ones – with a story
approximating the truth.
Jan, who Doggett understood was a marketing consultant,
dropped into an armchair. “Yeah, you probably would. Everybody always thought
I was doing pretty good, ‘til I’d drop off the face of the planet for a few
days or drop into a family reunion or staff meeting totally shit-faced. Tal
about winning friends and influencing people. Let me ask you: Has this come
up at work? I mean, has Monica ever come in, you know, under the influence,
that you know of?”
“No,” he responded too emphatically. Doggett grinned sheepishly.
“No, I’m really pretty sure not. But I’ve wondered…”
“What?”
The agent looked her directly in the eye. “Look, how much
has Monica told you about what she does – what we do?”
“Well,” Jan leaned back, and Doggett knew Monica had shared
more than he might have thought. Or maybe just more than Doggett ever shared
about the X-Files. “I know she doesn’t have any idea who her real people
– her biological parents – were. I know about the Satanic shit she investigated
in N’awlins – pretty dark stuff. And she tells me just enough about her current
job to whet my appetite without giving me enough to have her committed. Sorry.”
“Oh, crap, I don’t blame you,” Doggett sighed, resting his
head against the back of the couch. “Sometimes I think I’m going a little
batshit myself.”
“Who doesn’t?”
“I’m not trying to upstage you, Jan, but you’d probably
reappraise that statement if you saw what Monica sees on a daily basis.”
Jan arched an eyebrow. It reminded Doggett of Scully, and
he wondered fleetingly where she might be right now. “You mean,” Jan chided
gently, “what you both see on a daily basis.”
“Yeah,” Doggett nodded, and said nothing more. As if to
fill the sudden void, his cell phone twirped urgently…
Mark Rothmann swiped the last morsel of his pork loin through
its piquant cranberry-chipotle sauce, feeling just a twinge of residual guilt.
The forbidden pork would never have passed the lips of Rabbi Marcus Rothmann,
the man Mark had been seemingly light years ago before he’d traded his Talmud
for a real estate license.
But they seldom provided kosher alternatives at these predominantly
goyim gatherings, and Mark had learned early on not to emphasize his religious
and cultural differences around his WASPish Millennium 3 colleagues. He now
surveyed those colleagues, and re-examined the crisis of faith that had led
him down this new path. Despite a six-figure salary and a virtual palace
of a home on
“Everybody? Everybody?” Mark jumped as Gene Thorpe, CEO
of Millennium 3, commandeered the dais mike. “I know dinner’s running a little
long, but if we’re going to kick off the evening’s entertainment on schedule,
we need to get our program on the road.
“I’ve known Jack Bales for 17 years now, ever since he was
M3’s top mover in
Obligatory laughter. Rothmann had met the misogynistic,
mildly anti-Semitic asshole at a closing workshop a year ago, and he wondered
if Thorpe had intentionally injected such a grain of dark truth into his
intro.
“Seriously,” Thorpe continued as everyone decided they could
stop laughing, “Jack has consistently been one of Millennium 3’s top producers,
whether out there in the trenches or in the home office. The ‘Homing in on
You’ broadcast campaign won three major awards last year, and our sponsorship
of programming on the Home and Lifestyle Network has given the company unprecedented
visibility with the industry’s most desirable consumer demographic.”
Avaricious thirtysomething vultures looking for refuge from
the dregs of society and their own ethical conscious in gated communities
and well-patrolled suburbs, Rabbi Rothmann retorted silently. Mark was always
taken aback when this voice popped forth from the inner recesses. He glanced
about quickly, irrationally fearful his suppressed contempt for M3’s largely
pampered customers might show in his face.
“…And so it is I introduce with pride and gratitude one
of M3’s shining stars with, hopefully, some illuminating insights for all
of us. Friends, let’s show our appreciation for Jack Bales!”
Mark, of course, joined in the wildly enthusiastic chorus
of automatic handslapping that greeted the sleek, silver-haired game show
host that mounted the risers to the stage, waving as if he were Tom Cruise,
George W., and the Pope all bundled into one blue blazer. Bales pumped the
CEO’s hand as if Thorpe were some young stockbroker the aging realtor was
trying to reel in (did Mark see a momentary grimace of disdain on Thorpe’s
face, or was that merely his own fleeting hope that at least some of these
glad-handing barracudas here could see through Jack’s reptilian charm?), and
ascended to the dais, grasping the edges of the podium as he scanned the
crowd Mark knew from experience he couldn’t see beyond the hot spots of the
ballroom.
“I’m glad we could all get together here tonight,” Bales
began. “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen this many realtors assembled in
one room, and the Palm Beach Shore Patrol has informed me they’ve reopened
the beaches now that you’re all safely inside.”
Genuine laughter. They’re actually proud of being viewed
as sharks, as predators, Mark marveled. We’re proud, bubby, we’re proud,
Rabbi Rothmann reminded him.
“That reminds me of a story about one of
Oh, boy, rabbis, Mark groaned. Bet Sandersen’s thrilled
out of his gourd. He wondered if there might be any Pakistanis or Indians
in the house right now, equally ready to slink under the tablecloth.
“…and the farmer says, ‘Sorry, fellas, but the local wrecker
service don’t open back up again ‘til morning. You can stay up to the house
tonight, but we only got the two guest bedrooms. One of you’ll have to sleep
in the barn.’ So the rabbi asks his companions, ‘You want I should sleep
out there?’”
Wonderful – dialect humor with hand gestures. Plus, Mark
had sold his share of farmhouses in his time, and he wondered how many had
two spare bedrooms.
“…Nick and the Hindu answer the door, and it’s the rabbi.
The rabbi tells them, ‘I can’t sleep out there – there’s a pig in the barn,
and in my religion, swine are unclean, unkosher.’ So the Hindu says, ‘All
right, all right. I will be most happy to sleep in the barn tonight’…”
This time, Bales lapsed into a bad Apu, the minimart owner
from The Simpsons. Mark hoped there was a Patel or a Rhawalpindi or whatever
in the kitchen right now hearing this and plotting to piss in Jack’s luncheon
vichyssoise tomorrow. It wasn’t a very rabbinical thought, but the image
brought the former temple leader momentarily out of his doldrums.
“…and the Hindu tells them, ‘I am most dreadfully sorry, but there is a cow
in the barn, and in my religion, the cow is a sacred beast with whom I am
unfit to share sleeping quarters.’ So Nick sighs and says, ‘My father was
a farmer, and his father before him. I guess I can take a night in the barn.’
And he marches out across the yard.”
And it’s the pig and the cow, Mark supplied.
“About two minutes later, there’s a knock at the farmhouse door…”
And it’s the pig and the cow.
“…so the rabbi and the Hindu get up and go downstairs…”
And it’s the pig and the cow.
“…and they open the door…”
And…
“…and it’s…”
And…
“…it’s…”
A murmur went up through the crowd as Bales blinked into the glaring spotlights.
His fingers flexed on the rim of the podium, and he licked his lips. Jesus,
was the bastard having a heart attack? Mark wondered. Finally had his fill
of greed and corporate intrigue and rich banquets?
Then Bales straightened, his jaw tightening, his eyes focusing. He surveyed
the crowd with new interest.
“Athelamenathanshethallazorem,” M3’s senior VP announced. At least, that
was what it sounded like to Mark Rothmann, who dropped his fork. Then Bales
launched into a long, droning monologue, as if he were reciting the latest
townhouse listings in Martian.
Except, as Mark gradually realized, it wasn’t Martian. At least, a good part
of Bales’ departure from his script wasn’t. The former Rabbi Rothmann was
very likely the only man in the room who had any idea in hell what Jack Bales
was babbling.
Babbling, the rabbi chuckled. An interesting pun, nu? Mark watched Bales
continue with shocked interest. He had, of course, discoursed many times
on the Old Testament tale of
But Bales, as far as Mark knew, worshipped no other gods than M3, the U.S.
Mint, and the New York Stock Exchange. Was this the real thing? God speaking
through one of the least of his children, a little joke on the WASPs in the
hall?
If so, it was a good one. Because Mark was relatively certain that nowhere
in his limited education or industry dealings would Jack Bales have picked
up a talent for conversational Aramaic…
“Kersh doesn’t
know,” Assistant Director Walter Skinner informed Doggett once they were
in the air. “At least not about our coming out here. A friend of mine, field
agent out of
“Mm,” Doggett nodded absently, staring out the passenger
window as the small private plane hurtled out of
“Agent Reyes,” Skinner murmured after a moment. “How’s she
holding up?”
The agent regarded his superior quietly. He didn’t know
why – God knows, he trusted Skinner with his very life, and anyone could
excuse the need for some liquid courage after receiving news like Monica
had had to absorb – but he’d covered for his partner’s episode. “’Bout what
you’d expect. I guess she and the boy were pretty close, and to find out
he was dead on CNN…”
“Of course,” Skinner nodded. “She get hold of her parents
yet?”
“I don’t know,” Doggett mumbled.
“Mm,” the director grunted, and fell silent.
“This is some shit,” Special Agent Bill Kesey informed Skinner
and Doggett in a Midwestern twang after the introductions were made. He sped
up the interstate as trees, still-fallow corn and soybean fields, and fast
food and hotel billboards hurtled past. “EPA and CDC came in about a half-hour
after we started investigating the scene, shut us down completely. Wasn’t
a total whitewash – two
“
“Because,” Kesey drawled,
“I want you to see something before I give you the real details on
It was about 25 or so miles more, past the off-ramp minimarts
and burger/taco joints, past two-story farmhouses and grain elevators, before
they reached the restaurant. A plastic Pepsi sign, awash in patriotic
“Agent Kesey, sir?” the trooper rumbled. Doggett smiled
to himself: Whether NYSP or OSP or probably even Timbuktu State Police, they
were all punched out of the same cast-iron mold. “Your partner’s still inside,
and the county pathologist’s here. Story’s leaked, already – a Cincinnati
Metro guy and a couple of TV crews have already been here, and the guy from
the Mockridge weekly. The captain gave them a standup the TV folks could
use, just the nuts-and-bolts, and sent them on their way.”
“Just as well, even though I wouldn’t be surprised CNN or
Fox doesn’t get somebody out here pronto, seven dead and all,” Kesey suggested
blandly. Doggett glanced at Skinner, whose eyes had narrowed.
“What’s really up here, Bill?” the assistant director murmured
after the trooper stalked to his unit. “You tell me you’ve got what looks
like an alien aircraft crash down in Henderson, Kentucky, and then you drag
us up here to, what, a multiple homicide scene?”
Kesey jerked his head toward the diner. “Why I wanted you
to bring your X-Files fella. C’mon; you’ll see.”
**
“Jesus,” Doggett whispered as they entered the restaurant.
Even after his years in the Marines, the NYPD, the FBI, he’d still never
grown immune to this kind of mass destruction, this kind of explosion of
violence. A trio of customers were sprawled on the shoe-streaked linoleum,
blood puddling under each. An elderly couple, oblivious to the State Police
techs working around them, sat silently in a duct-taped naugahyde booth, jaws
hanging open, eyes wide in a perpetual state of horror. No blood on either
one.
A waitress – probably just past high school age – was tangled
around a counter stool. Defense wounds criss-crossed her palms. The huge
carving knife that had savaged her lay between her body and that of an ill-shaven,
thin man in a greasy chef’s apron.
“Owner’s in the freezer,” a broad, gray-haired man with
a Bobby Knight expression grunted as he emerged from behind the counter.
He inspected Skinner and Doggett. “Special
“Assistant Director Walt Skinner
and Special Agent Doggett,” Kesey introduced.
Fassbinder nodded, only momentarily distracted. “Owner’s
in the freezer. Self-inflicted to the right temple. My guess is the same
.38 did these three. And come over here by the soda case.”
He edged past, and Skinner shrugged at Doggett. Fassbinder
stopped at the stand-up Pepsi cooler. The plexiglass door was splintered
in three spots, and additional bulletholes flanked the case.
“Two more shot patterns pretty much like this, over by the
menu board and in front of the men’s room door,” Kesey’s partner reported.
“What d’you make of that?”
“Robbery?” Doggett ventured. “Robbers sprayed a few bullets
around the room to scare the locals into submission? Nah. This is overkill,
especially for what the take must’ve been.”
“Cash register ain’t been touched,” Bobby Knight’s doppelganger
shook his head. “And I’m guessing it was the owner’s gun, anyway. So did
he go whacko, start shooting up the place because some customer complained
there was too much turmeric in the chili?” He registered the surprise on
his colleagues’ faces. “Food Network. And there is, by the way. The owner
goes whacko, shoots up his customer base, and then hides in the freezer not
only with the inside bolt thrown but a couple cases of burgers shoved in
front of the door? Not likely.
“And the coroner’s gonna have to confirm it, but we seem
to have the Encyclopedia Britannica of Death here. Owner seems to have killed
the three farmers here, cook slashed the waitress, and the two old folks
there just seem to have kicked the bucket.”
“Died of fright, from the looks,” Kesey murmured. “Maybe
from the murder spree going on around them.”
“Won’t fly,” Fassbinder said. “See how they fell back across
the back of the booth? Had one of the techs move ‘em back, and there’s no
blood on the leather or whatever behind them. They were dead before these
three got shot, probably before all hell broke loose.”
Doggett’s brow rose.
“What?” Fassbinder asked.
“Nothing.”
Fassbinder looked curiously at Kesey, who blew out a baffled
breath. The large agent nodded, then went over to converse with a trooper.
“You ever seen anything like this?” Kesey asked his guests.
“Not precisely like this,” Doggett replied, glancing at
the slaughter around them.
“Well, I have,” Kesey said. Skinner and Doggett looked at
him simultaneously. The
“Jesus,” Skinner gasped. He handed the PDA to Doggett, who
looked up quickly.
The small screen held a nightmarishly surreal tableau: Three
bodies were scattered across the floor of a strangely clean, smooth room
anchored by what appeared to be an S&M exam table. Fluids leaked from
the trio of corpses.
But the corpses were gray, with outsized ovoid heads and
long, spindly appendages. And the fluids leaking from their wounds was a
Dayglo green.
“You took this?” Doggett mumbled. “I can’t believe this
shit…You’re not trying to tell me...?”
“The M.O. – if you’d call homicidal chaos an M.O. -- was
almost identical,” Kesey said. “That blood or whatever it is has some kind
of chemical agent in it – overcame those deputies, and we had to go in with
respirators. As incredible as it seems, I’d say these, aw, shit, aliens,
died of whatever killed these people.”
Doggett was now silent, deep in apparently dark thought.
“I don’t know, Bill,” Skinner said. “The coincidence seems astronomical,
but it seems like a longshot.”
Kesey nodded; he’d expected this reaction. “Saved the capper,
but I want to keep my shield, and Fassbinder’s kind of a company man down
deep, so let’s just take a quiet walk outside.”
The temp seemingly had dropped a few degrees while Doggett
and Skinner were inside, and Doggett couldn’t determine whether it was the
climate or the scene in Ernie’s that now traveled up his arms and spine.
“We have seen a scene like that before,” Skinner reminded
his agent as they walked just out of earshot behind Kesey.
“
“Or possibly that were,” Skinner suggested.
Calvin Welles had been on Texas Death Row when a group of
scientists seemingly led by or working in cooperation with Marita Covarubias
essentially “bought” him from a corrupt warden and his equally twisted prison
shrink. Welles had been identified as one of a handful of promising candidates
with astonishing psychic abilities and subjected to some kind of drug that
resurrected dormant genetical material – “junk DNA” – responsible for long-hidden
human powers.
Welles, a mass murderer now empowered to new heights, had
taken control of Covarubias’ research facility, somehow influencing the staff
members to kill themselves and each other before Skinner, Doggett, Reyes,
and the last remnants of The Lone Gunmen liberated a group of children kidnapped
by the anti-colonist scientific conspiracy. The FBI agents had driven Welles
underground – or somewhere more fantastic – and Gibson Praise, a psychic
prodigy who’d befriended and protected Mulder, had vanished, as well.
The episode had been a turning point for Doggett, the door
to denial slamming forever behind him. But the thought of Welles holding
sway over even Man’s most formidable enemy shook Doggett.
“Hope you got a good dry cleaner,” Kesey said after they’d
crossed the rural highway and trespassed onto a grain rail loading facility.
He reached the base of a towering, corrugated grain silo, grasped the bottom
rung of a ladder, and hauled himself up. Doggett shrugged at Skinner, and
they began their ascent.
“Fassbinder and me came in by chopper,” Kesey yelled. “That
field had been planted, we’da both noticed it, but even with just that no-till
crop residue still on the ground, you oughtta be able to see it we get high
enough.” At about 100 feet, he turned, and Skinner and Doggett stopped.
Fighting off a mild case of jet lag-enhanced vertigo, Doggett
looked down, back across the road. The state cruisers cast red-white-and-blue
circles of light, and he could see Ernie’s estate would have to repair the
restaurant’s roof.
But it was the field adjacent to the diner where Kesey had
seen it. The pattern was clear in the overcast night – a circle cut or more
likely blown or burned into the corn stubble. It looked like something out
of that goofy shit movie Reyes had hauled Doggett to, the one with Mel Gibson
and the aliens.
“Christ,” he murmured.
“Yup,” Keyes deadpanned. “They warn folks in these parts
not to pick up hitchhikers. Guess our boys learned the hard way.”
Oglala,
One week later
“So life’s a bitch, and then you die,” Dr. Holmes conceded.
“Then what?”
It wasn’t designed as an academic attention-getter: Holmes
had no need of such gimmicks. In the words of Renee Zellweger, he’d had his
students at ‘”Hello.”
Holmes was quirky, good-humored, irreverent toward many
of things for which his students held little reverence, and, most importantly,
took what could be a mundane psych course into dark, shrouded new territory.
The psychopathology of the serial killer, the genetic underpinnings of the
religious cultist, the possibility of shared conscious and even UFOs. While
his eccentricities – the pseudoscience, no truly fervent sociopolitical dogma
one could pin down – would have made him an outcast on any major university
campus, he was generally well-liked at this small community college, a refuge
for many of his colleagues who’d survived savage academic back-biting.
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Holmes grinned as more than a few
eyes rolled toward the cheap classroom ceiling. “The Prof’s gone holy-roller.
Tetched by an angel. Getting a little too far inside your Gen-XXX comfort
zone, Podreski? Relax. I’m not talking about harps and pitchforks and perpetual
barbecue pits where the soul languishes in torment but the skin never quite
gets crispy enough to serve. I’m talking science – Mr. Wizard meets Father
Death. The one so subperbly portrayed by William Sadler in
Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey.”
“You’re talking voodoo bullshit, you mean,” Zach Truesdale
amended sleepily. Truesdale was a computer sciences major who had signed
up for Holmes class as an easy gen ed credit. It had been easy, as promised,
but only so because it was like no other droning class he’d experienced.
What had at the beginning of the semester been indignant sniping at Holmes’
hybrid scientific views had developed into a stimulating sparring match between
student and teacher, between known and unknown science.
“No, my young liege,” Holmes countered, affecting a lofty
tone. “I’m talking hard, nuts-and-bolts Physics 101. If we concede the concept
of a human soul —” A small, collective groan went up from the desks before
him. “If we accept the notion that the soul exists, what is it? What gives
us the spark of life, the ability to reason, the will to rail against evil,
even against John Ritter? Is it some ethereal gift, some intangible force
bestowed on humanity from the gods, or maybe is it a physical force of this
universe.”
“Energy?” Helen Daugherty queried, with a lift of her cynical
brow that made Holmes wish he’d called in sick this morning and stayed in
bed with the mother of his child, the learned and anatomically expert biology
prof, “You’re full of shit.”
“Don’t move ahead so fast – the nature of the human mind
is next week. Why not energy? There are two essential states of being in
this universe, at least the universe we can see and touch. Matter and energy.
The Truesdalian skeptic cannot accept that any other universe might exist
and rejects the notion that we are guided by angels, demons, and pixie-dust
fairies. But there it is: Something beyond the mechanical energy of our bones
and muscles and the electrical impulses of our brains and hearts drives us
along this road we call existence. So why not energy?”
“And energy cannot be created or destroyed,” Jacob Moonrise
supplied. Jacob was a nephew of Holmes’ friend, the county sheriff, and he
was possessed of both the hard-bitten pragmatism of his generation and the
supernatural bent of his Native American forebears. “So if the soul is energy,
and the soul ‘dies,’ then it can’t really cease to exist. Like those near-death
experiences people have.”
“Say they have,” Truesdale interjected. “You’re saying when
we die, our soul just flies out into the atmosphere, zipping around until,
what, it finds a new conduit or host?”
“No more John Carpenter for you, young man,” Holmes scolded.
“But maybe you’re on the right track. Nuclear energy can’t just power a microwave
unless it’s used to produce electrical energy. Electrical energy can’t be
conducted through rubber or glass. I know, believe me.”
“Light can become heat, and heat light,” Truesdale argued.
“So why can’t the soul, like there is such a thing, just seep into the environment
like ground lightning, and the rest of what’s left of us just rot away and
become worm food?”
Holmes hopped from the corner of his desk. “Don’t know,
and now, you’ve made me hungry. Oral exam tomorrow, or not, and everyone
watch Caddyshack by Friday. I want
to know what Chase meant by ‘being the ball.’ That’s all, people.”
He was standing a discreet 50 feet beyond the cafeteria
entrance, though discreet was no longer a term that could accurately describe
Jeffrey Spender. Even from a distance, Holmes noted the facial prosthetics
that inadequately disguised the ravages an alien race had visited upon him
in collaboration with his vengeful, cigarette-smoking father. Spender likely
could have undergone extensive cosmetic surgery with the resources available
to him through the shadowy cooperative into which he’d recruited Holmes and
his companion, but to date he retained the scars of his scientifically abuse.
Holmes suspected this was a matter of choice, that Jeffrey
Spender embraced his scars to keep his hatred, his fervor, his sense of mission
alive. That mission was the salvation of mankind, and a disfigured, fanatical
madman was at the helm, flanked by occasionally homicidal knights.
Fortunately, the sunglasses and seed cap Spender had adopted
for this campus visit sufficed – a tide of self-absorbed, heavily-pierced,
generationally insular students swarmed obliviously past and around the former
FBI agent.
“Hey,” Holmes greeted as he approached Spender, a faint
flutter in his gut. “The little woman was wondering when you might pop on
up for some hamloaf and a fast-paced night of euchre.”
Spender had never been one for irony, even before he’d been
mutilated and emotionally deconstructed. “We need to talk.”
Sherman Holmes, AKA Fox Mulder, nodded. “Yeah, I believe
we do.”
**
Even with their meager combined academic incomes and the
escalating costs of feeding and raising William, Scully had managed to do
minor miracles with the third-floor walkup she shared with Mulder and their
1 ½-year-old son, courtesy of cable do-it-yourself programs and the Home
Depot down the road. Sunny, with bright primary splashes and tastefully elemental
accessories, the apartment was both a perfect sanctuary – and a perfect disguise
– for the pair.
Spender noticed none of this. Mulder plopped into his favorite
thrift store armchair, while Spender stood before him, the need for comfort
irrelevant.
“I don’t know if it happened to make the wire services up
here, but did you happen to hear about an incident at a recent realtors’
conference in
“Glossalalia,” Mulder responded. “Saw it on the Internet.
Middle-aged capitalist type gets up to make a speech, starts Babeling in
Aramaic…”
“And Anasazi and Babylonian and an ancient Tibetan dialect.
As well as some language we haven’t yet been able to identify.”
The fed-turned-teacher looked up. “There are generally two
categories of glossalalia, or ‘speaking in tongues’ – cases where the subject
begins to speak fluently in foreign, unfamiliar tongues, and those in which
the subject is believed to be speaking in God’s own language.”
Spender shook his head impatiently. “Our linguist insists
it’s human language – the syntax and structure parallels the basic structure
of every language known to man.”
“Whoa, back up. Linguist? How’d you happen to get what this
realtor said? I can’t imagine the Ten O’Clock News would’ve found that interesting
footage.”
“A writer from an area business publication attended the
dinner presentation, and got it all on cassette, except for tape changes,
of course. It seems this reporter is an evangelical Baptist, and he recognized
what was happening. Or thought he did.”
Mulder caught Spender’s add-on
comment, but bypassed it for the moment. “How did you get this tape, Jeffrey?”
“It doesn’t--”
Mulder leaned forward, gentle but insistent. “How did you
come to possess this tape? Is our fundamentalist journalist still among the
living?”
Spender stared down at his former FBI colleague for a moment.
“I told you before, what happened to that farmer and his wife was a tragic
error. We would have had no need for violence. We simply bought the tape,
told the reporter we represented a university research project on glossalalia.”
“So you’ve got the new
Realtors Gone Wild tape,” Mulder said. “You playing God’s word backwards,
seeing if Carson Daly comes out?”
“It’s not God’s word,” Spender answered abruptly. His faith
apparently had evaporated with the torture he’d endured. “It’s something
else. If I were religious, I might even say it’s a miracle. What we need
from you--”
“Hold on, Jeffrey,” Mulder said softly. “I want to talk
to you about something else first. We want off this bus.”
“What?” Spender’s damaged
mouth was a reasonably straight line.
“Scully and I. And William. I think we’re through.”
“You can’t…”
“It’s been building, Jeffrey. We have a child, now, and
although we don’t know what the future might bring at this point, we want
to raise him as a child, not as a fugitive or a target. We both appreciate
what you’ve done to protect William, to give us a new life, but we don’t
have anything left. We want you to let us out.”
“You know the financing, the protection, would stop,” Spender
said, stating fact rather than attempting to coerce Mulder.
“I know. But we’re making enough at the college to get by,
and I think we’d just like to see how normal people live on this planet,
at least as long as this world continues to exist. Can you understand that,
Jeffrey?”
Spender didn’t move. He gazed out the front window, at the
pizza place and the park across the street. Finally, he looked back down
at Mulder with what might have been a trick of Spender’s facial disfigurement
or a half-smile.
“How would you like,” he asked, “to have a world for William
to grow up in?”
**
“I don’t like this,” Scully said, her face lined with intense
anxiety. “I don’t like this man in our lives, in William’s life.” She stroked
William’s thick hair as he recklessly spooned baked beans and hotdog pieces
into his anxious mouth.
“I know,” Mulder murmured, staring across the table at his
son. William grinned shyly, working his jaws fiercely. “But if what Spender
says is right, then we have to try.”
“There are others,” Scully
stated.
“None with our unique blend of scientific acumen and voodoo
bullshit. Look, Scully, this Jack Bales – a man of almost no religious conviction
or advanced education – is the repository of a staggering database. A database
encoded into a variety of ancient human languages. Among other things, Bales’
meanderings included a detailed procedure for synthesizing magnetite.”
Scully’s head came up, and she glanced at William. “Magnetite.
Spender injected William with—”
Mulder nodded. “The Anasazi village where our cigarette-smoking
pal set up housekeeping was built on a magnetite deposit. They knew, Scully
– don’t ask me how, but they knew the aliens’ Achilles heel. If Spender’s
translations are correct, this Bales is a living library of information on
how to seriously fu--, sorry, Mom, seriously mess up the extraterrestrial
population. A recipe for alien kryptonite, the genetic structure of a new
strain of black oil, who knows what else by the time Spender’s guy translates
it.”
“Mulder,” Scully said slowly, “what are you suggesting?
That this information was somehow implanted in this man. By whom? And why?
Why hide secrets like this, particularly in someone as unlikely as Bales?”
Mulder smiled, leaning over to wipe a dribble of bean sauce
from William’s chin. Then he reached over to gently lift the cross hanging
about Scully’s throat, an impish grin playing at his lips.
“Maybe whoever did this works in mysterious ways, Scully.”
St. Damon’s Catholic Church
“Monica?” It was the call every fallen Catholic knew and
dreaded. Monica turned on the church steps to face Father Moreno, with what
she hoped appeared to be a sincere smile for her family’s friend and spiritual
leader.
“Father,” she murmured, surrending to the burly old man’s
hug. “The service was beautiful. Thanks.”
Monica swallowed hard. Father Moreno was a kind, benevolent
man who’d always attended to the seemingly most trivial needs of his parishioners.
She harbored no animus toward the priest, but she would not allow herself
to lose emotional control in front of him. If Monica heard one more reflection
about God’s will, his plan…
Monica’s break with The Church had come gradually following
her graduation from
When she returned to her faith, it was to a Protestant church,
less steeped in ancient ritual and superstition. Less obviously, at least.
“It was good to see you again, Father,” she waved, struggling
not to escape down the stone steps.
“Monica,”
She sighed, still smiling. “Gee, I’ve got a ton to do here,
and I’ve got a big case on hold back home. I’ll see, OK.”
Father Moreno nodded, knowingly. “I hope time will allow.”
He turned back into his church.
Louisa Reyes was waiting at the base of the steps, jet black
hair and jet black dress neat as a pin, disapproval lining her strong
“Yes?” Monica demanded. “Don’t start, Mom.”
“Father Moreno christened you – he’s known you since God
brought you to us,” Louisa scolded. “You may no longer belong to the church,
but I thought your father and I taught you how to act with an old family
friend.”
“Sorry. I just don’t need to be brought back into the fold
just now.”
“I think you’re a bit defensive, chica,” Monica’s adoptive
mother suggested, a smile finally shaping her deep red lips. Louisa was a
respected local businesswoman, but around her family, she reverted to a Mexican-American
yenta. Monica tried to dig in her
heels, but in the end, she relented, placing an arm about Louisa’s shoulder
and steering her toward the Reyes’
“Can’t talk about it, Mom, you know that.” It wasn’t precisely
true, but Monica knew her mother was disturbed by her current assignment.
She’d always feared Monica would be sucked in by some dark cult force or
sacrificed by some coven of crazed teenaged Satanists. The move to the X-Files
had done little to assuage Louisa, and her adopted daughter soon began to
plead the Fifth when asked about her casework.
“Bullshit,” Louisa muttered dryly. Monica broke into a giggle
– it was always a shock to hear such phrases uttered by her churchgoing,
patrician mother. “Come along, chica – it’s going to be a very long evening.
By the way, how is our John? You two any closer to making any plans?”
“A very long evening,” Monica echoed.
**
As with almost every funereal culture on the planet, the
wine and liquor flowed as Paul Reyes’ survivors celebrated the fallen soldier.
Monica thus wound up on Uncle Antonio’s back porch, nursing her Coke and
resurrected memories of the true Paul Reyes.
Her nephew had been a deeply troubled boy – the booze, the
drugs, the girls, the brush with the gangs. Only Louisa’s intervention had
kept him from juvie hall his senior year, and at that, he dropped out a month
prior to graduation. He’d alienated nearly his entire family before coming
to some to-date inexplicable epiphany that launched him on a quest for his
G.E.D. and military enlistment.
It was as much the revisionist deification of Paul Reyes
that had led to Monica’s defection to the porch. He had been a deeply flawed,
deeply disturbed boy whose salvation ultimately had been his downfall. In
her current spiritual state, Paul’s epitaph offered little, if any, solace.
“There you are,” Tomas Reyes’ smooth bass voice suddenly
rumbled behind her. The paunchy but still muscular electrician grunted as
he lowered himself onto the step beside her. “I was afraid maybe those space
people your friends are so fond of had taken you away.”
Monica didn’t bristle at the reference to her unorthodox
life’s work. Her adoptive father was too good-hearted and gentle to taunt
anyone – his humor was the bedrock of the Reyes clan, and if Louisa often
was the glue that held it together, he was its foundation. Monica leaned
on his shoulder, and he squeezed her hand.
“Tough in there for you, eh?” he ventured after a few moments
of moonlit silence. Monica’s father was the only family member in whom she
had confided her problem. Her father was the only family member who understood
her problem firsthand. He still popped a Dos Equis or a Bud at lodge or family
gatherings, but he’d never mended the crack in the living room mantle that
reminded him of how he’d once lost himself to booze.
“Most of the time, I keep it together pretty well,” Monica
informed him. “It’s times like this, when things don’t make sense, when I
begin to question what all this is about.”
“Yeah,” Tomas replied simply. “That was Paul’s problem,
I think – if he couldn’t think it away, he’d drink it away. Probably my problem,
too.”
“How do you keep it under control, Dad?” Monica asked, feeling
the warmth of his arm. “I just see the stuff these days, and I’m crawling
out of my skin.”
The arm shrugged under her cheek. “Guess I’m too old for
that 12-step bullshit – I don’t mean it’s bullshit, Baby, I’m just too old
for it. Spose I just picture myself bellowing at your mama and catching you
hiding behind my chair, that look of horror in your eyes.”
Monica squeezed his calloused paw. “Stop.”
“No, you need to hold onto that, remember your old man’s
not perfect. Not you, either. It’s probably in our blood.”
“I’m adopted,” Monica recited, smiling, for the thousandth
time.
“Oh, shit; I keep forgetting,” Tomas supplied in mock surprise,
also for the thousandth time.
Verdant Cove Condominiums
“So you really think I got a case here, ah, Holmes?” Jack
Bales rattled the ice in his highball glass as he re-examined the pleasant-looking,
goateed young man across his patio table. A pair of jet skis roared past
off the adjoining beach, but the former M3 marketing man took no notice.
“Well, I don’t want to imply it’s a slam-dunk,” Mulder began
slowly. Didn’t want to overplay – Mulder had given his approach to the realtor
considerable thought. Honesty was out: A guy like Bales would’ve had condo
security toss him out on his ass. Although his company had eighty-sixed him
after his onstage display of glossalalia – subtly, of course, part of M3’s
downsizing and repositioning, complete with a sweet severance parachute –
Bales would be scouting for something else in the industry, so he wouldn’t
want to talk to a “reporter.”
The lawsuit scam had just the right smell of money to it,
and indeed, Bales had leapt at a meeting like a frat boy at a pile of nachos.
“But we are living in a PC age,” Mulder continued. “So much
as whisper sexual harassment in the workplace…”
“Yeah,” Bales growled. “
“Ee-yeah. Anyway. And it’s not just gender or race. That
security guard up in
Bales frowned. “Expressed my faith? Hell, I had no fucking
idea what I was saying up there that night. It was all Greek to me.”
“Aramaic, actually, I understand,” Mulder amended. “And
that’s irrelevant to our case. Glossalia – speaking in tongues – is a recognized
manifestation of spiritual faith. Whether you were consciously or unconsciously
expressing that faith – hell, whether you even believe in what you were saying
– doesn’t matter. You exercised your freedom of religion, your bosses abridged
that freedom. Case closed. Nolo contendre, ipso facto.”
“I dunno,” Bales stewed, crunching on a piece of ice. “Kinda
makes me sound like some kinda holy roller fruitcake. Nobody wants to hire
some Bible thumper to sell their ranch house or office building.”
Mulder leaned forward. “Mr. Bales, I daresay that if we
win this case, you’d never have to sell another beachfront property or write
another catchy slogan again. And I think we have an excellent chance of winning
this one. What do you think?”
Bales leaned back in his lounger, brows furrowed. Then he
grinned broadly. “Praise the Lord, let’s do it to ‘em.”
“Praise be,” Mulder nodded, reaching for his attaché case.
“I have just a few things for you to sign so I can get the ball rolling.
And there is just one small formality.” Bales’ eyes followed Mulder’s hand
into the case and back up to the table, where the “attorney” placed a small,
clear plastic cup with a snap-on lid.
“What the crap?” the former realtor muttered.
“You’re close,” Mulder chuckled. “Sorry. It’s just M3’s
attorneys are going to go after your physical and mental soundness, argue
your glossalalia was some form of organic imbalance, maybe even temporary
insanity.”
“I thought temporary insanity was good.”
“Only in murder cases. We
want to know what we’re up against, check to make sure your chemicals are
properly mixed. You’re a golfer, right? Just shoot for the cup.”
Bales picked up the cup, shrugged, and stood up. He reached
for his zipper.
“I don’t have to witness this,” Mulder assured him hastily.
“You can do it inside. I’ll just wait here.”
Bales nodded somberly, and disappeared inside his condo.
“Putz,” Mulder muttered, staring out at the
That was a large part of why he’d suggested she stay behind.
The both of them taking a sudden leave of absence from the college might
arise suspicion, he’d told Scully, but she’d almost certainly saw through
the weak rationale. But with William in the picture, at risk, she’d acceded
to Mulder’s wishes.
“Got it in one,” Bales bragged, stepping back onto the patio
and setting the now-filled cup before Mulder. Probably a fire hazard, Mulder
thought, glancing at the bottle of Johnny Walker Red Bales had attacked as
they discussed his “case,” but it would do the job, genetically speaking.
“Great,” Mulder smiled, wrapping the sample in a towel he’d
swiped from the Holiday Inn where he was staying. “We’ll be in touch, OK?”
“Amen,” Bales grinned, slapping the “lawyer” on the shoulder
and nearly sending his shot glass of urine on an oceanic voyage.
Tomas Reyes residence
It started as it had at least a dozen times over the past
three months.
It was a place Monica had never seen, peopled with strangers,
in a time she couldn’t quite pinpoint. This time, it was pretty clearly the
19th Century – no cars, everyone dressed roughly like the folks
of Walnut Grove, the streets were dirt and the businesses, such as they were,
were whitewashed frame structures.
Monica was running. That is, the person through whose eyes
Monica was witnessing events was running. Her FBI training led her to believe
it was a man – the way the people stared as he moved past, the way the landscape
moved in his sight as seemingly strong legs carried him down the dusty street.
He, they, entered a large barn, probably a livery stable.
A half-dozen horses were tied into open stalls, square bales stacked nearly
to the high roof on one wall. His pace slowed as he examined each stall in
turn.
“Sheriff?” It was a genteel voice, almost amiable, but frighteningly
calm nonetheless.
He whirled, and a handsome man in a suit and vest grinned
before him. His gloved hand held something shiny, which he brought up above
his head and then whipped diagonally downward.
Blood splattered over the stranger’s suit-front. It took
Monica a moment to realize it was her own, his own..
As her eyes flew open, Monica felt the breeze from her old
bedroom window against her clammy skin. The room, the ‘80s rock and salsa
posters Tomas and Louisa had lovingly preserved, were bathed in moonlight.
“It’s interesting,” the man standing beside her bed remarked.
Monica gasped and instinctively went for the nightstand drawer.
Calvin Welles held her Glock up – its matte surface glowed
in the moon’s reflected light. “Dangerous thing. Don’t wanna be firing off
one of these things in the dark, specially in your folks’ house.”
“If you did anything to them—” Monica growled.
“Shucks and pshaw,” Welles shook his head. “I don’t perform
for small audiences any more, Agent Reyes. Yeah, I know you and your boyfriend’s
looking for me for those folks in
“So you did murder those people,”
Reyes confirmed, recognizing the ludicrous nature of his bedside confession,
her gun in his hand.
“Those folks killed themselves and each other,” Welles yawned.
His brows rose in an approximation of Jack Nicholson’s. “They couldn’t handle
the truth.”
“And the aliens? The people, whatever, in that spacecraft.
Did you do the same thing to them?”
Welles said. “Say I didn’t care for the little slice-and-dice
they were about to do on me.”
Monica’s curiosity displaced her fear. “Just what do you
do to them, Mr. Welles?”
“Mr. Welles,” he repeated, amused. “Well, Monica, you don’t
mind me being so familiar, what I do, basically, is just help folks see what
they can’t see that’s all around ‘em. Kinda like a psychic seeing eye dog,
so to speak. But I’m more interested in you, Monica.”
“And what would be so interesting about me?” she inquired.
“How about immortality?” Welles posed. “Now, I find that
a very intriguing quality in a girl. “
Monica shook off the chill his words had sparked in her
gut. “So I’m immortal, huh? I had a guy in a D.C. bar call me a goddess one
time…”
“That’s another trait I like – what the good jailhouse doc
used to call self-deprecating humor. Course, he wasn’t talkin’ about me.”
Monica wondered where the truth in this man lie – the laconic
refugee from a Jeff Foxworthy routine, or the mocking sociopath who’d been
wily and ruthless enough to decimate a lab full of some of the country’s
most brilliant minds and a UFO-load of virtually invincible extraterrestrials?
Maybe some of both, or neither.
Marita Covarubias, who remained at large, had helped convert this human monster
into a psychic killing machine. That Calvin Welles also was the repository
for a number of disassociated personalities was merely a terrifying punchline
to the sick joke.
“What makes me so immortal?” Monica taunted.
“Oh, I think you got some idea. That night at the lab, first time I laid
eyes on you, I could sense you were special. I’m guessing you’re beginning
to realize that. You ever come down with a spell a’déjà vu, except it ain’t
your own déjà vu?”
Monica was silent for a moment, and he smiled broadly. “Bingo. Sorry, Monica,
I gotta confess I been eavesdroppin’ some on you from time to time. No wonder
you’re havin’ some trouble holdin’ your Jack Daniels.”
“What do you want?” Monica snapped, coldly.
“I think you and me might be able to do each other some good. Quid pro quo,
as those asshole lawyers a’mine used to say. See, I got a little personal
ailment, just like you. “
“I don’t know that I’d compare incipient alcoholism with severe multiple
personality disorder.”
Welles nodded. “Well, I’m not talkin’ about your drinkin’ problem, Monica.
I’m talkin’ about what we share.” He reached around and pulled a folded manila
envelope from his back pocket. “You got all those fancy databases and shit
at the FBI, right? Well, I’d like you to look me up a half-dozen folks for
me.”
Monica’s eyes narrowed as she accepted the envelope. “And these people are…”
“Let’s just say they’re kinda a part of me.”
“Your personalities?” she breathed. “You want me to identify your dissociated
personalities? Mr. Welles, Calvin, one of your personalities was your own
prison psychologist.”
“Ol’ Doc never was too bright,” Welles chuckled. “That was just to throw
him off my spoor, so to speak. I was funnin’ him.”
A little too much grits and cornbread, Monica decided. “So you believe these
people, I mean, your personalities are…?”
“Who you think the folks roamin’
around in your head are, Monica?” he asked, stepping into the shadow behind
the moonlight. “I’ll be in touch,” he murmured, his voice growing distant
and hollow, as if he were descending into a dark cellar.
Lyndon Baines Johnson Men’s Correctional Facility
“Ah, Agents Reyes and Doggett,” Dr. Jon Petrovich hailed
cheerfully. There was nothing menacing or taunting in the former psychologist’s
tone: He was no Hannibal Lecter, no evil mastermind, at least not in any
superficial sense. Petrovich might have been one of the crooked accountants
or Enronesque corporate stooges or tenth-tier mobsters who populated this
minimum security prison.
As such, his meeting with the FBI agents was conducted without
the need for six-inch-thick plexiglass, muzzles, or armed guards. The post-Bush
governor still held forth for rehabilitation of white, middle-class paper
felons, and he was dressed in wide-wale corduroys and a fading black polo
shirt rather than a Department of Corrections jumpsuit. Petrovich’s smile
was a genuine one, one that betrayed pleasure at communing once again with
the those on the side of the law he’d abandoned.
“Doc,” Doggett greeted, dropping the envelope Welles had
left his partner on the formica conference table. He’d rushed to
Monica had clearly been happy to see Doggett, and she was
animated about Welles’ nocturnal visit. But the small talk played out after
an hour or so, and she stared silently out the window for a good 40 miles
before they’d reached Sweetwater.
Petrovich reached anxiously for the envelope, and pored
over its contents with nods and appreciative grunts. Finally, he looked up.
“Two years ago, I’d have branded these the delusions of
a disassociative personality in denial,” the psychologist said. “A rationale
for his psychoses. Calvin clearly never had any memory of lapsing into his
alternate identities, and we discussed each of them at some depth.
“However, Calvin was never one to rationalize himself. His
actions, perhaps, but not himself. He admitted to being a sociopath, a violent
murderer – he was egomaniacal but ultimately honest with himself. I don’t
think he’d have tried to ‘excuse’ his disassociation. And after my involvement
with Ms. Covarubias and her associates, I have developed a wide latitude
of belief and acceptance.”
He tapped the top sheet of Welles’ missive. “There’s something
else, too – something I never discussed with Calvin. Irrelevant to our therapy.
See, several of his personalities left ‘clues,’ so to speak, that might verify
Calvin’s theory. The ‘boy’ who emerged from Calvin on occasion, Obadiah,
well, the name itself is archaic, outmoded, plus he had a rather stilted
manner of speaking. As did a few of the others. I talked at some depth with
what appeared to be one of the more predominant personalities, a homosexual
named Will, who was familiar with such conveniences as the automobile but
fascinated by my computer and fax machine. And Margaret, a young British
woman, made a seemingly contemporary reference to Disraeli – Benjamin Disraeli,
I assume.”
“What about Welles ‘becoming’ you?” Doggett challenged.
“You think he was faking that?”
“It’s the kind of mocking deception Calvin would have relished.
I’d always half-suspected he was playing with me.”
“So what are you saying?” Monica murmured. “That these are
manifestations of Welles’ past lives.”
Petrovich sat back, templing his fingers, relishing the
opportunity to again amaze a lay audience with his insight. “I might venture
one bold step further – that these ‘personalities’ are the people ‘Calvin’
once was. No manifestations – the actual souls that inhabit Calvin Welles’
human vessel.”
“Please,” Doggett sighed. Monica hushed him with a finger.
“Like some form of reincarnation?” she demanded.
“Well, possibly. Except that in most theories of reincarnation,
the soul transmigrates into a new organism or person after the previous one
dies. They aren’t supposed to accumulate like old newspapers on the porch
step.” Petrovich was silent, eyeing Monica with bemusement. “You seem agitated,
Agent Reyes. Do you subscribe to this hogwash I’ve just blathered? Do you
have some interest, a personal one, in the solution to Calvin’s conundrum?”
“What amazes me, Doc,” Doggett began blandly, “Is that you
aren’t more agitated about Welles being out there, at large. You sold Welles
down the river to a bunch of scientists who wanted him to play guinea pig…”
“In the process, saving Calvin from a barbaric execution,”
Petrovich pointed out. “Agent, I appreciate your concern, but I don’t believe
Calvin has any nefarious plans of revenge for me. I think he wants to understand
and be understood, and he recognizes that I’m perhaps the only person, at
least in this world, who can help him do that.”
**
“There’s a testament to the psychiatric profession,” Doggett
rumbled as the last guard released them. Monica trailed him toward the parking
lot. “How would we even be able to start to check out that whacko theory
of his? We only have a bunch of first names. And, if I might ask, why? Is
it gonna help us catch Welles?”
“Maybe if we understand him,” Monica echoed Petrovich. “I
could begin with the federal birth and death registries…”
Doggett halted. “Wait a minute. You really think this is
something worth pursuing? Or…”
“Or what?” Monica asked calmly, crossing her arms.
“Well, I remember how that case at the slaughterhouse a
year or so ago shook you up. You didn’t buy into what that cop said, that
he and you are locked in some kind of endless loop, being born over and over
again? The forces of good and evil, locked in perpetual combat? C’mon, Monica.”
“Why are concepts like reincarnation or past lives any more
incredible than half the cases we’ve investigated?” She hesitated. “Look,
John, I haven’t told you about the dreams I’ve been having the past few months.
And I never have been able to track down my biological parents, even though
I’ve searched every available national database.”
“I didn’t know you’d tried,” Doggett said, concerned. “Look,
beyond trying to make us a Love Connection, aren’t Tomas and Louisa pretty
terrific parents?”
Monica began moving toward
the rental car. “That’s not what it’s about, John. I need to know. I have
a feeling the answer has something to do with my birth parents. I just need
to know, John.”
“God, you sound like Mulder.”
“If you saw a photo of a spaceship full of murdered aliens,
and I was visited by a psychic serial killer who can disappear into another
dimension at will, then maybe one of us needs to,” Monica said evenly, leaving
her partner standing on the hot
“Sure, anything but ham, pepperoni, bacon, Canadian bacon,
or sausage,” Chaim Silver muttered, not missing a beat as he rapped his translation
of Jack Bales’ meandering post-dinner speech into his Powerbook. “I actually
like hamburger, but I’ve been slipping a little, so could we leave off the
cheese?”
Mulder turned off his cell phone. “Actually, if I remember
my kosher laws, are you even supposed to be eating anything that’s come out
of a kitchen where they’ve prepared ham, pepperoni, bacon, Canadian bacon,
or sausage?”
“I’m kind of quasi-semi-Orthodox – I’m not a zealot,” Silver
adjusted the embroidered yarmulke that was at odds with his Phish T-shirt
and Reeboks. The young post-doctoral linguistics/theology student and skateboarder
had been poring over Bales’ Aramaic ramblings for hours, and a bored Mulder
finally had suggested they take a break. The computer and chem labs were
hidden deep within the bowels of the video studio where Spender’s friends
spent most days producing industrial films and soft porn.
“How about Chinese?” the ex-agent requested, his gut gurgling.
“Beef and broccoli, white rice, no MSG, I get a headache,”
Silver ordered. “Make sure you get a couple of the fortune cookies – I get
a kick out of the quasi-Talmudic platitudes…Hmm.”
Mulder peered over the rotund man’s shoulder to gaze at
what he had typed. “What?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” Silver said. “Something about fathers
from the stars. Not father, singular, but fathers. The problem with these
ancient languages is that one word can mean eight different things, or eight
words may mean the same thing, depending on how they’re used. You know how
many words the Inuits have just to describe snow?”
“No, but you’re going to tell
me, right? Look, I saw a deli down the street. Why don’t I just grab us a
nosh?”
“You’re a mensch, Mulder. Corned beef, rye, Russian dressing,
you know what, make it two of those. Large order of matzoh soup, couple sour
dills. See if they’ve got some carrot cake. Oh, and a celery tonic.”
Mulder shook his head. “How about a loaf and a couple of
fish?”
“Goy food. Hey, how’d you hook up with Jeffrey, anyway?”
The fingers continued to work the keys. “You seem less -- what do I want
to say? – anal retentive than most of his repertory cast of assassins and
golem.”
“Used to work for the FBI. In the basement, working on Art
Bell-type cases.”
“Least you’re a ghoul with a sense of humor. Me, I’m doing
my post-doc on apocalyptic artifacts and documents. There’s an awesome amount
of ancient literature on the prospective end of our world, a lot of it eerily
coincidental from society to society. Jeffrey caught up with me on campus,
had heard I had a pretty solid grasp of both Aramaic and Anasazi. Dude’s
seriously in need of a good cosmetic surgeon, and he’s got this real Phantom
of the Opera vibe, but we got along, and besides, this saving the world shit
is kind of Buffyesque. Now, there’s one hot shiksa.”
“Glad you’re having fun,” a dry, raspy voice sounded from
the doorway.
“Speak of the golem,” Silver muttered, returning to his
keys.
“Holmes,” Larry Opps continued, “I got something.” The young
geneticist played with the tip of the cigarette pack peeking from the breast
pocket of his oversized plaid shirt. Constant smoking had kept Opps jaundiced
and thin, and he reminded Mulder of someone he hadn’t seen for more than
a year – someone he’d have just as soon forgotten. “Didn’t want to say anything
‘til I got some solid results, but Spender’s had me running DNA from several
subjects, all these holy-roller tongue babblers.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, our 2003 Humanitas Award winner,”
Silver intoned. Mulder wondered darkly how Spender’s friends had harvested
the other DNA samples.
“There’s a genetic anomaly that’s common to all of them,
and Bales, too. An extra chromosomal pair, both in the male and female subjects.”
Opps paused to hack and turn maroon. “Shit. Anyway, those chromosomes don’t
seem to have any physiological function: They’re all healthy, happy – or
at least maniacally goofy – people.”
“So you think this could be linked to the glossalalia,”
Mulder asked.
Opps shrugged. “It isn’t rational. Disease, organically
based behaviors, even schizophrenia and other mental and emotional problems
are based in screwy genetics. But speaking in tongues, and saying stuff that
according to Silver makes sense? That’s fucked, man.”
“I concur, young Cartman,” Mulder nodded. “But what if these
extra chromosomes have been encoded with data – bioelectrical data? What
if they may even be encoded so that at some point, the stored information
is spontaneously released.”
Opps agitatedly pulled the pack from his shirt and shook
loose a cancer stick. “Sci-fi bullshit. Who or what do you think would or
could do something like that?”
Silver’s fingers hung momentarily over the keyboard. “I
think you’ve got the wrong question, my agnostic friend. Don’t ask who. I
think the question is why? And then maybe you answer everything. You know,
make it three corned beef sandwiches.”
**
“That’s the White Eagles – I ran into Michael at the Wal-Mart,”
Scully explained, closing the bedroom door on the laughter and clinking of
good glasses. “When they heard you were out of town, they decided to come
over and keep William and I company. Either they’re buying into your little
‘symposium,’ or Michael is already hooked into your warped wavelength and
knows not to ask.”
“More of us every day, Scully,” Mulder warned, slowly swinging
the bag of deli as the pleasant evening breeze riffled through his thin beard.
To the outside world,
Silence. “In and of itself, the genome contains the basic
data of our existence. Vast combinations of four basic proteins responsible
for every human function.”
“I love it when you talk like
a seventh grade science video. C’mon, Scully; you think it’s possible to
program someone genetically?”
“To start babbling dead languages like a bad travel tape?
If so, it’s certainly beyond any technology I know of on Earth.”
A red convertible breezed by, the man and woman aboard clean
and crisp and perfectly groomed in indigenous tropical party wear. Mulder
sighed. “Maybe that’s the point, Scully. Maybe this was encoded into
Homo sapiens at some early stage of development, maybe even in our infancy.”
“To what end, Mulder? If you’re
suggesting some alien race implanted this ‘code’ in humanity, why would they
include detailed instructions that could leave them vulnerable, possibly
even planting the seeds of their own destruction?”
“I don’t know, Scully. Look, you’ve seen firsthand what
Jeremiah Smith could do, and as a scientist, you have to believe there’s
some sort of biological rationale for it. Maybe just not a rationale based
in human biology. And as for why, why does Smith rescue us from his own species,
rid humans of the black oil? And what happened to the Syndicate in that hangar
five years ago tells me he’s not alone. What if—?”
“Mulder? Mulder, are you there?”
The convertible had turned
into the narrow alleyway beside
“Mulder?” Scully persisted.
“Yeah,” Mulder responded slowly, reaching into the waistband
under his tee for his nine millimeter. “I gotta go now, Babe. Give the folks
a big kiss for me.”
“Mulder!” Scully admonished as he ended the transmission
and started for the
He heard it about 30 yards out – the muffled sound of automatic
weaponry. Mulder’s heart pounded as he realized there was nothing he could
do to save Larry and Chaim. He halted reluctantly on the pavement, edged
out of site along the adjacent bank building, peered into the alley, turned,
and walked briskly away.
This remote reach of the business district was virtually
deserted at dusk, and no one noticed as the convertible edged back onto the
street and cruised almost silently away. Mulder waited on a Metro bench a
half-block away until he was certain the couple in the coupe had not been
accompanied by a clean-up crew or set the building to explode to obliterate
any remaining evidence, or that the police had not been called by a workaholic
neighbor.
As he punched the building’s security code into the pad
by the thick glass doors, Mulder pondered the identity of the assassins.
Certainly, his extraterrestrial friends would have had more subtle means
for neutralizing the secret lab than this. This wasn’t Marita Covarubias’
style, and besides, from what Spender had put together from covert accounts
of the lab disaster in
That left the shadow government forces responsible for genetically
engineering Knowle Rohrer and his supersoldier cohorts, or Strughold, the
shadowy Syndicate hanger-on who according to Spender’s and the late Lone
Gunmen’s sketchy intelligence had collaborated in his time with the Nazis,
Soviet Intelligence, the CIA, and, apparently, the alien race that sought
to take the Earth in 2012. Spender’d reported the supersoldier project had
gone underground since Mulder’s military tribunal, and if the federal government
wasn’t involved in this, who could be bankrolling Strughold?
The door to Chaim Silver’s inner sanctum hung open, the
combination lock riddled and twisted. Mulder could smell the hot metallic
aroma of a massacre, and he took a breath as he entered.
“Agent Mulder,” murmured the man who knelt over Silver’s
fallen body. Larry Opps was sprawled nearby, blood oozing into the plaid
of his shirt. Mulder instinctively leveled his nine at the intruder. “Please
don’t interfere, Agent,” the calm, familiar voice advised as the man spread
his fingers over Chaim’s chest.
“Jeremiah,” Mulder whispered.
J.
Doggett blinked and rubbed his eyes. The computer screen
was beginning to blur, and he felt a gurgle in the pit of his gut. The Big
Mac he’d washed down with a Coke at lunch was all but a gaseous memory now,
but he felt compelled to stick with his search.
Monica seemed poised on the brink of fatal obsession about
Calvin Welles and the common bond he’d hinted they shared. That, combined
with her recent alcoholic relapse, had Doggett worried. Their job was dangerous
enough, but even his own hard-bitten
Monica had left with a curt nod for
As rapidly as it had evolved, the digital revolution was
in its relative infancy. Family and university websites, rather than official
databases, had yielded most of the information Doggett sought. Thad Christie,
38, wheelwright,
Two of the names on Calvin Welles’ list – two of the multiple
murderer’s purported “personalities” -- had as yet defied identification.
Patricia Urbanski and Frank Riesner. His blood sugar waning, Doggett had
grabbed a Snickers from the machine upstairs and set forth on his second
task, calling bureaucrats and cops along the Texas-Mexico border as well
as a Houston-based
The agent was punching numbers into Mulder’s former phone
as a shadow appeared in his peripheral vision. Doggett glanced up, handset
frozen near his right ear.
“Hello, John.” Deputy Director Alvin Kersh perched on the
edge of Monica’s desk. Doggett cradled the phone as the director regarded
the poster behind his head. It depicted a grainy “flying saucer” hovering
above a terrestrial landscape, the bold sans serif statement “I Want To Believe”
printed below. “I thought that had been destroyed months ago.”
Doggett was weary, calorie-deprived,
and concerned for his partner. “Did somebody put in a damage report, or did
you oversee its removal yourself? I didn’t want Mulder to come back here
someday and think we’d been irresponsible with his property.”
Kersh was motionless. He smiled slightly, choosing to ignore
Doggett’s insubordinate comment. “That you continue to suffer the delusion
former Agent Mulder might someday resurface and reclaim his rightful place
here is symptomatic of why you’re stranded here in this outpost of lost ambition,
John. You’re one of the best agents I ever knew – unerring police instincts,
incorruptible, willing to do what was necessary to apprehend your man. Then
you veered off on this crusade of yours, first to find Mulder, then to save
him from himself, and now, what, to keep his chair warm?
“The shame here, John, is that you’ve sacrificed your own self-respect and
esteem for the sake of an emotionally disturbed rogue, a misfit who soiled
the agency’s name. You’ve obliterated any hope of moving forward with what
might have been a promising career, not to mention your personal happiness.
The only legacy you’ve inherited from Mulder is isolation and regret.”
Doggett stood up. “The only regret I have is that I failed Mulder
when his life depended on it. I betrayed him with my narrow cop refusal to
open my mind to the possibility that he was right. And if you’re so convinced
he was a rogue, a misfit, why did you do what you did? Or were you just setting
Mulder up for—”
“Careful, John,” Kersh murmured, his eyes frosting over with anger and, Doggett
thought, fear. Righteous anger, real fear. Had his role in Mulder’s escape
from a military execution been sincere, an act of rebellion against the alien-contaminated
power structure. Kersh once had obliquely hinted at a coming revolution,
but Doggett had been uncertain whether the director ultimately would side
with the patriots or the alien “colonists” who appeared now to pull his strings.
“I didn’t come down here to engage in verbal pyrotechnics, John,” Kersh continued,
notching quickly down. “I’m concerned about some reports I’m hearing about
Agent Reyes. About her extracurricular conduct.”
Doggett felt a jolt of alarm. Had Monica’s alcohol problem become a matter
of Bureau gossip? He couldn’t nursemaid her every evening, and he wondered
if the emotions she’d betrayed the night of her nephew’s death had emerged
at any of the local watering holes frequented by her fellow agents.
“Hadn’t heard anything like that,” Doggett said, eyes boring into Kersh’s.
“Even though I might argue her extracurricular conduct, as you call it, might
still be considered her business.”
“Unless it begins to creep onto the Job,” the deputy director said evenly.
“It’s your back Agent Reyes is hired to watch. You feeling safe these days?”
Doggett’s chair rattled back, and the flying saucer shimmied on the wall,
and he grabbed his jacket. “Why don’t you watch my back and tell me?” he
growled, moving past Kersh.
“By the way,” Kersh called. “Did you know a Bill Kesey?”
The agent froze, staked to the floor by Kersh’s use of the past tense.
“Agent out of the
“It was an X-File,” Doggett mumbled.
“Ah. And would Kesey have consulted you and the free-ranging Director Skinner
on another case, a highly-classified matter for which I am confident you
lack the federal clearance?”
Doggett was silent.
“Well, no matter. I’m sorry to tell you Agent Kesey was the victim of a car-bomb
explosion early this morning, outside his home. You may be contacted regarding
any knowledge you had of his investigations. I hope you two hadn’t become
too close, John.” Kersh neatly sidestepped the stunned Doggett. “Don’t leave
on my account. I wouldn’t want to keep you from your ‘work.’”
The phone on Mulder’s desk warbled four times before Doggett stumbled to
pick it up. “Doggett.”
“John?” the voice, thick with
It was Ted, Doggett’s friend in the
“The agent in
“You get anything, Ted?”
Ted paused. He knew what Doggett didn’t want to say was best left unsaid.
“Yep, and it’s right up your alley. You know, it’s a lucky thing your partner
was adopted on the other side of the border, because sometimes, it’s easier
to get the whereabouts of Bin Laden than it is to break into adoption records.
The Mexican authorities weren’t so tight-lipped, especially after I pulled
in a few favors.”
“Thanks, Ted. It’s pretty important.”
Whether to Doggett, the Bureau, or the freedom of the civilized world, Ted
didn’t ask. “Anyway, the adoption was like some kind of Bing Crosby movie
– Anglo baby left in the sanctuary of a church just over from
“Now, where this veers off from
“One was a missing 16-year-old, Karen Bellefort, Andrews-area preacher’s
daughter. Real wild hair, this gal. Drugs, booze, gave it away to anybody
asked halfway nice and almost everybody didn’t. Course, this was the late
‘60s. Turns out they sent her off to an aunt in
Doggett dropped into his chair. “A couple of burgers. Like maybe one for
Daddy. Mom and Pop ship their little mother off to the hinterlands ‘til she
gives birth, and she and the father make a break for
“And that’s where it appears to grow hair. Assuming Daddy was a kid, too,
I started looking for any missing
juvies at the time who looked right. Nothing popped up, so I widened the
search. All I came up with who fit the time and who could’ve known our girl
was one Trey Rexmiller, 19-year-old druggie who worked at the same ice cream
joint as Karen.”
“Wait, wait,” Doggett suddenly interrupted. He tore papers from the desk
until he recovered the list Calvin Welles had given Monica. The agent scanned
the roster, then slumped back in his chair.
“John?” he heard Ted eventually inquire. “Hey, buddy; you there.”
“Sorry, Ted,” Doggett said, his mind racing. “You were saying this kid worked
with the girl.”
“He was a patch of mighty bad road – straight-A kid ‘til his sophomore year
of high school, graduated from pot to cocaine between his junior and senior
year, broke some kid’s collarbone at a church festival, and slid out from
under at least one statutory rape charge. And that ain’t all. The local sheriff
thought Rexmiller might’ve been mixed up with some kind’ve Satanic coven.
Coven, that’s what they call ‘em?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Doggett said
slowly, trying not to ponder the possibilities.
“Looks like the boy was trying to find acceptance, I’d say was I one of the
left-wing feel-good types. He was also one of these UFO nuts – always regalin’
his buddies and coworkers with stories about aliens and life on other planets
and such.”
The second blow landed somewhere between Doggett’s sternum and gut. “Jesus,”
he murmured. “What happened to Rexmiller?”
“Well, the night before Karen
Bellefort went missing, an neighborhood grocery near the Rexmiller place
got robbed right before closing. Owner was gut-shot, and nobody ever saw
Trey again. Two and two, buddy.”
“Maybe that was their stake, some running money,” Doggett considered.
“These were your partner’s people, maybe you wanna tell her I came up snake
eyes. Might do her a favor.”
“Might,” Doggett said, glancing anxiously at Rexmiller’s unchecked name on
Calvin Welles’ list. “Ted, you think you might Fed-Ex this stuff to me?”
“Sure. If you’re sure, John.”
“I’m not sure of anything,” Doggett said quietly.
Oglala,
“Hon?” Scully looked up to see Connie White Eagle in the
kitchenette doorway, concern lining her dark, handsome face. “Is everything
all right?”
Scully forced a smile as she cradled the outdated yellow
wall phone that had come with the fashionably low-rent apartment. “Mul— Sherman
and I were disconnected. Probably just drove into a bad cell. Not a big deal.”
Connie raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been off in your own world
for the last half-hour, and this is the third time you’ve tried to call
Scully’s smile warmed – living
here, she’d become accustomed to the tribal custom of cutting to the chase.
She’d come to relish the White Eagles’ candor and concern, although her affection
for the couple was tinged with guilt and a measure of anguish. If the time
ever came to account for her lies, their masquerade, would Michael and Connie
understand? Michael’s badge only complicated their relationship, and, at times,
Scully wondered if only his sense of loyalty and respect had prevented him
from making the series of calls that would have shattered their façade.
“I just worry when John’s on the road, that’s all,” Scully
shrugged.
“Don’t ever try to fool the Native American polygraph machine,”
Connie scolded mildly, tapping her temple. “Something’s been bothering you
two the last week or so. Ever since Michael spotted
Scully’s head snapped up, and she felt a cold shot of adrenalin
in her gut. “A strange man? On campus. Oh, wait. Dressed oddly for the weather?
Facial injuries? Connie, that’s an old colleague of
She stopped. Connie was expressionless, neither belief nor
judgment registering. Scully sighed.
“Trust me, please, Connie,” Scully finally whispered, hoarsely.
“Just…trust me.”
Connie did not move. Her face was as one of the totems that
protected the nearby reservation.
“I can’t…” Scully pleaded. “I…” She waved a hand and slumped
back against the counter. Her face was stricken as she looked up at her friend.
“I can’t do this. God help us. Whether for lying to you or for telling you
this now, I don’t know.”
“Maybe for both, Hon,” Connie offered.
“Your friends should be all right now, with some continued
attention,” “Jeremiah Smith” advised a bone-weary but astonished Mulder.
Larry and Chaim were unconscious on a pair of employee lounge couches, with
no sign of their recent trauma remaining but some puckered scars. These,
too, would soon disappear.
“How’d you know where --” Mulder began, then held up a hand.
“Never mind. I thought you’d been hijacked back to Alpha Centauri or wherever.
You know, while I was dead.”
Smith offered the approximation
of a smile – the alien healer possessed no sense of humor in an earthly sense,
but he was innately humane. “The division within our society is growing,
and I was fortunate to find an ally – what you call a rebel – within my enemy’s
ranks. My work here must be continued.”
“What is that work, if I may be nosy?” Mulder queried.
Smith paused. “Our charge.”
“Oh, there you go. Huh?”
“This is difficult, both to explain and for me to explain,
Agent Mulder. You – your race – was never to know. Or perhaps this is the
time for you to know.” That almost-smile passed briefly again. “You see my
dilemma.”
Mulder nodded. “Not even one little bit. Does this have
anything to do with realtors speaking in tongues? Did you guys do that?”
“Not precisely,” Jeremiah Smith said.
**
“Several hundreds of thousands of years ago, we came to
this planet,” Jeremiah began. “It was one of only a handful we know of –
and we’ve traveled light years over nearly a half-million years – that had
the precise mix of atmospheric chemicals, water, and carbon complexes necessary
to produce life. Unlike nearly every one of those other worlds, life had
progressed to a stage where sentient life was conceivable. That promise rested
in a bipedal primate that lie somewhere near
Homo habilus on your evolutionary scale. You’re familiar with the organism
called ‘black oil’?”
“The virus,” Mulder murmured.
Jeremiah now smiled. “That would imply a subordinate position
in our biological system. If anything, the opposite might be true. But no
matter: This ‘virus’ played an instrumental role in developing this candidate
species into an organism capable of organization, toolmaking, and both independent
and community thought. In short, mankind.”
“My God. I guess that explains the lack of any clear fossil
evidence of a missing link or common primate ancestor. We were genetically
engineered.”
“And the ‘experiment’ was a complete success. We watched
this new species progress from manufacturing tools of stone and metal to
building cities, societies, advanced technologies, and complex cultures.
We maintained an observers’ distance for millennia, watching your every major
societal and scientific evolution. And every once in a while, we would be
observed in turn. In some rare instances, where necessary, we would nudge
societies toward development. In a few of those cases, our presence unfortunately
was documented.”
“Erich Von Daniken rocks,”
Mulder grinned. Then he turned serious. “So your people – species, sorry,
didn’t mean to be Earth-centric – basically groomed us for what? To develop
resources, technologies you could someday use to colonize the planet?”
Jeremiah’s expression was blank. Mulder laughed ruefully.
“What?” Jeremiah inquired.
“Oh, nothing. I was just thinking that if I survive this
and what you’re telling me gets out, a lot of Christians, Jews, Muslims,
Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, Zoroastrians, and animists are going to have
to figure out something else to do with their weekends.”
Again, the alien healer’s face was devoid of emotion.
“What?” This time, it was Mulder’s turn.
Jeremiah hesitated for a long minute, then appeared to make
a decision. “Agent Mulder, you leap to the same conclusion your people and
mine have been making over the course of our respective histories. You assume
that because we designed life that we ourselves were its creators.”
The ex-agent blinked, then leaned back in his chair, his
eyes wide with sudden realization. “You’re shitting me.”
“No,” Jeremiah replied simply.
**
“It was our charge, our commission, your theologians might
call it. Hundreds of thousands of terrestrial years ago, during what you
call Earth’s Cenozoic Period, our society was at what I can only term a meltdown
point, both sociologically and ethically. Violence had become an everyday
occurrence, a way of life. Betrayal was the norm, and our societal institutions
were collapsing on themselves. We were in danger of extinction from within.
“And then we were offered a way out, a path to salvation,
you might say. According to the most reliable historical records we have,
the plan came to 12 of our scientists simultaneously, as if it had been transmitted
into them. Every detail was identical from scientist to scientist – the complete
schematics of a genome for a species we’d never encountered, the protein
manipulations we’d need to alter that species, the fundamental tools and
technologies we would introduce to this ‘new’ species. Also included were
the coordinates of a planet 200 of your light-years away, along with the technology
needed to travel beyond our star system.
“And all 12 scientists received this warning: That we as
a species would face extinction if we failed to fulfill this commission.
We were to foster this new race, shepherd it to societal fruition, and continue
to monitor its development and ensure its essential well-being.
“Of course, the scientists were subjected to ridicule. They
were accused of everything from fraud to mass delusion, and even persecuted.
One was murdered in his laboratory. But then, something occurred that persuaded
us that this commission was crucial. Within hours of the scientist’s death,
our star, our sun, cooled by several hundred thousand degrees Fahrenheit.
A million or so of our species were reported to have died before the sun’s
energy returned, and it took nearly 100 years to fully restore society to
a fully functional state. However, work began immediately to travel to Earth.”
“Probably a solar anomaly,” Mulder scoffed.
Jeremiah’s near-smile returned. “A plausible explanation,
except that this occurrence was foretold to each of the 12 scientists.”
“Still, though, you do only have the word of these scientists
that they shared a mutual ‘vision,’ and God knows – no pun intended – God
knows how many times the story’s been twisted and shaped to fit your society’s
belief system.”
“Those are very logical points, Agent Mulder,” Jeremiah
nodded somberly. “Except that our society at that point had progressed to
a stage of technological development where we needed not rely on stone tablets
or traveling disciples or monks writing on foolscap to relate history. Visual
documentation was made of the scientists soon after their ‘visions’ occurred,
including their prediction that a solar disaster might occur. And yes, they
were scientists, and might have been able to forecast such an astronomical
event. Perhaps, you might say, the scientists, knowing a global threat was
soon to present itself, conspired to contrive this great ‘plan’ out of a
desire to save their world. Our species, like yours’, is reluctant not only
to believe what cannot be conclusively proven but to accept that any entity
more powerful than itself might exist. Particularly if this entity is capable
of reducing an entire species to icy rubble or ashes.”
“Then why do you buy all of this, you should pardon me,
so blindly?” Mulder challenged.
“Because of what is now happening, what has been unfolding
for several centuries,” Jeremiah responded. “Only now have you discovered
the key to proving the existence of everything your species and mine have
unwaveringly questioned or dismissed.”
“Bales,” Mulder mumbled. He looked up at Jeremiah. “Your
people installed the genetic code, essentially invented
Homo sapiens. But he, she, it, God, Allah, Morty, whatever, knew they
likely couldn’t be trusted. So he, she, it built in a genetic backdoor, a
failsafe, I assume in selected individuals. The means to protect mankind…”
“From us,” Jeremiah finished.
**
“OK,” Mulder announced as he pocketed his Spender-supplied
cell phone. “Skinner’s lined up a safe house for Jay and Silent Bob here.”
It had been the first time he had contacted his former assistant
director since Skinner had helped Mulder and Scully escape “military” justice,
nearly a year before. Spender’s phone possessed a very special “roaming”
feature, and after receiving a prearranged code phrase, Skinner had called
back from a bar phone six blocks from the
“It’s in a little rural hole about 50 miles from here,”
Mulder continued. “Retired Drug Enforcement Agency guy Skinner knew in
“Take it easy, Chaim,” Mulder murmured. Silver’s eyes went
wide, and then his eyebrow arched. “What, Chaim?”
The shooting “victim” shook his head sheepishly as he waved
toward Jeremiah Smith. “I thought he was God. I couldn’t figure out where
you came in.” He examined his bloody shirtfront and gingerly felt his chest
and abdomen. “Sure as shit don’t make bullets like they used to, do they?”
“The bad news is, I don’t think you’ll be able to file an
insurance claim,” the ex-agent grinned. “The good news is, I think you picked
the right major.”
Mulder rapidly outlined Jeremiah’s revelations.
“So there is a God,” Silver mumbled, in awe. “Holy crap.
Sorry, it’s just like lusting after Winona Ryder your whole life, and then
she shows up one day on your doorstep with a bottle of wine and a raging
case of surging hormones.”
“Amen,” Mulder said reverently.
“I just meant, somehow, in the back of your mind, you always
harbor some nibbling doubt that lets you off the hook, you know? Cause you
may never have to pay for your sins, you know? But, now… And not to mention
how fucking screwed-up I’ll bet my post-doc thesis is.”
“Maybe God’s a party-loving deity,” Mulder offered. “Look,
you think you can travel?”
Chaim sat up slowly and flexed his shoulders, astonishment
blossoming in his eyes.
“As long as it isn’t Branson,” he responded.
**
Mulder glanced up at the rearview mirror as he heard Larry
Opps groan from the backseat. Another RV roared past as the geneticist came
to, blinking and exploring the interior of Mulder’s rental car.
“Welcome back from the dead,” Chaim murmured as he craned
over his headrest. “So you feel a little foolish now you know God’s a Jewish
chick?”
“What happened?” Opps demanded groggily, ignoring the linguist/scholar.
He yanked at the clean new South Coast Video tee Mulder had exchanged for
his plaid-and-bloodstained shirt. “I know I didn’t dream this. You and I
were dead as fucking disco, Silver.”
“Things change,” Chaim shrugged as he looked back to the
pines and palms that rushed past their car. “You missed E.T. – he had places
to be. And I didn’t even get to thank him for saving our sorry asses.”
“Quit being so fucking cryptic,” Opps growled, examining
the puckered scars on his chest and stomach. Then, the tail of his shirt
dropped back into place as he sat up. “Jesus, what about the data? Tell me
they didn’t trash the system. Fucking tell me they didn’t trash the system”
“Wiped clean,” Mulder sighed, watching for his exit.
Opps dropped back against the seat. “Shit. Well, at least
I’d just e-mailed an update to Spender. Except for a few background notes,
he ought to have just about everything we know by now. Hey, shit, man!!”
Mulder had yanked the car
over two lanes and onto the berm, sparking a symphony of indignant horns.
The agent cut the engine, and leaned around the seat. “How soon before the
gunfire began did you send Spender the data?”
“I dunno, a half-hour or so,” Opps drawled. Then his eyes
widened. “Oh, fuck.”
“Well-spoken,” Mulder said grimly. “Just enough time to
receive the data and order a crew in to clean up.”
“Spender killed us, ah, tried to kill us?” Chaim breathed.
“Why? I thought we were all on the same team.”
Mulder suddenly groaned, and yanked Spender’s cell phone
from his pocket. “Shit, shit, shit!” he shouted, banging it against the dashboard
and tossing it into the thicket at the side of the highway. “I called Skinner’s
safe house on this thing. Boys, we’ve got to go to Plan B.”
“And what’s Plan B?” Opps asked.
“Fuck if he knows,” Chaim supplied the punchline.
Oglala, S.D.
XXXX
“I can’t tell you everything,” Scully began quietly, hands
steepled on her thighs as she rocked subconsciously on the ottoman Mulder
had appropriated from the Goodwill store downtown. “Not only would you find
the truth utterly beyond human credibility, but Mulder and I might actually
be endangering your life. I may be now.”
“Mulder?” Michael queried from his seat on the bay windowsill
that had been a major selling point for the ex-agents.
“Fox Mulder. And I’m Dana Scully. Hi, folks,” Scully smiled
sadly, her voice cracking. Connie reached over and took her hand.
“Fox.” Michael savored the name, a smile forming deep creases
in his weathered cheeks. He murmured something in his people’s tongue.
“Michael,” Connie admonished. “Go ahead.”
“We’re federal fugitives, former FBI agents. The military,
or should I say forces representing themselves as the military, trumped up
murder charges against Mulder. We managed to escape before they could kill
him, but the man he was accused of murdering wasn’t, well, wasn’t dead, and
they sent him after us. We were set up here soon after.”
Michael nodded somberly. “You’re the FBI agents, then. The
X-Files.”
Scully’s eyes widened. “I didn’t think they’d put out any
warrants or law enforcement alerts on us. I didn’t think they’d want to attract
attention.”
The Native American lawman smiled as he glanced down at
the street. “You forget – we’re a people of belief, of ‘superstition,’ you
might say. Spooky Mulder is a legend to me – a white man who understands
the world beyond our world. Just as William’s father, my curious new brother,
does.” Michael looked up with a grin. “C’mon,
Scully’s face relaxed, and she grinned back. “I knew that
alias wouldn’t wash.”
Michael again turned serious, and looked at Connie. “Now,
I have to confess. I knew soon after we met that there was something that
wasn’t, as my people would say, kosher about you two. I did a little investigating
of my own.”
Scully’s eyes moved to Connie, whose face was impassive
but whose eyes blazed at her husband. Michael was unapologetic.
“I couldn’t find any verifiable history on either of you,
but I couldn’t crack your story, either. Whoever created this new life for
you wasn’t some street criminal with a printing press and a few good connections.
This had to involve some scary people. CIA?”
“No one you’d know,” Scully said dryly. “I hope.”
“And how well do you know them?” Michael asked quietly,
again staring out the window.
“What do you mean?” Scully’s voice rang with hollow dread.
“The black ’93 Buick that’s been parked a half-block down
all evening. The same one that dropped Sherman’s – Mulder’s – faceless friend
off at the college last week.”
Scully leapt from the ottoman. Michael waved her back.
“It’s not parked down the block any more,” he said, grimly.
“They just pulled up out front. They’re coming up…”
The cool night air staggered Monica, robbing her breath
for a moment. Rather than counteracting the wine and tobacco, the slightly
tainted oxygen seemed only to intensify her disorientation.
Fell off both wagons in one night, she reflected, savoring
the lingering taste of the Morley Light one of the agents had “loaned” her.
Jan would have an aneurysm. Doggett would give deliver yet another lecture,
one of his tough cop, Scared Straight sermons.
She’d run into an old friend, now a cybercrime specialist,
at
Even in her slightly debilitated state, Monica the agent
knew she was unable to drive safely home, and she began to peer down the
bar-lined avenue for a taxi. Always a cab in D.C., she observed sourly, except
when one was needed. Monica’s head felt light, free of gravity, as she panned
across the brightly-lit urban landscape, and the lights of the Capitol and
the Washington Mall formed glowing ribbons that intrigued her.
Until she saw the boy, standing in the doorway of a darkened
boutique across the street. Actually, he was more of a man, chin blue with
a few days’ beard, dark Latino eyes shaded by the streetlight overhead.
But Monica had always thought of him as a boy – a troubled
waif seeking light wherever it might emerge. Paul Reyes was in his Desert
Storm gear, or whatever modification they’d made for the Iraqi campaign,
and a dark, wet patch glistened slightly on his chest. It reminded her her
nephew was dead, but in her current condition, that realization did not totally
register.
“Paul,” she called. “Pablo!”
The boy did not move, but his lips began to move. Calmly,
he began to explain things to Monica. But although the side street was relatively
quiet, she could not hear a word. Her right foot left the curb, and she craned
forward. Her left foot then joined the right, and she edged a few steps into
the oncoming lane.
In her urgency to hear what Paul had to tell her, Monica
had not heard the squeal of wheels at the next corner, was unaware that the
bass for a local Irish folk ensemble had lost track of the time as he feverishly
“wooed” a comely young Georgetown music grad who in turn had forgotten she
was there to document rhythm and pentameter in 19th Century Celtic
ballads. The agent could have no way of knowing said musician had promised
a cabbie from Malawi to triple his fare were he to deliver him ahead of tonight’s
gig to the The Thistle and Mare, three blocks from where Paul Reyes silently
held forth.
When the cab struck Monica, she felt a flash of annoyance.
She had to know what her lost nephew
was trying to convey. As blackness descended, as figures converged on her
from the taxi and the bar, as panicked
To be continued…