NEW: Trace Evidence II: Hobson's Choice (05/10) (X/CRA)

[Vampyres Incorporeal]

Title: Trace Evidence II: Hobson's Choice (05/10)
Author: Saundra Mitchell
E-Mail: v...@netdirect.net
Feedback: Please!

State Road Eight

As they pulled away from the Gilson Dairy
Farm, Mulder pursed his lips. They had spent over an
hour in Andy's den, and while the small talk had been
congenial, something just didn't seem right to him.
Scully hadn't joined it, instead spending her time digging
through the file directory on Gilson's nearly new
Compaq.
"He tried to hide it, but he made that post,"
Scully said suddenly.
Mulder raised his eyebrows. "How do you
know?"
"I would feel more comfortable if Danny could
take a look at his machine," she hemmed, "But I'm fairly
certain."
"You've been a hacker all this time and you
never told me?" Mulder switched over to the high beams
to cut a swath through the perfectly black night. "So far
you're not telling me anything I don't know."
"In his registry, there's a record of all the
programs he's ever had, and what their settings were. He
told us he only used AOL for e-mail, but according to
his registry, he used AOL for browsing the web, sending
mail and making posts to usenet groups. According to
his settings in the registry, he made posts to
alt.tv.millenium and alt.fan.melissa-leo, which we
already knew, and to sci.med.pathology. Since he's the
only AGilson in New Berlin with AOL files, a usenet
profile that matches the profile we already had, and has
definitely posted at least once to sci.med.pathology, it's
only logical to assume that he wrote the mind control
message."
Mulder nodded. "Then there's something to
this."
"I don't think his story is necessarily bolstered by
the fact that he lied about writing it. If two federal
agents showed up at your door asking about a specific
post, wouldn't you lie?"
"Scully, that man was scared, and he was scared
before he knew we were from the FBI. He doesn't
exactly look like the spoof poster type to me."
"I think the post was a joke," she said, then
frowned at his irritated expression. "Listen, I know you
want something to be there, but it's just not. . . see, the
AOL software makes temporary cache files, okay?
Mostly these files are just images saved to the hard drive
to make reloading certain pages faster. They aren't
removed when the AOL software is uninstalled; they
hide in the main Windows directory. Going through
those. . . he's been to a lot of government web sites and
sites about mind control. He's done his research,
Mulder, there's no reason to believe there's anything
more to this."
"So the fact that all history of his account
disappeared, the post disappeared, and he lied about
writing it are aspects you're willing to ignore?"
"Posts get lost. Accounts are deleted. It
happens. Nothing I've seen so far convinces me that this
was anything more than a hoax by a lonely young man!"
Stopping the car sharply, Mulder put an arm
behind her headrest and watched behind himself as he
made a 180 degree turn in the road.
"Mulder, what are you doing?!"
Dimming the lights, he peered over at his
partner. "We're going to talk to Mr. Andrew Gilson
without the sheriff present."

Baltimore, Maryland

The street was so bright, Tim could read the
flyers tacked to the light pole at the end of the street.
Everything was green- the sky, the trees, the cars, the
sidewalk. He could see a thousand mint stars, waving
above him. Reaching down, his gun was soft and
comforting in his hand, cool to the touch. Suddenly, he
was frightened. His badge. Where was his badge?
With his right hand still firmly affixed to the grip
of his gun, he reached down with his left. The badge
was supposed to be on his belt, a glint of silver in all this
green, but he didn't feel it. Words shifted through his
head like thoughts; over there, over there, get down. .
and he could hear the report of firecrackers smacking
through the air.
When he looked over, Pembleton was smiling,
his big shark smile; the one he only wore when
something had gone especially well. His teeth seemed to
glow in the green light, wider and wider. Bayliss was
going to say something, ask him what the smile was for
when he felt it. Not pain, not fear, but cold. Cold,
washing down his face and legs, and deep inside his
belly, against his heart.
Then he was on his back, staring at the sky and
those millions of stars fading from green to white to
nothing. The sensation of cold gave away to ice,
freezing him to the concrete, unable to move, and he
still couldn't find his badge. Waving his hands slowly,
they left tracers behind as they moved, and he still
couldn't find his badge.
"Hey mister."
Turning his face took the last bit of strength he
had. A girl, an angelic black girl with braids in her hair, a
book bag around her shoulders, and red rain slicker that
gleamed in the greenness of the night. She leaned down
over him, her still baby-round cheeks puffing as she did.
He noticed that she had on two star earrings, one in
each lobe, and he wondered where his badge was.
"Hey mister, I heard something."
He blinked at her, trying to form the words of a
response. Everything was dark now, the green was
gone, the cold was gone, all sounds were gone except
for her voice, a voice he had never heard.
"Hey mister, I heard if you die in a dream you
never wake up."

But he did.

Gilson Dairy Farms

"What do you want," Andrew asked warily,
answering the door. His porch light was out, leaving
Mulder and Scully in darkness, the only light the
flickering of an old television set inside.
"Mr. Gilson, " Scully began, her voice soft and
comforting. "Agent Mulder and I had a few more
questions, and we thought you might be more
comfortable without Sheriff Kusch nearby."
Stepping back, the tv flashed a bright green,
segueing into a commercial for the Fox network. It cast
a horrible shadow on Andy's face, climbing into the
drawn cheeks and contorting his brow into a heavy
black line. "That doesn't make any sense."
Mulder leaned forward. "We know you sent that
note to the Internet, Mr. Gilson."
Eyes widening, Andrew looked torn between
ordering them from his property and inviting them inside
to get the weight of a secret off his chest.
"We weren't entirely honest with the sheriff,"
Mulder added, trying to break the man's resolve. "I
believe what you said in your post, and I want to know
more about what's happening around here."
Poking his head out the door, Gilson looked
around his front yard, then nodded his head sharply. "Go
park your car in the pole barn, hurry up."

Huddled in a stiff-backed kitchen chair, Andrew
clung to his mug of coffee as if it were anchoring him to
his spot. His uncomfortable, inappropriate smile seemed
stuck to his lips; hiding a rising swell of hope that
perhaps now, someone might believe him.
"Please, start at the beginning," Mulder said, for
the first time wishing he had one of the crisp notebooks
carried by the Baltimore homicide unit. He wouldn't
forget anything Gilson said, but there was something to
be said for an official-looking pad of paper.
"Right up til Doc Neubauer died, everything
seemed sort of. . . normal. I mean, we're what the CDC's
been calling a 'sick town'. Lot of problems, epilepsy in
the kids, seizures in pretty much everyone, other. . .
what's the word? Neurological problems and stuff.
They've been out here prob'ly a hundred times, taking
samples of everything that can be sampled, but they
couldn't figure out what was making us all so sick."
Scully knitted her brows. "You say it seemed
almost normal until Dr. Neubauer died. . .what
changed?"
Andrew laughed bitterly. "I'd been having
troubles myself. Migraine headaches, mostly. The kind
where you get weak and dizzy, and think the only thing
that'll make it better is to split your own head open. Doc
Neubauer always told me there wasn't anything she
could do about it except give me more narcotics, but I
hated taking them. When she died, I didn't feel so
disloyal about going into Utica to see another doctor."
Mulder nodded, watching the emotions play
across this man's face. "Go on."
"So Dr. Werner, she sent me up to the big
hospital for about a thousand tests. MRIs, CAT scans,
EEGs, you name it, they did it to me. Anyway, when the
pictures came back, they all had these funny spots on
them. Dr. Werner didn't know what they were, so she
sent them over to some other doctor, and I guess they
bounced around most of New York before coming back
to me. They still didn't know what to make of it, so I let
them do one of those exploratory surgery things."
Holding her breath, Scully was almost certain
she knew what she'd hear next. As if silently conspiring
against her, the scar on the back of her neck started to
itch, reminding her of its presence.
"They pulled this out of my neck, right at the
top," he said softly, reaching into his robe pocket.
Pulling out a baby food jar, he shook it, and a tiny
metallic square skittered against the sides. "I don't have
the other one. Doc Werner said she wanted to send it to
a lab, but I guess it got lost in shipping or something,
'cause it's gone missing."
Mulder exchanged a significant glance with
Scully. "So after these. . . objects were removed, what
changed?"
"First off, my migraines stopped," Andrew said
victoriously. "Then I started noticing things. People
getting sick kind of on a schedule. Like, in the morning,
it would be kids, at night the adults. It seemed kind of
weird to me, because I only ever got my migraines at
night, usually right after the news. I never really thought
about it before, but after they took those things out of
me, I noticed a lot."
"What else did you notice," Scully asked
skeptically. The tentative bond she had felt with him had
just disappeared.
"People doing things, stupid things, all at the
same time. One week, we had fifteen fender benders
right in front of Tom's Diner. Another week, it was a
run on tomato juice. Every damned person in this town
was down at the grocery, near fighting each other for a
can of tomato juice. And Sheriff Kusch, always having
these meetings with people who show up in dark blue
sedans. Now, maybe it's just me, but there isn't much
going on in a town this size that requires meetings every
two weeks.
"So I started investigating, looking into things. I
wrote down some of the license plate numbers on those
sedans, and tried looking them up. The freedom of
information act says I'm allowed to have that
information, but the BMV wouldn't part with it. I got
my AOL account, and started looking around. I found
some pages about mind control and this Spanish guy,
Jose Delgado, and I put two and two together. I realize
it sounds stupid and crazy, but it's true."
"Mr. Gilson, what about the satellites, and
ground-based weaponry you mentioned in your post?
Have you seen evidence of this?"
He shook his head. "Not exactly, but there are
parts of the woods here, on all sides, that are fenced off
as government property. I was guessing about the
weapons, but I think it's probably a pretty good guess."
"And what about not being able to escape,"
Scully asked.
"That's what convinced me most. As soon as I
started realizing all this stuff, I wanted to leave. Gale,
my wife, is gone, rest her soul, and the dairy was more
her baby than mine, so I was going to pack up and
leave, go to New Albany. I've heard it's nice up there,
but peaceful. Same day I call the bank and talk to them
about selling the farm, Sheriff Kusch shows up at my
house, asking about my plans and such. Now, that's not
so odd, this being a small town and all, but she kept
asking why I wanted to leave. I figure, that's none of her
business, so I tell her I just need a change of scenery,
but she keeps harping on it. I was 'bout ready to pull my
hair out by the time she left. Then, I get a call back from
the bank, and they say I can't sell my property, there's a
lien on it. Now, Gale's daddy owned this farm, and he
gave it to us free and clear before he passed on. Never
had a mortgage on it, nothing, but suddenly there's a lien
on it?
"One after another, everything started to get all
strange. Some guy claiming to be from the USDA
comes out here and says that my herd might be
contaminated, and says I'm not allowed to sell them til
they figure out the source. Another guy, saying he was
from the Army Corps of Engineers comes out to do a
survey, and says my entire back forty is officially a
wetland, which makes it protected, which makes it not
mine anymore. That wasn't even plausible, 'cause in the
summertime, the whole damned field goes to hay; it's
too dry to do anything else with it. The cows can't even
graze there. The only thing that hasn't happened as yet is
getting audited, knock on wood."
Scully leaned back in her chair, shaking her head.
"This is all very interesting, Mr. Gilson, but you've yet
to give us any concrete evidence of your claims."
Standing up, Gilson eyed her. "What if I said all
I have is my word?"
"Do you have something else," Mulder
interrupted. He glowered over at his partner, sitting in
cold silence. There had been so little resistance with
Scully on the last several cases that he had forgotten just
how remote she could be. Now, with her arms crossed
over her chest, he felt a vague aching for the other side
of his partner- the gentle side, the believing side.
"As a matter of fact I do," Andrew said.
Reaching into his other robe pocket, he pulled out a
small ring of keys. He leaned down in front of an
antique armoire, but looked back up at them as he
unlocked it. "I don't expect you to believe me right off,
Agent Scully, but give me a chance. I don't have much
left but my word, and these video tapes."
Mulder took the tapes eagerly. "What are we
going to find on these?"
"Just watch them," Gilson said. "You all had
probably better go before Sheriff Kusch gets a wind up
that I have visitors."

(End Part Five)