NEW: Trace Evidence II: Hobson's Choice (08/10) (X/CRA)
Vampyres Incorporeal
Title: Trace Evidence II: Hobson's Choice (08/10)
Author: Saundra Mitchell
E-Mail: v...@netdirect.net
Feedback: Please!
After spending more than two hours in a
freezing meat locker, walking out into the hot summer
air was a shock. Gilson's body had been transported
from the slaughterhouse to a funeral home in Utica.
From there, it would be shipped to Washington for a
more thorough work up than Scully could achieve in the
field.
Shaking off the unnerving feeling of familiarity
that had risen in her during the autopsy, she slid behind
the driver's seat of the car. "Lunch?"
Mulder looked a little pale. "Sure."
"You okay?"
"Nothing a little, ah, poached egg and Canadian
bacon can't fix."
Baltimore, Maryland
Station House on Thames Street
Tim was relieved to see the elevator back in
working order. True, he could have hiked up the long,
forbidding staircase. However, he feared that once he'd
made it to the top, he would have collapsed in
exhaustion, which is not an ideal way to announce to
your boss that you're physically ready for your job.
Punching the up button again, Tim stared at the
lighted numbers as they ticked down from the fourth
floor. When it reached ground level, it dinged and the
doors opened hesitantly. Stepping inside, he selected
three, and waited. The elevator lurched to the second
floor, and Bayliss felt his stomach falling in place. He
hoped whatever had put the contraption out of order in
the first place was really and truly fixed. It stopped at
the second floor, and the doors opened. Stiffening,
Bayliss stepped to one side to let Captain Gaffney in the
elevator.
Glaring at Bayliss, Gaffney poked at the close
door button, then stood back. Raising an eyebrow, he
peered at Tim speculatively.
"What are you doing here?"
Tim set his mouth in a tight, emotionless line. "I
work here."
"Huh," Gaffney smiled. His sharp teeth reminded
Bayliss of a wolverine. "And I thought San Francisco
was all the way in California."
Leaning back his head, Tim stared at the ceiling.
There was no point in responding. Gaffney was the
worst kind of everything and he outranked Bayliss by
two steps. These were barbs he could ignore,
considering the source.
Gaffney, however, was not a man to take being
ignored lightly. "You wearing panties now, Bayliss?"
"Why? You wanna see 'em?"
"You should have left well enough alone,"
Gaffney snarled. "You got shot, Baltimore would have
paid your pansy ass to stay away. We don't want you
here."
The bell dinged, and the doors began to slide
open. Tim turned to face Gaffney with a cold, even
smile. "Is that your official position. . . sir?"
"Get the fuck away from me," the captain
replied, his neck and ears turning a deep red.
Giardello's Office
"Had your physical," Gee scowled menacingly.
Tim shook his head. "Nope."
"Then why are you here?"
Tim eased himself into the wooden chair, and
stared up at Giardello. "The longer I stay away, the
easier it will be for me to fade gracefully into the past.
Kay, Stan, Beau, they all came back before they had
their physicals. Hell, Frank came back when he was
failing physicals and range tests. I'll do desk work. I'll
answer the phones. I might even make coffee. I will
bring you tiramisu and espresso every singe day. I'll let
you whip my ass at hearts on the slow nights, for money
even. . . but I _need_ to be here."
Hiding a smile behind a frighteningly serious
mask, Giardello pressed a finger against his temple. "I
cannot protect you, Bayliss. From now on, you have to
be better than everyone else. You have to clear more
cases than anyone else. You have to eat redballs for
supper, like it, and ask for more, and after all of that,
you may never get promoted again. You may spend the
rest of your career warming that chair in the corner,
starving on Fayette drug shootings and skeletal remains
from Leakin Park. You understand all of this?"
With a deep sigh, Bayliss settled into the chair.
"I understand all of that, Gee. I just have two
questions."
"Do share."
"Do you want me working for you? I can handle
everything else, but you have to want me here."
Giardello leaned back. "You would already be
drawing your pension if that weren't the case. I don't
care what you do at home as long as you make me fat
and happy with black under your name. Your second
question?"
"You have a good recipe for tiramisu?"
New Berlin, New York
The Woods
"This is not lunch," Scully grumbled as she
pulled another vine out of her way. When she glanced
back, she couldn't even see the road. Even though the
trees around them provided some shade from the hot
sun, she was still sticky from the humid heat. Watching
her partner bound ahead of her, then stop and wait for
her to catch up, she briefly considered shooting him.
"This is more fun than lunch," Mulder replied,
peeling a thorn branch out of the weave of his pants.
"Besides, I bet we won't run into Sheriff Kusch out here.
We might even find some of those weapon towers you
were so excited about seeing."
"Oh goody," she muttered.
Ostensibly, they were still following her
suggestion- checking out Gilson's story. Now that he
was dead, they only had their one, brief visit with him to
go on. He'd said that the government had annexed parts
of the woods all the way around New Berlin, and the
only way to find out if that was true was to look. So far,
they had seen a fascinating array of flora and fauna, but
no secret government installations.
Catching up with him, Scully grabbed her
partner's shoulder. "I need to sit for a minute."
Mulder eyed her. "What, are you wimping out
on me?"
She shook her head, finding a fallen tree and
sitting down. "I don't feel . . right."
"Are you okay," he asked, kneeling down in
front of her.
"Just a little sick to my stomach," she said,
leaning forward and closing her eyes. Her head started
to throb, making the nausea seem worse. Sitting quietly
for a moment, she realized that the throbbing was not a
headache, but a hum. Lifting her head, she looked
around, trying to locate the source of the sound.
"Do you hear that?"
Alert, Mulder strained to listen. "Just birds."
"No," she said, grabbing his hand. "A hum. Like
machinery. Listen"
The hum grew louder by increments, pulsing in a
regular rhythm. As it grew, she felt sicker and sicker,
until her stomach started to clench. Mulder stared at
her, still trying to hear it, but was infinitely more
worried about the greenish cast her face had taken. Then
it stopped.
"I. . . I don't know what it was," she stammered,
pulling herself to her feet. "I must have imagined it."
He raised an eyebrow, but didn't question her.
Standing, he hesitated. "Do you want to go get lunch
now? We can do this later, when it's cooler."
She shook her head. "We're already this far, we
can go a little further."
They stopped an hour later at the base of a sharp
incline. Leaning against trees, they paused to catch their
breath. Mulder stretched his back, and sighed. "I guess
we came out here for nothing."
Narrowing her eyes, Scully walked past Mulder
slowly, bobbing her head as if to gain a greater picture
of the scenery behind him. He followed her with his
eyes, then his head. She stepped lightly through the
brambles around her ankles. Picking up a switch, she
poked at a mound of leaves near the base of the incline.
"What is it, Scully?"
She kicked away the leaves to reveal a manhole
cover, bolted to a flat concrete base in the ground.
"Unless the rabbits have taken to barricading themselves
for the winter, I think we're on to something."
Taking a few steps back, Mulder stared up the
incline. "I don't suppose you have a socket wrench in
your pocket?"
"No, but I don't think we'll need one," she said,
smoothly rolling a bolt off with her fingers. "They're not
tight at all."
Mulder knelt down beside her, unscrewing one
of the other bolts. "You know, if this were a movie, I'd
think this was too easy."
"You don't think that now?"
Wedging his fingers under the cover he shook
his head. "Sure I do, but how trite to say so."
Underground
If she had known they were going to spend most
of the afternoon wading around in ankle deep sewage,
she would have worn shoes she liked less. The stench in
the drain was compounded by the staggering heat,
making what normally might be a mostly unpleasant
experience into a polka through the eighth circle of hell.
Foul condensation dripped from the ceiling and
collected on every surface, including the cool metal of
their pen lights.
"You take me the nicest places," Mulder
announced, wanting desperately to wipe the sweat from
his face but too afraid of what he might replace it with
to do so.
"I think those are stairs down there," she replied,
circling the area with a tiny beam of light.
(End Part Eight)