NEW: Trace Evidence II: Hobson's Choice (09/10) (X/CRA)
Vampyres Incorporeal
Title: Trace Evidence II: Hobson's Choice (09/10)
Author: Saundra Mitchell
E-Mail: v...@netdirect.net
Feedback: Please!
They were stairs, metal knobbed ones, leading to
a locked door. Scully stared down the dark corridor
they'd slogged through to get here, and sighed. A long
walk for nothing, she thought. She was surprised when
Mulder pulled the spring out of his ballpoint pen, and
fiddled with the padlock until it clicked open.
"Saw that on MacGyver," he said, opening the
door.
"I don't think this is such a good idea, Mulder."
Scully frowned to herself. "If this _does_ turn out to be
a government installation, we're going to have a lot of
explaining to do. We don't even know what we're
looking for."
"When has that stopped us before," Mulder
asked flippantly, flashing his light into the hall behind the
door.
"No, I think we should go back," she said
stubbornly. A brief flash of queasiness caught her, but
she wrote it off to their absolutely fetid surroundings.
Waving his flashlight under his chin, Mulder
stared at her in confusion. "What's wrong with you?"
She stared at him blankly. "I just think we should
go back. We should see if Danny's managed to isolate
that image for us, and find out how the biopsy is coming
on that tumor we found in Gilson's brain, and. . ."
Furrowing his brow, Mulder leaned forward and
stared at his partner. "I'll admit this was a poorly
executed idea, but why stop now? All those other things
will be waiting for us when we get back."
Scully's face turned dark with inexplicable fury.
"You're crazy, Mulder. There's nothing to this. We're
wasting our time!"
He regarded her incredulously. "What the hell is
going on with you, Scully?"
Opening her mouth to reply, she suddenly
stopped, and her whole body began to quake. She
dropped her penlight, and it clattered down the stairs,
flashing madly against the walls before coming to rest in
the brackish water below. Flailing, she grabbed Mulder's
shoulders, digging her fingers painfully into his flesh.
She stared into his face, abject terror playing across her
features. "I'm going to fall down," she said simply,
her eyes rolling back in her head.
He wrapped an arm around her waist, just in
time to catch her as her legs failed.
"Fuck," he spat, stuffing his light into his pocket,
and scrabbling to keep from dropping her on the filthy,
wet stairs. Dragging her a few feet into the new
corridor, he knelt down, hanging her torso over his
shoulder as he tested the floor. Cold, but dry. Balancing
her as best he could, he struggled out of his jacket,
reclaiming and setting aside his flashlight. He folded the
cloth into a vague square with one hand. Gently, he laid
her out on the floor, using his jacket as a pillow. His
mind briefly asserted the absolute foolishness of
bothering with padding her head when the rest of her
was just going to lay on a concrete floor.
Picking up the penlight, he switched it on. He
leaned over, his cheek pressed close to her nose and he
pressed two fingers solidly into her carotid artery. She
was breathing, and her heart was beating. Careful not to
touch her eyelashes, he lifted the lid of one eye, then the
next, nebulously relieved when her pupils constricted.
Sitting back, he stared at her, trying to figure out what
to do next.
"Scully," he whispered, patting her cheeks.
"Scully, wake up."
Repeating himself, he tried shaking her, tickling
the inside of her elbow, (an action that, under ordinary
circumstances, would have resulted in a serious ass-
kicking) and snapping his fingers in her ears. He was
nearly out of ideas when he remembered something he'd
seen in a movie. Unbuttoning her jacket, he balled his
right hand into a fist, then dug his knuckles into her
sternum, rubbing back and forth across the bone. She
shifted a little, whimpering in pain, but did not wake.
Baltimore, Maryland
The Station House on Thames Street
"Hey, Timmy, hold up, hah?"
Extending his crutch to keep the elevator door
from closing, he smiled as Kay Howard caught up in her
usual molasses gait. When she joined him, she stood
back a few feet, looking him over.
"How ya feeling," she asked, reaching up to
touch the pinkish scar just under his hairline.
"I'm good," he said. "Coming back tomorrow."
"What, you can't wait to get back to picking up
bodies," she joked, squeezing his arm.
"Can't wait to remind everybody that I'm still a
cop."
She nodded, rolling a shoulder with the motion.
"No matter what, you're always gonna be a cop, Tim."
He tilted his face down, smiling conspiratorially
at her. "I know."
With a grin, she pushed the close door button.
"Your friends don't care. . . you know, about what they
said at the trial. Not your real friends."
"Thanks, Kay," he murmured. "So enough about
me, how are you?"
She looked around, as if someone might have
infiltrated the elevator when she wasn't paying attention.
"Can you keep a secret?"
Tim started to nod, then stopped. "No, not
really."
"Ah hell, who cares," she said. "I'm rotating back
into homicide. Thank god, too, I was losing my damned
mind in fugitive."
He hugged her carefully, trying not to hit her
with his crutches. "That's great, Kay. We've . . . I've
missed you."
"I guess they're gonna rotate somebody out too,
and hire on someone new," she said offhandedly.
"Barnfather's finally starting to get the idea that
homicide's not the place to shake things all random."
For a brief moment, fear clouded Tim's thoughts.
They could rotate him out just as easily as anyone else,
and he was the one who'd embarrassed the department
at trial. He pushed the fear aside (Giardello would have
told him if that was the case), but a new one grew in its
place. Giardello might not even know. The ranking
officers had a nasty habit of springing surprises on him.
"Well, this is your floor," Kay said, patting him
heartily on the shoulder. "Guess we'll see you
tomorrow, hah?"
He forced a smile to his face. "Yeah."
Underground
"Mulder?" Scully's voice, reedy and thin,
surprised both of them.
He opened his eyes, and turned on his penlight.
"Good morning, sunshine."
Propping herself up on her elbows, she winced at
the pounding in her head. "What time is it?"
Shrugging, he waved his wrist at her. "Lost my
watch. I dunno."
Scully tried to figure out what she was doing
laying on the ground, using a jacket for a pillow. She
remembered being angry, and hot, but nothing solidified
to answer the question. "What happened?"
Forcing himself to stand, he held out a hand to
help her up. "My less than expert medical diagnosis?
You had a seizure, then you fainted."
Her jaw dropped, surprise overtaking her. "A
seizure?"
"Do you feel okay? Do you think you can make
it to the car?"
"Mulder, what happened?" Scully's question
seemed simple, but the tone betrayed her. She was
suddenly very afraid.
"You wanted to go back," he said slowly. "You
started yelling at me, that I was crazy. Then you. . .
started shaking, dropped your flashlight, and when you
stopped, you grabbed me and said you were going to
fall down. Then you passed out. I considered trying to
carry you back to the car, but, well. . . I never got my
package from Charles Atlas."
Despite the joke, he felt guilty. Even though he
knew in his heart he could have never carried her all the
way back through the sewer, the woods, and to the car,
he was ashamed that he hadn't tried.
Smoothing her suit, she buttoned her jacket, then
winced when her hand brushed over her chest. Rubbing
the sore spot, she stared at him. "Did you use a sternal
rub on me?"
He nodded sheepishly. "I was trying to wake you
up."
In spite of the situation, she laughed softly.
"That's usually used to make sure someone's not
faking."
Mulder considered her seriously. "Well, then you
definitely weren't faking."
"Come on, Mulder" she said, starting down the
hall.
"Hey, wait, we're going back to the car now."
She eyed him with disbelief. "Like hell we are.
I'm willing to admit there's something more going on
here than a delusional man's paranoia, and I want to find
out exactly what that is."
Treading through the maze of corridors, they
walked next to one together. With only one pen light
left, they didn't have much choice. Trying doors as they
went, they finally found one that was unlocked. Pushing
it with his foot, Mulder kept one hand on his gun as the
door swung into a softly lit hallway.
"Bingo," he said, shoving the light into his
rumpled suit jacket. "Ladies first."
The walls were painted a sickly reddish-grey,
giving the area a sense of bilious discomfort. Scully
examined the ceiling and floor for cameras or alarm
trips, carefully stepping across the tiled floor. She felt a
queer sense of the space, as if she'd been here before but
forgotten it entirely. Trying to shake the feeling, she
kept going forward, but stopped again.
"Scully?"
She hushed him with a shake of her head, then
pulled her gun from its holster. Pressing herself against
the wall, she watched as Mulder did the same. At the
corner, she poked her head around just enough to get a
sense of the next bend. A glint of metal caught her eye-
a camera perched on the wall a few feet away. She
waited until it swung lazily in the other direction, then
grabbed Mulder's arm. Hurrying him down the hall, they
stopped underneath the camera.
Watching it swivel until it faced the way they
came in, they skittered down the hall and into a small
alcove.
"We're on the right path," Mulder mouthed.
Scully responded with a tight nod, peeking down
the hallway. Determining the location of the next
camera, she counted seconds until its motion
coordinated with the first, giving them a small window
of opportunity to continue. They repeated this pattern
several times until they came on a hallway with multiple
cameras.
With a frown, she assessed the situation, and
could think of nothing that wouldn't get them caught.
With a smirk, she leaned over to Mulder and whispered,
"Any suggestions, MacGyver?"
Mulder furrowed his brow. They could try to
take one of the cameras out, but sooner or later, they'd
be discovered. That also wouldn't solve the problem of
the next hallway. Looking up, the ceiling was solid
concrete so going through there wasn't an option. He
had yet to see any ventilation grates, and what few
doors they had passed had been securely locked on the
inside and out.
"I could cover it with my jacket," he said quietly.
"Then pull it off and run like hell when the other
camera's turned."
She shook her head. "Won't work; they're
synchronized to go in tandem, opposite each other. No
matter which one you covered, the other would be
looking at you when you made your escape."
"Damn it," he hissed. "We could knock out the
lights."
"With what?"
Rolling to press his stomach against the alcove
wall, he slid his gun back into the holster and reached
into his pants pockets. Digging through his change, he
selected a quarter. He paused for a moment, then pulled
up his pant leg, handing the smaller back up weapon in
his ankle holster to Scully.
"Field strip that," he murmured. "Give me the
firing pin."
She stared at him, but did as he asked. Carefully,
he unscrewed the lighting panel from the wall with the
quarter. Pulling his hands inside his sleeves, he wrested
the flat flourescent light from its socket and laid it on the
floor. Pulling his regular piece out, he used the butt of it
to break the glass. There was a startling pop, and he
grinned sheepishly up at his partner.
Raising an eyebrow, she handed him the firing
pin from the smaller weapon, and then watched as he
took his penlight apart for the battery spring. Jerry-
rigging the spring to the lightbulb contacts, he forced
one of the socket prongs out and replaced it with the
firing pin.
"Mulder, do you have any idea what you're
doing?"
He shook his head. "I'm hoping this is going to
be the equivalent of sticking a fork into a toaster."
"I don't suppose those are rubber soled shoes,"
she muttered.
With a grin, he shook his head. "Nope. Stand
back."
Moving as far back as she could without being
caught on surveillance tape, she covered her face with a
hand and watched with gritted teeth as Mulder prepared
to try his experiment. He took a deep breath, balancing
the light plate in his sleeve-covered hands. He jerked
forward, pushing it back into place, then jumped back.
Nothing. Just as he was about to give the whole mission
up, a shower of sparks poured from the broken fixture,
popping and hissing. The lights in the hallway flickered
once, twice, then went out.
"Mulder," she said softly.
"That was perfection," he replied proudly.
She reached out in the darkness and grabbed his
arm. "I don't have a flashlight."
There was a long pause. "That was very close to
perfection. Come on, let's get moving."
Taking off at a jog, she hoped his night vision
was better than hers, because she couldn't see her hand
in front of her face. Apparently it was, because they
hadn't run into anything yet. He wove his way down
several twists and turns, barely hesitating as he went.
"There's a door," he whispered. "It has a security
pad."
"With the power off, it should be inactive," she
reasoned. Abruptly, she let go of Mulder, raising her
hands to her head. The interminable hum was back,
more painfully than before. As the sound rose, the lights
slowly came back up. This time, she felt the seizure
starting, dancing in the back of her brain, making the
room around her seem to jiggle.
"No," she cried as the attack took control of her.
Her hands gripped spastically, pulling the trigger on her
weapon in quick succession. The bullets ricocheted off
the smooth concrete, and Mulder covered his head while
trying to smack the gun from her hand. It wasn't
necessary; a few spare seconds after the last shot was
fired, she was lying on the floor in a ball, her body still
twitching from time to time.
He fell to his knees, and turned her over.
"Scully?"
"Scully," she repeated senselessly, her eyes
following patterns only she could see.
In the distance, Mulder heard footsteps.
Panicked, he grabbed Scully and dragged her to her feet.
Draping one of her arms over his shoulders, he forced
her to rush headlong down the hallway with him. The
footsteps grew louder, but he didn't stop to look behind.
His only thought was to get to the sewer, as fast as they
possibly could.
His ear picked up the sound of a small hiss and
metal hitting the floor. Before he could react, a sticky
white mist rose in the air. Gagging and coughing, he
managed to take a few more steps before falling heavily.
He heard Scully's head crack against the concrete and
cringed. A real gentleman would have softened the
blow. . .
(End Part Nine)