fan fiction - "22 Years Later"

[ebe]

“22 YEARS LATER”
BY BELINDA

<At brunch in southeastern Wisconsin, outside of the State of Milwaukee and between the one party collective of Chicago, Condor and Belinda are sharing thoughts of 9/11 while watching Newsmax. All still have strong memories of the event.>

BELINDA
It was a weird day for my mother and me. I remember it was Monday and in those days I had Monday and Tuesday as weekend days. My mother and I did the routine we did when my dad was alive; go to McDonalds for breakfast, grocery shopping at Woodman’s and then head home. My parents would watch WLS TV 7 in Chicago for their soap opera’s and then watch Ophrah; I would watch TV and work in my studio on the third floor on the old homestead.

CONDOR
Take a break, it was a hard day for all of us. I can see you trying to hold back tears.

<A knock on the door; Condor and Belinda wonder who is visiting today with the brunch; Belinda heads to the door …>

MULDER
Its’ just us, those who want to believe, we brought Kringle.

Chuckling (all), they realize it is Mulder and Scully and open the door.

CONDOR
What brings you to Wisconsin? We’re glad you came and brought Kringle. Have a seat. Mulder, Scully this is Randy and Karen from Belinda’s medical research days.

MULDER and SCULLY
Nice to meet you; Belinda shared many stories of her research days and Karen how you were here right hand in managing the lab and Karen and Randy great friends especially the day Belinda resigned.

RANDY
Many of us are glad Belinda stood her ground and gave us the courage to walk away and now that our careers were not over; we moved to something better.

KAREN
Mulder, Scully how would you like your coffee?


Karen prepares Mulder and Scully’s coffee allowing Belinda to sit after the past recollection which still have a strong effect on her. Karen could see that Condor and Belinda were glad that Mulder and Scully were able to come and visit. Randy is sharing stories of the lab days and the stories sound like they could exists as a form as Monty’s Python’s Flying Circus, As the World Turns, or the Bold and the Beautiful.

SCENE II

Another group hacking into the laptop that is left on; while the video shows the ceiling, the audio is good, and all can be heard word for word. One of the techs wonders why they are still being monitored even though all have retried for a long time.

As the tech wonders, the tech sees a pack of cigarettes on the table that someone left. It is the red and white pack of the Smoking Man, it is a Brown and White pack of a different brand.

SUPERVISOR
Are we able to record and have a record where we can generate a transcript?

TECHNICIAN
Yes, sir.

The technician is still wondering what is going to be said by retirees over brunch who have always volunteered even in retirement. Also, the technician is concerned how easy it is to listen in on them. Belinda and Condor keep their home in a 1990’s way; no automated assistants, 90’s type laptop setup (especially the computer room is part of the living room, no computer use allowed in the bedrooms). The only 21st century items are a Samsung and TCL tv for streaming and digital TV. Although, from listening in on past conversations both Belinda and Condor and their friends felt we went too fast to abandon analog TV.

SUPERVISOR
Didn’t you get enough sleep? We need you always ready!

TECHNICIAN
I had a flash back. Won’t happen again.

SUPERVISOR
Understood. I still have a flash back of Desert Shield / Desert Storm …

SCENE III

Someone like the Smoking Man with a Brown and White pack of cigarettes in directing a meeting of very distinguished men and women. The meeting is held as many people are watching broadcast and recollections of that day. Many people are surprised that mail is delivered that day.

BROWN AND WHITE CIGARETTE WOMAN
We are gathering information from past agents and workers; the goal is due to AI Knowledge acquisition to aid our deep AI systems to apply their expertise. We can’t ask them directly because many prefer not go back into the fire and swamp that exists today. The developers of our AI are confident that the AI can learn from transcripts.

UNABLONDE
It is my experience, especially when working with Mulder and Scully, they would have preferred to have been asked rather than us opening gentlewoman and gentlemen’s mail. Even in “The Craft of Intelligence,” Dulles wrote gentlemen do not open other gentlemen’s mail.

BROWN AND WHITE CIGARATTE WOMAN
Enough, Mulder is with Scully now. You are no longer Mulder’s girlfriend. Your role here is to help this committee as a former contact of Mulder and Scully and their friends. Are we clear.

UNABLONDE
Yes, Mam; I mean Sir; I mean Man.

Unablonde deliberately doing the MASH comedy routine. The Brown and White Cigarette woman is furious; she is trying to contain herself from being hysterical so as not to prove the boy’s club wrong about selecting her for leadership.

SCENE III

At the coffee brunch in Wisconsin, all gathered have completed their recollections and supporting each other during September 11th…

BELINDA
Condor and I looked at the ticket prices for a Badger game at Madison; it would be fun to go to for all of us. I am surprised that the ticket prices for were used to site during the ’92 Rose Bowl season are now about $220 compared to $12 when we used to buy them from W Club.

MULDER
It is the same in pro ball, even the at Metrodome, Scully and I paid about $500 for tickets. What a rip.

CONDOR
Those days were different, we could trust our own citizens and didn’t need to run a big surveillance operations even in simple businesses as an optometrist. My optometrist keeps his records on notecards because the cost of having computer security for his business would put him out of business...

SCULLY
The laptops were better when we didn’t have to have virus protection; no pop-ups to interfere with your train of thought. We still have a Smith Corona typewriter we use for drafts because the pop-ups due to living in an enhanced security world caused by others outside of the US.

All in deep reflection of making a society where we could mitigate another event like 9/11. They think of mitigation because once something happens, one can go back to the forest primeval.